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

Pixel 10 Phones

blog.google

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

761–770 of 982 posts

Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#761

Post by littlecranky67 »

maples37 wrote: post #386
littlecranky67 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like the list includes those apps that require access to Google Play services - which defeats the entire point of the OP wanting the privacy.

GrapheneOS not only provides a sandbox for Google Play (meaning it's just another app with no special privileges, and you can grant/revoke permissions (including network!) as you desire), it also heavily promotes user profiles for further isolation. I have a "banking" profile set up with Google Play services installed. 98% of the time I'm using my phone, I'm using the primary Owner profile. All the other profiles are…

Sounds like an awful lot of work vs. just having an iPhone and regularly install your banking app on it, and still not get spied on.

Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#762

Post by sometimes_all »

paulgerhardt wrote: post #247
hattar wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use an iphone and have for many years. I was a phone geek who would always use custom ROMs and have everything dialed in just so. I'm sure this has changed over the years but back in the day it seemed like there was always some weird issue with my Android phone. Admittedly, a lot of that could have been my fault for constantly messing with the device. Eventually I got busy and just needed my phone to do the simple…

How’s your 13 mini holding up? I have a recently refurbished one (6 months old) and I can’t make it to 2pm without recharging. Additional my mail search and photo search broke with Apple Intelligence/iOS18 integration. Debating jumping ship to a epaper phone or holding out for the rumored iPhone Air.

I have a 13 mini for about 3 years now - still holding up for most of the working day (about 15 hours). The trick is to reduce the number of apps you have on the phone, reduce the number of apps which like running on the background, and not watch a lot of videos.

I figured it out that treating it as a communication device + payments device + maps + very occasional content viewer, ie mostly as a utility will make the phone last much longer.

Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#763

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

Fuzzwah wrote: post #471

This seems like a good place to randomly drop my thoughts on switching from a Samsung s20+ to a Pixel 9 Pro. The hardware is excellent in the hand. The display is great, battery life excellent, the UI is snappy, does all the basic things I expect from a quality device. Over all, no huge regrets..... but... The scrolling in every app is just "different" from the Samsung, and in a "not as good" way. I moved to Pixel wi…

>So yeah, next time I'm in the market for a phone I think I'm going back to Samsung.

Do yourself a favour and read Samsung's privacy policy first.

Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#764

Post by littlecranky67 »

red369 wrote: post #674
littlecranky67 wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bigger phones encourage more user engagement and more screen space to show ads. Smaller phones are used by people who use it less. I have only anecdotal data, pretty sure google has the analytics to find that out.

I put Bloomberg TV on the other day, just because it's one of the easy to access channels on a Roku I was setting up, and that experience makes me agree with your statement about space to show ads. It wasn't full of ads (yet?), but the tiny actual video surrounded by huge amounts of other content reminded me strongly of the TV future shown in Idiocracy. https://www.bloombergmedia.com/press/bloombergtv/

I am on an iPhone SE 3rd gen. due to the small form factor. It is already annoying to surf the web even with an adblocker, lots of cookie banners, notes, requests to install app/signup etc. take so much screen space that you can see no content. Clearly developers do not test or care for small screens anymore.

Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#765

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

unethical_ban wrote: post #729
Fuzzwah wrote: post #471

This seems like a good place to randomly drop my thoughts on switching from a Samsung s20+ to a Pixel 9 Pro. The hardware is excellent in the hand. The display is great, battery life excellent, the UI is snappy, does all the basic things I expect from a quality device. Over all, no huge regrets..... but... The scrolling in every app is just "different" from the Samsung, and in a "not as good" way. I moved to Pixel wi…

I feel compelled to stick with GrapheneOS even though I install Play Services and meta apps. I do miss several Samsung features. Most of all, the ability to set the Always-On Display to only show when new notifications pop up. It is easier to see at a glance that I have a message vs. squinting at how many faint lines are displayed to see the messages icon. DeX is a novel concept too, and with Samsung you can do USB-C…

>with Samsung you can do USB-C --> HDMI out to use your phone to play on a TV. It is a choice Google makes that Pixel can't do that.

I have done exactly that with my Pixel 8 Pro. Worked great.

Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#766

Post by jillesvangurp »

I have the pixel 6. It's still fine. This looks like a very incremental update to me as have the previous few editions. Same with the OS. I can barely tell apart Android versions these days. And since most of the value is software based, there isn't much practical difference between different generations of Pixel phones.

My pixel 6 has the same 48 megapixel sensor in the camera as they still appear to be using. It seems camera sensors plateaued about 4-5 years ago. It's a great sensor; the raw images are pretty amazing given the form factor (tiny sensor and lens). And I expect it still is. People confuse the AI capabilities (removing subjects, adding missing detail, etc.) with simple operations to make the photo 'pop'. Boosting the contrast, saturating all the colors, applying some aggressive smoothing (noise) and sharpening, etc. Doing that manually on the raw files yields very similar results. It's good and convenient. But most of that is just the sensor being awesome and some tasteful defaults for these edits. Adding optical zoom is impressive. The digital/AI zoom is not something I'd use. They still seem to use different sensors for the different cameras; which is something Apple stopped doing with recent iphones. So, you have to choose between the right lens with lots of noise or the right sensor with the wrong focal range.

The AI stuff is interesting as a gimmick but not something I use a lot. It seems to be the main differentiator for Google these days but I just don't see that being worth hundreds of dollars. It's a bit of an artificial differentiator and a race to the bottom. The advantages tend to be a bit hand wavy and other phone manufacturers of course copy them.

