I want as little to do with Google’s services as possible in my life, but they really deserve credits for making a modern usable smartphone that is reasonably open. There is just one single feature I will be buying this for - the 5 years of software updates. While good image processing is definitely a pro, all of these software you’re presenting features I really don’t give a damn about. Just give me a phone that is meant to last a little while - and allow me to run what I damn please. This looks to be like a continuation of the Pixel 5, which allows you run your own software like /e/OS and CalyxOS aside to just being a lot less of a walled garden on the stock ROM.
The Android market is completely dire, and no vendor can be trusted to provide openness, reasonable taste or security updates. They sell you a phone, and once you’ve clicked buy they’ve already stopped caring. So last year I switched to an iPhone 12. I needed to vote with my wallet to get a phone that lasts. But although I get what’s appealing about iPhones and the walled garden, I started feeling claustrophobic. Feeling claustrophobic about what I can tailor about my browser, how easily I can run Game Boy games, what ads I can block, and Apple’s stated intents to actively incriminate you by scanning your photos on a personal device. I will continue to recommend those phones for most people (pending what they’re going to do with trying to incriminate you), but it’s not for me.
Finally here’s a seemingly good Android phone with 5 years of support - from the only phone vendor outside of Apple who appears to give a damn about that aspect. Don’t get me wrong: 5 years is still too short in my view, and not as long as Apple provides support for on their stuff [1]. But the market needs change, and I’ll put money towards that.
[1]: The iPhone 5S has just hit 8 years of _kernel_ security updates last month with iOS 12.5.5. One can dream on the Android side, but I’ll take 5 years in the current market.
FairPhone 4 not only promises 5 years of android software updates but also has 5 years of warranty, There are more reasons to trust their words than any of the other phone manufacturers.
• They are not profit focused but rather towards sustainability, They have been delivering their promises consistently for 8 years and so it's not an idealistic vaporware.
• They produce the most repairable smartphone using components sourced from conflict free areas. Parts for repair are available directly on their site, Parts for FairPhone 1 are still available.
• Their factory workers get living wage bonus, Of course do not employ child labor while preaching humanity.
• They have first class support for alternate operating systems i.e. We are the owners of what we buy; So support from alternate OS like Linux, Sailfish or even android ROMs like LineageOS could exceed even the official 5 years support.
FairPhone4 hardware is competent enough for average daily use, Only drawback I see is that the phone is available only in Europe. Then again Google Pixel phones have been notorious for being available in only couple of countries.
On the page it says on the 12th footnote, "Feature drops for at least 3 years from when the device first became available on the Google Store in the US. Your Pixel will receive feature drops during the applicable Android update and support periods for the phone. See g.co/pixel/updates for details."
On https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705 it says, "Guaranteed Android version updates until at least: October 2024" and "Guaranteed security updates until at least: October 2026" for Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro
So they hypothetically could extend it to more than 3 years of feature updates and 5 years of security updates with the nebulous "at least" wording.
1. Spam call screening is nonexistent on the iPhone, and T-Mobile's blocker still lets a ton of them through. In my prior experience Google did a much better job in this department. It would be nice to pick up the phone without a 90% chance of an annoying spam call.
2. Speech to text on iPhone makes a lot of mistakes and Google's latest update looks like they've widened the gap even more. I don't want to handle my phone to text while driving, and when the interpretation is wrong it requires extra keystrokes to try again, correct it, or type the message if urgent. This is unsafe.
3. I find FaceID annoying, and after replacing the iPhone screen because I cracked it, FaceID got noticeably worse. With a fingerprint I can have the phone unlocked before I even pull it out of my pocket, especially these days when we have masks on.
Plenty of other sexy features like camera and the customer service line feature are very nice to have, but in my opinion these are major benefits in terms of everyday usability. The overall integration across services is just smoother too, in terms of flows like email -> calendar -> google maps live traffic, or email -> boarding pass QR code. I am and will always be a PC user so I don't benefit from those integrations with Apple products.
Making the switch will require ditching Airpods and the Apple Watch, but I think it might be worth it for me.
