Google Revamps Its Smartphone Line With the Pixel 6 (techcrunch.com) 50
This morning, at the company's virtual hardware event, Google is finally showing us what it means to pick up and start over again. From a report: In many ways, the Pixel 6 marks the most radical departure in the history of Google's flagship devices -- and its most serious attempt to take the fight to Samsung and Apple. The company gave us our first glimpse of the device back in August. It was a surprisingly complete look at a device it would take another three and a half months to announce. Hardware head Rick Osterloh primarily focused on chips, design and the fact that Google was becoming the latest company to buck its reliance on Qualcomm by building its own in-house chip, Tensor. And now it is. The Tensor had landed, alongside the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro it powers. I have the latter in my possession, and it's immediately clear that this is a radically new direction for the Pixel line. Google's clearly gone in a premium direction with the new device, which shares more common DNA with the likes of Samsung's devices than any of the Pixels we've seen to date.
The Pixel 6 sports a 6.4-inch FHD+ OLED at 411 ppi -- that bit, at least, is keeping with mid-range specs. The Pro bumps it up to a 6.7-inch QHD+ at 512 ppi. Those displays have refresh rates of 90 and 120 Hz, respectively, protected by a Gorilla Glass Victus cover, which curves on the edges. [...] The 6 supports two lenses: a 50-megapixel wide-angle camera and 12-megapixel on the 6, plus a 48 megapixel telephoto on the 6 Pro. That last one does 4x optical or up to 20x Super Res, though even with computational photography, things are going to degrade pretty quickly. The front-facing camera, meanwhile, is eight megapixels on the 6 and 11 megapixels on the 6 Pro, with 84- and 94-degree fields of view, respectively. [...] The company has addressed some of the battery issues that plagued earlier models. The 6 and 6 Pro feature 4,614 and 5,003mAh batteries, respectively -- that's a nice jump from the Pixel 5's 4,080mAh (which, in turn, was a nice jump from the Pixel 4). The Pixel 6 starts at $599 and the Pixel 6 Pro starts at $899.
The Pixel 6 sports a 6.4-inch FHD+ OLED at 411 ppi -- that bit, at least, is keeping with mid-range specs. The Pro bumps it up to a 6.7-inch QHD+ at 512 ppi. Those displays have refresh rates of 90 and 120 Hz, respectively, protected by a Gorilla Glass Victus cover, which curves on the edges. [...] The 6 supports two lenses: a 50-megapixel wide-angle camera and 12-megapixel on the 6, plus a 48 megapixel telephoto on the 6 Pro. That last one does 4x optical or up to 20x Super Res, though even with computational photography, things are going to degrade pretty quickly. The front-facing camera, meanwhile, is eight megapixels on the 6 and 11 megapixels on the 6 Pro, with 84- and 94-degree fields of view, respectively. [...] The company has addressed some of the battery issues that plagued earlier models. The 6 and 6 Pro feature 4,614 and 5,003mAh batteries, respectively -- that's a nice jump from the Pixel 5's 4,080mAh (which, in turn, was a nice jump from the Pixel 4). The Pixel 6 starts at $599 and the Pixel 6 Pro starts at $899.
What would really impress me (Score:5, Insightful)
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Kiss the waterproof rating goodbye if you want any of those. The market has spoken and this is what people want.
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Motorola had 2 out of 3 in their X4 (SD card and headphone jack in a waterproof phone).
Sadly they discontinued it and no longer make a waterproof phone, just ones with a "water repellent coating".
Aaron Z
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Is a smartphone with a replaceable battery, expandable storage, and a headphone jack.
Kiss the waterproof rating goodbye if you want any of those. The market has spoken and this is what people want.
My Kyocera Hydro VIBE from 2015, had *all* those things and an IP57 rating. From the spec sheet:
Certified dust resistant and waterproof for IP57 - protection against dust and water immersion for up to 30 minutes in up to 3.28 feet (1 meter) of water.
