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Pixel 8 Pro

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Re: Pixel 8 Pro

#391

Post by Barrin92 »

sanswork wrote: post #376
hamandcheese wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything it seems to me like hardware advances are directly correlated with increasingly worse software.

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 ea…

> 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

Re: Pixel 8 Pro

#392

Post by bravetraveler »

kimbernator wrote: post #335
chaostheory wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 no…

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 ma…

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

Re: Pixel 8 Pro

#394

Post by Alupis »

nneonneo wrote: post #157

Cool, maybe they can fix emergency calling sometime in that seven year window? https://www.androidauthority.com/psa-google-pixel-911-emerge...

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?

Re: Pixel 8 Pro

#395

Post by makeitdouble »

kylecazar wrote: post #196

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.

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.

Re: Pixel 8 Pro

#396

Post by libertine »

fluidcruft wrote: post #343
libertine wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Isn't that the segment the Pixel _a line targets? The 7a is $499...

Yes, but the 6P was the flagship.

This was back in the day where a flagship phones base prices were like 600/700€.

Now it's double.

In 2018 the Samsung Galaxy 9 was 700€. Now a Samsung Galaxy S23 is 1.200€.

Re: Pixel 8 Pro

#397

Post by quicklime »

kimbernator wrote: post #178

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 li…

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.

Re: Pixel 8 Pro

#398

Post by rurp »

grecy wrote: post #256
grepLeigh wrote: post #173

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.

> 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…

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.

Re: Pixel 8 Pro

#399

Post by 0x457 »

Gigachad wrote: post #370
yccs27 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Cars still release on a yearly schedule decades later and they change almost nothing each year.

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.

Re: Pixel 8 Pro

#400

Post by libertine »

pie420 wrote: post #357
libertine wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

"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…

> 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.

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