Google announces Pixel 5, Pixel 4A 5G, and Pixel 4A
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I actually realized I can get usb-c / lightning covers as well, which is great as all my phones get lint in there, eventually causing problems with charging.
Well, no, the simple fix is to ignore the headphone jack. If your needs are "reasonably priced phone", there's no reason to plug the jack. You'd have to have some other need, like "and it can't have a headphone jack".
Happy to see they are keeping it in future iterations of the 'a' series.
Same here - I held onto my Pixel 1 & only jumped to 3A when it came out.
Mostly it was that I had an existing wired setup fitted to my ears, but the real reason to hate BT was that I wasn't always charging them up. The airpods style charging case + a charging mat might have solved those problems, but the charger was more annoying than the wires themselves.
I happily use bluetooth in the car, which doesn't have the same sort of "did I forget to charge it?" problems.
But an obvious problem is that the touchscreen is activated by my leg. I had to actually lock the lockscreen just to prevent the phone from constantly opening random apps and providing random input.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMX62AM/A/lightning-to-35...
It’s not even about charging. It’s about having to buy a USB-C hub just to plug in my headphones and midi controller to my iPad Pro.
Edit: to be clear, this shouldn’t be needed, but alas, we cannot steer Apple.
Also, they’re quite effective devices: https://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-qu...
I think the better solution if you can afford it is a Bluetooth receiver (Fiio make a nice one) for your old headphones.
If you are getting new earphones get some of the cheap Chinese BT earbuds. They are really cheap these days and work quite well for the money. I got a quite nice pair for ~$35AUD from amazon. Surprisingly good.
What I've found works best for me:
- In the car I have a Bluetooth audio adapter for the aux in my older car. Works great.
- In my backpack I have a pocket where I always leave a headphone adapter. I always put it back if I use it.
- Bluetooth to Aux adapter with a small battery. Costs like $20 on Amazon and also lives in my backpack. Has saved my ass many times.
Beyond that, I just own more Bluetooth headphones and I keep a few space headphone adapters attached to headphones I use occasionally.
It sucks to spend $50 on adapters and another $40 on Bluetooth adapters. But it is very usable now and I don't ever "miss" my headphone jack now that I have the proper infrastructure setup.
How would you sell "no audio jack" to me? What's my gain here?
I mean, practically, once they've managed to kill audio jacks we'll probably transition to HDCP-like DRM for audio so that you need Approved(tm) headphones to listen to your favourite pop music. Once we get there that will be the feature for you ...
There's still a minor downside, I can't charge my phone with my (wired) headphones plugged in - but I can get almost 2 days without charging my phone (an XR) so that's never bothered me at all.
For me, the camera on the iPhone XR is _totally_ worth the "downside" of Apple's "no audio jack" decision. That's a very personal thing (I want great low light camera performance for band/gig photos) and it's not something I'd ever tell somebody else is an important purchase decision for them. Same for you, there's no way I'd try to "sell no audio jack" to you. But I might advise that whatever _other_ feature a specific phone has for your personal use cases might possibly override the downsides of no headphone jack.
More choice of phones when buying one.
the main issue for me is that bluetooth audio just doesn't sound very good. most of my music is in mp3, which pretty much guarantees a lossy-to-lossy transcode for bluetooth. the inline DAC adapters tend to be pretty bad as well. I don't really expect a high fidelity audio experience from a smartphone, but the official google adapter for the pixel 2 is noticeably worse than the onboard dac in my old nexus 5x. not a showstopper, but very frustrating considering how much I spent on the phone.
My phone does have a headphone jack but I still use one of these. The difference is not close to subtle.
Or just buy a phone that has a headphone jack, and not limit your options. You can still use bluetooth audio on a phone with an aux port if you want. But there are still lots of decent phone choices that have DO an aux port, eg the new pixel 4a we're talking about, no need to limit yourself.
If I don't have to buy adaptors (one for my desk at home, one for my backpack, one for my desk at work, one for my car, one for the first trip when I forget to take one...) I've saved $50-100.
Honestly, I did try to embrace this trend by buying a Nexus 6P when it came out in 2015. I thought I'll just get used to it. I did not. Besides being a pain in the rear to use with one hand, it ripped holes through my pockets with its sharp corners. So when they then announced the (5") Pixel 1 a year later, I bought one immediately and it's still my primary phone. Still, it's a tad larger than would be comfortable, I find it that iPhone 5 (or 5S or 1st gen SE) is an ideal size for me. The only problem with these is that they run iOS.
1) My car stereo doesn't have Bluetooth.
2) Very few earbuds fit my ears comfortably. After a lot of experimenting I've found a couple wired models that do fit my ears fine. Given the cost and limited selection of wireless earbuds, finding a good pair will be a chore, if I even can.
3) Once in a while having two ports is handy.
There are probably dongle solutions to 1 and 3, and maybe I can find some that fit my ears well. But that all sounds like way more hassle than just not buying phones that have been designed to exclude some pretty basic functionality.
This you can fix easily with a $30 dongle that stays in a car, some of them will power on and start playing from where you left off when power is applied (i.e., when you start the car, provided you leave it plugged in).
I don't use Bluetooth headphones, but for the car, it's perfect.
I also have saved many a social music situation when someone was having bluetooth pairing issues and I just busted out my aux cable, plugged and and blammo the party has music. I'm an IT guy, could I have fixed the bluetooth pairing? Probably. But not quicker than just plugging in.
So we're out there, THERE ARE DOZENS OF US! :)
13 hour flight, airports, etc... fewer dongles, fewer things to charge, etc.
(I have an inexpensive set of cabled noise cancelling earphones that run off a single AAA battery, which always gets packed in my carryon...)
A couple of phones did have a decent dac/amp combo built in (HTC 10, and some LG phones), FWIW.
Since then I have been using the NextDrive SpectraX. I highly recommend it, it sounds even better than the HTC 10, and now I can use (almost) whatever phone I want.
edit: Oops, I missed that you specified you were already using a DragonFly. Is that not as good as the HTC 10 was? I would have thought it'd be better...
I still appreciate a good headphone jack though. The usb-c connectors aren't always reliable and ignoring inline controls. A phone with a solid DAC & amp would be best. Unfortunately it seems only LG make those these days and their Android skin is horrible.
One thing with the 10 was that security updates were basically nonexistent. You got one or two major OS updates, but nothing in between, and nothing after. Lots of phones have this problem, but then again some don't.
Worse than that, the Oreo update completely broke my phone. I went from 2-3 days of battery life with my typical, light usage to something like 12-16 hours with NO usage, screen completely off the entire time. Fixing that required downgrading to Nougat, which required S-OFF, which required me physically mailing my phone to a hacker group and paying around $35. And of course this left me a year or more behind in security patches.
Based on the xda thread about this, it affected lots of people, but was never acknowledged or fixed. Consider yourself lucky :)
The LG phones are, one would hope, not this bad. But still, my takeaway from the experience is that tethering (heh) oneself to a single model or line or phones is really, really bad. The inconvenience of the dongle is, in retrospect, only slightly annoying in comparison.
