Last updated : 13/12/2023
Introduction
The Pixel 3 - my first foray at ROMs with relockable bootloader (Calyx & Divest; GrapheneOS is discontinued for Pixel 3).
Summary : A small surprise (mostly with its small size) whose only notable gimmick (ROMs with lockable bootloaders) are probably not worth dealing with when its tradeoffs (no headphone jack & microSD; P-OLED display; and questionable official TWRP if you don't mind losing relockable bootloader) suck.
Physical features
The Pixel 3 is one tiny device, when compared to most of what I've held & used.
- On the top section, there's the secondary microphone.
- The single-SIM slot, USB-C charging port & primary microphone are located on the bottom corner.
- Left section is essentially blank.
- Right section is home to the volume & power buttons. As per the Pixel design tradition, the power button is above the volume buttons.
- Front side is reserved for the 5.5' 18:9 P-OLED, front cameras, & front-facing stereo speakers located on the top & bottom bezels. The top speaker also doubles as an earpiece for telephone calls.
- The back is 2-toned, with rear camera & flash module on the glossy section & the fingerprint scanner on the matte section, which takes up most of the back.
- For materials, the front & back are covered with Gorilla Glass 5, while aluminium is used for the frame. The power button uses plastic, while the volume rocker uses aluminium.
- In regards to the buttons, the power button clicks very finely, as well as the volume buttons, though the former has a tiny bit more wobble than the latter. The fingerprint scanner is pretty spotty however, only being able to scan my fingerprint 30% of the time (as far as I can remember). However, looking at the device again (at least the one shared between me & Bob), the scanner seems worn, so I can't really say how would the scanner work if they were of mint quality.
- One more thing - the sides are sensitive to pressure (also known as Active Edge), where squeezing it triggers an user-defined action. It does come handy to turn on/off the display, especially in absence of a functioning fingerprint scanner.
Audio Quality
The Pixel 3 only comes with front-facing stereo speakers which sounded pretty decent, if somewhat boxy. As there's no headphone jack on the Pixel 3, good luck finding a dongle (the only dongles known to work with Pixel cellphones are the ones with an inbuilt DAC chip) for it if you either lost the one that came with it, or didn't get one (or find some USB-C headphone that works).
Display
The 5.5' 18.9 OLED display is fine enough (turned-off blacks are good, 60hz is still serviceable). Since it's an OLED, burn in will eventually happen. As it's a 18:9 display, games with colored letterboxing (Fate/GO is a notorious example for this, back when it displayed 16:9 content) is a burn-in incident waiting to happen if you're playing it.
Bootloader unlocking
The bootloader unlocking process is foolproof & simple : plug device to PC, enable OEM unlocking & USB debugging in stock OS' developer options, boot to fastboot & fastboot flashing unlock in fastboot. No connecting to internet (if you have the adb/fastboot tools and/or drivers ready).
Repairability
The Pixel 3's repairability seems to be pretty close to most normal glass-backed devices... except for those standoff screws - good luck removing them without a dedicated bit for it (I used a nipper to sloooooooowly spin them out because my screwdriver kit lacked those standoff bits & let's just say I'm not sure on using a flathead on standoffs so close to all of those BTB connectors). Oh yeah - the Pixel 3 also copied the iPhone's "screws into the midframe's walls' innards" approach for some of its parts, so enjoy?
- Back panel demands heat, suction cup, & adhesive-cutting pry to remove and glue to re-attach; with camera bump, fingerprint sensor, & flash diffuser adhered to it. The aforementioned fingerprint sensor's cable is short enough that you have to be careful when prying the back panel around left edge & flip the panel to the left as you remove it (and it connects via Lego-like BTB with a bracket & motherboard cover + wireless charging coil holding it down). The back panel is glass, so it shouldn't distort from excessive heat; but additional care on prying needs to be taken if you don't want it to break (and I recommend keeping some spare back panels at the ready in the likely case you broke it when prying it out).
- Motherboard cover + NFC pad + wireless charging coil are held by 7 Philips screws (or 5 if we discount the fingerprint sensor bracket - 2 1.9mm, 2 4.2mm, 1 4.3mm). The screws seems to have similar heads, but 2 of the screws are significantly shorter & screws into standoff screws (a.k.a. a screw in a screw - here goes my headache...) and 1 is somewhat longer (by 0.1mm), so you do need to sort them out (though you can just conclude the shorter screw goes into the standoffs). As for the loudspeaker, it's held down by 1 1.9mm with grounding clip, 1 4.3mm, & 2 4.3mm with thinner shanks; as well as adhesive gasket & a plastic insert probably meant for bottom microphone.
- Battery features 3 separable stretch-adhesive strips meant to help with removal. For first removal, those tabs are fragile & tight, so be ready to do the "pry of shame" in case it breaks (isopropyl alcohol and/or heating from display side helps).
