I expected to hate the Pixel 11 Pro, but Google proved me wrong

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I wasn’t expecting much from the Pixel 11 Pro . I didn’t plan to buy the phone, let alone love it. In fact, the original idea for this article was to discuss how Google hasn’t earned the right to make small iterations of its phones the way Samsung and Apple have, and that I was going to keep my Pixel 10 Pro .

In the end, I changed my mind, and after almost a week with my Pixel 11 Pro, I can say that Google has (barely) done enough this year, and I’m glad I upgraded.

As I alluded to before, I didn’t plan on buying a Pixel 11 Pro. I loved my time with the 10 Pro, but it had been plagued by issues, mostly related to the outdated modem. There were parts of my town that I never got signal, but my Z Fold 7 or Razr Fold would. It would frequently drop calls and, most of all, get uncomfortably hot. The modem drank battery juice at an alarming rate, too.

In the Pixel 11 series, Google has finally upgraded to a new modem. That was the first thing that had me curious, and all of the new camera upgrades and tweaks had my attention. Still, my plan was to wait another year and see how others got on with the phone before upgrading to a Pixel 12 next year.

Google had other plans, though. I managed to combine four pre-order discounts and offers , and by trading in my 10 Pro, I got the 11 Pro for less than £200. At that price, my curiosity overpowered my restraint.

The new modem in the Pixel 11 Pro makes me equally happy and angry. I’m happy that it has addressed almost all of my major problems with the Pixel, and angry that Google waited so damn long to fix them. Fans have been begging Google to change the modem for years, and waiting this long is the bare minimum of effort Google should’ve put into Tensor.

It’s early days. Every phone impresses when it’s new, and I know I can’t speak for how the Pixel 11 Pro will age. Even so, the differences I’m seeing in this phone versus my Pixel 10 Pro are impossible to ignore. I have signal everywhere I didn’t before. Over the last week, I’ve purposely driven to parts of my local area where my 10 Pro didn’t get service, and the 11 Pro has maintained a connection in all of them. Clear phone calls over my car’s hands-free system that haven’t dropped out as I drive into a new area, and a strong, reliable 5G data connection are things I’d given up on getting in a Pixel.