I bought a pixel 5 for $200 from someone to just hold on to for a spare phone... I ended up popping in my sim and I have been using it for a week.

1. Battery life on Pixel 5 is better than Pixel 6 pro for the same September Beta QPR release.

2. The form factor is so much more manageable and much better.

3. Camera quality - It's a minor sacrifice if you are not using the Telephoto lens.

4. Sound quality - 6 Pro is much better.

5. I want to switch back to P6 pro only for the Live Translate and Voice to text. I never realized how freaking great they were until I switched to the Pixel 5.

We deserve a Pixel power house with the Pixel 5 form factor. Damn Google!

So I have upgraded from a Pixel 5 Sorta Sage to the P6 Pro in white.

TLDR overall some weird design choices, it's a good phone but I don't think there's reason to upgrade from a P5 to P6P, maybe the P6 would be a better shout for less money.

So here are my extended thoughts on having used it for 4 days now.

Size

This is huge, height, width and thickness and it's much heavier. I was always a big phone guy, but I think the P5 did such a good job that I've got used to compact phones. The P6P is actually awkward to hold because of the pointy corners. It's unwieldy.

O and it's very very slippery. The nice eggshell finish of the P5 was probably peak design choice! It needs to be back. Maybe I'll try some of those matte skins to see if they work.

Screen

It's nice... colour temperature is different to P5. The rounded corners needed to have a larger radius to make it comfortable. The biggest step back is the asymmetric bezels. This phone looks like a generic device closely resembling a previous generation Samsung Note screen (which it probably is). The bottom bezel could have been made symmetric as the rest like they did on the P5.

Speakers

Much better than any previous OnePlus or Pixel I have had. Richer but I suppose there's better out there. But it's way above average for sound.

Weirdly there's no speaker grill cover, just a deep empty slot I can see... Lint trap for sure!

Haptics

I never understood people's fascination with haptics but they're here and it seems an upgrade. I usually have it off for most things except phone calls (and I mean who takes phone calls anymore anyway!).

Cameras

Well this is a bit of a contraversial part. They're good don't get me wrong, but I think the step up from the P5 is not as big as people are making out. The telephoto is the only addition worth mentioning.

One of my biggest P5 bug bears was the photo processing time... It still here! What's the point of custom SoCs when theres still such a long post processing time. Ok, it's reduced from 3 seconds down to 2 seconds. But still not what I was expecting from a "flagship". Also the night sight takes a long time but it is excellent (however that's the same with the P5!).

Selfie camera is reasonable upgrade, better than the P5 based on noise, but I reckon a lot of that is post processing anyway.

Video is ok, not enough to start making Hollywood films on. I'm not a big video taker, maybe I will start to seeing as it's more capable.

Battery life

Had it only 4 days now but it seems solid for heavy users. Seems to wirelessly charge better without heating up as much as my P5 (maybe better coil alignment with my charger because if its size).

Other

Some of the software features are good but they will likely come to P5 eventually. The software runs smoothly but it was smooth in general on my P5 too.

Already noticed lots of bugs but nothing major so far except an Android 12 issue... You cannot control volume from your phone whilst casting to either CC Ultra or Google TV... technical support have no clue what they're doing.

In hindsight, I bought into the hype and kind of a bit deflated. So for all those with delayed pre-orders I hope you are upgrading from something significantly worse than a P5 to make it worth it.

Edit: the reason I upgraded was because Amazon have accepted my P5 for a FULL refund due to technical issues with the phone. So, money was less of a thought process.