I always thought iOS had better, higher quality apps, and in some areas, that's true - Procreate for art, first-party games, etc. But I miss powerful, functional apps. I love the way Moon+ Reader tracks every single reading session, time spent and WPM. And nothing on iOS comes close to Smart Audiobook Player, although Bound is decent.
My iPhone is a great phone and a poor computer, whereas Android's MiXplorer and Termux empower me to, in a pinch, do whatever I need to do. iOS's best equivalent apps consistently fail to copy files over SMB or SCP (they get killed in the background or just fail), while Apple's Files app can't even write to my writable SMB share that works everywhere else.
In short, while my iPhone wins on battery life, speed, and support, the Pixel (and by extension Android) beat it in power and freedom. Perhaps this all proves that Android suits the needs of this power-user and tinkerer better.
More accurately put, their intent is to scan cloud photos for exact matches with known child pornography material (like every other cloud provider, including Google), and then have the case reviewed by a human only after multiple positives, and only then forwarding the case to law enforcement (based on photos you chose to upload to the cloud)
As a Fi and Fiber user, those services have actually been really solid and reasonably priced.
Android wise, Calyx maintains a nice de-googled one (https://calyxos.org/install/ ) and they will sell you an unlocked phone at a reasonable price if you are a member. We use one on Google Fi with no issues in any of about 10 countries so far.
If the EU agrees this will be very interesting for the smartphone market.
5 years of security updates is already great.
Why? Despite what Apple would have you believe, Pixel phones aren't "more complicated" than iPhones. They're just a little different. For example, I recently had to use an iPhone and the interface was difficult to use, coming from Android. Not because it was inherently confusing, but because I simply wasn't used to it. But I'm sure it would have only taken a few days to adjust.
In my case it's -1 year because I prefer to wait up to a year until I get a good deal, and then there's always the option to put LineageOS on the Pixel devices [2].
[1] https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en
I think the previous pixels were reasonably good in that regard (not compared to framework of course).
Improving that would be higher priority in my eyes. Software support can always come later: even once the official support is dropped the community can backport AOSP fixes etc.
I'll wait for the iFixit report on how difficult it is to replace the battery, before believing in a phone lasting that long. Also as usual for the pixels, there is no analog headphone jack. Still I can't believe I'm at least somewhat interested in a $600 phone since I'm not that much of a mobile user. I wonder if they will do a 6A version any time soon.
The main difference between the 6 and the 6 pro is the pro adds a telephoto camera, right?
Anandtech article is up: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16939/google-announces-pixel-...
I'm still somewhat leaning towards a 5a as my next phone, as it's already more than I want to spend.
I'm utterly tired of Google's attitude and how little they really care about their customers. They have really cool tech and solutions, but their total neglectance of the individual but somewhat high attention of activists have made my view of a #1 company down the slope, I guess I would at one point have to try applying for some position to hopefully change my mind on that point.
I have a love/hate relationship regarding their Android ecosystem and lack of possibilites to keep an updated phone up to date more than 1-2 years.. so after many years listening to the Apple ambassadors among (okay, mostly non-tech) friends and finally went all-in on the Apple way of doing stuff, bought their "Pro"-version of wireless headset, their smart watch series 7 and their "Pro"-version smartphone series 12 (supplied from my work).
I feel totally claustrophobic about the lack of options and what Apple enforces. Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, switching doesn't matter.. everything is Safari/Webkit engine, no firefox extensions.
Control volume of an app/media - no way, everything should have the same volume.. so my phone remains muted 24/7 and I hope important stuff vibrates on the watch (which is of course also muted as I cannot clearly select what notifications should sound or not).
If it weren't for my old android phone no longer receiveing updates I would switch back to my now three year old phone, at least that one let me unlock my screen with my fingers.. The Apple way is more.. if I, in the middle of the night, want to change track on my Bose Sleepbuds - I cannot do it unless I widely open my eyes and stare on the Apple camera so I am wide awake.
But an Android with 5 year lifespan.. then it starts getting interesting again.
