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Google Pixel 9 Pro

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Re: Google Pixel 9 Pro

#541

Post by lxgr »

Beretta_Vexee wrote: post #514
summerlight wrote: post #484

I'm surprised that no media outlet is seriously talking about its on-device inference capability, which is the biggest next thing for LLM. Apple did a better job on its PR here, but they didn't also get all the attention that it deserves. On-device inference improves not just its latency, this also removes a huge chunk of LLM's economical constraints from software companies. The biggest advantage of software is its m…

For years, Google has been promising me a high-performance voice assistant. I find that in 2024 it still can't understand "call mom" and "call my wife's name" unless I'm in a perfectly silent environment. And it usually takes several tries. I'm not going to get carried away with technical announcements.

What's even worse for me is that it regularly "forgets" how to respond to queries that it could serve perfectly well before, especially related to smart home things.

"Play on living room stereo" has been hit and miss for my parents to the point where I regret setting them up with a Chromecast-supporting AV receiver and Google Nest speaker. They now just use the regular remote and listen to the station via FM.

Re: Google Pixel 9 Pro

#542

Post by lWaterboardCats »

alonsonic wrote: post #450
taeric wrote: post #183

I'm kind of sad that the world seems to have given up on the smaller phones. The marketing of the masculine hand holding the larger phone is amusing to me, and I can understand wanting to have a larger screen. I do not like the amount of space these things take in my pocket, though.

This has been brought up in the past and Apple did try to cater to that market with their smaller phone and it seemed the market response was not great, they ultimately had to drop the iPhone mini because it was not worth it.

I’m sure there are many out there like me, but I used to prefer smaller phones until I used a larger phone for one generation; after trying to move back to a smaller phone, I just missed the real estate of a larger screen.

Re: Google Pixel 9 Pro

#543

Post by mihaic »

I abhor all these phones with a glass back, that look great in the store and then everyone puts an ugly back cover on.

I'm still rocking a Pixel 5, which is actually my second Pixel 5. I really like using it without a case. It's light, small, can handle a fall without the back shattering, and I like the matte finish.

All I want is a version with more modern specs, but every manufacturer keeps optimizing for the advertising shots, and people keep falling for this. Right now the camera is the only thing tempting me to upgrade, but I'll probably wait another year.

Re: Google Pixel 9 Pro

#544

Post by ewoodrich »

vel0city wrote: post #261
garciasn wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely refuse to pay for a phone; call me old-school, but I am still stuck in the memory of the days when they came 'free' with service contracts. Me? I will happily take a slightly outdated phone with a new provider/contract where I don't pay anything on top of the expected monthly fee. I have 8 months left on my iPhone13 mini (128GB) w/VZW and will happily change to one of the other Big Threes to make it happ…

A regular Verizon plan with tethering that supports the "free" phones costs the same in three months for what I pay for a year of service on Mint. But sure, the phone was "free". $2,880 for a Verizon plan with a "free" phone (3 year commitment after all), $720 for three years of my current Mint plan. I could spend $2k on a phone over those three years and I'd still have spent less money.

Historically I have never used carrier commitments and paid for phones outright but did it for the first time earlier this year with a targeted offer to get a iPhone 15 Pro from Verizon for basically a couple hundred bucks in taxes. Mostly because it felt like I was getting worst of both worlds paying for a single line Verizon post paid plan without taking advantage of any upgrade offers after my BYOD deal expired.

But I'm now regretting it especially because I'm getting tired of constantly missing notifications on my iPhone being so used to persistent notification indicators on Android. Planning to use T-Mobile to buy me out of my device payment plan once I get around to 800 dollars owned on my 15 Pro because being I hate how I'm locked in to a premium plan I don't come close to making full use of. I still have an unlocked S23 Ultra I can switch back to as my main phone if I decide to.

Re: Google Pixel 9 Pro

#545

Post by bsaul »

ayoisaiah wrote: post #533

There's no reason to upgrade a phone more than once in five years at least for me. I bought a an iPhone 15 Pro Max few months ago and compared it to my S10+ which I bought in 2019 and still have. There's practically no difference for regular day to day stuff, except for the camera advancements which are notable (but not night & day either). It was only the frustrating battery life, and desire to enter the superior iP…

I’ve always thought android phones had similar battery capabilities than iphones.. How worse are they ?

Re: Google Pixel 9 Pro

#547

Post by wavemode »

fidotron wrote: post #373

I don’t know how anyone could possibly trust a premium product from Google, regardless of how good the specs are. Their entire approach to QA and privacy is anti-premium. When Google bought HTC the idea was the best of Google software and the best of HTC hardware, but we have Google level hardware and HTC level software. The glory days of the HTC One were a decade ago.

Reminds me of that old joke: "Canada could have had British culture, French food, and American industry. Instead they ended up with American culture, British food, and French industry."

Re: Google Pixel 9 Pro

#548

Post by eloisant »

garciasn wrote: post #150
bityard wrote: post #132

Serious case of sticker shock here. My current Android phone was free from the provider in exchange for buying around 3 months of service in advance. It is no speed demon but certainly does all of your average phone stuff just fine.

I absolutely refuse to pay for a phone; call me old-school, but I am still stuck in the memory of the days when they came 'free' with service contracts. Me? I will happily take a slightly outdated phone with a new provider/contract where I don't pay anything on top of the expected monthly fee. I have 8 months left on my iPhone13 mini (128GB) w/VZW and will happily change to one of the other Big Threes to make it happ…

It's the other way around for me. I refuse to get a phone from my carrier.

Phones "free" with a contract are just disguised loans. The loan is hidden in your monthly sub, which is why you have to be locked from anywhere from 1 to 2 years.

Also I don't want to have carrier bloatware on my phones, and I don't want my phones to be locked to a carrier.

I pay my carrier only for the network. I pay for my phones.

Re: Google Pixel 9 Pro

#549

Post by soganess »

RealCodingOtaku wrote: post #538

One day, the pixel and the stock android will have the ability to hide the navigation pill/ gesture bar[0]. On that day, the screenshots of these products pages will be of the complete screen instead of the top half. [0] https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/288400051

I didn't realize that wasn't available in stock Android until your comment! I'm guessing you know, but for everyone else, it's been available in Lineage OS... Maybe since the switchover to the "thin pill" format?

Genuinely, you gotta love those altOS nerds. 'Giving you stuff you didn't even know you needed.

Re: Google Pixel 9 Pro

#550

Post by pixelesque »

lxgr wrote: post #246
DataDive wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be a Google Fi fan (early adopter at that) for European trips ... but nowadays, with multi-ESims, it is trivial to get a local SIM card and use that. The local data plans are typically more broadly useable and cheaper than the $10/GB that Fi offers. When it comes to Europe (and this might apply to other destinations as well) Fi is a bad deal.

Definitely applies to many Asian countries as well. Often, eSims get significantly better latency too, since you get an IP from close to where you are instead of your data having to cross one or more oceans. A VoIP call between two US SIMs/phones roaming in Asia is not a great experience.

Note that's not always the case: eSIMs I got from Nomad and Airalo in Europe/UK last year were routing things via Hong Kong, so things like DDG and google search using the SIM geolocated me to Hong Kong all the time, and the latency was noticeably bad.

If you read the reviews of some of the eSIMs there are quite a few mentions of this happening.

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