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Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced

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Re: Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced

#141

Post by craftyguy »

robterrell wrote: post #49
legohead wrote: post #4

Earlier 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.

My biggest problem with this is that I do not want to have yet another device that requires batteries and/or charging in order for it to function. Wired headphones powered through the audio cable are simple, don't quit working if their battery drain, don't require charging, and you can find them anywhere if you need a replacement.

Re: Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced

#142

Post by com2kid »

rmwaite wrote: post #109
drenvuk wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was an unnecessary change no matter how you slice it. Just look at the other options: bluetooth or an adapter. With bluetooth you have to pair it and remember to charge the headphones. With an adapter you have to remember to bring it everywhere if you want to listen to a podcast or music or audio book. They say they're making a simple device but they're making my life more complicated. This is one of the few tim…

then use another type of connector for headphones. aux does not have to be the only connector forever. what makes this so special that it is the only connector that people refuse to upgrade? EVERY OTHER CONNECTOR has gone through improvements. new USB standards. new video. everything. why is this any different?

> then use another type of connector for headphones.

USB-C is a nice connector, and for digital headsets it is pretty nice, but it has some disadvantages (and advantages!) compared to standard headphone jack:

1. Portable devices tend to only have 1, so no listening to music while charging. Common in car scenarios, not all cars have BT audio, and BT audio implementations in cars can vary in quality by large factors.

2. Sound degradation over BT is a problem. Recompressing an already compressed file (e.g. MP3) is going to result in a loss of quality. Since a lot of music is streamed at a bitrate that is "just above noticeable loss", further compression will result in a sound quality decrease.

3. It moves the DAC to outside the phone. This is mostly a good thing, assuming the dongle uses a good DAC, and eventually we'll see third party high quality USB-C DACs (as are already present on desktops for traditional USB)

4. Pure USB-C headphones require more engineering, and they require a type of engineering that headphone companies are not traditionally familiar with. Headphone companies are experts in making high quality analog sound systems, shoehorning the need for digital expertise is needless. (Though more and more headphone companies already have a digital team, it does raise the bar for new entrants.)

5. The AUX jack is pretty damn good. Replacing it with a digital jack isn't really needed. Even with a huge industry push, it'll be many many years before USB-C is everywhere, and if you count the professional markets, it will likely be decades, if ever. (This isn't helped by Apple pushing a competing standard!) Digital means software, which means things can and will go wrong. With an analog plug the quality of the signal is the quality of the physical connection and the wiring going between them, and as a species we have almost over a century of knowledge about analog signals. With digital, ideally quality never degrades, but with firmware/software bugs it can degrade, and to get optimal quality it'll require every device in a chain not have any bugs related to sound quality.

Re: Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced

#143

Post by KayL »

lopespm wrote: post #45

Honest question: for those of you who own a mobile device without a headphone jack, do you find it to be an encuberment? Personally I still find it a bit hostile to not have the jack available, since often times I find myself charging the phone and using the headphones (when watching videos for example), so having an adapter dongle for such a frequent task seems counterintuitive to me. I believe that if a device is c…

I owned iPhone 8+ for a week and didn't notice any differences than iPhone 6 with jack for the sound quality.

Only one bad thing, you can't be charging while listening to music.

Re: Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced

#144

Post by criddell »

sf_rob wrote: post #95
stephengillie wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After finding cheap Bluetooth headsets on Amazon last about as long as a pair of earbuds, and have no cord, I don't see a problem. I'm very rough on physical devices, and will go through 4-6 pair of earbuds a year. Because these do not physically connect to the device, they take an order of magnitude less wear, and thus last longer.

I've never had a pair of Bluetooth headsets that haven't had connection issues with my Pixel. This is especially true of the cheap Sony pair I tried, but also true of the nicer Macaws and Here Ones. Even my car's head unit has a new bug with Oreo where it connects/"plays" but is muted until I reconnect.

