[HN Gopher] Google Pixel 9 Pro
___________________________________________________________________
Google Pixel 9 Pro
Author : ksec
Score : 341 points
Date : 2024-08-13 17:08 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (store.google.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (store.google.com)
| throw0101b wrote:
| What's the policy on the length of security updates on recent
| Google-branded phones these days?
| MostlyStable wrote:
| 7 years, until 2031[0]
|
| [0]https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4457705?hl=en#zippy=
| ...
| ortusdux wrote:
| "Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, and Pixel 9 Pro XL will receive updates
| for 7 years from when the device first became available on the
| Google Store in the US. See g.co/pixel/updates for more
| information."
| idle_zealot wrote:
| 7 years for the 8 (of full OS updates). I'd be surprised if
| it's less for the 9.
|
| https://store.google.com/intl/en/ideas/articles/newest-pixel...
| Glant wrote:
| 7 years from release date for this and last generation.
| nope1000 wrote:
| 7 years, also Android version updates:
|
| https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en#z...
| the_duke wrote:
| In June 2025 new EU regulation will come into effect, mandating
| at least 5 years of OS updates, starting when the model is
| *removed from the market* aka the last unit is sold.
|
| So in practice that'll mean 7+ years.
|
| Note that Apple and Google made a big deal out of extending
| their upgrade timelines, without mentioning that they actually
| have to ... if they want to keep selling in the EU.
| mongol wrote:
| Wow, wish I knew that last time I purchased my phone. I chose
| Samsung partly due to this promise.
| orra wrote:
| > Note that Apple and Google made a big deal about how they
| are extending their upgrade timelines, without mentioning
| that they actually have to
|
| This is unsurprising, but deceptive and borderline illegal.
| "Presenting rights given to consumers in law as a distinctive
| feature of the trader's offer" is an Unfair Commercial
| Practice.
| bloggie wrote:
| "Unlock Gemini Advanced for a year on us ($239 value)"
|
| Who thinks they are booking phone sales as AI revenue to juice
| the numbers?
| renewiltord wrote:
| It's total trash AI. I keep forgetting to unsubscribe. Can't do
| anything.
| singhrac wrote:
| I mostly agree, but partially because I can't tell (even
| though I'm paying $20/month) what tier of Gemini I am
| getting. I know most people won't care, but because they
| won't tell me, I will assume I'm getting Gemini Flash from 6
| months ago, and I'm not paying $20/month for that. I'm sure
| if they were honest about the model people wouldn't pay for
| it.
|
| They're making the mistake of optimizing for general case
| users (who don't care about model version) when they need to
| attract power users so that they can find product-market fit.
| lagniappe wrote:
| 20 bucks a month for Gemini is bonkers.
| dudus wrote:
| The 20 bucks a month is actually for 2TB of storage.
| Gemini advanced is just a plus.
|
| https://one.google.com/about/plans
| jsheard wrote:
| There's a vanilla 2TB plan for $10/month, the plan with
| 2TB _and_ Gemini is $20 /month. You could say that Gemini
| is $10/month then, but if you don't actually need 2TB or
| the other benefits then you're effectively paying
| $20/month because you can't unbundle Gemini from
| everything else.
| fsckboy wrote:
| when an important fact like this is added to a subthread,
| i wish all the thread participants would come back and
| edit their comments to reflect it
| bergie wrote:
| 12EUR per month here. 10EUR/month for the regular 2TB
| Google One plan, 22EUR/month for the same but with a
| chatbot. I wonder who falls for that.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I have Gemini Advanced but I can't tell which model it is,
| yeah. Same problem. Whatever it is, it's useless. GPT-2
| level. Can't do anything reasonable.
|
| Claude 3.5 Sonnet and ChatGPT-4o are roughly the same with
| the former pipping it for me and then out there is this
| shitty Google product that is worse than Llama-3 running on
| my own laptop. Even Llama-3 is better at remembering what's
| going on.
|
| Fortunately, this time I managed to look it up and I have
| it for free because I have Google One 5TB, apparently. And
| there's no way to spend more money so that's what I have.
| It's so bad that when Claude and ChatGPT run out of
| messages for me I just use local Llama rather than use
| Gemini. Atrocious product.
| mda wrote:
| "it's useless. GPT-2 level" Really?
|
| In my experience they are at similar level for most
| tasks.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Yeah, in practice, for the tasks I set it. High
| hallucination rate. Low context window. Frequently
| refuses to act and suggests Googling. If the other guys
| didn't exist, it could be useful, but as it stands it's
| as useful as GPT-2 because neither of them hit the
| threshold of usefulness.
|
| I'm sure some benchmarks are decent but when Google
| finally shutters the chatbot I'll be glad because then I
| won't constantly be wondering if I'm paying for it.
|
| It's a shame because Google's AI features otherwise are
| incredible. Google Photos has fantastic facial
| recognition, and I can search it with descriptions of
| photos and it finds them. Their keyboard is pretty good.
| But Gemini Advanced is better off not existing. If it's
| the same team, I suppose they can't keep making hits. If
| it's a different team, then they're two orders of
| magnitude less capable.
| rvnx wrote:
| I used Gemini Pro API to sort my folders, and it
| misclassified some files, I asked why, and he said it was
| done to "promote diversity in my folders"
|
| ...
|
| This is very lame (and the sad part is that it's a real
| story).
| warkdarrior wrote:
| > Low context window.
|
| Gemini Advanced has 1M context window. If this is low, I
| am not sure anything else on the market will satisfy you.
| renewiltord wrote:
| It doesn't actually work. I pasted in a House Resolution
| and asked it a question and it immediately spazzed and
| asked me to Google. I used Claude and it just worked.
| That's the thing about Gemini: it has a lot of stats but
| it doesn't work. With Claude I could then ask it the
| section and look at the actual text. With Gemini it just
| doesn't do it at all.
|
| This feels a lot like when people would tell me how the
| HP laptop had more gigahertz and stuff and it would
| inevitably suck compared to a Mac.
| Squarex wrote:
| In my experience, the latest experimental model is a bit
| better than the latest Claude/ChatGPT at creativity, but
| a little worse at general reasoning. They're still mostly
| comparable and certainly of the same generation.
|
| Where it truly stands out is the 2M context window.
| That's game-changing for things like analyzing
| publications and books.
| losvedir wrote:
| I pay for Gemini Advanced and it's much better than
| GPT-2, I think. I often search the same thing between
| Gemini and GPT-4 and it's a toss up which is better (they
| each get questions right when the other gets it wrong,
| sometimes).
|
| But recently I asked Gemini "Bill Clinton is famous for
| his charisma and ability to talk with people. Did he ever
| share tips on how he does it?" and Gemini responded with
| some generic "can't talk about politics" answer, which
| was a real turn-off.
| kweingar wrote:
| > GPT-2 level
|
| You must not have ever used GPT-2 if you think it is
| comparable to any commonly used chatbot today
| varispeed wrote:
| How do you know if you are paying for it?
|
| I signed up, but I have no idea if I am being charged for it.
| Hope not.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Bottom left. Settings > Manage Subscription. It turns out I
| have it included till the end of the year because of the
| 5TB Google One sub
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41237943
| nomel wrote:
| The absolute confusion/pain in subscribing and
| unsubscribing is why I'll never consider a Google AI
| service in the future.
| lwhi wrote:
| So true.
|
| It feels like Google's marketing has gone full dark side.
|
| And it's lazy marketing. Nothing feels genuinely positive
| for the consumer.
|
| It's depressing.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| In the Google Pixel 2024 Keynote, one of the presenters, Dave
| Citron, had to try three times to get Gemini to perform the
| preapproved, practiced demonstration task - 33.3% success
| rate for something that Google KNOWS will work.
|
| see https://www.youtube.com/live/N_y2tP9of8A?t=1692
| canucker2016 wrote:
| At https://www.youtube.com/live/N_y2tP9of8A?t=4119 in the
| Google Pixel 2024 keynote, the generative AI in Magic
| Editor still produces wacky objects - a hot air balloon
| that looks deflated?! The gen AI did produce two decent-
| looking hot air balloons.
| 015a wrote:
| Most of the demo fails they had during today's keynote felt
| more like beta supporting software and bad network kinds of
| failures. The only failure I saw that felt more like a
| generative AI-level failure was one of the hot air balloon
| image gens they tried which generated a circle of garbage
| in the sky; which was one variation presented among five or
| six which the AI spat out in seconds.
| Keyframe wrote:
| at this stage, I'd be happy with google assistant "only"
| understanding what I'd like to play on youtube (+music)
| while driving. Far-fetched dream would be to understand
| streets I'd like to navigate to via google maps (not US,
| not english). Barrier is so low compared to rest.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| and are they booking AI search as cloud revenue?
| eitally wrote:
| No, absolutely not. The only part of this that would be Cloud
| revenue would be model usage exposed via Vertex.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| That's what I meant. Google search expenses become Google
| cloud revenues.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| Probably. And we're probably going to see more of that later
| with other companies.
| petre wrote:
| Phone with scuba glasses and the woke AI. In fact it looks like
| Bender from Futurama, only with a nondescript personality.
| Thanx but no. No need for an AI to lecture me or avoid
| questions because it thinks it might remotely offend a
| hypothetic alien civilization.
|
| Can't stand the iPhone either. At least it has a good camera
| and audio, but most of the apps are either junk or you have to
| pay for Apple rent seeking. A lot of shady Chinese apps. I
| spent hours trying to find a decent calculator like the stock
| one on Android. And the on screen keyboard is outright
| annoying. Couldn't turn off haptics either.
|
| So I'm still using my Pixel 4a until it dies. The iPhone is
| garthering dust on my nightstand.
| panarky wrote:
| Since there's no public reporting of AI revenue, what would be
| the point of artificially inflating it?
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Some VP of AI wants to become an SVP? And some marketing
| director on phones wants a "SAVE $250" sticker on all the new
| phones and is happy to play along?
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| No, the CEO wants to present progress in "AI" (TM) growth
| within the company to shareholders
| LegitShady wrote:
| Internal KPIs
| royal__ wrote:
| Looks like an iPhone...one of the things I like about the other
| pixels is the curved bezels..
| smokeyfish wrote:
| It looks like Bender.
| sdoering wrote:
| Damn you nailed it. Now I can't unsee it.
| davidw wrote:
| I came here to write the same thing. It absolutely does.
| geek_at wrote:
| I have heard this for years. Not much you can do with a
| rectangle that's basically just a screen in front.
|
| It's more about the software than anything. Maybe the camera
| too
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| I submit the HTC 10 as an example of a smartphone that did
| _not_ look like an iPhone but had its own sleek design
| language:
|
| https://dev.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/s9wsHkNaq6sKCSAzKvfZKo.jpg
| vel0city wrote:
| I mean, the back didn't look a lot like an iPhone, but look
| at the front in white and compare that to an iPhone 4 in
| white.
| spankalee wrote:
| That's kind of ugly though, IMO. I'd rather have a solid
| back.
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| Nah, it just looks ugly and too sterile. Nothing brave, just
| another double palm sized phone. A girl who tries very hard to
| look cool, but the bridge on her head just ruins the overall
| looks.
|
| Maybe ask LG to make a cool looking phone. They have created a
| lot of brave designs.
| katzinsky wrote:
| The only thing that would make a new phone interesting is Linux
| support.
|
| Otherwise email works, the web works, mms works, and the camera,
| screen, and RAM, on phones ten years ago was already way more
| than you need.
|
| The phone specific software barely justifies maintaining a phone
| (and doesn't for me so I don't even own a modern smartphone.)
| There's certainly nothing to justify upgrading it.
| mnmalst wrote:
| Still using my pixel 4a. I refuse to discontinue a perfectly
| good phone just because the manufacturer decides it's not
| supported anymore. Hopefully the EU does something about
| planned obsolesce one day.
| nasdaq-txn wrote:
| You're using a device that hasn't received security updates
| in a year to stick it to Google?
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| LineageOS for the 4a was last updated on 8/8/24:
|
| https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/sunfish/
|
| https://download.lineageos.org/devices/sunfish/builds
| zaptrem wrote:
| Would you pay for continued software support? IIRC Windows
| upgrades were $100-200 back in the day.
|
| More helpful answer: I think Graphene OS still has security
| updates for your model (assuming Google doesn't?)
| bergie wrote:
| EU actually did that:
|
| > These regulations will empower independent repairers and
| end-users by ensuring access to spare parts and to the
| information necessary to repair for at least 7 years after
| the end of the distribution of a product in the market.
| Additionally, manufacturers will have to make compatible
| software updates available for at least 5 years.
|
| https://repair.eu/news/new-eu-rules-smartphones-and-
| tablets-...
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Picture taking and video recording have gotten unbelievably
| better over the past decade. They were not remotely sufficient
| for many use cases ten years ago and even now there's still
| plenty of room left for improvement.
| katzinsky wrote:
| idk I was happy with whatever the iPhone 3gs did.
|
| Yeah there's some really amazing stuff the new phone can do
| but I honestly don't care. If I need a piece of correctly
| specked camera equipment I'd probably buy a dedicated device
| with proper cooling and a removable memory card.
| adamc wrote:
| Not all of us care. I barely use the camera on my phone.
| fsflover wrote:
| > The only thing that would make a new phone interesting is
| Linux support.
|
| Looks like you may be interested in Pinephone or Librem 5.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Call summary is such a good feature. How many times has your wife
| snapped her fingers for you to jot something down when she's on
| the phone with the pediatrician? you go crazy looking for a pen
| or something
|
| This is why I love my pixel. They build stuff that affects my
| life day to day. My biggest vote of confidence: since buying my
| wife a pixel, I've had zero tech support requests. it really just
| works.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| Literally never? Do you live in a sitcom?
| urda wrote:
| Never because clear communication and good lines of
| understanding make a positive and stable relationship?
|
| Snapping really? Your comment literally reads like a classic "I
| hate my wife" boomer meme and it comes off as kind of gross.
| vundercind wrote:
| None of the post involved a lack of clear lines of
| communication. Sometimes someone on a call could use help
| making a note and it can be tricky to find pen and paper.
| Communicating better with your spouse won't make the kids put
| the kitchen pen back where it goes or make it easier to both
| listen and hunt for things at the same time.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| you are projecting something gross on a total stranger
| online. check yourself.
| urda wrote:
| You don't snap at waiters, you don't snap at your spouse or
| partner. If you think that's "projecting" you have bigger
| issues and internal-unresolved-trauma my friend. I think
| you need to follow your own advice here: Check yourself
| immediately.
|
| Spouses and partners treat each other with respect, and no
| that doesn't involve snapping.
| valicord wrote:
| You do when you're on the phone and need to attract
| attention of someone nearby. I guess waving a hand in
| front of their face also works...
| owlninja wrote:
| Seems like a pretty common gesture when you are on the
| phone, someone is talking to you on the other end, and
| you want to get another person's attention in the room
| who is not looking at you. You are reading way too much
| into it.
| jimcsharp wrote:
| I can't record calls but Google can? Gross.
| mcphage wrote:
| > you go crazy looking for a pen or something
|
| When I was a kid, my mom would keep a cup of dead pens next to
| the phone just to annoy my father and I when we went looking
| for a pen :-)
| xlbuttplug2 wrote:
| According to the keynote, it notifies the other party that
| you're using it, which makes sense, but also makes things
| awkward.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Is there a new camera system? As I recall the physical hardware
| of Pixel cameras have not changed in years.
| Grazester wrote:
| That was true up until the Pixel 7 or something.
| ianburrell wrote:
| It was Pixel 6 that made a big jump in quality. From 8 MP in
| Pixel 5 to 50 MP in Pixel 6. They also added ultrawide and
| telephoto on Pro. They have a big jump in sensor size to
| larger than most compacts. The Pixel 8 has even big sensor.
| The big sensor is the reason for the camera hump on the back.
| xd1936 wrote:
| They said they've rewritten the HDR+ image processing pipeline
| from scratch for the first time in their live event. Not sure
| about the Pixel 9 hardware... I think the Pixel 8 was the first
| new sensor in a while though.
| izacus wrote:
| The sensors are supposed to be new (except for the fold)
| spankalee wrote:
| The front camera is a big upgrade: 10.5 MP to 42 MP from the 8
| Pro to 9 Pro.
|
| The rear wide camera looks the same, but the rear ultrawide
| seems like it has a small upgrade. Better aperture at least.
| DataDive wrote:
| > The front camera is a big upgrade: 10.5 MP to 42 MP from
| the 8 Pro to 9 Pro.
|
| 42MP???
|
| Wouldn't that just rapidly fill up the storage for most of
| their users
|
| with little if any other tangible benefit ... maybe that is
| part of the plan :-) ... the profit
| atrus wrote:
| Front Camera though, so mostly for video chats.
| bhhaskin wrote:
| I don't want AI on my phone, so will pass on this one.
| katzinsky wrote:
| It would be nice to be able to run llama.cpp on my phone but if
| I had the choice between that and a root shell and c compiler
| I'd definitely take the shell.
| ValleZ wrote:
| Private AI app in play store wraps llama.cpp
| katzinsky wrote:
| Heh I guess that's a good point. All I have is a ten year
| old iPhone just to run Cisco DUO for work and there seems
| to be no way to run llama.cpp on it even with a very small
| model.
|
| Occasionally I'll use i.sh to ssh into a decent computer
| but it would be nice to be able to just run normal software
| on it.
| sigmar wrote:
| Do you think the inclusion of AI is some new departure? Google
| has declared itself as "AI-first" for the past 8 years[1].
| There's been neural cores included in every Pixel since the
| Pixel 4.
|
| [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/sundar-pichai-ai-first-
| world...
| Rastonbury wrote:
| The previous camera bulge was questionable but this one looks
| horrendous
| blackfawn wrote:
| Cases have helped on past pixels but agreed, this one looks
| pretty terrible!
| urda wrote:
| It's a really ugly phone, and for sure it's a combination of
| Google playing "catch up" but not wanting to invest in
| Industrial Design like Apple.
| mcphage wrote:
| Is it? Maybe I've spent too long using iPhones--I look at
| that, and think "yep, that's a phone". It looks very vanilla.
| TwentyPosts wrote:
| I think the much rounder corners, as well as the round camera
| bulge look terrible. These were significantly better in the
| previous iterations.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| All camera bulges are a poor design. Just make the battery
| thicker. Either way people are throwing a case on to make the
| back straight again.
| vundercind wrote:
| I think the bulges are because everyone's using a case
| anyway, so they may as well bump out. Unless someone's doing
| the "I care so little about protecting several hundred
| dollars that I use an expensive phone without a case" thing.
| vel0city wrote:
| I never use cases and I haven't had a phone break from
| physical damage in over a decade. Phones these days are
| pretty dang durable. I really don't want a giant brick in
| my pocket.
| layer8 wrote:
| I never used a case and know a number of other people who
| don't.
| kingofthehill98 wrote:
| I never used a case in my life, owned like 6 phones since
| my first Galaxy back in 2012. Much rather deal with a few
| scratches than touching some cheap case instead of the
| premium metal/glass.
|
| My reason is that I never sell phones anyway, after 2 years
| I get a new one and give the old one to a cousin or
| something like that.
| Kiro wrote:
| It's not about selling them. It's about protecting it
| when you drop it etc.
| fullstop wrote:
| Have you held a Pixel 7 Pro? They are _way_ too smooth
| without a case. It's like trying to hold a wet bar of
| soap.
| gtirloni wrote:
| I have dry hands and can't hold my Galaxy S23+ with glass
| back at all. It slips out of my hand all the time. No way
| I can use without a case. It'd break on the first day.
| aembleton wrote:
| I have a leather case for my Pixel 7 [1]. Much better
| feel in the hand.
|
| 1. https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1303285181/leather-
| google-pi...
| deelowe wrote:
| I used to say the same thing, then one day I tripped and
| shattered my phone. It was nothing I did that caused it.
| Just a small bit of uneven pavement was enough to ruin
| the whole device.
| munificent wrote:
| I just pay the extra $30 or whatever for accident
| protection. That's about the same price as a case and
| accomplishes the same goal. I think of it as a zero-ounce
| case.
| lxgr wrote:
| Where do you get $30 accident protection for the lifetime
| of a phone? I've looked into Apple Care for this in the
| past, and it was about 10 times that for two years, with
| a deductible for broken screens.
| munificent wrote:
| I honestly don't remember how much it was when I got my
| last phone, but I don't remember thinking it was
| particularly expensive. I'm an Android user.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I've never used a case and never will. It's not that hard
| to not drop your phone, and unless you get a heavy duty
| case (like an OtterBox) they aren't adding much protection
| anyways. It's not worth the added expense, ugly look, and
| crappy plastic texture.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| iPhone bumps have been so egregiously large that they don't
| lay flat even with a case for a few years now.
|
| You've got to specifically look for one that has raised
| corners or something to compensate.
| partdavid wrote:
| My wallet case is indispensable (to me). In other words,
| I'd rather use the "space" of the camera's bump-out for my
| own purposes (ID and credit card) than a worse camera or
| even more-er battery life (for some time now "more than a
| day" is indistinguishable to me from "more than a day and a
| half") or some other gadget. Probably. Um, maybe put some
| more gadgets on the phone and I'll get back to you on that
| one...
| layer8 wrote:
| > Just make the battery thicker
|
| These devices are already rather heavy.
|
| I wish there were more options for people who don't care that
| much about the camera in their smartphone. I remember the
| non-bump camera in the 7.6 mm thin 2016 iPhone SE was
| perfectly fine for many situations, I took some impressive
| vacation photos with it.
| Veuxdo wrote:
| > I wish there were more options for people who don't care
| that much about the camera in their smartphone.
|
| Just get a cheap phone? If you're paying $500+ for a phone,
| I'd estimate most of that money is going into the camera.
| Judging by the marketing, anyway.
| izacus wrote:
| There's a whole market of 250-400$ Android phones that are
| targeting exactly that. Every brand makes phones in the
| cheap with average camera segment.
| ajross wrote:
| > Either way people are throwing a case on to make the back
| straight again.
|
| Alternatively it's just exploiting "everyone uses a case" to
| get a mm or two of space for the camera lens that can very
| productively use it. Thickening the whole device only makes
| sense for people who _don 't_ use a case, which is basically
| no one (well, me, but most people love their cases).
| Freak_NL wrote:
| I love the camera bump on the Pixel 6. I made a leather belt
| pouch1 for it for use on trips and hiking, and the camera
| bump sits neatly on the edge of the front of the pouch (the
| back part curves around as a flap over the top). It gives my
| fingers exactly the right grip to grab it and get a solid
| grip on the whole device as I lift it out of its pouch.
|
| Never used a case for any phone I've owned.
|
| 1: Using the wet moulding technique.
| freedomben wrote:
| Indeed, at this point my workflow is pretty mature. The
| camera bump ends up unnoticeable to me because I'll throw it
| into a Spigen case anyway. Seems like a lot of people are
| doing that.
| asadotzler wrote:
| No one wants that weight. A thicker battery puts the phone
| out of comfort for everyone. A thicker camera bump puts the
| phone out of comfort for only a few.
| jaderobbins1 wrote:
| I really liked the "visor" style of camera bump since the Pixel
| 6. I like symmetry so the square corner bumps always bothered
| me, plus it didn't give it a corner wobble when sitting on a
| table. I wish they would have gone full width on the new Fold
| :/
| Freak_NL wrote:
| At least the non-folding Pixel 9's have the symmetry in tact
| for the outline of the bump, but agreed, I do like the full-
| width visor on my 6 better.
| samketchup wrote:
| I hated the camera bulge and in display finger reader on the 7
| so much that I downgraded to a 5
| jocaal wrote:
| Mobile phones are a mature technology. There aren't any
| opportunities to differentiate designs. For cars, they all look
| the same and differentiate brands with headlights and grills,
| phones only have the camera bump to differentiate brands.
| jerjerjer wrote:
| I thought the same before I bought it (Pixel 8) but with a case
| it's okay.
| babl-yc wrote:
| My main criticism with the camera bump on the Pixel 9 are the
| sharp edges. It makes it difficult to slip into pants without
| catching, and also collects dust.
|
| I was hoping they'd chamfer the edge in future models but it
| doesn't look like that's happening.
|
| Using a case solves this, but it shouldn't be required.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Is there a technical reason for the ai feature to be on this
| phone and not just like an app, or is it just limited on purpose
| to this phone?
| xnx wrote:
| Often features that are touted as being only for the newest
| Pixel phones, come to all Pixel phones (or all Android phones)
| in a few months.
| surfingdino wrote:
| No, thanks.
| fsflover wrote:
| Why?
| surfingdino wrote:
| Pixels are always pushing the boundaries of invasion of
| privacy. We need less of it, not more.
| Biganon wrote:
| Pixels are the only androphones on which you cab install
| GrapheneOS...
| fsflover wrote:
| Which is why I don't trust GrapheneOS. They seemingly
| push Google on the privacy and security crowd while
| ignoring truly freedom-respecting devices like GNU/Linux
| phones, which would be supported forever.
|
| For GrapheneOS, trust in Google is ultimate. If you don't
| trust it, you're out of luck. My threat model is
| different.
| jsheard wrote:
| There's also the obligatory non-Pro model, and a refresh of the
| Pixel Fold:
|
| https://store.google.com/us/product/pixel_9
|
| https://store.google.com/us/product/pixel_9_pro_fold
|
| Usually the Pro is bigger than the non-Pro but this time they're
| exactly the same size, and they've added a bigger Pro XL variant.
|
| https://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Google-Pixel-9,Google...
|
| The Pro and Pro XL appear to have identical specs aside from the
| screen size/resolution and a slightly bigger battery in the XL.
| appel wrote:
| I'm glad they finally went this route. I can't be the only one
| who usually wants the specs of the Pro but always opts for the
| smallest phone (p1, p3, p5 & now p8).
| nvy wrote:
| Indeed, it's a good choice. My wife has been routinely
| annoyed that the phone with superior specs was/is always
| uncomfortably large for her hands.
| adamc wrote:
| I did that with the Pixel 8. Although I don't really care
| about the better camera either.
| buu700 wrote:
| Pretty much in the same boat here. The P9P is around the same
| size as my P8 (0.1" shifted from depth to width), which is
| great news. I would pay more for a better camera, but I care
| more about compactness than camera quality.
| Sebguer wrote:
| The funny thing is the Fold is actually the smallest phone by
| height, and the thickness change isn't as big as you'd
| think...
| afavour wrote:
| The price change, on the other hand...
