Post #414,225
10/5/16 3:01:12 AM
10/5/16 3:01:12 AM
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Re: Pixel XL. Ouch.
Who's it for? From here:
I'm so confused.
So why am I supposed to pay a premium that's on par with Samsung & Apple for a Google phone?
The camera? Hundreds of millions of marketing Dollars fucking shout "Samsung" or "Apple" on that front – a couple of live blogs about a new Google phone aren't going to reach anyone but us handful of nerds. So that can't be it.
Security updates? Hundreds of millions of marketing Dollars, every single tech blog out there, and – this once – cold, hard fact fucking shout "Apple" on that front. So that can't be it.
Stock Android? Every single tech blog out there tells me I can get a pretty-close-to-stock Android phone from OnePlus for $399. am I really willing to spend another 60% on top of that to gain the remaining 20% 'stock experience'? So that can't really be it, either.
Which leaves... who? Moderately wealthy mega-nerds who prefer living on the bleeding edge, already have a significant software- and/or ideological investment in Android, and who, above most else, want the purest Android-experience possible.
If that describes you, that's awesome. And I say this without an iota of sarcasm. But a proper business model destined for long-term growth, this does not look like.
What am I missing?
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Post #414,227
10/5/16 6:52:24 AM
10/5/16 6:52:24 AM
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They're offering a new ecosystem with very fast hardware.
Whether lots of people will be willing to pay for it is another question. 24/7 live supportDirectly taking on the iPhone: What makes the Pixel phones interesting, to me, is the relative lack of technical compromise. They have a fast processor. A fast camera (with improved and quicker HDR+). Fast storage (UFS 2.0). A fast fingerprint scanner. Fast software (they really are blazing-quick). Fast charging. Fast updates (seamless updates). A fast GPU (for VR). There is little about these phones you can point to and say Google cheaped out on. And isn't that what so many of us have been demanding for years? A Google phone that could be positioned against the iPhone as legitimate competition (even if the iPhone does have its advantages - and disadvantages). Nougat 7.1 ChangelogPixel product-specific
Pixel Launcher - swipe up for all apps, new Search Box, date/weather header on home
Google Assistant
Unlimited original quality photo/video backup to Google Photos
Smart Storage - when storage is full, automatically removes old backed up photos/videos
Phone/Chat support (new support tab in settings), screen-share functionality
Quick switch adapter for wired setup from Android or iPhone
Pixel Camera:
. Electronic Image Stabilization (“video stabilization”) 2.0
. Pro Features
.. White Balance Presets
.. Exposure Compensation
.. AE/AF Locking
.. Viewfinder grid modes
.. HW-accelerated (on Qualcomm Hexagon coprocessor) HDR+ image processing
.. Smartburst
Sensor Hub processor with tightly integrated sensors (accel, gyro, mag) + connectivity (Wi-Fi, Cell, GPS)
Cosmetic
. Solid navbar icons with home affordance for Assistant
. SysUI accent color theming
. Wallpaper picker with new wallpapers and sounds
. New setup look and feel
. Dynamic calendar date icon
Android Nougat 7.1
Night Light
Touch/display performance improvements
Moves (Fingerprint swipe down gesture - opt-in)
Seamless A/B system updates
Daydream VR mode
Developer features:
. App shortcuts / shortcut manager APIs
. Circular app icons support
. Keyboard image insertion
. Fingerprint sensor gesture to open/close notification shade
. Manual storage manager Intent for apps
. Improved VR thread scheduling
. Enhanced wallpaper metadata
. Multi-endpoint call support
. Support for various MNO requirements
.. PCDMA voice privacy property
.. Source type support for Visual Voicemail
.. Carrier config options for managing video telephony
Manual storage manager - identifies apps and files and apps using storage Unlimited storage isn't cheap. Fast hardware isn't cheap, etc. The 7.x A/B switch "update a copy of the OS in the background and swap on next reboot" feature sounds great - waiting for OS updates to download and install is a pain. They are taking a big chance in annoying their fans. Part of the reason why they price is high is to pay for the features, but part of it must also be to show their partners that they're not trying to take the whole market (from Samsung, LG, Huawei, Lenovo, etc.). Until I know that it's fully compatible with T-Mobile, with WiFi calling and VoLTE calling, I won't agonize about the price. The hands-on and the teardowns should be interesting. It'll be good to see how it compares to the LG V20. We'll see. Cheers, Scott.
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Post #414,237
10/5/16 11:47:31 AM
10/5/16 11:47:31 AM
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Eh? No they're not
It's just a very expensive Nexus phone. There's no new ecosystem here.
I think Google have drastically misjudged the market here.
Samsung already make a better phone (OK, it's a bit explodey at the minute, but whatever) if you like Android. And whilst you and I might find TouchWiz to be a steaming pile, it adds a lot of value for a lot of people.
And if you're balls-deep in the Apple ecosystem (e.g. you've just dropped £hundreds on an Apple Watch) - well, this phone might as well not exist.
The whole point of Nexus was that it put pure Android onto a not-brilliant-but-also-not-at-all-shit handset, at an affordable price point.
So, given that I can get a pure-ish Android Oppo phone for $400, where's the nearly $600 of extra value here?
The only thing that won't be crushed by Samsung's successor to the S7 (and the Note 7) is Google Assistant - and Samsung will roll their own anyway.
I think sales figures will ultimately give you the answer (and tell you if I've just got everything wrong here).
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Post #414,239
10/5/16 11:58:01 AM
10/5/16 11:58:01 AM
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Disagree.
