Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro

I like frictionless Fi is. Phone breaks? No prob. Grab a cheap Moto phone from the Fi store listing, get it in the mail the next day, and setup in 5 mins. Go over on data? No prob. Pay a prorated price at the exact same rate.

28.74*24=689.76

> The in the cloud vs. on your device aspect of this debate is the most important part and cannot be glossed over.

I really do think it's a weird aspect to fixate on, though.

So long as Apple is only scanning the photos that're being uploaded to its servers, it genuinely doesn't matter to me where that scanning happens. It's a scan that could have happened in either location, and the version where it's happening locally is arguably more private/secure-from-fishing-expeditions. If I don't like that the scanning occurs, I can disable the uploading.

The distinction would matter if the local-scan involved things that weren't being uploaded. But it doesn't, so from my perspective the only difference is an implementation detail.

> Call, text, scroll social media, take photos, or make Google searches. That kind of stuff. None of those activities require powerful hardware, so I will never understand why some smartphones need processors more powerful than the damn PC I'm typing this on.

They don't "require" it per se, but the power does help. Apps will load and start faster, scrolling social media will stutter less, more processing can be applied on photos to make them look better, more processing can be done locally to avoid latency, and everything will be generally more responsive. More powerful hardware doesn't only serve compute-intensive tasks, it helps for everything. If you have money to spare, it's worth it.

So what happens is that phone A has a latency of 0.2s to perform a task and people are like, that's fine. Then phone B comes out with a latency of 0.05s and people are like, oh, that's so snappy, I love it, so they buy that. Then developers are like, we know 0.2s was fine, so we've got 0.15s of budget to add some features. It's kind of a vicious circle, because every step is logical: it's logical for people to buy faster devices to get snappier operation, and it's logical for developers to use the margin between snappy and slow to add new features.

TBH, if we could freeze all hardware development at all levels for a few years, it would do wonders for software and I think we'd ultimately come out ahead, but we all know that's never going to happen.

I was excited about these but realized it's probably because Google put so much effort into marketing. The phone is unspectacular and has a wacky design that doesn't hit the spot for me.

At the end of the day, there's a huge focus on photography, live transcribe, and extended support. From my perspective, that's their hook.

For photography, I have a Sony Alpha with OIS, etc. Live Transcribe has been a Google Research app for months, so it's not unique to the 6 or even to the Pixel lineup. Companies like Fairphone are fighting to bring long-term support to Android, and the major players are slowly coming around e.g. Samsung.

For me, the downsides include the appearance (smooth, shiny, uniform glass on both sides; dull two-tone colors), unnecessary curved screen on the Pro, lack of a headphone jack, virtually no mention of audio quality or tuning of the onboard speaker/microphones, giant size, and plenty of features I won't use (wireless charging, reverse wireless charging, security chip, 120Hz display). The fingerprint scanner seems better in review videos than the Fairphone 3's abysmal sensor but is in an awkward location if you pull the phone from a pocket with one hand---probably the second worst location, TBH, with the worst being next to the USB port on the bottom edge. Of all the silly nuances (protruding camera, curved glass) the fingerprint sensor location is most likely to drive me to put a case around this phone. A case isn't a bad idea either; it would hide the weak exterior design, keep your palms from accidentally touching the waterfall display, and make the thing so bulky and uncomfortable, you'd never put it in a pocket and risk bending the frame. It's good the software support doesn't last longer than 5 years, because if it survives this long, every non-camera hardware feature would be an annoyance. This is purely my opinion.

I don't want to financially support the assembly country, as I disagree with their style of government, stronghold on entire industries, and widely rumored aggression toward outsiders and the lower class. They're almost as bad as the U.S.

In short, the price is right. The features feel almost all wrong.

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Even the bonus deal misses the mark. In Europe, they're including Bose NC headphones. But ... I already have wireless NC headphones, so I'd need to resell either NC pair, then sell my Beyerdynamic wired headphones, then throw away my wired buds, and optionally buy a set of wireless earbuds. At the risk of irritating the North American Pixel 6 buyers who would love some Bose 700s, I'd rather have the phone for a lower price or have not-so-awesome Pixel earbuds as a bonus.

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On skin tone: Does every smartphone manufacturer develop their own system camera app from the ground up? If most phone makers have camera apps based on Google Camera (just as most browsers are based on Chrome), it's a bit of a dick move for Google to declare great progress in skin tone photography and inclusiveness unless your company is gonna share those algorithms with other Android partners. You know... since Android is also made by Google, and the skin tone correction is likely performed 100 percent by software. I mean, why not just press release, "Black people, dark-skinned Latinos: you all matter to us, ... UNLESS you buy an Xperia or Oneplus running our OS and system apps!"

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Here's to hoping the Pixel 7 focuses on audio, physical durability, and repairability without sacrificing a good IP66/67/68 rating.