Stability on Pixel 8/8a vs. Stock

bigbigbox

Just broke my pixel 5 and looking at new options. Really considering Pixel 8 but have been hearing a lot of anecdotes of display stuttering in third party apps, inconsistent battery experiences, and other miscellaneous and inconsistent bugs, especially on Android 14 (apparently Google might be promising a fix in 15 to the first issue, but battery life across the tensor phones always seems to be contentious).

However, I know that some of the Pixel problems, like the storage bug a few months back, didn't affect GrapheneOS so I was wondering, how has everyone's experience been on GrapheneOS with Pixel 8 or with the experimental 8a release? If anyone used stock before switching, did your general everyday experience in regards to the os experience improve? Is it possible these bugs are just in the pixel os skin and not in AOSP and its forks, or is the hardware just lacking?

fid02

bigbigbox I've had a Pixel 8 with GrapheneOS for at least three months, and haven't experienced any stuttering or poor battery life. I don't have it set to 120Hz but haven't heard of issues with that. Haven't experienced missed calls, perhaps there are previous forum threads on that? I almost never receive traditional calls anyway.

raven

I use the Pixel 8 Pro since it's release and I haven't experienced any display shuttering, battery inconsistency or other things. I use GrapheneOS since 2 months now and it is fantastic. It even improved battery life a little bit over the stock OS. I can only recommend it and things like the camera and so on work exactly like on the stock OS.

evalda

I haven't used a Pixel 8a so can't speak about it but both Pixel 8 Pro and Pixel 8 are excellent devices with zero issues in my experience daily driving them since they were out. In fact, Pixel 8 Pro is the best device I used among all models starting with Pixel 3. Highly recommended.

Pixel 9 is coming out this year which could be a strong contender, but if you need a new phone now, Pixel 8 Pro or Pixel 8 are your best bets.

All of this applies to using GOS on devices of cause. I haven't used stock Pixel OS for many years.

freezet

Had no hardware or software bugs, Stock is obv only better in terms of 100% app compatibility, but in my case I dont even have problems with that , considering I dont use GPS. It all depends on the apps you want to use. I would also say that battery life is better then on stock, however I did not measure it alot. A downside for me is only the inconsistent message delivery with apps like Telegram and Whatsapp, but then again they were made for GSP which I dont want to install. Device: Pixel 8

raven

freezet I would say that app compatibility is almost 100% except some apps that heavily depend on the Play integrity API. Until now I haven't found any app that do so including banking apps.

The message delivery works also very well on my side.

bigbigbox

For anyone's who's replied (or not) what about missed calls? I heard that can also be a problem with the pixel 8 on Android 14?

raven

bigbigbox I heard about it but until now it didn't happen on my side.

razorsedge

On Pixel 8a, wifi-calling does not work.

de0u

razorsedge On Pixel 8a, wifi-calling does not work.

Because Google did something strange when releasing the 8a (see official GrapheneOS post), the 8a is currently "prerelease". It may well settle down in early June.

edwin-jones

I'm running a pixel 8a on the pre release gOS, runs fine but trying to use display port alt mode seems to trigger reboots/crashes. Gaming perf is lower than expected but I think that will be fixed by the June update from what I've read. Really smooth and easy to use in all other regards.

Vagabond8630

If you're curious about battery life on stock vs. GOS, I ran a 2-month long comparative analysis on how each OS performs on Pixel 8, which is available here.

My conclusion was that with my setup, which uses a single owner account profile that uses Shelter to compartmentalize using a separate work profile within the owner account profile that has sandboxed Google Play Services installed in both profiles, GOS gets slightly worse battery life than I did on stock.

Knowledgeable users have noted that I'm getting worse battery life on GOS because I have two instances of GmsCompat running at all times and have hypothesized that only having one instance of GmsCompat would give me better battery life compared to stock.

Of note, even with this relatively worse battery life, I am still able to get more than 9 hours of SOT (screen on-time) on GOS, which is phenomenal battery life.

I haven't been able to test out that hypothesis as my compartmentalization needs are best met by my current setup, but I wouldn't let your concerns about battery life keep you from getting a P8 to use GOS.

For your other concerns, I have not had any display stuttering or any other major issues when using my P8. The one issue I had is that the navigation bar occasionally gets stuck at the side, and I've seen this happen on both stock and on GOS. But it's rare (maybe once a month or two), is purely cosmetic, and is easily fixed by a soft reset.

Blastoidea

I have had no such problems with my Pixel 8.