I remember holding the Google Pixel 6 Pro for the first time in my hands and thinking, this is it. This is the phone that’s gonna change my life. From an amateur mobile photographer to an almost-not-amateur mobile photographer, this phone was supposed to be the best camera phone in the world.

And it was.

Until I lost it.

Now, this is no memoir. Or maybe it is. A phone that forced me to look around in search of picturesque moments made me realize the importance, or rather, the impermanence of beauty. And how, at times, that beauty needs to be encased. Some will argue that one’s eyes are enough, but I’ll argue that I have ADHD. Remembering special moments is quite a task unless I’m reminded of them.

So I clicked. I clicked away until I could click no more.

Let’s talk about the Pixel 6 Pro.

Everyone knows the camera is the selling point of the phone. When you hear Pixel, you either think about an extremely tiny dot of colour on a screen, or you think of the phone. And if you think about the phone, you think about the camera. That’s exactly why I got the Pixel 6 Pro.

Well, for the most part.

I knew the camera of the first actual Google flagship wasn’t going to disappoint - at all. The Tensor chip looked quite promising on paper. I knew the phone was massive, but I didn’t want to compromise on the sweet, sweet 120Hz display (Spoiler alert, it was worth it) and the 4x telephoto lens. Granted, the 12 gigs of RAM was too much of an overkill, but it came with the package. And I hate complaining.

Which is why the Pixel 6 Pro was a perfect fit for me.

The display was beautiful. Gorgeous. Drained a lot of battery though, that’s for sure. Plus I couldn’t downscale the resolution to FHD at all (although I think they’re fixing it in an upcoming update, well, too late). That being said, scrolling on the phone was an absolute delight. The Quad HD display combined with the high refresh rate forced a lot of people to ask me what my phone was. A lot of people were like, “Hey, is that the latest Samsung?” to which I usually replied, “Nah, it’s the latest Google”. Fun times.

The phone had its fair share of problems, but as I said, I hate complaining. I hate the amount of energy that goes into it. Bugs. The number of bugs in the phone was IMMENSE. I discovered a new one every second week. The most annoying ones, however, were with Instagram. However, as I said, the phone served a far better purpose than I could ask of it.

Multitasking was pretty fantastic. With 12 gigs of RAM, I could have 15 applications open (and well, risk losing my battery, but that’s not the point). The point is, it was all pretty smooth. Another neat little feature I would like to mention is Google Assistant. Now every Android device has it, but as you might’ve guessed, it’s a little special on the Pixel. I could change music while the music was playing on the loudspeakers. I had an S10 before that, and I could never do it, so yeah, I loved it. I was a big fan.

That was before I lost it. The phone, not my mind.

Let’s talk about the camera. I’ve never, ever seen a device that preserves detail like the Pixel. I would take a picture using the telephoto lens and then forget about what lens I took it from. I would take pictures of landscapes and portraits of statues. Shots of clouds and snaps in the dark. I was snapping all day long. I had the phone for nearly four months, but I captured close to 4000 pictures. Some of my favourite pictures ever.