Pixel 3 Review

Last updated : 13/12/2023

- Introduction -
- Physical features -
- Audio -
- Display -
- Bootloader unlocking -
- Repairability -
- Custom ROM & Kernel Availability -
- Other issues -
- Conclusion -

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.

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?

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).

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:

Then, the less bad ones:

And, finally, the actually good ones:

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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