[HN Gopher] Pixel 8 Pro ___________________________________________________________________ Pixel 8 Pro Author : alphabetting Score : 247 points Date : 2023-10-04 15:19 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (store.google.com) (TXT) w3m dump (store.google.com) | OneLeggedCat wrote: | I wonder if the fingerprint and face authentication still suck. | SketchySeaBeast wrote: | I was interested in this release. But right now it's a $20 | difference here in CAD between the Pixel 8 Pro 256 GB and the S23 | Ultra 256 GB (there's a sale going on for the S23). With all of | the Pixel's heat, battery, and connectivity issues (bad reception | I can live with, but not knowing if I can call 911?), I can't | justify it at all. | guyzero wrote: | But you have to deal with Samsung's UI in the S23 Ultra. It's | still not that great after over a decade of existence. | chenzhekl wrote: | Also, S23 Ultra is equipped with Snapdragon 8Gen2, which is | much more powerful than Tensor G3. The latter is almost | equivalent to 8+Gen1 in terms of CPU and GPU. | SketchySeaBeast wrote: | I honestly don't much care for benchmarks, but in this case | there's a direct correlation between power and efficiency. | The Pixel Pros are typically very poor for battery life and | that's really what I care about. | braydenm wrote: | Is there any word on whether the modem has moved to a different | supplier? I previously suffered challenges having to soft-reset | Pixel 6/7 to "Fix Connectivity" fairly frequently. | mupuff1234 wrote: | A pixel 7 for $400 seems like a much better deal. | jansommer wrote: | Yes! This is a steep increase in price since Pixel 7. Googles | upgrades are not going to happen for 7 years on Px7, but | hopefully GrapheneOS gives my phone a few extra years. | [deleted] | bitskits wrote: | ...Especially considering the trade in values (~320USD for | Pixel 6). | e12e wrote: | Wait, have they changed handling of (e)SIMs? I'm happily using | two eSIMs on my pixel pro 7 (work and private). But looks like | this supports only one physical and one eSIM? | flotzam wrote: | The Pixel 7 Pro only has one eSIM chip too, which you're using | with the MEP (Multiple Enabled Profiles) feature: | | "This feature allows devices to have dual SIM support using a | single eSIM chip, which can have multiple SIM profiles and can | connect to two different carriers at the same time." | https://source.android.com/docs/core/connect/esim-mep | retskrad wrote: | The Pixel has like 1% of smartphone market and Google has been | making their down devices for 10 years now! I have two questions: | | 1. Why hasn't Google pulled the plug and thrown in the white | towel yet? People have voted with their wallets and chosen | Samsung and Apple. | | 2. Why is the Pixel devices getting such a massive news coverage? | Other smartphone ORM's with similar market share doesn't get the | same treatment. | slashtab wrote: | It is better for all of the Android enthusiasts. | Darky wrote: | 1. it's not a vote, it's a market. 2. Pixel devices set the | standard for every other android phones. the coverage is legit. | bigstrat2003 wrote: | "vote with your wallet" is a common expression in American | English. Your correction is misplaced. | Xeamek wrote: | How do pixels set the standard any differenty then samsungs? | bmcahren wrote: | Samsungs are non-standard by default. They take the AOSP | experience which Pixel fully embraces then they hack in | cute fonts, water drop overlays, and replace the default | tooling that comes with Android to build their samsung | experience. | | Pixel drives and creates the innovation like cut-out | display support, notification APIs that support multi-media | control for instance across multiple apps, sound multi- | plexing between apps, how calls interact with multimedia | apps, foldable display support, app switching, fingerprint | unlock support, the android API, etc. | | Samsung takes that, twists it into their own. | | In that essence, Pixel is the standard experience that | Android is meant to be whereas Samsung is a customized | experience built on the backbone of Android and in some | ways in opposition to Android Open Source Project & Pixel | Launcher's ideals. | | Samsung android phones are the Ubuntu whereas Pixel is | Google's Debian. | remlov wrote: | It's now 3%. | ksec wrote: | Still no availability in Hong Kong. | nneonneo wrote: | Cool, maybe they can fix emergency calling sometime in that seven | year window? https://www.androidauthority.com/psa-google- | pixel-911-emerge... | Alupis wrote: | FTFA: | | > The issue was traced to Microsoft Teams | | I want to know how a crappy app from Microsoft can break the | dialer on my phone. What the hell? | awill wrote: | that was incredible embarrassing. I remember it was the end of | December, and they said "it won't be in the January update. | Just wait until February" | | I cannot imagine Apple doing that. | kelnos wrote: | "Was"? You mean "is". The issue is still ongoing for many | people. | buttersbrian wrote: | Apple has had some equally frustrating and embarrassing | misses in their time. No manufacturer is 100%. | willseth wrote: | Is anyone else confused by the inclusion of a temperature sensor? | Was there a demo that explains why anyone would want this? What? | omoikane wrote: | Maybe the plan is to eventually have the phone include every | possible sensor and do _everything_. | | https://xkcd.com/2212/ | [deleted] | SketchySeaBeast wrote: | Seems to me to be a holdover from 2020. Interesting that Google | assumed we'd still be measuring temps at this point. | nsriv wrote: | This was my first thought as well. Curious to see if it | functions similarly or within a certain tolerance of one of | those much more expensive FLIR temp gauges you see laptop | reviewers use. MKBHD video showed that it asks for 5cm | distance from object being measured and for you to tap to | select type of material, which notably excludes skin temp. | losvedir wrote: | I'm intrigued by it. To be clear, it reads surface temperature, | not ambient temperature. The demo gave the example of a hot pot | on the stove, I think, and they mentioned they've submitted | something to the FDA to take your temperature (to see if you | have a fever). | chickenpotpie wrote: | My guess is that it's for AI photo editing features. The | temperature can help the AI model determine people from | objects. | cdchn wrote: | Maybe part of face unlock like liveness detectors for | fingerprint scanners. | [deleted] | esafak wrote: | So they are incorporating that group-portrait-correction feature | (RealFill) after all. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37708292 | kimbernator wrote: | It's starting to feel silly, having a yearly release cycle for | smartphones. So much of this product page is focused on new | software functions that may have some vague relationship with the | slightly upgraded hardware, but that could mostly be released to | existing phones. Every new iPhone, Pixel, or Samsung phone | basically claims the camera is marginally better and hey, look at | these software features that have very little to do with the | hardware and should not fundamentally be a reason to upgrade to | this phone. | | There is so much time, effort, and physical waste that is | generated by slightly redesigning phones every year purely for | the sake of making sales (as opposed to meaningful improvement | upon the existing design or introduction of a new hardware | feature). Think not only of people upgrading for the sake of it, | but all of the cases, screen protectors, and other assorted | accessories cast in plastic for previous models that are garbage | now. | | It would be nice if we could just space these things out to 5 | years or so now, because that's probably how long it takes for | anything to change enough to justify a new model. | chaostheory wrote: | The status quo is great. You have yearly releases that are | stable and allow anyone to upgrade without fear of the new | model coming out like with traditional video game consoles. | | No one is forcing you to buy anything you don't want. | | Also, the OS and apps need to take advantage of new hardware, | so it's not a surprise if your seven year old phone becomes | slower. | | If you don't like the status quo then I would go with a non-iOS | and non-android phone like pine phone, Mairena, librem, or | anything else that based on a more open Linux distro. | kimbernator wrote: | I think it's interesting that you cite video game consoles as | a negative. I'd argue the opposite, I think phones should be | more like them. | | With video game consoles, you have a single device where | micro-optimizations are constantly done, new features are | added, and all software can be purpose-built to work really | well on that specific hardware. All of that for ~7 years | means a really fantastic user experience and a massive | community of people that have collectively worked through | solutions to common problems and forced the company's hand on | defects (joycon drift, for example). It also means tons of | high-quality hardware-specific accessories, both from the | company that made the console and from third parties. | bravetraveler wrote: | I don't see why it couldn't be that way - I see people | overstating the hardware revisions. Apple, sure, they | innovate. Qualcomm? Hah. | | For about five years it seemed like every flagship spanning | generations was the same SoC | [deleted] | Eumenes wrote: | > It's starting to feel silly, having a yearly release cycle | for smartphones. | | These companies virtue signal about climate change nonstop, but | still manage to produce disposable phones and light up their | data centers for advertising and user tracking | yccs27 wrote: | Yeah, it feels like smartphones are finally maturing, and they | are no longer new enough to justify the fast release cycles and | short support times. | Gigachad wrote: | Cars still release on a yearly schedule decades later and | they change almost nothing each year. | 0x457 wrote: | Well no. Car models have generations and mid-generation | updates (aka facelift). | | It's very rare that there are any updates at all within the | same generation. Year in model designation is just "ha, | look at his looser driving last year BMW" and to show when | car left assembly line. | | There are some examples where the same generation had a | significant upgrade without a facelift, but those are rare. | One example I could think of is MX-5 (ND): between 2015 and | 2018 there were no changes at all, but in late 2019 there | was nearly complete overhaul of its powertrain and then a | small update in 2021. | matsemann wrote: | I feel it's a decade since I was excited about a new phone. | Now I just copy over my settings and app, and act a bit | disgruntled for a week that things are slightly different. | mdgrech23 wrote: | man if you think that's bad let me introduce you to the | automobile industry. | utopcell wrote: | Five years ? Why would someone want to experience hardware | advances in large steps instead of continuously ? | [deleted] | kimbernator wrote: | Based on the phrasing of this, I'm not sure if it's meant to | be taken sarcastically or not. Apologies if you did mean it | that way, because I'll respond seriously: | | - Advances are mostly software. | | - Massive quantities of e-waste (and plastic waste via cases, | screen protectors, etc). | | - Perverse incentives by companies to not properly support | the user experience on older devices. | | - Tons of money spent pointlessly. | quicklime wrote: | If I'm buying a phone 4 years into the cycle, I don't want to | start with a 4-year-old CPU and camera. 5 years later, when I'm | ready to get a new phone, that'll be a 9-year-old CPU and | camera. I'd rather have the latest tech when I buy it, and use | it until it stops working. | | I agree though that the physical design should stay the same, | so that cases and accessories don't need to be thrown away. | Apple more-or-less does this with the iPhones, eg a case should | work with any iPhone 12-14. | matsemann wrote: | In the iPhone 15 release they wrote "huge leap" 6 times. It | felt like something to anchor the perception and to trick | journalists to include it in a sentence. But when they say it | so much, it kinda shines through that it's mostly just | desperate words. "any man who must say I'm the king is no true | king" vibes. | | https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/09/apple-debuts-iphone-1... | theodric wrote: | It's always the greatest iPhone ever! | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPkso_6n0vs | animex wrote: | The fact that's it's just 15 seems to belie this. I would | expect Apple to re-brand once something truly different comes | along... that being said all smartphones are becoming long | and in the tooth and we're finally starting to see inklings | of what might replace our phone addiction in the near-term | (audio (buds) + vision, eyeglasses etc.) | mrinterweb wrote: | Obviously, companies that sell phones want to sell more phones | as frequently as possible. I'm just glad that Google is aware | that people value having longer term feature and security | support for their products. The new 7 years of feature and | security support is pretty fantastic. | taway1237 wrote: | I'm currently using Pixel 4a (just recently EOL), and I'll | probably upgrade my phone this or next year. | | Maybe Pixel has a yearly release cycle, but it doesn't mean I | have to upgrade every year, that would be crazy. And they can | iterate more often to try some ideas more often than once every | 5 years. | oaktowner wrote: | I agree with much of this post, but I have to take issue with | "it's starting to feel silly." The "you need to upgrade your | phone every year" concept has been silly from the outset. | dominojab wrote: | [dead] | karolist wrote: | Not everyone lives on the same upgrade cycle, you can, but | you're not supposed to change your phone every year. With | iPhone 15, the majority