I hope the hardware is solid too. After having 2 Google phones die just outside of warranty to bootlooping, I'm skeptical they'll be able to make them last.
Well I wont. I will look for an accumulator replacement for my Pixel one.
700 USD every few years? Quite a bit of money.
Screensize? We had a joke in our (European) high school to tease someone: You shoe size develops like 10, 11, 12, coffin for children, coffin for adults, motorboat... Looks like the same thing is happening to cell phone screens.
I've got updates from both Huawei and Xiaomi many years after the phones stopped being sold. I've heard that OnePlus does the same.
You do realize that Google also scans your images for CP, and furthermore that Google's current business model is literally surveillance advertisement, right?
I am curious if the courts will agree given the evidence of Google secretly paying carriers not to open their own app stores.
If I buy one I will install LineageOS on it as soon as possible.
Yet you buy into the most intrusive of them all... an Android device.
I'm a tech guy though. had a nexus 6, now got a pixel2. all custom roms, completely degoogled. In addition to phone tasks, I use the phone for solitaire, basic web reading, and email. I charge once per week. Both phones are extremely easy to flash. No hacking or exploits required.
I would totally pay flagship prices for a regular ~5.5-6" phone with flagship specs, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Make it 50% thicker if there are space/heat concerns, but making it wider and taller just makes it super difficult to use consistently with one hand. I also say this as somebody with larger-than-average hands!
I sometimes think about what I’m going to get after 12 mini that I’m using is done for :) Because there are reports that Apple is done with this screen size segment.
The size difference between the two doesn't actually seem that substantial, but the specs difference kinda is. Meanwhile, both are bigger than the phone I currently have.
I used Android for about a decade, but I'm glad I switched.
Sony used to have a compact line with flagship hardware and a reasonable size. Unfortunately, it looks like they stopped making them
For me, the sweet spot was probably around 4.5". But good luck finding a phone with flagship specs in that size.
The difference between the Pixel 6 (6.4") and the Pixel 6 Pro (6.7") screen size doesn't seem very large to me.
I'm still unsure what my next phone will be: I'm _very_ tempted to go with a Unihertz, but realistically, it will probably be an iPhone Mini.
Ultimately, the main use (by time spent) I have for my phone is reading and watching, and therefore the main complaint I have with phones is that they don't have enough screen, and the next biggest is UI lag. The recent folders like the Surface Duo and others have been interesting to watch, but they have so far sacrificed too much in other specs for that gimmick.
MKBHD mentions this (and shows nothing from the phone really) @ https://youtu.be/roWxo6jWoYw?t=140 And Mrwhosetheboss said he refused to cover these phones due to the embargo. The Tech Chap mentions he can't show anything apart from the home screen. Can't even swipe down to show notifications @ https://youtu.be/aLr7eCsY6Cg?t=191
Wonder what made them think that that's a good idea. Especially because Android 12 is not exactly a secret.
Wait for a full review before hitting that buy button.
And we should appreciate journalists who disclose what Embargo is enforced on them.
[1] https://twitter.com/jon_prosser/status/1450215058269773832
It could be that they are a bit late on the software update and want that before reviews start? The fact that android 12 only came out today kinda points towards that.
Also, he regularly has Apple devices that he also has similar embargoes for and is not allowed to release stuff until the products are on the street or shortly before that - as for this Pixel. Does he always call it a red flag there too?
My mistake, because the Samsung phone had preloaded software that took considerable effort to remove (more than most people could/would deal with). It wasn't the software itself that bothered me, but rather that there were notifications for apps I don't use that I could not turn off. That's enough to make me hate a company for a long time.
Bloat my phone all you want, but notifications take my brain-space, not my drive space. At least with a Google phone I have a semblance of control over the core function of the device. Looking forward to the Pixel 7 or equivalent once this Samsung device has served its purpose.
I still believe Huawei is missing out big time. When they got banned in the US, they should have *open sourced the whole stack* and put forward a truly open Android platform and let it thrive. They make the best hardware (cameras!) but their limited closed-source environment is a definitive no.
Conclusion: I hope the Pixel 6 will be available in my country soon!