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| Same. I wish you could get a Galaxy S Ultra, _with the
| stylus_ in a smaller size.
| samstave wrote:
| As likely _anyone_ on HN is to hold: I have a bunch of old
| phones.
|
| How harvest sensors, cams, thingamathings and have a new
| cadre of people who can build plans to take sensor THING from
| PHONEA and CAMERA from PHONEB and etc... and build a thing
| where these already known devices can be harvested and
| incorporated into projects, products, etc... and not
| landfil.?
| jorvi wrote:
| Would have been nice if they did a regular size (5.8") for
| normal people and 6.8" for the genetic freaks with dinner plate
| hands.
|
| 6.3" is still huge. 5.8" is workable. And it's not like there's
| no precedent, the Zenfone 10 is also 5.8" and is adored for it.
| jsheard wrote:
| > the Zenfone 10 is also 5.8" and is adored for it.
|
| Then they released the enormous 6.8" Zenfone 11 Ultra this
| March, with still no indication that there will be a smaller
| variant. The small Zenfone 10 might not have sold well enough
| to justify doing another one.
| elromulous wrote:
| The Zenfone 10 traded height for depth. It was very thick.
| mminer237 wrote:
| That's 100% fine. I've never cared how thick my phone is in
| the least.
| eks391 wrote:
| If you rotate the phone backwards 90deg, you can reach
| all corners but the depth will be like 7"
| deergomoo wrote:
| I long for the days of being able to reach all four corners
| of my phone screen with one thumb. I had an iPhone 12 mini
| which was a wonderful respite, but apparently us small phone
| fans are a small enough demographic to not warrant serving.
|
| What's extra annoying is I never felt the need to use a case
| when phones were smaller, but one-handed corner reaching
| upsets the balance of the phone in my hand now to the point
| where it feels like a necessity--making the phone even bigger
| and bulkier.
| adamomada wrote:
| iPhone has this accessibility feature 'Reachability' that
| can help. On the SE you double tap (but not click) the home
| button, I think on others you swipe up and down quickly
| from the bottom centre.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Reachability is useless and no substitute for a smaller
| screen. It just slows you down, obscures the bottom half
| of the screen and makes a lot of gestures impossible.
| wolpoli wrote:
| At this point, it is just easier to stick a popsocket to
| the back so I don't feel like I am going to drop the phone.
| myaccountonhn wrote:
| 6.8" is so close to their old Nexus 7 tablet that was 7" lol
| spicybbq wrote:
| Screen yeah, but the tablet was a lot bigger, almost 2x the
| surface area
|
| Nexus 7: 198.5 x 120 x 10.5 mm, 340 g
|
| Pixel 9 XL: 162.8 x 76.6 x 8.5 mm, 221 g
| jerlam wrote:
| Small display sizes used to mean "cheap phone" for so long
| that people still won't pay more money for a smaller device.
|
| Not for lack of trying, since both Apple and Samsung tried in
| 2019 with their mini iPhones and Galaxy S10e respectively
| which were both smaller versions of their normal phones.
| Neither line continues today.
|
| Apple has some precedent with their premium iPad Mini which
| costs more than their normal iPad and gets irregularly
| updated, but it might be hard to market an "iPhone Mini SE
| Pro".
| officeplant wrote:
| My dream is the iPhone SE for 2025 is just a iPhone 13 mini
| with upgraded chip and one camera.
|
| It'll never happen but I'll keep dreaming.
| petesergeant wrote:
| The only thing that could pry an iPhone from my hands is a
| foldable screen. I have envy.
| Volundr wrote:
| I have a zFlip 5 and love it. I was pretty hesitant about
| switching (Pixel user before) but I like the smaller size in
| my pocket when folded and there seems to be a psychological
| effect of closing it when I'm done that results in my
| mindlessly fiddling with it less.
| leptons wrote:
| >psychological effect of closing it
|
| When I close mine, my dog immediately jumps up because he
| knows I'm done sitting down messing with my phone.
| listless wrote:
| You and me both. I consider switching a few times a year just
| for this.
| lancesells wrote:
| The Pixel and iPhone are really seeming homogenous with each
| other. The marketing seems similar, typefaces used, the naming
| conventions are close to the same, the airbrushed image
| generators, the photos app marketing that's turning your
| personal photos into a photoshoot with editing capabilities.
|
| On top of that you've got the same earbuds form factor, smart
| watches, etc.
| echelon wrote:
| I wish we had more than two phone giants. This is
| aggravating.
|
| Unfortunately due to their market dominance and muddling of
| (hardware, OS, software distribution, and platform
| ecosystem), it's almost impossible to disentangle.
|
| It'd be amazing if the DOJ made these companies only offer
| one slice of those four things. There would be so much
| competition and a wild variety of new things being tried.
| hibikir wrote:
| As far as the phone hardware goes, Google isn't much of a
| giant worldwide: Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo, Huawei and probably
| a few more outsell Google. The pixel is downright rare
| outside of the US.
| jsheard wrote:
| They don't even sell Pixels in most places, the Pixel 9
| series is launching in 32 countries, except the Pixel 9
| Fold which is only launching in 19. Believe it or not
| that's a significant improvement from the Pixel 8 series
| and first Fold which debuted in only 20 and 4 countries
| respectively.
| hotdeo wrote:
| Pixels were the best selling android smartphone of 2023
| in Japan. It's gained a lot of popularity recently here
| in Japan.
| bla3 wrote:
| It's rare in the US too. Less rare than outside it, but
| still < 5% market share.
| caddemon wrote:
| Also Samsung has been innovating with hardware. I'm not
| the hugest fan of their flavor of Android but I
| absolutely love my flip phone and would not consider
| switching back to iOS or pure Android unless Apple or
| Google were to make a flip.
| vel0city wrote:
| Google is like 3%ish of the smartphone market in the US.
| Pixel phones are US-focused, so I can't imagine they're
| that high worldwide.
|
| https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/us-smartphone-market-share
|
| The two big phone giants in the US are Apple and Samsung.
| Of which Samsung isn't muddling the hardware, OS, software
| distribution. Maybe platform ecosystem, but generally a
| Samsung smartwatch or headphones will work with any other
| Android phone just fine.
| filoleg wrote:
| Tangentially related, but I will say that I was
| pleasantly surprised by how well Airpods (at least the
| original ones) worked with Android phones.
|
| I got the original Airpods about a year before I switched
| to iPhone, and they worked pretty much flawlessly with my
| Galaxy S8+. I assume they missed Siri-specific features
| (which I don't care for even after switching to iPhone),
| and the newer ones probably miss some other more
| advanced/iOS-specific features (like Apple's
| implementation of spatial audio and speech awareness).
| But all the actual main functionality was there, and I
| never felt like I was missing out by not using Airpods
| with iOS.
|
| Apple Watch is a different story though, but it kinda
| makes sense, given how tightly integrated into iOS it is
| with quite a bit of private health data (that I would
| never trust Android with managing properly).
| jsheard wrote:
| Oddly enough there _is_ an official Android app for Beats
| headphones, which use the exact same Apple SoCs as
| AirPods ever since Apple acquired them. They surely could
| extend that app to work with AirPods too but they
| arbitrarily decided they 're not going to.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| Why would you _want_ an app for bluetooth headphones?
| jsheard wrote:
| Equalizer config, shortcut button config, and firmware
| updates mainly. There isn't a standard way to do those on
| Android without a manufacturer-specific app. As for why
| you might want to update the firmware on your headphones,
| well...
|
| https://blogs.gnome.org/jdressler/2024/06/26/do-a-
| firmware-u...
| rangestransform wrote:
| I would rather have a better phone than more options,
| apple's 800-pound gorilla-ness gets me a phone with:
|
| - an SoC made on TSMC's latest process node, with a
| humongous die, and all the associated power/performance
| benefits
|
| - because of how many phones apple can sell, they can
| divide the cost of R&D over more units, and can design
| things like their own CPU cores
|
| - "Ask app not to track" that works, because of the app
| store monopoly
|
| - I don't have to use 12342342345234 payment apps for each
| bank's credit card, Apple Wallet works with all of them
| (the EU wants to ruin this for Europeans)
|
| As a consumer, I'm a huge fan of US antitrust law, where
| the test is harm to consumers
| oorza wrote:
| There's that old saying that a benevolent dictatorship is
| the best and most effective form of government, right up
| until the dictator dies.
|
| All of the antitrust shit Apple does largely benefits its
| consumers _for the moment_. It's worth acknowledging
| that, but it's also worth acknowledging that this is
| necessarily a temporary state, and under different
| leadership, Apple will make different decisions.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| >- because of how many phones apple can sell, they can
| divide the cost of R&D over more units, and can design
| things like their own CPU cores
|
| As if you're benefitting from that with apples margins.
| oorza wrote:
| Would there be competition though? Take the mobile app
| stores: consumers are going to demand that prices are
| consistent across storefronts (or preferentially buy from
| the cheapest option), so that market will inevitably race
| to the bottom. Is that better for consumers than Apple and
| Google operating them and demanding a high enough margin to
| support moderation and review? Or hardware; if Apple was
| mandated to support Android on their devices, who do you
| think is going to pay for the additional testing burden?
| Apple's certainly not going to take it out of their profit
| margin, they're going to forward the expense down the line,
| as will everyone else.
|
| You'd be right that there'd be a lot of new ideas floated
| and a lot of competition, but it's hard to see how that
| plays out in a way that benefits the consumer and make
| smart phones a better value. I'm no fan of the duopoly, but
| it's hard to imagine how forcing them to break their
| services apart winds up anywhere other than the services
| becoming noticeably shittier and only like 5% of people
| bothering to change from the defaults anyway. I also think
| that the innovation around smartphones has all but died,
| and if there was some killer innovation to be had, it would
| probably be worth much more in this market than an open
| market. The market is harder to make distinctions in than
| even electric cars are, and a distinguishing innovation
| would surely trigger a bidding war between Apple and Google
| at this point.
|
| It's a rough case of what I want philosophically (break
| them up with great prejudice) and what I think is best for
| the user experience itself being directly at odds.
| nvy wrote:
| >Is that better for consumers than Apple and Google
| operating them and demanding a high enough margin to
| support moderation and review?
|
| Do their moderation/review processes meaningfully improve
| the situation for users?
|
| Both app stores are replete with scam/spam/spy/malware
| apps. I'm not convinced that the app stores are able to
| materially affect the quality of apps that go through.
| immibis wrote:
| They certainly improve the situation for shareholders. I
| am banned from the Google app store for making an app
| which was labeled with the service it interacted with,
| which was trademarked. (Example: If you make a Reddit
| app, Google won't let you put "Reddit" anywhere in the
| label without Reddit's legal permission, making it
| impossible for anyone to discover your app through
| search, which is the way people discover apps)
| nvy wrote:
| It's not clear to me from your example what the
| relationship is to shareholders.
| immibis wrote:
| it's good for the shareholders of reddit, and any other
| company that trademarked something you might want to make
| an app about
| com2kid wrote:
| > Unfortunately due to their market dominance and muddling
| of (hardware, OS, software distribution, and platform
| ecosystem), it's almost impossible to disentangle.
|
| I think it is more complicated, and nuanced, than this.
|
| I have a theory that the world can only support a maximum
| of 2 consumer computing platforms at a time, due to the
| cost of writing and porting software. Therefore causing a
| natural tendency towards either a monopoly (seen in the 90s
| and early 2000s) or a duopoly (the current smartphone era).
|
| The fact is writing software is expensive. Developing cross
| platform frameworks is also incredibly difficult and in the
| case of Mobile, has taken a massive 3rd party entity
| (Facebook) the better part of a decade (React Native) to
| get even close to "working well" (with other solutions also
| being decade long projects). One can argue that during the
| first decade of Android vs iPhone, (2007 to 2017) that the
| cross platform solutions were all pretty terrible, thus the
| massive shakeup that React Native (for all its warts)
| caused.
|
| Then there is the fact that developing a consumer OS is
| hard and expensive. Very few companies have the resources
| needed to make a consumer OS. Not just writing software,
| but localization, documentation, SDKs, UX work, security,
| update infrastructure, and so on and so forth.
|
| Honestly I'd say today's current duopoly may even be a bad
| thing for small software companies, basically doubling
| development costs. Compare this to the 90s when releasing
| consumer software just meant compiling for a Microsoft OS
| and never worrying again because Microsoft handled forwards
| compatibility for you!
|
| Contrast that to now days where you see applications to
| control smart appliances apps being discontinued left and
| right because companies cannot justify keeping 2 dev teams
| staffed so they can patch an app once every couple years
| when app store guidelines force changes.
| echelon wrote:
| I have one counter point for you:
|
| HTML
|
| If we adopted standards instead of making walled gardens,
| things would work. If the onus was on Apple and Google to
| make their platforms standards compliant, and that the
| egg would be on their face if they didn't, they would be
| the ones doing the rigorous testing, bug fixing, and
| optimization.
|
| If Microsoft can make their platform work for 20+ years
| of software, Apple and Google can be on the hook for
| HTML, WASM, and a standardized UI and hardware
| abstraction layer.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Sadly, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold seems to have the camera of the
| base Pixel 9 (non-Pro), rather than the much nicer camera of
| the Pixel 9 Pro.
| knodi123 wrote:
| And the XL has higher audio gain. But yeah, those are the only
| differences.
| seneca wrote:
| "AI" on my phone is so incredibly unappealing. I don't understand
| who this is for.
| cedws wrote:
| AI phone... AI laptop... AI car... AI toothbrush... yeah
| nobody's asking for this shit. It's just uninventive,
| unimaginative marketing rubbish. Real innovation doesn't need
| to go looking for use cases.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Totally agree.
|
| Look at the marketing text on the Pixel Fold (https://store.g
| oogle.com/us/product/pixel_9_pro_fold?hl=en-U...):
|
| "An epic display of Google AI. All the magic of Gemini on
| Pixel's largest screen."
|
| It is not only completely cringeworthy, but also nonsensical.
| How does having a bigger display affect AI at all? What sets
| it apart from other Pixels? Nothing.
|
| I am honestly shocked that this company can keep putting out
| garbage like this. Any smaller company or startup would go
| bankrupt and cannot afford to be this sloppy and incompetent.
| This is only possible if your company has enormous cash
| reserves and monopolistic market position, where you can eat
| losses and fail repeatedly on epic scales.
| shinycode wrote:
| Never in my life I will buy any Google product. They so
| easily kill products used by millions without second
| thought. This destroyed my trust in the company, they just
| don't care enough, it's all about profit and their
| monopolistic position. I hope other smaller companies with
| better ethics will emerge
| adamc wrote:
| Well, from the phone viewpoint people buy them to get a
| less garbage-filled android experience. Most consumers
| don't really expect phones to last forever... because
| they seldom do.
| shinycode wrote:
| My comment is still valid for software killed in the
| mobile space. I don't know what other people feel but I
| have a strange feeling that, because they have so much
| money, anything other than search is built temporarily.
| All their software, their apps and services aren't build
| to last. It's built for now and later they will abandon
| to start from scratch. It's easier to start over from
| scratch with a new team than to make what's been built
| last. That comes from a shortsighted vision that I
| dislike.
| adamc wrote:
| Monopolies are very profitable.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| It's for the investors.
| achow wrote:
| Country availability
|
| https://support.google.com/store/answer/2462844?hl=en_US
| kyriakos wrote:
| Ridiculous how a company the size of Google can only support
| such a small part of the world. What's even stranger is that
| they don't support most of the strong android markets.
| cube2222 wrote:
| So, if I understand correctly this "built-in" Gemini is 100% just
| calling to the Gemini cloud backend?
|
| Honestly, Apple Intelligence is looking _much_ better than this.
| But I suppose it's no wonder, I don't think Pixels are a large
| market for Google, while iPhones kind of are for Apple.
| tomasff wrote:
| There's Gemini Nano which runs on-device
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| I fail to see what is much better about a system where you
| don't know when it sends your data to the cloud or not (and is
| likely to do it 90% of the time).
| freedomben wrote:
| No, it's not all just calling to a cloud backend. The newer
| Pixels have hardware to do some stuff on-board, including non-
| trivial stuff like realtime audio cleanup (that works amazingly
| btw). STT and TTS are done mostly locally as well (with some
| cloud processing used when network connection is available),
| but can work all offline. The Gemini Advanced stuff is going to
| the cloud though.
| cube2222 wrote:
| Yeah I was primarily speaking about the LLM part, as apple is
| doing that (smaller LLM models will handle simpler tasks on
| device and hand over to cloud when necessary + apps will be
| able to efficiently deliver fine-tuned LORAs for the already-
| available local models).
|
| I do remember a lot of other typical "AI" stuff being done
| locally and well when I had a pixel a couple years ago.
| jph wrote:
| I love Google Pixel phones because of Google Fi for traveling;
| unfortunately Google Fi is facing major service
| downgrades/outages for travelers (including me) who go on 3+
| month trips out of the US. Google Support tells me the Google
| Pixel 9 Pro has the same limitation. For comparison my iPhone
| works fine on Verizon.
|
| The issue is now described in the Google Pixel T&C, and I hope
| Google will eventually offer a way to buy a Google Pixel phone
| and Google Fi that offers full functionality for longer trips.
|
| Here's a link about it:
|
| https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/tech-tips/goog...
| ericpruitt wrote:
| Do you have a link with more information on the pending
| changes?
| jph wrote:
| Added link above. The changes took effect last year.
| drawnwren wrote:
| fwiw, T-Mobile also have the 90 days restriction. I'm not
| entirely sure it's a company policy vs a US policy.
| jph wrote:
| Google Support tells me it's a Google company policy, not a
| U.S. policy. And for comparison, Verizon works fine, just by
| paying a bit extra for extended roaming.
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| people in the rick steves link say you just tell tmo when
| you get back in the us to reset it/turn it on for the us.
| This should not have unclear limits of course.
| supertrope wrote:
| The issue with having an explicit threshold is super
| heavy users will use right up to the limit and recommend
| it to other super heavy users. This MVNO then gets a
| disproportionate percentage of unprofitable roaming
| costs. The solution is for them to pass through the costs
| so there's no dancing around the costs by suddenly
| cutting you off.
| ydant wrote:
| It's just an anecdote, but from my one-time experience the 90
| days restriction isn't a hard restriction with TMobile.
| Service worked fine for 5 months for a family member abroad
| (in a single country) with no issues or messaging from
| TMobile about an overstay - although this was on a family
| plan with other phones in the US for the majority of that
| time.
| meowster wrote:
| I know it's not a good solution, but I wonder if you can send
| the Google Fi eSim to a friend back in the states to "reset"
| the 90 day counter then have the friend send you back the eSim.
| nogridbag wrote:
| Interesting. I likely won't be in a position to take a 3+ month
| trip for a long time. But I just came back from spending 1
| month in China and Google Fi worked flawlessly in China and
| Taiwan. I had better 5G coverage in Shanghai than in the US.
|
| My main complaint is once you go over your data limit and opt
| into the $10/GB there's no way to restrict your speed. It may
| sound silly, but I was hesitant to click some links as they may
| start loading tons of pictures and videos below the fold and
| cost me a dollar or two per click. So I pretty much limited my
| browsing to HN!
| canucker2016 wrote:
| With uBlock Origin installed (I use Android Firefox), you can
| block large media elements from loading for all sites or per
| site. see https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-
| switches
| xnx wrote:
| Google Fi also has a very annoying rule where you can't sign up
| when you're out of the country. Found that on while on
| vacation.
| LegitShady wrote:
| I think its a pretty reasonable anti fraud policy.
| DataDive wrote:
| I used to be a Google Fi fan (early adopter at that) for
| European trips ... but nowadays, with multi-ESims, it is
| trivial to get a local SIM card and use that.
|
| The local data plans are typically more broadly useable and
| cheaper than the $10/GB that Fi offers.
|
| When it comes to Europe (and this might apply to other
| destinations as well) Fi is a bad deal.
| lxgr wrote:
| Definitely applies to many Asian countries as well.
|
| Often, eSims get significantly better latency too, since you
| get an IP from close to where you are instead of your data
| having to cross one or more oceans. A VoIP call between two
| US SIMs/phones roaming in Asia is not a great experience.
| pixelesque wrote:
| Note that's not always the case: eSIMs I got from Nomad and
| Airalo in Europe/UK last year were routing things via Hong
| Kong, so things like DDG and google search using the SIM
| geolocated me to Hong Kong all the time, and the latency
| was noticeably bad.
|
| If you read the reviews of some of the eSIMs there are
| quite a few mentions of this happening.
| lxgr wrote:
| Definitely - you need to be aware of that when picking
| one. Some vendors are pretty transparent about their "IP
| location" these days, fortunately.
|
| Some, like Truphone, even have multiple gateways that are
| dynamically selected for lower latency, which is very
| neat (but they're generally more expensive).
| burkaman wrote:
| I also love Google Fi, but FYI there are substantially cheaper
| phones that are still compatible. For example they will sell
| you this one for $60 right now:
| https://fi.google.com/about/phones/moto-g-5g-2024. No idea if
| that's a good phone, just saying that if you're mostly in it
| for the international coverage there's no reason to pay $800+
| for a brand new Pixel when you need a new phone.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| It sucks about google fi after 90d, but Verizon is $10/d or
| $100 per billing cycle, no? It was easy and cheap for me to get
| a local sim (in Barcelona and London, at least). Does verizon
| still lock your phone? I had a bad experience traveling with
| Verizon to Munich. It was one of a handful of reasons I dropped
| them as my carrier. This was many years ago though.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| I have never been less excited for a phone.
|
| Maybe it's the One Plus 12 I'm holding, but this is a hard pass
| by me.
|
| All I want is a flagship chip, Esim support and a headphone jack.
| But since earbuds are almost all profit we won't see jacks coming
| back.
| Ayesh wrote:
| Sony flagships fit these requirements (micro SD card slot,
| swim, flagship chip, esim, etc) but they unfortunately don't
| feel as polished in the software end. Not to mention Sony
| phones being very difficult to find.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| I don't think Sony is releasing new phones in the US anymore.
| robotnikman wrote:
| You can still order them online and they work fine.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| One big concern I have is getting security updates quickly.
| If there's a zero day issue, how would Sony act?
| MostlyStable wrote:
| I'm looking at either a 5a, or one of the Samsung budget phones
| since I don't care about the flagship chip. But I wouldn't be
| surprised if this is the last time getting a new phone where
| headphone jack is an option at all.
| coldpie wrote:
| > and a headphone jack
|
| Just use a USB-C adapter. No, it's not as good as if it was
| built in. Yes, it's good enough. Yes, they make
| charge+headphone adapters.
