I switched my entire family to older Google Pixels, and I wish I'd done it sooner

A few months ago, I took a step I should’ve taken several years ago and switched the rest of my immediate family to Pixel phones. My husband was already sporting and loving his Pixel 7 Pro, and my mother-in-law was using my old Pixel 6a, but my mom, dad, and aunt were all still carrying older OnePlus or Samsung phones. Since they’re not interested in state-of-the-art tech, I dug into the archive and found a Pixel 7a, 6 Pro, and 7 Pro to upgrade them to.

Going in, I knew this would be a big departure for them. It would’ve been much safer to stick with a familiar Android skin without trying to introduce them to something new, but the learning curve turned out to be not as steep as I expected. Now, I’m just reaping the benefits of this change.

Why Pixels and not something else?

To answer this question, I’d have to go back nearly a decade and explain why I made the decision to buy my first Pixel 2 XL. A the time, I needed it for my tech writing job, I also liked the idea of a clean Android slate, and I was still searching for the excellence in Android cameras that I had experienced with Nokia’s phones. Since then, I’ve bought or tested nearly every new Pixel, so I’m very familiar with Google’s flavor of Android, with all of its quirks and strengths.

The decision to go with Pixels for my family wasn’t a matter of luck; it was pure strategy. The idea came to me when my aunt’s OnePlus 9 stopped reading SIM cards, and she urgently needed a functional phone. Since I live in another country, I couldn’t come to her rescue in person, but I remembered I’d left my old Pixel 2 XL in a box at my parents’ place just for situations like these. She retrieved it, I helped her set it up remotely, and she used it for several months without a hiccup.

That experience made me realize the perks of the Pixel experience: I could easily troubleshoot her situation from thousands of miles away, and I didn’t have to hide half of the apps as I did on her OnePlus because they were bloatware I didn’t want her to open. Plus, she got used to Pixel UI very quickly, and all of the photos she was now sending me were crystal clear instead of a blurry mess. I’d also expected the Pixel 2 XL to be slow or painful to use, but nope. For a phone that was seven years old, it had held up pretty well.

The more I weighed the pros and cons, the more I realized that a Pixel was the right decision for my family, even an older one. Despite them living in an unsupported country where Pixel repairs aren’t easy and most of Google’s special features don’t work (like Satellite SOS, fall detection, car crash detection, and all of the smart calling features, etc.), Pixel ownership seemed like an overall net positive.

So I made the plunge. My aunt first got my Pixel 6 Pro, retiring the Pixel 2 XL back to its “emergency backup” boxed status. Then my mom and dad got the Pixel 7a and 7 Pro, respectively. They’ve been using them for six months now, and I have no regrets at all. Actually, scratch that. My only regret is that I didn’t make this switch sooner.

Remote support is a breeze with Pixels

Once a week, on average, one of my parents asks me a question about their phone. A disappearing icon, an unexpected error message, a confusing pop-up, a new menu, a feature they don’t understand — you name it, I’ve had to troubleshoot it. My dad, for instance, managed to get into the recovery menu of his OnePlus 7 Pro and hard reset it by mistake four or five times. It kept happening until we realized he thought turning off the screen required pressing the power button and volume buttons at the same time. Sounds hilarious, unless you’re the schmuck who has to guide your mom into setting up a phone from scratch remotely, restoring all the backups, and making sure every icon and menu is exactly where Dad expects it to be.

Thankfully, he no longer does that. Now, his latest quirk is archiving messages in Google Messages and WhatsApp, then calling me in a panic to tell me the bank is no longer sending him an SMS for each operation, or that his brother disappeared from WhatsApp. Mom, on the other hand, has a fun habit of asking, “Do I update?” without giving me context on what she’s supposed to be updating — an ad pop-up, a legit system update, an app?! My aunt, on the other hand, provides screenshots with all of her troubleshooting questions, which I appreciate a lot.