I finally switched to Samsung S20 last year, and my wife to OnePlus 8T. They were more expensive, but we got better hardware and noticeably better battery life.
On the software side, the Samsung S20 is not only bloated, but buggy. The keyboard likes to die once in a while, so there's just no keyboard unless I reboot the phone. There is way too much in that phone. It's like someone said Yes to every idea that was uttered in meetings. It also likes to kill background processes very aggressively, which sometimes affects Google Maps navigation and casting to Chromecast. On the flip side, Samsung has this software (Link?) that lets you use the phone from a Windows computer and it works very well. The touch screen is very sensitive and the screen has these slightly raised round edges, so sometimes grabbing the phone sends touch events which is fairly annoying.
I was pleasantly surprised with the OnePlus. Little bloat, compared to Samsung, hardware is very solid, didn't notice any glaring software issues, no weird stuff. I'm not sure how open it is to flashing another ROM, but to me it feels like a higher end Nexus phone.
I went to pixel phones and never looked back.
OTOH the secure folder thing is neat. Samsung should focus on offering apps that dont exist in stock andriod, and do them well.
It's a proper appliance phone. It holds the same place in my life as my kettle or my washing machine. It does what I want it to do, and asks nothing of me. I don't know any stats about it, only that it's fast enough, has a long enough battery life, and takes good enough pictures.
I couldn't be happier.
When I think about how powerful I need my phone to be I don't need the best. I want something I can fix and update myself; something that's supported for more than a couple of years; something that is a little "better" for the planet.
Does anybody use all of the new power of these incredible devices?
They're brilliant. Water/mud/dust/salt resistant, you can drop them however many times you feel like without cracking the screen, battery life is alomost two days (and that is while using the thing).
They're also pretty big and clunky, the camera is unimpressive, and the performance is middling at best, but I honestly don't mind that at all.
Anyway, I'd love to support Fairphone as well, but I'm upset that they removed the headphone jack in order to sell their new wireless earbuds. For a company that's supposedly all about sustainability, repair-ability, etc. that's a pretty stupid move. Removing a basic feature in order to sell another product is the opposite of sustainable. It's greedy, and I thought Fairphone was against that.
The old joke about Microsoft Word driving an upgrade treadmill (no matter how fast your computer gets, Word will still take 30 seconds to boot) still applies, except it's to web browsers. Welcome to the future, where every tweet will include its own multi-megabyte, cpu hungry javascript app.
As someone with an years old iPhone 6, I haven't once said, I wish this phone was faster. Maybe a better camera would be nice, but that's about it.
Maybe with the ability to plug a phone into a screen and keyboard and use it as a computer (As is starting to happen) I'd want more power but right now I'm good as long as my battery is holding.
I just wish more of these phones still had headphone jacks...
Yes, many many people. The simplest widespread example would be that anyone recording for Tiktok or Instagram clips will be re-encoding and downscaling 4k video while applying ML transforms to the video stream. And it's all done live. You might not do it, but your local neighbourhood teens do.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/10/the-google-silicon-t...
My problem is they are too good. If they were duller, harder to use, jerky video, crashing games etc I wouldn't be so addicted.
Just as some people never felt the need to upgrade their DSLR once it hit 24M pixel, or change their TV for the last decade, or buy a new car, or buy a new house.
That’s arguably how things should be for the vast majority of people, if we consider the product getting marketed to have any lasting value.
If you open the messages app and browser 50x per day (which seems like a conservative estimate) and load the maps app a few times a week, the speed differential between devices adds up. Personally, I find the annoyance factor more bothersome than the raw hours of wasted human lifetime.
Side by side, my iPhone 12 takes several seconds less to open Firefox than pixel 4. 1.5 seconds faster to open Slack. 5s faster to launch Sonos. 5s faster launching The Economist. 0.5s faster launching phone. 4s faster launching Spotify. This is with iPhone running several other apps, android idling with no background apps.
Recent phone launches look boring, but getting the basics right absolutely matters. I was hoping Tensor would bring iPhone level performance, but we may have to wait a few years, since they’re only focusing on AI, which iPhone already does quite well.