And there can be significant cost savings. My Moto G6 and SpectraX together cost less than one of LG's phones, and I expect to reuse the SpectraX with my next phone as well. Buying a new DAC/AMP every 1-3 years doesn't really seem right, does it?
Also, even if when new they might be water tight, after you leave it in the sun the glue that holds the phone together and seals it will melt and age. On a samsung I discovered that above the buttons it had less than 1 mm of glue.
it's a part of the spec, so they list it. it's not sad or bad or good -it just is.
for me, i want just usb-c, and no headphone port is a plus. same for sd card, same for removable battery. i thought all of those were important to me, until i realized i haven't actually used any of this in 10 years. yes, a headphone port adds just a tiny bit of thickness and weight. so does the removable battery. so does an sd reader. it all adds up, and adds a little cost. for things i don't want.
so not a feature, not advertized as one, and for a lot of people, not something they want. you do, so get the phone that suits you.
I wonder what you believe the word "feature" means.
hint: it does not mean 'spec.' for example, on a phone, lcd screen is not a feature. oled screen is a feature.
now, what is not a feature for most people may be a feature for you. just like if you like tap water, a restaurant filling your glass from the faucet may be a feature for you. which does not make it a feature.
edit: since the snowflake replying disabled replies.. no. it's more like claiming 'lcd screen' in the spec is a feature in the world of oled phones. so not a feature.
Your analogy is more akin to something like a glass back vs a hard plastic back on a phone, so maybe re-assess that.
I care less about the removable battery - in every phone I had I was able to change it myself, tools are cheap, the only thing you need is to watch some tutorials and calm down to have your hands steady.
Expandable storage is also great. I mean, how can it even be considered "not a feature"? You can very cheaply expand your storage - e.g. in situations you run out of storage. I don't get it, what's not to like? Honest question.
It's funny how the brain can interpret the text based on your mood and bias. Feels kinda like those optical illusions that seem to rotate in one direction, until you change your perception somehow, and then it rotates the other direction.
1. batteries run out and can't use until recharged. Even if that only took 10 minutes I wanted to use my headphone now, not later.
2. batteries die and are not replaceable. Bad for both pocketbook and the environment
3. interference can make them unusable. Try walking through a crowded train station and you'll find you get about 2 seconds of audio for every 5 seconds of nothing.
1 step forward (no wires) 3 steps back.
The fact is performance wise wired headphones are still just better, as well as far cheaper for audio quality.
1. No wire randomly snagging on door handles and other objects.
2. No forgetting your phone is on the table when getting up and yanking it off the table with the wire.
3. You can switch the source with a click, e.g. if you're listening to music on your phone and want to watch something on your computer.
4. It doesn't really matter where the source is: while having a meeting on your computer you can seamlessly get up and make yourself some tea while you keep talking and listening.
5. No physical connection to erode. Maybe I'm doing something terrible, but I've had issues with the headphone jack with nearly every phone I've had and nearly every headphones I've owned. It wears out, somehow.
It's well worth it for me, but I can't speak for anyone else obviously.
This was actually the primary thing that kept me on a Pixel 2 for so long, since it also has a similar rear fingerprint sensor design (and I just pre-ordered the Pixel 4a today).
I can't be the only one who greatly prefers a rear fingerprint sensor to face unlock, especially in our new world order with widespread mask wearing -- but, even before! It's so much faster and less finicky.
(The new model's fingerprint sensor is also so subtle on the chassis on the phone that you can just barely make it out in the photograph of the phone's back shown on the comparison page. But if you squint, you'll see it. It's also discussed in many of the reviews.)
(Mine is starting to die, between a bad screen crack and a battery that dies by 2pm.)
Why did I miss it? Because FaceID will unlock the notification area and its associated actions before I perform any action or even touch the phone.
Let’s say I get a text, my phone is on the night stand. I just look at it and it already unlocks, no reaching.
It lets you skip a step and start interacting with the screen before the phone has unlocked. Perhaps less of a big deal with the back-mounted fingerprint sensor, in that case I could interact with the thumb simultaneous to unlocking the back.
Using password managers was another big one. Instead of tapping the auto fill button, then tapping the fingerprint sensor, it was all one click. Opening bank apps, same thing. FaceID is always one less finger motion.
Mask wearing has thrown a wrench into it but Apple has added logic to quickly bring up the pin pad when it detects a face mask. Also, sometimes it seems to learn my masked face, but that’s less reliable.
I don’t know how this compares to Pixel face unlocking at all, admittedly.
And I never understood why Apple didn’t use the rear mounted fingerprint sensor. But I do understand why they think the benefits of face unlocking outweigh the drawbacks.
Some examples not related to the action of unlocking: when your alarm goes off, the noise gets quiet when you look at the phone. Also, the screen won’t time out and turn off while your eyes are looking at it.
1. Phone standby to phone on (as you describe)
2. In-phone software actions, typically, password manager or locked/private apps (banking, etc)
For case #2, I greatly prefer FaceID. For case #1, it’s a toss up for me.
With a fingerprint sensor, the only time my phone would have any trouble unlocking would be if my finger was wet (trivial to fix and re-swipe). Face unlock fails all the time for all sorts of reasons, and is especially useless when I have a mask on (it's nice of Apple to detect masks and bring up the PIN pad without needing an extra swipe, but that's still a weak workaround). Even without a mask, I feel like the failure rate approaches 1% to 2%, which is way too much. For me to feel comfortable using it, I expect something on the order of 0.01%.
Actually I'm not even sure it's the failure rate that gets me. Even after using face unlock for the better part of a year, I still catch myself looking at the phone thinking it's waiting for my face when it isn't, and then I have to swipe up or hit the power button or something. Yes, maybe you can call these UX problems that can be fixed with software, but with a fingerprint sensor I know that when I touch it, my phone will vibrate, and I know immediately if it succeeded or failed.
I think also part of the difference is that Pixel phones have had their fingerprint sensor on the back instead of the front, like iPhones used to have. If the phone is just lying face-up on a table (and I don't want to pick it up), then having it on the front is much easier. But, in reality, I found that was rarely the case for me; usually it'd be in my pocket, or even if it was on a table, I'd want to pick it up anyway. The act of wrapping my hand around the phone would put a finger in roughly the right position to hit the sensor anyway, so it'd be unlocked and ready to use well before I was in a position to read anything off the screen anyway.
Frankly I just really don't like face unlock when compared to a fingerprint sensor.
> Let’s say I get a text, my phone is on the night stand. I just look at it and it already unlocks, no reaching.
My phone is on the table while I'm working. In order for it to see my face I have to pick it up and aim it at my face. With touch id I could just put my finger on top without having to pick it up. So much faster and more convenient.
I find that quite often face id is slow or fails, even if it only fails one out of 30 times that's still one a day and when it does it's frustrating as hell. Something that should take 0.5 seconds ends up taking 10-15. I know that sounds trivial but by the time the phone has unlocked, whatever I was planning to do is often forgotten because of the distraction of trying to get face id to work and then having to manually unlock.
And of course now with mask wearing it basically might as well not exist.
Now I'm definitely holding out to see what the 5 has, because if I can get 5G connectivity, I'm willing to switch, but I won't be jumping at it if there's no fingerprint sensor.
Face unlock is pretty nice ... unless you are wearing a mask.