of people upgrading would be 12 and | older device owners. | awill wrote: | I agree. I find upgrading less frequently makes the upgrade | so much more significant. Upgrading yearly would leave you | complaining and wondering what's new. | | I know people who lease a new car every 3 years. And often, | if there's no redesign, they're getting a nearly identical | vehicle. It's strange. Whereas, I upgrade my car every 10 | years, and am thrilled with all the improvements. | pfannkuchen wrote: | I think the lease thing is more to avoid dealing with any | maintenance issues as well as the wear and tear on a less | than new car. It's not to get the newest tech or style all | the time AFAIK. | kimbernator wrote: | This is fine and good, but the problem is that once your | phone is no longer the newest thing, the experience takes a | hit because there's little incentive to actually support | your device anymore. | kimbernator wrote: | That is technically true. However, I do find that a lot of | people I know tend to get new phones well before they | actually have a need for them. | | I don't entirely blame peoples' consumerism; As somebody who | once worked in cell phone sales, the mere act of visiting a | carrier store is likely to land you in front of a salesperson | who is incentivized to sell new phones and lines | indiscriminately. Not to mention the incredible amount of | advertising that goes into phones - if people only upgraded | when they needed new phones, I don't think Apple, Samsung, or | Google would feel the need to advertise the new ones so | aggressively. | | HN is likely a much more tech-literate crowd than the average | person, so I think to a lot of us it seems silly to buy new | phones every year. But I know that every time Apple releases | a new iPhone, I get a call from my dad asking if it's worth | upgrading from last year's model. I say no, nothing has | changed, but the next time I see him he has it. Why? Because | the salesperson made such a convincing case, not only about | the merit of the new phone, but the fact that they could give | him such a "deal" on it. | kaba0 wrote: | > lot of people I know tend to get new phones well before | they actually have a need for them | | It might just be your "bubble", but even if not, is it | really that bad of a deal? If you resell your previous | phone at 2/3 the original price each year, you can use the | latest phone for like 200 bucks for a year, or $17 monthly. | For a device that is with you 0-24, and is probably the | most often used item a typical person owns -- they have it | on them more often than even their shoes! | kimbernator wrote: | I feel qualified to say it's not just my bubble, having | worked in cell phone sales. The business hinges on the | fact that people don't run out the useful life of their | devices. | | Incentives exist on the part of the person who, being | human, definitely want the new shiny thing, regardless of | the logic behind it. | | They exist for the salesperson, who will get a commission | for selling the new shiny thing, regardless of whether | this makes the customer's life any better or worse. | | They exist for the carrier because the customer is on the | hook for 2-3 years of service when they buy the shiny | thing. | | Finally, they exist for the company that made the phone | because they make a profit on the sale price of the shiny | thing. | bruceb wrote: | Math doesn't work. Entry iphone 15 pro is $1,000. Say Tax | is .08, so $1,080 out the door. | | 1 year from now if you sell it for 2/3 the price, you get | back $720. A year's use cost you $360. About $1 a day. | This is very worth it for some but not quite as cheap as | $200 a year. This is without factoring in time to sell. | | You could trade in but that means you are locked in | contract with service provider. | Krasnol wrote: | Yeah, but in the end they are those who fuel the waste | machine. They start it, and they are the reason why there | are new phones every year. For no sane reason. | | Somewhere along the way, you pass a threshold where it's | uncool to have a certain version of phone and judging | from what you hear about the waste problem with phones, | it's above the reasonable moment to get rid of it because | it's broken or not usable. | | I mean, sure it's a nice lie you can tell to yourself, | but in the end, it's not good. | Gigachad wrote: | Apple has a few products like the ipad mini and imac that | don't release on yearly schedules and it creates this | situation where there are good and bad years to buy. Where | the product hasn't been refreshed for 3/4 years and is now | severely outdated and a major refresh is something like 6 | months away. It's pretty bad for the customer and the seller. | Meanwhile it's always a good time to buy an iphone. There is | no point waiting for the next model because it won't be | meaningfully different. | ezequiel-garzon wrote: | Indeed, Apple compares on its website the iPhone 15 to the | iPhone 12: "The A16 Bionic GPU is up to 40% faster than the | GPU in iPhone 12" [1]. Maybe unsurprisingly, they don't use | this comparison for the Pro line. r/iphone discussion here | [2]. | | [1] https://www.apple.com/mt/iphone-15/ | | [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/16h13z3/why_are_ | the... | agrippanux wrote: | That's an awesome stat in favor of the iPhone 12, which is | now 3+ years old. | AuthorizedCust wrote: | Your premise is wrong. | | Old phones that have economic life get cleaned up and re-sold. | The fact that manufacturers tweak phones annually does not | change this. | rurp wrote: | Based on the numbers I found from a few minutes of searching | you are incorrect. _Some_ phones get resold or reused, most | do not. Only 25% of people are using a secondhand phone and | the phone population is increasing at 5x the human rate. | chiefalchemist wrote: | The Apple adverts push the fact that the 15 is titanium. That's | it. | | The ad I keep seeing doesn't even hint at why Titanium matters. | No matter, the point is, evidently the technical aspects don't | seem to matter. | mtreis86 wrote: | It makes sense for gaming consoles, I don't see what is so | different (these days) about phones. | maxerickson wrote: | They are selling millions of each version. There's lots of | products where the volume is more like 10,000. The waste isn't | in the product that is selling millions... | muxxa wrote: | Try out https://shop.fairphone.com/fairphone-5 for a | repair/upgrade friendly alternative | brokencode wrote: | A lot of these new software features are enabled by better | hardware. Especially AI features, which can require quite | specialized and powerful processors. On-device LLMs are the | next frontier in personal assistant software, and that can only | be enabled by better hardware. | | Even the image processing for high resolution images can | benefit from better hardware. Modern smartphones are heavily | dependent on image processing to improve camera quality. | Without the right hardware, performance and energy efficiency | could be unacceptable. | dottjt wrote: | Isn't domain knowledge lost when we don't regularly build and | release things? | | Isn't this why we're struggling to build nuclear in some | countries because they weren't building it regularly, and now | it's difficult to scale, let alone build new ones? | | I understand that it's wasteful, but maybe it's necessary to | sustain itself? Especially from a feedback perspective from | consumers? | madeofpalk wrote: | This seems divorced from reality. Just because a new phone is | released every year, it doesn't mean you need to buy a new one | every year. | | Small, incremental improvements each year means that whenever | you buy a new device, it's modern (not using 4 year old | components), and substantially 'better' than the previous one. | bradgessler wrote: | Try this: don't upgrade your phone for five years. | | The annual incremental release cycle is fine--what's silly is | thinking phones need to be upgraded every year. | 0xDEF wrote: | Nobody is demanding that you buy a new smartphone every year. | Modern smartphones have 3-5 years of security/bug updates and | the batteries no longer degrade as fast as they used to. | kimbernator wrote: | I bought my pixel 7 early this year because my s20's screen | broke and the cost to buy a new one to replace it myself, | which is not something I think most people would be willing | to do (instead paying even more for someone else to do it), | exceeded the cost to buy another S20. On top of that, the | moment my 3 year old, perfectly working phone had anything | other than a pristine screen, it had zero trade-in value and | basically encouraged me to throw it in a drawer or the trash. | This was literally Samsung's flagship phone only 3 years | prior. | | That could have probably been mitigated if the s20 remained | relevant for more than a year or two and there was a mature | parts market that made it feasible to upkeep rather than | scrap. | freedomben wrote: | Normally I agree with you, but I don't think that's the case | this year at least. The on-device ML chip (Tensor G3) is a | legit difference-maker. A lot of the ML features they are | rolling out wouldn't be possible on older hardware. You could | do the non-realtime portions in the cloud, but the realtime | audio cleanup wouldn't work for example (way too much latency). | Also, personally I much prefer on-device. I frequently have | spotty data connections so it's very disruptive when stuff | relies on cloud connectivity. | TaylorAlexander wrote: | It's funny because if they did not release a new phone every | year, the old phones would be useful for longer. I recently had | to replace my iPhone 7s plus because it was getting so slow I | sometimes could not get the camera to open as it loaded the | system down too much. This was despite the fact that the system | said my battery was not degraded (it had been replaced with | Apple Care a couple of times). | | Of course when it was new the camera opened quickly. And then | Apple made their OS more heavy weight every year until my phone | slowed to a crawl. | | And faster phones are nice, but I think it is worth considering | how valuable that really is to us as users and a society, | especially if the process involves making loads and loads of | ewaste and consuming tons of new resources, and all the | emissions their mining and transport involves, when we could | simply keep our software slim and our old devices functional. | | And the big companies will never do this. Do we need to force | them to allow open software to run on these devices, so that | clean builds can be patched and maintained when the company | over bloats them or abandons them? | vel0city wrote: | I wonder how much of that is the software demands increasing | and the flash storage itself wearing out over time. As flash | storage wears it'll often go slower and slower as the error | correction needs to process more to actually get you the | uncorrupted bits. This is why a lot of cheap devices tend to | just become unbearably slow after a while, their storage just | gets to be way too slow. | | Flash storage doesn't last forever, and it's got a whole | gradient of failure and wear experiences. | chimeracoder wrote: | > I wonder how much of that is the software demands | increasing and the flash storage itself wearing out over | time. As flash storage wears it'll often go slower and | slower as the error correction needs to process more to | actually get you the uncorrupted bits. This is why a lot of | cheap devices tend to just become unbearably slow after a | while, their storage just gets to be way too slow. | | Too bad no flagship phones have removable storage anymore, | because that would be a really easy fix to this problem. | vel0city wrote: | If we're looking at older phones with removable storage, | it usually limited what could be put on the SD card. And | in the end the OS and system libraries were still on the | on-board storage which would wear out over the years. | | And there's good reason for the OS _not_ being on a | microSD card. Run a Raspberry Pi without locking the | storage and see how fast it 'll corrupt itself. Most SD | cards have pretty miserable reliability compared to the | storage on-board. Imagine if you had to re-image your | device every few weeks after your storage device | corrupted itself again. Not really a great experience. | whatscooking wrote: | There's no such thing as the iPhone 7S Plus, but nice story | cmcaleer wrote: | Or there are such things as regional exclusives. | | https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/apple- | ip... | sanswork wrote: | I don't update my phone every year but I also don't really | want the progress of software or tech in general determined | by the laggards. | hamandcheese wrote: | If anything it seems to me like hardware advances are | directly correlated with increasingly worse software. | sanswork wrote: | People have been saying this literally since the release | of the pentium and probably earlier. From where I'm | sitting software is millions of times better today than | it was in the 90s when I first started hearing people | saying this(usually complaining about developers using | C++ instead of assembly). | | Even just on the iphone the improvements in software have | been dramatic over the past 10 years. Go install one of | the early versions of ios on the simulator some time to | see how far we've come. | Barrin92 wrote: | > From where I'm sitting software is millions of times | better today than it was in the 90s | | I feel compelled to bring up this tweet from John Carmack | I just saw a few hours ago. The most popular editor on | the planet feels laggier than stuff Borland made in the | 90s, on hardware probably a thousand times as fast. I | don't know how anyone can say software is great with a | straight face. | | We have supercomputers in our pockets and on the slightly | aged phone my dad refuses to upgrade from four years ago | many apps lag. They display like 5 widgets or 20 rows of | items at any given time | | https://x.