Personally, I think it is totally valid to count performance and quality as features. Imagine if instead of performance, there was a feature where the phone cut your need for sleep by 5 minutes a day, or cut 5 minutes off your commute, or dropped your cortisol levels x%. Or shortened your wait for the elevator/grocery store by 5 minutes. That’s ultimately what performance means - time saved from the pure waste of waiting for apps and content to load.
Edit: to clarify, this isn’t iPhone elitism. I absolutely believe android users deserve best in class hardware. It is a shame that the vast majority of phone users are having their time stolen from them by Android and Qualcomm. I really wish I had the option of switching to android but I’m just not willing to tolerate it anymore; I have these devices side by side because I just gave up on my post-CSAM scanning switch after two months.
If someone would come out with a smaller phone with decent battery life, a processor that's not underpowered, physical keyboard, a headphone jack, and mediocre camera, I'd definitely jump on it. Almost the entirety of this press release is camera based, which I just don't care about that much...but maybe I'm not the target market.
Similarly several people have commented that the front facing camera makes me look noticeably sharper and clearer in video calls.
Some basics might not be changing much, but cameras still are.
OLED screens and high refresh rate are a treat for the eyes, especially if scrolling through text for an hour or more per day.
I have Fuji camera with a nice lens. So, I have no use/patience for ever disappointing phone cameras. I'm well aware that the high-end phone cameras are pretty decent at automatically getting the most out of mediocre sensors and lenses. However, this is something I enjoy doing manually with the best sensors and lenses I can get my hands on and the results just don't really compare. I think it's great complete amateurs can also take nice photos now but just not my thing. I actually care about my photography. And since cameras are just about the only feature either Apple or Google seems to talk about, I kind of lost interest in the whole market ages ago. Bla bla lenses bla bla sensors bla bla AI. Could not care less about megapixles, fake bokeh (aka. blurring), overly saturated and noise reduced (more blurring) photos (aka. night vision), etc.
Phone cameras are just not something I care about fundamentally. I use my phone as a glorified document scanner occasionally and that's about it. I also don't play games on my phone. Just not a thing for me. Otherwise, all smart phones I've had in the last ten years are fine for light browsing, consuming news, some audio, etc. which is pretty much all I do with them. Even answering phone calls from recruiters is not a thing I care about and that is quite literally the only incoming calls on this thing. Everything else I do with either my laptop or my desktop. Typing on a phone is not a thing for me either. Endlessly frustrating for me to use touch screen keyboards. It's an output only device. All the input modes are mediocre and tedious and I have no patience for them.
So, I've been carrying a cheap Nokia Android phone since 2018 and it's the best phone I've owned in recent years. It no longer receives security updates because of Google basically twisting people's arms to buy their new but hardly improved versions of the same shit they've been shipping since 2008 that I've owned before. Other than that it's fine. Battery lasts me two days; even more than three years in. And after having owned a few Nexus phones, I don't trust Google to deliver a device that will actually last as long as my Nokia has. Best phone I've had since I actually worked for Nokia when it did not license the brand to a generic Android phone manufacturer.
So, not really eager to buy a Pixel phone. I'll probably buy another Nokia when I need to. The Nokia X20 looks pretty good to me. 5G and using it as a dumb modem would be the big headline feature for me.
I think taking better pictures in low light, etc. can be thought of being a "new phone feature" (for any phone).
I already have an iPad which is probably my favorite device to use. I might end up taking another look at Android when Google finally releases their Shortcuts clone.
At the end of the day, there's a huge focus on photography, live transcribe, and extended support. From my perspective, that's their hook.
For photography, I have a Sony Alpha with OIS, etc. Live Transcribe has been a Google Research app for months, so it's not unique to the 6 or even to the Pixel lineup. Companies like Fairphone are fighting to bring long-term support to Android, and the major players are slowly coming around e.g. Samsung.