Unfortunately, it only supported Android 4.4 and I had to replace it last month as it stopped getting all app updates, stopped working with the Play Store, and the battery was finally getting wonky.
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The standard these days is IP68, which is substantially stronger, especially on the dust-resistance side..
Sure, but that doesn't negate the fact that even IP57, which is submersion in a meter of water for 30 minutes (and probably enough for most people/uses), *with* a removable battery, expandable storage and a headphone jack was easily achievable 6 years ago, in a phone that cost me $150 (on sale) -- and still works today.
Re:What would really impress me (Score:5, Insightful)
Kiss the waterproof rating goodbye if you want any of those. The market has spoken and this is what people want.
Pixel 5a has a headphone jack and is rated IP67.
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>"Pixel 5a has a headphone jack and is rated IP67."
But no SD card and finger sensor is on the back instead of front. Both of those killed it for me. For the same price, I ended up with the better A52 5G, and very happy.
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Pixel 5a is not available in Australia, for some weird reason. 4a is now the only option other than 6/6 Pro on the Google Store.
Re: What would really impress me (Score:3)
My Note 20 Ultra is waterproof. It has a 512GB microSD installed. It falls in my hot tub regularly. Never an issue.
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My Note 20 ultra is waterproof. It has an SD card slot. I have a 512 GB microSD card in it.
I use it every day in my hot tub for the last year. It has fallen in it many times. No issue.
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It's possible that they don't spend an excessive amount of time in a hot tub, but rather they are just a combination of a massively clumsy oaf and incapable of putting their phone down while in a hot tub.
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I couldn't care less about a phone being "water proof". I think this has more to do with planned obsolescence than "what the people want." Kinda hard to get extra time out of that "flagship phone" when the battery craps out and there's no economical way to replace it.
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How do you know that there's no economical way to replace it? Did you post this from a couple years in the future when Pixel 6 series phones start needing battery replacement, and nobody has spent the next 24 months from now figuring out how to do that, like has happened for literally every popular phone in the last 5 years?
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That's nonsense, Samsung flagships had microsd and headphone jack until they went out of style (S7, S8, S9, some of the latter ones) S5 removable battery too. There's a still sold Galaxy Active Tab Pro with all of the above including huge removable battery and IP68 rating.
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Then why did Samsung stop putting all of that into their devices if they had it all figured out already? Perhaps because it was additional manufacturing expense that nobody truly cared about except for a really loud tiny minority on the Internet? Or maybe because some of those things that the vast majority of device buyers never used got in the way of other features that are more compelling to more people? Perhaps the inclusion of those things made water / dust proofing less reliable and resulted in far
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There can be many "whys" starting from upfront costs of all kinds (including for support/warranty) to some real or perceived value for the manufacturer to not include these: more devices sold if you can't easily replace batteries on existing ones, people willing to splurge for the higher tier devices with slightly larger batteries or storage at completely unreasonable prices, market for other expensive devices (who would have thought Apple/Samsung would come with headphones in hundreds of dollars range, tha
Re: What would really impress me (Score:2)
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You, and literally tens--no, HUNDREDS--of other people.
Everyone that agitates for that stuff is here on slashdot, and it's not even clear that you're a majority HERE, let alone in the general populace. If Google wants to be more popular, those aren't the things that are going to get millions of people to flock to their phones.
In short: they're not trying to impress you, because your demographic does not buy enough phones to make it worth their while.
Easy to find (Score:4, Funny)
Is a smartphone with a replaceable battery, expandable storage, and a headphone jack.
Easy to find - just look for stores that sell bell-bottom pants and afro wigs.
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Get a Note 20 Ultra if you want the removable storage. Google wants to sell you cloud storage and will never put removable storage in their phones.
