As someone who owns a 5X:
- The Pixel is a premium 5" phone, not a budget one. It has a flagship SoC rather than a mid-tier SoC.
- The camera is better and more responsive (the camera on the N5X is slow and annoying).
- The body isn't plastic, which means there will be less issues with heat and CPU throttling than on the N5X.
- I can finally get a phone with a reasonable amount of storage and no bloat. The 5X only went up to 32GB and had no expansion. Alternatives from Samsung etc. are mostly carrier locked, unrootable and stuffed with OEM overlays.
- There's no camera bump, so it can sit on flat surfaces less awkwardly.
- They actually mentioned this phone during the announcement, unlike the 5X last year. They might actually pay it some attention in the future.
But the feature list for what is now Googles top phone is underwhelming. 4 GB of RAM is barely adequate - it should be 6 GB like the other Snapdragon 821 flagship. No water proofing? That's the new black. Bottom-facing speakers? Complete regression from the Nexus 6. Including a smoking camera but no optical image stabilization? Make up your mind - is it a digital camera competitor or not?
And frankly since there's no waterproofing there's no excuse for a fixed battery and no sd-card slot. Even some waterproof phones offer those features now. Google needs to blow Apple away with features rather than aping the latest iphone.
I'm not disagreeing with you but what makes you say this? I've never owned a phone with more than 2GB of RAM and I'm not sure what I'm missing out on.
> no optical image stabilization
I trust a software company like Google with EIS, particularly given their work with HDR+. I owned an iPhone 7 for about a week and loved the stabilisation Google's app did on my Motion Stills.
> Google needs to blow Apple away with features rather than aping the latest iphone.
The impression I got from the announcement is that that's what they see their assistant being. Personally that doesn't win me over at all but we'll see how it goes. I could see my mother and her friends all wanting the phone that can talk to them (and it looks more impressive than Siri).
It's Linux under the hood which will always make use of more memory, but our phones are slowly migrating towards service platforms. When my phone is fully kitted out playing Ingress with friends I'm running Slack, Glympse, Zello, team-specific app(s), Ingress and maps. I want the device snappily switching between and/or giving cycles to all those apps as needed without being forced to save state off to my flash storage which is a wasting asset.
I would imagine VR apps will be even more hungry with the large and complex objects and interactions modeled and displayed.
On EIS yup if that replaces OIS I'm fine with it. The assistant may be really cool but it won't remain a google-exclusive for long and it doesn't justify a (in my mind) $200-$300 premium for the phone.
I'll probably pick up the pixel XL when the sales start but as someone who has been an Android acolyte since my developer's edition G1 came in the mail this is not a compelling upgrade for me from the Nexus 6, particularly at this price.
Why does it need OIS if its EIS produces a stabilized image better than anyone else's image stabilization?
The feature is image stabilization - whether or not it's done optically or electronically is irrelevant, all that matters is how good the end product is. And DXO's review claims that the image stabilization in Pixel is superb.
https://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Pixel-smartphone-camera-revi...
Do you have a link that supports the claims made above? That one simply does not.
That's a fair point. If it indeed does produce a great image I have no complaint.
Innovations in photon capturing technology like light field be damned. This is the best.camera.ever.
Did this not factor into your decision?
You mean support for the OS, not for the hardware, which is probably more of a concern for phone users.
You know, I knew the day would come that we'd be saying this unironically, but in still surprised it's here.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/12/12886058/iphone-7-specs-co...
what makes it premium other than the fact that they're charging lots of money for it? i can't find a real differentiator over something like the oneplus 3, which costs half as much.
i agree with you that it's better than the 5X, but comparing it to this year's competition, it doesn't look so good.
The Oneplus 3 is four times the size, the firmware running on it tends to be buggy, and the battery life is nothing close to the same.
I get it - if you're on a budget you can probably do better with the Oneplus 3. But there are a MILLION options in the budget space. Pixel is about showcasing a high end Android phone WITHOUT all the bloat that Samsung adds. I can just about guarantee if Samsung would relent and just run stock android, Google would end the nexus/Pixel program overnight.
but since the Nexus 5X was released, there's been a bunch of metal bodied phones with the SD820 released that only cost $399 - the oneplus 3, zte axon, honor 5x, xaoimi mi5... and there's nothing to differentiate the pixel from those phones, other than a 40% higher price.
The Samsung Note 7 comes to mind with its phenomenal build (except for the explosions), display and some unusual features like a stylus and microSD slot.
But what does the Pixel offer here for a premium price in comparison?
The CPU is premium but weaker than current iPhone processors. Nexus cameras have always been crap even though Google always claimed that with the new generation and some revolutionary changes they have finally "fixed" it. And they always drop support rather quickly, although they always claim otherwise when they launch a new product.
The Nexus devices were at least cheap and so I could overlook this stuff, but I'm not going to spend that kind of money on a device that will probably be a Nexus device with a metal case.
These options exist because many people do prefer larger smartphones. In fact this is the first year where there's higher demand for the iPhone 7 Plus than there is for the iPhone 7.
DxO rated them 84, while iPhone 7's is 86. While Pixel's is ranked 89, it's not that far ahead. And 5X is a really cheap phone, I routinely see deals under $200.
What is "SoC" an abbreviation for?