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| Take a look at the Nokia XR21. Headphone jack, esim, and
| incredibly rugged
| BeetleB wrote:
| The OnePlus 12 cost about the same as this phone when new,
| correct?
| solatic wrote:
| Is there new hardware in the phone for the forehead thermometer?
| Any chance this comes to earlier models?
| Ayesh wrote:
| Yes it's new hardware. Pixel 8 also had it.
| jerlam wrote:
| Clicking on "Explore the Thermometer app" in the Pixel 9 Pro
| page leads to ... a Pixel 8 Pro page.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Is it approved for forehead use now? My recollection is it was
| a gimmicky thing because they could not add human temperature
| functionality without some kind of regulatory thing (FDA?).
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| I was waiting for this to figure out if i want this phone. The
| answer is, I'm not willing to pay $1000 CAD.
|
| I would like a phone with 7 years of updates, that's the reality.
| This is so annoying because I would go to LineageOS since it
| keeps getting updates, contrary to manufacturers roms.
| jsnell wrote:
| If those are your only criteria, the Pixel 8a is $400 and has
| guaranteed updates until May 2031 (same 7 years, but released
| three months ago).
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| My real criterias would be way more, but if I put all of them
| together, the answer is there is nothing.
|
| I ABSOLUTELY need to be able to use a glass screen protector,
| because my phone falls a lot, so I'm really concerned about
| the fingerprint reader on the screen.
|
| One criteria I won't be able to satisfy is: I like
| fingerprinting on the back. I don't think there are recent
| phones with that feature at all.
| jerlam wrote:
| The upcoming 9a is where Google has to make some tough
| business decisions whether it's going to have all the AI
| features of the main line, at half the price.
|
| It's rumored that Apple's new SE will have the full suite of
| Apple AI features, and that might put some pressure on Google
| to match.
| bjoli wrote:
| I got a _spectacular_ deal on the pixel 8 when I called to
| complain on my phone plan, otherwise I would have still used a
| Motorola.
|
| The phone was $200, and I got a pixel watch 2 LTE as well that
| I flipped for $250. The only thing I had to do was keep using
| the phone plan I have used for 8 years for another year.
| jerojero wrote:
| I like that there's a smaller "pro" model.
|
| The Fold 2, sorry Pixel 9 Pro Fold, is the most interesting one
| for me but the price is too high. I've been waiting for a while
| for these foldables to go down in price but they still haven't.
|
| Other than that, it's all about the "AI". Which I don't have much
| interest in, plus, didn't they already said last year that the
| Pixel 8 was "all about AI". At this point, there's no use in
| buying a phone to have these features when the following year
| your phone that's supposedly made with AI in mind is phased for
| for a new phone that this time around for real is the one that's
| "made for AI".
|
| Eh.
| JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote:
| I'm still bitter about my last Pixel with the stuttering display
| (no real-time thread for the graphics), the settings all over the
| place (I counted 4 different addresses for my home, and 1 was
| deeply hidden in their assistant), and the debug strings in
| UPPER_SNAKE_CASE in the Google apps, which is unacceptable for a
| device that is sold to everyone.
| nicbou wrote:
| My Pixel 5 is an amazing device, but it's slowly falling apart,
| software-wise. Bugs bugs and more bugs! It's also no longer
| getting software updates, and its successors have a laundry
| list of issues.
|
| The alternative is Samsung, the company that doesn't understand
| privacy nor consent, or Apple, whose phones lack uBlock
| support.
| otachack wrote:
| Hold strong! I replaced my 5's battery about a year ago after
| it started bloating. I usually draw the line though when
| security updates cease. Staying with the Pixel line is easier
| but I'm trying to divest from Google in general and moving to
| a different phone would be a big step.
| coder543 wrote:
| AdGuard has worked well enough on Safari on iOS for years
| now.
| nicbou wrote:
| It does nothing for cookie banners
| coder543 wrote:
| Nothing? AdGuard offers a "cookie notices" filter, which
| is presumably designed to remove cookie banners. I
| haven't tried turning it on.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| Kagi's Orion browser for iOS actually supports ublock and
| other browser extensions.
|
| It's a bit wonky and on iPhones there's a lack of
| configurability, for example there's no way that I know of to
| bring up a dialog to block elements in ublock, or adjust the
| settings in dark reader, but they do seem to work well enough
| in their default flavor.
|
| The reading list functionality is less ergonomic, but
| tabs/pages are more ergonomic imo, and it seems to work
| better with webpages that safari spins it's wheels on.
|
| Unfortunately it doesn't help the forced zoom that Apple
| forces on everything when a text box is loaded, that is then
| compounded when giving it focus with a cursor for writing
| (yes, I've already tried all system systems that could
| potentially disable that. Nothing works, Apple's text input
| continues to be straight up burning garbage on multiple
| levels)
|
| I'd say it's worth trying, and sending feedback to.
| dudeofawesome wrote:
| If uBlock is the only thing holding you back from an iPhone,
| you can use the Orion browser, which can install many Chrome
| extensions (including uBlock Origin)
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| how do we know the orion browser isn't somehow spying on
| you? I want an opensource browser, that's where I do so
| much financial and other transactions (as well as like bank
| company apps).
|
| That browser should be something like a fully opensource
| de-googled chrome browser, but it doesn't seem to exist on
| mobile.
| freediver wrote:
| 1. It is a zero telemetry browser
|
| 2. It is a browser with a users paying for it business
| model
|
| These mean that it is easy to verify any 'spying', and
| that there is no incentive to do that.
| IX-103 wrote:
| [delayed]
| debo_ wrote:
| I had similar issues with my pixel 3a about three years ago,
| and I switched over to Pixel Experience. This got me up to
| Android 13, and everything just works great to this day. I'm
| pretty sure there won't be an Android 14+ Pixel Experience
| build for this device, though.
| ranza wrote:
| Wait, you can install uBlock on chrome mobile?
| nicbou wrote:
| You can install it on Firefox for Android. It's one of the
| main reasons I'm on Android.
| freedomben wrote:
| You can install all kinds of extensions on Firefox on
| Android my friend. Firefox for Android is one of the killer
| apps now IMHO. Termux, Tasker, KDE Connect, and NetGuard
| are some others.
| buu700 wrote:
| FWIW, I use a Pixel 8 with an aramid fiber case (Thinborne),
| and it's pretty much a strict upgrade over the Pixel 5. Only
| real downside is that it's ~1.6mm thicker than a caseless
| Pixel 5, but on the other hand the added protection of a case
| comes in handy.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| Does the case make the candybar-style camera feel less
| bulky? I'm in the market for a new phone, and the Pixel
| form factor is really nice, but the protruding camera makes
| me hesitate.
| fsflover wrote:
| Another alternative is GNU/Linux phones.
| TwentyPosts wrote:
| Which Pixel was that? I'm really happy with mine (7a)
| alanbernstein wrote:
| What is the problem with upper snake case? That seems like a
| bizarre complaint to me.
| tlhunter wrote:
| I think the point is that grandma shouldn't see
| "ERR_INVALID_USRN" instead of "Error: Invalid Username" when
| logging into an account.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Am I the only one that thinks pixels have always been ugly?
| ajross wrote:
| The bulk of consumers can't even tell the difference between a
| Pixel, Galaxy and iPhone. So, yes, probably, at least to first
| approximation.
| kingofthehill98 wrote:
| The Nexus 4 was beautiful, IMO one of the coolest smartphones
| ever made. It was manufactured by LG, but AFAIK Google was
| responsible for the design.
| spankalee wrote:
| I hated the Nexus 4... it was slippery and broke waaaay to
| easily.
|
| I think the Moto X with the wood back was one of the coolest
| looking phones ever though.
| spankalee wrote:
| I think the Pixel 1, 4, and 7 are very nice looking. This one
| too.
| zzleeper wrote:
| I'm still salty about my Pixel 8 dying out because of the "green
| screen" bug (basically, screen just progressively turns greener
| until it stops working). Very common according to reddit, and the
| ubreakitifixit guy acknowledged it's a common problem as well.
|
| My Pixel 5a also had some shenanigans and my dad's pixel 6 as
| well
|
| No idea why they don't do proper Q&A. Looks like a good phone but
| yet fails in ways my work iphone never has.
| jsheard wrote:
| It's still a running theme that their in-display fingerprint
| readers are uniquely terrible for many people, even 3 (now 4)
| generations after they started using them instead of rear-
| mounted capacitive sensors. I don't know why they struggle so
| much with that compared to every other manufacturer using
| exactly the same sensors from the same handful of suppliers.
| TwentyPosts wrote:
| I had some issues with this very early when I got mine, but I
| think this went away completely. I feel like this was a
| software issue, and is now fixed (well, at least part of it).
| eitally wrote:
| I don't think these anecdotes (yours or the guy above with
| the green screen issue) are useful.
|
| Fwiw, I haven't had either issue with my P8 Pro and it's
| definitely the best phone I've ever used, both on Android 14
| and running the Android 15 betas.
| oezi wrote:
| These anecdotes are useful to highlight the low quality of
| Google devices. Certainly case reports cannot replace
| defect rates and other meaningful statistics, but if
| manufacturers are deaf about the issues then it doesn't
| bode well for instance for security related issues.
|
| I had similar bad issues with the fingerprint tech and
| would assume that the issue has at least 20% prevalence
| among the affected Pixel models.
| freedomben wrote:
| I held on to my Pixel 5a for as long as I could, primarily
| for that rear-mounted fingerprint reader. Such a wonderful
| implementation. Fast, accurate, and fingers just fell
| naturally into place when picking it up. I'm still dreaming
| that someday they'll return to that.
| goosedragons wrote:
| I noticed this morning my 7a back adhesive has weakened
| already. Guess it ain't water resistant anymore and it's barely
| over a year old.
| nfriend wrote:
| I had this exact issue on my Pixel 6 Pro! I thought it was done
| for but it seems to have recovered over the last few months and
| I don't see it anymore.
| retskrad wrote:
| Most people, from a person on welfare to all celebrities and
| almost all CEO's, including Elon Musk, use iPhones. The Pixel and
| Android in general is simply not cool like the iPhone. Google has
| been making their own phones for over 10 years now and they've
| barely made a dent. What's Google's goal here?
| rvnx wrote:
| Their objective is simple, get the hardware in place, so they
| can force-feed Google Search, YouTube and Google Gemini.
|
| Yes it's true, iPhone are popular, but it's a US-centric
| answer, because most of the rest of the world runs Android
| (Android has a 70.69% market share worldwide).
|
| So Google has a really valid plan there.
|
| Google claims their target is the "next billion people".
|
| Also iPhones are very expensive, just relatively less expensive
| in the US (due to wages, low taxes, less intermediaries, etc).
|
| Even a poor US citizen is often some sort of rich citizen in
| other parts of the world.
|
| Of course, there are exceptions, for example, Kim Jong Un uses
| iPhone and MacBook Pro.
| jensensbutton wrote:
| What kind of low budget commentary is this? Why put it on HN?
| What's _your_ goal here?
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| USA is not the only market for pixel phones. In places with
| higher concentration of Android users, there's a premium market
| that the pixel fits into.
| meiraleal wrote:
| maybe use it to have a controlled product in the market to test
| Android? I had one Google Pixel 8 and couldn't regret more. It
| broke (my mistake) so I'm already free of it.
| deadbunny wrote:
| The USA is not the World.
|
| https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| > Most people...
|
| You know what they say about making up statistics...
| impulser_ wrote:
| Samsung, which uses Android, is the most popular phone brand in
| the world. Google doesn't need Pixel too be as sucessful as
| iPhone because Android dominates the iPhone and come pre
| installed with multiple Google products which is where the
| money is made for Google.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Who the hell cares what is considered "cool"? I use the phone
| that's best for me, I don't give a damn what anyone else thinks
| of it.
| awill wrote:
| Remember when Google used to do live benchmarks showing it beat
| the iPhone (and even the iPad). Those were the days. Now Tensor
| is bottom of the pack for high-end phones.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Remember when average people cared about benchmarks? Because I
| don't.
| awill wrote:
| There's a reason Apple is doing so way. The A and M chips are
| a huge reason for that. So sure, benchmarks don't matter, but
| performance does, and Tensor is way behind.
| nightski wrote:
| It's so weird to me that an advertising company would sell a
| phone. It feels so dystopian.
| electriclove wrote:
| Did you also feel this way when Amazon and Facebook/Meta were
| making (or close to making) phones?
| nightski wrote:
| Yes, why would I not? I don't buy computing devices from any
| of them... Google phones are straight up a data harvesting
| device for Google lol.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| You should be happy. If Google didn't produce Android*, we
| would only have a single phone operating system and thus only a
| single provider of phones.
|
| *And why produce Android without also producing a showcase
| phone?
| appel wrote:
| Google's trade-in estimates for the P9 Pro:
|
| Pixel Fold (256/512): $760
|
| Pixel 8 Pro (128/256/512/1TB): $699
|
| Pixel 8 (128/256): $490
|
| Pixel 7a: $300
|
| Pixel 7 Pro (128/256/512): $540
|
| Pixel 7 (128/256): $360
|
| Edit: there's a complete overview of all trade in estimates in
| this post: https://slickdeals.net/f/17689866-buy-pixel-9-pro-or-
| pixel-9...
| eitally wrote:
| I have a P8Pro and it may well be worth the money to trade it
| in, especially to get a slightly more manageable sized phone.
| appel wrote:
| Yeah, that sounds perfect. To go from my 256GB P8 to a 256GB
| P9 Pro would cost me about $610 + 10% tax after trade-in
| which I don't think I'll have the stomach for.
| E39M5S62 wrote:
| If you're a Google Fi member, they have a nice discount on the
| price of the phone - but the trade-in value of your existing
| phone looks to be halved. I can get the Pixel 9 Pro XL with
| 256GB of storage for $750, but I only get $150 towards my
| Galaxy S22+.
| scottlamb wrote:
| Not bad, really. My Pixel 6 was being flaky a month ago (not
| playing sounds reliably), and I needed to fix it right then, so
| I bought a Pixel 8 from Best Buy for $549 and should be getting
| $220 back (described as $70 valued price + $150 promotional)
| for trading in my Pixel 6. If you consider the $70 as the true
| value of my flaky Pixel 6, you could say I only paid $399 (plus
| tax) for the Pixel 8, and now Google's offering me $490 for it
| if I buy a Pixel 9.
|
| Even so I'm not sure the Pixel 8 -> Pixel 9 upgrade is worth
| $799 - $490 = $309 (plus tax) to me when the Pixel 8 is brand
| new and working well.
| spankalee wrote:
| I'm very happy to see the good Pro camera setup in the smaller
| size. I've always gotten the non-pro Pixel, but missed the better
| camera. I might upgrade my Pixel 7 just because of this.
| burkaman wrote:
| I've never seen a temperature sensor on a phone before, I thought
| that was kind of cool. Sounds like it doesn't really work though:
| https://www.androidcentral.com/phones/google-pixel-8-pro-the...
| praisewhitey wrote:
| >when done correctly, the Pixel 8 Pro's temperature readings
| are very accurate. Clinical trials revealed that the Pixel 8
| Pro could successfully calculate body temperatures between
| 96.9degF and 104degF to within a margin of error of +-0.54degF.
|
| https://www.androidcentral.com/phones/google-explains-pixel-...
| cryptoz wrote:
| Samsung Galaxy S4 had one a decade ago. Also had a humidity
| sensor! A true weather station (barometer and light sensor
| too!)
| jeffbee wrote:
| That's ... not the kind of temperature sensor they are
| referring to.
| nogridbag wrote:
| The "human body measurement" test in that article seems flawed.
| When you launch the Thermometer app, there's only two buttons:
| Object temperature and Body temperature.
|
| So I'm not sure why the author tried to measure body
| temperature by using "Object temperature" mode with "default"
| setting and measuring the temperature under the tongue. The
| Body Temperature test has always been accurate for me and
| matches my higher end forehead thermometer.
| Latty wrote:
| Could be the article is written by someone outside the US. If
| you aren't in the US (I gather--at least in the UK I can
| speak to personally), the app just doesn't offer body
| temperature at all because they haven't bothered to get it
| certified for medical use.
|
| (You can work around this by spoofing your location, but it's
| not obvious to do.)
| burkaman wrote:
| Looks like the body temperature update came out a couple
| months after that article was written, so I guess it works
| better now. Very cool, I would love to have that on a phone.
| ponector wrote:
| Some Android phones have an IR camera so you can see the
| temperature of surroundings!
| stonethrowaway wrote:
| Where did the "{our, the} most {adj} yet" marketing thing come
| from? I remember apple using it for a long time. Did everyone
| just decide to copy it? It sounds so lame to see it during every
| tech product announcement.
| frankhorrigan wrote:
| Our most derivative advertisement yet.
| Veuxdo wrote:
| Very telling that the first two pictures are of the camera
| lenses. Is that where most of the $999 price tag is going?
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| Holy shit, they have moved the design in the right direction,
| but it still looks awful. Maybe not the ugliest phone on the
| market, but still bears the hallmark of designed by an
| engineer. Hire a friggin industrial designer or smack the
| current one in the head by a frying pan until something cool
| pops up.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| It blows me away that people will spend $1k for a phone when
| there are good options for $500 or less. I will grant that
| Google's phone is probably the best. But in my experience the
| difference in quality does not correlate to the difference in
| price. Apple has a monopoly and they set price expectations.
|
| Also, I think buyers think if you have a cheaper phone strangers
| may think you are poor. Personally I want people to think I am
| poorer than I am.
| grogenaut wrote:
| what are your favorite $500 or less options
| jph wrote:
| Google Pixel 8a is a great phone IMHO. Refurbished ones are
| available.
| kelleyk wrote:
| It is! If you also need service, Google Fi has had a
| promotion for a while that gives you the $500 purchase
| price back over 24 monthly bills.
|
| In fact, they also have a promotion right now where you can
| get $800 back on either the Pixel 9 or 9 Pro, spread over
| 24 months; that makes the 9 free and the 9 Pro only $200.
| amyjess wrote:
| Not GP, but I just got a Sony Xperia 10 VI, and I'm loving it
| so far.
| bpye wrote:
| Sony seem to be abandoning the NA market which is kind of
| unfortunate. Their new Xperia 1 VI isn't available in
| either the US or Canada.
| setgree wrote:
| iphone se 2022 is $429
| jablala wrote:
| Hoping the SE 4 in the new year will be sub $500/PS500.
| nordsieck wrote:
| I got the SE 2 used, a year after it came out for a
| serious discount[1]. If that's something you're
| comfortable with, you can get a really good deal if you
| pay attention to what's posted on FB Marketplace.
|
| More than anything, I'm most impressed by Apple's OS
| support. I'm pretty convinced that SE phones are some of
| the best deals in the industry if you keep them until
| they run out of support. They have the same guts (minus
| cameras) as tier 1 flagship phones. Apple is a bit tight
| with ram, but the processor is faster than any Android
| phone.
|
| And the support - 7 years is standard right now, and it
| could very well go longer.
|
| ---
|
| 1. I think I paid $150 for it. It has a small crack in
| the screen, but just the part that's over the chin, not
| anything that affects the display. If I wanted a pristine
| phone, I'm sure I could have found one for a bit more.
| But after several years, I'm happy with my decision.
| jablala wrote:
| That's a cracking result! I'll definitely keep an eye out
| and hopefully the second hand market is healthy.
|
| I think the SE never really turned any heads from the
| flagship causing the second hand market to be lively.
| With these new touted SEs, they're looking to be as good
| as iPhone 14 (maybe pros) which has a very wide reach.
| setgree wrote:
| ditto, I bought a 2020 SE refurbished for <$200 and it's
| been totally fine. If it were better, I'd be using it
| more, which I don't want.
| anonymoushn wrote:
| My iPhone SE is $429 apparently.
| ge96 wrote:
| It's crazy where phones are at now. My $160 Motorola phone
| has 8GB of ram
|
| The camera is terrible though photos upon closer inspection
| appear smeared/blurry. My older Motorola which I paid more
| for has a better camera.
| RachelF wrote:
| Yeah, I have a Moto G84 12GB RAM for $180 - and it has
| features that these Pixels do not have:
|
| - SD Card up to 1TB
|
| - 3.5mm headphone jack
| bitwize wrote:
| - Unlockable bootloader?
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| You can get flagship Android phones for $500 or less if you
| are a bit patient and have a good carrier.
|
| I just ordered a Galaxy S24+ from Google Fi for $450 and it's
| a better phone than the $1100 pixel 9 pro XL imo.
|
| 6 months from now and on days like Black Friday you'll be
| able to get the pixel 9 for less than $500.
| otterley wrote:
| Are you including the extra $50/mo you pay your carrier for
| this privilege? There ain't no such thing as a free lunch;
| you can either pay up front or pay over time (and often
| more than you would otherwise).
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| The only thing I have to do is keep using the phone for
| 120 days. Monthly price for service is $20 plus $10 for
| each gig of data, unchanged by their phone price
| promotions.
|
| Don't even have to pay a fee to use a cellular
| smartwatch, as long as it is made by Google or Samsung.
| cvhc wrote:
| I have been trading in my phone every year to get the new
| Samsung S2x (now S24) model since S21. There were always new
| model deals plus some regular cashback. I ended up paying
| <200 USD every year.
|
| It's like a manual phone upgrade plan. Not sure how long it
| could last. Last year the Google Fi deal wasn't as good and I
| almost missed the budget target.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| OP here- my last two phones have been Moto G Power. I think
| the first one only cost $200! I value battery life and
| simplicity. As an Apple shareholder I prefer you buy an
| iPhone.
| grogenaut wrote:
| I have a 5G Stylus rn, it's totally fine except I ruined
| the camera 3 days in so it takes TNG soft focus photos...
| love the G Power line, battery for days is not to be
| underappreciated
| losvedir wrote:
| I bought a "renewed" iPhone 11 from Amazon a month ago for
| $230 and have been seriously impressed with it.
| varispeed wrote:
| I have S21 Ultra and bought it refurbished for less than $500
| few years ago.
|
| I see no reason why should I buy new phone. Seems like all
| those new features are just gimmicks.
|
| I would probably consider buying a new one if it had better
| video recording, but this Pixel only has 4k at 60Hz which
| wasn't impressive two years or so ago.
| bityard wrote:
| My cheap Android phone is in a cheap black case, nobody can
| tell how poor I'm not.
| rvnx wrote:
| The lack of iMessage blue-bubble is a good tell. Instantly
| makes you lose dates with gold diggers.
| lupusreal wrote:
| That's a feature. Gets the vapid idiots to select
| themselves out of your life.
| nly wrote:
| My phone (PS500/$500) was released in Nov 2017, bought in Feb
| 2018, and it's still just fine. Only recently have I been
| noticing the battery life is getting a bit pathetic.
|
| Spending PS500 on a new one hasn't really entered my thoughts.
| The last time I went shopping for an (Android) phone with and
| for my girlfriend it was a nightmare - so many absolutely shit
| giant phones that don't feel right in the hand
| Liquix wrote:
| ifixit has exclusive deals with some manufacturers where you
| can get an OEM replacement battery + tools for ~$30-50. can
| easily double the lifespan of a well-maintained device
| nly wrote:
| Recently did that with my laptop. Replaced the battery and
| fans and reapplied thermal paste to the processor for
| PS100.
| taeric wrote:
| I splurged for one of the flip phones not long ago. Thought I
| qualified for a discount that I evidently didn't qualify for.
| Oops.
|
| That said, I think it was 600ish. So, yeah, I don't know that I
| understand the high end market. At all.
| the_reformation wrote:
| iPhones are 10x better than $500 Androids, so a steal at 2x the
| price.
| jdgoesmarching wrote:
| People use their phones probably more than any other single
| item besides their home and bed. It's not really that crazy,
| especially if you factor in camera upgrades for people that
| care about it.
| matthewfcarlson wrote:
| In terms of percentage of my day that I spent using X, my
| smartphone ranks pretty highly. More so than my TV, car, etc
| that are high budget items that you can spend a lot on.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I think it's true for a lot of people, but not for
| everyone. There's not much my phone does for me that a
| laptop doesn't do better, and I probably use some form of
| desktop/laptop about 10X the amount of time I use my phone.
| Sometimes I forget where my (8 year old) phone is for days,
| and life trucks on, but I probably sit in front of a
| computer for hours a day and that's just for work. I guess
| I'm turning into an outlier.
|
| I personally could not even fathom spending $500 on a
| telephone let alone $1000. It's just not an important
| enough gadget in my life.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Fewer and fewer people own any computing device other
| than a phone.
| sandspar wrote:
| iPad is the new laptop.
| epolanski wrote:
| For what?
|
| Because sure as hell it's not a working machine.
| mindslight wrote:
| Should we be celebrating this, or even talking about it
| as if it's remotely sensible? Even putting aside that
| mobile software is designed to undermine your personal
| interests, getting a laptop that's good for a decade (or
| more) and then churning your phone less often is likely a
| win on straight device cost.
| jdgoesmarching wrote:
| Who defines sensible? For most people, a phone is a far
| more sensible purchase than a laptop. How many sub-$500
| laptops have cellular modems? How many sub-$200? How much
| of the technology that people realistically use day-to-
| day requires a laptop?
|
| I'd even question your premise that phones churn more
| frequently than laptops, especially at the budget end.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| More and more of societal services "require" a
| smartphone. I went to a baseball game where it seemed
| like it was required to install their ticket app (might
| have been an offline workflow available).
|
| For someone with a limited budget, a phone seems wildly
| more valuable than a laptop.
| mindslight wrote:
| The point of my comment was to talk about what is
| sensible?
|
| Your comment just seems needlessly dichotomous. I'm
| talking about having multiple devices, such that you
| aren't beholden to any single one. Nobody "requires" a
| laptop, just like nobody actually "requires" a phone. But
| if you're using up all your buy-stuff-online time looking
| through a tiny screen and tapping out search terms like
| Morse code, rather than being able to comfortably compare
| skus/stores far and wide, it's likely that you're
| drastically overpaying. I'm willing to believe this is a
| trap many people fall into (eg why else is Amazon always
| pushing Subscribe and "Save"), but we shouldn't be
| normalizing it as if it's effective rather than
| pathological and extractionary (cf Vimes's Boots).
|
| And sure, the same trash-treadmill dynamic exists in the
| low end new laptop market with poor hardware and poor
| software (eg MSWin). But this is kind of a weird
| Schrodinger's argument in a thread about a phone that
| costs _$1,000_ - someone who doesn 't have enough
| resources to buy anything but a phone, yet that one
| locked-down user-disempowering device is sooo critical
| that it's also reasonable to spend an outsized amount of
| money on the latest flagship. My larger point still
| stands about the longevity of good product choices, but
| they require research and actualization - the kind better
| done from a laptop or desktop rather than a pocket
| porthole.
