Google Pixel 2 XL Pixel 2 XL Review

A camera from 2017 trapped in a slow phone from 2017. Only buy this if you care about photos more than you care about your sanity.

The Google Pixel 2 XL is a weird artifact in 2024. It's a phone that was once a flagship, now selling for a budget price, and the experience is exactly as confusing as that sounds. The one thing to know is this: you're buying it for the camera and the clean software, and you're accepting that everything else feels seven years old. It's a time capsule, not a modern device.

Let's be real: the performance is rough. That Snapdragon 835 and 4GB of RAM land in the 17th percentile in our database. Opening apps has a noticeable lag, and switching between more than two of them usually means one has to reload. It's fine for checking email and scrolling through a single social media app, but try to do anything more and you'll feel every bit of its age. The only thing that doesn't feel slow is the camera processing, which is a minor miracle.

At $200, it's a complicated value. If your entire phone life is texting, calling, taking photos, and using one app at a time, it's a steal for the camera alone. But if you expect modern app performance, decent multitasking, or future-proofing, this isn't it. You're paying for a specific, limited experience.

The most relevant competitors here are the Motorola Moto G and the OnePlus 15. The Moto G at a similar price will give you a much newer processor, better battery life, and a smoother overall experience, but its camera will be trash compared to the Pixel. The OnePlus 15 is in a completely different price league, but it shows what modern performance looks like. The Pixel 2 XL sits in a strange middle ground: worse performance than a budget phone, but a better camera than most mid-range devices.

If you're looking for a smooth, modern smartphone experience, this isn't it. Go get a Motorola Moto G instead. If you need more than 64GB of storage or plan to use more than two apps at once, look elsewhere immediately.

We can only recommend the Pixel 2 XL to a very specific person: someone on an extreme budget who prioritizes camera quality above all else and has the patience of a saint for slow performance. For literally anyone else, a modern budget phone like a Motorola will provide a better daily experience. This is a niche pick for photography enthusiasts who are broke.