The only really "affordable" Nexus phone was the Nexus 4 at $350 or so. All of the ones since then have been substantially more. One can get discounts/free premiums now if price is a concern. This is the only phone (AFAIK) with the Snapdragon 821. That has to carry a premium. 1 TB of Google Drive storage is $10/month. 10 TB is $100/month. The Pixel could be a boon for people who have vast image libraries. Etc. As for sales, I don't think that Google is expecting huge sales. It's a first step along the way of getting their Assistant everywhere, and keeping (some) pressure on Apple in the phone hardware and software space. But we'll see. Cheers, Scott.
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Post #414,242
10/5/16 12:17:19 PM
10/5/16 12:17:19 PM
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How to get assistant everywhere in 2 steps
1. Put it in the search bar that everyone has to have if they want to put Google Play Services on their phone
2. There is no step 2
The 821 would be dead fast. Google have downclocked it to more-or-less the same speed as the 820.
1TB of Google Drive is $10/mo. So in just 60 short months, you could make up the difference!
If you were to ask Apple to go to their cupboard of fucks, they would fling the doors open, only to show you that it is bare.
And anyway, Google will give up on this in a couple of years, like they do with most things that aren't search/gmail/maps.
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Post #414,243
10/5/16 12:21:41 PM
10/5/16 12:21:41 PM
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Re: giving up in a couple of years
How long do you expect to keep a phone anyway? (No sarcasm.)
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Post #414,244
10/5/16 12:36:59 PM
10/5/16 12:36:59 PM
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iPhone? 4 years for many
But yeah, couple of years for me. So the $10/mo of 1TB is even less of a sweetener.
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Post #414,241
10/5/16 12:11:09 PM
10/5/16 12:11:09 PM
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Google Fi FTW
Got to have a Nexus to be on it. Been using it for a couple of months now. Vastly better pricing than what I was on, and deep integration with other Google services.
It could be you could do he same with other Android phones starting from scratch, and I'm only noticing because I just got a new one and accepted most of the defaults. But so far everything I've seen has been pretty well polished.
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Post #414,249
10/5/16 1:26:47 PM
10/5/16 1:26:47 PM
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It does sound appealing. I use very little data most months.
I'm at all of 400 MB with about 7 days to go this cycle. Presumably that will change when I finally have an LTE phone...
Since Fi uses Sprint and T-Mobile towers, it would seem that there should be little hardware benefits to staying with just T-Mobile, but the devil's in the details.
I'd want to understand all the difference from my $30/mo T-Mobile plan before switching, though. "If something sounds too good to be true..." I've seen people complain that it gets to be quite expensive if you use a lot of data every month.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #414,262
10/5/16 2:42:14 PM
10/5/16 2:42:14 PM
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Yeah, you pay for all your data
But I'm mostly on WiFi, except when driving. Most of my mobile data is Maps, except for Chrome data looking up websites for places I'm visiting.
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Post #414,635
10/18/16 11:23:25 PM
10/18/16 11:23:25 PM
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The unthrottled foreign data sounds great...
I travel outside the US every year or two and trying to figure out how to get cell service that doesn't cost a fortune is maddening. Project Fi sounds great for that reason (unthrottled LTE data outside the US) alone.
But I'm reading that there are issues on Fi, of course.
T-Mobile has VoLTE and E911 on Band 12, but Sprint and US Cellular (the other big carriers for Fi) don't. So VoLTE doesn't work on Fi even if the phone is certified compatible on T-Mobile. Which means that E911 might or might not be problematic depending on which tower you're connected to at the time.
I've also read that TV Channel 51 uses the 700 MHz Block A spectrum that T-Mobile uses for Band 12. My folks in NC are in the WFMY Greensboro service area which uses, you guessed it, 700 MHz Block A. So there's no hope of using Band12 there until the TV station transmitter is moved to a different frequency, and it seems there's little or no plans for that to happen soon.
Nothing's simple. :-(
It looks like switching to Fi isn't an obvious choice for me at the moment. But neither is just sticking with T-Mobile. Gotta see how things play out.
It still makes sense for me to wait for the V20 reviews, but the Pixel XL does sound like a very nice phone (what with the fancy image processing via the 821 chip, fast OS updates, etc., etc.).
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #414,259
10/5/16 2:21:26 PM
10/5/16 2:21:26 PM
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Mossberg thinks it's a big deal.
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Post #414,304
10/6/16 3:06:59 AM
10/6/16 3:06:59 AM
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He's an outlier on this one
The tech press has been pretty "meh" across the board. Reading more: it seems that Google are constraining certain 7.1 features to the Pixel line, apparently just cuz. If you bought a 6P, you must be feeling a bit boned right now. Astute comment:
What an amazing business strategy!
1) Introduce new, overpriced, (based on comments by users on this site) unpopular new product.
2) Intentionally hobble previous products to entice people into upgrading.
3) Forget that human beings have memories.
Or, in a nutshell,
Can't make a product that even competes with your previous offerings? Somehow reduce the desirability of your previous product to make it seem less competitive. Google (at least tacitly) presented the Nexus line as being one where you could be guaranteed the latest and greatest. Now they have a new product that is clearly unpopular (at least at first blush based on the comments on tech sites like Ars) but they are going to change their update policies to try to make the Pixel seem less bad by comparison.
For me, at least, this taints their whole business. Why would I buy even the new Pixel? I cannot trust Google to not arbitrarily change their mind in a year and decide that their "Brand New Innovative Business Strategy (tm)" with their new hardware line (called "button" or "transistor" or whatever) is the future. Fuck whatever that Pixel thing was that they were just "testing out" in the market.
* This is not the same as what happens at Apple, where whilst an iPhone 5C won't have all the features of iOS 10 that my 6S+ does, it's for hardware and performance reasons
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