For me, the downsides include the appearance (smooth, shiny, uniform glass on both sides; dull two-tone colors), unnecessary curved screen on the Pro, lack of a headphone jack, virtually no mention of audio quality or tuning of the onboard speaker/microphones, giant size, and plenty of features I won't use (wireless charging, reverse wireless charging, security chip, 120Hz display). The fingerprint scanner seems better in review videos than the Fairphone 3's abysmal sensor but is in an awkward location if you pull the phone from a pocket with one hand---probably the second worst location, TBH, with the worst being next to the USB port on the bottom edge. Of all the silly nuances (protruding camera, curved glass) the fingerprint sensor location is most likely to drive me to put a case around this phone. A case isn't a bad idea either; it would hide the weak exterior design, keep your palms from accidentally touching the waterfall display, and make the thing so bulky and uncomfortable, you'd never put it in a pocket and risk bending the frame. It's good the software support doesn't last longer than 5 years, because if it survives this long, every non-camera hardware feature would be an annoyance. This is purely my opinion.
I don't want to financially support the assembly country, as I disagree with their style of government, stronghold on entire industries, and widely rumored aggression toward outsiders and the lower class. They're almost as bad as the U.S.
In short, the price is right. The features feel almost all wrong.
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Even the bonus deal misses the mark. In Europe, they're including Bose NC headphones. But ... I already have wireless NC headphones, so I'd need to resell either NC pair, then sell my Beyerdynamic wired headphones, then throw away my wired buds, and optionally buy a set of wireless earbuds. At the risk of irritating the North American Pixel 6 buyers who would love some Bose 700s, I'd rather have the phone for a lower price or have not-so-awesome Pixel earbuds as a bonus.
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On skin tone: Does every smartphone manufacturer develop their own system camera app from the ground up? If most phone makers have camera apps based on Google Camera (just as most browsers are based on Chrome), it's a bit of a dick move for Google to declare great progress in skin tone photography and inclusiveness unless your company is gonna share those algorithms with other Android partners. You know... since Android is also made by Google, and the skin tone correction is likely performed 100 percent by software. I mean, why not just press release, "Black people, dark-skinned Latinos: you all matter to us, ... UNLESS you buy an Xperia or Oneplus running our OS and system apps!"
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Here's to hoping the Pixel 7 focuses on audio, physical durability, and repairability without sacrificing a good IP66/67/68 rating.
Bigger news is Qualcomm being left out. Will they go the way of Intel by incentivizing their customers build their own SOCs?
I'm not surprised at all that OEMs are moving towards own/custom SOCs or other sources. Been seeing more Motorola phones with Mediatek socs, Samsung has Exynos, Google now with Tensor.
Intel still only have one legitimate competitor in the x86 space and they can at least get a bit of the business they're losing back through their emergent FAB outsourcing division. They also seem to be throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall and some of it might stick!
Qualcomm seems to be keeping their head just above water. I suspect that's going to change quite rapidly though.
Every generation the gap between Snapdragon, Dimensity, and Exynos gets narrower and narrower. However, this coming generation might finally do them in. The Dimensity 2000 looks like it's going to be a monster and the next generation Exynos is about to pick up some RDNA 2 IP, so who knows what that crazy thing is going to do.
Benchmarks are meaningless and they also took the time to mention that in the presentation too. As you mention, the Pixel 5 did fine even with the mid-tier chipset. The reality is that phones are rarely CPU bound, and most of the heavy tasks are done by specialized cores anyways.
I didn't check, but I suppose the answer is "no". Can't keep pointing at Qualcomm anymore, I guess.
All those IPs come with their own license terms and NDAs that limit what you can do with it. You can use it in your final product and make money selling it, but most most IP vendors in the semi space will not let you open source anything about their design, including drivers, as that IP is their golden goose.
If you want to blame someone for this sorry state of affairs, you can blame the entire semi industry starting from the EDA and IP vendors all the way to the fabs. It's pretty much a cartel and they all keep their cards close to the vest any way they can.
Some red flags:
* If/when you cancel Pixel Pass in the future, it will also cancel your Google One membership. If you're over the 15GB free tier, your email will stop working (!!!)[0].
* You have to cancel your existing YouTube Premium subscription before you can sign up.
