Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

581–590 of 874 posts

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#581

Post by fencepost »

Eridrus wrote: post #509
lumenwrites wrote: post #331

It blows my mind that there's not a single positive top level comment yet. Seriously, guys, what's up with the culture of entitlement and complaining? We're hackers, let's get fucking excited about the new cool gadgets! This phone is awesome . How about, before nitpicking and criticizing, we take a moment to appreciate and celebrate the new technology developed by our colleagues?

The Nexus 5 was amazing, the 5X was acceptable, this.... makes me want another option. Maybe you care about the camera, but I barely use mine except as a scanner replacement when sending documents. All of the interesting announcements were about everything except the hardware, which IMO was extremely boring, and they've discontinued their mid-range line of phones so it's not even clear that you can get the software o…

> Maybe you care about the camera, but I barely use mine except as a scanner replacement when sending documents.

Yah, if I go back through my photos there's the occasional "that looks cool!" but the vast majority fall into 3 categories: receipts, equipment and equipment closets, and cats. None of those scream a need for exceptional image quality.

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#582

Post by megablast »

makomk wrote: post #531
usaphp wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see how you conveniently avoided listing their thickness. HTC 10 is 20% thicker then iPhone 7 plus.

Unlike the other dimensions, the difference between ridiculously thin and absurdly thin isn't terribly user-visible, especially given that many people will increase the thickness of their phones by more than that simply through their choice of protective case.

> Unlike the other dimensions, the difference between ridiculously thin and absurdly thin isn't terribly user-visible

What about the difference between ridiculously bulky and fat and normal size?

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#584

Post by kllrnohj »

Someone1234 wrote: post #490
kllrnohj wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Including a smoking camera but no optical image stabilization? Make up your mind - is it a digital camera competitor or not? Why does it need OIS if its EIS produces a stabilized image better than anyone else's image stabilization? The feature is image stabilization - whether or not it's done optically or electronically is irrelevant, all that matters is how good the end product is. And DXO's review claims that the…

Your link only talks about video stabilisation, it doesn't appear to even try and examine still image stabilisation and if it is superior to OIS as you claim. Do you have a link that supports the claims made above? That one simply does not.

> it doesn't appear to even try and examine still image stabilisation and if it is superior to OIS as you claim.

Yes it does, but it'd be under "blurry photos" description rather than stabilization because stabilization is more inherently a video issue than a photo one.

In the case of OIS and photos you want to look at the low-light performance, which DXO did test and the Pixel did do very well on.

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#585

Post by sorenjan »

Fej wrote: post #95

What is the draw here? I have been running my Nexus 5 into the ground (soldered on a new power button when the original broke) in anticipation of the next Nexus phone. Pixel is no Nexus. Seriously, what does this have that the year-old Nexus 6P and 5X don't, other than incremental hardware improvements? And a massive price hike? Why should I buy this? (Seriously, Google? You want $650 for a phone with a 1080p screen?…

I'm pretty sure this was supposed to be a Nexus phone, everything points to a change of strategy late in the development. They claim that it's designed and developed by Google, but everyone that has been paying attention to the leaks knows it's made by HTC, and it shows. It looks nothing like the other Pixel devices, but it look's exactly like a Nexus phone by HTC. The Pixel launcher was named the Nexus launcher until recently. Next year's Pixel phone will probably be much closer to Google's own vision, if they make one. This years model have a premium price tag and might have good build quality and an expensive SoC, but otherwise it's underwhelming, especially at that price point. I prefer Android over iOS, but I don't think the Pixel can even match the iPhone 7 hardware for a lot of key specs, like CPU/GPU performance, camera, battery life, etc. The Pixel XL 128 GB costs over €1000 and they still only promise software updates for two years, that's inexcusable.

This reminds me of the Pixel C that allegedly was supposed to run Chrome OS until a change late in the development, and the Nexus 6 that allegedly was supposed to be an Android Silver device by Motorola until the Android Silver program was scrapped late in the development process. Will Google follow through on any hardware project from start to finish without interference from above?

