I wish Google would do a mid range Pixel, or call it something else if they want, just something like a follow up to the 5x.
Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced
111–120 of 615 posts
Re: Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced
#112As an audio engineer, the headphone jack removal trend is an absolute travesty in an industry that utilizes AUX IN audio capabilities night after night. I'm often using iPods or other local-music devices to pump sound into concert venues between acts. Taking away 1/8" audio standards in favor of USB-C or Lightning non-standardized ports causes chaos when needing to fill in music in a pinch. In my industry, I simply c…
man. you're in the audio industry. most people are not. I'm talking the VAST majority of people. So they should cater to you? I think it is not unreasonable to expect the professional to have whatever equipment they need - there are aux adapters for USB C and lightning. They are small. They are inexpensive.
Nexus 5X owner. I won't buy one of these due to lack of aux output, and I'm not in "the industry".
Re: Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it not time yet? When I lost my Pixel on a trip, I switched to an iPhone 7 + airpods and it's been great. I don't want to go back to wired headphones. Apple certainly seems to have nailed it. I can't imagine Google + HTC can't too.
It's great that they work well for you, but AirPods and the like don't work well for me at all. The audio quality drop is noticeable to me; interference is a perpetual problem even when I'm just walking down the street or walking through my apartment . Bluetooth on both Android and iOS is clunky and annoying (and it's not totally their fault, the devices and the protocol have something to say about that) that the phy…
> The audio quality drop is noticeable to me.
I'm not going to get into an audiophile/golden ear flamewar, but I am always skeptical of this claim. Yes, SBC is not the world's best, but it supports bitrates upto 500 kbit/s. I'm not going to claim it is completely transparent, but 9 times out of 10 it is being used with shitty bluetooth headphones (where the alternative is shitty wired headphones)... at that point the quality of the headphones (wired or not) has far more to do with the audio quality than anything.
And yes, I doubt most people will notice an audio quality drop in a pair of high quality Sennheisers going from wired to SBC (there isn't convincing evidence that aptX is much better than SBC). I wouldn't be too surprised about a conflicting experimental result, but skeptical for now. Anyway, most people are not hooking up high quality headphones to their phone, or they are purposefully using phones tuned for a particular lo-fi response (Beats)... who cares about whatever SBC does at 350 kbit/s at that point.
Edit: And walking down the street is hardly a hi-fi listening environment.
Re: Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced
#114As an audio engineer, the headphone jack removal trend is an absolute travesty in an industry that utilizes AUX IN audio capabilities night after night. I'm often using iPods or other local-music devices to pump sound into concert venues between acts. Taking away 1/8" audio standards in favor of USB-C or Lightning non-standardized ports causes chaos when needing to fill in music in a pinch. In my industry, I simply c…
[deleted]
Re: Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think (good implementations of) wireless headphones are the way of the future. What did they gain by removing floppy disk drives from laptops? Well, nothing per se, but it allowed them to make smaller laptops. Removing the jack will allow them to make phones thinner - if not now, in future iterations. And the thing with keeping features around is that it's not just a question of that one feature. It's cumulative ov…
They can make the phone thinner, but they are only doing that by putting more hardware (a DAC) into the headphone. It's massively duplicating one component for such a negligible advantage.
I don't think the consumer cares about such duplication (indirectly, they will, if it makes the headphones cost more, though I think that cost will go down over time).
An advantage I didn't mention in my original comment is: getting rid of cables. Personally, I hate headphone cables. They seem to always be getting tangled up when the headphones aren't in use (meaning I have to mess around untangling them before using them), and always caught on things while I'm wearing them.
Re: Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love my Pixel, but they just lost me as a customer for this reason. I'm not totally against removing the headphone jack, but it's not time yet -- the transition has been done poorly.
Why is it not time yet? When I lost my Pixel on a trip, I switched to an iPhone 7 + airpods and it's been great. I don't want to go back to wired headphones. Apple certainly seems to have nailed it. I can't imagine Google + HTC can't too.
Well for starters we are still at a point where the majority of owned headphones use a 3.5mm. Bluetooth is becoming more popular, sure, but 3.5 is still the norm. Now I have to carry around an adapter to use any of the nice pairs of headphones I own? Alternatively I have to buy a pair of $200 airpods that sound like garbage to get the full experience? The market isn't ready.
Re: Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about water-proofing? That's the best reason I've heard.
The LG V30 and Galaxy S8 have a headphone jack AND have IP68 waterproofing, versus the Pixel 2's (and iPhone 7/8) IP67.
Ah, very nice. Too bad a nice piece of open hardware is going proprietary.
Re: Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced
#118As an audio engineer, the headphone jack removal trend is an absolute travesty in an industry that utilizes AUX IN audio capabilities night after night. I'm often using iPods or other local-music devices to pump sound into concert venues between acts. Taking away 1/8" audio standards in favor of USB-C or Lightning non-standardized ports causes chaos when needing to fill in music in a pinch. In my industry, I simply c…
I'm not against removing the Aux port on principal or anything, but I just don't understand why we're going toward removing seemingly core hardware. Even on desktops/laptops 3.5mm audio is still used. Why do we need dongles to use core features? Especially since we're removing an "out" port, now we're reliant on a single port to manage all in and out. I don't want to carry dongles to be able to use my phone normally.
Desktops and laptops have different constraints than phones. Bluetooth uses less power (from the device), makes waterproofing easier, and frees up space for battery. I personally would prefer having a headphone jack on the phone (even though I've never used mine), but I understand why they did what they did.
Re: Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced
#119As an audio engineer, the headphone jack removal trend is an absolute travesty in an industry that utilizes AUX IN audio capabilities night after night. I'm often using iPods or other local-music devices to pump sound into concert venues between acts. Taking away 1/8" audio standards in favor of USB-C or Lightning non-standardized ports causes chaos when needing to fill in music in a pinch. In my industry, I simply c…
man. you're in the audio industry. most people are not. I'm talking the VAST majority of people. So they should cater to you? I think it is not unreasonable to expect the professional to have whatever equipment they need - there are aux adapters for USB C and lightning. They are small. They are inexpensive.
I'm not in the audio industry. I need the headphone jack.
Re: Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think (good implementations of) wireless headphones are the way of the future. What did they gain by removing floppy disk drives from laptops? Well, nothing per se, but it allowed them to make smaller laptops. Removing the jack will allow them to make phones thinner - if not now, in future iterations. And the thing with keeping features around is that it's not just a question of that one feature. It's cumulative ov…
When they removed floppy drives it was because there was a better alternative. I don’t agree that Bluetooth is a better alternative than a cord that is 100% reliable to pair, perfect audio quality, and never needs to be charged
> When they removed floppy drives it was because there was a better alternative.
When they removed that -- or any of the other things -- there was still some backlash from people who still had uses for them, and still wanted them.
> I don’t agree that Bluetooth is a better alternative than a cord that is 100% reliable to pair, perfect audio quality, and never needs to be charged
From what I've heard the ear pods are very reliable to pair and have good audio quality.