[0]: https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/9056360?hl=en&co...
So the real savings are entirely from the phone + warranty where you'll save about $200 on the Pixel 6 Pro, but you're still forced to buy all those Google services you may or may not need.
I'm also on a family plan (with the grandfathered YouTube pricing), so it doesn't seem to be worth it.
Also, what is up with the gigantic camera bump on the back? It looks terrible.
I guess I'll be keeping my Pixel 4 a bit longer...
There's a hilarious dissonance between the talk of SoC design, AI, computational photography and ambient computing and the inability to handle a website with a relatively simple purchase flow for a phone that, let's be real, probably has about 1/10 th of the interest and web traffic of the iPhone.
From the moment the store website went live with these phones there were all sorts of errors, and I ended up forgoing purchasing from the google store after trying to for an hour!
Once Best Buy went live with their stock, I instantly was able to pre-order with little issue. I'll be picking it up on release day there.
Fix the store, Google!
Never take preorders, especially with Pixels. (learned that hard with Pixel 3).
(Writing this on a Pixel 5).
It’s unlikely but let’s hope Google has improved the repairability …
While I do really love pixel, I do think they are not putting enough effort into building a functional eco system around the phone, sharing files is such a pain in the ass and the "sharing nearby" feature never works on this phone, and everytime I needed to transfer files I have to use a cable, that's why I'm switching to iPhone. But I do like what they've shown about the new pixel phone tho.
EOL for my Pixel 4a is August 2023. So maybe there will be a Pixel 7a with a tensor v2 chip and headphone jack by then.
Both me and my wife are looking for new phones. Both of us (despite looking for very different things in our tech stuff) went "oh. Damn".
Otherwise you see your local country store...
Dang: perhaps replace link so international users get the same page?
I've never understood why they don't sell them in the Netherlands. The way they just pretend it doesn't exist in the store by redirecting you is extra annoying.
One of the largest troubles with running your own OS on phones is having little to no information on the SoCs, and thus having to run parts of Android with a shim to a standard Linux user space.
I leave outside US and in my country Google has no official dealer. I bought an unlocked Pixel 3 via my friend in US, who shipped it to me.
At first, everything seemed good unless it started to lag in few months. First, battery percentage was stuck at 26% (but the phone was charging), then, received phone calls were having a very bad quality (calls via messengers were good).
So, in conclusion, I couldn’t: 1) understand if the phone was charged or not; 2) always had a bluetooth earpods with me in case I needed to call or receive a phone call.
It appeared that both of the issues were a hardware failures and needed my phone to be shipped back to US to the Google Service Center, which I didn’t do.
When you pay a decent money for a flagship phone, such issues are unacceptable.
Pixel 6 might be an excellent phone, but I’m not risking my $$$ anymore with it.
I don't know, importing something and then complaining about a lack of service doesn't feel right to me. I knew it'd be a gamble when I imported the Pixelbook and since it got replaced, I haven't had any issues since 2018.
My slim fit jeans say “no”. Seriously, how big do people want their phones to be?
Apple throws numbers repeatedly at you through out the presentation and you end up remembering quite a few useless statistics (55.7 billion transitors in M1 Max)
Apple makes a much bigger deal about each device with lots of close ups and pseudo x-raying of the product. Google just throws in a Pro with an extra camera that you can barely make out on the dark glass.
Apple spends several minutes talking about their SoC. Google says it spent years on Tensor and just leaves it as a shiny golden box.
The weirdest thing in the Google presentation is that several sections had presenters talking to a different camera than facing the screen. That just felt very strange.
The camera director is probably living in a different decade, these side shots were used a lot 20 years ago, and it was still annoying then.
I remember reading about how Jobs would rehearse product releases for months, even going as far as to demand that the fire exit lights be turned off. I don't advocate for putting your audience at risk but it does demonstrate the fanatical obsession with presentation that has remained at Apple.
B-Camera angles are common in interviews. It's to help create a less formal and less stuffy 'presentation' like feel. It's intended to be more of a "you're standing there, somewhat behind the scenes" feel.