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| > I think it's true for a lot of people, but not for
| everyone.
|
| This is not a helpful comment.
|
| No one argued it was true for everyone!
|
| > I personally could not even fathom spending $500 on a
| telephone let alone $1000. It's just not an important
| enough gadget in my life.
|
| This is also not helpful.
|
| Can you imagine why someone else might spend $1000 on a
| phone? If the answer is no you have a shockingly poor
| ability to empathize and see things from a different
| perspective.
|
| I totally understand why some people spend $1500 on a new
| phone. And I also understand why some people want to
| spend the bare minimum! These perspectives are not
| difficult to grasp.
| sandspar wrote:
| Here we have OP doing an "I have better money sense than
| you" brag followed by a guy doing an "I have better
| empathy than you" brag. (Followed by me doing an "I'm
| more savvy than you" brag.)
| jdgoesmarching wrote:
| Followed by the "I have outlined how a typical
| conversation on this platform will play out" guy
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| lol, made me chuckle.
|
| It's a pet peeve of mine how often programmers argue from
| their niche perspective without even attempting to think
| of things from a broader or different perspective. It's
| especially annoying when it goes from "people do X" to
| "well I do Y so nyah!".
|
| It's not hard or difficult, you just have to try!
| sandspar wrote:
| Does it get easier over time? I asked the most socially
| adept person I know about how she's so good with people.
| She said, "I just picture myself in their shoes." She
| made it sound easy, so I tried it, and phew! It's tough!
| It made me wonder whether part of the reason why
| perspective-taking is easy for her is because she's
| practiced it so much.
| ghshephard wrote:
| There's a very large community of people in which their
| smartphone might be the _only_ luxury purchase they make
| (I 'm pretty close to that).
|
| Now that we no longer upgrade every second year (or, in
| fact, every third year) and given I usually get 50% of
| the cost back by sending the old phone in, spending
| $1500/phone means that I'm typically amortizing a $750
| charge over 4 years - or $15/month for the _only_ luxury
| item I own. I 'm probably more concerned about the
| $85/month AT&T bill than the $15/month cost for the
| actual phone.
|
| Never having to even think about storage, like literally
| _zero_ concerns about how much I download is one reason I
| always grab the high-end model (now around 1TB)
|
| Also - there are lots of weeks, (in fact, sometimes a
| month) that my mother doesn't touch her (pretty high end,
| nice 4K monitor) computer system - but I doubt there has
| ever been a single _hour_ that she wasn 't using her
| phone. The Phone, for many, has become the new computer.
|
| And, with LLMs becoming pervasive, the new knowledge-
| system. (I can go many days without touching google - but
| I hit up some combination of Claude/ChatGPT pretty 7-10
| times/day) I can already envision the day in which you
| will be able to run an LLM _on your phone_ - but the H /W
| specs for that thing will likely be insane and I have a
| hard time seeing how the first releases of (reasonable
| speed, reasonable model -I'm aware you can do it today) -
| in a 2-3 years from now that can run an LLM will go for
| less than $2000-$2500.
|
| And I will be standing at the front of that line begging
| them to take my money. Entirely new device at that point.
| epolanski wrote:
| Okay, but just because you use something a lot doesn't mean
| you need to spend huge money on it.
|
| That's the argument I don't understand.
|
| Like, Taxi drivers don't buy the most luxurious and
| comfortable car you can think of because they drive it all
| day, they get Toyotas and sometimes Teslas where EV support
| is decent.
| yuppiepuppie wrote:
| Yeah but when you get into the taxi comparison, it's
| based on roi more than anything.
|
| For a phone, it's purely esthetic, ergonomic and user
| friendliness that most people are buying them. Not
| usually roi based decision.
| dash2 wrote:
| If you use it for 3 years, $1000 is about a dollar a day.
| Does a better phone generate that much value each day -
| about 1/5 of a cappucino? Probably.
| epolanski wrote:
| By which metric generates more value?
|
| It answers better on HN? Gives you more value answering
| messages or watching YouTube?
|
| Which far fetched edge case scenario do you need to
| justify the very small diminishing returns between a high
| end and premium phone?
| jfdbcv wrote:
| Personally I inject probes into my brain to measure the
| exact dopamine response every time I need to make a new
| purchase
|
| ...idk I think people just like premium phones, it's not
| that deep
| zamadatix wrote:
| One stat that takes me out of my bubble on this one is we are
| closing in on 2/3 of website visits being done via mobile
| devices. I.e. it's not necessarily the ultra tech focused
| folks that make up high end mobile user base, it's people
| using phones constantly as their primary device that are
| often spending a grand on them.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| That's a really good point! I spend 10x time in front of a
| computer as a phone and I don't think twice about buying
| Alienware or Razer so that makes more sense to me.
| cdrini wrote:
| This is true, but I don't think the price translates. Most
| folks use their phones for messaging, internet, videos,
| camera. That's about it. And the things you do on your phone
| don't translate to these price tags. You're not getting a
| bunch more from a 1k phone than from a 500 phone.
|
| I personally try to get flagship phones, but used a few years
| after their release. That, and avoid upgrading my phone as
| much as possible :P I'm jealous of Apple folks here, they
| support their devices for eons longer than Android!
| bpye wrote:
| I don't like spending $1k on a phone, but my iPhone 11 Pro
| lasted 4 years and the only reason I upgraded was because the
| 15 has USB-C. It would have needed a battery upgrade otherwise
| but modern phones do have much better longevity.
| KoolKat23 wrote:
| You'll get the same mileage out of a EUR300-EUR400 Samsung.
| cyral wrote:
| Cheap phones tend to have a lot more lag/jank than iPhones
| (or other $1k phones)
| KoolKat23 wrote:
| Depends how cheap. Midrange phones are fine and cost half
| the price of the equivalent iPhone.
| guyzero wrote:
| In terms of camera performance? You will not.
| KoolKat23 wrote:
| True
| trilobyte wrote:
| For most people the amortized cost of a phone over its life is
| pretty small. If you spend $1000 on a phone and it lasts you 3
| years, that's ~$28 a month. A lot of people spend that on
| coffee each month. The value they get out of their smart phone
| dwarfs most other big expenses.
| skapadia wrote:
| Rationalizing a purchase because the monthly payments are
| small is a terrible way to approach shopping. If you don't
| have the money to pay for it upfront, you can't afford it.
| Full stop. People actually finance their phones, believe it
| or not. It boggles the mind.
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| People making an average hourly don't think of things that
| way. Paying $28/month for a phone provides much more
| liquidity for the unexpected, when the other option is
| spending over 25% of your months income, you're SOL if your
| car breaks for whatever reason, or you get a flat tire, or
| your water bill was unusually high.
| rd wrote:
| Something something cheap boot vs. expensive boot
| something something...
| advisedwang wrote:
| They're not saying finance a phone. They're saying $1000 is
| not that much for a device you use throughout every waking
| hour for several years. The monthly framing helps
| understand cost as a rate, as we experience value as a
| rate.
| drawfloat wrote:
| OP wasn't talking about a loan payment.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| I assume, then, of course, that you bought (or would buy)
| your house in cash only? After all, "If you don't have the
| money to pay for it upfront, you can't afford it. Full
| stop."
| epolanski wrote:
| The value they get is identical they would get if they spent
| half of it.
|
| Unless, idk, you're so deep into the Apple ecosystem, e.g.
| that it makes sense to stay in the gardened wall and lower
| any kind of friction.
| fullstop wrote:
| > The value they get is identical they would get if they
| spent half of it.
|
| I'm pretty sure that the camera on my Pixel is twice as
| good as the OnePlus that it replaced.
| epolanski wrote:
| But the photos are nowhere near twice as good.
| fullstop wrote:
| Eh, they are when motion is involved.
| cdrini wrote:
| Tech is a really weird field; I think because of the high
| salaries, a lot of people are rich without realising they're
| rich. Tech is the "Nouveau rich". $28 a month on coffee is
| rather large amount to spend on coffee.
| asadotzler wrote:
| No, $28 not a large amount to spend on coffee. That's a
| McDonald's medium coffee 3.5 days a week. How is that a lot
| to spend on coffee? That's just silly. A lot to spend on
| coffee is $150/mo with a $5 latte at Starbucks each day and
| that's certainly more common than the house painter getting
| a McDonald's coffee on half his workdays.
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| I usually sell my $1k phone after a couple years so I end up
| paying much less than $1k in the end, while getting a better
| phone out of it than had I just bought the $500 phone up front.
|
| It blows me away that people actually care how much other
| people spend on something at all. Want a $50 flip phone? Cool.
| Want a $1300 fancy fold phone? Also fine.
|
| When I had my last kid we got a Snoo bassinet, $1300 or so.
| Anyone that saw it couldn't help but inform me that their baby
| survived in a trash bag with holes poked in it or whatever for
| a bassinet. But I sold it 6 months later for $900, and my
| overall $400 investment was very worth it. Thing was a miracle.
| nomel wrote:
| > $400 investment
|
| Why is this word used to describe "pure financial loss" so
| often when talking about purchased luxury goods?
|
| > Investment: the outlay of money usually for income or
| profit
| crdrost wrote:
| Because the implication is that there is non-monetary
| profit. The person is describing it not as a loss but as an
| investment, because it was an investment in themselves and
| their ability to sleep at night and an investment in their
| child feeling safe and whatever other impossible-to-
| directly-price externalities were realized as a result of
| the monetary loss.
| nomel wrote:
| I suppose the problem is that there isn't a good word for
| this concept. I just find it interesting that, in my
| experience, this is _only_ used in relation to luxury
| goods.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| > in my experience, this is only used in relation to
| luxury goods.
|
| Not really. You can also "invest" in personal
| relationships, for example, which implies neither a
| financial outlay nor an expectation of financial return.
|
| When used in the context of purchasing consumer goods, I
| think it is most often used in the context of goods which
| are _expensive_ (the financial outlay) and _durable_ (ie,
| capable of providing enjoyment--analogous to profit--for
| a long time into the future). And of course those goods
| are more likely to be considered "luxury" goods.
| nomel wrote:
| In the case of a relationship, maybe it could be argued
| that you are profiting, in the currency being used: you
| get more positive interactions out than you put in. ;)
| digging wrote:
| > this is _only_ used in relation to luxury goods.
|
| It isn't. People say it in regards to quality goods of
| all kinds - shoes, mattresses, food.
| sandspar wrote:
| Investment in x% higher likelihood of your child's safety.
| winwang wrote:
| Because the value the item brought you was worth more than
| the money you exchanged for it. My Bose QC35s were one of
| the best investments I've ever made, lasting many years and
| very many loud plane rides. Or would you consider groceries
| a "pure financial loss" as well?
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| So goofy that you asked this with the "usually" right there
| in your own quote.
| geodel wrote:
| > It blows me away that people actually care how much other
| people spend on something at all
|
| Well you can dislike this fact but there is nothing seems to
| be _blown away_ about it. Because this is such a mundane fact
| about people.
| sandspar wrote:
| Have you looked into leasing your phone? You pay more per
| month but always have the latest upgrade. I'm curious about
| it too and am hoping you've done the numbers on it.
| StevePerkins wrote:
| > _It blows me away that people actually care how much other
| people spend on something at all._
|
| It's an idle discussion thread about consumer electronics.
| Not an attack on the core of your personal identity.
| preisschild wrote:
| I have a lot of data on my smartphone I want to be secure, plus
| I like the OLED screen for reading ebooks/watching videos and I
| also want to make great photos.
|
| Only Google Pixel devices tick those boxes, but at least you
| can buy older gen Pixels rather cheap (Google Pixel 6 Pro with
| similar camera setup as the Pixel 9 for example)
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| Somewhat tangentially, your comment made me realize there can
| be non-vain reasons to try and appear less poor than you are.
| Of course, when you're really poor it's probably unwise to use
| a new iPhone to achieve this deception.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Most people spending $1k on their phone are either trading in
| their old phone if they upgrade often, or are upgrading every
| 2-3 years, which makes the cost not that crazy given how
| smartphones are often essentially a part of us nowadays with
| how much we rely on them.
| PKop wrote:
| Why would that blow you away?
|
| $500 extra dollars for a better device people use everyday for
| at least a year or more. Especially around here, many make
| plenty of money that a $500 difference isn't that significant.
| oezi wrote:
| Since only Apple, Google and Samsung provide some realistic
| assurance of security updates, there aren't so many options
| left. If you don't want to spend 1k there is the Pixel 8a for
| half that price.
| bitwize wrote:
| Is there a new, $500 or less, phone with 256 GB of Flash, an
| unlockabke bootloader, and good GrapheneOS, CalyxOS, or
| LineageOS support?
|
| Oddly enough I end up buying Google phones because I do not
| wish to put up with Google's shit.
| dtx1 wrote:
| Graphene only supports pixels.
| spacemanspiff01 wrote:
| So I get pixel because of security and less software bloat,
| along with good custom ROM support.
|
| That being said, at least for me, my phone is the device I
| spend the most time with, whether articals, emails, books,
| podcasts etc.
|
| It is at least 5 hrs a day.
|
| This is probably an argument to spend less time on my phone,
| but the will is weak.
|
| But if I am spending a significant percentage of my waking life
| interacting with this single electronic device, a price
| difference of 500 dollars is not much, especially amortized
| over a 3 year period.
| f6v wrote:
| You can say that about anything: cars, headphones, appliances.
| To each their own. I can't imagine using a 500 device in place
| of my 800 iPhone even though it would be "almost as good". I
| can justify extra even for very small convenient features.
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| Some of it is a status symbol. I don't know any well to do tech
| friends that buy expensive watches or jewelry, but are happy to
| drop 1k+ on a new phone every year.
| acchow wrote:
| > It blows me away that people will spend $1k for a phone when
| there are good options for $500 or less
|
| Wait till you see how people spend $60k on a car when there are
| perfectly good options for $30k.
|
| And people also spend much more time with their phones than in
| their cars.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| I don't disagree but.. 1) To me there is a lot more variety
| in cars than phones. An SUV is very different then a sports
| car or some luxury car. Phones vary a lot in OS (but people
| don't cross shop), a little in battery and a lot in camera.
|
| As a thought experiment, if you put me in a civic I will know
| I am in a civic and not a BMW in one second. If you gave me
| an iphone 10 or an iphone12. Or a google 8 vs google 10...
| You get my point. Yes Android is different then iOS but
| people are usually locked in.
|
| 2) In general people spend way too much on cars, either to
| buy capability they don't really need or can't use. Or to try
| and say something about themselves.
| kome wrote:
| It blows me away that people will spend $500 for a phone when
| there are good options for $150 or less. :0
| tootie wrote:
| I think phones really stopped differentiating a few years ago.
| A $200 Motorola is extremely capable and does 99% of what
| normal people need. I bought a Moto G Power for my kid who
| always forgets to charge it because the battery lasts 3 days.
| That's more valuable than having 3 cameras and an AI chip.
| dangus wrote:
| Apple does not have a monopoly. They sell 27% of all
| smartphones. Samsung sells 24%. Xiaomi sells 12%.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| A galaxy a54 is like 50% of the price of an 24 but with like
| 80% of the specs and better battery life
| varispeed wrote:
| 4k still only at 60Hz. Weak.
| bityard wrote:
| Serious case of sticker shock here.
|
| My current Android phone was free from the provider in exchange
| for buying around 3 months of service in advance. It is no speed
| demon but certainly does all of your average phone stuff just
| fine.
| garciasn wrote:
| I absolutely _refuse_ to pay for a phone; call me old-school,
| but I am still stuck in the memory of the days when they came
| 'free' with service contracts.
|
| Me? I will happily take a slightly outdated phone with a new
| provider/contract where I don't pay anything on top of the
| expected monthly fee. I have 8 months left on my iPhone13 mini
| (128GB) w/VZW and will happily change to one of the other Big
| Threes to make it happen again.
| vel0city wrote:
| A regular Verizon plan with tethering that supports the
| "free" phones costs the same in three months for what I pay
| for a year of service on Mint.
|
| But sure, the phone was "free".
|
| $2,880 for a Verizon plan with a "free" phone (3 year
| commitment after all), $720 for three years of my current
| Mint plan. I could spend $2k on a phone over those three
| years and I'd still have spent less money.
| garciasn wrote:
| Based on the Mint website, it appears to be $360 up-front +
| $360 or $720 for their 'unlimited' annual which I don't
| know if it includes tethering. I pay ~$684 for VZW for the
| year, for unlimited w/tethering and HBO Max + Netflix.
| vel0city wrote:
| Mint's unlimited is $30/mo when purchasing a year up
| front. The only "plus" is taxes and fees. It includes
| tethering. So even with whatever deal you've got going on
| its still $324/yr cheaper, $972 cheaper after a three-
| year commitment (if applicable in your case).
|
| The "free" phone only applies to Unlimited Plus and
| Unlimited Ultimate. At a single line for Plus that's
| $80/mo. $960/yr. $2,880 over that three-year commitment.
|
| But either way, I don't bother with the "unlimited"
| plans. You're going to get de-rated after 30-40gigs
| anyways on Verizon.
|
| > Unlimited data is restricted to on-device smartphone
| usage. After exceeding 30 GB/mo of 5G Ultra Wideband, 5G,
| or 4G LTE mobile hotspot data, mobile hotspot data
| reduced to speeds up to 3 Mbps when on 5G Ultra Wideband
| and 600 Kbps when on 5G / 4G LTE for the rest of your
| monthly billing cycle.
|
| https://www.verizon.com/support/important-plan-
| information/
|
| "Unlimited" plan you're paying $80/mo for that you're
| going to get 600Kbps if you really treat it as
| "unlimited".
|
| I personally don't even use all of my 15GB a month. I get
| lots of people live different lifestyles, but _a lot_ of
| people don 't need "unlimited". So really, I'm not even
| spending $360/yr, I'm spending $240/yr. $444/yr cheaper
| than your plan. $1,332 cheaper after three years.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I think you misread, that throttle is for the hotspot
| data.
|
| And honestly that's a lot better than most throttles.
| Though it seems silly they even bother to throttle 5G
| Ultra Wideband. Are those antennas ever going to be
| heavily loaded with how short their range is?
| dangus wrote:
| Max and Netflix _with Ads_
|
| That is an important distinction. Those plans together
| only represent a $17/month value.
|
| And that value is assuming you actually watch both of
| them regularly.
|
| You would almost certainly save money using an MVNO and a
| not-brand-new-super-pro phone.
| vel0city wrote:
| And I already get Max through my home ISP anyways, so
| really only $8/mo extra value. But I wouldn't watch
| Netflix With Ads anyways, so really $0 for me.
|
| But that $80/mo plan I quoted doesn't even include the
| streaming services. That's just the regular data plan
| rate for a single line. Adding Max + Netflix (With Ads)
| is another $10/mo, so _$90 /mo_ compared to the $20/mo
| I'm paying now.
|
| Note, when looking at Verizon's website, the big
| advertized rate numbers show the per-line rate _with four
| lines_.
| paxys wrote:
| I pay $20/mo for Visible, and it works great. The average
| phone plan with a "free" iPhone from a major carrier is
| $100-120/mo with a minimum 3 year contract. So yeah, paying
| for your phone yourself is always significantly cheaper.
| You can even get a device payment plan if you want, and the
| payment plan + phone bill will _still_ be cheaper than the
| bundle AT &T or Verizon offers you.
| ewoodrich wrote:
| Historically I have never used carrier commitments and paid
| for phones outright but did it for the first time earlier
| this year with a targeted offer to get a iPhone 15 Pro from
| Verizon for basically a couple hundred bucks in taxes.
| Mostly because it felt like I was getting worst of both
| worlds paying for a single line Verizon post paid plan
| without taking advantage of any upgrade offers after my
| BYOD deal expired.
|
| But I'm now regretting it especially because I'm getting
| tired of constantly missing notifications on my iPhone
| being so used to persistent notification indicators on
| Android. Planning to use T-Mobile to buy me out of my
| device payment plan once I get around to 800 dollars owned
| on my 15 Pro because being I hate how I'm locked in to a
| premium plan I don't come close to making full use of. I
| still have an unlocked S23 Ultra I can switch back to as my
| main phone if I decide to.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I pay $120 AUD a year at the supermarket for a prepaid sim.
| dingaling wrote:
| Conversely, maybe it's a European thing, but I couldn't
| imagine having my phone in thrall to one provider. So I buy a
| phone and then pick whichever monthly-contract provider is
| offering the best package at that moment.
| dangus wrote:
| This is literally still how it works. Instead of a contract
| you have a device payment plan where you're defacto locked
| into the carrier because if you leave you owe the balance on
| your smartphone.
|
| The trade-in and switching deals are all done as bill credits
| so that you are locked in for 2 or 3 years.
|
| If you are using a big three cell carriers with the unlimited
| postpaid plans and aren't getting a brand new latest model
| Pro phone for free you are throwing your money out the
| window, because you're still paying for the phone in your
| higher plan price.
|
| You will almost certainly save money if you buy the device
| yourself and use an MVNO instead of the big three postpaid
| plans. Especially if you buy the device used after it
| depreciates for a year or two.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > I will happily take a slightly outdated phone with a new
| provider/contract where I don't pay anything on top of the
| expected monthly fee.
|
| At least for Android, the main issue you'll face is the lack
| of Android updates. Which eventually leads to apps no longer
| working because they don't support your Android version.
|
| My phone (2017) still runs everything fast, but I can't
| install several apps merely because they don't claim to
| support my old Android version. I have to go online and find
| apks of the app's version that last supported my Android
| version.
| eloisant wrote:
| It's the other way around for me. I refuse to get a phone
| from my carrier.
|
| Phones "free" with a contract are just disguised loans. The
| loan is hidden in your monthly sub, which is why you have to
| be locked from anywhere from 1 to 2 years.
|
| Also I don't want to have carrier bloatware on my phones, and
| I don't want my phones to be locked to a carrier.
|
| I pay my carrier only for the network. I pay for my phones.
| kaba0 wrote:
| How is a phone different to a TV or other electronic device?
| Also, providers are giant assholes, one of the only good
| things about apple and google becoming a duopoly and their
| gripes getting tighter is that they can say f** you to
| providers that just install bloatware on our devices with no
| concern for privacy, or even basic functionality.
| joshl32532 wrote:
| Yeah, iPhone/Galaxy Sxx price without the same reliability.
|
| You're crazy if you spend $1k for Pixel's build quality.
| BeetleB wrote:
| I have only two reasons to buy a high end phone (which I buy
| used, of course):
|
| 1. Taking good photos. I like my DSLR, but for memories a phone
| is handier. And cheap phones take crappy photos in low light
| (i.e. indoor) conditions. I don't want to look at family photos
| 20 years from now and say "Boy, I wish I paid $200 extra".
|
| 2. Lasting longer. My current phone was launched in 2017
| (bought in 2019). It had a powerful CPU and a lot of RAM. It's
| still running fine.