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1709651442762481877?s= | 20 | kimbernator wrote: | I think that a new phone release should just be warranted. | The trigger should be "we made significant improvements | that couldn't be applied in software to the old device" | instead of "it's October" | sanswork wrote: | An improved camera can't be something applied in | software, a faster chip can't be applied in software. So | by your own standard every version is warranted. | rurp wrote: | My last three phone upgrades have been decidedly 'meh', | and I only upgrade every 2-3 years. There have been some | marginal improvements in battery life and performance, | and some software niceties; but those get counteracted by | bloat, regressions, and UX churn. Replacable battery and | storage becoming less common is categorically worse for | users. | | A phone with upgradable parts and minimal bloat would be | better than any recent phone I've had, but it would also | be less profitable for Google so obviously they will | avoid that as much as possible. | kimbernator wrote: | "significant" is the key word here. I'd be hard pressed | to think of a generational release of an existing phone | line in the last 5 years that I would describe as a | "significant" improvement. | | The things you listed (camera and chip speed) are | basically the only things left that these companies can | claim is better than last year's model, but only because | it's so easy to use synthetic benchmarks and numbers that | mean nothing to make them sound like a dramatic | improvement despite the fact that we've reached the | bottom of the barrel in terms of diminishing returns on | the user experience for smartphones in their current | form. More megapixels don't matter anymore, CPUs are | hardly a limiting factor and yearly gains on their | performance are marginal at best, and we have more than | enough RAM for pretty much all use cases. | | My point is that if these companies insist on re- | releasing the same phone every time, maybe they could | space it out a little. | sanswork wrote: | Just because you don't value the type of improvements | doesn't mean there aren't improvements. It just means you | probably don't need to upgrade this year. | kimbernator wrote: | I know there have been cases where companies seem to | intentionally slow down old phones to encourage new sales, | but it doesn't really even require an "evil" motive. By | releasing new hardware yearly, they are dramatically | increasing their workload by having to support every device. | On top of that, there's the perverse incentive that spending | the money to release timely, high-quality updates to | previous-generation devices will actually have a negative | impact on their bottom line by reducing new sales. | [deleted] | danielheath wrote: | That's specifically covered under new EU ewaste laws - | upgrades the impair device performance must be fixed in a | reasonable timeframe. | kaba0 wrote: | > And then Apple made their OS more heavy weight every year | until my phone slowed to a crawl. | | I mean, it is a bit unfair against Apple - some of the reason | behind the OS getting more heavyweight is actually | backporting new features in 7 year's distance, many which | actually has dedicated hardware in case of the more modern | lineup. | | Also, there is a big aspect which is independent of Apple: | _every_ app is getting more and more heavy, the same phone | now has to open a 500MB facebook app, not a 70MB one (just | random numbers). | | Also, the whole "yearly replacement" thing is just.. not an | actual thing. People on average change their phones every 3 | years, where the accumulated small improvements do add up. | But everyone is at a different point in the cycle, so it | absolutely makes sense. Add to it how apple devices hold | their value to an insane degree, often living 2nd-3rd lives, | and one would be really hard-pressed to actually pinpoint | apple as a threat against our planet - compared to cheap | androids that are barely good for a single year due to | instantly obsolete software, has no resale value whatsoever, | and are absolutely single-use. | | I am not a proponent of extreme capitalism/libertarianism, | but I really have a hard time with a realistic business model | that would be significantly better. | tap-snap-or-nap wrote: | > People on average change their phones every 3 years | | People in my circles seem to use their phones for 6-7 years | atleast. | dotancohen wrote: | And those people are the reason that the average is three | years, instead of one year like the teenagers do. | kimbernator wrote: | This figure sourcing gallup has nearly half of Americans | replacing their phone "as soon as their carrier allows | it": | https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/07/15/how- | often-... | jonplackett wrote: | If Apple just let people hang out on the last nicely- | working version of iOS, where their camera still opens | fast, then that'd be fine. But they don't. They bully you | into always being on the latest | | Also, I remember a while back they did a specific optimised | speed-up release of iOS with barely any new features and it | _really_ worked. My iPhone 6S went from being basically | garbage I was going to replace to like a brand new phone. | | They can do it if they want to. It's what's needed now. My | iPhone 12 Pro has started to feel super slow since I got | iOS 17. I have a new battery. Even texting feels painfully | slow. There's no excuse for this. It's either deliberate | and bad, or lazy and bad. Either way it's bad. | triceratops wrote: | You may not buy a new phone every year. But there's always | someone who's buying a new phone right now. Why should they | have to buy hardware that's potentially almost 5 years old? | sawyna wrote: | My pixel 4a 5g works like a charm. 3.5 years and still going | fine. I used my pixel 2 for three years so badly. I used it as | a hotspot every single day and the number of battery cycles | were as if the phone was used for 6 years. | | My pixel 4a5g takes photos that are on reasonable standards, | obviously they won't match match, but it doesn't make a serious | difference either to me. I need three things from my phone - | battery, camera and lag free user experience. I don't need | thinner bezels for gods sake, I can't understand the craze and | demand for thinner bezels over a two day battery life. | theodric wrote: | Whatever you do, don't take the Android 14 upgrade. Mine is | dogshit slow now. I'm trying to decide if I can be bothered | losing all my config and setting it up again with Android 13, | or just paying Google for a new phone. | jsight wrote: | It may just need a little while to settle down. I get the | feeling a lot of things get updated in the background after | the initial upgrade. | | I noticed that my old Pixel 5 felt really slow for the | first 30 minutes or so, but it seems to be returning to | normal now. | theodric wrote: | Unfortunately the world is filled with people like my fried | who, without fail, buys - for cash, not as part of a contract | renewal - the max spec iPhone available every year. One for | him, one for his wife. Sell the old ones, or give them to | family. Revenue like that is too hard for these companies to | pass up. And so we get this waste. | paxys wrote: | What's silly isn't the fact that they release new smartphones | every year but that people feel compelled to upgrade every | year. | | Incremental annual hardware refreshes are great, because | everyone who is in the market for a phone can always get the | latest and greatest and can be set for several years. For those | that give in to the marketing and throw away perfectly usable | devices and a thousand+ dollars - well that's nobody's fault | but their own. | modzu wrote: | pixel 6 and 7 have severly weak fingerprint sensors, they | overheat, and have basic telephone connectivity issues. its | unfortunate not to see any of these basic table stakes addressed | and instead just get a dog and pony show for the camera software | and how it can produce fake photos | IE6 wrote: | > and have basic telephone connectivity issues | | This turned me off to Pixel phones indefinitely. I got the | Pixel 6 Pro and it could not figure out what it should be | connected to: WiFi, 5G, or 4G and of course rather than just | choosing one it decided to not have any connection whatsoever | unless I moved a few hundred feet to a different location or | rebooted the phone. There was lots of discussion around this | and youtubers even covered it but rather than fix the issue | Google focused on releasing the next phone. | RedComet wrote: | The fingerprint sensors on the 6 and newer are terrible and | massive downgrades in every way from previous models. Is there | any indication that the 8 is moving to ultrasonic as rumored? | syncbehind wrote: | I wonder if the audio magic eraser feature will make it to older | pixel phones. That and the best-shot one seemed very interesting. | | It also seems very arbitrarily limited to the newer ones, 7/7pro | seem like they should be more than capable of driving these | features. | | Is software limiting going to be the norm going forward for | phones? | | Because, I don't think this is worth upgrading from last years | phones from a hardware basis. | | Perhaps, we've reached a point in smartphones where the | development cycles will be more iterative, instead of truly | groundbreaking. | jsight wrote: | The same thing happened with photo magic eraser, but it | eventually was released for other devices. | seabrookmx wrote: | I think we've been there for quite some time. iOS is also | limiting certain features based on model like this. The new 15 | has certain image processing features the 14 Pro doesn't get, | even though they have the same SoC. | alephxyz wrote: | They've already been limiting some of the "AI" image editing | features to newer pixels (but installing the same app package | on older phones works just fine). | xnx wrote: | I couldn't find a comprehensive history of all the features | that have debuted on a new phone and then been allowed on older | phones, but it's fairly common. 2 examples are listed here: | https://www.phonearena.com/news/pixel-6-series-gets-pixel-7-... | freedomben wrote: | Yep, I expect most of these to make it to older pixels but | probably not for a few months. There are some that probably | require the newer Tensor G3 chip though, which can't be | backported. | DustinBrett wrote: | The free watch included was the final thing to sell me on a pre- | order. | krzyk wrote: | And again no Face Unlock like we had in Pixel 4 :( | | COVID basically ended and they still won't bring that back, I was | hoping that Apple push for that will make Android phones also | with a nice and secure face unlocking (for us that have issues | with fingerprint sensors not recognizing their fingerprints) | ThePowerOfFuet wrote: | Face unlock without a 3D sensor is insecure, period. | fullstop wrote: | The Pixel 4 had lidar for that feature. | cdchn wrote: | Seems like this one has an IR sensor, maybe they use that as | well (but probably not as good as lidar) | stonewhite wrote: | Features do include Face Unlock if you scroll down enough | krzyk wrote: | That's the unsecure one with only camera. And they don't | allow to use that where fingerprint. | | Pixel 4 had dot projector for security. | Grazester wrote: | Apparently it is secure enough to use for payment apps now | on the Pixel 8 | SketchySeaBeast wrote: | They seem fairly confident in it. | | "Face Unlock on Pixel 8 now meets the strongest Android | biometric class and can be used for banking app sign-in and | payment apps like Google Wallet." | | https://blog.google/products/pixel/google- | tensor-g3-pixel-8/ | otikik wrote: | Oversized and overpriced. | Kiuhrly1 wrote: | Honestly the most appealing thing for me is the seven years of | software support. The Pixel 5 support leaves a lot to be desired, | given that I don't even want to upgrade from the hardware. | | The demo video of their AI photo editor was kind of mind blowing | but ultimately not a feature I would use. I've seen a few | complaints about their automatic photo processing as well, which | you can't disable in the official camera app. | | Overall the majority of their features seem to be software which | is tied to Google apps/services, which doesn't sit well with me. | kelnos wrote: | > _Honestly the most appealing thing for me is the seven years | of software support_ | | Yup. I've been clinging to my Pixel 4, but it hasn't gotten | security updates in a year, which I'm not particularly | comfortable with (been lucky so far, knock on wood). I might | pick up the Pixel 8 (not Pro, god that thing is huge) mainly | due to the support lifetime. And it does seem like their non- | Pro releases are actually _decreasing_ in physical size for the | past few years. Still a couple /few mm larger than the Pixel 4, | but that's doable, I think. | drcongo wrote: | Reminds me of a Ford Edsel. | rayeigenfeldt wrote: | Pixels Image Process way too much. They add stuff into photos | which is not necessarily there in order to make them look better. | These devices are terrible. | owenpalmer wrote: | Can you give an example? | daft_pink wrote: | Snoozer like the iPhone 15 release. No real innovation, just a | new chip, improved cameras, and a bunch of waxing and waning | about premium materials that I will never see again after I slap | a case on it. | hbn wrote: | Why do people expect to be blown away every year? Most people | upgrade their phone every 2-3 years. This isn't the early | smartphone days where there was tons of room for improvement. | Moore's law has gotten increasingly closer to ending, screens | are as pixel dense as necessary, and people generally are | satisfied with the capabilities of their phone. Starting around | 2017 smartphones as we know them peaked and so