Very infuriating to type my long password then.
On the other side of the coin, fingerprint sensor is kind of neat (well I made a deep cut on my index yesterday so there are also situations where it fails haha). I wish there were both front and back sensors though. In the screen itself for the front one, otherwise the chin would get comically large.
Also when I am baking, I just want to use face unlock.
Ideally we would have both (or something better than both I guess)
Face unlock is complete BS, no disagreement there.
However... has anyone actually looked into how secure those phone fingerprint readers are?
Could very well be that the reason they're pushing face unlock so hard is they know their fingerprint tech is even worse.
Recent phones I've had come close to mitigating lesser concerns for me, but decide to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at the last minute.
Basically, if the password has not been entered in X time, then you must enter the password to unlock, fingerprint not accepted.
Perfect. Except instead of letting me set X to my preferred interval (30 minutes), it seems to be hardcoded to 3 days.
Except during this pandemic where you have to wear a mask everywhere, I actually like face unlock. It's even more seamless than the finger print reader.
If you want to use wired headphones, the $9 adapter works well. Wireless headphones are also widely available and have batteries that last all day.
I realise the above doesn’t perfectly cater to all customers, but anecdotally it seems to cater well enough to enough of them.
I know there's a (kind of bulky) dongle for charging + headphones, but I'd rather buy a device that has the ports I need already.
The $9 adapter is cool though. Afaik it's pretty much the best budget usb dac around.
I've pre-ordered the pixel 4A. My phone was dying anyway, but I'm going to like having a headphone jack again.
As for myself, I bought Bose QC35's prior to upgrading to my first jackless iPhone so I was never affected by its absence. I almost never use earbuds.
On the point about affordable wireless headphones, many of us have spent a lot of time and money finding a great wired headphone setup. I don't want to go spend another £300 and 20-30 hours of my time finding an equivalent setup, all because some industrial designer wants his design another millimeter thinner.
Lastly bluetooth still sucks, particularly if you change devices a lot. I've yet to see a BT setup that allows me to easily change my headphones between my laptop, my phone and my ps4 in under 2 seconds.
Personally I don’t know anyone who routinely charges their phone anytime other than when in bed. And personally I don’t know anyone who has an issue with all day battery life. I’ve no doubt these are still issues for some people but again, wireless charging pads are cheap.
I agree multi device Bluetooth sucks. But that’s not your only option. My QC35 are great for two-device use cases. In your scenario I’d use a wired connection for one of the three devices and your instant switching criteria is solved.
(I’m assuming you’re fine with one wired connection given that you’re criticising the removal of headphone jacks.)
I understand that it doesn't fit everyone though.
I got a phone that is just usb-c. Carrying around the adapter sucks, and Bluetooth is an even bigger pain in the ass.
That said, the Pixel line of phones isn't known for having long lasting battery. A feature that I've found to be indispensable is wireless charging. I just rest my Pixel 4 on a vertical charging base throughout the day. Otherwise, I'd have to have to constantly plug/unplug the phone throughout the day to charge, and that'd be a huge regression in the user experience.
Just as I'm about 100% fully committed to Bluetooth headsets and my collection is just about fully covering all my use cases, Google brings back the 3.5mm jack! Nice that they're giving me hope that I can still use my wired headsets without having to use a dongle, but I'd be again terribly disappointed if they removed this feature again in the next iteration. This feature alone is almost enough to downgrade my Pixel 4.
P.S. The Pixel 4 isn't an available trade-in option for the Pixel 4a. Lol!
Note that wireless charging causes a lot of heat, which is like cryptonite for battery longevity.
I guess people play a lot of mobile games?
And yes, 8+ hours continuously streaming audio. My brain can't stand any long periods of silence.
It's a perfect encapsulation of why I just can't wrap my head around phones without a headphone jack. Why would you want to worry about managing battery levels on more devices? Going from 1-->0 is the dream and I don't think I'd ever upgrade to a phone where I have to worry about battery again, let alone a phone where I have to worry about two batteries.
Another example: RCS. A protocol that neither carriers nor users actually want. 7 years after iMessage took over the US, Google is still unable to provide a functional E2E encrypted multi-device messaging service with all the doo-dads that come with iMessage.
So many more textbook examples out there.
RCS works. I am glad it's here. It would have been far more helpful 3 years ago though.
The most boggling decision is what has happened with Hangouts.
Oof, this sounds like the sort of thing that could go really frustratingly wrong in some cases. Do you happen to know if this results in apps being erroneously killed when switching to the background? My phone killing whatever is playing on Spotify or Podcast Addict when I switch to another app has been a recurring annoyance for me on Android. I've always been able to find a fix but, bewilderingly, the fix has been different on almost every phone I've had.
Note that the 4a actually has a larger battery than the 4, per the article, so this complaint may well be addressed by this device.
Compare that to every Android manufacturer who either don't offer wireless charging at all or gate it to flagships, it's a really sad state of affairs for someone like myself who won't even consider a phone without wireless charging today.
One advantage is that it does not destroy the USB port. Constant plugging and unplugging can really wear some ports after 1-2 years, depending on manufacturing quality. To the point that it won't charge anymore. (Hopefully will be less of an issue with USB-C which seems better designed than microUSB). Plus the convenience.
Newer wireless chargers also usually have some form of active heat management (i.e. fans), and anecdotally my phone only ever gets lukewarm to the touch, even with a somewhat bulky case on it.
At the end of the day though, I personally wouldn't mind having to upgrade my phone slightly faster than I would otherwise in order to enjoy the convenience offered by wireless charging, but definitely speaking from a position of privilege here.
I found about this option on a motorcycle forum where a specific helmet headset was quite sensible to breaking the micro USB charging port. I bought a couple of cables and several micro-SUB connectors, then I bought a handful of USB-C ones and a few more cables and now everything is by default using magnetic connections.
As someone who constantly has to step away from my desk during the day, I don't have to think about charging the phone anymore. It automatically goes on the wireless stand (directly in front of me) when I'm back at my desk. I can be certain that if I choose to go out for the evening after work, I wouldn't have to worry about being stranded somewhere far from home because my phone died. (Side note: Uber and Lyft have really decimated the taxi industry, even for a downtown area in a medium-size city.)
If you can keep it from charging too high, it's all upside.
This is especially pronounced on phones, where batteries are already calibrated to have a high charge cutoff (ie battery longevity vs capacity compromise is heavily at the capacity end).
It's a thing for some laptops; e.g. Lenovo specifically advertises such a setting.
I am a bit disappointed about how wireless charging was ripped out of Android phones instead of simply being the standard. I thought the iPhone finally adopting it would bring it back to Android phones but it does not seem like the case.
I think there's a reason Apple doesn't sell a wireless charger and that's because they couldn't get it to work reliably. So, they can add the feature to the phone but don't have to take any support calls on how flaky it is since they can blame the non Apple charger.
It has been understand that wireless charging causes the battery to heat more, which potentially can decrease the battery lifespan.
People are also constrained in what cases they buy lest it blocks wireless charging.
People cannot use it on the desk when battery is empty.
It is also less efficient when charging, taking more time compared to wired charging.
