Almost exactly two years ago I bought my last phone, a Pixel 3XL. The phone I had before that was a Samsung Galaxy S8. It was two years old and was in good condition, but I didn’t like it that much. All the extra Samsung garbage was not to my taste. I like stock Android or as close as I can get.

After two full years, I was totally happy with the Pixel. I had no plans on upgrading or changing until I had to. And then… I had to. The first sign was the the volume buttons weren’t working. I have one of those rubber bumper cases. When I took it off, the volume worked fine. But not with the case on. The case seemed fine, and then I took a closer look at the phone beside the volume keys.

Here you can see the back cover has separated from the phone. The whole back plate was swelling out. That’s why the volume wasn’t working. The buttons on the case were no longer aligned with the buttons on the phone.

I had noticed that it was seeming to get pretty hot when I wirelessly charged it but hadn’t thought too much about it. Obviously the battery was on its last legs and getting ready for some kind of catastrophe. I kept an eye on the phone the rest of the day and started looking for a new device.

I was really pretty bummed out about this because I didn’t actually WANT a new phone. And I had to get one quick and didn’t have a chance to do a bunch of research. I was curious about the Oneplus line. Their flagships go for $600 – 900 or even higher. I didn’t want to spend that much when I wasn’t really sure what I wanted. Maybe I wanted a Pixel 6 when it came out. What to do? What to do???

I finally wandered across the Oneplus Nord n10 G5. It was under $300 but decently specced for that price. I watched a few Youtube reviews and while nobody was raving about how great it was, the consensus was that it was a pretty good phone for its price. I crossed my fingers and ordered it with next day delivery.

In the meantime I wondered if I could possibly replace the Pixel’s battery. Quick search revealed a few Youtube videos that made the process seem not too formidable, and a number of under $20 replacement kits. Worth a shot, right?

The repair kit came the same time as the new phone. I set up the Oneplus, got my sim card in it and all my apps. It looked and felt pretty nice. No regrets. Then onto the battery repair.

The toughest part was getting the back off. You need a heat gun (which I have, luckily) and a lot of time and patience. You apply heat to the back of the phone judiciously so as to not damage it. This softens up the glue, then you pry the crap out of back of the phone. The kit had tools and a suction cup. It took a good half hour of heating and prying, heating and prying – and I had a head start since the battery had already started the job – but eventually I got the back off.

Then you have to pry the battery out. It’s also glued in. That was a bit easier, but not… easy.

Finally, the recharging coil is just like a piece of thick paper with the coil inside, glued to the battery. You have to carefully pry that off. If you’ve ever tried to peel a glued-on paper label off of something, you can imagine how that went. I got all of the coil and about half of the paper backing, but I was pretty sure I had wrecked it.

Then you put it all back together. The kit also came with glue strips to put the battery back in with. Stuck the coil back on the new battery, plugged everything in. Cleaned up all the old glue. Crossed my fingers and turned it on. It worked fine. Put it on the charger. It charged right up. Didn’t even get hot. And it held its charge really well.

The last thing I needed was some glue to put the back on again. I ordered that and finished up the next day. But since then it was working fine, holding a charge and charging just fine. Now I had some options:

1. Keep using the Oneplus and keep the Pixel as a backup.
2. Go back to the Pixel and return the Oneplus.
3. Go back to the Pixel and keep the Oneplus as a backup.

I had a good 2-3 days in on the Oneplus, which gave me a good idea of how much I liked it. In general, I did like it. I concur with all the reviews – it’s a great value for it’s price. But there is no doubt that the Pixel is way better. Some details:

• Performance. Pixel wins hands down. Opening apps takes probably 1.5-2x longer on the Oneplus. Random scrolling around is obviously way smoother on the Pixel. But this was really only noticeable on a side-by-side comparison. I could have lived with the Oneplus’s performance easily.
• The Oneplus screen pales in comparison to the Pixel… LITERALLY! (sorry) Not surprising. The Oneplus is an LCD whereas the Pixel has OLED. Again though, wouldn’t be a deal breaker for me.
• Bluetooth performance was not good. I use Galaxy Buds Plus and love them. They have been virtually 100% flawless on the Pixel. On the Oneplus, I had various issues:
  • Garbled sound. I’ve had that on cheaper BT earbuds, but never on the Galaxy Buds. I was getting it regularly every time I used them on the Oneplus.
  • Unresponsive controls. The tap to start / stop failed multiple times. Never recall it failing while on the Pixel.
  • Connection. I think it failed to auto-connect once in the couple of days I used it. I don’t recall it ever having a problem on the Pixel.
• Touch responsiveness. Very noticeable on one of the puzzle games I was playing. Tapping on on-screen items would fail close to 50%, requiring multiple taps. Never experienced it on the Pixel and when I retried the same game on the Pixel again, it was night and day.

To be fair, those are the only negative performance points I could come up with on the Oneplus. I would add that Oneplus have started creating their own UI stuff. A customized settings app, a custom launcher, a bunch of preinstalled Oneplus apps. I was under the impression that Oneplus was close to stock, so this was a bit disappointing. Not as bad as Samsung, but not a plus.

But overall, not bad. The Bluetooth and touch screen stuff were the only points that really pushed me over the edge to going back to the Pixel.

I am really happy to be back to the Pixel though and have a renewed appreciation for what a good phone it is. As I said, I didn’t want to switch phones to begin with and I’m happy that I don’t have to.

I’ve decided to keep the Oneplus though as a backup. I don’t know how long my Pixel surgery is going to hold up. So far it’s flawless, but who knows what the next few weeks or months hold. If the Pixel does crap out on me, I’ll have something to switch over to instantly. Maybe I can last long enough to see how the Pixel 6 does and maybe even long enough to see it come down a bit in price from its initial release.