they just shove | bigger/better/more cameras into them for the most part. | proee wrote: | There is tons of room for innovation in phones, but most | companies don't want to risk deviating from what consumers | think they want (just like Hollywood movies). | | I'm sure the HN crowd could come together and form a list of | 100 ideas that are truly innovative in the phone space. | However, these ideas are quite risky to bring to market. | | Some ideas: | | 1. Super Amazing Sound playback (next level) 2. Rollable | display 3. More I/O (for 3rd party ecosystems) | 01100011 wrote: | How much of that can be delivered at a price point that is | acceptable to consumers? | tick_tock_tick wrote: | Yeah but those are all worthless for selling a phone. | SketchySeaBeast wrote: | If you want something innovative there's always the foldables, | one of which is Google's. I'm not sure what other form factor | you're looking for in a phone, turns out that "glass slab | that's nearly 100% screen" is a pretty decent design choice. | dmbche wrote: | Is this one able to call 911? | cloudking wrote: | Yes, if you buy the 911+ monthly subscription upgrade | fitz-re wrote: | You get a free trial year with the purchase of the phone. | xattt wrote: | It calls the real number, 9-1-2. | andrewstuart2 wrote: | I'm really glad to see both the partnership with iFixit and the 7 | years of support. Because everything else seems mostly meh to me, | and while I'm upgrading this year from a Pixel 6 Pro, the | continued diminished returns make it seem likely that 2-3 years | from now I won't have as much reason to. | Alacart wrote: | My experience with my own pixel 7 pro and a pixel 5 has been | that these devices are an order of magnitude lower in build | quality than Samsung or iPhones. I really, really wanted to be | happy with them but they've been a never ending source of | frustration. | | My pixel 5 just stopped turning on one day about 2 years in, | and my pixel 7 pro had the volume and power buttons fall out | about 3 weeks in (not due to a drop, after googling it's | apparently a very widely seen issue). | | The service with iFixit was unhelpful, they told me "We keep | seeing this and Google says this is wear and tear. We can't | submit it for a warranty repair, and if we try we end up eating | the cost". After finally complaining on twitter I was contacted | by some support person who said to give iFixit this email and | they would fix it. They still refused, and after a few more | rounds of interactions like that I eventually bought some | replacement buttons on Amazon, popped them in, and put a case | that covers them on it. I'm fully expecting this to randomly | die some time before 2 years is up. | | Combine that with Google's extremely strong tendency to abandon | everything, promises like these seem well, worthless. | | Meanwhile my daughter is using my wife's old iPhone from 8 | years ago. My Samsung note 3 and my s8 still boot up and work | just fine (though I cracked the screen on one about 5 years | ago). It's just so obvious that these phones are very low | priority to Google, while other companies base their business | around their phones. | thefz wrote: | > My experience with my own pixel 7 pro and a pixel 5 has | been that these devices are an order of magnitude lower in | build quality than Samsung or iPhones. | | Subjective, I am at my third Pixel phone in six years and I | never had an issue. | buerkle wrote: | I'm still on my same iPhone for almost 4 years. Getting a | new phone every two years doesn't scream quality to me. | buttersbrian wrote: | I am biased, as I've had every pro/xl but the Pixel6 and | the google nexus phone's prior to that. | | With that being said i've only had questionable build | quality on 2 occasions. The Huawei 6p which was covered | under a recall, and the Panda Pixel 2XL where there was | some lamination issues. | | That being said, the build quality and materials (mostly) | really stepped up initially in the Pixel 4, and then | noticeably again in the P7. They are quite nice. I don't | really find them lacking in quality, fit, or finish these | days. | thefz wrote: | Neither does your case, honestly. | | My GF is still using a Pixel 3 pro every day. | hn_throwaway_99 wrote: | I'm a Pixel owner, and the phone quality has been stellar | IMO, but I would never use any phone that couldn't get | security updates - zero days, and sometimes zero days | that require no or very little user action, are too | common with cell phones. Which is why I think the 7 year | support announcement is great news. | jmilloy wrote: | I'd guess you aren't seeing the build quality issues as | frequently because you replace your phone more often. Three | phones on six years sounds like a lot to me | thefz wrote: | See above comment as to why. | vetinari wrote: | > I am at my third Pixel phone in six years and I never had | an issue. | | Don't you think that three phones in six years _is_ the | issue? | | I'm still on 2019 Galaxy S10, i.e. fourth year, single | phone. The hardware is still in great condition, no | malfunction of anything. | SketchySeaBeast wrote: | But now you're stuck with no more security updates, but | Samsung has gotten much better at that as well recently. | vetinari wrote: | I don't really mind; it concerns only updates of core | system, not apps. Apps are still updated, so I get | updated browser, mail and other apps, that could be | attacked; they are not locked to the system. It makes the | attack surface vastly smaller. | thefz wrote: | > Don't you think that three phones in six years is the | issue? | | One (P3) ended with me having it in the back pocket of my | jeans and literally jumping in the backseat... yeah, not | smart. | | Another (P4a), I tried to open to swap a new battery in | and it did not end well. I'd still happily be with the 4a | if it was not for my dumb self. It's perfectly working | and I use it to listen to some music while biking or at | the gym. I just did not reattach the speaker cable. | kelnos wrote: | Would you still be with it, though? Someone upthread | claims the phones just don't last. Maybe if you hadn't | broken your phones, they still wouldn't've lasted much | longer anyway. | | Having said that, I'm still using my 4-year-old Pixel 4, | and it's in great shape. I'll probably get a new phone | this year since it's no longer receiving security | updates. Which is stupid, because I'm otherwise perfectly | happy with the phone. And hate that they get physically | larger every year. | thefz wrote: | Idea was to stretch the P4a until the end of security | updates. | | The reason is that it is much, much more compact and it's | perfect to carry around when on the bike as it does not | wedge into my quad when pedaling. And it's easier to hold | with my gloves on. Well, it's living a second life full | of music and OsmAnd maps. | zdragnar wrote: | My wife and I have apparently been lucky enough to buy the 6 | variant then- we've had nothing but good luck with ours, and | we haven't been babying them either. | | I miss some of the nice touches LG added on top of stock | Android, but the hardware has met all expectations so far. | kenhwang wrote: | My friends regularly have to have their Pixels | replaced/retired due to hardware failures around the 2 year | mark. The 7 years of support is nice, but these phones don't | last anywhere near that long. | hef19898 wrote: | I had a Pixel 2 XL that was replaced this year not because | it was broken, well the screen was bit that's hardly the | phones fault, but because my carrier had an offer on a | Pixel 7 that was too good to be true. The Pixel 2 is still | working so, even if there are no more OS updates anymore. | trey-jones wrote: | All anecdotal but I would still be using my Pixel 1 if | there was software support. 4a5g still going strong for | both my wife and me. | shopvaccer wrote: | I have had a pretty similarly bad experience repairing my | pixel 4a the other month. Purchased a new screen and kit from | ifixit for 1/3 the cost of buying a new phone, even had to | get a heat gun to unglue the old screen, and guess what? she | dies a week later anyways due to some other issue. | | The problem with all these phones is that they're kind of | built to be disposable. They're just glued together plastic. | And even if you can repair the phone or it survives 5 years | or so, the vendor is just going to stop supporting the | chipset anyways. | | Just got a fairphone 4, optimistic but the build quality is | shit and they're already rolling out a fairphone 5 now... | whatever, I use AOSP. I can't stand samsung anyways with all | the crapware they put on stock android. | matheusmoreira wrote: | Yeah. I didn't want to buy a Google phone but they're the | only ones supported by GrapheneOS. From what I've read | they've got pretty good reasons for supporting them too. Why | can't Samsung step up and offer the same security features | and firmware update schedules? I'm using a Samsung Galaxy | Note 9 and it's been excellent for many years but it doesn't | matter if it doesn't run the software I want. | shopvaccer wrote: | With respect to grapheneOS on samsung, I don't think it's | about security. It's about openness, there is already | samsung knox (or whatever it is called, samsung dex?) so | clearly they know how to make a secure enclave it's just | that samsung wants to keep their stuff proprietary. | | In general samsung and others (huawei, etc.) are trying to | get a grip on android, and open-source seems to oppose | that. | | I don't know what motivates google to lean in so hard with | open-source ( maybe trying to prevent fragmentation or | avoid future antitrust or set a "clean" example standard | for stock android with their pixel brand ), but we do | currently enjoy its fruits. | matheusmoreira wrote: | You're right about that. Google seems to be a lot more | open with its hardware compared to other manufacturers. | This attitude apparently even extends towards their | laptops. It's certainly something I've come to appreciate | about Google. | hparadiz wrote: | Why does no one ever consider Sony? They let you unlock | the bootloader and the hardware is excellent. | izacus wrote: | I stopped when they started permanently breaking camera | procesing on bootloader unlock. | freedomben wrote: | Same, in fact it's the reason I buy and continue to buy | their products. I continually hope that doesn't change | andrewprock wrote: | I had one Pixel 2 that lasted five years. I had another that | lasted only six months before the screen just stopped working | at all. We'll see how long my current Pixel 5a lasts. | duffyjp wrote: | My wife's 5a was bit by a common "screen" completely dies | for no reason bug. It's more like the phone is stone dead, | but that's how Google describes it. Even though she was | well past the 1 year warranty they replaced it free under a | special warranty program due to how common it is. | | And by replaced it, I mean they sent a different phone that | had lots of wear and she lost all her non-cloud data. | sct202 wrote: | The 5A's have some kind of mass motherboard defect and | the warranty was quietly increased to 2 years. I know 2 | people who recently went thru a bunch of hurdles (must go | to Asurion/ubreakifix to get special request submitted) | and got replacement phones sent outside of the extended | warranty, because both the phones failed days after the 2 | year mark. | virtualwhys wrote: | My 5a's camera routinely crashes the phone and reboots | when attempting to take a photo in bright light | conditions (e.g. in broad daylight) -- it's infuriating, | google says the phone is out of warranty so apparently | I'm SOL. | | With Asahi Linux I'm now considering going back to all- | Apple hardware after 12 years away. | retinaros wrote: | the nexus one was a beautifully engineered phone after that | they moved to plastic and everything went down | vetinari wrote: | Galaxy nexus, while plastic, was still very nice phone. | | Nexus 5 had already quality issues. Pixels went downhill | completely, while simultaneously bumping up the price. | skavi wrote: | The Nexus One was built by HTC. The Galaxy Nexus was | built by Samsung. The Nexus 5 was built by LG. Pixel is | in house, of course, but IIRC, Google bought a fragment | of HTC some time ago. | thesuitonym wrote: | >I'm really glad to see both the partnership with iFixit and | the 7 years of support. | | Damn, it may be time for me to move back to Android. Do Pixels | require the updates to be sent by your carrier, or do they | allow direct download? | kelnos wrote: | While the downloads do come directly from Google, they work | with the carriers, who can delay the updates until they have | a chance to look at it and ensure they're happy with it... | whatever that means. | | IIRC you can download the images from Google via web browser | and flash manually, but not sure if you can still do that, | and I've never tried it myself. | dagmx wrote: | Most of the time you can direct update, but I believe Verizon | has a special carve out. | panarky wrote: | Pixels get updates direct from Google, doesn't depend on your | carrier. | fullstop wrote: | This isn't entirely true. I have a Pixel 7 Pro and T-Mobile | -- updates can be delayed by the carrier. | | https://9to5google.com/2023/01/12/google-pixel-t-mobile- | upda... | sphars wrote: | Did you purchase your phone from T-Mobile? I'm on | T-Mobile but I always buy my Pixels direct from Google. | All updates have come direct from Google, no T-Mobile | involvement at all. | fullstop wrote: | In this particular case, yes, but the update can still be | blocked by the carrier. People have been successful in | updating the device by temporarily putting the SIM from | another carrier in the phone. | | My daughter's Pixel 5a update, for example, was delayed | but it was purchased from Google. | | To be clear, the update _does_ come directly from Google | but the device won't show that the update is available | until the carrier gives the green