Hello, I want to say i'm a real person and this is a real review. This was my first order of anything refurbished and thankfully it went well, although with some issues.
I suggest shooting a video of when you open the package, where you show the condition it's in and whether it works or not, so you have undeniable proof if there's any problems.
I looked into the shop, checked Google reviews and physical location, made sure they were doing this for many years, and they also had many other pixel phones (what I ordered) for sale.
The phone I received was flawless, except one dent on the main camera frame. It came with a privacy screen protector and a camera lens protector already installed. The camera lens protector was covering up the dent, uses thick adhesive leaving a gap from the phone, and it has a microphone hole. This means dust and debris can get in from the microphone hole and slowly block the camera lens. I've already ordered a replacement camera lens protector.
What was even worse is they used a privacy screen protector which blocked the fingerprint sensor, and had a round tint around the front camera, making the camera look misaligned in the screen cutout, and it also made the screen look blurry and low resolution. All of the above combined with the fact that the screen has a somewhat warm/yellowish hue and did not display true white, I thought they had replaced it with a cheap aftermarket screen.
I had to enable developer settings, and download a hardware diagnostics app through which I was able to do detective work and figure out that my screen was an original, either the one the phone came with from the factory, or an original replacement (possibly of second grade quality, hence the warmer hue).
After finding out the screen was original, I removed the screen protector and the hue was somewhat better, the blurriness was gone, and the fingerprint sensor worked.
The pixel 8 pro I got came from Japan, which means I can never turn off the camera shutter sound, and many European countries, mine included, are not available to set as the phone's location. I used Germany as the phone's location. Also the languages available for the Google assistant / Gemini are mainly Asian languages, but English was also available and it still understands and responds in my language.
Battery was tested with the app AccuBattery, and it is at an estimated 96-98% health. This is very good considering I didn't opt for the phone to have a new battery, I rolled the dice with the reasoning that the original factory battery should be better long term than an aftermarket replacement.
All in all, it seems like this was a good deal.
To the refurbisher, the gesture of applying camera and screen protectors is very much appreciated, but please stop using these terrible "privacy" types and just go for some regular clear glass ones.
