Pixel 2 and 2 XL review: amazing camera and good speakers, represents the best Android experience, but design lacks flair and it has no headphone jack
Sharp shooter — Without fail, every person who has picked up the Pixel 2 XL has said virtually the same thing: “It feels like it's made out of plastic.”
Context & Ripple Effects
This review closes the loop opened by the Pixel 2 hands-on two weeks earlier: the camera and Motion Photos impressed then, and the verdict now confirms the camera as the line's defining strength while the plastic-feeling build and dropped headphone jack become the costs. It also extends a pattern set by the original Pixel's 2016 review, which praised the camera and battery but flagged dull design and unpolished software.
The stakes are Google's attempt to make its own hardware the reference Android device rather than a spec-sheet also-ran — a project whose mixed execution shows up again in the Pixel 3 review a year later (far better screen, goofy notch) and persists all the way to the Pixel 11 in 2026, still dinged for thin gen-to-gen hardware gains.
First-order effects
- Buyers weighing the Pixel 2 XL against other Android flagships must accept a worse-feeling chassis and no headphone jack to get what The Verge calls the best Android experience and the best camera.
- Google's removal of the jack puts its own accessory ecosystem and wired-headphone users on the dongle path a year after Apple normalized the cut on flagship phones.
Second-order effects
- With hardware design repeatedly flagged as the weak point across both Pixel generations, Google's differentiation narrows to software and imaging — pressure that shows up directly in the Pixel 3's screen-and-speakers fixes a year later.
- Rival Android makers can now position against Google on physical fundamentals (build materials, headphone jack) while conceding the camera crown, splitting the flagship pitch into spec phones versus camera phones.
Third-order effects
- If the review cadence holds, the Pixel line structurally becomes a computational-photography franchise carried by average industrial design — a trade-off still visible in the Pixel 11's complaint about few generation-to-generation hardware improvements at $899.
- Headphone-jack removal spreading from Apple to Google's own Android reference device pushes the whole Android flagship tier toward portless, wireless-first audio, leaving midrange devices as the last wired holdouts.
The trend: Google's Pixel line is consolidating its identity around best-in-class camera software while hardware design remains its chronic weak point, and each generation trades away physical features like the headphone jack to get there.