They're still way overpriced - especially considering they don't get the several years of extended support that the later models do. I lucked out and caught Mint Mobile clearing out their Pixel 7 Pro for $99 at the end of last year. The fingerprint reader is a serious PITA, so I'm still using my old phone as my daily driver. The P7P camera is fantastic, so I keep it around for that and as a test bed, but that's about it.
I wouldn't pay more than roughly $300 (maybe $400, tops) at this point - and then only if I didn't care too much about the fingerprint sensor. With the much shorter support frame, I don't see how Google thinks it's worth so much more now.
I ... just have not ever understood why a smart phone needs to have horsepower approaching or greater than handheld gaming consoles. Mobile games are basically fucking awful?
Yep, we got fancy cameras and high rez screens. Cool. Who can actually justify spending a grand or two on a phone every couple of years?
Anyway, I'm looking into getting a CMF phone, rooting it and de googling it.
Keep in mind that mobile gaming is huge in some parts of the world. A lot of the high-end, "gaming" phones sell pretty well in Asian markets. I believe South America is also pretty big on mobile gaming right now.
I hate the bloatware attached to Android phones, so I went with a pixel 8. Pretty good phone, but the camera was defective. They sent me a refurbished replacement. It died from water damage... from a wet hand. On a phone rated for 30 minutes below 5 feet of water, that was disappointing. The second replacement drops signals all the time. Spotify glitches 5+ times per song. Google won't give me another replacement.