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#586

Post by kefka_p »

r00fus wrote: post #572
kefka_p wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly a lot of people don't get the hype about having to install custom ROMs to make their phones behave in a tolerable way. People are always going to find computing on devices they don't normally use to be more difficult than computing on devices they normally use, yet to you this is proof Android is better?

This is a crux isn't it? Do you want an information appliance that simply works and happens to have pre-approved software choices (albeit a huge number), or a pocket general purpose computing device (with less accessory/software support, but hey you can always install custom software)?

I like a happy medium myself. For whatever it is worth, I've found that despite an appliance-like nature, I can extend iOS with third-party and custom software to my satisfaction. The key point here is that I don't have to resort to such in order to have a good experience as an end-user.

I'd argue that iOS falls between the extremes you've highlighted. It isn't really a general purpose computing platform as evident in the differences between say how multitasking and filesystems are implemented and what they expose to the end-user. On the other hand, the core OS has always supported preemptive multitasking and has always had a real filesystem to boot. The limitations of the presentation are inconveniences to be sure, but still I can slap together an app in Objective-C or Swift and slap it on the phone with ease.

That said I'm sure there are some tasks more easily achieved on traditional systems. That noted, if memory serves this was also the case with the PC/desktop transition. Desktops couldn't do everything big iron could do, but they did enough, it would seem.

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#587

Post by sorenjan »

neals wrote: post #208

I don't like Google because they're gonna use my data against me. I don't like Apple because it's a walled garden and millions other reasons. I don't like Samsung because they bloat Android. I don't like Huawei because I don't trust the Chinese government to not do stuff to it. I don't like LG and HTC because the smartphone market is slipping away from them. Am I just getting old?

I feel the same way. There's so many options on the market, yet I don't like any of them. Is Windows mobile 10 a hopeless case?

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#588

Post by zanny »

neals wrote: post #208

I don't like Google because they're gonna use my data against me. I don't like Apple because it's a walled garden and millions other reasons. I don't like Samsung because they bloat Android. I don't like Huawei because I don't trust the Chinese government to not do stuff to it. I don't like LG and HTC because the smartphone market is slipping away from them. Am I just getting old?

For two years I used an S4 I put CM12 on, and now I have an S5 with CM13. I get all my phones for I've never seen appeal in new release phones. If there was some high end Android game I'd want to play, I wouldn't want to play it on a tiny screen anyway and I'd just play it on ARC. As it was, I still think the S4 is plenty spiffy a device for day to day use, and my S5 is even faster than that.

It is similar on the desktop. Who needs a high end i7 when an AMD APU does good enough? Unless you need performance, riding the bleeding edge is a waste of money and frustration when things break.

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#589

Post by imaginenore »

bluthru wrote: post #257
czhiddy wrote: post #8

“The difference with this device is that we started from the beginning,” says Dave Burke, who runs Android engineering. Started from scratch, yet the end result looks like a iPhone knockoff from a random Chinese shanzhai company? http://i.imgur.com/LlqaAPO.png

This is worse than Samsung.

Pretty much everything is worse than Samsung.

Galaxy S7 Edge is f*ing gorgeous.

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#590

Post by megablast »

technofiend wrote: post #319
Veratyr wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what does this have that the year-old Nexus 6P and 5X don't, other than incremental hardware improvements? As someone who owns a 5X: - The Pixel is a premium 5" phone, not a budget one. It has a flagship SoC rather than a mid-tier SoC. - The camera is better and more responsive (the camera on the N5X is slow and annoying). - The body isn't plastic, which means there will be less issues with heat and CPU throttling…

As always the most compelling thing about the phone is Google's support - fast releases and minimal carrier bloat. You have a nice list of positives and I'm not disputing them. But the feature list for what is now Googles top phone is underwhelming. 4 GB of RAM is barely adequate - it should be 6 GB like the other Snapdragon 821 flagship. No water proofing? That's the new black. Bottom-facing speakers? Complete regre…

> As always the most compelling thing about the phone is Google's support

You mean support for the OS, not for the hardware, which is probably more of a concern for phone users.

Post reply on HN