I might go for the 10a when it comes out in six months or so. My Pixel 6 won't be getting major updates anymore and the battery is starting to deteriorate. The difference between a 500 euro phone and a > 1000 euro one are not worth it for me. And with the 9a at least it even had a slightly bigger battery.

Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#767

Post by teekert »

bombita wrote: post #746
unethical_ban wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel compelled to stick with GrapheneOS even though I install Play Services and meta apps. I do miss several Samsung features. Most of all, the ability to set the Always-On Display to only show when new notifications pop up. It is easier to see at a glance that I have a message vs. squinting at how many faint lines are displayed to see the messages icon. DeX is a novel concept too, and with Samsung you can do USB-C…

This is now supported from Pixel 8 and above.

Do you know if it is also supported on GrapheneOS? I need a new phone, am struggling between FairPhone (does not have the USB capability for this) or GrapheneOS (on modern Pixel), both options align very well with my values, however not in the same dimensions, sadly.

Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#768

Post by jama211 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #326
jama211 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By this logic a Ferrari should cost less than a Toyota Camry because it has less seats and luggage space. I.e. you’re conveniently leaving out the _entire_ set of reasons this isn’t the case. As a side note, computers DO cost more than phones, in general. You can barely get a graphics card for that price these days, so you’re not really comparing apples to apples if your computer is that cheap.

> I.e. you’re conveniently leaving out the _entire_ set of reasons this isn’t the case. Would you like to list those for the phone? I don't think your analogy is fair at all.

Well, considering I also made the point that computers range (very roughly, work with me here) from $500 - $3500 depending on how upmarket they are, and phones range from $100 - $1500 depending on how upmarket they are, I can’t make an argument for why they’re more expensive, because they’re not.

I can list a _few_ EXAMPLE reasons for why they cost what they cost though, even if that’s higher than you expect them to cost, but this list is by no means exhaustive so don’t attempt to break them apart detail by detail. Just get the essence of my opinion from these. There’s incredible engineering and design challenges in the competitive market of smart phones, typically making electronics smaller (such as the motherboard) makes them more expensive, not less. Their cameras on phones are FAR better than any on laptops, and my phone has 4 lenses where my laptop has 1. Camera lenses and sensors at the higher end are _expensive_ in a way a laptop keyboard component or other example is not. Phones support many features computers do not (like in the Ferrari example, Toyota corollas don’t have race mode), qi charging, 5G modem, touch screen (some laptops have this but many computers don’t), etc to name a few. Phones these days also tend to be waterproof in a way computers aren’t, another design challenge. The screens need to be way tougher to survive breakage, etc, etc, there’s just so many things that you have to design for in phones that you don’t for computers.

I hope that gives you some idea, and as a side note, it worries me slightly that some of these weren’t at least a little obvious to you. Or maybe they were, and you just wanted to hear my take, and I shouldn’t assume things so uncharitably. Either way, hope that helps.

Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#769

Post by com2kid »

goyagoji wrote: post #743
com2kid wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The camera is a waste of money. Camera is the main selling point for new phones. It may not be for you, but for most customers, camera performance is the key differentiator. Modern smartphone camera modules are incredibly high bandwidth. They are hooked up to custom chips that handle everything from video encoding to the massive amount of post-processing it takes to make those tiny sensors output high quality image…

You are trying to twist if to their favor that the market and not Google specifically is known for hardware problems, recalls and making a camera that 95% of people don't have any use for. What they have is control of Android which allowed them to cancel Android One to build a larger market for the pricing they want using pressure. Look at what a marvel we can force them to buy for no reason! 80% of them have never m…

Google's phones are a minor bit player in the market. They have an estimated 4% of US market share. OnePlus was kicking their butts until OnePlus decided to destroy their entire value prop and also laid off their much beloved software team.

But if you want a mid priced phone, go ahead and buy one. A CMF 2 pro has 6 years of security updates, it costs $279.

> 80% of them have never made a video intentionally.

I find that hard to believe. Nearly everyone I know uses their phone cameras heavily. Maybe the stat is true in some strange sense, but 80% of high end premium phone buyers? People paying an extra $200 just for a telephoto lens are never using the camera? The high end is all about camera performance.

> I had a cemetery of working phones and broken laptops all through past decades. I used laptops for longer than 3 years but I also didn't put them through the pressure a student would and could usually replace parts.

I have everything from a Motorola Q9m to an unreleased Windows Mobile 7 (not phone 7!) to an army of LG, Motorola, and Nexus devices.

Phone hardware is generally shite. Or in the case of my OnePlus, their updates added so much of their own shit to a once pure OS, that I could barely use the phone anymore due to running out of RAM. Great job OnePlus, great job.

Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#770

Post by volemo »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #766

I have the pixel 6. It's still fine. This looks like a very incremental update to me as have the previous few editions. Same with the OS. I can barely tell apart Android versions these days. And since most of the value is software based, there isn't much practical difference between different generations of Pixel phones. My pixel 6 has the same 48 megapixel sensor in the camera as they still appear to be using. It se…

> I can barely tell apart Android versions these days.

Is that bad really? I can tell iOS versions apart and I don’t like it. I believe design should converge on some ideal (even if an unreachable one) so at some point updates ought to get very “tweak”-ish.

Post reply on HN