Pixel 6, 7 series get an extra two years of software upgrades

As an IPhone holder I’m happy Google is doing this to force the market to support devices for longer. Apple will be pushed to go further than 6-7 years of software support.

Yeah. Pixel 8 and 9 series have 7 years by spec. I think Samsung matched it with their latest Galaxy S series. It's one of those rare and fleeting moments when competition works to our benefit.
- Indeed. However the root problem were CPU and other hw drivers AFAIK, not Google. Making their own SoC made it possible to bypass those greedy manufacturers and extend support.
- Samsung's update policy for their lower end models is pretty atrocious. While on paper they offer updates for a couple of years, it you look more closely, you'll notice that the update intervals get larger and larger as time goes on. You might not get important updates for half a year. Sure, still better than not updates at all, but a pretty awful policy for security updates.
- It’s one of those rare and fleeting moments when competition works to our benefit.
  More competition is always better for the consumer.

Fairphone have been offering 5 years of support for years... and ethically sourced materials, replacable parts (inc. nokia style batteries that you can replace)

Not to mention acceptance of alternative OS installations

https://endoflife.date/fairphone

Fairphone is actually worse than Google when it comes to updates. Even their flagship phone is still on Android 13. Even the Pixel 6 runs Android 15 at this point and with this news it is guaranteed to get at least Android 17. Google has always been offering 5 years of support for the Pixel 6 and 7 series. What they didn't promise until this announcement was additional feature/OS upgrades, but when it comes to that they were already ahead of Fairphone.
When it comes to alternative OSes, Google actually makes it very easy to install them. That's one reason why GrapheneOS and the likes chose Pixel phones as their primarily supported phones.
- IMHO, security updates are more important than OS updates, and Fairphone is good in that regard. I'd be hard-pressed to even name a killer feature from the last few versions of Android (or iOS, for that matter).
- The fairphone 5 is on android 14 and android 15 has only started to be deployed 2 months ago.
- Isn't the main reason for GrapheneOS to choose Pixels that Pixels have the Titan security chip?
- Fairphone has a great approach and I would love to buy an EU phone with replaceable parts, however I've read pretty underwhelming things about their software support. in that sense, paying 90€ every 3-4 years to get the battery replaced on a pixel,would be a better bet. That,plus the pixel a variants are very competitively prices and you get huge bang dor your buck.
  I wish fairphones were cheaper...
People also could get extended support via CalyxOS and GrapheneOS on the Pixel Models.
- And wireless charging, the reason i own a pixel not an fairphone. Maybe next it will be a shiftphone, but thats hopefully far in the future.

For the Pixel 6 and 7 series Google has promised 5 years of security updates right from the beginning. What's new here is that they now also offer feature and OS upgrades for that same time period. Certainly nice to have, but not essential.

As a pixel 6a user I'm excited I'll get a few more years of support and use out of this phone.

Open source....forever software updates until nobody cares to update the bloody thing.

You would like postmarket os as it is foss and software support is 10 years atleast.
- Huh, they support a lot more hardware than they used to, that's pretty amazing! I may have to try it out.
  Any idea if MMS is supported properly yet? That has been my main hurdle, and it looks like my other issues (battery life and audio quality) may be resolved by picking other hardware than the PinePhone.
Android is as closed as an open-source project can get.

If only the fucking phone would work that long.

My Pixel 6 Pro was replaced twice within the two year warranty. Always for display errors(Display crapped out partially or has sudden "green flashes" when in maximum low light setting). Each time was a customer service nightmare and took ages. The current arrived damaged (they send you refurbished phones which in theory would be okay if they would actually be refurbished - last one was still reeking of smoke) and the FP did not work, additional loading only works when the cable is pushed in to the maximum by hand. When contacted they refuse further customer service claiming their service period ended (it did not, legally they are obligated according to the laws here), but their customer service agents do not give a shit. "It's written here" and "then sue us, lol!" are quotes.

The problems with the screen are known and there are hundreds of posts about it online. Each listing similar troubles.

I really loved the phone when it worked. Great camera, perfect size for me, clean OS, a lot of bang for the buck. But shit like that made me get a Samsung.

I had my Pixel 2 for 4 years, now my Pixel 6 is 3 years old. You just got unlucky.
- Exactly the same here. I went Nexus->Pixel 2->Pixel 6
  Works flawlessly, except of course that I only get like ~28h of battery life instead of the ~48h in the beginning
- My old Nokia easily outlasted those.
I'm sorry you dealt with all that. My anecdote is that my 6 Pro has worked flawlessly since day one and I'm not kind to it.
- I replaced my OS on day 1 so it's not the same but I've also had no issues aside from a brief power draining issue that got patched shortly after.
still happily using a pixel 4a, your mileage may vary
- The 4a was beast tbh. Loved that one.
My Pixel 6 pro needed one replacement, for a dead green circle in the corner.
They insisted it was my fault, and I loaded unapproved software that did it (I didn't, I'm boring with my phones these days).
It got replaced, I had to pay to get it replaced (25USD)...
The phone was a disappointment, though, from day 1.
My Pixel 7 Pro worked very good so far.
The Pixel 8 I bought for my mother was faulty but after the RMA everything was honky dory for her and she seems happy.

Sweet. This will likely mean extended GrapheneOS support too.

GrapheneOS would have received feature updates for the full duration of 5 years anyway, since they don't separate feature updates from security updates.

https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/113603951027289464

Android doesn't have any long term support branches for older versions of the mobile OS.

It was clear they'd likely provide 5 years of OS updates for 6th/7th gen Pixels rather than 3 from the start. Documentation clearly hinted at it by saying they'd provide 5 years of security AND features updates.

If only they would send me a free volume button since their factory one broke...

Good thing my pixel 6 battery is marshmallow now and I was forced to buy a new phone 2 weeks ago....

While anecdotal, my family, friends, and co-workers have consistently seen them fail due to an unrecoverable software issue within 2-3 years. Extended support means very little when one expects failure within current support. Providing that support is cheap marketing.

I got mine around release, which means it's 3 years 2 months, no issues so far.
- Coincidentally, that's the almost exactly the longest life we had in our family. Then, one day my wife performed an update which immediately killed the screen. My Pixel failure was far more frustrating: After a system update I learned that if the screen wasn't clean enough on post-update reboot, Google disabled multi-touch forever.
  Consider that an S23 FE (one model behind the flagship and with lesser CPU) is 70-75% the cost of a Pixel 9. The only differences that most users would notice is: The Samsung has a telephoto and Google an ultrawide; The Samsung won't unexpectedly die due to a software issue.
My two year old Pixel 7 still feels like on day 1, and before that my Galaxy S8 worked flawlessly for 4 years (I just broke the display but it still worked fine when I replaced it with the pixel)
- My wife and I'd Pixels were rock solid until one day a Google update came along and killed them with an unrecoverable loss of critical functionality. The only way I'd recommend one of these is if one heavily values having the newest thing for cheap, or for the wide angle camera.

I bought the Pixel 7 Pro and omg it was hot garbage, they had an unresolved bug open for like 3 months that caused scrolling to basically work only sometimes. It was impossible to use I had to return it within a week. Worse phone buy I've had in ~15 years.

My Pixel 6's batterie is already pretty weak :/

Replace the battery :)
- Here's some BS. My phone's battery replacement cost $220. ($100 for battery, and $120 to be serviced) That was the same price as buying a refurbished version of the upgrade.
  I missed the days of just replacing the battery with a screwdriver.
same. How long can we still use the device if we just never unplug from charger? Legit curious, seems weird to replace battery for a backup phone, but storage is storage