Adopting Qi has another side effect: it prevents using metal to back surface, so most high-end phones choose to use glass rather than resin so phones are much getting heavier.
Hands-free calling is quite important to me. :)
Anecdote: I still have a 2XL and it can get me through 24 hours. It's gotten a _little_ worse recently which I attribute to hardware age. The camera is fantastic, so I have no need to upgrade (although having stereo speakers would be nice.)
<---Pixel 2 XL owner who really sees little reason to upgrade.
Comparing the 4a to this it looks like a bunch of solid incremental improvements across the board.
Huge fan of basically everything here. Price, screen size, phone size.
Battery size could be a touch bigger, as my 3a has the best battery life I just wish for about 10% more for edge cases.
Also, have you looked at the FDE.ai app to help optimize the battery life? I find my battery life to go 90 minutes to an hour longer now with FDE.
As an android developer myself, I don't see why anyone should buy a more expensive premium phone. Except if they want to have it as a status symbol.
Google is careful in preserving fragile cart experience for those of us who avoid offline stores this year.
:shocked face:
(I think that maybe store.google.com is somebody's 20% time project, and they just haven't announced it's shutdown yet...)
- The pricing for their flagship models made absolutely no sense given the specs, poor battery life and questionable QA.
- Samsung and the big Chinese manufacturers advertise everywhere, you can get their phones at the shop around the corner. At least now in Germany you can find the Pixels at Saturn and Mediamarkt (and often at a discount).
- Most people don't care about software updates. They might notice the custom Samsung UI and be annoyed by pre-installed bloatware, but they won't know which version of Android the phone is running, let alone its latest security patch. Even a 200€ phone will get Google Play services updates and be able to install almost anything for 5+ years.
So in the end, you see Pixels in the US where Google does advertise them a bit, and also because there are still a lot of people who get subsidized phones from their carriers (or Google Fi for that matter).
But yeah in Europe... I do remember people getting the Nexus 4, 5, the 5X once it got cheaper. But the Pixel 1/2/3/4, not so much. The 3a has probably done better lately as resellers tried to get rid of their stock, I think I've seen it sold as low as 239€.
I think it's good if Google goes back to mid-range models. I don't think they'll ever be able to make a good flagship. But I really wonder why they aren't trying harder (or at all, in most countries). For now Android One phones are lagging behind in the camera department, but I cannot believe it'll be the case forever. Once Nokia has caught up, what's going to be left to overpriced Pixels?
I've heard it's gotten worse with the Pixels even though they're much more expensive. And some models have shown insane bugs/defects, for instance calling issues (!) with the Pixel 3.
That was weird, but the criticism obviously stuck -- the #a series is a continuation of the Nexus series.
They could have partnered with logistics and sold it themselves via Online. But even that is not done. They didn't bother partnering with Telecoms or Retail.
Basically, judging purely from current evidence and outside perspective, Google is a company that
1. Doesn't know how to make partnership
2. Doesn't know anything other than selling ads.
3. Doesn't know how to do support.
The whole company is not structure for this. And very likely their Phone department is so small within the giant Google circle there are absolutely zero synergy within it.
Even just watching WWDC sessions would do wonders to compare what they offer and what the competition provides, specially in what concerns native languages support, project templates, graphics, audio and SIMD frameworks.
Honestly, on newer devices within the last few years, I've found the Samsung modifications to be more helpful than not. I have way more options for random settings that I regularly find useful, as well as customization of how aspects of the UI look, than are provided by either stock Android or Google's Android modifications. There are also some random "bloatware" features that are actually useful and unobtrusive, such as the pen features that come with Galaxy Note devices. What does annoy me with my device model in particular is the locked bootloader, but this doesn't apply to all modern Samsung devices.
Google is indeed also guilty of pre-installing apps that people do not want. But things like Samsung Pay or Bixby are a bit more annoying in my experience.
I have been waiting for this phone, but I live in Europe which will only be getting this somewhere mid September
I think I'll just give up and buy a OnePlus Nord
Actually some of them are new on the launch list. Taiwan and Japan I believe did not get Pixel when it launch, it tends to come later. And even when it arrived, you cant really get it anyway.
Just to show how much Google care about its Pixel Phone.
Even before face-masks, I found that my Pixel 4 can't recognize me with a bike helmet on. I have a phone mount on my handlebars and fingerprint-unlocking is very convenient (not while moving, obviously). Also if I'm driving, I can hand the phone to my wife and finger-unlock it without looking away from the road, which is definitely not possible with a face-unlock.
So I had to get a Pixel 4 because it has Face Unlock, which works almost too well to be honest.
I'm actually rehabbing an injury at the moment and haven't touched the rock in almost a month. This week, all my devices magically sprang to life and I can get in to them instantly with just a touch of the finger.
It's amazing, this world that everybody else is living in.
This was way, way better than face id or fingerprints during covid (eg, face id does not work b/c of masks, fingerprints don't work b/c of gloves).
> Google carried over the rear-mounted fingerprint reader of the Pixel 3a. Color me a fan. The 3a had a fairly deep divot with a different finish on the fingerprint reader itself. Google made the Pixel 4a’s fingerprint reader blend in better with the body. Both the reader and the rear shell have the same matte texture and black color, and the back of the phone even curves inward towards the reader to make it feel more cohesive.
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-4a-review-1140...
Some skipped Pixel 4 due to removing it. They considered fingerprint reading to be one of Pixel 3's most helpful features.
We still don't know if Pixel 5 will have it or not.
Best scenario for me is having fingerprint reader under the screen.
Also, a lot of telecoms are kind of ignoring 4g/lte deadspots in favor of just putting new NSA 5G cells it seems. I’m excited, but I’m also biased because I work in the industry.
That just emphasizes what marketing bullshit 5G is. Telecoms won't properly build out infrastructure to avoid LTE deadspots, and yet are pushing 5G. But ... people say that proper 5G needs many many more cells than LTE!
Its not entirely irrational - if your customers spend 99% of their time in some given area, it could make sense to improve capacity in those areas instead of chasing that last 1% of coverage.
T-Mobile has actively reduced coverage these last few years where I live. Went from having almost full bars to almost nothing and calls never being put through and dropping. Just a mile or two from at least three different towers. Even with their lte hotspot placed inside my house, their network doesn't work well. I see commercials about 5g and I think, how about implementing 1g first and getting basic phone service before pretending to deploy some bullshit 5g that likely won't be around for years and no one gives a fuck about? Anyway, I have no delusions about fixing this. Unfortunately Verizon is cdma so the only real competitor is att. Tried Google fi but it wasn't great and Comcast can go fuck themselves. So either I switch to a carrier that is more expensive and likely just as bad or I stay with the shit service because the telecom idiots decided to downgrade their network ten miles outside one of the biggest cities on the west coast.
You'll have to excuse me for being skeptical about a technology pushed by telcos that in 2020 still can't get a basic cellphone voice call to connect or text messages to send reliably even with an lte hotspot literally inches away from a phone they claim 100% support for.
More "G's" have to be better. so 5 "G's" are clearly better than 4. It's kinda like that great scene in the movie This is Spinal Tap. The amp "numbers all go to eleven". When pressed, the obvious advantage is "These go to eleven".
