I keep two phones, particularly when I travel abroad. I don’t want my main phone to break and then find myself scrambling to buy a new one in a foreign country. So I travel with two.
For the last couple of years, my main phone has been a Pixel 9 Pro and my backup has been a Pixel 7a. I like the 7a’s form factor. It runs smaller than most flagship models with a thinner camera bar, and the battery life beats my old Pixel 3 by a lot. Phones slow down with constant software updates, the same way an aging PC does, so I traded in the Pixel 3 for the 9 Pro. That was my first Pro model. I usually skip the Pro line because they tend to be too large, but the 9 Pro is close enough to the 7a’s footprint that I decided to pull the trigger.
I skipped the Pixel 10 series entirely because it didn’t offer enough of a hardware upgrade over the 9 series to justify the price. I kept the 7a instead of moving to the 10a for the same reason. But wait long enough and the difference between the hardware on your old phone and the new ones finally makes a difference, especially in the AI age when hardware matters to run the models. Enter the Google Pixel 11 series. As is well known with Google, all the pre-launch rumors about the phones’ hardware turned out to be true, and it was a good enough upgrade for my 9 Pro.
So I checked the trade-in offer. Google gave me $500 instantly for the 9 Pro, plus an additional $321.81 in Google Store credit after the new phone ships. The store credit got me thinking about how to spend it. It’s too much for a just a phone case and I don’t like the cases Google sells anyway. I also already own two sets of Pixel Buds that I don’t use that often and still work fine.
That’s when I wondered if the store credit was large enough to justify replacing the 7a too. I got my calculator out and got to figurin’. A Pixel 11 at $899 comes down to $729 after the $170 trade-in credit for the 7a, and that trade-in credit isn’t instant but arrives once Google receives the old phone. Buying the Pixel 11 also earns another $159.54 in store credit, which is close enough to cover a Fitbit Air and a case for the Pixel 11. I’m interested in the Fitbit Air to track metrics on workouts and hikes, and since the 11 is my backup phone I can deal with the case, even though I don’t love the cases on the Google Store.
Once I added it all up, Google had effectively handed me a buy one, get one free deal on two phones and thrown in a couple of accessories to boot! Here’s the breakdown.
| Item | Full price | With trades and credits |
|---|---|---|
| Pixel 11 Pro | $1,219.00 | $719.00 |
| Pixel 11 | $899.00 | $729.00 |
| Fitbit Air | $99.99 | $99.99 |
| Pixel 11 case | $64.99 | $64.99 |
| Tax | $106.98 | $106.98 |
| Store credit (Pixel 11 Pro purchase) | — | -$321.81 |
| Store credit (Pixel 11 purchase) | — | -$159.54 |
| Total | $2,398.96 | $1,238.61 |
$1,238.61 comes out to almost exactly half the cost of the entire package with no discounts. If you’re a Pixel user and want to upgrade, Google makes it super enticing to separate you from your money.
I have to think Google can’t be making all that much, if anything, off my purchases. They must be desperate to keep people on the upgrade cycle. That makes me think the Pixel line of phones is not long for this world. I’ll continue to enjoy using them and the discounts while it lasts.
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