A Year with the Pixel 10 Pro: A Wish List for the Pixel 11 Pro

I've been using the Google Pixel 10 Pro for almost a year now, which means I've had plenty of time to figure out what I love about it and, more importantly, what still gets on my nerves. And with the Pixel 11 Pro launching on August 12, just three days from now, my wishlist for Google has gotten pretty long. There's a lot the Pixel already gets right. The software is still one of my favorite Android experiences, performance is generally solid, and Google’s Gemini features have become genuinely useful in ways I didn’t expect. Those are all big reasons I’ve stuck with Pixel phones for as long as I have. From the camera to the interface, Google has consistently pushed the boundaries of what Android can do, and I've been a loyal fan of their efforts ever since.

But spend enough time with any phone and the little annoyances stop feeling so little. Over the past year, I’ve run into a handful of recurring Pixel problems that I really don’t want to carry over to another generation. Some have frustrated me for months, while others have made me question whether I can completely rely on my Pixel when I need it most. So, with the Pixel 11 Pro almost here, I have a few things I desperately want Google to get right this time. I've spoken to other users who have experienced similar issues, and I'm not alone in feeling that these problems shouldn't be so common in a flagship phone.

Battery life has easily been one of my biggest frustrations with the Pixel 10 Pro, and judging by the complaints I've come across on Reddit and Google’s own forums, I’m definitely not alone here. My problem is pretty simple: I can’t trust the phone to make it through an entire day comfortably. That uncertainty is exactly why my Pixel 10 Pro rarely gets to travel alone. On days when I know I’ll be away from a charger for hours, my iPhone comes with me too, purely as a safety net in case the Pixel gives up before I do. It's not just about convenience; it's about feeling secure and connected throughout the day.

You’d think plugging it in would quickly solve that problem, but charging is another headache altogether. It feels painfully slow, and in 2026, I genuinely can’t understand why I should have to wait close to two hours for a flagship phone to charge fully. Even worse, heat often tags along like an unwanted plus-one. The phone gets noticeably warm while charging, turning something I have to do every single day into something I’d rather not deal with at all. That's exactly what I want Google to fix with the Pixel 11 Pro. Give me a battery that comfortably lasts through the day and pair it with meaningfully faster charging. None of this feels like an unreasonable ask anymore. Especially not when Samsung has finally embraced silicon-carbon battery technology with its latest foldables. The rest of the industry is moving forward, and I really want Google to move with it.

Another Pixel 10 Pro problem that has been driving me up the wall is the display randomly deciding it no longer wants to respond. And this isn’t something that happens once every few days. On a bad day, I can run into it 10 to 15 times. What makes it even more confusing is that I’m not exactly pushing the phone to its limits. I’m not spending hours gaming, editing videos, or standing outside recording 4K footage under the afternoon sun. Most of my day is pretty ordinary: scrolling through social media, jumping between work apps, browsing Reddit, replying to messages, and doing all the usual things you’d expect a flagship phone to handle. Yet every so often, the screen stops responding properly. I’ll tap something, and nothing happens; swipe again, and still get nowhere. The only workaround I’ve found is opening the recent apps menu, clearing everything out, and essentially giving the phone a fresh start. Doing that once is fine. But doing it more than ten times over the course of a day gets old incredibly quickly. It interrupts whatever I’m doing and makes an otherwise smooth phone feel strangely unreliable.

Then there are the network problems. This might be one of the most frustrating Pixel issues I’ve dealt with because there’s no easy way to work around it. Whenever I’m on a regular phone call or even a WhatsApp call, I somehow end up walking around looking for that one magical spot where the connection suddenly decides to behave. I’ll move from one side of the room to another, stand closer to the window, switch between Wi-Fi and mobile data, and hope something works. I’m always repeating, “Can you hear me now?” five minutes into the conversation. And considering making phone calls is one of the most basic things a smartphone is supposed to do, that gets really annoying. I’ve spent plenty of time digging through the Pixel’s network settings as well, changing whatever I thought might help. Nothing has made enough of a difference. Eventually, I did what I usually do when technology stops making sense and went straight to Reddit.

One suggestion I kept coming across was a factory reset. And sure, maybe that would fix everything. But it also means backing up my data, wiping the entire phone, setting everything up again, signing back into my apps, and then spending the next few days discovering the one thing I forgot to save. I’d rather not turn fixing my phone’s network connection into a weekend project. And that’s really my problem with the whole situation. A factory reset might be a solution, but it shouldn’t feel like a requirement for getting reliable connectivity from a flagship phone. I shouldn’t have to rearrange settings, wipe my device, or wander around the house looking for signal just to have a normal conversation.

More than anything, I really want the Pixel 11 Pro to be the phone I can confidently buy and stick with. My relationship with Google phones has always been a little toxic. They frustrate me, I complain about them, I occasionally think about walking away, and then Google shows me something genuinely clever and somehow pulls me right back in. Because for all the problems I’ve talked about, there’s still so much I love about Pixels. The software is fantastic, the cameras rarely disappoint me, and Gemini has become such a useful part of the experience that moving to another phone always feels like I’m giving something up. That’s probably why these problems bother me as much as they do. The Pixel gets so much right that the things it gets wrong become even harder to ignore.

I don’t need Google to reinvent the Pixel with the 11 Pro completely. I just want it to fix the things that have made living with my Pixel 10 Pro harder than it should be. Give me dependable battery life, charging that doesn’t require half my afternoon, a screen that responds every time I touch it, and network connectivity I don’t have to think about. If Google can do that, the Pixel 11 Pro doesn’t need some wild new spec to win me over. It just needs to become the Pixel I’ve finally been waiting for all along.

As we eagerly await the Pixel 11 Pro’s release, there are other signs that Google is taking note of our concerns. In July, a Google executive broke the silence on the ongoing memory crisis, highlighting a more than fourfold increase in RAM prices between 2025 and 2026. This has had a ripple effect on the entire industry, with brands like Nothing, Motorola, and Xiaomi adjusting their pricing strategies as a result. Meanwhile, Apple is testing DRAM from Chinese manufacturer CXMT across several products, including iPhones and MacBooks.