The average person couldn't explain what either LTE or 5G are.
I just ran a Speedtest on my phone and with a relatively weak signal I'm getting 10 Mbps download via LTE. Isn't that good enough for the latest cat GIF?
I think the industry wants 5G to deal with improved cell service in densely occupied places such as football stadiums. Well, that obviously won't be a priority for the next few years!
Travelling around Korea and back home I noticed the distinct difference in consumption habbits.
Korea data isn't capped, so everyone streams news/twitch/YouTube while on there commute.
Back home, everyone reads articles and spam scrolls static images on instagram.
So "do people need bandwidth" no. Will they use it if they have it? Absolutely.
Expanding our capabilities always has unknown unknown benefits just around the corner.
And the supposed ubiquity argument for more network bandwidth is stale. People have been making this argument for decades at this point, it's roughly the same age as "When everybody with a mobile phone gets cancer you'll see" arguments.
Any time you think you see an exponential curve stretch off to infinity it just means you zoomed in too far. 16kbps was much too slow, and 16Mbps still feels a little cramped although everything works, but it turns out you have no real use for 16Gbps, even if most people you know have it too.
I believe a lot of people got the wrong idea because for them two things came along together - they got more bandwidth and Always On access together, typically as DSL or a Cable Modem. I happen to have received them separately over time, partly a quirk of fate and partly because it had been very important to me to get access to the network long before most people knew it existed.
Always On makes a huge qualitative difference. Broadband not so much. A household with Always On at 56kbps is very different from a traditional "dial-up" at 56kbps, in a way that one with 100Mbps vDSL isn't so different from one with 1Mbps ADSL or 1Gbps fibre-to-the-home. It changes how you think about using the Network, because it's always there.
I agree. My steps were dialup ISDN 64kbps -> always-on DSL 256kbps -> campus 100Mbps.
Dialup to always-on was much, much bigger change than slow DSL to blazing fast campus speeds.
Another use case is streaming + AR, I can see that becoming crazy bandwidth intensive. I think there can be some cool games if we can get high mobile bandwidth and a cleaner AR (ie. Apple glasses) experience medium.
I also think if you're asking from the perspective of why would the 4a but $350 but 4a-5g be $500, then I'd guess that the 4a-5g is going to come with more than just 5g capabilities.
For most of my friends, the disadvantages vastly outweigh them. As a simple example, you can't use uBlock Origin or another ad blocker with Firefox on iOS.
I've never felt like they were slow or missing anything I needed.
Maybe it's due to COVID-19 and supply chain issues, but they're getting rid of all variations and focusing on delivering a single version.
> ... it’s fascinating that the most important detail is the price: $349.
Local pricing on google store is A$599, despite US$349 ~= A$490.
So not quite the same bargain for us, though not hugely surprising.
> ... it’s worth remembering that technically, fall ends on December 21st this year.
Living in a country with only a dozen or so native (only only mildly) deciduous trees, but a surfeit of eucalyptus that drop dangerously large branches, leaves, and bark all year long -- we don't call autumn fall, just autumn. And it runs 1st March to 31st May. Which adds some mental gymnastics on top of the corporate hermeneutics when dealing with these announcements.
Yeah, well, Australian vendors are all trying to pay down their Toyota Prados and their seven rental property... so, fair go eh.
On a more serious note, where can I get the Pixel A4 locally? I check a couple online stores yesterday but didn't see it yet.
JB says the release date is September 10.
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/google-pixel-4a-128gb-jus... https://store.google.com.au/product/pixel_4a
Partners Oppo digitiser is on the fritz. Probably get it fixed and keep as back up device and get a Pixel A4.
I've worked for multiple companies where most of my colleagues consistently brushed this off. In each company, there was at least one significant budgeting stuff-up while I was there because someone interpreted a '$' number as the wrong kind of dollar. In the worst case I witnessed the "bill shock" was about 50 thousand dollars. (Wait, which "dollars" was that again?)
At least with "fall" I know the author is talking about autumn in the northern hemisphere -- it's not so easy when someone writes that something is to be released "this summer". :)
Totally. It should, of course, have said:
"0.0307227 BTC, as of 2020-08-04 01:31 UTC based on an average of the top 4 crypto exchanges"
;-)
(
I'd advocate ISO 8601 for everything, and it has periodicity built in -- though I happily concede "Coming in 2020-09/11" doesn't scan anywhere near as well, and would confuse way more people than it would satisfy.
Sure, but those aren't our only options. "Late 2020" or "towards the end of 2020" capture that kind of vague time frame at least as well.
If I remember correctly, AUS has a 10% VAT. So that is $539.
For the extra $60, you get an additional year of warranty and consumer protection that is offered by law.
Yup, we've got a goods and services tax (GST) that's 10%, and it's illegal, IIRC, to advertise an item to end consumers that doesn't include it.
So the AUD $599 value would include the GST - but you'd need to divide by 11, not 10, to find the GST component. Not much difference to your estimation of A$539 - the tax-free cost would be closer to A$545.
I very much appreciate the benefits of our CP laws, but unless the devices are manufactured to a different standard than those sold in other parts of the world, that cost / value isn't wrapped up into the sale price.
Maybe it is, through higher replacement rate due to longer warranty period?
I have replaced (due to hardware failures) Nexus and Pixel, under Google's warranty, which was 2 years. I don't know if they offer 2y hardware warranty everywhere, or only in AU because they're obligated to.
Either way - back to TFA, that 4A model is looking like the perfect upgrade for the original Pixel XL - slightly smaller handset, slightly larger display, 3.5mm audio jack, improved performance, more onboard RAM & storage, and lacking a hideous list price.
I've zero interest in the high end phone market, I'm sort of horrified at 6, 7, $800+ the prices, and I feel like I use fewer and fewer apps all the time.
Hopefully google with the 'a' models and Apple with the SE will stick with the mid range products.
Every update ... i wondered if it would fall into the loop... but got lucky.
That's why I'm never buying a Google branded phone.
My recollection is that the problem was an LG manufacturing defect that also affected some of their self-branded phones released around the same time... but yes, I don't know that I'd call Google a "stand behind their product" company in the way some are.
I wouldn't really describe myself as upset with the lifetime of my 5X, but I definitely would have kept it longer. I shifted to the Nokia 6.1 which was fine although with its own quirks and issues, but the price was certainly right. I'm happy now with a Pixel 3a.
The pixel 4a has “No guaranteed Android version updates after August 2023” according to google. $350 / 3 = $116/year.
iPhone 11 is $699 according to google. Let’s assume 5 years of support which is reasonable for Apple at this point which = $139.80/year.
Galaxy S8 seems to have been released 3 years ago and only has android 9.0. So let’s call that 3 years (might be less since I don’t know when the last update landed). Assuming the same for the $900 S10 = $300/year.
Note that I am told some phones have advertisements built in and also some manufacturers are also selling your data but not sure how to cost this in (and some people don’t care).
So given that iPhones are not a serious option, this phone seems like the best that exists.
Pixel doesn't have any advertisements built in the phone and the latest versions of the OS do give you control over all permissions and background access by apps.
