Pro starts from $1000. First Android phone 's HTC Dream launch price was $180 (with a 2y contract), the phone had a physical keyboard, a physical trackball, a replaceable battery, it was a real work tool.
Pixel 8 Pro
431–440 of 885 posts
Re: Pixel 8 Pro
#432It'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…
I remember how much I wanted every new phone before - back in the days of my Motorola Droid there was always some awesome new feature or development. Now, the only reason I upgrade is if the phone ends up damaged or unusable.
Re: Pixel 8 Pro
#433This 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.
I really don't think the iPhone (or even Android) was the equivalent of the Kenbak-1 in terms of smartphones. There were "smartphones" before the iPhone. IMO the iPhone was the 90s PC era where these things got a lot better and more ubiquitous and less fragmented. And (also in my opinion) coincidentally 90s led into an the era where overly dominant OS vendor(s) were crushing the fun and freedom out of computing. Phon…
I'd argue the equivalent of iPhone/Android on the PC side would have been Windows 95, when things really became consumer focused and had their revolutionary explosion take off. That was "only" 28 years ago now
Re: Pixel 8 Pro
#434Earlier quoted context omitted.
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€.
Back then, phone providers were competing to be the Nexus brand, so it was generally a loss-leader. The brand that released the Nexus phone would release their actual flagship about 3 months later.
Also, inflation.
Re: Pixel 8 Pro
#435Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember when such phones were in a different size category named "phablets".
The aspect ratio makes a huge difference. Back then phones were still mostly 16:9. My Nexus 6 still feels massive compared to modern phones.
Because it is still massive. The 6" Nexus 6 is 3.3in wide whereas the 6.7" Pixel 8 Pro is only 3" wide. Even omitting the bezels, the Nexus 6 has a screen width of 2.94" vs. the 8 Pro's 2.75"
Re: Pixel 8 Pro
#436Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's funny because if they did not release a new phone every year, the old phones would be useful for longer. I recently had to replace my iPhone 7s plus because it was getting so slow I sometimes could not get the camera to open as it loaded the system down too much. This was despite the fact that the system said my battery was not degraded (it had been replaced with Apple Care a couple of times). Of course when it…
That’s specifically covered under new EU ewaste laws - upgrades the impair device performance must be fixed in a reasonable timeframe.
Does that cover e.g. flash degradation over time from just normal write cycles?
Re: Pixel 8 Pro
#437Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
There's almost always year over year changes on the same chassis.
Re: Pixel 8 Pro
#438dang this redirects to nest homepage for me in nz - perhaps direct product link would work better https://store.google.com/us/product/pixel_8_pro
Re: Pixel 8 Pro
#439It'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…
I agree with much of this post, but I have to take issue with "it's starting to feel silly." The "you need to upgrade your phone every year" concept has been silly from the outset.
That's totally a fair point, but at least phones were actually adding new features year to year a decade ago. It's fair to have new stuff releasing yearly when you're in the "throw shit at the wall and see what sticks" phase.
Re: Pixel 8 Pro
#440It'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.
> Green bubbles can be worth a few hundred dollars.
I'm sorry, but what? To whom? I have an incredibly hard time believing it's actually something which makes a concrete return on investment, but maybe I'm wrong and the world is even dumber than I thought.