A week with the Pixel 11 Pro confirmed my biggest fear about Pixel’s future

Nevertheless, there’s solely a lot you may decide utilizing 4 completely different telephones in simply two hours. I obtained my Pixel 11 Professional overview unit shortly after that preliminary hands-on session, and it’s been my day by day Android telephone ever since. I’ve been utilizing the Pixel 11 Professional principally nonstop for the previous seven days, and I’d be mendacity if I stated I hadn’t loved my time with it. In reality, I’d wager to say I most likely find it irresistible.

However concurrently, the the explanation why I just like the Pixel 11 Professional a lot additionally reinforce my largest worry about the way forward for Pixel telephones as we all know them. Google has a powerful basis that continues to work effectively in 2026, however every week with the Pixel 11 Professional proves Google doesn’t know the place to go subsequent.

There isn’t a brand new function on the Pixel 11 Professional fairly as prevalent as HiLight — the glowing, multicolored gentle on the again of the Pixel 11 Professional (and the Pixel 11 Professional XL and Pixel 11 Professional Fold). HiLight is closely featured all around the Google Retailer and in Google’s promoting for the Pixel 11 Professional, and it truly is the spotlight of this yr’s new Professional telephones.

In concept, HiLight must be a fantastic addition and a giant cause to purchase a Pixel 11 Professional. The issue is that it virtually doesn’t do something proper now.

Because it presently stands, the primary operate of HiLight is you could assign one among 5 colours to your favourite contacts, and once they name, HiLight glows with the precise hue you’ve chosen for that individual. Moreover, in case your telephone is face-down and also you summon Gemini, HiLight pulses with colour to point when Gemini is listening and responding.

And that’s fairly actually it. You’ll be able to’t use HiLight for every other notifications in your telephone. Not Gmail, Telegram, Slack, Google Messages, Instagram — nothing. If it’s not a telephone name or a Gemini interplay, HiLight stays dormant.

Is that this one thing Google can replace with extra performance within the coming weeks and months? Completely — and I think it is going to. Nevertheless, we don’t know what these updates will seem like. Will Google broaden HiLight to work with all notifications, or solely with a choose few Google apps? And the way lengthy will it take for brand new performance to roll out?

A contemporary spin on a notification LED ought to have been really easy to get proper, and if dealt with appropriately, HiLight might have been the star of the Pixel 11 Professional that Google clearly thinks it must be. As an alternative, it’s arguably much less helpful than the controversial thermometer it replaced. I don’t understand how Google fumbled HiLight this badly, however it did.

HiLight will be the flashiest new toy on the Pixel 11 Professional, however it’s not the one factor that’s new. In typical Google trend, the Pixel 11 Professional can also be loaded with new software program options. I’ve been attempting to make use of and reside with a number of of them, and up to now, issues are type of in every single place.

Based mostly on my testing up to now, Rambler is maybe my favourite. That is the brand new voice texting function in Gboard that doesn’t transcribe your speech word-for-word; as an alternative, it understands the context of what you’re saying. For instance, pointless “ums” and “uhs” are ignored, and you’ll even edit your self as you’re talking — telling Rambler to disregard one thing, begin over from a sure level, and extra.

For easy textual content messages, Rambler doesn’t really feel very completely different from the usual Gboard voice detection. Nevertheless, for longer textual content dictation, it’s type of magical. I used Rambler to put in writing an e mail over the weekend and, a number of instances, instructed it to delete sure phrases or restart from a selected level. Rambler principally nailed the entire thing, even listening to my instructions on when to indent for a brand new paragraph. I don’t love you could’t see your textual content output till you’re executed talking and faucet the checkbox to finish your Rambler session, however even after only a week, I can see myself utilizing Rambler fairly commonly.

I want I felt as positively about a few of the different new Pixel 11 Professional options, specifically Camera Looks. Just like Photographic Kinds on the iPhone, Digicam Seems are preset (and customizable) kinds you may apply to the digital camera earlier than you are taking a photograph, permitting you to alter and fine-tune the colours, distinction, shadows, and different particulars of each image you are taking.

I want much more time to actually set up how I really feel about Digicam Seems, however my early impressions aren’t pretty much as good as I had hoped. You’ll be able to see within the gallery above that every Digicam Look offers the identical scene a distinctly completely different look, however in all of my testing up to now, the whole lot however Authentic fully blows out the highlights. It’s potential I might right or reduce this by fine-tuning the highlights or distinction of every Digicam Look (one thing Google does help you do), however to my eye, it virtually seems to be like a difficulty of Google’s HDR processing going from 100% in Authentic to five% within the different Digicam Seems — simply take a look at the sofa in Editorial, Velvet, and particularly Digi.