I think it's weird to include the SE on that list. iOS seems like a great choice for a "clean" OS and the SE's camera, while not the highest end or with several sensors, is pretty great. A better emphasis would be storage and RAM which is pretty incredible and the inclusion of a headphone jack.
This is the reason why "free phone" plans are so popular. IMO, it's always lower TCO to unbundle these "deals", but so many people only care about their maximum monthly cost.
That said, I do appreciate Google's "a" variant of their recent phones for the emphasis on practicality and usability (headphone jack, battery capacity), and the $349 price tag doesn't seem extravagant for what you're getting. Mostly, I just wish they came in a smaller size.
At 350$, if you use it for 3 years (which is the minimum number of years it gets updates for), you would basically be paying more for your Netflix subscription than for your phone. And I'd wager most people use their phone much more than they do their Netflix.
it depends on how long you want to keep the phone for. I bought my phone in 2017 ago for £400 and I pay £8 a month to a carrier to get an allowance of data + calls every month (not a contract, I'm free to cancel any time) so it's worked out at about £18 a month if you amortise the initial outlay.
obviously contracts are more expensive, and can sometimes, albeit rarely, be cheaper, you just need to do the maths.
the bigger advantage to buying a phone outright is you're free to switch network/carrier as the phones are unlocked, at least in the UK anyway.
It's more valuable than my car (to me).
The competing Apple variant (lower res HDish screen but much faster CPU) is the iPhone SE 128GB for $449. It will probably get OS updates for 5 years which works out to $7.48 per month.
5.3 being newer than the 7.2, but down one class in "feature set"?
- phone batteries basically on last 2 years or less (iPhones are rated to 80% capacity after 500 cycles), which means your phone will last 4/5 as long as it did when new and possibly shut off prematurely in cold/hot temperatures unless you pay for a battery replacement ($50-100+)
- since we bring phones with us pretty much anywhere, a random fall in a pool, an unforseen rain storm, or butterfingers over a hard surface could end up destroying your phone well before those points.
While the SE (2020) certainly has more potential life than the 4a, both phones become fairly useless after 3 years due to the battery concern anyway and might not make it that far depending on who's using them. At that point, the 64GB larger storage, nicer screen, better camera, and $50 lower price of the 4a becomes a competitive advantage.
I think I'll be going for the 5, but the 4a does give me a pause. If I use it for another 3 years, I think buying the 5 is the better choice.
Notable quirk in this review: around 5:10 where he starts talking about how usable the software is, he also makes an erroneous gesture with his thumb and has to do it again. This is my experience with the Pixel 3a. The gestures require a range of motion that my thumb just does not have. This isn't going to be any better with the 4a, which is even bigger than the 3a.
It's really the only complaint I have about an otherwise good phone, and it doesn't look like the 4a really addresses it. It appears Google is looking for a software solution to battery life, which I don't disagree with, but that whole approach is basically pointless if someone happens to install Facebook on their phone.
On the positive side, the 3a has a great camera and it looks like the 4a is continuing that. I've been particularly impressed by the 3a's low-light capabilities, such as taking good photos indoors, and it's especially good considering its price.
The problem I have with the software approach to battery optimisation is that it doesn't accomodate for environmental issues like that, whereas a bigger battery does.
Only gripe I have with Pixel 3a is the "crackling" noise when volume is at max. Seems to be software because sometimes it doesn't happen. Everyone I know with the Pixel 3a has it.
I still like the 3a and use it as my daily, I just wish Google would find a way to put 3500-4000mah batteries in these.
Is it going to be an extremely slow experience or something? Should I expect apps to be laggy?
It'll be a bit slower but I wouldn't think laggy. I'm happy with my 3a performance.
I'm perfectly happy with a 3100mAh battery. The only feature I'm missing with this phone is the "squeeze button" (I forgot the real term) -- it's a much better snooze function than trying to figure out which direction to swipe to snooze when you're sleepy enough to want to snooze. All too often on my old phone I'd just shut the alarm off instead of snoozing.
This is probably the firstest first world problem I've ever had.
> 4500 mAh vs 3140 mAh on the Pixel
> microSD card slot vs no card slot on Pixel
> The A71 has more cameras
> 2 extra GBs of RAM on the A71
On a hardware-level, though, I agree, the A71 is a much better value.
Not sure I just about the storage, though. I have a Pixel 2 with 128 gigs, and I occasionally find myself having to go through and delete some things to make room for whatever new thing I want. If they're not going to include a micro SD slot (which I would prefer), then they really do need to put a generous amount of flash on the device.
> On a hardware-level, though, I agree, the A71 is a much better value.
Just because it has better hardware "specs" doesn't mean much. For example, there are phones nowadays with 112MP cameras that still take worse photos than Pixel's 12MP camera. Similarly, 12 or 16GB ram which a lot of phones flaunt makes absolutely no difference.
I'm not saying you're falling for that, but unfortunately a lot of people do direct spec sheet hardware comparisons without understanding what the numbers even mean.
The Samsung is larger, which I view as a negative, but that explains how they can have a larger battery capacity.
And it looks like the Samsung does not have the pull tabs for the adhesive underneath the battery[1]. We don't yet have a tear-down of the Pixel 4a but google has been reliably including pull tabs in their phones for years.
Checking on best buy (as a US user), the A71 actually goes for $600 if you want it unlocked and without activation [1]. So a more fair comparison is that for Americans the A71 is $250 more than the 4a, but you could get it for cheaper if you activate or buy it locked, or are willing to buy from a 3rd party on Amazon.
The A51 does seem to be available from Best Buy for $400, unlocked and unactivated, or $300 from an Amazon 3rd party, but the specs there are of course not as good as the a71.
Posting as I was excited to buy something non-Google and fully featured, but I personally don't feel the same confidence buying from some 3rd party on Amazon as I would from Best Buy or Google.
1) https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-galaxy-a71-5g-128gb-unl...
Pixel 4a: 144 x 69.4 mm iPhone 12 5.4": 131 x 64 mm
https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.gsmarena.com/google_pixel_4a-... https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkell...
I wouldn't get a phone without it.
(LineageOS, incidentally, just recently got a port to the Raspberry Pi 4.)
I will never call it "truly wireless charging" until it is a technology that charges my phone "wirelessly" many meters away from the wall socket, regardless I am using the phone in my bed or bathroom. The current method of "wireless charging" is not truly wireless, IMO.
Same for if you're working at a desk you can just set it down on the charger when you're not using it 95% of the time.
Hint: if you make it too hard for customers to feel well-informed about your devices all but the most casual buyers will simply avoid your brand.
I think it's quite nice to have the choice, upgradability, price range, etc.
That's not what OP said.
What did you understand?
In contrast, with a Macbook, I know it's not perfect, but there's a clear differentiation of qualities (air, macbook, pro), and only a couple differences within those categories, so it's a lot easier to decide based on budget, or based on your needs.
There's a lot of overlap between the airs and the non-pro macbooks, IMHO
Sure you can better decide on budget with Apple but only if you compare within Apple products. But you are not really comparing anything that makes sense at that point.
So you either care about comparing or you don't. If you care, having a wide range of choices is the optimum. And even if you don't care, you can still outsource your comparing job to the salesperson or your favourite pc part picker page, test magazine, etc.