There might be something wrong with your Pixel. I use a fairly inexpensive set of Jabra headphones connected via Bluetooth to an old iPhone 5C that I use as an iPod and it has worked flawlessly for many years now.

Re: Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced

#145

Post by kuschku »

humblebee wrote: post #124
duxup wrote: post #111

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.

I think this is what the Moto X4 is. https://www.blog.google/products/project-fi/project-fi-welco...

The Moto X4 won’t get Android Preview Releases, and is therefore useless for developers.

I’m a student, but I also develop apps. Even with the emulator, there are still bugs you can only find on real devices.

So now every time a new Android version comes out, I’ll either end up with a month where my apps are broken and I’m slowly working on fixing them (so ~10% of the time the app is unusable), or I have to shell out north of $900 just to get the cheapest still supported Pixel in Germany.

Re: Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced

#146

Post by jimmies »

deanCommie wrote: post #140
jimmies wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own a Pixel but this DxO stuff is really dodgy. In the portrait pic of the girl, the difference between the Pixel 2 [1] and the iPhone 8 [2] is night and day, with the Pixel 2 looking like shit. She so pale, and the fake bokeh looks like a 5 year old smearing all over, it's simply not pleasant to look at. And the whole push on adding the fake bokeh """scores""" to justify changing the scores so every fucking newly…

Uhhhhhhhhhhh are you serious? The iPhone 8 results look SO much better...

Exactly, the iPhone 8 pictures look so much better. You don't have to quantify shit to realize this.

Re: Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced

#147

Post by dracodoc »

jamesrcole wrote: post #74
mcjiggerlog wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly use my headphone jack to connect to stereo systems at home and in the car, so wireless headphones don't really help (nevermind how much more expensive they are and issues with sound).

I understand that's the case now - I did say "the way of the future". I believe wireless will become the standard everywhere (for everyday use, at least). Any transition like that is going to be awkward at first. If people tried to wait for perfect conditions, progress would never be made.

Wifi didn't replace Ethernet after many years. Even wifi has become much more reliable, faster and cheaper, Ethernet is always several steps better.

Pushing progress is not an excuse to force transition with cost and effort burden on customers.

Re: Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced

#148

Post by criddell »

deep_concern wrote: post #59
theseatoms wrote: post #35

Earlier 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.

As I understand it, they aren't waterproof when you have headphones plugged in. This is important to know if you like to listen to music or podcasts when you swim.

Re: Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced

#149

Post by chrisper »

MattyRad wrote: post #128

I bought a Pixel when it came out, switching from the Nexus 5 primarily because Project Fi was an easy, cheap way to get off my parent's cell-phone plan and gain some personal independence. It was about time for a new phone anyway. I wish I had just stuck with the Nexus 5... it was a fantastic phone. Wireless charging (which I personally found to be the most useful feature), excellent dimensions, excellent price, and…

Are you planning to already switch phones again?

I have a pixel as well and feel like it will still last some time.

Re: Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced

#150

Post by Klathmon »

user-on1 wrote: post #138
Klathmon wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other articles did mention that this will be local. I have a feeling they are using federated machine learning for this to have a lot of the processing done locally and not need to activate the radios for as much of the processing as possible. They have been making big strides in that area lately and this might be the start of some of the major applications of it (I think they are using it in their keyboard predictio…

so there's going to be a huge database of songs on my mobile!!! i don't think anybody asked for it... sounds like trickery... this is going to take up some storage space now... anyone know how many gb or mb this occupies in my phone... can v jus clear this data...

I doubt it, that would be a good chunk of data for what I see as a fairly small feature.

More likely (this is a guess, nobody outside google really knows at this point), they will use federated machine learning to figure out that something is "a song", then perhaps clean up and isolate the actual "song" part of it and send that over to a google server for processing.

But again it was just announced, so nobody really knows how this works, where the data is or goes, and what tradeoffs were made.

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