The two-and-a-bit year cadence of getting new phones continues! My previous phone, the HTC U11+, has performed admirably over the past two years, and for the most part, still is. It's been a great phone, especially for the multi-day hospital stays I've had over the past few years.

However, as seems to be the pattern with my phones, at the two-year mark little things start to creep in. With the U11+, its screen would sometimes show weird hues after touching it, and also leave horizontal lines that would take a few seconds to disappear. Very distracting.

Although I've been eligible to purchase a new phone via work for the past 18 months, no phone has really caught my eye in terms of features vs price.

Here were my criteria for a phone this time around:

• Good ~6 inch screen (didn't need to be fantastic or class-leading)
• Decent camera (same as above)
• Above average battery life
• Some kind of fingerprint reader for authentication; not just face unlock.
• IP68 water/dust resistance
• Wireless charging
• 5G would be a bonus, but not required
• Ideally less than AU$1000

I didn't think those requirements were too unreasonable, but a combination of those things seemed to result in matching only $1300+ flagship phones that I couldn't justify the cost for.

That was until the Google Pixel 5 was announced.

The Pixel 5 is pretty much my type of phone. Other than camera, it doesn't lead in anything. But it's good in everything, and at a price that I can live with.

It has almost exactly the same screen size as my last phone, but because there's almost no bezel around the screen, it's physically a lot smaller. But I do kinda wish it was a tiny bit bigger.

I'm not fussed at all about the non-flagship SOC in it. I don't play games or do anything intensive, so the Snapdragon 765G is plenty for my needs. Although it's early days, the battery life seems to be fantastic.

This is my first direct Google phone since I replaced my Nexus 5 with the Sony Z5. Although the Nexus 5 started off well, its latter life was disappointing with the software bugs that started occurring. Fingers crossed this phone has some better longevity. 🤞