There is no real upside to just go for Apple because you're overwhelmed with the possibilities of the alternative.
Second, this is just because they know who their market is. They're deliberately not marketing their laptops to people who don't want to have to handle a little bit of complexity in exchange for flexibility.
Apple is the Sony rx100; good but not great sensor, good but not great lens, good but not great audio. Everything is fixed and you can only make superficial changes.
Thinkpad is the Red Komodo; everything is optional, but it doesn't even include vital components in the box unless you know to order them.
You can get decent results with the former, and it requires very little thought or experience to buy and use. There is a much higher ceiling for getting exactly what you want with the latter, but it requires you to know exactly what you're doing and be willing to do some work on your setup.
Neither option is objectively better.
having a ton of options makes a lot of sense when it allows you to bring the price down. Making a change that saves you 50$ of a 1000$ laptop might not seem like a big deal, but it adds up if you buy a couple of hundred of them.
You also don't have to make the choice yourself. Ask somebody who knows what he/she's talking about...like people who sell those things or look up opinions online. This is the 21st century. There are ways. If you care...but as I said: I have the feeling many don't care and that's ok. If you have the extra money and don't care, go for it. That's the great thing about capitalism but please don't try to sell the possibility of choice as something bad. It just doesn't make any sense at all.
I never said that. The Macbook Air (at the time) was as close as any of the other models I'd shortlisted. I just got tired of micro-optimizing.
For Dell, it's the XPS line. For HP, it's Envy. For Microsoft, it's the Surface Laptop or surface book if you want 2-in-1.
And internationally the picture is even worse for carrier channels.
[0] https://www.counterpointresearch.com/amazon-leads-online-sma...
> According to the latest research from the Counterpoint Smartphone Channel Share Tracker service, the share of the online smartphone channels grew to 12% share of the total US smartphone sales in Q1 2018. Despite US consumers being massive online consumers, brick and mortar establishments remain king when it comes to purchasing smartphones.
>Carriers and national retailers have large store counts that they are leveraging to get consumers to physically touch and test high-end devices, so they know what they are buying. Stores also provide a better opportunity to up-sell accessories and insurance.
Amazon makes up 42% of online sales, which is only 12% of sales overall.
If you have ever been inside of a Verizon or AT&T or T-Mobile store, you would be interested to see how their selections compare.
Having just a 128GB version is a good thing.
I think that empirically it's fine to have a bunch of different models. Market segmentation is a thing.
There's a cheap new 4a model, with two radio options and less-big is the only size.
There's an unspecified 5 which is an update to the 4.
What's messy about that? Is there a phone manufacturer who makes fewer models than Google in 2020?
You have an iPhone XR: 64 or 128GB
iPhone SE: 64, 128, 256GB
iPhone 11: 64, 128, 256GB
iPhone 11 Pro: 64, 256, 512GB
iPhone 11 Pro Max: 64, 256, 512GB
If you make it too hard for customers to feel well-informed about your devices, all but the most casual buyers will simply avoid your brand. Sales and revenue prove this out, Apple is on the verge of bankruptcy... what?
All of that is ignoring that literally every other android handset maker has dozens of phones on the market.
USB-C Supporters have been saying all the crappy USB 2.0 USB C cable are fake or counterfeit cables from Alibaba.
Now we have one, officially from Google.
Turns out faceID doesn't work great with people wearing face masks in these COVID times.
And people like me still like to use headphone jacks to connect to things like car audio systems etc.
If the 5 and 4A 5G come out with those features, I'll be first in line for one!
That's the big thing holding me (and many people) back from being able to completely let go of DSLRs. The P30 Pro is so close, it's a real revolution. But it's not quite good enough in many situations (autofocus is slow, any kind of action, low light is pretty bad.) Whatever company puts in a truly good quality, versatile telephoto lens... they'll have my money and a massive part of the DSLR market.
I have a feeling that it's going to be either Huawei incrementally improving their telephoto lens, Google delivering a computational breakthrough (and everyone else using it), or Apple/Samsung making some intricate, complex hardware.
My Pixel 3 XL has broken Bluetooth/wifi connectivity (even after a factory reset, "Bluetooth keeps stopping"). And it only connects via USB-C for headphone or charging some of the time in a specific orientation (even after cleaning out the charging port with a paperclip and flashlight).
The device is just out of warranty but within credit-card extended warranty so I'm thinking of rolling the dice on the $481 Google Store-mediated repair process and hoping they fill out a form that Amex provides. (Risk is that, after this problem showed up, I also dropped it and got a cracked screen, so Amex might not be on board with also reimbursing screen-crack repairs.)
Aside from not having reliable Wifi, Bluetooth, or USB-C connectivity I've been very happy with the Pixel and looking forward to using a 4A while I wait to see what happens with repairs on the 3XL.
Of all the newfangled phone features, an ultrawide camera (with the software to back it) seems to be one of the new truly worth while features. I never understood nor cared for the feature until my job gave me a new phone with that had one.
It would be quite the bummer to go back to having a phone without this feature.
So many phone reviews drone on and on about the latest Snapdragon 2934838 chipset with its 2^N cores and 2^N GB of RAM. The vast majority of us simply don't care for the horsepower nonsense. We're not looking to run hadoop on top of k8s on our phones. The cameras are really where things matter.
Non-flagship Android phones are visibly slower in a responsiveness than flagships. So yes, people do care, otherwise they would not be buying flagships, saving gobs of money and accepting that sometimes it takes several seconds to open an app.
Unrelated, but what the hell is the obsession with cameras? Are you all constantly on vacation, bumping into celebrities and taking Instagram pictures of your food or whatever?
I almost exclusively use my camera to take pictures of notes and other text that I need to reference later. Occasionally I need to share something noteworthy that's happening in real time with a friend but I don't need professional level photos for that.
Besides, even if you have low quality photos you can "easily" upconvert them using one of the many available open source super resolution neural nets.
I realize average people aren't going to know how to do that, and there's a convenience factor either way, but this community consists of fairly intelligent folks
The regular Pixel 4 does have a black, and white version that looks gorgeous from the back, but then the front design is an abomination, with the top being much bigger than the bottom.
Maybe I should just stick with LineageOS, I do not put sensitive information on my phone anyway.
Disregard the prices at gsmarena, they can be found for much less.
https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=9816&idPhone2...
(No, they don't, and it's been a dealbreaker for me for several generations. That plus low price plus stock android is the attraction of the pixel 3a and 4a for me.)
All that said, I'm happy using a Samsung phone - manufactured in Vietnam, has a headphone jack and sdcard slot, minimal bloatware, cheap.
Use with my existing headphones/aux cables around my house, same port as my desktop/laptop, same port as various devices at my relatives houses, never need to hunt to find a dongle, (especially when most people i know have iphones - so no usb-c dongles anywhere)
TL;DR: Aux cables are useful to me daily, dongles are a pain in the ass, bluetooth doesnt fit my use case or equipment i already use. Aux port has value to me and options still exist to get phones with an aux port so I vote with my wallet.