| rareitem wrote:
| Among Us
| TwentyPosts wrote:
| Thank you
| jijji wrote:
| it doesn't even say the CPU speed on their spec sheet....whats
| the speed of the CPU? how many cores?
| canucker2016 wrote:
| That's how you know that they're not proud of the CPU specs.
|
| They went with the Samsung foundry so they could get a bespoke
| CPU design because Qualcomm doesn't have time for that type of
| stuff. Turns out that the Samsung ARM cores aren't as
| performant as the Qualcomm/Apple ARM cores. But at least Google
| has these Tensor thingies...
|
| [edit] in Dave2D's video about the Pixel 9 Pro XL,
| https://youtu.be/67hVZOJDFxQ?t=323 , he shows a Geekbench
| comparison of recent Android CPUs, the new Tensor G4 is still
| slower in multithread GeekBench than SnapDragon 8 Gen2 & Gen3.
| drewg123 wrote:
| How reliable is the Pixel fold? I jumped ship from Nexus/Pixel in
| 2019, and the only thing that could bring me back to Pixel would
| be the larger screen of the fold. But my personal experience with
| Nexus/Pixel quality 2010-2019 is pretty bad, and adding in the
| folding screen makes me think getting one is a Bad Idea.
|
| Sadly, due to my employer, only Apple and Google are options, so
| none of the other folding phones are options. I wish Apple would
| do a fold..
| nblgbg wrote:
| One of the big problems with Pixel phones is their lack of
| thorough testing. You upgrade and suddenly you encounter strange
| Bluetooth issues, call problems, or other features that were
| working fine before but suddenly stop functioning. Tons of people
| will be complaining about this in forums, and you won't receive
| any updates to fix them for months. IMHO all Pixel phones are
| just developer devices and you can't seriously use them as daily
| drivers. Adding more AI features won't help unless they start
| taking their customer service seriously!
| ascorbic wrote:
| I've had a Pixel 8 Pro since launch day and have had zero
| issues with it. Really great phone.
| olyjohn wrote:
| I had a Pixel 4XL that could not do basic phon calls. 7/10
| tries I would get no audio but the other person could always
| hear me. I wiped the phone and it magically started working,
| then about a week after that it was back to not working
| again. Also the back cover started peeling off the phone
| since all they did was use a tiny bit of glue to keep it on.
| jerlam wrote:
| Not doubting your experience, but you've had the phone for
| less than a year and haven't had a major Android version
| update.
|
| You are 1/7th of the way of your total support period. If you
| can say you have no problems in 2030, that would be much
| stronger evidence.
| sigzero wrote:
| Wow, talk about an unrealistic expectation. 2030? lol
| practicemaths wrote:
| People trade in cars every 3 years. I imagine it's
| similar to phones. Plus phone battery life does degrade
| pretty heavily over time and heavy use.
| dogsledsleddog wrote:
| A subculture trades in cars every 3 years, as in they are
| resold on the used market for another 13 years.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_longevity
| practicemaths wrote:
| Do those same cars have 0 problems with them and not
| require any scheduled maintenance in those 13 years?
| StevePerkins wrote:
| Is that really a large subculture, or is that mostly car
| rental places cycling vehicles through their fleet?
|
| The rental companies typically buy vehicles from the
| manufacturer at such a volume discount, that they're able
| to flip them onto the used market a few years later and
| come out even with taxes benefits factored in.
| romwell wrote:
| >People trade in cars every 3 years.
|
| _Looks at their 2010 Honda Fit in the parking lot_
|
| Umm, yeah, _some_ people do.
| practicemaths wrote:
| Yes, but the automakers and car salesman aren't selling
| to you.
| romwell wrote:
| _> Yes, but the automakers and car salesman aren't
| selling to you._
|
| Guess where the _trade-in value_ ultimately comes from.
|
| Something tells me it's a factor in how many people are
| able to trade their car in every three years or so.
| epolanski wrote:
| I trade them when the old one breaks.
|
| Phones stopped having any meaningful reason to update
| since a decade.
|
| My 2019 Xiaomi Note 8 Pro is still perfect and capable of
| answering posts on HN like this, going on YouTube or
| answering WhatsApp. Pics are also great and battery life
| is too.
| practicemaths wrote:
| Yes, your personal experience is not the same for the
| average consumer class. Which is the majority of phones &
| cars are designed for and sold to.
| epolanski wrote:
| It's actually the same of the average consumer class,
| people are updating phones less and less, as there's
| really little reasons to do so. New phones are marginally
| better, at best, but not in any meaningful way.
| practicemaths wrote:
| Another user posted in above
|
| "As of 2023, the global average replacement cycle length
| for a smartphone is 3.6 years."
|
| I'm not disagreing on a technical level. I agree. I use a
| pretty cheap ass phone myself that I bought off the rack.
|
| I think it's clear though that phone makers and telecom
| companies are more than happy to sell people a new one
| every few years and intend to continue doing that.
| WA wrote:
| That is Google's stated goal of long term support.
| zepearl wrote:
| > _That means your Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro will be
| supported all the way into 2030_
|
| https://store.google.com/intl/en_uk/ideas/articles/newest
| -pi...
| dmix wrote:
| Some stats from another site
|
| - As of 2023, the global average replacement cycle length
| for a smartphone is 3.6 years.
|
| - 40.4% of people upgrade their smartphone every two to
| three years.
|
| - The majority of people (75.0%) upgrade their handset
| due to issues with their battery life shortening over
| time.
| morsch wrote:
| For the majority of Android phones, two to three years
| was also the length of time you got software updates of
| you bought the phone right when it was released, if you
| were lucky. I would have loved to pay somebody 80 EUR to
| replace the battery in my Samsung S10, but that wasn't an
| option since it was EOL.
|
| Upgrading a phone also doesn't mean that the old phone
| goes to the bin or the new phone wasn't used before. Lots
| of people upgrade from one hand-me-down phone to another,
| others buy on the secondary market. Longer software
| support also extends the lifetime and viability of that
| market.
|
| Sure, eventually the battery dies and the screen breaks.
| For many devices it's cost-effective to have somebody
| repair it. Having user serviceable batteries would make
| it much easier still.
| gen220 wrote:
| I don't think it's an unrealistic expectation for a hunk
| of bleeding-edge electronics that costs ~$1k and you
| interact with for a couple hours each day at minimum.
|
| I've had an iPhone XS since 2018/09 (equidistant to 2030
| from today), and have had no significant issues - my
| upgrade cycle is ~6 years, there is at least one of us!
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Wait until they update the OS
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| I'm in Android 15 beta with my P8P. Zero issues. So where
| are the problems I'm supposed to have?
| cbsmith wrote:
| I don't think you can really tie that to the brand. Because
| it's wrapped on different OEMs, I find it varies from OEM to
| OEM.
| causi wrote:
| That's been Google phones even since the Nexus days. They
| review super well then three months after release there's some
| crazy-ass hardware problem no phone has ever experienced
| before. Screen discoloration, glass backs cracking while laying
| flat on a table, power buttons getting stuck, spontaneous
| camera glass cracking, etc.
| jsheard wrote:
| The flaws were much more excusable with the Nexus phones
| since they were dirt cheap, but the price of the Pixels has
| crept upwards and now they're more or less at parity with
| Apple and Samsungs flagship prices.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| My issue is that they are bottom-barrel of repairability.
|
| My Nexus phones were described as "designed to fail and
| impossible to fix" by a repair guy.
| abawany wrote:
| But that's not true anymore afaik: they get good
| repairability scores at ifixit and also have a deal with
| them to stock repair parts.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| This was a major issue that drove me away from Android. In
| addition to first party bugs, I got tired of 3rd party
| accessories not working correctly.
|
| My theory was iPhone probably got tested on most 3rd party
| accessories. However, the fragmentation in the Android space
| meant I'd have no idea what devices they actually tested with.
|
| This is further compounded by the fact that Android isn't
| really an open platform, at least in a practical sense. I can't
| just load up a patch for something (assuming it exists) without
| fully switching to some open source ROM that's going to come
| with its own issues.
| eddieroger wrote:
| There's also only one Bluetooth stack on Apple's platforms
| (presumably shared), so testing is more straightforward. And
| if so inclined, there's also the Made for iPhone program that
| requires validation, but again that's with one device in two
| form factors. It's not a fair challenge comparing Android
| device support because the task is bigger, though Google
| could probably do some stuff to make that less painful.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| It's almost like there should be a, I don't know, STANDARD
| test suite that peripherals, phones, and chips that want to
| use the Bluetooth STANDARD would have to pass in order to
| advertise being compatible with the Bluetooth STANDARD, as
| directed and administered by the Bluetooth STANDARD
| organization.
|
| Bluetooth is so old that it was coming into use when
| Computer Shopper was still published. It's been a dumpster
| fire of compatibility since its inception.
|
| There's one of two culprits on the Android side: either its
| the device drivers, or the OS itself. Device drivers should
| be capable of being subjected to stringent acceptance
| standards in order to advertise "Bluetooth". If it's the
| OS, that's even worse since it is higher up the abstraction
| stack. At least the device drivers being closer to hardware
| have an excuse.
|
| Bluetooth is 26 years old. A 26 year old industry standard
| should be better than a coinflip as to whether some
| bluetooth thingamajig will work with a mobile OS. It's just
| sad.
| Bluestein wrote:
| > year old industry standard should be better
|
| Ballpark as old as USB if not mistaken, and that's saying
| lots ...
| londons_explore wrote:
| Google could just say "Here is our official bluetooth
| hardware/software. Either use the official
| hardware/software, or use something else but we will kick
| you out of the android program if your implementation and
| ours ever have any kind of difference that is noticeable to
| a user".
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| As a consumer, I just don't care whether it's fair or not.
| Android and iOS are competing, almost identical platforms.
| They both do what I need, but only one of them doesn't
| always break.
|
| Saying it's not fair to compare them is like saying it's
| not fair to compare a minivan to an SUV when making a car
| purchase. They're different, but similar enough.
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| The win-win solution is to only buy Pixel phones that are
| several generations old. The kinks are ironed out, they're less
| than half the price, and for 95%+ of users, they're just as
| capable as the latest-and-greatest.
| nicbou wrote:
| They don't get security patches though
| e44858 wrote:
| Most of the important parts will continue to get security
| updates: https://www.androidpolice.com/project-mainline-
| android-14/
| tweenagedream wrote:
| Which ones?
|
| According to
| https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en
| pixel 5a is getting eol this month, with the next security
| update dropping for pixel 6 starting in October 2026
|
| "Last gen" pixel 8 is going to get android and security
| updates through October 2030
| londons_explore wrote:
| Phones are really rather secure. Even a 2 year past
| security patches android rarely has any of the most severe
| vulnerability (remote code execution with no action from
| the user).
|
| The common security issues (app can get permissions it
| shouldn't have) are nowhere near as important if you don't
| download random APK's from dodgy sites.
|
| Overall, my fully patched linux laptop has _far_ bigger
| security holes than a 2-years-unpatched android.
| treyd wrote:
| Thirdparty roms are very good about backporting patches
| after Google drops support.
| paxys wrote:
| This describes the average Android phone for sure, but the
| Pixel line has been pretty solid in my experience.
| queuebert wrote:
| So who does make good phones?
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Nobody, you just have to chose which kind of bad you can
| tolerate.
|
| Personally, I navigate the Android fragmentation mess to
| avoid Apple's control-freak tendencies. One is annoying, the
| other is offensive. But I totally see why you might prefer
| the opposite.
| bitwize wrote:
| Apple.
| freedomben wrote:
| Pixel phones are among the best, and getting better as Google
| gets more experience shipping hardware. I've had a ton of
| Pixel phones and there are definitely paper cuts here and
| there, but:
|
| > IMHO all Pixel phones are just developer devices and you
| can't seriously use them as daily drivers.
|
| Is ridiculously hyperbolic.
|
| OnePlus phones are also really good when new, although
| updates often introduce new bugs. When OnePlus was more
| affordable it was less of an issue, but with current prices I
| expect several years out of a device that expensive.
|
| Just get a Pixel.
| croemer wrote:
| OnePlus used to - until they didn't anymore. OnePlus 8 was
| excellent. Pixel 8 Pro has the worst mobile reception I've
| ever had in a phone.
| fortyseven wrote:
| I've been quite happy with the Galaxy phones since the S21
| Ultra.
| StevePerkins wrote:
| It's crazy that I'm the first person in this sub-thread to
| mention Samsung, when they are by far the market leader in
| Android phones. They have decent options at pretty much every
| price point.
|
| For some reason, HN and Reddit just hates this company, and I
| don't understand why. People talk about "bloat", because
| Samsung ships with their own apps for things like phone,
| clock, calculator, etc. But it's trivial to uninstall those,
| and/or set the Google stock Android counterparts as your
| system defaults.
|
| People get all weird about One UI, but my son has a Pixel and
| I have a Galaxy and I honestly don't see much meaningful
| difference between the two (other than his phone getting hot
| as hell because Google's own Tensor silicon sucks). I just
| recently switched back to Android from Apple, perhaps these
| UI skins were further apart in the past?
|
| I think a lot of contrarians just hate Samsung because it's
| the market leader, simple as that.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| They switched the home and back buttons... why? I can only
| assume it was to make competing android phones feel awkward
| such that those who step foot outside of Samsung quickly
| run back to "safety".
| StevePerkins wrote:
| This?
|
| https://i.imgur.com/9uUJLaz.jpeg
|
| I've never seen any kind of UI where the "Home" button
| wouldn't be in the center. And you have the option of
| placing the "Back" button on the left and the "Open Apps"
| button on the right, or vice-versa.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Agreed, home is always in the center. My comment is
| regarding whether "back" is left or right of home.
| Samsung defaults it on the right side, everybody else
| puts it on the left: https://www.androidcentral.com/how-
| switch-position-navigatio...
|
| Recent android versions have put more of this in the the
| hands of the app, for better or worse. So it's not
| especially material nowadays.
|
| My point is just that it's an example of Samsung making
| design decisions which leverage the fragmentation to
| create confusion among the users.
|
| I noticed it when my boss said that non-galaxy devices
| feel awkward. I ended up using his phone later and
| realized why: vendor lock in through muscle memory. It's
| the kind of monopolistic move that only the largest
| fragment can benefit from--anyone else puts themselves at
| a disadvantage by departing from Android defaults. But
| Samsung, since they control the majority, can bias the
| market in a way that makes the defaults feel weird. It's
| rather Apple-like if you ask me.
|
| ... which is why I use a Pixel. I hate Google, but
| they're what I'm stuck with, so I might as well not be
| messed with by anyone _else_.
| notfed wrote:
| I've had a dozens od Bluetooth devices (of both computers and
| headsets), and have never not had Bluetooth issues. I would not
| isolate "Bluetooth issues" to Android.
| guzik wrote:
| Well, on the contrary, we've worked extensively with
| Bluetooth since we're in the business of creating wearables.
| Unfortunately, we've had to compile a list of unsupported
| Android phones that exhibited unusual behaviors, such as
| sudden disconnections.
|
| I must say that both Samsungs and iPhones have always been
| rock solid in terms of stability.
| Atotalnoob wrote:
| Bluetooth on android is quite terrible.
|
| Especially BLE, a startup I worked at had a device that
| broadcast every 500ms for 375ms. We tested over 100 android
| devices and the best phone had a 40% chance of detecting the
| device within 5 seconds...
| dns_snek wrote:
| Any interesting observations with respect to different
| brands? What does the overall distribution look like and
| how does it compare against other devices you tested, e.g.
| iPhones, laptops?
| Atotalnoob wrote:
| Our app was specifically only for androids.
|
| We didn't test anything other than androids, my work
| laptop, and software defined radios.
|
| Different brands, I recall Samsung devices being the
| worst on average. I believe the better Bluetooth devices
| were actually nexus/pixel phones... I think the top, by
| far, was the nexus 9, but it's been a while.
|
| The product was pretty cool that we built. It was
| essentially tile or Apple AirTags before both of those
| were around and ruggedized for usage in commercial usage
| to keep track of items (dumpsters, underwater diving
| equipment, mining equipment, portapotties, etc). You'd be
| surprised how easy it is for some of these companies to
| lose a dumpster or something else of considerable size
| and mass.
|
| Building the mesh network and algorithms to determine if
| someone passed by, moved, etc the item the beacon was
| attached to was pretty cool stuff.
|
| We also didn't want to use data as much as possible, but
| the final determination of "what happened" to the item
| needed to be server side to ensure we took into account
| scenarios like 2 unrelated items traveled together for 2
| miles, then went their separate ways. So we had to
| optimize for data, geo, temporal, spatial data, etc.
|
| Given the speed a vehicle might travel and Bluetooth
| range, you could have 1-5 bbroadcasts to detect a beacons
| presence and update its location so missed detections
| were critical.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _IMHO all Pixel phones are just developer devices and you can
| 't seriously use them as daily drivers._
|
| I've had Pixel 3XL, Pixel 5, Pixel 8, and Pixel Tablet all
| without issue. I realize that can't be everyone's experience,
| but the idea that you can't "seriously use" these devices is
| untrue.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Really? The Pixel 8, my first Pixel, shipped without working
| USB webcam support, which was one of the advertised launch
| features. To actually get that feature you had to switch to
| the beta release track, which of course broke lots of the
| other things on the phone. Notable things that have been
| broken for a month or more on the beta track since I owned a
| Pixel 8 include tap to pay and the unlock screen.
| PUSH_AX wrote:
| We could do anecdotes all day. Unless there is hard data on
| how brittle or robust these devices are it all seems a bit
| pointless.
| ibash wrote:
| No, anecdotes are data. You can't just ignore customers
| and claim their experience isn't hard data.
|
| One of my pet peeves is engineers making excuses for
| incompetence.
| mardef wrote:
| Ok, so my Pixel 1, 3, 5, and 7 have had no problems.
|
| Data shows 100% reliability then?
| izacus wrote:
| So the fact that my iPhones wifi failed means that
| they're all terrible products and we shouldn't look at
| engineering practices like failure rate statistics?
|
| Or do we just do that for brands we're not fanboys of
| like __true__ engineers?
| PUSH_AX wrote:
| Good luck with that. Sure it's data, it's the worst
| possible data you could choose to make an informed
| decision. If you want to gain insight by selectively
| reported, highly biased reports of a tiny sample size, go
| for it.
| glenstein wrote:
| >No, anecdotes are data
|
| They're not good data, they're some of the worst. Your
| idiosyncratic one-off experience should be addressed, but
| not necessarily generalized from. I feel like this is an
| important, perhaps even the most fundamental prerequisite
| for information literacy.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| I agree they are 100% data that's why we can say with
| absolute confidence there are no issues. (source my
| anecdotes)
| zoeysmithe wrote:
| tbf this is abusing the word anecdote a bit. Anecdotes
| are unreliable narratives and hearsay, not facts or data.
|
| An anecdote is "I forgot to pray before bed last night
| and now I have a headache. See God is punishing me." and
| other people agreeing with this happening to them.
|
| Saying, "here is a documented pixel bug that was released
| on day x but wasn't fixed until day y" is evidence and
| data.
|
| Once its documented as a real bug then its no longer in
| the land of weird anecdotes.
|
| How you categorize that is up to you. You can be
| dismissive of what that bug broke as an "unimportant
| feature" but its no longer an anecdote.
| oxide wrote:
| anecdotal evidence is what I usually base my purchases
| on, which is why I've never bought a Google device after
| being burned (literally) by the Nexus 6P battery issues.
|
| you can pretend it doesn't matter, but bad word of mouth
| is all it takes for me.
| Gigablah wrote:
| I have been burned twice by iPhone battery issues
| (specifically my iPhone X).
|
| Battery started discharging rapidly, I got it replaced,
| barely a year later it's dying again.
| hello_moto wrote:
| This is me + wife with Pixel 3 despite "Battery Saving"
| mode and killall apps.
|
| The screen is eating up the battery like me drinking
| water on a hot California weather.
| digging wrote:
| > but bad word of mouth is all it takes for me.
|
| That's fine, but it's also _entirely_ different from
| saying that the phones are objectively unstable and bad
| for everyday use.
| lordnacho wrote:
| But who is going to have the data that we need to assess
| this?
|
| The firm that has an interest in everyone thinking
| there's no data, and that we should withhold judgement.
|
| There's not a lot of good choices here, either you assume
| that because there's no info, everything is fine, or you
| assume that the one guy complaining is one of many.
| webnrrd2k wrote:
| A quick search turns up problems, enough so that, as a
| consumer, I'd be concerned. Is that hard enough data to
| reach a conclusion in a major scientific journal? No.
|
| Is it enough data so that, as a consumer looking to
| purchase one, I would be concerned? Probably.
|
| Is it enough data that I'd expect some engineer at Google
| (or wherever) to pay attention and address? Certainly, I
| would expect some engineering team to pay attention to
| public forums and address issues as they arise. It
| doesn't seem to be happening. If these phones are
| supposed to be a flagship items, and I think it's
| reasonable to claim that they are, it's also reasonable
| to expect flagship support.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| I'm sure we could also find anecdotes of some iPhone users
| having features necessary for them blocked or non-
| functional. It does not mean that the vast majority of
| people cannot still use the device without incident as a
| "daily driver."
| jeffbee wrote:
| I used an iPhone from launch to the iPhone SE3 and I
| can't recall there ever being a feature printed on the
| box or hyped by Steve Jobs on stage that did not work out
| of the box, or that later stopped working.
| glenstein wrote:
| Here's one about battery life:
|
| https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255046014?sortBy=ran
| k
| SideQuark wrote:
| You must have had that single magic version of Apple Maps
| no one else got for a long time on release.
|
| They lost the batterygate lawsuits, right? Guess you
| missed that fiasco that resulted in Apple paying out over
| half a billion. In this case Apple deliberately degraded
| previous user experiences on older phones, which means
| previous behavior (in this case performance) stopped
| working, done deliberately by Apple.
|
| yes, it didn't go to zero, but it didn't do what it once
| did as decided remotely by Apple).
|
| Apple also promised user data security, sold user data,
| and got hauled before Congress in 2011 for that. But I
| guess your user data was safe in offshore data silos.
|
| I could go on, but I think your recall on iPhone
| downsides stopped working.
| kaba0 wrote:
| > They lost the batterygate lawsuits, right? Guess you
| missed that fiasco that resulted in Apple paying out over
| half a billion. In this case Apple deliberately degraded
| previous user experiences on older phones, which means
| previous behavior (in this case performance) stopped
| working, done deliberately by Apple
|
| Let's not share this absolute misinterpretation of what
| happened.
|
| Apple fcked up big time on communication, that's for
| sure, but it was an absolutely well meaning feature for
| an old device, lengthening their lifespan. They saw a
| bunch of random poweroffs due to degrading batteries not
| being able to output enough power to the CPU, and pushed
| an update that decreased the CPU clock down a bit. This
| of course degraded performance, and not having informed
| the buyers, making it a choice, they lost a lawsuit. But
| if they would actually do the communication well, it
| could have been an excellent positive PR, them fixing a
| bug for a 4 or so years device!