light. The factory | image can still be sideloaded. | | The P7P is the first phone that I've not purchased | outright, and that's because TMO was willing to give me a | ridiculously generous offer to trade in a OnePlus 7t. | | edit: another link -- | https://www.androidpolice.com/pixel-t-mobile-update- | delayed/ | Alupis wrote: | don't buy modern phones direct from carriers, unless the | deal is too good to pass up. | | unlocked, carrier-agnostic phones are the way to go. | fullstop wrote: | I agree, that's how I ended up buying the P7P through TMO | -- it was a ridiculously generous offer. | | With the Pixel updates, at least, the updates come | through Google but the carrier (at least TMO) can prevent | this from happening even if the phone is unrestricted. | sho_hn wrote: | My impression is that the flagships have become fairly | interchangeable (aside from perhaps the new Xperia, which still | has its own character to some extent) and which one "is the one | to buy" is now mostly down when you're in the market to buy. | | As in, this one is debuting the new Samsung GN2 cam sensor and | I think the SoC manufacturing process node, ahead of whenever | Samsung and the others post their new updated devices. So for a | few months this is probably the one to get, until a competitor | drops the next set of updates from the HW supply chain, and so | on. | | Three years of updates and iFixit are great and could be | differentiating for now, but hopefully the rest of the | ecosystem will catch up to that standard. | Scene_Cast2 wrote: | I know GN2 might have been just an arbitrary example, but it | looks like GN2 didn't make it to the 8 pro (contrary to the | rumors). | sho_hn wrote: | Oh, do you have a source? The pre-release coverage still | talked a lot about the GN2 even days ago, and to me it was | more or less the defining new HW drop in this phone. | | It's a lot less exciting without a sensor upgrade and would | be mostly playing catch-up otherwise. | Scene_Cast2 wrote: | Not the strongest sources, but: | | https://www.gsmarena.com/newscomm-60107.php - comments | tipped me off; then googling for "pixel 8 GN2; last hour" | gets me links like | https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-8-pro- | release-... where the cache has the reference but the | current page doesn't. | WillAdams wrote: | Except for stylus support --- Samsung is thankfully | continuing with S-Pen support (which also works on the Kindle | Scribe and Wacom One and various other devices). | eitland wrote: | It is soon 5 years ago since I switched after using Android | since almost since HTC Hero. | | Something like this could have kept me on Android for a longer | so I am thankful it did not show up until I had left Android | behind. | | After years of phones that became slow after a few weeks, | having a phone that is still fast after 3-4 years is | incredible. | crossroadsguy wrote: | Is there an Apple's Elop at Google now? I am asking this in all | seriousness. How does this cost for this phone make any sense! | | Or maybe Google finally learned it from Apple that all you have | do is declared a phone flagship and bump its cost dearly - then | enjoy sights of people in long queues. | initplus wrote: | Same region locking nonsense there is every launch on the Google | store. | | I understand you aren't selling this in my region, but not even | letting me look at the product is super frustrating. | deanc wrote: | Yeah. They're absolutely shooting themselves in the foot. Makes | no sense to me at all as it's good advertising for their brand | and people all around the world are going to be interested. | | Here's an archive.is link which has most of the info [1] | | [1] https://archive.ph/RuBSk | gardenhedge wrote: | Why does anyone spend 1k on a phone.. | therealmarv wrote: | why not? It's for many people the most important daily device | they use. (the people here are probably more on their computer) | lofaszvanitt wrote: | Why does anyone spend so much on such a repugnant phone? | dang wrote: | Related ongoing thread: | | _Pixel 8 to have seven years of Android updates_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37766122 - Oct 2023 (269 | comments) | redbell wrote: | 7 years of support is probably the single, most noticeable | improvement in the Android ecosystem in years now. | | Also, the temperature sensor in the Pro, if it worked as | expected, should be a cool addition. | kkielhofner wrote: | Finally. | | The planned obsolescence conversation seems to revolve around | Apple (the only self-interested greedy company on the planet | according to the detractors) but they hold the record for | software updates on smartphones - 10 years for the iPhone 5s. | Here we are, in 2023, and Google is coming around to seven | years of support. Apple has done at least seven since 2013. | | In any case I applaud this move and at least five years should | be mandated by law. I wonder how many "random manufacturer | drops a cheap Android on the market and walks away on software | and support" Android devices there are sitting in landfills | across the globe. Of course there are plenty of Apple devices | as well but it's not due to lack of support. | sbjs wrote: | [flagged] | sbjs wrote: | These downvotes for a genuine question (-3 points at time of | writing) are why I don't participate in HN tbh. And maybe | they're exclusively for my parenthetical request for feedback, | in which case, still, like, come on guys. Those downvotes are | why my posts and comments always shadowbanned in the first | place. And they all started with downvotes for genuine | questions. The typical response from HN is "I dunno, maybe post | better content." But I post the best content I have in both | submissions and comments. So yeah, I guess this community is | not for me, that's all I can conclude. | striking wrote: | Your posts and comments are not "shadowbanned" (or dead). If | they were, we wouldn't be able to reply to you. | | Not every post or comment does well. You'll be better off if | you don't take it so personally. | afavour wrote: | (I imagine you did get some downvotes for your request for | feedback because it's off-topic) | | Your request is honestly a little difficult for anyone to | answer. "As a long-time Apple user I've long suspected that | despite the public specs, Android phones are crap. Can any | long-term Android users confirm for me whether their phone is | crap?" | | If there is a long-term Android user out there who finds | Android phones to be crap I'd assume they would have long | since switch to a different type of phone. | VancouverMan wrote: | > If there is a long-term Android user out there who finds | Android phones to be crap I'd assume they would have long | since switch to a different type of phone. | | That's a wrong assumption to make. I think there are a lot | of reluctant Android users around. | | I'm one of them, and I've been using Android phones for | well over a decade now. | | I don't mind Android itself and the selection of apps, but | I've never liked the phones themselves. | | The Android phones I've used weren't sensibly sized, or had | quality and reliability issues, or were generally tolerable | except for one fatal downside (like a bad camera, or | limited storage), or were too expensive for what was being | offered. | | The iPhones I've used have generally been decent, from a | hardware perspective. I find the software situation to be | terrible, however. | | For me, a bad Android phone with tolerable software is at | least kind of usable. | | A great iPhone phone with | unsuitable/insufficient/frustrating software is unusable. | | Given that those have been the only viable options for a | while now, I resort to using Android phones, even if I've | consistently disliked the phones themselves. | runako wrote: | You posted an opinion suggesting that Android isn't the best | in a thread about an Android phone. You inadvertently poked | an audience self-selected to dislike questions phrased as | yours was. | Kiuhrly1 wrote: | My guess is that your question isn't seen as relevant to the | post (it's more of a general Android topic) and it has an ad | for your failed submission which could be seen as | manipulation, which is highly frowned upon on this site. | There's a bias against the stereotype of Apple users too. | shopvaccer wrote: | I can't speak for stock android, but I can say AOSP | (GrapheneOS, CalyxOS, lineageOS and such) is a much better | experience than iOS. | | The free software ecosystem is nice cause the mobile apps are | way more functional. You can do almost anything you can do on | your laptop. Syncthing, K-9 mail, newpipe, firefox (with | ublock), orbot, libretorrent, etc. are a few pretty good | reasons to use AOSP. | | its kind of stylish too. google put out this "material you" | thing which basically makes it so the whole OS uses the same | color pallete. | | The only thing I miss about my iphone was that it was nice and | small and could be used in one hand. | | Sorry to hear about your shadowban, it's annoying. | rcarr wrote: | I was a long time iPhone user for about 15 years - never had an | Android. My iPhone 8 Plus finally reached end of support for OS | updates and I'd heard great things about Samsung Dex so I | ordered a Samsung Ultra S22 last week and I absolutely love it. | Once you get it set up and used to it, I've found the | experience to be superior to the iPhone. I just find it quicker | to do the things I want to do because of the way it's set up. | Things like editing the settings is just way better thought out | - the search works really well in the main settings app and if | you want to change the settings for a particular app (e.g get | rid of the notification badge) you simply have to long press on | the app, hit the "i" button on the pop up, and you're taken | straight to the settings for the app.). And Samsung Dex is | fucking awesome, especially if you've got a pair of AR glasses. | My entire computing setup now fits in a small reporter bag. I'm | now going to sell my Macbook and use the Ultra as my sole | device which means I will have completely exited the Apple | ecosystem. In the early smartphone days, I think iOS was | superior to Android but I really don't think that's the case | anymore. | ThePowerOfFuet wrote: | I hope you had a look at Samsung's privacy policy. | | https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/xtq9pq/samsungs_pr. | .. | rcarr wrote: | Yeah, Samsung collects data and sells it. So does every | other company. Not going to stop me using the phone. At | least Android actually asks me every time if I want to opt | into a service or not. If Apple want me back, they can: | | - Build a Dex competitor | | - Allow apps to communicate outside their sandboxes if I | allow them to | | - Make it quicker and easier to edit settings | | - Stop doing ridiculous things like borking USB-C ports on | non-pro models | xnx wrote: | It was the reverse for awhile. The Pixel had an outdated image | sensor, but managed to pull off decent photos through software: | https://www.theverge.com/21496686/pixel-5-camera-comparison-... | mmmmmbop wrote: | I find that Apple indisputably has better hardware and build | quality, but Android has the better operating system. | Workaccount2 wrote: | I don't know who would be telling you that android phones have | better hardware specs. And if I did, I would confidently tell | you that they don't know what they are talking about. | | Signed, a decade+ android user. | | However, will end users really notice the gap? Not really. | hobofan wrote: | I own a Pixel 7 Pro (and owned the Pixel 6 Pro), and I | regularly have iPhones of friends/family in my hands. | | Especially for the flagship Android phones like the Pixel Pros, | I really don't think there is a noticable difference. They have | excellent build quality, camera quality is so similar to | iPhones that I couldn't tell which one is better, and on the | software side I think it's a matter of being used to it (where | I'm a lot more comfortable on Android). | nicbou wrote: | It's a mix of good and bad. The iPhone is generally very good, | and the integration with other Apple products is unmatched. | | ...but my Android runs Firefox with uBlock Origin. I forget | that cookie banners exist until I use my iPad. It also runs two | background apps pretty reliably: a GPS logger and Syncthing. It | respects my default web browser and music player choices. | | Quality is subjective. For my specific needs, I prefer Android. | If those things were solved I would have an iPhone. | yonibot wrote: | Safari for iOS also has adblockers | goosedragons wrote: | That aren't as good as Ublock Origin for Firefox. There's | also no AFAIK way to do something like what NoScript does | for Firefox. | throw9away6 wrote: | I pay 4$ a year for ad block plus for iOS. Totally worth it | and blocks YouTube ads | AlotOfReading wrote: | Same situation. I _have_ both, my work phone is an iPhone. I | just don 't like using it. There's nothing major, both | operating systems are capable, but there's little reminders | everywhere that Apple is the one dictating how the phone can | be used. Can't organize home screen icons. Uncontrollable | notification spam by the system. Apple's apps mostly don't | have individual privacy controls. Apple maps. Limited optical | zoom. Having to find and use a special cable. | | All of these are minor gripes (and the latter even resolved | going forward), but why pay a premium for a device that | irritates me? | xnx wrote: | GPS Logger, Syncthing, and a decent/ad-blocking/extensible | browser (in my case Kiwi) are exactly the things that make | Android my preference. | baxuz wrote: | "Change your region and language" | | No, Google. Fix your shit. You're a global 1.70 trillion dollar | company, not a local microbrewery. | matheusmoreira wrote: | Yeah it's pretty stupid that this trillion dollar company can't | figure out how to sell a phone worldwide. I'm actually gonna | have to import this