I don’t know how to describe Google’s green, or “Pistachio” color, for the base Pixel 11. It makes me feel some type of way, and photos don’t do it justice.
Google has found a niche with its design philosophy, and it shows up in Android with Material 3 Expressive, but also in hardware. It’s nothing new, and the Pixel has shown its true colors for generations with some amazing tones throughout the series. Sometimes, there’s an outlier, though.
Pistachio is a Pixel 11 exclusive. The Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL both come in a green color called Olive. The green Pixel 11 Pro looks great, while the Pixel 11’s Pistachio option just looks meh.
Something about it is just too muted, like the saturation was sucked out of it. It doesn’t look like Pistachio – it looks like old avocado. That’s all I can see now. If you slapped a brown Qi2 grip on the back, you’d have the full fruit.
I prefer the matte side rails the Pixel 11 has over the Pro model, as much as I’m giving it trouble. The gold-like glossy sides play well with Olive, but the shiny silver on the Frost version looks a bit generic. The matte Obsidian, on the other hand, is an undisputable win.
What drives the Pixel 11’s Pistachio color choice into this territory for me is my opinion that the matching case actually looks good. It doesn’t look as dark or muted, and has a nice bright lining on the inside. If the phone were the color of the case, it might look a little different.
But to each their own. My hands-on time with the new devices just cemented the sentiment that I don’t know where I stand on Google’s weirdest color. It’s much too dark to be true pistachio, but I’m not even sure if I’d like the richer green of a color that emulates the food it’s based on.
Hibiscus, Frost, and Obsidian are other options next to the Pixel 11 in Pistachio. All four are available starting today for pre-order from Google.
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