Getting to Know the Pixel Stand for your Pixel 3 XL

One of the more convenient additions to the Pixel 3 XL smartphone this year was the support for wireless charging. Google embraced the new tech with a Pixel Stand accessory that can charge this smartphone easier than ever, while providing easy access to Google Assistant and even acting as a photo frame, with shortcuts appearing on the Always On display while the phone charges.

You probably know that your Pixel 3 XL and its Pixel 3 brother are the first handsets of the series to support wireless charging, but some claim that there are plenty of great charging stands to choose from. I don’t disagree with them on that. I know that the Pixel Stand is quite expensive, coming in at $79 and if you normally want one wireless charger for all their devices, the Pixel Stand won’t help you there either.

Google has made it clear that while the Stand offers a proprietary charging mode that powers Pixel 3 XL exclusively up to 10W, it only supports 5W wireless charging for any other Qi-compatible device. That means that if you’ve got multiple phones or devices that you’d like to fast charge, you’ll need no less than two chargers: one that can fast charge your Pixel handset, as well as another that will work with everything else.

This seems like a compromise for some users, but in exchange, you get a sleek design, a modern Google product and Google’s own Pixel Stand that is specialized for the new Pixels. Even more, you also get a configurable set of features that the phone can cycle through, showing everything from a rotation of your Google Photos albums, to a basic time and date display or even a more advanced Google Assistant feed revealing pertinent info about your day.

While it is docked, your device will also use a different alarm clock style that slowly brightens the display ahead of the alarm time to hopefully wake you up much more gently than any usual blaring alarm. Don’t tell me that I haven’t made you at least a bit curious! Even the idea of Google Photos galleries and alarms that get gradually warmer and brighter to simulate sunlight seems exciting, so don’t lie to yourself!

Bottom line, the Pixel Stand is pricey, but its unique features make it worth considering the $79 price, don’t you think?