Has the giant notch turned you away from the rest of the Pixel's merits?
If you've been following mobile tech news at all over the last couple of months, you've undoubtedly seen some of the countless renders and even hands-on photos of the Pixel 3 XL, which Google will be officially unveiling on October 9th. Its newly notched design has been ... less than well-received so far, but like it or not, this is the new big Pixel.
In case you've somehow missed the leaks up until now, the Pixel 3 XL looks nearly identical to the Pixel 2 XL from the back, albeit with a glass panel rather than painted aluminum, but it looks like an entirely different phone from the front. The Pixel 2 XL's massive top and bottom bezels have been replaced with a taller, nearly edge-to-edge display, which is great in theory, but problems arise once you run into the notch.
Personally, I have no problems with display notches in general — I've written in their defense before, and used plenty of notched phones like the iPhone X and OnePlus 6 — the latter of which is currently my daily driver. But even I have to admit that the Pixel 3 XL's notch is pretty unreasonable, not just in its width but in its height; I'm ambivalent towards notches partially because they generally don't take up much vertical real estate, which is far more important to me than horizontal space on a phone.
Elsewhere on Android Central, Jerry Hildenbrand has written about his disdain for the Pixel 3 XL's notch, along with Android Pie's new gesture-based navigation. While the latter is still optional for now, Jerry makes a good point that Google clearly wants to move in the direction of gestures everywhere, and even outside of the navigation strip at the bottom of the screen, stock Android software is continually shifting away from buttons as much as possible.
So, back to the question originally posed in the title of this article. With all of the changes being brought on with the Pixel 3 XL, do you still plan on buying one? I don't think I will, but that's almost entirely due to its size. As much as I love my OnePlus 6, I'm constantly wishing it were a bit smaller, and the regular Pixel 3 seems to be a perfect fit for me — especially in that teal/mint finish we've seen teased. That also solves the issue of the notch for those who care, since the smaller model seems to have an uninterrupted 18:9 display.
In any case, I'm curious to find out how many of you are still interested in getting the Pixel 3 XL over the smaller Pixel 3. Sound off with your thoughts in the comments below!
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