Under plurality voting, third parties are objectively bad for the winning chances of whatever party they pull more voters from (and/or bad for whatever major party you personally would vote for, if you personally vote third party). That might be what some people meant by them being “bad”, even though they prefer one of those major parties to win (and cheer on anything that makes the other party less likely to win). Although it’s certainly possible that some people just think they are bad in general. People do have different opinions, after all.
The real question is, are they fixing the faulty proximity sensor? I’m definitely never buying a pixel again until they take care of that.
Not to mention that I’m not buying any with a selfie cam marring the screen shape, but that criticism applies to almost all phones.