Earlier quoted context omitted.
Android phones can't record calls either.
My current Samsung Note does.
My Pixel 7 Pro does. But I have GrapheneOS, so maybe that's not a vanilla feature.
Pixel 8 Pro
821–830 of 885 posts
Re: Pixel 8 Pro
#822Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting, finally I have an idea of why my phones have always gotten slower over time. Is there a way to measure error rates and/or average storage latency on my (Android) phone somehow?
eMMC usually has csd and ext_csd registers that tells information regarding wear level and such. It's easy to access these from Linux, but not sure how we would do it on Android.
You can build/install mmc-utils on the device (even from Google's repo,[1] if outdated) but can't access the storage device paths without root. If you're on a custom ROM, the mmc command might even be part of it.
1: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/mmc-utils...
Re: Pixel 8 Pro
#823Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't put my phone in a case and don't understand why people do. Dropping your phone is a rare event, not a serious risk.
>Dropping your phone is a rare event, not a serious risk For you I drop my phone at least once a day lol I actually dropped it more before I got a case on the Pixels because the back glass is ridiculously slippery and it'll even slide itself off surfaces that aren't perfectly level. Back glass needs to fucking die. The insanely polished smooth metal frame doesn't help either when combined with the ultra smooth glass…
Heh, when I got a Nexus 4, it was my first glass backed phone. It arrived two days before the case did. I was meeting my wife for dinner and got there a bit early, and had the phone on the restaurant table. When my wife came and sat down the slight wiggle she gave to the table was enough for the phone to slide right off and make the back look like a spider web of cracks. Fortunately it was only the back.
I never go without a case now. The thicker and grippier the better. I also have a belief that phones these days are too thin, and I would gladly have a thicker phone with better battery life. The best feeling phone in my hand IMHO was my Palm Treo, which was almost an inch thick.
Re: Pixel 8 Pro
#824Earlier quoted context omitted.
This figure sourcing gallup has nearly half of Americans replacing their phone "as soon as their carrier allows it": https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/07/15/how-often-...
Of course - it's not like the monthly bill becomes less if you have a phone taken from a carrier, so you should change it out immediately.
It absolutely does go down if you're not making payments on a phone
Re: Pixel 8 Pro
#825Earlier quoted context omitted.
This figure sourcing gallup has nearly half of Americans replacing their phone "as soon as their carrier allows it": https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/07/15/how-often-...
That article is from 2018. 2 Year Contracts were still a thing back then. The contract included a hidden fee that covered the cost of the device spread out over the length of the contract. That is all gone now. Carriers have post-paid plans where the monthly device cost varies based on device. These are 0% interest loans from the carrier. At the same time, people have started holding their phones longer. Renewal peri…
I worked for a verizon reseller in 2014-2015 and 2 year contracts were not very common by the time I left. 0% loans on 2 year periods were big by then. Functionally I don't think "normal" people really see a big difference.
Re: Pixel 8 Pro
#826Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's new cars each year, but hardly anyone is switching yearly, right?
Is it? New generations are not released every year. It takes 5-8 years to show something new. In the middle of it there is facelifting (sometimes smaller, sometimes bigger). But I wouldn't say that one, particular model of car have new version each year. There is no reason to release flagship phones each year.
And with cars, pretty much all parts/accessories will work for any "model" in that 5-8 year window. Phones are not like this.
Re: Pixel 8 Pro
#827Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think most people don't realize how slow SD cards are compared to conventional flash, too. When you put apps on a SD card on Android, it's always been dog slow. And you're at the mercy of the manufacturer to put a reasonably high-speed interface on it. It's been a long, long time since I couldn't fit all the apps I wanted on the phone storage. My SD card is mainly for multimedia files, and it's plenty fast for th…
> Ignoring SD Express as a failure to launch, UHS SD cards can be plenty fast if they're designed to be. A hundred megabytes per second is not a significant bottleneck if individual IO operations are fast and it can do many of them. As mentioned, random I/O tends to fail, but the other tradeoff here is that fast microSD card slots tend to get extremely hot . Not necessarily "failure" hot (stuff like the ROG had issue…
> The thing is, price anchoring is a thing, and people are going to look at a phone that costs $400 and needs a $40 Extra Thing and a $500 phone and go "the latter is easier".
Oh definitely. I would too. I dream of the price being only $200/TB.
The biggest storage upgrade for a normal iPhone is +384GB for $300 (Oof). If you upgrade to the Max model you can get +768GB for $400.
A Galaxy S23 can get +128GB for $60, a Galaxy S23+ can get +256GB for $120, and a Galaxy S23 Ultra can get +768GB for $420.
A Pixel 8 can get +128GB for $60, and a Pixel 8 Pro can get +896GB for $400.
If you include the price increase of better base models, to get access to bigger options, then $700/TB is a good ballpark figure.
I think this pricing is a little bit better than when I last looked, but it's still very bad.
The availability of >512GB is growing but still flaky and usually requires extra expensive base models. While in comparison microsd has had cheap 1TB for a good while, and 1.5TB for $150 becomes available later this month.
Re: Pixel 8 Pro
#828Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, I expect most of these to make it to older pixels but probably not for a few months. There are some that probably require the newer Tensor G3 chip though, which can't be backported.
Not really, I have a Pixel 4a 5G that doesn't come with magic eraser but because I pay for Google One, they gave me access to it. So I doubt there are really any limitations on the hardware themselves or that you absolutely need the new version. Google just paywalling the features. I bet you all those will be available very soon for Google One subscribers.
Yes, but magic eraser is something that can be easily done off-device in the cloud. Real-time audio shaping cannot with introducing unacceptable latencies. There are no doubt some things they'll roll back to older Pixels, but they can't do everything new on this year's release without hardware.
Re: Pixel 8 Pro
#829Earlier quoted context omitted.
If we're looking at older phones with removable storage, it usually limited what could be put on the SD card. And in the end the OS and system libraries were still on the on-board storage which would wear out over the years. And there's good reason for the OS not being on a microSD card. Run a Raspberry Pi without locking the storage and see how fast it'll corrupt itself. Most SD cards have pretty miserable reliabili…
IDK, I've never had a RPi corrupt an SD card to my knowledge. Also, there are now SD cards optimized for the load patterns similar to that of an OS. There's unfortunately slightly different issue here: if the phone vendor puts the OS on an user-replaceable SD card, then the UX quality and reliability of the device depends on the SD card vendor , which is a bad position to be in, given how much fraud is happening in t…
Phones could ship with a good SD card which will get the vast majority of consumers to end-of-useful-life for their device. At that point if a user replaces it with crap, it's kind of on them. Similar to how cell phone chargers are now.
Re: Pixel 8 Pro
#830It'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…
My pixel 4a 5g works like a charm. 3.5 years and still going fine. I used my pixel 2 for three years so badly. I used it as a hotspot every single day and the number of battery cycles were as if the phone was used for 6 years. My pixel 4a5g takes photos that are on reasonable standards, obviously they won't match match, but it doesn't make a serious difference either to me. I need three things from my phone - battery…
DON'T UPGRADE TO ANDROID 14, I am 4a 5G user, work as charm on last version of Android 13 September version, I feel like a lot of dropping frame while using Android 14. I feel upset and dissapointed towards Google now.