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| The only thing they did on purpose was run too close to
| the limits of the battery.
|
| The battery degraded _because it was a battery_ , and the
| performance had to degrade along with it because of
| physics.
|
| Apple didn't decide remotely to weaken performance. That
| performance was on borrowed time. What Apple did wrong
| was _not making it clear upfront_ that the performance
| was on borrowed time and wasn 't sustainable.
| refulgentis wrote:
| So you think there should be more testing so the testing
| track is stable?
|
| I worked on Pixel, left Google in October. I agree
| vehemently with what you're saying, its just, you're
| barking up the wrong tree on a couple different levels, the
| easy one above, and a more difficult one below.
|
| Management did what you wanted a few years back, #1 and #2
| and #3 priorities were "stability above all else" since
| Pixel 6.
|
| This unfortunately didn't do anything in practice, other
| than enable newly minted middle managers to punch down,
| hoard work[1], and hide poor decision making and lying
| easily.[2] Net negative effect on product of course.
|
| What managers wanted to legislate was " _care_ about your
| features ", but I observed over years that you simply can't
| enforce that. Ironically, given the above behavior from the
| new management layer, people got _more_ detached. Unit test
| coverage went up, I 'd bet, which is also a lesson in unit
| tests have significantly diminishing returns. E2E tests are
| hard and flaky, but they pay 100x dividends in these
| situations.
|
| What you want to legislate is the truffle hunting that
| lowest level management does is bad. i.e. say we can
| definitely do whatever pet thing some guy 3 levels up says
| we _need_ to copy from iOS this year. Then, hold it back
| because it 's not done, but still announce it. Then, layer
| on a special process to get you on the betas to get the
| feature you thought you were buying. All of this keeps each
| individual happy and yet, remarkably, leads us directly
| back to the initial situation we were trying to fix.
|
| From all this, you can also derive why things only launch,
| and never improve (tl;dr: management has 0 incentive to do
| anything other than latch onto the latest vague ask / iOS
| copying from above)
|
| [1] Estimate everything takes 3-5x engineers it did 3 years
| ago. it's a huge win: I'm managing this team because I did
| it myself 3 years ago, so this makes clear what a talented
| engineer I was/am. When I solely listen to the vague asks
| from people 3 steps above, they'll want to give me the
| headcount I need to get their pet project done, so this
| gives me more reports. My compensation scales with report
| count. And if the estimate is questioned in any depth,
| well, we're making sure we have enough to deliver this
| Priority(tm) at high Quality(tm). Also, no one is going to
| question it anyway, my manager made me a manager because
| they trust me.
|
| [2] it's _very_ easy to work around blatant
| irresponsibility by flipping it into "the guy lower on the
| totem pole is insufficiently committed to quality and
| collaboration [taking forever to do anything]"
| jeffbee wrote:
| Yes, I think the dogfood stage before the beta release
| should be more thorough. For the record, I was also
| adamant about this while I still worked at Google.
| Google, especially Android, is way too eager to release
| to beta. You should not release to beta until you have
| stopped generating new defect reports in dogfood. If you
| do, you just annoy the beta testers and get a huge number
| of duplicate reports. That is exactly what happened this
| year with the lockscreen bug. If anyone in dogfood had
| even touched the phone _once_ the problem and its
| severity would have been obvious. And breaking Wallet
| generated 13000 duplicate reports, breaking a core use
| case for beta users.
| refulgentis wrote:
| That's actually the policy as I understood it, though, it
| was being enforced starting in an OS cycle, and I was
| only there for a month of it. When I think of
| institutionalized maladaptive dysfunction, I think of the
| lock screen.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| As shocking as that sounds, I had a Pixel 7 and after
| sometime calls stopped coming through making me miss some
| emergency calls.
|
| I have never ever had a phone do that and I have used some
| really cheap phones.
|
| So I don't think what OP is saying is far from the truth. I
| am resolved to never buying a Pixel again.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| I upgraded from a Pixel 3XL to a Pixel 7 Pro XL. I've been
| generally happy. But...
|
| Back in September 2019, my Pixel 3XL had a problem doing an
| OTA update. I spent hours with Google support (both live and
| over email). Their only suggestion was to reset the phone and
| restore from backup.
|
| The problem is... I had had the 'backup' option in settings
| enabled, the whole time I had the phone. I thought it was
| being backed up regularly. But I could not create a backup
| from my phone. I tried rebooting the phone, but the 'Backup
| Now' button was still greyed out. Based on some information
| from the web, I disabled my PIN. That caused my Google
| accounts to be logged out, but DID enable the 'Backup Now'
| button. However, the backup failed. I tried doing a backup
| via adb, which also failed.
|
| IIRC this was before Google Authenticator had the ability to
| transfer 2FA codes from one device to another. So, without
| the ability to restore from backup, a reset would mean I
| needed to recreate 2FA codes for tens of services, which is
| pretty time-consuming.
|
| I wasn't the only person with this problem:
| https://support.google.com/pixelphone/thread/13519859?hl=en
|
| I really like Pixel phones, and just ordered a Pixel 9. But
| for the foreseeable future my parents will continue getting
| iPhones.
| rhinoceraptor wrote:
| The last I read there were still ongoing issues with 911
| calls with Pixels, it didn't seem limited to any particular
| phone model or OS version.
| minkles wrote:
| Yeah that. Pixel 6A and 7A. Unreliable as hell. Went straight
| back to iOS.
|
| Edit to clarify: constant problems with payments, bluetooth,
| eSIMs.
| tomrod wrote:
| Weird. My 7A runs fine. I do swap out a lot of apps though,
| like keyboard and application selector.
| ravenstine wrote:
| > IMHO all Pixel phones are just developer devices and you
| can't seriously use them as daily drivers.
|
| While there's a lot you said that I agree with, I find this
| statement quite an exaggeration. I've owned Pixel phones for
| the last 7 years, both with stock and custom ROMS, and as much
| as Pixel seems to always have weird quirks, it's been reliable
| enough for me that I don't see why it couldn't be a daily
| driver.
|
| That said, I share your view on upgrading so far that I really
| hesitate to upgrade anything, whether it's my Pixel phone or
| something else. I can count on one hand the number of times
| I've been legit hacked, but I don't have enough fingers to
| count all the times that software bugs did things like get me
| stranded, cut me off from my finances, almost get me killed on
| the road, and so forth.
|
| Although I've never been an iPhone user, Pixel is the best
| Android phone I've used. I'm a bit biased since it's developer-
| friendly I'm a software engineer, but I've had the least
| catastrophic issues (and less crapware) with them compared to
| other phones like Samsung's line. The strange thing about Pixel
| is that updates seem to always destabilize the UI, and I'll get
| weird things happening like the lockscreen coming up and
| remaining frozen for some time.
| dbspin wrote:
| >I've been legit hacked, but I don't have enough fingers to
| count all the times ?>that software bugs did things like get
| me stranded, cut me off from my finances, >almost get me
| killed on the road, and so forth.
|
| I hesitate to defend apple on Hackernews but I have never
| experienced anything like these issues with any iPhone. Major
| problem is battery life, other than that I can say the core
| features of every iPhone I've owned have 'just worked' pretty
| consistently.
| patall wrote:
| Neither have I on all my android phones. Only device that
| failed me was an iPad 3 (yeah 12 years ago) that I got
| replaced in the store due to it crashing right in their
| hands. But hey, anecdotes.
| oysterville wrote:
| First adopters are now the beta, or even in some cases alpha,
| testers and will continue to be for as long as there are enough
| people willing to sacrifice stability for having the newest
| tech.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| > IMHO all Pixel phones are just developer devices
|
| These were the Nexus. Pixel phones are definitely consumer
| devices. Nexus phones were designed to be rather generic, meant
| to be used as a model for other manufacturers and as a test
| platform for developers. It was when Android really was open
| (or at least more than it is today). They were usable phones,
| even good ones, but without any "personality".
|
| Pixel phones on the other hand advertises exclusive features,
| and is mostly picture-focused, hence the name, and also AI, but
| who isn't nowadays. Nexus advertisement was little more than
| its spec sheet.
| 0x1ch wrote:
| The fact that more than once, you could not call 911 due to a
| bug, should be enough to convince people that Google doesn't
| test their products or have any quality control.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| This alone is why I will never buy another android phone.
|
| It is inconceivable to me how a phone dialer bug can happen
| more than once, especially when it involves a life and death
| situation.
| digging wrote:
| I would seriously hope that 2 instances of a certain bug, no
| matter how critical, would not convince _anyone_ that the
| manufacturer "doesn't test their products or have any
| quality control".
| 0x1ch wrote:
| Any other service wouldn't have bothered me. This was a
| reoccurring issue across different releases of the Pixel
| line... If there is a single thing you should be able to do
| with a cellular device, it's call 911... Not acceptable.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > One of the big problems with Pixel phones is their lack of
| thorough testing. You upgrade and suddenly you encounter
| strange Bluetooth issues, call problems, or other features that
| were working fine before but suddenly stop functioning. Tons of
| people will be complaining about this in forums, and you won't
| receive any updates to fix them for months. IMHO all Pixel
| phones are just developer devices and you can't seriously use
| them as daily drivers. Adding more AI features won't help
| unless they start taking their customer service seriously!
|
| I've been using the Pixel/Nexus phones for over a decade, and I
| find this complaint bizarre. I've had issues with the phones
| (just like I have with my Apple hardware) at times, but nothing
| like what you're describing.
|
| The real issue with Pixel phones is not that their software or
| hardware support is worse (it isn't) but the customer support.
| If my iPhone breaks under warranty, I can walk into an Apple
| store and get it fixed or replaced immediately. When my Pixel
| device breaks, even though I live near the flagship Google
| store, the best Google will do is send me a replacement phone
| "within 5-10 business days".
|
| The customer support experience is a huge issue, and I wish
| Google would do something about it. But the other points don't
| resonate at all.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| More than once, pixel devices were left unable to call
| emergency services - 911.
|
| Just imagine, you are in a life or death scenario and your
| literal phone has a bug preventing you from calling help.
|
| All other issues are minor. I cannot forgive a bug of this
| nature.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Just imagine, you are in a life or death scenario and
| your literal phone has a bug preventing you from calling
| help.
|
| > All other issues are minor. I cannot forgive a bug of
| this nature.
|
| Does that mean you will never use Verizon, AT&T, or
| T-Mobile, all of which have had carrier-wide 911 outages?
| Will you never visit the state of Massachusetts, which had
| a _state-wide_ 911 outage, affecting all carriers, just six
| weeks ago?
|
| This type of failure is bad, but it's unfortunately a lot
| more common than you think.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| this is a bad faith response and you know it.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| It looks like a valid question to me. Obviously it's
| rhetorical, but it makes a reasonable point that the
| hard-line stance of "cannot forgive a bug of this nature"
| is probably not viable. These are not strawman examples,
| these are similarly horrible failures.
| creato wrote:
| I switched from pixel to iPhone because I was fed up with bugs.
| I'm going to switch back to pixel for my next phone because I'm
| fed up with bugs on iOS. It's really not better, just a
| different set of bugs.
| khaomungai wrote:
| I've had several Pixel phones and using the 6a currently. Never
| ever had any issues. My strategy is to delay updates for a few
| days to be not the first one bricking my phone. :)
| locallost wrote:
| I've used Pixel 6 for the last few years and Pixel 3a before
| that. "As daily drivers" whatever that actually means, as I for
| sure don't have any other phone laying around.
| fullstop wrote:
| I have a Pixel 7 Pro, and my Bluetooth has been fine. No issues
| there, ever, but I do have complaints about features suddenly
| not working and it mostly revolves around Google Assistant. It
| is utterly inconsistent with what it does, and it is maddening.
|
| It randomly wants me to unlock the device to play music, but
| I'm using voice controls because I'm driving. It has my car's
| bluetooth device set as "trusted" so it shouldn't even require
| it to unlock to continue, and it's not like asking it to play
| something on Spotify would reveal any information about myself.
| Additionally, sometimes it just leaves the screen on in the off
| chance that it _does_ start to play music, and I feel my pocket
| getting warm but there's nothing that I can do because I'm
| driving and I don't want to mess with my phone.
|
| If I knew that it was going to leave the screen on I would just
| queue up music before I leave, but it doesn't always do it and
| it drives me nuts. I don't think that my next phone will be a
| Pixel.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Yep. I think I'm in the "fool me twice" category on Pixels now.
| This is the third one in a row with a bad USB socket.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Nice to see they haven't changed anything from the Nexus 5
| days. I purposely stayed on the official firmware in the hopes
| that I would have a seamless experience. The day before an epic
| trip around Europe, I upgraded to the latest version. It broke
| video recording so that all videos had garbled audio. Ruined
| priceless memories. Meanwhile my friend's iPhone 5 was
| operating perfectly fine and wasn't always running out of
| battery like the Nexus was. After the trip, I had enough and
| bought a used iPhone. That was the last time I ever considered
| Android. This also turned me into a die hard Mac user. Can't
| believe I wasted years of my life trying to make Linux and
| Windows work when I could have just used a Mac.
| raviisoccupied wrote:
| It's incredible to me how much worse this web page is than a
| comparable Apple one. Just from a cursory glance, I've seen some
| late loading elements, weird and confusing pricing before I've
| even seen the whole phone, and a weirdly masked and slightly
| pixelated video.
| therein wrote:
| Definitely a page full of eye sores. Also the branding is all
| over the place, the page itself feels more like it fits
| BestBuy's branding than Google's.
| jerjerjer wrote:
| They could have removed half of the "AI" references and it
| would still be overused.
| netbioserror wrote:
| I bought a refurbished Pixel 3A for $150 and dropped Graphene on
| it. Has worked like a charm. Incredible 4-day battery life thanks
| to the absence of Google Play Services. Might move to /e/ soon
| now that Graphene has dropped support.
| meonkeys wrote:
| /e/ is nice. Pairs well with Nextcloud.
| fsckboy wrote:
| Bit of advice I'm looking for, if my question resonates for you:
| I've had Pixels in the past (pretty distant past at this stage)
| but I generally found the experience to be too "beta" or
| "experimental", in that various features would not carry over to
| a new Pixel, and I'd have to get used to something entirely
| different all over again. In contrast, I've enjoyed the Samsung
| approach, and I love the Fold. (I also carry iphones, I like
| gadgets)
|
| Should I try the Pixel Fold, might I like it? (looking for
| opinions from people who recognize my story; no need to tell me
| things like "nobody can answer that for you")
| cogman10 wrote:
| I've never used the fold, I'd be a bit concerned about the
| screen wearing at the crease. Damage is another thing to be
| worried about.
|
| As for the pixels, my advice is to hold off buying the latest
| until like Feb or even May. Google pretty aggressively drops
| the prices after release so waiting just a little bit will save
| you several hundred dollars. By Feb, generally the phones have
| been pretty stable.
| freedomben wrote:
| Black Friday usually gets a couple hundred $ off as well.
| Only risk is that if the phone (or watch, etc) is selling
| well then they won't discount it, so you might end up waiting
| a long time or waiting a couple months and still paying full
| price. I always try to hold out for Black Friday though
| unless my old phone is broken.
| SushiHippie wrote:
| I only bought a Pixel because of GrapheneOS.
|
| I think I've never had this few issues with a phone. (I only
| had Samsung phones before this)
|
| It feels even better than the Android that the Pixels ship
| with, I used it for a day before I flashed GrapheneOS, and I
| can completely understand why one would not buy a Pixel again
| if they only experienced the Stock OS.
| fsckboy wrote:
| I'm always interested in trying things like that, but I'm not
| that into playing some sort of "jailbreak cat and mouse" over
| time. If I install GrapheneOS, is it automatic after that for
| security updates and whatnot, or do I have to do some weird
| two-hands-three-fingers reboot and manually download, etc?
| hendi_ wrote:
| Yes, it's fully automated OTA updates with GrapheneOS.
|
| (running it since 9mo on my Pixel 8)
| joe200 wrote:
| What about banking apps ? Do they work correctly ? Do
| they complain that you don't have genuine phone ?
| SushiHippie wrote:
| My banking apps all work (three different german banks),
| but the app from my health insurance does not want to
| work.
|
| Relevant recent submission:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41215126
| penguinjanitor wrote:
| Graphene OS has automatic updates, prompts you for reboots
| after installing them via notification.
| lynndotpy wrote:
| Speaking as a Calyx user since 2020, the install experience
| was a bit finnicky, and it required no ongoing manual
| maintenance. My understanding is the web installer is
| pretty easy now though.
|
| One caveat: Unlocking the bootloader deletes the disk. This
| is a reasonable security measure, but it means you don't
| want to use the phone for anything important before
| installing Graphene.
| riddley wrote:
| What excited you about Graphene?
| delecti wrote:
| I'm not sure why you think you'd like the Pixel fold more than
| the Samsung Fold. Their dimensions are similar, but you've
| already said you dislike the software experience.
|
| I had the Nexus 5, Pixel 1, 3a, and now 7a, with a couple other
| phones in between which each time drove me back to Google
| hardware and their flavor of Android. If you didn't like the
| software in the early days of Pixel, or even in the Nexus days
| before, you probably still wouldn't.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _I 'm not sure why you think you'd like the Pixel fold more
| than the Samsung Fold._
|
| a hypothetical answer to my question could be: "yes, worth
| trying the Pixel experience again, but stay away from the
| Fold." my question had two dimensions.
|
| but thank you! very informative. yes, I had most of the
| Nexuses, then into the Pixels
| LegitShady wrote:
| Personally can't imagine someone thinking "I hate the pixel
| experience" and then actually preferring samsung's, which is
| way worse.
| delecti wrote:
| Personally I view the Pixel experience as "clean", but I've
| heard it described as "sparse" by Samsung fans.
| klauserc wrote:
| Hm... difficult question. I got a Pixel Fold at half price
| second hand. What MKBHD says about the Pixel Fold is absolutely
| true: it has the best outer screen/folded experience of all the
| foldables. Most of the time, I use it closed. And, apart from
| the abysmal screen brightness, it's a perfectly fine phone when
| folded.
|
| There are still very few apps that support the full screen
| properly and while you can force apps to run full screen on the
| big screen, their automatic UI layout will simply blow up the
| lower and upper portions of their interface so that you don't
| see that much more.
|
| Most Google app, obviously, have proper support and YouTube is
| definitely the primary use case for the big screen. Insanely,
| Google Maps loses features when viewed unfolded (WTF?). But
| even among the Google apps, though, most don't really use the
| space in a useful way. They often just put some hamburger menu
| permanently on the screen. Nice, I guess, but you won't bother
| unfolding the phone just for that.
|
| Web browsing/reading is great on the unfolded screen. That's
| where the near-rectangular aspect ratio works best.
|
| Honestly though, while I'm keeping an eye on what's happening
| in the foldable space, I think my next phone will be a boring
| old slab phone again.
| microflash wrote:
| Do these phones have an upgrade to the "phone" part? My Pixel 8
| Pro keeps dropping networks every few days and takes minutes to
| reconnect.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| They are using a new modem this year but it is still Samsung
| rather than Qualcomm.
|
| Pixel 7 and 8 used the Samsung 5300 which wasnt very good so
| the new 5400 might be better but we will have to wait for
| reviews and what not.
|
| Google is switching from Samsung to TSMC for chip fab next gen,
| so the Pixel 10 might end up with a significantly better modem.
| taeric wrote:
| I'm kind of sad that the world seems to have given up on the
| smaller phones. The marketing of the masculine hand holding the
| larger phone is amusing to me, and I can understand wanting to
| have a larger screen. I do not like the amount of space these
| things take in my pocket, though.
| pdxandi wrote:
| I broke my iPhone 12 mini and part of me died that day. A tired
| dad moment - set the phone on the trunk lid when getting my kid
| in the car and then later opened the trunk. It slid down and
| crunched in the hinge.
|
| I could replace it with another mini but have been holding out
| hope for another updated version. I love the small form factor,
| even at the expense of battery life and camera quality. I just
| want a reasonable phone with solid hardware that fits in my
| pocket.
| eBombzor wrote:
| Didn't they basically confirm that they're discontinuing the
| mini series? The 15 is still your best bet.
| MBCook wrote:
| They never say. The 13 mini was the last one. Maybe there
| will be a 17 mini, maybe never again.
| dijit wrote:
| bought a 15- bearing in mind that the 12 mini was also too
| large for me (5s was perfect).
|
| 15 Pro has been dropped many more times, can't be operated
| with one hand at all. It's the first time I had to have a
| replacement screen actually- after owning iPhones for 15
| years.
|
| Anyway... I'm considering going back to the 5s. I would
| only miss wireless charging and apple wallet I think. (and
| apps are now made for the larger screen and will have
| elements that are inaccessible due to going passed the
| edges of the display).
| ineedaj0b wrote:
| get the SE 2, 3, or 4. 5s is too old, nothing works a lot
| of apps won't download.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| In the beginning, smartphones were all tiny, because it was
| universally agreed that smaller cell phones were better.
|
| Then there was a huge, neverending push to make phones as
| large as possible, or larger. Sometimes smaller phones have
| been offered as an unpopular option, but more often
| "enormous" is the minimum size.
|
| And as long as that's been going on, people have been
| complaining that they want their phone to fit in their hand.
|
| Stipulate that a majority seems to feel that there's no need
| for a phone to fit in your hand. Why are the manufacturers so
| insistent on not providing small phones? Shirts come in all
| different sizes. How much does it cost to design an
| additional size of phone?
|
| (Related: ever since the switch to 16:9 laptop screens,
| everyone has been complaining to no avail about the inferior
| dimensions of the screen. Why are manufacturers still
| cramming them down our throats? This one isn't even a case
| where people prefer 16:9 to 16:10.)
|
| The best form factor of any smartphone I've owned is the
| first one, the Nexus S: 63mm wide, 124mm tall, and the back
| popped off to make replacing the battery convenient.
|
| Phones have gotten steadily worse, as far as usability goes,
| ever since. There's more computing power, but I have trouble
| believing that's what's driving the shape.
| nasdaq-txn wrote:
| >Why are the manufacturers so insistent on not providing
| small phones?
|
| They don't sell.
|
| Apple killed the iPhone mini due to low sales. Asus
| replaced the universally lauded Zenfone 10 with a very
| large Zenfone 11. Google increased the size of the Pixel 6
| when compared to its predecessor. Sales also increased.
| Nition wrote:
| It's weird though that there apparently isn't a market
| for even one high-end small phone, from any manufacturer.
|
| I wonder if to some extent they're not different
| _enough_. The iPhone mini has a 5.4 " screen. Not so long
| ago we managed well enough with 4" iPhone screens. I
| wonder how a 4.5" version would sell - call it the iPhone
| Nano.
|
| Unfortunately a lot of apps don't support those smaller
| screen sizes so well anymore. But people who want a small
| phone that's easy to carry around, who won't be using it
| for hours a day, don't always need many apps.
| brewdad wrote:
| I really wanted a 12 mini but the shortened battery life
| made it a no-go for me. Ended up with a standard 12 and
| am still happy with it years later aside from it being
| slightly larger than I would like.
| mihaaly wrote:
| https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-
| i...
| mihaaly wrote:
| I keep an eye on sites selling refurbished iPhone SE, the
| first one! : )
|
| Shipping with new battery for extra (...unsure if I'd trust
| that battery though).
|
| That one I can still use for phonecalls and occasional
| practical things I need when away from desk and computer.
|
| And the irony about decent hardware is that all have decent
| hardware from the past 10-15 years, only the software that is
| crap on garbage and can't use hardware that could have been
| excellent mainframes some decades ago in some secret nuclear
| research laboratory. Need a powerstation now to present and
| scroll bitmaps and some text.
| StevePerkins wrote:
| I can see wanting a smaller phone. That is an underserved
| market segment. But implying that phone marketing is
| patriarchy-driven is laughably absurd. Marketing for phones is
| probably more diverse and carefully balanced than for any other
| product category.
| serial_dev wrote:
| I didn't read patriarchy on the original comment.
|
| I read that they need to use gigantic manly man hands for the
| gigantic phones, because otherwise people would realize that
| it's a "two-handed" phone for most of us mere mortals, that's
| impossible to use with one hand for anything but the most
| basic tasks.
| taeric wrote:
| Apologies, I meant my comment as a dig on the old idea that
| the larger phone is for men. It genuinely amused me that they
| used different hands to hold the phone. Especially since I
| have no real concept looking at that page on how big it would
| be in my hands.
|
| And note that this was a serious criticism a few years ago
| where it was a complaint that all things are designed for 6'
| men by default. I don't know if that is still the general
| belief, but it got a ton of traction for at least a short
| while. I would be surprised if there aren't a fair number of
| folks that still think that.
| alonsonic wrote:
| They probably were trying to imply that they had to use a
| male model to hold the phone because they are now huge
| henryfjordan wrote:
| > Marketing for phones is probably more diverse and carefully
| balanced than for any other product category.
|
| How can that be true when there's only 2 phone OSes of note
| and one single company sells half the phones in the US?
| There's not enough diversity in the market to create the
| conditions for diverse marketing.
|
| If anything it's a race to the middle. When there are 2 shops
| in town, they tend to become more similar not more diverse.
| oorza wrote:
| He said diversity of marketing, not diversity of product.
| Marketing is how you're selling, not what you're selling.
| seoulmetro wrote:
| > Marketing for phones is probably more diverse and carefully
| balanced than for any other product category.
|
| Marketing for phones is forcibly (over) diverse and carefully
| not balanced but constructed than for any other product
| category.
|
| They do not market objectively to the customers. They market
| by emotion and political correctness.
|
| Just try to find a straight, white male, dare I say, two
| white male friends in a Google ad.
| switchbak wrote:
| Perhaps they're catering to people with different hand sizes
| and gender is not a factor?
| seoulmetro wrote:
| The large phones are so large that even large hand sizes
| won't be able to comfortably use it one handed.
|
| They're catering to people liking big and shiny.
| paxys wrote:
| From what I have seen _women_ tend to prefer the larger phone
| sizes more than men, because they keep it in their handbags and
| use it two-handed.
| Spivak wrote:
| Straight facts. I have a purse, hip bag, or small backpack on
| me everywhere so the size is pretty much irrelevant so long
| as I can type on the keyboard with two hands. I would use the
| hell out of a 3DS XL sized folding phone.