thing if I want to run GrapheneOS. | kyriakos wrote: | A very small part of the world is supported unfortunately and | the situation year to year has not been improving. On the other | hand samsung and apple are available everywhere. | vetinari wrote: | Even after you change your region and language, it will drop | you to the front page. | | If you try to click the direct link again, it will redirect you | to "Change your region and language". | | That's beyond broken. | archgoon wrote: | [dead] | baxuz wrote: | It's because it's not available in most countries in the | world, including a number of EU countries. | tpm wrote: | Yeah, one of the biggest companies in the world and still not | selling the phones in our country. I actually used Pixel phones | a few years back, but currently with no working 5G it's not | going to happen. | ireallywantthat wrote: | Too expensive for my tastes. | | Give me 380USD phone which lasts for next 5-8 years, feels | premium, is repairable, camera is decent, replaceable battery, OS | is just Vanilla Android with atleast 5 years(more years of | Software updates would be welcome) of Software Updates and when | you can't provide it, make it hackable enough to install Custom | ROMs. | soperj wrote: | I still don't get the "premium feel" line when everyone covers | their phone in a case anyway. I don't care if my phone is made | of plastic when it actually makes it less prone to breaking | when dropped. | kelnos wrote: | I don't know if I've just been excessively lucky, but I've | never put a case on any smartphone I've owned since 2010, and | I've only cracked the screen on two of them. These days | (probably for the past 4 years) I do put the thin-film screen | protectors on as well, and replace them if they get damaged. | | I've always been of the feeling that I'm buying this lovely, | well-designed piece of hardware, why would I want to cover it | up in an ugly plastic case? | matttb wrote: | I don't put cases (or even screen protectors) on mine | either (since 2015). I've dropped it many times, obviously, | but I've only ever had the edges of the phone get the | slightest nicks - which I prefer to having a case on it. | patall wrote: | Exactly because you have cracked the screen on two of them. | I (and many others with a case) am at 0 cracked screens. | tredre3 wrote: | We can throw anecdotes to each other all day. I've been | using smartphones since 2010 as well. Never used a case. | Never cracked a screen. | kiririn wrote: | Even worse is when the premium feel is at the expense of | usability as well as durability. Matte glass backs and | rounded aluminium sides might as well be a bar of soap | freeAgent wrote: | There are also some plastics that feel fine, IMO. It's mostly | a matter of whether the phone creaks or bends easily. | Jcampuzano2 wrote: | I've been saying this to people for years. Tons of companies | market how a phone feels, its looks/colors but then almost | everybody just ends up slapping a case on it. | | I literally couldn't care what a phone was made out of/how it | feels since I just put a case on it before I even use it for | a day in most situations. | amelius wrote: | Not really true for the Samsung Flip phones out there. I | don't know many people who use a case on them. | justin_oaks wrote: | Speaking of cases, the case near the bottom of the page is | being sold for $35. That's a lot of money for some molded | plastic. | thesuitonym wrote: | Same here. I think it's ridiculous we make phones out of | glass, then put more glass on them to protect that glass. | Phone screens should be made of plastic, which doesn't | break, and then let me put a piece of glass over it to | prevent scratching. And then if that breaks, oh well, I | don't care because i can replace it for $10. | TheBigSalad wrote: | So you want the same thing but for less than half the price? | panzagl wrote: | [flagged] | dang wrote: | Please don't take HN threads into flamewar hell. We're trying | for something else here. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | panzagl wrote: | Sorry, sounded funnier in my head... | [deleted] | rtcoms wrote: | Pixel 7a ? | kras143 wrote: | Check this out | https://murena.com/america/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena... | Night_Thastus wrote: | That's why I think I'm going with the Samsung A54. It's around | that price (if unlocked), but has decent specs. I eventually | want to phase out my 4-year-old A50, mainly for android auto | reasons. Need to ask online though, there may be better spec'd | phones for the price point. | | No replaceable battery, sadly, but those don't really exist at | this point. | abdullahkhalids wrote: | I am also in the market, and replacing my small/compact Moto | G4 after 7-8 years. Sansung A54 seems to be the most | appropriate replacement, based on my criteria. | | I just looked up the battery replacement procedure, and it is | not horrible for something you want to do once after 4 years. | jassyr wrote: | The pixel "a" series match your requirements for the most part. | An inexperience phone stripped of unnecessary features. | Unfortunately I don't know any phones that are also repairable, | replaceable, and hackable. | manuelabeledo wrote: | Sadly, you are part of a minority that rarely gets any | attention from mainstream manufacturers. | sho_hn wrote: | Samsung sells their regularly-refreshed A series into | something close to this price range, and they're great | devices. For some reason they don't get nearly as much | attention in the US as they do in Europe and other parts of | the world, though. | Night_Thastus wrote: | Yep. My first smartphone was the A50, which has done well | up until now. (Though I may upgrade to make android auto | stuff a bit faster) | 12907835202 wrote: | No company will ever make a 5-8 year phone at that price. | That's $47-76 a year. | | People pay that amount or more for apps that help manage their | fantasy football team... | | Comparitively that would be an insane bargain for a phone and | it's absurd for that to be your requirement. | | I do wonder what the right price point would be for a | subscription model. At the moment the average replacement time | is every 2 years which would be the equivalent of $30 a month | basic and $40 for pro. | | Could they afford $30 a month sub but you got the yearly | upgrades rather than every 2 years? | | If the price of the parts is quite low compared to the R&D that | could be feasible. | | But I actually have no idea. | plorkyeran wrote: | The current iPhone SE starts at $430 and will (probably) get | at least 5 years of updates. If budget phone makers can't do | something cheaper than the iPhone SE then surely their entire | business model is just fucked? | [deleted] | Gigachad wrote: | Economies of scale. The SE is basically the hand me downs | from the mainline iphone and couldn't exist without it. | It's not surprising that no name brands can't compete with | the richest company in the world. | LeifCarrotson wrote: | Why would they not make a budget phone? It's not like the BOM | + assembly for a touchscreen, first(!) battery, motherboard, | and plastic case cost that much. Check out some of the public | reports from counterpointresearch.com: the profit margin on | flagships is often double the BOM cost, the profit margin on | budget phones is a little tighter but still not bad. Who | cares what the revenue is per year? What matters is how much | it costs to make the thing. Most vendors are just tweaking | reference designs anyways. | | The Moto G Play is just $170 list, currently going for ~$110. | It has a rather pathetic 3 years support, but that's $4.72 | per month at list, or ~$3.95 at current list rates - assuming | you throw it away when the support contract ends. The Samsung | A14 5g is $200, and gets 4 years' support, which is $4.15/mo, | again, assuming list price and discarding when security | updates are over. | | I'm currently typing from my Moto G6, which came out in April | 2018. I bought in July of that year for $100 (it was a BOGO | with a buddy's $400 Moto One Zoom, they were literally giving | them away as a backup to promote their more expensive phone | because the BOM cost was so cheap). I plug it in on my desk | at work because the battery sucks now, but that's no great | hardship. By that math, I've enjoyed the use of a smartphone | for $1.62 per month (would be $3.25 at list). Yes, it's only | running Android 9 and not getting "security updates" anymore, | but I have my phone app, messaging app, a camera, and | Firefox, and that's about all I need. | | I think it would be ridiculous to spend $30 or $40 A MONTH | for a smartphone. It doesn't matter what some people pay for | a fantasy football team app, that has nothing to do with | buying hardware. Other people are buying 3000 lbs used cars | for the same price others are paying for a flagship 200g slab | of glass! | jfengel wrote: | One of the OP's requirements was a vanilla Android. Vendor | Android versions aren't features, they're profit centers. | | I know the Samsung phones come with a fair bit of crapware, | cuz I used to have one. How's the Moto? | abdullahkhalids wrote: | I have the Moto G4, which is on its last legs after 8 | years. | | It barely had any non-android, non-Google apps. If there | were any, I uninstalled them all except one from the Apps | list without having to root my phone or anything. The | last one is called Moto, which is disabled (can't be | uninstalled). | [deleted] | xnx wrote: | A Pixel 6 Pro meets all these criteria except for replaceable | battery. | jfengel wrote: | The battery is replaceable, just not by the user (at least | not easily). I've had my Pixel battery replaced; the cost | didn't seem exorbitant. | | It would be nice to be able to pop batteries in and out on | the fly, but I suspect that would make it a lot harder to | waterproof. I've lost more phones to water damage than I have | to battery death. | imiric wrote: | The Samsung Galaxy S5 from 2014 had a removable battery, | headphone jack, a microSD card slot, and was IP67 | dust/water resistant. We lost removable batteries because | it was an easy way to make devices obsolete. | | IMO smartphones peaked around that era, and we've only seen | incremental improvements and enshittification ever since. I | used to be excited about every new device, but these days | all manufacturers are grasping at straws trying to | differentiate their rectangular slabs from the competition. | AI is the latest gimmick in this trend. | garba_dlm wrote: | I will never get used to this geo-determined internet (i cannot | see the phone's page without a vpn) | | is like we developed this new amazing inter-connection network. | and then due to politics, decided it was much too good... far too | much freedom without national barriers, so we've gone on to | reintroduce these barriers. | | as if the internet was restricted by the same geographical | (physical) realities that we commonly encounter. | | but nothing will ever be as dumb as the re-introducing material | scarcity (DRM schemes) back into the 'cyberspace' just so a few | can keep making money out of what they already did; possibly for | several generations of descendants | joduplessis wrote: | Oooooh wow, that strip - no thanks. First impressions of the | aesthetic: clouds & bubblegum. | ForkMeOnTinder wrote: | That strip is part of the deal if you're buying a pixel. | | https://www.gsmarena.com/google_pixel_6-pictures-11037.php | | https://www.gsmarena.com/google_pixel_7-pictures-11903.php | | https://www.gsmarena.com/google_pixel_8-pictures-12546.php | joduplessis wrote: | Wow, I have not noticed that before! | panarky wrote: | The price you pay for better camera sensor and lenses. | SketchySeaBeast wrote: | I don't think that necessarily true - Samsung has hidden the | cameras inside the body, and I'd argue that there's nothing | terribly special about the pixel camera hardware compared to, | say, the S23 Ultra. | | That being said, I like the look for the visor. | xnx wrote: | Largely invisible once it's in a case | bigstrat2003 wrote: | I don't put my phone in a case and don't understand why | people do. Dropping your phone is a rare event, not a serious | risk. | devit wrote: | In my experience most of the flagship phones are slippery | enough that it's not a rare event to drop them if you don't | use a case made out of a higher friction material. | | Of course that's an incredibly dumb design, but | unfortunately they are made like that. | bigstrat2003 wrote: | I guess I can't relate. I've had a Pixel (the first one) | and I didn't feel like it was slippery or anything. It's | been a while but I think the reason I had to replace it | wasn't damage, but because it wouldn't hold a charge any | more. Otherwise I'd still probably have it, I really | liked that phone. | crossroadsguy wrote: | Is that some kind of subtly resurgent brutalist design? | gpm wrote: | I actually really like the strip on my pixel. Being able to | support the phone by the bottom of the strip instead of | squeezing it feels good. | deergomoo wrote: | Comparing this to the regular Pixel 8 it doesn't look like you | get an awful lot more for your extra PS300, I'm surprised there's | such a delta. | | Bigger screen (which for many is a minus not a plus), an extra | 4GB RAM (still seems absurd to me that we need this much RAM on a | phone) and more capable/additional auxiliary cameras. | | I suppose the charitable take is that PS700 feels like a pretty | good deal for the non-Pro one. | 01100011 wrote: | I'd love the telephoto camera for outdoor shots, but I can't | stand the price or the size of the phone. Even with the Google | Fi discount of $300, the price($500 with trade-in) is too much | to justify. | | I guess I'll stick with my Pixel 5A. | havblue wrote: | You do get the watch for free with a preorder so you get an | extra tiny screen to go with your new gigantic screen. | buttersbrian wrote: | Check out best-buy. They are offering $100 more on lots of | pixel