The Google Pixel 6 won’t ship with a charger | Hacker News Reader

The Google Pixel 6 won’t ship with a charger

theverge.com

28 pointsmiles18 comments

Good. I hope other manufacturers follow suit.

Two reasons why this is good:

1. Since being competitive on cost incentivizes others to do the same, this is a strong push towards standardization of chargers (and with abundance of USB3-PD flavors, we aren't quite there).

2. I have way more chargers than I can make use of. I believe that this is more common than not having a single USB-C charger. The environmental cost of this is a negative externality that I feel this move reduces (even if by a little bit).

If I were to make a decision on this, I would introduce an environmental disposal tax on all devices which would disincentivize freebies like that.

"The environmental cost of this is a negative externality that I feel this move reduces"

I don't think it is an externalized cost given that you pay for your trash to be disposed of. (I assume you aren't littering)

This would be an internalized cost. You are paying for the cost of your own waste.

You pay for trash to be disposed of, not for it to not fuck up the environment

If "security theatre" is a term so should "environmental impact theatre" or something like that.

When Apple did this I was amused. Having worked in a warehouse processing Apple products. The amount of unnecessary plastic, and the stupid ridiculous way they glue their boxes together (making them impossible to make flat so they can be recycled easily) is nuts. Each individual small cable, adapter box is wrapped in plastic. Which is then put into a box, within another box (not a joke), all glued in a strange and unnecessary fashion.

I haven't processed google products for work, though I do own a Pixel. Their use of plastic is much less than Apple, though again I haven't dealt with importing multiple Google products.

I can appreciate the frustration that will cause the first person to buy a modern phone, but consider it a good thing for every subsequent owner, *provided* there aren't some kind of weird "requires a USB 3.1b-mark2 charging cable, sold separately" shenanigans

Now with the cost savings, they can add back the headphone jack like a sane phone

>I can appreciate the frustration that will cause the first person to buy a modern phone,

We are pretty close to Smartphone saturation. If we take US as an example, there are ~300M Smartphone user out of ~330M population. If you take out kids under age of 10 you are running close to 100% already. And even those who dont own a Smartphone, the probability of their household owning an USB charger is pretty high.

I do hope the include a USB-A to USB-C cable though.

Current Google chargers have C-to-C cables. I don't see them shipping A-to-C, I'd rather assume there's no cable at all.

Not really. Modern phones have fast-charging standards that often mean they won't work with any old charger, you'll need one with USB-PD that supports the correct voltage and for some very fast charging phones or phones with higher efficiency charging systems you will need special chargers for the best performance.

This is actually anti-consumer and I will explain why.

Most new phones have upgraded charging capabilities, but only with the newest charging brick and cable. The newer Samsung S series of phones do this. If you had the previous model's charger it would only 'cable charge'. If you had the beefier charger it would 'fast charge'. If you had the latest year Samsung charger and cable you got 'super fast charging'. The latest is a 45w charger they sell for $50 for just the block.

Essentially you will find out that unless you are buying a new phone every year, you will constantly have to buy a new charger and cable to keep up with the new charging speeds.

Oh and good luck finding a non-samsung charging cable that will actually reach' super fast charging' speeds, I've yet to find a 8-10' cable that will actually charge at the claimed speeds.

So really it's not cutting down on waste, either financial or environmental. You will undoubtedly buy yet another charger for more money, packaged in a far-bigger-than-necessary package.

It's all just another way to force the customer into more purchases and hide the total costs.

But hey, people have tons of old cables/boxes lying around, so surely this must be the first pro-consumer move in the history of American companies!

As much as this irritates me emotionally, rationally its a good idea. I haven't used a charger that came with a cell phone in years.

I have a handful of small GaN chargers always around. They can charge anything (including laptops) and generally can put out more power than any phone charger.

I never have to worry about "Can this charger work with <X>?". The answer is always "Yes" although perhaps a bit slowly for a really big laptop.

Hoping this makes the pixel 6 the cheapest pixel phone ever.

It'll likely be the most expensive ever, they seem to aim for the flagship category.

I'm only dropping a thousand dollars on a phone, who needs a charger /s. I was trying to wait for the pixel 6 but now going to pass and buy a Samsung.

Who does the exact same thing now.

Pixels are regularly $500 or far less, what are you babbling about?

Why not just include a coupon for a free charger or let the customer decide?

The skeptic in me says that people would take a freebie regardless of whether they actually need it or not.

Maybe a slight improvement would be to offer the phone at full price minus the RRP of the charger. Then if it's necessary the customer can pay the 'full' price as it introduces a perceived cost

Make it a coupon for any accessory (case, charger, headphones etc) or play store credit and most people will probably get something they would have gotten anyway.

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