- In addition to 2 brackets & 5 Philips screws (3 of which also holds grounding tabs), the motherboard is held by 2 standoff screws, one of which also holds one of the brackets down.
- Unlike most glue sandwiches, the physical buttons (power & volume) are glued to their bracket, which holds on to the midframe by 3 Philips screws screwed into the midframe's walls. Those buttons are on the same cable, so if either stops working, everything will have to go. The vibration motor also blocks one of the 3 screws holding the buttons & its bracket, so it has to go beforehand.
- Charging port is held by 2 small screws at the midframe's walls & some light adhesive. At least it can be detached independently of the motherboard, even if you're gonna have to brawl with those black & blue fucking antenna cables.
- SIM reader's its own module (coupled with bottom microphone), held down by 1 screw, some adhesive, & the motherboard. Don't forget to eject the SIM tray before detaching the reader.
- Every removable component except for antenna cable, motherboard cover (which houses NFC pad & wireless charging coil), & vibration motor (which uses contact pins) connects to the motherboard using Lego-like BTBs. Those BTBs are not designed with repairability in mind, as some of them features various capacitors around it, making removals requiring some precision.
- The squeeze sensors at the lower side of the midframe is basically stuck there - good luck removing them.
- Display is very much glued in place, so say goodbye to it if you ever wanted to try harvesting the speaker grilles and/or replace the entire thing for the 1st time (if sticking to same midframe). Then again, your display's probably beyond any helping in that scenario, so good luck.
Teardown references :
Custom ROM & Kernel Availability (as of 29/11/2023)
In terms of custom ROMs, the Pixel 3 is less than ideal, though still workable (if you don't mind running only A13). By the way, ROMs are flashed by flashing its recovery images (either through fastboot flash boot boot.img or fastboot update fastboot-rom.zip) before sideloading the ROM again in recovery (which are actually LineageOS recovery with some theme differences).
- LineageOS (official A13)
- DivestOS (A13) (relockable bootloader)
- CalyxOS (A13) (relockable bootloader)
- Various GApps-only ROMs, such as crDroid (unofficial), StatixOS, PixelDust, Pixel Experience
Speaking of official TWRP for Pixel 3, touch screen doesn't work (at least on the Japanese Pixel 3 shared between me & Bob; booted with fastboot boot), forcing users to use external inputs to interact with TWRP (I only got to using a mouse with TWRP). Feel free to guess how painful tampering and/or flashing stuff with TWRP here, especially since there's no unofficial builds with working touchscreen that I've heard about.
As for the custom kernels, there's SpiderBlood NetHunter, which can be used for your NetHunter stuff at the cost of having to run unencrypted. There's also Kirisakura (which serves as SpiderBlood's base btw), although it's last updated in June 2022. Considering how painful operating TWRP in the Pixel is, you'd be right if you guessed that I haven't even touched any of those custom kernels... let alone trying out KernelSU here (not that there's any downloadable custom kernels for the Pixel 3 that supports KernelSU). So, let's assume that there's no custom kernels - your only root solution for the Pixel 3 will be Magisk... unless you have made a custom kernel for Pixel 3 with KernelSU.
Other issues
Let's start out with the bad ones:
- Touch screen doesn't universally work on official TWRP (at least with fastboot boot) - making all interactions with it painful. Oh yeah - add more device(s) to the USB-C load, because you might have to plug in a mouse and/or keyboard to tamper with TWRP.
- No basic amenities like headphone jack & microSD, increasing the load on the sole USB-C port... in addition to that previously mentioned mouse and/or keyboard (and any dongles and/or hubs needed to connect them).
Then, the less bad ones:
- There's only 1 SIM card slot
This should be a minor issue, but it's an issue nonetheless, since most of my devices have either dual SIM / SIM/microSD support (even though I don't generally use the SIM slot except for specific cases such as when I need it to be a "phone").
- Japanese models :
- Shutter sound cannot be disabled by default (Not a problem in OpenCamera - Settings > More camera controls... > Shutter sound properly disables it)
- Felica bloatware in /product/app (at least on official LineageOS)
- Wonky fingerprint functionality? (I can only hope it's just the module)
And, finally, the actually good ones:
- The Pixel 3 is actually small enough for 1-handed use.
- Support for input-only wireless charging.
Conclusion
Well, the Pixel 3... sucks. Sure, you have support for easy bootloader unlocks & relockable bootloaders in Calyx & Divest; but you pay with a painful TWRP (if you don't mind losing relockable bootloader) & loss of headphone jack & microSD (not to mention no KernelSU). I'd already bitched more than enough on the hardware, but the TWRP issue blew it to kingdom come; so fucking skip if you even think about buying it (unless you're going to help fix TWRP for this device, in which case thank you for your sacrifice).
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