|
| I will say that the folding screen seems like a gimmick on
| the "2.5 phones taped together" size. For compact flip phones
| it makes sense tho.
| teekert wrote:
| Yes, that is also my anecdata (women with giant phones in
| their purses, or even wearing the phone as a purse). I have
| an iPhone 12 mini, really don't want anything bigger, but
| perhaps I'll go for a good watch and buds that can be online
| without a phone and also leave the giant phone in the bag
| most of the day, that would mean great battery life, less
| phone in hand, less distraction perhaps?
| mckn1ght wrote:
| I've wanted to ditch the iPhone/Macbook and go
| watch/airpods/ipad for years now. They need to decouple the
| requirement to own an iPhone to get a watch up and running
| (this should be something an iPad can do), and make the
| iPad an actual pro dev machine. Not sure I'm ever going to
| get my wish, sadly.
| alonsonic wrote:
| This has been brought up in the past and Apple did try to cater
| to that market with their smaller phone and it seemed the
| market response was not great, they ultimately had to drop the
| iPhone mini because it was not worth it.
| lWaterboardCats wrote:
| I'm sure there are many out there like me, but I used to
| prefer smaller phones until I used a larger phone for one
| generation; after trying to move back to a smaller phone, I
| just missed the real estate of a larger screen.
| henryfjordan wrote:
| I ordered and sent back a Pixel 7 because it was so large/heavy
| compared to what I was used to. Ended up buying a refurbed
| Pixel 5 (the model before Google introduced the new camera bar
| design) that's still kicking, been very happy.
|
| Looks like they've gotten the Pixel 9 a bit smaller than the 7
| but still the same weight. It's still larger than the Pixel 5
| too.
|
| https://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Google-Pixel-9,Google...
|
| The iPhone, to be fair, is closer to the Pixel 9 in size/weight
| than the Pixel 5 too.
| Sateeshm wrote:
| I'm still rocking my pixel 4a for this reason
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| I'm curious about those Samsung flip phones that, instead of
| flipping open like a book, flip shut into a square like a 90s
| flip phone. I don't really want to buy one, but I like the idea
| a lot.
| mihaaly wrote:
| I am male with large palm and fingers but a 6.5" phone is
| simply unusable for being a phone. Pocket? Haha, probably a
| small sachet, weights 0.2kg, comedic on the face for calling,
| all the folks lost their minds completely giving 1000$ for such
| a parody?! It can't even sit stable on the desk for f's sake.
| Pretentius fragile money pit garbage all.
|
| Just set up a new Android with 6.5" size and I am in a
| particularly bad mood now. Wasting my hours on ...this! The
| process itself is infuriating, zillions of 'features' just
| wasting my time reading how uber-user-focused are so set it up
| NOW! while tap-tap-tap-tap-tap for seemingly into eternity,
| beyond comfortable by an ocean plus a half, but watch for this
| and accept that and log in and register here and connect that
| and you will be amazed, allow us to take your data, don't
| worry, we care, we say it repeatedly so it must be like that,
| right?, here are two dozens of icons be amazed about, wow how
| many icons are there it is amazing, amazing multiplied, word-
| editor-assistant-presentation-maker-tv-communication-console-
| education-news-pretty-sleepwithme-and-tap-me-tap-me-day-and-
| nigh-oh-yes, into eternity, but first allow this and allow
| that, just one more, read that, we improve your experience so
| do it do it, do it again and again, soon we get there, oh wait,
| camera MUST have discovery of nerby devices otherwise closes
| itself, hmmm, not something on my old Pentax, that's new kind
| of development in the history of photography, watching for
| nearby bicycle or toaster or whatever...
|
| Users have no self respect nowadays, none!, and swallow
| whatever manufacturers stomp down their throats in the dozen,
| repeatedly. It is good this thing was the cheapest, I did not
| dare discovering past 8 years' development on high price, and
| will only be used as a small tablet at home apart from being a
| guinea pig, not good for anything else (without satisfying its
| attention hungry distracting barrage of time wasting functional
| nothingness). Maybe navigation from time to time, but unsure,
| heavier than some travel books!
| Eumenes wrote:
| I'm happy with my Pixel 6a. Think with my previous trade-in (some
| older pixel), it was like $299. Gotta time things right to get
| the next one at a similar price point. I def don't want that
| Gemini stuff on there though. The cheapest new phone being $800
| seems to be a step up though.
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| Pixel 9 also says satellite emergency support ("Satellite SOS").
| Search for info gets you to
| https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/15254448?hl=en&...
|
| It looks like it's coming "later this year". Lots of chatter
| about it, see a few details at
| https://www.androidauthority.com/pixel-9-satellite-sos-34676...
|
| * apparently coming with android 15, but they are shipping
| android 14
|
| * turning on satellite sos later, but this year
|
| * us only
|
| * free for 2 years on pixel 9 phone, but probably would cost more
| later?
|
| If you go on a lot of backcountry trips, maybe you already have
| something like a Garmin device with paid in-reach service with
| texting and emergency service button - no voice support. I have
| this, it works well. You can do 2 way texting, also you can have
| your location uploaded as you travel if you wish.
| S201 wrote:
| Plus Garmin devices use the Iridium network which has truly
| global coverage (as opposed to Globalstar which is only in
| select areas of the world) as well as other features useful for
| non-emergency backcountry travel. I won't be dropping my Garmin
| InReach any time soon.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| Correct. Globalstar is a "bent pipe analog repeater" network.
| They have ground gateway stations that provide connectivity
| from their satellites to the public switched telephone
| network and internet. In order for your handheld to work, you
| need a satellite in view and that satellite must have a
| ground gateway station in view. Iridium doesn't have that
| latter requirement. I won't be getting rid of my InReach Mini
| anytime soon.
| lxgr wrote:
| On the other hand, that "bent pipe" nature is what allowed
| Globalstar to support a (presumably) completely new type of
| protocol and modulation over existing, decades-old
| satellites!
|
| Apple has also been adding new ground stations as part of
| their agreement with Globalstar, which has, among other
| things, added coverage to Hawaii. I'm pretty sure they have
| much larger plans for this than just emergency texting.
| charles_f wrote:
| Plus the fact that the inReach has a mad battery life, and is
| a very simple and dependable device.
| switchbak wrote:
| I know someone on our local SAR team that had mentioned they
| were having issues with folks using the Apple devices for SOS
| that resulted in long delays. This is for coastal British
| Columbia, so perhaps not a universal experience - but
| something to keep in mind.
|
| Personally, I'd stick with the better known option, and like
| another commenter said - the battery life on the Garmins are
| pretty amazing, and it doesn't weight much.
| not2b wrote:
| I do a lot of solo hiking and use a Garmin with InReach in
| case of emergency and to reassure my wife, it can also send
| my position every N minutes (I usually set it for 20 when on
| the trails in an area with limited or no cell phone
| coverage). I wouldn't mind if similar functionality becomes
| common on cell phones.
| thedman9052 wrote:
| How much is the subscription for the Garmin device? I'm curious
| because I bought my parents a personal locator beacon, since
| they are retired and hike constantly. It costs more up front
| but has no subscription, and I didn't want to gift something
| with a high recurring cost. There's no communication option,
| it's all or nothing - if it's activated they send the
| helicopters. On the plus side, it has a fixed 7 year battery
| life, so no need to worry about charging or it dying when you
| need it (if you remember the expiration date). I'm curious what
| Google will charge for their SOS feature and how it will
| compare to PLV or a satellite communicator.
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| It's not cheap, about $12/month is cheapest plan,
| https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/837461. Pay 0.10c for tracking
| points, you have 10 text messages a month.
|
| If you use it a lot, you'll start to increase your fees, I'm
| on the next higher plan which I think is $35/m. I should
| revisit that, it's a lot over a year ;-)
|
| They have the basic devices (connect with phone, or emergency
| button), I have the one with maps built in. That one is
| awesome, it has worldwide city and trail maps. Maps works
| without a subscription, but I do use it for trips where there
| is no phone service more to get text messages.
| dgacmu wrote:
| They also charge you for time spent with service suspended.
| We finally canceled ours when my wife got an iphone with
| satellite SOS - it was pretty expensive for something we
| would typically use (activate, not actually use - we've
| never had to SOS) one or two months per year.
| BeetleB wrote:
| I assume you meant 10c and not 0.1c.
|
| (See https://verizonmath.blogspot.com/)
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| yes, sorry
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| It's $120 per year or $15 per month. That covers the SOS, 10
| text messages and unlimited check-in messages.
|
| https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/837461/pn/010-06003-SU
| settsu wrote:
| One thing to bear in mind is that the iPhone based satellite
| connection is highly directional, meaning whoever is using it
| needs to be conscious and able to follow the on-screen
| instructions to align the phone with a certain point in the
| sky (within a few angular degrees.)
|
| Whereas, in contrast, the Garmin inReach devices need "only"
| a clear sky view.
| MBCook wrote:
| TBF that's what Apple did, basically.
|
| It wasn't in the initial release. Needed a software update 2
| months later or so.
|
| You were only supposed to get 1 year (?) of service. But they
| extended that by a year.
|
| Because of that everyone with a qualifying phone is still in
| the "free" stage so we still don't know what it will cost. Or
| when that will start.
|
| If ever.
|
| I've never used it but I like that my iPhone has it. I would
| never carry a Garmin (city/suburb life, no point) but I know
| the satellite is there if needed.
|
| I think Apple is expanding it to iMessage this year (text only)
| though for all we know that will cost extra.
| brookst wrote:
| It's doubtful they'll ever charge for SOS. The "one year, one
| more year" thing is likely to make the accounting and
| liability work out. If they had just said "free for the life
| of the phone" it would have locked them into providing the
| service for many years, and required revenue deferral for
| many years. Easier to just under-promise.
| deergomoo wrote:
| > You were only supposed to get 1 year (?) of service. But
| they extended that by a year.
|
| I suspect they wanted to gauge what the usage (and therefore
| cost to them) would be like before making any promises.
|
| I would not be surprised if satellite messaging ends up
| costing after the first year, but that satellite SOS remains
| free forever. After all, who wants the reputation hit when
| someone ends up dying in the wilderness because they didn't
| keep up their satellite payments?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| They can charge you after you get rescued. Or does that
| come out as a negligible amount?
| lxgr wrote:
| Even if you managed to charge people (or their SAR
| insurances) tens of thousands of dollars per rescue, I'm
| not sure that would entirely pay for running such a
| service.
|
| But I suspect their actual business model will be to
| charge for non-emergency messaging, which might just be
| able to subsidize the emergency use case.
| brewdad wrote:
| Are there cases of people actually being charged for
| their backcountry rescues? I know it's theoretically
| allowed many places but I'm not aware of anyone actually
| being billed.
|
| Generally, SAR teams would rather the R continue to stand
| for Rescue rather than Recovery (of a body).
| lxgr wrote:
| As soon as SAR involves a helicopter, I remember hearing
| you're looking at a hefty bill in many places, even if
| the SAR teams themselves don't charge anything. (Not sure
| why/how that is the case - maybe the helicopter is often
| operated by a for-profit company, essentially taking the
| SAR crew as passenger?)
| brewdad wrote:
| Yeah, I'd imagine the helicopter is where the big expense
| lies and those are mostly private hires. The SAR teams
| around me are first responders already on duty or
| volunteers. They still have expenses when launching a
| mission but driving a dozen people to a trailhead is
| cheaper than a chopper.
| settsu wrote:
| When you're in SOS mode, you can use the satellite connection
| to manually update your location--separate of the emergency
| response service--so anyone who you've chosen to share that
| with can see it, as well as in Find My. I'm often out of cell
| service in the mountains and will usually push the location
| once I'm in the general area I plan to be for a while.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Only works in the US and not even in all states. Ridiculous.
| What's the point of satellites to then be so geo-restricted?
| brookst wrote:
| Regulations don't much care about what's technically
| possible.
| zukzuk wrote:
| Apple was able to make it work in most "developed"
| countries (do we have a better term for these countries
| now?). I guess they're just better at the regulatory game?
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Also why would regulations prevent them from operating in
| Alaska, for example? I'm sure the Alaskan government
| would be happy to provide better emergency connectivity,
| highly doubt regulation is the issue. People are already
| being rescued, this here happened in 2022:
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/stranded-man-alaska-
| rescued-...
| lxgr wrote:
| Google presumably uses Skylo, and that's only available
| in some regions.
|
| I believe they currently only use Terrestar-1 and
| Terrestar-2, with Inmarsat to follow some time this year
| for almost global coverage.
|
| Terrestar-1 covers the lower 48 US states with one spot
| beam, and Alaska and Hawaii with another one each, but I
| believe the latter two ones are relatively new, so maybe
| Google isn't using these yet?
|
| I suspect this because I've used a Motorola Defy
| Satellite Link for the past year, which uses IoT-NTN just
| like the Pixel's baseband, and it's only been available
| in Europe and the lower 48 at launch (i.e. also with
| Hawaii and Alaska missing).
|
| [1] https://www.satbeams.com/satellites?norad=35496
| lxgr wrote:
| It's available in 17 countries so far. That's a long shot
| from "all developed countries" by most metrics.
|
| And this really does seem to be largely due to
| regulations (and probably also integration with local
| emergency services), as there is no geographic pattern to
| availability.
| brookst wrote:
| Not sure, but it may have to do with Apple using the
| Globalstar satellites.
| Keyframe wrote:
| That's Google for you. I bought Pixel 8 Pro when it came out,
| after I had Samsung (never was into iPhone, my wife has those
| though). I regretted pretty much right away. Heavy AF
| compared to Galaxy, cool features US-locked, EU means nothing
| to that company since it looked like they haven't even
| applied for licenses for cool shit in EU - had to fake my SIM
| to be in US just to unlock thermometer etc.. I will not buy
| any device from them anytime soon.
| roughly wrote:
| I'm an iPhone guy, but - there _are_ other designs for phones,
| right? The squircle corners, the shiny metal band surrounding the
| matte back, the aqua-pill-shaped buttons, the colors - Google is
| a $2T company, there's gotta be an industrial designer somewhere
| in the building or some process for phone design that doesn't
| take place in Cupertino, right?
| supertrope wrote:
| Profitable products attract copycat designs. Samsung copied no
| removable battery and the metal used. The first Google phone
| was a Blackberry style layout until Apple popularized the all
| touchscreen design.
| supertrope wrote:
| Apple copied bigger screens and Android's notifications.
| queuebert wrote:
| Mobile phone design peaked with the Nokia 3110 and the Motorola
| MicroTAC, and it's been downhill ever since.
| lysace wrote:
| My fav iconic Nokia design was the 7600:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_7600 ;)
| greenchair wrote:
| mind blown
| jerjerjer wrote:
| Rounded rectangle clearly won the form factor wars.
| jocaal wrote:
| That phone isn't a squircle, it is a rounded square. Those
| rounded edges seem to be inspired by google material design.
| Also phones have converged to the metal band, glass back before
| the iphone did it. Mobile phones are a mature technology and
| their designs have converged to the designs people are buying.
| cdrini wrote:
| I really wonder if consumers have any influence on phone
| designs. People generally buy phones for completely different
| reasons, the design just has to be "not bad" which generally
| means just take whatevers available that meets your actual
| criteria (OS, camera quality, etc). After all you'll probably
| have to slap a case on it anyways.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I really like the design of this red magic phone.
|
| https://global.redmagic.gg/pages/redmagic-9-pro
| orbital-decay wrote:
| Rounded corners is a mechanical design thing, mostly.
| GZGavinZhao wrote:
| My favorite phone design is the Meizu 16 series, especially its
| white variant (search for Meizu 16s Pro unicorn, it's just
| gorgeous). The 16 series is the last series before Meizu also
| succumbed to the "mainstream" designs such as big screen size,
| punched-hole screens, and weird camera layouts.
| Scene_Cast2 wrote:
| There is a vibrant Chinese Android scene, with their own fairly
| stand-out design trends. One design that's pretty popular right
| now is the "large circle", as exemplified by Xiaomi 14 Ultra.
| My favorites in this theme are the ZTE Z50s Pro (IMHO just a
| gorgeous phone) and the Honor Magic6 Pro.
| Foobar8568 wrote:
| Huawei released a phone with a retractable lens and 1 inch
| main sensor, fairly unique for a phone first type of device.
| LegitShady wrote:
| photography nerds rejoice
| myaccountonhn wrote:
| > ZTE Z50s Pro (IMHO just a gorgeous phone)
|
| Woah that is a nice looking phone. Too bad the thing is
| massive.
| maxglute wrote:
| It could be worse, it could be TV where back rarely seen and
| only gimmick after maximum bezel thinness is display thinness
| until samsung decided to add a frame. At some point design gets
| optimized to death. Have to look towards niche segments like
| gaming phones with extra buttons, ventilation, ports etc.
|
| That said, I just want a phone with a modernized 5 way switch
| rocker to scroll with thumb.
| eloisant wrote:
| I like the small radius corners of my Pixel 6a. I hope it will
| last because I can't see myself switching to a recent Pixel
| with those huge squircle corners.
| eloisant wrote:
| I know people like to claim Apple designs and everyone else
| copy, but that's not what's happening.
|
| Everyone is converging to the same design, Apple like the
| others. They all borrow from each other until they all look the
| same.
| LegitShady wrote:
| No problem, no one will use squares with rounded corners as
| long as iphones go back to the "perfect" design with a small
| phone and small screen that apple forever insisted was the
| perfect phone design, instead of larger screens that android
| had and apple now uses.
| name_nick_sex_m wrote:
| No there is not
| 015a wrote:
| Its super frustrating how the entire industry follows Apple;
| incapable of original thought. The Pixel 8 had somewhat rounded
| edges, which is fantastic for a comfortable grip. Apple killed
| rounded corners and converted to the squared-off design with
| the iPhone 12; and everyone has followed suit since. Galaxy
| phones used to have curved edge displays; now they're squared
| off, because Apple. Samsung's watches are generally circular,
| but they had to go squircle with their Ultra variant, because
| Apple. Apple does Titanium; Samsung has to do Titanium; no one
| gives a flying shit about titanium!
|
| I would bet every dollar in my pocket that Apple is intending
| to convert back to a more rounded design with the iPhone 17,
| and the S26 and Pixel 11 will follow suit.
|
| Begging+pleading for the googung corpodrones to have just one
| original idea, even if its only "we're gonna do it this way
| simply to spite Apple" (they won't).
| figmert wrote:
| No desktop mode?
| cogman10 wrote:
| No Qi2 is really silly. A full year to integrate this in your
| phone design and you punted. It's really just adding a few
| magnets google, come on.
| bfrog wrote:
| I went through many moto/samsung/google phones. Every single one
| sucked ass after about a year or two. Wasn't a big deal when the
| phones came with contract renewals. Became a major deciding
| factor to abandon them when I had to hand over my own cash.
|
| If I'm paying 500+ for a device it needs to you know... last more
| than a few years.
| ranza wrote:
| Im still on a pixel 5 pro and it works great. Thats a 4 year
| old device. Im actually surprised how well it still holds up
| today
| bcook wrote:
| I paid $1000 cash for my Samsung Galaxy S10+ and the 51/2+
| years with it have been flawless.
|
| I was very hesitant to spend $1000 on my first smartphone but
| if it can easily last 5 years, I'm impressed.
|
| Even now, I can't think of a reason to upgrade aside from
| wanting a new, shiny gadget.
| ayoisaiah wrote:
| This hasn't been a problem on Android in 7-8 years. I bought my
| S10+ brand new in 2019, and it still works flawlessly till
| today (well, except the battery).
|
| The S7 Edge was the last time I experienced slowdowns after 1-2
| years.
| kokada wrote:
| I may switch this time since they're finally offering trade-in
| offers here in Ireland. I like my Pixel 6, but wanted a better
| camera for a while (to be clear, the Pixel 6 camera is really
| good, especially considering the price the phone was, but I still
| miss things like e.g. better optical zoom), so I may get a Pixel
| 9 Pro.
|
| BTW, for those talking about issues: I bought my Pixel 6 at
| release, and yes, I had some strange Bluetooth issues during a
| few months. Not anymore, and for a while the phone is solid.
|
| Also, this is probably the first phone that I have that I don't
| feel the battery got worse after 2+ years of usage, maybe thanks
| to the Adaptive Battery. My wife iPhone 12 (that she bought
| around at the same time as me) already had a ok-ish battery when
| she bought, but nowadays the battery is just plain sucks (battery
| health is 87%, that doesn't explain the whole story), one of the
| reason that she may switch to a Pixel too. Another thing I like
| from my Pixel is after those 2 years, the phone still feels
| snappy. I know people like to say that Tensor CPUs are bad, but I
| never had any issues with them.
|
| I don't like the fact that Google increased the prices though:
| Pixel 6 was an amazing value for EUR649, but at EUR919 the Pro
| looks a more interesting choice since the gap reduced between the
| two. I think the reason is because the Pixel a series is such an
| amazing value that nobody care about the normal Pixel anymore,
| but if anything this is Google's fault.
| cogman10 wrote:
| I'm currently on the 6 and one issue it has is a pretty bad
| battery drain. Every so often it gets into superheating mode
| where the CPU is doing... something... and the phone gets
| wicked hot. I've even replaced the battery and the problem
| persists.
|
| I don't care much about photos so the 9 really just doesn't
| have anything that would make me want to buy it. I'll probably
| be holding on to my 6 until it reaches the end of its security
| updates.
| nixosbestos wrote:
| Do you think this is recent? I've been using a Pixel 6A for
| over a year, this current one only a few months. In the last
| few weeks it has started (seemingly) randomly getting _quite_
| warm.
| cogman10 wrote:
| It's been better for me, it doesn't happen nearly as often
| as it used to. The worst of it was around the beginning of
| this year.
| kokada wrote:
| For me, when I am using the phone during roaming or in
| situations when the signal is bad, I can see increased
| battery drain and the phone itself sometimes gets hot. I
| assume this is the bad Exynos modem, but I heard the new
| modem for Pixel 9 will be focused in efficiency for the first
| time (still Exynos though), so I am hopeful that the
| situation is better because this is the only time the
| hardware from my Pixel 6 bothers me.
| conradfr wrote:
| I have a Pixel 7 and the battery feels like it has gone down a
| bit. Hard to tell as it has never been great to begin with...
|
| It was a good deal at the time with the free Pixel Buds Pro,
| but I surprisingly liked my previous phone better (One Plus 5).
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| Curious that you say this, because I had a 6 Pro and while all
| the rest was amazing, what ended up making me hate the phone
| was the battery.
|
| My experience in that respect was just the opposite of yours:
| just barely OK at the beginning, and quick degradation in spite
| of the adaptive battery. In 2 years it wouldn't even make it to
| 3 PM in days of heavy usage. Definitely much worse than the
| batteries in my friends' iPhones, and of course also than all
| the other Android phones I've had, some of which lasted (or are
| still lasting) for more than 5 years with battery being a
| complete non-issue.
|
| I wonder if it's a 6 vs 6 Pro issue or I just got a bad unit
| (I'm not the only one I know with the complaint, though, so if
| it's the latter, bad units were rather common).
| etempleton wrote:
| Looks great. Really nicely designed except that camera bump is
| intense. I like having nice cameras on my phone, but I wish we
| could go back to the flush camera design. I guess they know you
| will put a case on it anyway.
| wnevets wrote:
| These price increases for what appears to be marginal upgrades is
| such a splash of cold water.
| ein0p wrote:
| Nutty pricing. Google is not, and will never be, a "premium
| brand".
| pphysch wrote:
| Good
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Do they have an Apple Airtag / Samsung SmartTag style tracking
| dongle, and an UWB model phone that works with it?
|
| Phone tech specs: both models have "Ultra-Wideband chip for
| accurate ranging and spatial orientation"
|
| Tracking tag: ??
|
| Any experiences with that?
| jmakov wrote:
| How does GrapheneOS perform on the fold?
| blfr wrote:
| How much of a limitation is that Tensor processor? Seems like the
| last of its line and below the performance of other flaghship
| phones.
| atum47 wrote:
| I have a pixel 8 pro and the camera is amazing
| RigelKentaurus wrote:
| I don't see anything that wants me to upgrade my four-year old
| iPhone 12. (TBH, it's not just about these new Pixel phones; I
| don't know whether I will upgrade in the next 3-4 years.)
|
| Minor rant: All of this powerful technology, and yet the examples
| they can come up with are always about e-commerce/shopping,
| photos, calendaring etc. Why can't they talk about something more
| fundamentally useful, like a feature that would reduce your phone
| usage or budget better, etc.? I guess I can dream.
| SlavikCA wrote:
| > Video formats: HEVC (H.265), AVC (H.264)
|
| So much for supporting Open Source AV1...
| eBombzor wrote:
| Terrible prices, rather get a iPhone 15 at this point
| epolanski wrote:
| Lack of proper dual sim (with two nano sims) is what made me not
| buy the previous gen and I guess this as well gets skipped.
|
| It such a small feature that 200$ Xiaomi phones have and Google's
| flagship do not, because people in their silicon valley bubble
| can't understand there's many carries in the world that don't
| support esims properly or the issues that people that live in two
| countries need to face.
| oezi wrote:
| Can someone explain why we get 12GB and 16GB RAM in these phones,
| but Apple sells its MacBook Air M3 with 8GB as the starting
| configuration.
|
| Shouldn't mobile phones require much less RAM?
| jmole wrote:
| This is what happens when your phone and all it's apps are
| written in a garbage collected language.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Yep. I still use the iphone 7+ as a backup phone, it still
| gets security updates and runs modern apps fine with 3GB!
| Slow compared to modern phones, but that's not down to the
| RAM, the memory management is amazing, never had an issue.
| kaba0 wrote:
| That's a gross misrepresentation, and far from the whole
| truth. (Besides, ref counting is also a garbage collection
| algorithm)
|
| A huge chunk of the OS runs native stuff. Add to it that
| android is less strict at putting apps/processes to sleep,
| it's become a much less black and white question.
| hereforcomments wrote:
| I'm still on Pixel 2XL. The battery is not that good anymore but
| has no issues with the phone. I'd definitely not spend 1k on a
| phone. A Pixel 7 Pro is now a much better deal.
| fidotron wrote:
| I don't know how anyone could possibly trust a premium product
| from Google, regardless of how good the specs are. Their entire
| approach to QA and privacy is anti-premium.
|
| When Google bought HTC the idea was the best of Google software
| and the best of HTC hardware, but we have Google level hardware
| and HTC level software. The glory days of the HTC One were a
| decade ago.
| wavemode wrote:
| Reminds me of that old joke: "Canada could have had British
| culture, French food, and American industry. Instead they ended
| up with American culture, British food, and French industry."