This isn’t an remoted incident, both. I took a number of pictures of my canine whereas out on a stroll one night, and the Editorial and Velvet Digicam Seems turned a reasonably tame blue sky into what seems to be like a flashbang going off. I do suppose there’s nonetheless lots of potential with Digicam Seems, however a quick fix to overly desaturated Pixel photos it isn’t.

Magic Capture is an excellent larger new digital camera function on the Pixel 11 Professional, however I’ve but to determine what to make use of it for. The concept of recording a video and having my telephone routinely snap pictures sounds fascinating, however it hasn’t naturally match into my life throughout my first week with the Pixel 11 Professional.

And, in fact, there’s the Gemini of all of it. Whenever you boot up the Pixel 11 Professional, you’re met with a Gemini Intelligence splash display, and through the setup course of, you’re requested to allow Google’s new “Proactive Help” options — primarily an expanded model of Magic Cue from the Pixel 10 sequence.

In concept, Proactive Help is meant to floor related information and actions primarily based on what’s in your display — reminiscent of suggesting a Google Maps hyperlink when somebody texts you a couple of restaurant or a button to e-book a desk at stated restaurant in case your buddy texts you asking in the event you did.

Google made comparable guarantees with Magic Cue final yr, saying your telephone would floor contextual information in textual content messages and telephone calls primarily based on what you’re doing. However identical to with Magic Cue, Proactive Help hasn’t confirmed helpful in any respect — at the least not but.

Possibly I’m not utilizing my Pixel 11 Professional appropriately. Possibly I’m not teeing up information in a method that will make it simpler to immediate Proactive Help. However I shouldn’t have to alter the best way I exploit my telephone for a software program function to work — it ought to simply work, however it hasn’t. After my week with the Pixel 11 Professional, Proactive Help has instructed random bits of textual content in Gboard whereas in Chrome or Maps, however none of it has been useful. Like different software program options, this could get higher over time, but when Magic Cue is any indication of how issues will go, I’m not holding my breath.

To recap: HiLight, the Pixel 11 Professional’s hallmark new {hardware} function, is pointless. Lots of the new software program options are both middling of their execution or fully unhelpful. If that’s true, why have I favored utilizing the Pixel 11 Professional a lot? For a similar causes I’ve favored utilizing Pixel telephones for the final a number of years.

Now Taking part in stays one of the intelligent and magical software program experiences on any smartphone; glancing at my lock display to see what track is enjoying isn’t not spectacular. Google’s rip-off detection options are far and away higher than any of the competitors — drastically decreasing the variety of spam calls and texts I obtain in comparison with every other Android telephone. At a Look is constantly the easiest way to get reminded about calendar appointments, reminders, and extra. And the extra I exploit Pixel Screenshots, the extra it turns into one other a kind of Pixel options I don’t need to reside with out.

I do know this level has been reiterated so many instances when speaking about Pixel telephones, however there really is something special about using a Pixel in comparison with different Android telephones — and it’s due to all these little options and goodies Google has sprinkled into its telephones for the reason that unique Pixel debuted in 2016.

That foundational Pixel expertise has been a giant promoting level of Google’s smartphones for years. It’s the explanation why I sometimes gravitate in direction of a Pixel as my private Android telephone, and it’s why I’ll doubtless hold utilizing the Pixel 11 Professional effectively after my overview is printed.

Nevertheless, I feel it actually says one thing that the issues I’ve loved most in regards to the Pixel 11 Professional don’t have anything to do with something that’s truly new. As an alternative, it’s due to all of the legacy Pixel options which have been round for years. I’m actually glad to have these tried-and-true options on the Pixel 11 Professional, however it’s regarding that, during the last couple of years, the brand new experiences Google has been attempting to push have largely fallen flat.

As I discussed earlier than, Magic Cue was largely a dud — and the brand new Proactive Help doesn’t appear to be meaningfully higher. Final yr’s Day by day Hub function was so dangerous that it didn’t make it out of preview earlier than Google fully scrapped it. Options like Digicam Seems and Magic Seize are fascinating, however they don’t really feel like something transformative.

Google is attempting new issues, however when so a lot of them don’t land, it finally ends up feeling just like the Pixel 11 Professional is resting on the laurels of its predecessors to be pretty much as good as it’s. And as a Pixel fan, it makes me severely involved about what the long run holds for Pixels as an entire. And that’s to say nothing of Google’s stagnating hardware, which is an entire different can of worms.

On the finish of the day, I nonetheless love utilizing the Pixel 11 Professional. Based mostly on my preliminary testing of the brand new Tensor G6 chip and the up to date digital camera sensors, it’ll be a telephone I overview fairly positively. However once I step again to consider why I just like the Pixel 11 Professional a lot — and what it alerts for the way forward for the Pixel sequence — it’s clearer than ever that Pixels are in a precarious place.

I simply hope Google is aware of the way to get out of it.