Lack of advertising is probably the main reason. I have had a few Nexus and Pixel phones and they've all been excellent.
Why hardly anyone buys Google's Pixel phones
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Re: Why hardly anyone buys Google's Pixel phones
#12Google knows all this. I figured they're keeping the skeleton of a flagship, branding, marketing, and distribution as a countervailing threat to oems like Samsung that have played around with Tizen or thinking of going too propietary. If an OEM decides to drop play services or the play store then all google has to do is dump some money into their pixel org to make things move a little bigger and faster. Plus it helps…
What are telephony features?
Re: Why hardly anyone buys Google's Pixel phones
#13I love my pixel 4a. Got it for $300 USD and it does all i need it to. (Calls, text, web browsing).
Best of all: no 3rd party bloatware.
Re: Why hardly anyone buys Google's Pixel phones
#14I love my pixel 4a. Got it for $300 USD and it does all i need it to. (Calls, text, web browsing). Best of all: no 3rd party bloatware.
I actually find the 3a to be a better phone. Only $100 too.
Re: Why hardly anyone buys Google's Pixel phones
#15I own Pixel 2XL (released in 2017). It has an amazing camera which can compete with any modern phone camera, great battery life, no bloatware, excellent performance. Best phone a ever had - really zero issues. Not only I wouldn't switch to other OEM, I can't even find a good reason to upgrade.
I have it too and it's great but it doesn't get security updates anymore so we're in an awkward spot because their latest fleet doesn't have a good upgrade value prop for 2XL owners besides security patches.
Their short support window really made me reconsider my next choice and they no longer offer free full res photo backups which is a shame.
Re: Why hardly anyone buys Google's Pixel phones
#16I own Pixel 2XL (released in 2017). It has an amazing camera which can compete with any modern phone camera, great battery life, no bloatware, excellent performance. Best phone a ever had - really zero issues. Not only I wouldn't switch to other OEM, I can't even find a good reason to upgrade.
No more security updates from Google though. That'll force me to upgrade sooner that I would like. LineageOS is an option but I'm not sure how secure it is.
Re: Why hardly anyone buys Google's Pixel phones
#17I love my pixel 4a. Got it for $300 USD and it does all i need it to. (Calls, text, web browsing). Best of all: no 3rd party bloatware.
The 4a is really great. Perfect size for single hand use, there's really no bloat, battery life is decent. Photo quality is stellar. Easy to sync with network devices and casting to other media devices is - dare I say - a step ahead of apple.
I literally toss this phone around without anxiety too and can no longer justify spending more than ~$500 to upgrade to the latest, greatest model.
Re: Why hardly anyone buys Google's Pixel phones
#18For me it's the lack of a micro SD port. How can you have a more expensive product with the same stuff as lesser expensive products but eliminate that one feature that is exactly why people don't buy apple phones?
This was the one thing that really burned me up about upgrading to the Pixel 4a. What a stupid decision. Thankfully 128 gigs is enough that I don't have to go in and clear stuff out often, but it's still frustrating.
Re: Why hardly anyone buys Google's Pixel phones
#19I recently upgraded to a Pixel 4a from an iPhone SE and it's convinced me that, in fact, Google is really good with software when they have the opportunity to program directed against a set SKU. Performance is really good on the device, it's functional and doesn't get in your way.
As for the article, TBH, I think the Pixel devices don't do well because of aesthetics of their phones. This is something that Apple does really well.
Take a look at the recent leaked photos of the Pixel 6. IMO, it looks.. not so great. I'm not surprised that people choose iPhone over Pixel, especially with the iMessage effect, longevity of the devices and overall design.
The Pixel 4a is probably the best phone I've had. Google could have something really great if they actually stick with it for the long-term.
Re: Why hardly anyone buys Google's Pixel phones
#20I own Pixel 2XL (released in 2017). It has an amazing camera which can compete with any modern phone camera, great battery life, no bloatware, excellent performance. Best phone a ever had - really zero issues. Not only I wouldn't switch to other OEM, I can't even find a good reason to upgrade.
Ditto, typed this on my 2xl. I am up for a new phone. But why invest in one when my current device still works so well.