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| HTC software wasn't bad at all IMO, it was among the less
| bloated Android layers of the time.
|
| I had three HTC flagships back in the glory days and they were
| amazing machines, their only problem was that most people
| preferred to buy the likes of Samsung despite being much worse
| in almost every respect (software, camera, design, durability,
| etc.). I don't know if due to bad marketing by HTC or just
| because they bought reviewers less (they used to have a blatant
| pro-Samsung bias).
|
| Then of course quality actually degraded when they had to make
| huge personnel cuts due to bad sales.
| denysvitali wrote:
| Reminds me of an issue I had with the Nexus 6P: when I wanted
| to get it fixed (I think it was an issue with the ambiental
| microphone) Huawei said it was a software issue and Google said
| it was a HW issue.
|
| In the end, none of the two companies fixed the problem, and my
| 6P eventually died randomly one day.
|
| So, this Google software and X hardware story is very similar
| to yours w/ HTC, except that if they don't buy the company it's
| better for them as they can just throw the problem over the
| fence to the other company. What a clown show
| underlogic wrote:
| Wouldn't accept it as a gift after having several generations of
| Pixel phone. Half baked software. Also Apple has hammered Google
| on privacy and rightfully so. There's a 0 chance I'll use android
| handsets again regardless of the hardware.
| kaba0 wrote:
| GrapheneOS is a thing.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| The Pixel 10 will have a TSMC manufactured chip. I'm keeping my
| Pixel 6 Pro for another year.
| cipheredStones wrote:
| My current phone, a Pixel 6 Pro, is becoming unusable due to
| screen flickering.* I have an unopened Pixel 8 Pro on my desk
| that I got for ~$700 after cashback during Prime Day last month,
| and I've been waiting for this launch so I could consider the
| possibility of returning it and getting the new model.
|
| So far, looking at this, I can't find any differences between the
| 8 Pro and the 9 Pro XL that I think I'd actually notice. It would
| be kind of nice to get the smaller 9 Pro for the sake of my
| wrists, but not enough to pay an extra $400 for.
|
| Am I missing anything? Or is this just a heavily hyped release of
| a tiny incremental upgrade?
|
| *I'd be more inclined to hold this against Google and not get
| another Pixel if my previous phone, a Samsung flagship, hadn't
| died in approximately the same way after approximately the same
| lifespan.
| baggachipz wrote:
| I have to log in with a google account to view the product in
| their store? Kthxbye.
| paxys wrote:
| No you don't
| baggachipz wrote:
| It asked me to. Guess it's because I have logged in to a
| google property before. I'm sure they wouldn't be tracking my
| views.... right?
| H1Supreme wrote:
| I was initially excited at the announcement of the "fold" phone,
| but then I saw it's effectively two phone screens, instead of one
| folded in half. Sigh...
|
| I have a Pixel 3a, and it's still larger than I'd like. I realize
| that the market for folks who would prefer something smaller is,
| well, small. But, I look at the phone landscape, and I hate every
| one of them. I like the Pixel, because it's stock Android. I wish
| they would release a Pixel "Basic" or something. 5.5" screen,
| basic camera, no AI bullshit. Just a no-frills basic phone.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| One of the folding Samsung phones is the "single screen that
| folds in half like a flip phone" style! Played with one for a
| minute in Best Buy and it was pleasantly compact.
| freedomben wrote:
| If those weren't so expensive, I'd get one in a heartbeat.
| It's downright luxurious!
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| Yeah, the main dealbreakers at this point seem to be (1)
| price, (2) battery life, since it's literally a smaller
| battery, and (3) vulnerability to debris. I've heard people
| say that you shouldn't take a folding phone to the beach
| because the sand can wreck those flex screens.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| What's your concern about it being two screens?
| mrnaught wrote:
| Design looks almost like iPhone. Seems like the design patents
| have expired.
| roschdal wrote:
| Why is it so big, heavy and expensive?
| astrodude wrote:
| Love the camera on pixels, hopefully this one takes it to next
| level.
| vicek22 wrote:
| > Plus, your phone comes with 7 years of OS and security updates.
|
| Way to go, the 7 years of updates was the reason I bought my
| Pixel 8 Pro
| devit wrote:
| It would be nice to have some competition.
|
| Right now basically you are forced to buy a Pixel phone, because
| if you don't buy an iOS or Android device you don't have apps, if
| you buy an iOS device you lose your freedom, and if you don't buy
| a Pixel phone you don't have timely updates and GrapheneOS and
| thus don't have an open source, frequently updated and well-
| engineered OS.
| summerlight wrote:
| I'm surprised that no media outlet is seriously talking about its
| on-device inference capability, which is the biggest next thing
| for LLM. Apple did a better job on its PR here, but they didn't
| also get all the attention that it deserves.
|
| On-device inference improves not just its latency, this also
| removes a huge chunk of LLM's economical constraints from
| software companies. The biggest advantage of software is its
| marginal cost being nearly zero. LLM hasn't enjoyed this luxuries
| but the dynamic is going to change.
| pvarangot wrote:
| It's good for privacy so media companies probably don't want
| you to know it exists.
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| Let's wait until it actually ships and if it'll work offline.
| Last few times Google sold Pixels on dedicated AI hardware it
| wasn't even used and instead offloaded to their cloud services,
| making them slow and often blocking app UI until it's either
| finished or timed out.
| Beretta_Vexee wrote:
| For years, Google has been promising me a high-performance
| voice assistant. I find that in 2024 it still can't understand
| "call mom" and "call my wife's name" unless I'm in a perfectly
| silent environment. And it usually takes several tries.
|
| I'm not going to get carried away with technical announcements.
| lxgr wrote:
| What's even worse for me is that it regularly "forgets" how
| to respond to queries that it could serve perfectly well
| before, especially related to smart home things.
|
| "Play <local radio station x> on living room stereo" has been
| hit and miss for my parents to the point where I regret
| setting them up with a Chromecast-supporting AV receiver and
| Google Nest speaker. They now just use the regular remote and
| listen to the station via FM.
| Beretta_Vexee wrote:
| If you're unlucky enough to be bilingual, it's a complet
| joke. It's a real shame, because it makes this function
| useless for the people who need it most, those who can't
| type easily on a phone (visual challenges), or have
| difficulty transcribing names in a foreign language.
|
| It could help millions of elderly people stay independent a
| little longer. But no instead, they were trying to sell us
| generative AI and photo filter.
| viraptor wrote:
| The weird thing is that they just don't seem to care
| about improving it. WhisperX can process my speech just
| fine, but Google assistant can't. That's the lowest bar
| to clear and they don't need to invent any new tech for
| it - there's a number of solutions ready to go right now.
| parthdesai wrote:
| Google's voice assistant is leaps and bounds better than next
| best thing available on a cell phone, Siri.
| throitallaway wrote:
| Telling my Pixel 8's assistant to "set an alarm for 10
| minutes" fails when it's not connected to the internet (after
| spinning for a few seconds.) That's crazy to me. I thought
| offline voice for basic things was working back in the Nexus
| days.
|
| I travel a lot and often find myself in areas with poor or no
| connectivity, and things "get a little freaky" in those
| scenarios. Even things like Google Maps (which has
| downloaded/offline mode) often fail or spin for 30 seconds. I
| think Google/Android engineers don't test these scenarios
| enough (or at all), and they're usually bathed in perfect
| connections.
| SamBam wrote:
| Yeah, I think the LLM for everything crazy is stupid, but I
| do wish there were a little more of it in the Google
| Assistant. Then I could finally say "Text Bob 'Home in 5'"
| and not have it reply "Sorry, I don't have a 'Home' number
| for Bob."
| seydor wrote:
| I dont know, it works perfect for my (non-native) accent even
| in the noisy car environment with a super-slow car unit. It's
| really good
| crote wrote:
| People are getting pretty tired of AI. Just about every tech
| company is shilling "AI", without actually selling anything
| which is _useful_ for most consumers. On the other hand, just
| about everyone is being drowned in AI-generated garbage. To a
| lot of people, "on-device inference capability" is identical
| to "FlarzBuz engine to power Garbage Generation".
|
| Also, I'd disagree with it going to change the economics behind
| it. Sure, offloading the hardware and power cost of inference
| on the consumer is going to make it cheaper for the AI
| companies, but they're still going to have to spend an absolute
| fortune on training. And how are they going to sell it if it
| runs on _your_ device? The tech industry has been trying to
| push everything _away_ from on-device code in order to sell
| subscription-based cloud services! Who 's going to pay a
| subscription or per-query fee simply for the right to run a
| pretty mediocre app?
| joshstrange wrote:
| Not only does it free the device manufacturers but it's
| something they can offer to app developer for free without
| costing them anything. Personally I think this is what will be
| the biggest impact (When/If they open raw "api" access to 3rd
| party devs). There are whole slews of apps that could make of
| that in small or major ways if it's not something the developer
| has to price into the app/subscription (especially with usage
| being something that can vary greatly user-to-user).
|
| Some random examples I just came up with:
|
| * Podcast app does STT for transcriptions/"subtitles" as well
| as episode summarization (Even cooler if the podcast provides
| chapter markers)
|
| * Games getting new and interesting types of NPC's, level
| generation, etc
|
| * Filters that do more than keyword matching (for news/social
| apps). I can technically filter out political Spam SMS messages
| but only with regex/keyword matching.
|
| * Catch-up on 3rd party chat app conversations
|
| I know LLMs will make plenty of mistakes and are far from
| perfect but there are things they can do very well that are
| very hard or expensive to do (sometimes just for indie-level
| devs but also for small/medium businesses). To be able to do
| those for free and offline would be a gamechanger.
| seydor wrote:
| How useful is it really? It s a novelty, and as language are
| going to get truly useful and reasonable, the small llms will
| be nothing but a novelty item that drains the battery.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I wish they'd make one to compete with Samsung Galaxy, so I could
| ditch the Samsung ecosystem.
| maxglute wrote:
| Pixels were great phones at half the price.
| jjcm wrote:
| Lots of comments about the camera bump. I'm glad they at least
| went for a symmetrical bump so the phone lays flat rather than
| iPhone's "off to the left" style bump. I don't mind a non-flat
| phone, but at least make it symmetrical.
| greatgib wrote:
| This is a valid point, but in my experience, the further the
| camera is from the side, the most annoying to use it is.
|
| Like sometimes you want to take something in picture with a
| difficult angle or small opening. Or for example being in the
| middle means that there will not be space for fingers when
| holding the phone for a picture.
| ayoisaiah wrote:
| There's no reason to upgrade a phone more than once in five years
| at least for me.
|
| I bought a an iPhone 15 Pro Max few months ago and compared it to
| my S10+ which I bought in 2019 and still have. There's
| practically no difference for regular day to day stuff, except
| for the camera advancements which are notable (but not night &
| day either).
|
| It was only the frustrating battery life, and desire to enter the
| superior iPhone camera ecosystem that forced me to upgrade.
| bsaul wrote:
| I've always thought android phones had similar battery
| capabilities than iphones.. How worse are they ?
| ayoisaiah wrote:
| I mean, my S10+ is 5 years old now so it's definitely going
| to be worse. I'm sure the latest devices are ~on par.
| denysvitali wrote:
| The keynote seems to only focus on the Pixel 9 software
| capabilities.
|
| Honestly, why is this important? Aside from all the AI hype, I
| don't see why the event should be so focused on features that are
| purely software updates that will most likely propagate to other
| non Pixel devices.
|
| It's just a bummer that the event focused so much on the AI
| features instead of the HW capabilities: probably they don't have
| much to show this year.
|
| I just hope they fixed the numerous HW issues the previous Pixel
| devices had (e.g: overheating, radio, ...)
| RealCodingOtaku wrote:
| One day, the pixel and the stock android will have the ability to
| hide the navigation pill/ gesture bar[0]. On that day, the
| screenshots of these products pages will be of the complete
| screen instead of the top half.
|
| [0] https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/288400051
| soganess wrote:
| I didn't realize that wasn't available in stock Android until
| your comment! I'm guessing you know, but for everyone else,
| it's been available in Lineage OS... Maybe since the switchover
| to the "thin pill" format?
|
| Genuinely, you gotta love those altOS nerds. 'Giving you stuff
| you didn't even know you needed.
| rozab wrote:
| That's whack, I have this on my Motorola and I thought they
| were basically stock.
|
| The gestures are so frustrating to use I can't believe they
| were devised by a human being, but at least I don't have to
| look at a nav bar all day
| mihaic wrote:
| I abhor all these phones with a glass back, that look great in
| the store and then everyone puts an ugly back cover on.
|
| I'm still rocking a Pixel 5, which is actually my second Pixel 5.
| I really like using it without a case. It's light, small, can
| handle a fall without the back shattering, and I like the matte
| finish.
|
| All I want is a version with more modern specs, but every
| manufacturer keeps optimizing for the advertising shots, and
| people keep falling for this. Right now the camera is the only
| thing tempting me to upgrade, but I'll probably wait another
| year.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| You don't _need_ to put a case on phones. I 've had an iPhone
| 11 since it came out, with no case, and quite a few drops onto
| hard floors. It's still fine.
|
| Obviously there's some luck involved but the only time I put a
| case on a (in that case, Samsung) phone it shattered the first
| time I dropped it. So, I figured I might as well go without
| again. I've yet to have an iPhone break from a fall, only from
| leaning up against something with it in my pocket.
| mihaic wrote:
| Sure, I won't put a case on my next phone as well, even if
| it's glass, but most people do use a case, which keeps
| incentivizing manufacturer to get away with more fragile
| designs.
|
| I'm mostly lamenting on how durability is a niche value for
| one of the most widely used objects in our lives.
| leokennis wrote:
| You're right that a case does little against big drops - with
| or without case, either you're lucky and the phone survives
| or it doesn't.
|
| Cases prevent scratches but, meh, I wouldn't mind a few
| scratches on the back of my phone.
|
| However the main attraction of a case to me is: grip. My
| iPhone 15 Pro Max feels more slippery than a bar of soap.
| Unless I exert a lot of force, it just slips out of my hand
| while using it.
| RadiozRadioz wrote:
| Many often cite the wireless charging argument, but often
| forget that there are many people who don't care about wireless
| charging and would prefer a durable phone.
| tlhunter wrote:
| I find it super annoying that the base model's camera doesn't
| offer RAW photo support. Surely this is just a software
| limitation since the Pro version shares two of the same cameras.
| stare_spb wrote:
| Unfortunately, for PWM-sensitive people like me, Google hasn't
| taken the hint and improved its PWM rate. The Pixel 9 series
| utilizes 240Hz PWM dimming across the board, meaning the Pixel
| now has the slowest PWM rate on any major phone.
|
| From AndroidCentral review.
| 8organicbits wrote:
| What's the selling points here for upgrades? Comparing my five
| year old A50, I'm not seeing it. Presumably a better camera, and
| more RAM (why?). I felt compelled to upgrade in past years, but I
| feel like phone tech reached a plateau. The AI features, front
| and center, feel like hype. Haven't found them useful at all.
| simonw wrote:
| The AI features. More RAM is needed for those. If you don't
| care about them then you're probably not going to want to
| upgrade.
| EasyMark wrote:
| I thought Android was going to do AI features in the cloud
| rather than on the phone?
| ajross wrote:
| Wikipedia tells me the Galaxy A50 got its last security update
| in February of last year, FWIW.
| RadiozRadioz wrote:
| But its Google Play Services (which includes WebView) +
| Chrome all receive regular updates independently.
|
| People put a lot more weight on the Android security updates
| than they perhaps should. Unless you're installing random
| crap, there are very few OS vulnerabilities that you need to
| be concerned about if you have an up-to-date browser. Things
| like StageFright are very uncommon (and I can't find evidence
| of that actually being exploited in the wild)
| aborsy wrote:
| Is Google Pixel (with default Android, not GrapheneOS) at least
| as secure as iPhone?
| ajross wrote:
| That kind of question isn't really answerable. Patch rates and
| known vulnerability rates are roughly comparable. Broad
| hardware capability is similar. Zero days appear for both
| platforms on the open market with some regularity. Neither is
| perfect but both are quite good relative to the rest of the
| market.
| nepger21 wrote:
| Google really needs to improve the core offering of what a phone
| is supposed to provide instead of using half baked AI as a
| selling point.
|
| I have been using Pixel 7 for almost the past 2 years. But the
| amount of basic core issues are crazy. Recently,since the July
| update, every place where the phone cannot catch network signal,
| it shutdowns. And with the update, somehow i feel it cannot catch
| network signal as strongly. That is such a crazy thing. Last
| year, my friend got locked out of all his valuable pictures with
| Android 14 upgrade on Pixel 6.
|
| My experience of Google is so bad with hardware that it has
| finally pushed me towards buying an iPhone for the very first
| time in my life after having been exclusive with Android OS for
| over 10 years.
| dana321 wrote:
| no need to go too crazy, the samsung galaxy is stable
| thebytefairy wrote:
| Meanwhile, I'm getting pushed away from iOS when I can't
| customise basic things and the Phone app (you know, the main
| use of a phone) takes 30s to open, even after restores.
| schappim wrote:
| > the main use of a phone
|
| While the phone app remains important for some, it's no
| longer the primary means of communication for most folks,
| especially with the rise of messaging apps and social media.
| itake wrote:
| that seems like a hardware failure or perhaps you have too
| many contacts in your phone book? For 'fun' I created 50k
| iCloud contacts and it broke my account / phone. I had to
| call apple support to delete them.
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| I had the Pixel 6 Pro and everything was amazing... except for
| signal and battery. Which are two of the most important things
| in a phone.
|
| The battery was quite bad from the very beginning, barely
| lasting a day of normal usage, but I thought "well, at least
| they seem to have taken lots of care to avoid battery aging -
| slower charging than other phones, intelligent charging speed,
| etc. - so it won't degrade much". Two years later it wasn't
| even making it to 6 PM, or 3-4 PM on heavy use days (such as
| trips). OTOH my previous phone (Huawei P30 Pro), with much
| faster charge and no "intelligent" anything, still has amazing
| battery after more than 5 years of use (now in my wife's
| hands).
|
| That was my first and last Pixel. A pity because the software
| was amazing, but that's no use if you operate under constant
| battery anxiety and can't even use Google Maps and camera on a
| trip without spending hours charging at the hotel.
| suddenexample wrote:
| Research: consumers are turned off by AI in marketing because
| it's a vague term that makes no promises about features or
| usefulness
|
| Google: _takes deep breath_ AI AI AI AI AI
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| Size Clarification: The Pixel 9 Pro is a new medium size. The
| Pixel 9 is a direct successor to the Pixel 8 and the Pixel 9 Pro
| XL is a direct successor to the Pixel 8 Pro.
| dartharva wrote:
| Oof, even phones have 16GB RAM nowadays
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| 80% of their "camera" features are just AI tricks.
|
| For the size off the phone, that is sort of lame.
| scottyah wrote:
| I fell for the Google Home, and it has gotten significantly worse
| over time. My only hypothesis is they found ways to reduce the
| cost of running the server-side, and it does not benefit the
| consumer.
|
| My Consumer Report: Do not fall for hardware backed by software
| that costs the seller money to keep running.
| jascination wrote:
| Same, I have nest cameras and nest wifi (now discontinued 2
| years later, so can't buy compatible wifi points anymore).
| Software + Google voice assistant is so goddamn buggy!
|
| Wish I went with a TP-Link solution instead
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| I have the Google Wifi pucks because it was only mesh system
| at the time that offered both wireless and wired backhaul for
| mesh networks, which was great because I could wire most of
| it.
|
| I used it as wired until I moved, and my current house I
| started using it wireless. That's when I discovered a bug in
| the wireless mesh that requires me to basically restart the
| network every couple days.
|
| I also wish I didn't need to app to connect to it. I really
| don't understand why I can't manage it directly from my PC or
| phone via IP Address like every other system I've used. I
| regret it, but it is better than having an upstairs and
| downstairs network I needed to keep switching between with my
| netgear routers I had before.
| acdha wrote:
| I switched from Google Wi-Fi to Eero a few years ago and
| discovered that almost everything I'd thought were network
| limitations was some kind of non-obvious problem with the
| Google Wi-Fi system. Random daily 20 second hangs for iOS
| devices disappeared, the DNS proxy is now reliable, etc.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| The Nest cameras are infuriating. I'll get an alert, only to
| tap it and get "This video isn't available yet. Check back
| later."
|
| After all these years, my devices still are split across the
| Nest and Home apps, and the Home app is still missing
| features Nest had from day one. Oh yeah and presence sensing
| doesn't work since switching to the Google app [0].
|
| I bought an iPhone last year and have been de-Googling since.
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/upLSYyprib8?si=ykEmaxmdTDAt3ghz
| azinman2 wrote:
| Highly recommend UniFi. Storage is in your home, everything
| is well integrated with router, loads up video very quickly,
| scrubbing is fast... its great.
| Fuzzwah wrote:
| I've got a nest hub max that I use daily, for the most parts my
| family has learned the key phrases that result in the action we
| want. But randomly it'll play music from youtube when we only
| ever want spotify. Randomly it won't display google search
| results in a usable format.
|
| So even the very simple use cases that we know work, aren't
| solid.
|
| Then there's the massive disappointment when you just have a
| quick think about the types of interactions that it could do
| very well if google cared at all. Honestly, the failure to
| follow through on what could have been a house hold changing
| device is just sad to ponder.
|
| Why they haven't rigged it up to gemini yet baffles me.
| twp wrote:
| Is it possible to buy the phone without the Gemini/AI crapware
| for $239 less?
| petabyt wrote:
| Interesting that holding down the power button will now launch
| AI... On my pixel 6 that currently opens up the emergency/power
| menu.
| apatheticonion wrote:
| I'd buy this if it had USB4 that - when plugged into a dock with
| a monitor, keyboard and mouse - put up a complete desktop OS
| (preferably full fat Linux).
|
| I could then use my phone as a thin-client for work or gaming,
| perhaps even experimenting with proton locally.
|
| Apple already demonstrated that mobile hardware is capable of
| workstation workloads so I'd see this as a natural step forward.
|
| Beyond that, there isn't any compelling reason to upgrade my
| Pixel 6a.
|
| If I broke my 6a, I'd probably upgrade to the 7a for the better
| screen.
| blehn wrote:
| Why make two sizes and STILL make the smaller phone enormous?
| Apple is reportedly making the regular iPhone Pro larger as well.
| Baffling.
| matrix87 wrote:
| why the price increase? is it really $100 (edit, actually 200)
| better than the 8 (which already has 7 years of updates)?
|
| even then the 8 went on sale the same year it came out for like
| 150 less
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