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Nexus 6

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Re: Nexus 6

#221
post #133

Can anyone explain to me what the fetish is with pushing the same amount of pixels as a freaking 27 inch display (which, by the way, I've always considered gorgeous)? I mean, does anyone actually notice the difference? Because if that difference means I'm paying $100-200 extra for a better screen, a better graphics chip etc, and it means my battery life is reduced, I really just don't get it. I elaborated a bit on th…

I'm all for pushing as many pixels as we can, but not at the expense of battery life. I'll happily take a 720p screen if it buys me even a mediocre improvement in battery life.

Brightness and total screen size matter more for battery life than resolution...

Re: Nexus 6

#222
post #3

I've bought every nexus phone when they were released, but I'm not sure about this one. The nexus 5 is already a bit oversized IMO. This thing is ridiculous.

For me it was pretty disappointing that iPhone jumped the size bandwagon with their latest phone as well. Bigger != Better

What's funny is the 3 people I know who switched to the 6 from the 4S, they all wanted a bigger phone and are all complaining that the 6 is too big as well as too thin.

Re: Nexus 6

#223

Yes! Google continues to add barometers to phones! Although, it's disappointing that the Nexus 9 does not also include a barometer. I suppose they've decided that the use case for fast GPS and altitude works better in a phone than a tablet - that, or, since the 9 is built by HTC it would be their first time adding one. Oddly, though, Motorola put its first barometer in a tablet (the Xoom) before they tried any phones…

Just curious, what do you use it for? :)

I paraglide and a barometer sensor allows me to use my phone as a variometer (measures altitude changes while flying amongst other functions).

Re: Nexus 6

#224
post #142

I bought the Nexus 5 as soon as it was released and have really liked it, however, I'm not sure I'll be buying this one. The biggest issue I have is the screen size. I just think 6" is over my threshold. At $649 I can basically buy any other phone off contract. One of the original appeals of the Nexus 5 was the low price. No wireless charging either? Not a dealbreaker, but I did use it on my 5.

http://www.motorola.com/us/Nexus-6/nexus-6-motorola-us.html very bottom: Battery 3220 mAh Mixed usage up to 24 hours* Qi Wireless charging support

Good catch.

OT: I hope wireless charging is there to stay. Being in robotics this is one technology that would benefit robots tremendously when it becomes more mainstream.

Re: Nexus 6

#225
post #42

This thing is a beast in every sense of the word! also with dual front speakers! That can make a huge difference in sound quality. However it looks like this is heading to $500+ territory so the days of a cheap good Nexus may be coming to an end. Looks like the Moto E etc is filling that niche.

I don't understand the appeal of having dual front speakers, whats the point?. This is a feature a very small group of people will find useful, but adds to the price.

I love to watch Netflix on my phone when I'm doing the dishes. The 90 degree change in going from a backwards-facing speaker to the Nexus 5's downward facing speaker made a huge difference in the sound quality. I'm really looking forward to having stereo, forward-facing audio.

Re: Nexus 6

#226
post #3

I've bought every nexus phone when they were released, but I'm not sure about this one. The nexus 5 is already a bit oversized IMO. This thing is ridiculous.

> The nexus 5 is already a bit oversized IMO.

Really? The physical size is barely bigger than an iPhone 5.

As for the 6, looks a little chunky in photos, but if it's slim with a small enough bezel it could be manageable...

Re: Nexus 6

#227
post #135
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did your gorgeous 27" display cost more than $500? I'm not quite clear why you think $500 for a very decent computer that fits into a (big) pocket is unreasonable.

[deleted]

I think this is a flawed way of looking at it. I can have a nice i7 w/ 32GB of RAM on my desktop, but it's a pretty terrible computer for writing documents, programming, media consumption compared to my phone because, well, it doesn't have a screen at all.

The computer and the screen are different things. There exists ways to use your phone on a larger screen, at which point the operating system becomes your sole bottleneck.

The reality is our phones are very powerful computers, intentionally limited to do things specific for mobile use. They could (and probably will) be opened up as time goes on to become more traditional computers as well. A few players toyed with the idea clumsily in the last few years, Motorola being the most noteworthy.

Re: Nexus 6

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make a platform that automatically collects the atmospheric pressure sensor reading on a schedule, and sends it to scientists for analysis. The idea is to build the best weather forecast (higher accuracy, hyperlocal) by using this dramatically denser data source as inputs to models. We make an open source app called PressureNet: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.cumulonimbu... We also build an SDK an…

Intriguing! How frequently does the SDK sample the barometer's readings? Does having the phone in one's pocket affect the perceived atmospheric pressure?

Our SDK default is 10-minute intervals, but some apps choose 1-hour to better fit normal schedules. The pocket problem isn't a big deal, but altitude changes do add noise to our system. The barometers are very elevation-sensitive (see other poster, commenting about flying!), which means that the reading will be different every time you move your phone.

There are a number of ways to solve this noise problem - first, merely detecting trends in the data over 6 hours is quite easy and tells us a lot about the atmosphere (is the pressure rising or falling? easy to find out from the noise). Second, getting enough density means we can use statistics to filter out most of the noisy data.

Re: Nexus 6

#229

Can anyone explain to me what the fetish is with pushing the same amount of pixels as a freaking 27 inch display (which, by the way, I've always considered gorgeous)? I mean, does anyone actually notice the difference? Because if that difference means I'm paying $100-200 extra for a better screen, a better graphics chip etc, and it means my battery life is reduced, I really just don't get it. I elaborated a bit on th…

Correction: a piss poor 27 inch display. "Quad HD" is way too little for that size; you need to at least quadruple the amount of pixels to get anything resembling print quality. And I don't understand why we shouldn't strive for that. After all, (for me at least), much what I do on a computer is reading, and that benefits from a higher-resolution display up to a point much more than images.

Defect rates are per unit area, aren't they?

If you're trying to make a 6" screen and a 27" screen at the same dpi and aspect ratio, and the 6" have unacceptable defects 1% of the time, the 27" screens will be defective at 4.5^2 times that rate, or about 20%.

Re: Nexus 6

#230
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for pushing as many pixels as we can, but not at the expense of battery life. I'll happily take a 720p screen if it buys me even a mediocre improvement in battery life.

Brightness and total screen size matter more for battery life than resolution...

Whatever the hell the technical issue is -- more battery life is far more preferable to better displays.
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