I am typing this comment on a Pixel 7. I have had it for nearly two years and I have never experienced these symptoms.

The only app I can think of that doesn’t load in under a second is Asphalt Legends - and that’s because the app takes a week to load on anything.

I am very satisfied with this device, and doubt I’ll be upgrading to Pixel 9. I have no reason to upgrade.

Surely opinions on this are going to vary wildly? Lemmy is full of people installing graphene and de-googling, while I’m happy with stock Android on Pixels with a custom launcher. Samsung, Sony and Asus all have serious devotees as well.

There’s also different responses depending on what you want in a phone. Some people want smaller than 6", others must have a 3.5mm jack. Some want SD storage. The camera is vital for me, but most of my colleagues don’t really care about the camera.

How would you sift through all that for a “best” one size fits all phone?

If it was that big a deal for you, why would you use a phone OS by that same company?

SMS is hot garbage:

1. The first “S” stands for short. If your message is over 160 characters, you are sending multiple messages. The implementation of SMS is a hack on the carrier network in the first place, and joining multiple messages, particularly across carriers is a complication to this hack. Sure, 99.99% of messages are delivered just fine. But if the message doesn’t arrive for some reason, there’s no acknowledgement of this. The recipient just doesn’t get it.
2. SMS is easy to spoof. If I have even basic carrier access, I can send a message to your dad from your number.
3. SMS is not secure - at all.
4. I can initiate a number port on your number, and while that port request will likely fail, it’s possible that I can receive messages that were destined for you in the short term.

But sure. It works for anyone on any phone.

The neat thing about Android is that you have the choice to do that. None of us understand why you want to use sms over rcs, but we love that you can.

the days of being remotely excited by phone design are way behind us. This looks like an iPhone 4 with a pixel 6+ camera bar. Meh.

I guess it’s neat, but I don’t see the point. 99% of my maps usage is local navigation, mostly in the car. I already know the weather.

The remaining 1% is using the app like an atlas, I guess it’s nice to know that it’s snowing today in Estonia, but that’s not why I’m looking at the place in Google maps.

Is this a feature people will find useful?

I’m tempted. At the moment my daily carry is a Pixel 7 and an iPad mini. Thing is: the iPad mini is absolutely perfect as an 8" tablet. The Fold is going to have to be amazeballs to even consider switching.

But, carrying around one device would be amazing. Number of times I’ve been unexpectedly yoinked into a meeting and not had my tablet makes me yearn for this.

The biggest things giving me cause to pause are losing iOS (not that I like it more, but I like being current with both OSes) and the Fold’s weight. I won’t want to run with the fold in my pocket. Looks like I’ll need to also upgrade my watch.

So, really I’d be going from there everyday-carry devices to two. And I would need to upgrade them both.

semi-succesful

18 Million subscribers, Billions of views, has had Kobe Bryant and the US president as guests on his channel. If that’s “semi-succesful”, what on earth is your yard-stick for successful?

I don’t always agree with his takes, but I honestly can’t think of a better or better-known tech reviewer.

I’ve been on the Pixel bandwagon since the start. I haven’t had every generation, but I’ve had more than half of them. The pure Android experience and the best cameras on the market have been the biggest draws for me.

I haven’t had a Samsung since the Galaxy 5, but i hated the bloat they came with. To me, the biggest flaw to Android is that manufacturers can slap their own launchers/mail and browsers/assistants on them, totally changing the feel of the OS and still get to call the result “Android”.

this is mainly because Android stopped supporting 3rd party launchers.

What do you mean? I’ve always used my own launcher. I’ve never used the pixel launcher - not because I have anything against it, but because I like Nova better. L

I voted in last year’s competition (missed it this year). It was super well run, truly a blind test, and I agreed with the final report completely.

Yet Marques always gives his ‘best camera phone’ award to Apple, knowing and acknowledging that the Pixels beat Apples in his blind tests. He thinks the overall photo experience with Apple is better.

I disagree with him, but I get where he’s coming from.

I’ve only used the Asphalt Xtreme game, and it’s awesome. It’s like the old asphalt 6 days where you raced cars and didn’t need to worry about fuel or in-app micro transactions to progress.

The only selling point to Netflix gaming is that there are no in-app purchases or ads. I can’t see any scenario where adding adds/micro transactions doesn’t immediately kill Netflix gaming.

Frankly, I think this whole thing is a beat up for clicks.

Wait, we’re seeing less frequent updates as a bad thing now? Sorry, but stability is something I really like about my phone.

I pay for prime for the shipping advantages. I barely ever watch it, no way could I justify having it for just the streaming services.

This news article does not change the simple fact that there was a gay couple in Lightyear - a Pixar film.

Um, there was a gay couple in Lightyear. That’s a Pixar film.

But I honestly love the Bangs and shouting! That sequence was great!

I can picture a future where people don’t bother with that. Similar to how we slowly abandoned landlines to go 100% mobile, I can imagine people going to data-only plans.

I’m about to get a phone for my kid starting high school next year, and frankly, I can see already see a case for just getting him a data plan.

I agree with him. If you don’t know what you are doing and just blindly install something off the Internet, it’s a security concern. I would not recommend that most users side-load apps, either. You have to remember that this crowd is not representative of the average user.

Just don’t take the option away from those of us who do know what they are doing.

Yes and no. DSLRs can be cheaper, but there’s something to be said about the simplicity of taking a photo and sending it immediately to a prospective family, or if your site is set up nicely, uploading it straight to a website in moments.

You can get superior photos shooting with a DSLR, but then you’ll want to put the camera somewhere safe, extract the SD card, touch it up with Photoshop/Lightroom and then save the raw as jpg. Then you can send it/upload it.

Meanwhile with the phone, you’ve taken half a dozen photos and multiple chats going on the device.