But the real advantage of aux sounds like the standardization to you - and that's mostly a question of simply making the jump. Yes, you need to spend a little money (but much less than your other devices like phones/laptops/etc, so it's not a crazy step), perhaps even hundreds. But once you do - bluetooth support is about as pervasive as aux, and becoming more so. Quite a few devices no longer have aux ports, but do have bluetooth. Even today, you'll be able to use your bluetooth headphones with essentially all phones and laptops regardless of brand (assuming they're not ancient, and maybe some extremely low end stuff is missing bluetooth). If your desktop doesn't support bluetooth, a desktop dongle is just a few dollars and you can leave it in permanently.
Switching standards is annoying, but it's going to happen sometime; and at this point bluetooth is pervasive enough that it's pretty usable.
> You're going to have to replace the equipment
Or I could just keep buying and using phones with aux ports, and all the equipment at home/friends/family will continue to work
> But the real advantage of aux sounds like the standardization to you - and that's mostly a question of simply making the jump
I already listed a number of places I use the aux port. The only thing I own that uses bluetooth is a Garmin watch. I see no reason to switch.
> Yes, you need to spend a little money (but much less than your other devices like phones/laptops/etc
Or I could keep using aux and not spend any money, and my laptop/phone/desktop/car/headphones will all continue to work together just fine.
> Even today, you'll be able to use your bluetooth headphones with essentially all phones and laptops regardless of brand
Not with my desktop, nor my home theatre, nor my in flight entertainment.
> If your desktop doesn't support bluetooth, a desktop dongle is just a few dollars and you can leave it in permanently.
Or, again, keep using aux and have great quality and no dropouts?
> Switching standards is annoying, but it's going to happen sometime; and at this point bluetooth is pervasive enough that it's pretty usable.
Every time I use bluetooth, it is slow (garmin watch) or it drops out (car audio in numerous vehicles, microsoft wireless mouse) or the music stutters (cars again) or the batteries die (friends I see with bluetooth earbuds). Bluetooth offers me zero improvement, numerous regressions. And yeah, standards may switch sometime. But I have family with knob-and-tube wiring still in use, I doubt aux cables are disappearing anytime soon.
But if you find the headphone jack the most important feature for a phone then the Oneplus is not for you,.
Interestingly enough, you might try to find a cheap Oneplus 5T from 2017 which is still a better phone than the 4a in 2020 and I think it was cheaper on release.
Google isn't really current when it comes to hardware.
But a year and a bit later, the software is already starting to slow down even with a reset (switching to video from photo incurs a good 5-10 second delay, opening the camera itself takes a few seconds), and the volume rocker on the side snapped when I was just turning down Spotify.
The "it's a bargain!" selling point is less of a thing in Europe, where they do some currency conversion fiddling. And the poor sales means aftercare is awful - my screen cracked a few weeks ago and I have to go to a third party, looking at 180euro.
Coupled with Google's terrible implementation of work accounts (want to just join a Meet on your work email? Wait while we set up an entire work profile, download the requirements etc. Oh but, by the way, the calendar app doesn't have any way to view your work profile events) and I'm less enthusiastic this time around, sadly.
FWIW that's really not normal. Sounds like I got my pixel 3a around the same time as you, and I haven't had any problems like that. I wonder if you have a hardware defect of some sort.
> Coupled with Google's terrible implementation of work accounts
What's special about work accounts? I added both my personal and work Google accounts without any issues and can see events from both in my calendar, switch between them in google drive, etc.
In calendar? Nothing.
I agree the camera thing does not sound normal, but again if it's a defect it does speak further to the "can tell the build quality was lower already" comment
Take any benchmarks with a grain of salt, of course, but it appears the 845 is only about 10% faster than the 730G on average. Still that double memory bandwidth certainly affects perceived performance a bit.
Also, the 4a doesn't have Fast Charging like the 3a.
0 - https://store.google.com/magazine/compare_pixel?toggler0=Pix...
- Spain, Italy: 389€
- Germany: 340€
- France: 349€
TL;DW: They're positioning it directly against the Oneplus Nord.
Personally I'm happy the Pocophone F1 finally has some competition in the quality-reasonably-priced segment.
For Normies the 4a will probably be the best software-wise while I still consider the Pocophone a great device due to its repairability and large battery (good FOSS ROM support is important but luckily given on such popular devices).
I'm currently looking for a phone and the Moto G Pro is easily available, an Android One device so gets proper updates for a long time as well and seems to have very comparable specs for less money.
> Australia (September 10), Canada (September 10), France (September 10), Germany, India (October), Ireland, Italy, Japan (August 20), Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and United States.
Ten years after the first Nexus, Google still doesn't know how to sell hardware.
Since Pixel 2 was the best phone across any OS I have used, I will probably stick with the Pixel line. I don't think I will upgrade this year but hopefully Pixel 5 has good flagship features and is not underwhelming like Pixel 4.
Now we're talkin'.
I still think Apple has a better track record here, but 3 years is better than any other Android phone vendor that I'm aware of.
I really think Google could do better. Sure, you don't have to wait long for new Android version as with other manufacturers (e.g. Huawei), but 3 years is nothing to applaud Google for.
Some other manufacturers actually provide quarterly updates after those 3 years but are more inconsistent with delivering monthly updates.
I went out for a run one day and it rained my phone got slightly damp in my pocket, never booted again and Google Support offered to repair it for ~£500.
Hard to consider spending that amount on a phone again.
I was a terrible critic of apple but now I own an iPhone just because I am fairly certain that I will be better treated if something happens and there's an actual physical store.
I just don't trust Google hardware anymore.
After my pixel 4 debacle I tried getting second hand pixel 3's as a cheaper alternative, I got 2 devices with the exact same issue with the jittery camera, they were returned straight away but I find it amazing that I have personally had 3 pixel 3 devices with the same camera hardware bug.
I cant bring myself to buy an iPhone, as a web developer having a decent browser is table stakes for me. But I have also lost all trust in Google hardware / support.
* audio jack
* affordable
* fingerprint reader
* lightweight
* good performance
* great camera
The answer didn't appear in a skim of the first several paragraphs, and like many here I don't care enough to RTWFA
Every time there's a new phone announcement, I hope.
Perfect dimensions, plastic body, headphone jack, yes! It'll make a nice replacement for my Moto X4.
The Zenfone 7 is the last major announcement this year for me to consider because otherwise its a compromise on one of those axis. Phones kinda suck.
So, while I don't think it's worth waiting for, I do think it is a good thing overall.
I can't help but think the 4a would have been perfect with a 4000mah battery.
The phone is a good value overall, but 3,100 mAh will hardly last you one day and be almost empty by night. I prefer phones with more generous batteries, so that there's never a risk of running out by the end of the day.
Hopefully Pixel 5a will come with 4,500-5,000 mAh next year, as many low-end $200-$300 phones have these days.
I'm interested in some of the recent flagships and gaming phones that have 5-6000mAh batteries and settings to not charge up to 100% every night. Once the battery is big enough, you can do things like that to extend the longevity. I'm hoping to see more of that.
Such a clean offer. I'm amazed.
EDIT: OK. I'm wrong. It actually has old Gorilla Glass. I hope that will make this phone way better than Pixel 3a which was completely disappointment because of poor glass choice (e.g. here is example of users experience https://support.google.com/pixelphone/thread/9205039?hl=en)