121–130 of 601 posts
One of the biggest reasons I'm happy with the increasing competition in the budget segments is that they're starting to make the 'right' sacrifices, slightly negating the distinctive features and advantages of flagship phones. Flagship phones will either have to adapt (introducing more useful features and not extra camera-bloat), or people will just keep buying the cheaper ones.
350 dollars is "budget"?
Has Audio Jack! (Comparison with other Pixel 4's) - https://store.google.com/magazine/compare_pixel?toggler0=Pix...
The 3A also has an audio jack. I frankly never use it, and sort of wish it weren't there. I wish they would maybe ship it with a thing you can put in the hole that closes it up to make it seamless, but can be removed.
What does the "A" in 4A mean? Large? Small? Cheap? Fancy? The answer didn't appear in a skim of the first several paragraphs, and like many here I don't care enough to RTWFA
I can only hope they will revisit face unlock in the era of face masks. I greatly prefered fingerprint unlock. I treat either of these as tamper resistance rather than actual security, but I find fingerprint unlock to be a much better experience.
FaceID is terrible when driving. I often have my passenger read and send texts for me, on my iPhone 6S I just had to grab the phone and put my thumb on it. With my iPhone 11, I need to lift it up in front of my wheel, and look directly at it instead of the road, because if you aren't looking at it then it won't unlock.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For something most people use many times a day with a multi-year lifespan? There’s a fascinating economics lesson in how many people are concerned by the cost of a phone but never mention the service plans which almost always cost more.
"Multi-year" is technically correct but a little rosy: Google cuts off software updates including security updates after 3 years, by which time one can also expect the hard-to-replace battery to be degraded, and increased probability of screen damage. Phones aren't really designed to be durable objects. That said, I do appreciate Google's "a" variant of their recent phones for the emphasis on practicality and usabili…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For something most people use many times a day with a multi-year lifespan? There’s a fascinating economics lesson in how many people are concerned by the cost of a phone but never mention the service plans which almost always cost more.
> There’s a fascinating economics lesson in how many people are concerned by the cost of a phone but never mention the service plans which almost always cost more. This is the reason why "free phone" plans are so popular. IMO, it's always lower TCO to unbundle these "deals", but so many people only care about their maximum monthly cost.
Google's handset portfolio is starting to get a bit messy. Ignoring any earlier but still available models you have a 4 in 64GB and 128GB versions, a 4a without a 64GB option, a 4a 5G that also differs from the regular 4a in some other specs, no 4 5G, an announced straight 5 and presumably everything in regular and XL versions that may or may not differ in other specs as well. Reminds me of how Motorola made people c…
It's important to point out that the vast majority of phones are sold through the channel - carriers will probably choose to sell their own subset of all the options based on their own market research.
And internationally the picture is even worse for carrier channels.
[0] https://www.counterpointresearch.com/amazon-leads-online-sma...
Bit confused as to why mtgx's comment has been voted into oblivion, as it's a legitimate complaint with the Pixel line. My girlfriend has a 3a and it has taken about 3 months for the battery life to start being a minor issue; i.e. she makes sure to charge it during the day if she has somewhere to be in the evening. It's really the only complaint I have about an otherwise good phone, and it doesn't look like the 4a re…
I'm perfectly happy with a 3100mAh battery. The only feature I'm missing with this phone is the "squeeze button" (I forgot the real term) -- it's a much better snooze function than trying to figure out which direction to swipe to snooze when you're sleepy enough to want to snooze. All too often on my old phone I'd just shut the alarm off instead of snoozing.
This is probably the firstest first world problem I've ever had.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, that's basically the reason I bought my Pixel 2. I still think Apple has a better track record here, but 3 years is better than any other Android phone vendor that I'm aware of.
My S8 just received a security update a couple weeks ago, which puts it at over 3 years of updates. It's stuck on Android 9 though.
Google's handset portfolio is starting to get a bit messy. Ignoring any earlier but still available models you have a 4 in 64GB and 128GB versions, a 4a without a 64GB option, a 4a 5G that also differs from the regular 4a in some other specs, no 4 5G, an announced straight 5 and presumably everything in regular and XL versions that may or may not differ in other specs as well. Reminds me of how Motorola made people c…
It's important to point out that the vast majority of phones are sold through the channel - carriers will probably choose to sell their own subset of all the options based on their own market research.