I have been using it as a secondary work phone for the past 6 months. It was purchased from a friend, who had in turn purchased it as a manufacturer refurbished device in the US last year. It supports a single physical SIM that works with all operators (eSIM is disabled) and the bootloader is also permanently locked.
The battery however is apparently not touched during the refurbishing process, so after 3-4 months of usage, the original battery swelled up and damaged the back panel. I changed both of them with good quality replacement parts in February, so the back panel is “whiter” than the sides.
I would classify the phone’s condition as good. The OLED screen works great, and I have included a white-screen image to indicate that it has no burn-in issue of any kind. It has a few micro scratches which are visible with the screen off in direct sunlight. The back panel as I said is new and the phone frame has a couple of minor scratches at the corners, but no dents.
The fingerprint sensor works great, and the replacement panel also supports wireless charging. The replacement battery provides good backup. The battery apps on Android are unreliable as in some charge sessions the estimated battery capacity exceeds the design capacity, but for the 5 “long” measurements done over the past month, which have to be done with battery percentage at 15% or below, the health is displayed at 95% of the design capacity. More stats are attached to the post.
The Pixel 3 received its [last Android 12 update in June 2022](’
Pixel 3 and 3 XL unexpectedly get new update - 9to5Google’
) which added VoLTE roaming support. I have also attached some sample camera images, mostly to confirm that they work fine. For more details, you can c[heck the DXOMARK review](’
Updated: Google Pixel 3 camera review - DXOMARK’
). Lastly, will include a cheap case that was there to just prevent scratches.
Extra information:
The last Pixel 3 update (C2) also triggered the [common for Pixel “corrupt phone” message](’
). It is mostly displayed when the bootloader is unlocked which is not possible on this phone, so it has been triggered incorrectly. The only real way to fix this is through flashing a factory image which is unfortunately not possible with a locked bootloader. I have tried all other available options for locked bootloaders and sadly it has no impact. Official Pixel support asks the phone to be sent to B2X to get rid of the message, which is illogical.
The only inconvenience in this case is that you will have to press the power button to skip the message, and then it will take a few additional seconds to perform a system check on every boot. It does not in any way impact any functionality once the phone is switched on.
I recently spent nearly 1.5k on this for the replacement parts, so my take is that the price is right considering the additional expense that makes the phone more usable now than when I had purchased it.
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