trade-ins than the google or fi store. | theunixbeard wrote: | Be warned: The Pixel 5A has a manufacturer defect where they | just die out of nowhere: | | https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/11833075?hl=en | | This just happened to me after 1.5 years of usage of my Pixel | 5A. | | Luckily Google extended the usual 1-year warranty to be | 2-years to give free replacements (which I took advantage of | and in fact was given a free upgrade to a 6A)... But be | prepared for your phone to die out of nowhere. | cdchn wrote: | I'm surprised Google isn't leaning more into their main advantage | over Apple: AI. If it weren't for Call Screening and Wait-for-Me | I'd have probably already switched over by now. | cobertos wrote: | I'm still on the Pixel 3! I can't get off. I bounced off the | Pixel 6. It's too big in my hand. The finger print sensor is in a | weird spot. Android 13 is more restrictive. And worst? It's not | faster or better. It's legitimately a hard _downgrade_ for me. | | I have 2 Pixel 3s now (microphone died and battery swelled) but | they run everything snappy! I might just keep buying Pixel 3s off | eBay, its so much cheaper. My main worry is lack of security | updates, especially with the webp vulnerability. | matttb wrote: | My wife and I are on the pixel 3 still as well. I hate the size | of the 8, but that camera sure looks real nice... | | Her pixel 3 is also starting to shutdown randomly which is | concerning since our last phones were the bootlooping nexus 5x. | freedomben wrote: | I won't be moving off of the Pixel 5a until the hardware | breaks. Fingerprint sensor on the back and the camera notch all | the way to the left are so good. With the case on the phone, my | finger naturally lands on the sensor when I pick it up and it | unlocks lightning fast. I don't understand why we can't have | fingerprint sensors on the back anymore :-( | chromakode wrote: | Have you looked at the Zenphone 10? That appears to be the true | Pixel 3 successor. | huehehue wrote: | The on-screen fingerprint sensor on newer models is | infuriating. Unlocking the screen is always a two-action | operation of "tap the screen -> wait for it to fade in / wake | up -> put your finger on the sensor". | | The first tap to waken the screen often fails so I have to try | one or two more times. | | It's a small thing but, I have to tumble with it probably 100+ | times a day given how often I check my phone for e.g. Slack. It | should be the smoothest part of operation, imo. | timmit wrote: | For the people who cannot visit the url above, try this, | https://blog.google/products/pixel/google-pixel-8-pro/ | lofaszvanitt wrote: | I've been pondering about changing to this phone, but it's so | ugly, I mean literally so ugly, that it always gives me the | jives. It's the worst looking phone on the market, period. A | hideous monstrosity, that noone considers buying. Maybe Chucky | with the knife and this phone can be paired somehow, but I have | serious doubts. | | Just go to ASUS' industrial designer, who dreamed up the Zenfone | 10 design, hand him lots of black briefcases with blood diamonds | and greenbacks, plus strawberry cakes and beg him to come up with | something. | | And the colors... this is really the socks+sandals of the phone | market. | IshKebab wrote: | It's not the best looking phone but that's ridiculous. It looks | fine. | lofaszvanitt wrote: | No, a nightmare. That camera "bridge" is just horrible. | timbit42 wrote: | It's better than Apple's notch. | [deleted] | karencarits wrote: | I hope they will improve the photo post-processing. Currently, I | have the pixel 7 pro, and the camera app really alters people | more than I like. Fortunately, you can also save RAW files. The | rumors on Reddit said that the processing algorithm may have been | developed for cameras with lower resolutions - if that's true, | the results on pixel 8 will be even worse | simonsarris wrote: | The skin waxing (probably aggressive noise reduction) on the | Pixel 7 Pro is so bad it's changed how I take photos. I no | longer try to get faces in my photos unless the light is very | bright and they're close and near the center of the frame (the | very bad barrel distortion is another problem with faces, they | cannot be too close to the edges or they'll be comically | elongated) | | The Pixel 2 XL camera was better, I swear | OneLeggedCat wrote: | The camera (actually cameras) on my Pixel 7 Pro is the most | over-hyped mediocrity ever. I can't believe that it reviewed so | well. The jpeg processing is so over-done that everything looks | like cartoons and plastic. The video drops dozens of frames | when zooming in and out. The raws are not real raws, but are | instead just less processed pseudo-raws, and yet still have | terrible dynamic range anyway. | | I do like the colors of the jpegs. | kylecazar wrote: | It's odd to me that my Pixel 7 Pro is worth less in trade-in | value than iPhone 11. | | I'm sure there are reasons, but it stings a little. | makeitdouble wrote: | Getting access to the Apple ecosystem has inherent value that | comes on top of the phones themselves. | | Green bubbles can be worth a few hundred dollars. Or why some | people keep a busted iPhone around just to manage the parental | controls. Android doesn't have much of those restrictions or it | applies less. | kelnos wrote: | I was surprised to see my Pixel 4 is worth $250 for trade-in. | | I've never actually traded in any of my old phones, on the fear | that the new one might break at some point and I'd need a | backup. Granted I've only once had to take advantage of this in | the 13 years I've had smartphones. | | I didn't click all the way through, but I'm hoping you don't | have to turn in the old phone immediately... I'd like to hang | onto it for at least a couple weeks just in case I find the | backup/restore process hasn't completely done its job. | nerdwaller wrote: | > I didn't click all the way through, but I'm hoping you | don't have to turn in the old phone immediately... I'd like | to hang onto it for at least a couple weeks just in case I | find the backup/restore process hasn't completely done its | job. | | Last I remember looking the timeline is within 30 days of | receiving the new device. | KoftaBob wrote: | that's probably to incentivize iphone users to switch over | wffurr wrote: | Aftermarket prices for Android devices are lower than iOS | across the board. They depreciate faster. | grepLeigh wrote: | This is a meta comment, but I think it's extraordinary that we're | only 15ish years from the first smartphone release and we've | already reached the "boring" incremental improvement phase for | these tiny pocket supercomputers. | | Consider how long it took PCs to reach the same stage (with a | fraction of the adoption). It was like 20 years from Kenbak-1 to | the 90s PC era. | TheBigSalad wrote: | We're coming up on 20, but I get it. | mrinterweb wrote: | I hear what you're saying, but I feel this release is less | boring than other recent smart phones. It seems that they are | really at an inflection point where they are able to start | really utilizing their AI chips for deeper integration. From a | hardware perspective, I agree this release might be boring. I | don't think the Tensor3 is a far faster chip than the Tensor2 | (for general purpose CPU tasks), but the AI processing capacity | of this chip seem like the focus of this model. The new display | seems pretty great, but I have been pleased with my Pixel 7 | display. | grecy wrote: | > _It 's extraordinary that we're only 15ish years from the | first smartphone release and we've already reached the "boring" | incremental improvement phase for these tiny pocket | supercomputers._ | | I think people are not yet ready to accept the exact same thing | is about to happen to cars. Some company will have a perfectly | usable electric self-driving vehicle and will produce tens of | millions of them a year. They will be an appliance, like your | toaster, and nobody will care anymore. | | I'm sure it will happen to other things in our lives too. | rurp wrote: | We're quite a ways off from full self driving cars and it's | not clear that we'll ever get there. By that I mean you can | drive anywhere you want while taking a nap. Car companies | will still be working on improving limited self driving / | enhanced cruise control for the foreseeable future which | leaves plenty of room for differentiation. | afavour wrote: | People have been saying self driving cars are just around the | corner for a decade or so now. | | I do believe the future you outline will happen but IMO the | timeline is very far from clear. Significant challenges | remain for self driving cars. | Moldoteck wrote: | Waiting when button phones will become the trend again | dotancohen wrote: | Since buying a larger-screen e-ink device, I have been | wanting to go back to a dumb phone. But just a few features | preclude this. | | 1. Dialing in the dumb phone. No dumb phones support CardDav | syncing. | | 2. Very few dumb phones can function as wifi hotspots for the | e-ink device. | | 3. Few dumb phones can record calls. | | 4. I forget what eight was for... seriously I had one or two | other issues but I don't remember what they were. | neilv wrote: | Current LLMs and misc. deep learning enable an early kind of | ubiquitous personalized AI augmentation that's always with you. | | One barrier to innovation here is that most of tech has shifted | to think of empowering users as _not_ the goal, but rather, | empowering users is an occasional necessary step towards the | company exploiting those users harder. | | We could use better thinking. | kcb wrote: | Windows Mobile and Palm phones were around int the early 2000s. | I think they would absolutely need to be included if | considering the history of smartphones. | afavour wrote: | Don't forget Symbian! I had a NES emulator on my Nokia phone | back in the day. Wonderful stuff. | antod wrote: | I really don't think the iPhone (or even Android) was the | equivalent of the Kenbak-1 in terms of smartphones. There were | "smartphones" before the iPhone. | | IMO the iPhone was the 90s PC era where these things got a lot | better and more ubiquitous and less fragmented. | | And (also in my opinion) coincidentally 90s led into an the era | where overly dominant OS vendor(s) were crushing the fun and | freedom out of computing. Phones are harder to escape from that | than with PCs though. | kxrm wrote: | Yep, I too remember Windows CE 5 on my Audiovox slide out | keyboard phone which in 2006 was blowing people's minds. I | got it purely so while on-call I wouldn't have to head home | to handle incidents. | | It was a great mobile computing experience but terrible at | being a phone. | ActorNightly wrote: | I remember getting the original Motorolla droid back in 2010. | Half of my friends had iPhones. Other half were still on | regular phones. | | By 2014, everyone had a smartphone. | nicbou wrote: | 6.7 inch screen. My Pixel 5 is already big. This one is an inch | bigger in my hand and in my pockets. | | Price increase. 875EUR in Europe. The Pixel 5 was 630EUR. Do you | really get 40% more phone? | KeplerBoy wrote: | It's 1100EUR in the Austrian Google Store. | xelxel wrote: | Same here in Italy. Crazy price, almost 350EUR more than the | Pixel 6 Pro. I really wanted to upgrade, but no Pixel at this | Price. I'll wait for a sure street price in less than 6 | months | wnevets wrote: | Maybe I have abnormally large hands & pockets but the Pixel 6 | Pro w/case size is really good. I am always annoyed when I have | to use someone's phone and their tiny screen. | ForkMeOnTinder wrote: | Interestingly the non-Pro pixels have been trending in the | right direction for size. | | The Pixel 6 is 6.4" | | The Pixel 7 is 6.3" | | The Pixel 8 is 6.2" | | If the trend continues we only have to wait 3 more years for a | < 6" phone | nilespotter wrote: | I switched from Pixel 6 to Pixel 7a because the 7a size is | _perfect_ | seanalltogether wrote: | They are close to being back to original size of the pixel 3 | which in my opinion was the perfect size. | | Pixel 8 - 150.5 x 70.8 x 8.9 mm | | Pixel 6 - 158.6 x 74.8 x 8.9 mm | | Pixel 3 - 145.6 x 68.2 x 7.9 mm | morsch wrote: | It's also very close to the size the smaller (non-plus etc) | Samsung flagship phones have head for years: | | S10: 149.9 x 70.4 x 7.8 mm | | S20: 151.7 x 69.1 x 7.9 mm | | S21: 151.7 x 71.2 x 7.9 mm | | S22: 146 x 70.6 x 7.6 mm | zem wrote: | yes, i'm still clinging to my pixel 3, which is indeed | perfect | Tade0 wrote: | I remember when such phones were in a different size category | named "phablets". | abdusco wrote: | They had huge bezels. I feel like current phones with huge | displays are at most as big as then-phablets or even | smaller. | hbn wrote: | Our thumbs haven't grown in the past decade and they now | are expected to stretch longer distances. I can't even | reach the opposite top corner with my thumb on my iPhone | 13 mini | cdchn wrote: | Stop me if you're head this one before but I'm going to | tune you into a neat trick. | | Use your other hand. | bigstrat2003 wrote: | Yeah, no shit. I don't think that there's anyone who | can't figure that out. The problem isn't "I can't figure | out how to use my phone", it's that always having to use | the phone with two hands is annoying as hell. Phones | shine when you can use them one handed. They suck when | you have to regularly use them two handed because they | are so big. | plorkyeran wrote: | The original galaxy note was 147 x 83 x 9.7: slightly | wider and thicker than the pixel 8, but not quite as | tall. Overall very similar in size, but with a 5.3" | screen rather than 6.2". | kcb wrote: | The aspect ratio makes a huge difference. Back then phones | were still mostly 16:9. My Nexus 6 still feels massive | compared to modern phones. | [deleted] | hiatus wrote: | I am also in the Pixel 5 group and have been struggling to find | a replacement as our phone nears its end of