Regardless of the situation, though, the fact that they’re all running the same interface that I’m so familiar with has made answering their random questions and unlikely issues very easy. I know every setting, every menu, every pop-up, and every Google app almost by heart. The power button and volume buttons have the exact same placement. I don’t have to remember where Samsung or OnePlus hides that option, what they call that menu, or whether they have implemented this feature or not. And when I’m not sure, I can immediately check on my own Pixel and guide them, even telling them the exact placement of the button on the screen before they click it.

“Dad, please tap your picture on the top right, now the “Archived” in the middle of the screen, do you see the bank messages now? Yup, ok, so you’ve archived the chat. Let’s unarchive it.” Oh, so, so, so easy. I don’t want to think of all the hours I spent Googling how Samsung or OnePlus does this or that, especially with the Phone, Contacts, and Messages apps, where most of the issues occurred in the past few years.

And you know what, even when Google does something crazy like change the way you answer calls or take away the power from the power button, I’m ready to help them navigate that mess because I’ve already experienced it myself. I wasn’t familiar enough with Samsung’s or OnePlus’s betas to be ready for whatever dysfunctional changes they brought to my parents’ phones.

Moral of the story: If you’re the troubleshooter of your family, do yourself a favor and make sure everyone runs the same Android skin as you. It’ll save you days — and a lot of pulled hair.

More reasons a Pixel was an easy choice for my family

By switching every phone in my family to a Pixel, I also made a conscious choice to keep them running the most secure and up-to-date version of Android. Even though these phones are three or more years old and cheaper than more recent mid-range devices out there, they’re not lagging behind on Android 15 or a security patch from 2024. They get monthly updates and QPR releases just like my Pixel 10 Pro XL. When the updates eventually stop, starting with the Pixel 6 Pro later this year, I’ll see what to do. I’m pretty sure I can safely keep my aunt on that phone for an extra year, then decide which Pixel to upgrade her to.

We’re all such fans of the simpler interface, too. My parents appreciate that there aren’t folders of hidden icons they shouldn’t touch, or two messaging apps and two browsers to choose from. They also love that they have the same UI because they can help each other when one of them wants to do something but doesn’t know how. I once caught mom explaining to dad, “Tap the attach icon to get the photos,” and it made me so proud. My only wish is for a way to lock the home screen setup because they all have a tendency to move icons and widgets from their place and then struggle to get them back.

The camera is another big win. They now enjoy snapping pics of the Sunday barbecue, dad’s latest gardening projects, or my aunt’s crazy food experiments. Few, if any, of them are blurry. I used to get nothing but hazy pics from their older OnePlus and Samsung phones — especially the latter. Seventy-year-olds don’t have the steadiest hands, and Samsung’s shutter speed and delay issues are still notoriously bad, even on the latest flagships. Plus, when I now ask them to snap a photo of an important document, I get readable text. Thank you, Pixel Camera!

For me, the biggest win besides troubleshooting lies in the ease of backups and restores. I’ve remote-restored enough phones to appreciate how complete a Pixel-to-Pixel migration is compared to other Android skins. And when your dad tends to wipe his whole phone several times because he thought he should press power and volume simultaneously to turn off the screen, well, trust me, you appreciate the simpler restore process. All of his settings, quick settings, wallpaper choices, widgets, and home screen icons return without me doing anything. Phew.

If you ask them, though, they’d tell you the biggest win from this move is in the Pixel Weather app. I swear. They have a certain fascination with weather apps and widgets that I don’t understand, but to each their whims. I tried several free and paid weather apps on their previous phones, but none were good enough for us. Ads, ugly and complicated UIs, inaccurate predictions, so they all had to go. Pixel Weather? Instant approval. I don’t have to get it to be happy that they found their promised weather app. And if that’s what it takes to sell them on a phone brand that no one in their close entourage knows, let alone owns, then so be it.

My mother-in-law’s personal care assistant jokingly called us “Pixel family” over the winter holidays, and you know what? We are.