Not sure if that is reassuring or a sign of carelessness or a very well planned stunt.
All companies are obsessed with these phablets.
Just be cool. Let me build my own thing with this.
(Location: Norway/Europe)
https://9to5google.com/2021/10/19/the-pixel-6-series-is-now-...
Google has this shitty policy that if they aren't selling it to you, you are not allowed to see it, so they redirect you away.
It's hard not to compare Google's event with the iPhone 13 launch event a month ago, and the wildly different strategies the companies are using to try and market their devices. Apple (rightfully so) is very proud of the performance of their SoCs and definitely emphasized that aspect - using tons of numbers and data throughout the presentation. This was also seen in the new Macbook event last week. Meanwhile, google hardly mentioned a single hardware detail and focused more on the software and user experience. I have to admit the google event felt more "hand wave-y." They may have avoided talking about hardware details in the event though since they basically revealed the phones months ago.
Currently I'm using that for GrapheneOS. https://grapheneos.org/
But I'm not fond of the recent front-facing camera cutouts in the display, which are tackier to cover with tape. I foresee being sad if/when end of upstream device security fixes forces me to upgrade hardware from my Pixel 3.
97.15 * 20 = 1943 GFLOPS
Same goes for SoC and driver support. This is mostly a rehashed Exynos, so are we really certain that the drivers will me more open than on the exynos side?
I had a really hard time finding an in-stock fast wireless charger for my pixel 3, and ended up just not purchasing it. Kind of a pain since the usb-c charger is always getting gunked up from putting the phone in my pocket.
Google Pixel 6 Launch [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28920140 - Oct 2021 (155 comments)
I've heard some bad things about Google's consumer-electronics-side customer service, but I don't know how representative those stories are.
I dislike iOS, but AppleCare+ is the one thing that tempts me to go back to iPhones. If, after spending my entire work day writing code and fixing bugs, I have a problem with my phone, being able to say "you know, screw it, this is is a problem for the Genius Bar" has a very strong appeal.
The other bad news is that the Pixel 2 XL and Pixel 4 XL both had issues warranting RMA and the RMAs did not totally fix the issues because these were design defects, and the replacements also exhibited them to varying degrees. Speaker buzzing for Pixel 2 XL, and back glass detaching over time on Pixel 4 XL.
I'm still buying Pixel 6, but if it doesn't have an RMA-worthy design defect it'll be the first one since Pixel 1.
Maybe I should just wait until a Subscribe and Save plan for a (hypothetical) Pixel 6a is available.
https://www.gsmarena.com/nikkei_google_will_produce_more_tha...
Rumors where that it will be in the 6 Pro, but technical specification doesn't mention it.
So I'm staying with Pixel 4, yet another year.
I guess the customer support horror I went through when they canceled my phone number out of the blue in Google Fi is also factored into that decision (took two months to get my phone number back), but to be fair, that wasn't an issue with their hardware.
I still like what I saw, and I hope Google's able to get to shipping kernel updates through the play store.
Is the 5a worth picking up? Im not a fan of iOS and Android has a killer feature in Work Profiles. Id like to switch back.
On the other hand, I can view everything there is to view about iPhones on the Apple website even though I can't buy one.
Then one day I needed Google support for hardware… It was terrible. Just to contact them was multiile multi hour wait calls until I could get it RMAd and had to stay a week without a phone… then I switched to iphone and guess what, it has the same apps… except I know if something happens with my phone I can just take it to a apple store and have it checked right away
google doesn't even want to to know that later model exist
also, does it speak lte? is verizon still the champ in 5g?
Why on earth would one ever believe the rest of the product which is orders of magnitude more complicated would actually function and not suck in 4 months?
Meanwhile, my wife is still rocking the iPhone 7 with some degradation in battery life, but pretty much everything else working as it should. I don't regret jumping into the Apple coolaid one bit.
I wish instead of "cool features", they'd spend some time improving their supply chain. You expect some quality from a $1000 phone. And in case it seems subjective, look up lawsuits for faulty hardware for pixel phones. I’m not making this up.