security updates. | Does anyone have any suggestions for a potential replacement? | There seem to be few phones in this size and weight class. | bobviolier wrote: | When do the security releases stop? I was assuming for | another year as I am currently downloading Android 14. | | I was going to wait for Pixel 9 (currently also on Pixel 5). | Moldoteck wrote: | Iphone 13 mini))) Or galaxy s23 should be abt the same as p5 | karolist wrote: | I've had all Pixel phones up to and including the 6 Pro, | finally gave up due to various issues and am super happy with | 13 mini + watch ultra combo. I don't depend on my phone that | much anymore and mini model size is perfect for pockets and | one-hand use, the build quality and CPU/speed is amazing, | battery life is decent too, screen on time it's not | impressive but really efficient just streaming BT audiobooks | all night. Miss 120Hz screen and zoom camera so I'm going | with a Pro phone next, but not yet. | bitshiftfaced wrote: | Pixel 5 was 782EUR, euro-adjusted inflation, so it's a question | of whether it's 12% more phone. | | Edit: is that price for pixel 8 pro? A Google search is saying | regular pixel 8 is 799EUR, so basically the same price for the | base model. | buttersbrian wrote: | do they offer the watch as a free rider where you are? | | Because ... that's worth 12% and then some. | [deleted] | j10u wrote: | Agreed, I moved away from Pixels because of size... I'm hoping | for a Pixel Mini someday | dabluecaboose wrote: | I'd heard rumors about a Pixel Mini in 2023. Was holding out | hope for a surprise drop at the Pixel event today, but with | how leaky Google hardware development is, I should have known | better. | coldpie wrote: | I moved away from Android entirely because of size. Currently | on an iPhone 13 Mini, which is riiight at the very upper edge | of a reasonable size. I would love to go back to Android if | only someone reputable would make a reasonably-sized phone. | crossroadsguy wrote: | This was the exact reason. I never even considered iPhone. | I thought it's ridiculous to pay that crazy price. Then one | day I saw the first SE and it was at a decent price on | deal. Fell in love with tue size. But now that size of | phone is nowhere to be found essentially. I finally bought | 14 few months ago and next time I have to change I'll move | back to some cheap Android phone. Screw tracking. If at | this crazy price I have to buy a locked down brick I'd | rather replace that with something much cheaper. | Tade0 wrote: | My SO is holding on to a first-gen iPhone SE for the exact | same reason - I don't know what kind of hands manufacturers | expect people to have, but at this point I'm all but | certain that modern flagships are too large for most of the | population. | crossroadsguy wrote: | If only 13 Mini battery wasn't shit. I don't need the | 1000 mega pixel camera or M20 Apple cheap. Just give me a | good battery and a non-crazy sized phone and I am good. | And yeah take my money. | torton wrote: | I have a 13 Mini. The battery is typically at 30-50% in | the evening. Generally never have to worry about the | charge during the day. Perhaps it's time to replace the | battery if it's at 80% of health or below? | | If I travel and have to use GPS most of the day / take | hundreds of photos, I carry a small 5000 mAh battery to | charge up on the go. I think it's a reasonable | accommodation for a phone that's perfectly fine day-to- | day. | jdhawk wrote: | loved the size of the mini but the battery life was awful | after a year or so of deg. | grumpwagon wrote: | Asus Zenphone 10 is a bit bigger than the 13 mini, but is | reasonably small and otherwise well regarded | crossroadsguy wrote: | They didn't release that and 9 in many geographies. | wilsonnb3 wrote: | Despite it having a reputation for being a small phone, | the Zenfone 10 is essentially the same size as the Galaxy | S23 and iPhone 15 - in other words, "normal" size and | quite a bit larger than the iPhone minis. | akvadrako wrote: | It's a lot smaller than the Pixel though, which is what | this thread is about. | coldpie wrote: | I can't go any bigger than the 13 Mini. It's right on the | edge of too big. I'd prefer smaller. | nisegami wrote: | For context: | | Pixel 5 has a 19.5:9 aspect ratio and 85.9% screen-to-body | ratio Pixel 8 Pro has a 20:9 ratio and 87.4% screen-to-body | ratio | | So the difference is ever so slightly less impactful than it | sounds, but it's still a much bigger phone. | xtirpation wrote: | Are those numbers normalized against inflation? | patrickmcnamara wrote: | Those numbers are inflation. | mcsniff wrote: | Been holding on to my Pixel 5 with GrapheneOS for a while | hoping a smaller Pixel is available. | | I might consider the non-Pro since it now has a 120Hz screen | and is smaller. | biggytalls wrote: | [dead] | synergy20 wrote: | still using pixel3, except they stopped upgrading the software a | while ago, still it's usable though some apps refuse to be | upgraded, sigh | nimos wrote: | TBH the most interesting feature to me is screen brightness. I | have a pixel 6 and it's not TERRIBLE in bright sunlight but it | is... not great. Not sure that quite gets me interested in | upgrading though. Cameras seem better I guess - have to wait on | reviews for that. | buggeryorkshire wrote: | I have a P6P and the general brightness is awful. My old P5 is | brighter, which I still own. | | The Android 14 I just installed on the P6P massively improved | the dark light performance of the camera though. Not tried it | on the P5 | | That said it's not worth me upgrading - I'll wait til the P9P. | lanius wrote: | Do you have adaptive brightness enabled? For the longest time I | did not realize that the screen doesn't achieve max brightness | despite the brightness slider manually set to the max unless | it's enabled. | cogman10 wrote: | I pretty much just go from security update to security update. | My 6 is working fine right now and I have no reason to abandon | ship for the 8. | | My wife, on the other hand, has a 5 which falls out of support | this month. So, she's getting the 8. | mattanimation wrote: | I'm still running a Pixel 2... | slashtab wrote: | It's your choice but it's not safe. | cobertos wrote: | Is there any way to make it safe? I've bought newer pixels | and they are a downgrade all around for me. I just want | security updates and the ability to browse on-device files/do | file management (newer Androids keep restricting further and | further) | barbazoo wrote: | Possibly https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/walleye/ | haunter wrote: | Still only available in 26 countries. Joke. | lnxg33k1 wrote: | It's awesome to me when they do these kind of pages and then | there are 28 footnotes, can you even trust any claim on the page, | would you even bother reading them at a certain point | cantSpellSober wrote: | > _Best Take uses [...] an on-device algorithm creates a blended | image from a series of photos to get everyone's best look_ | | Sounds like Photoshop's image stacks, that "process the multiple | images to produce a composite view that eliminates unwanted | content" | | Cool when applied to make a crowded place look empty. Useful, | albeit creepy when you apply it to disembodied heads. | xnx wrote: | Google Plus had this feature in 2013: | https://www.dpreview.com/articles/1400574775/hands-on- | with-g.... | wunderland wrote: | If you're really set on Android, I would buy a year old phone (so | probably a "Pixel 7 Pro" if that's a thing? Not sure when Google | last changed their naming scheme). | | A year old iPhone goes for maybe EUR100-200 less than the new | model, but last year's Android phone is now basically half price. | LostLocalMan wrote: | I've been wanting to get off of my s21 ultra because it's | extremely bulky and has gotten slow over the years. The killer | feature keeping me on it is the 100x zoom for identifying birds | and I haven't seen another phone rival it yet. To be clear the | 100x zoom is awful quality and not really useful for anything | beyond getting basic shapes and colors but for identifying far | birds it's awesome. | matsemann wrote: | My S10 is still fast.. | zidad wrote: | I recently bought a Pixel 7 after my Huawei P30 pro broke. | | The older Huawei model is so much better than the newer Pixel | that it makes you think why they don't allow them to access the | Play store anymore. | k12sosse wrote: | Better how, like, it rubs your feet for you? | eBombzor wrote: | In what way was the Huawei better? Not disagreeing, I myself | regretted upgrading to the Pixel 7 from an S10e. Screen, | portability, and speaker quality were all downgrades. | | And wasn't the whole play store debacle part of some US ban on | Huawei? Something outside of Google's control? | markdoubleyou wrote: | I "upgraded" from a Samsung Galaxy S9 to a Pixel 7 this year, | only because Samsung stopped doing security updates. Big | disappointment for me, too. The fingerprint scanner from that | 2018 phone was 10x more reliable than the in-screen thing | that the Pixel uses. | | I don't miss the battling software ecosystems (Samsung vs | Google) on that old phone, though. | [deleted] | [deleted] | hstaab wrote: | It looks just like Frozone from The Incredibles | Lutzb wrote: | The depreciation between Pixels and iPhones is staggering. | | Trade-in in Germany on Google Store page: | | - Pixel 6 Pro 256gb ($999 on release) - 235EUR | | - iPhone 13 Pro 256gb ($1099 on release) - 730EUR | | While I am partial to Googles line of phones (had pretty much | every Google phone since the nexus one), the loss of value is | something I cannot really ignore any more when deciding to buy a | phone. | jacooper wrote: | Thats why you just wait and get it cheap. | eptcyka wrote: | Older phones don't get significantly cheaper when bought new, | used ones are a gamble, and the savings don't go that far | anyway when you consider the amount of updates you'll be | receiving diminishes. | jacooper wrote: | Pixels are supported for 7 years, starting with the 8. P6+ | for 5 years Also I'm talking like a couple months later, | not a whole year. | well_actulily wrote: | A major confounding variable here is that there's probably a | bit more of a motive for Google to get someone to move cross- | manufacturer than to incentivize an upgrade from someone who | already has a Google phone--depreciation aside. | graton wrote: | In the US it is $400 for the Pixel 6 Pro (256GB) and $550 for | the iPhone 13 Pro (256GB) to trade-in for a Pixel 8 Pro | (128GB). | | I am probably going to trade in an old Pixel 3 (64GB) that I | had sitting in a drawer. They will give $200 trade-in for it | for a Pixel 8 or Pixel 8 Pro. Only $30 trade-in for the other | phones they sell. | mpalmer wrote: | Maybe it's just worth more to Google to convert an iPhone | owner? Trade in value is not a very pure measurement of | depreciation. | kkielhofner wrote: | A search of completed/sold listings on eBay shows roughly 2x | resale pricing for the iPhone 13 Pro 256gb vs the Pixel 6 Pro | 256gb. | gr__or wrote: | 500EUR for my iPhone 13 Pro 128gb from Apple's trade-in partner | here in Germany. | libertine wrote: | What I don't get are these price tags. | | My last flagship phone was a Google Nexus 6P where the base | model was $499. Amazing phone, too bad after 3 years it had a | battery issue but the manufacturer gave me a new one. | | But the thing is: it was $499. | | That was the greatest thing about the Nexus lines - good | hardware (maybe not the latest SOC) with regular updates and a | good OS experience. I miss those phones. | | Google with the Pixels went full goofy mode. I'm not paying | 1.140EUR for a phone. I have a Huawei P10 that's still running | smoothly, just the battery is getting tired... so maybe ill get | one of those Pixel 6 Pro :) | | But Google pushed away a lot of the Nexus user base, who were | hyped every year for the new Nexus. | fluidcruft wrote: | Isn't that the segment the Pixel _a line targets? The 7a is | $499... | libertine wrote: | Yes, but the 6P was the flagship. | | This was back in the day where a flagship phones base | prices were like 600/700EUR. | | Now it's double. | | In 2018 the Samsung Galaxy 9 was 700EUR. Now a Samsung | Galaxy S23 is 1.200EUR. | maxerickson wrote: | I payed $550 for my Pixel 6, ~1 year after the release. Has | good hardware, regular updates and a good OS experience. | | Comparable to ~$450 a year after the release of the 6P. | | I guess the 6P might be relatively higher end? | pie420 wrote: | "That was the greatest thing about the Nexus lines - good | hardware" | | Yet every nexus phone had major hardware issues. that's not | good hardware. It wasn't premium, it wasn't supported long, | and it wasn't high quality. I LOVED the nexus line, as a | broke college student that prioritized bang for the buck and | customization, and speed, and android was getting great new | features every year, but things have gotten so bad at google. | libertine wrote: | > Yet every nexus phone had major hardware issues. | | I won't argue with that. But I'm right there with you, | Nexus phones and android releases were exciting - and you | knew with Nexus you'd be the first to get the new stuff. | partiallypro wrote: | My trade in for the 7 Pro was $420 to get the new 8. | krzyk wrote: | I wonder if this time they allow you to take that 50Mpix photos, | or are they magically transformed to 12Mpix again. | | Pixel 7 Pro also had 50Mpix sensor. | nsriv wrote: | The Pro gives you access to full res RAW images from each | sensor which are all 48mp (on the Pro, not sure about regular), | not accounting for digital crops, which are 12mp center binned. | | As a sidebar, you're all over this thread with negatively | framed and inaccurate musings on features, so I'd recommend you | give the product page or critical reviews a more serious look | rather than letting other people do the work for you by | correcting. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-10-04 23:00 UTC)