The Note 20 Ultra is a great phone. No headphone jack, and that is pretty stupid, but bluetooth works fairly well nowadays, unless you are on an airplane and everyone else is using bluetooth too. But with COVID, I hardly do any flying now.
Lack of replaceable battery is very annoying on such an expensive phone. That said, I have never had to replace the battery on
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>"replaceable battery, expandable storage, and a headphone jack"
You forgot in-screen fingerprint sensor and SD card. In something fast, with good cameras, 5g, LED screen, and that is affordable.
Pixel 6 has no headphone jack, no SD card... both game killers for me. But at least they put the sensor in the screen/front where it belongs.
I couldn't wait any longer, and ended up with the Samsung A52 5G. It has everything I listed, and more, and costs far less than a Pixel. Yes, I wish it had an easily repl
Re: What would really impress me (Score:1)
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So buy it. The one Walmart bought for all their employees is of that type. $500-ish.
What I want... (Score:2)
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The Pine phone.
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The Pine phone.
I think you mean the PinePhone Pro:
https://www.pine64.org/pinepho... [pine64.org] $399 (plus tax and stuff)
But:
"We’re not in the business of selling empty promises – a much faster mainline Linux smartphone won’t make the existing operating systems more refined, nor will it magically spawn software replacements for your iOS or Android applications. There is a long road ahead of us, all of us, and it will require time and effort for the software to reach a degree of maturity that would satisfy ma
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The Pine phone.
I think you mean the PinePhone Pro:
I'm waiting for the Chris PinePhone, so I can hide it at the bottom of the ocean with my starship.
Most advanced surveillance device in history (Score:4, Interesting)
It's all about surveillance. It's brilliant. Instead of Google spending money on their own data center AI hardware and bandwidth, they are fooling people into paying for machine learning surveillance hardware that they carry in their pocket 24/7. This is just like the fake FBI encrypted honeypot phones, taken to the next level.
Re:Most advanced surveillance device in history (Score:5, Funny)
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I assume you have some evidence that this is true. You should publish it, the fine they get from the EU for GDPR violations will be epic.
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GraphineOS. Requires a Pixel phone. Is pretty secure.
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We'll have to wait and see if someone is able to make a solution for the closed source AI firmware. Simply putting an open source OS on top of it isn't enough.
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Getting Close (Score:4, Insightful)
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Universal dock ? Manufacturers would never agree to this.
Re: Getting Close (Score:2)
USB-C dock should be fairly simple to implement as an app for KVM.
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Still, requires manufacturers to all agree on the same connector. USB-C is still not on every new smartphone (Apple, cough cough).
And those USB-C all have different specs in terms of charging speed and data transfer speeds. Some may be Thunderbolt compatible, and others not.
So, I doubt we'll see anything universal.
Re: Getting Close (Score:2)
Samsung has been doing this for years.
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You can already do that. The USB C port supports HDMI. Bluetooth for keyboard and mouse. You can use a USB C hub too.
Samsung has a full desktop mode for their phones called Dex that gives you windows rather than a phone/tablet style tiled interface.
It's pretty usable with websites in desktop mode and some well designed apps.
Doesn't come with headphones or a charger (Score:2)
More brave new product decisions from Google, straight up copying Apple's decisions to cheap out on basics.
Before anyone says 'why do you need another set of headphones/charger?' like it's some huge ask to want everything I need in the box to actually use the flagship device that I'm buying.... Sure, I still have the charger from my Pixel 3. But it's now three years old. Despite careful use, it's fraying at the connector end - I don't really like using electronics once they start literally falling apart. An
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1. is there anyone out there that doesn't already have a pile of chargers and headphones from past battery-powered devices and previous phones? I literally have a plastic storage bin filled with USB chargers of various current ratings, and the last 5 smartphones I've used, the shitty earbuds included never even left the box.
2. If you know ahead of time that it doesn't have a charger or headphones in the box, and you need one that very minute you receive the phone, I'm pretty sure anyone that sells you the
What does it do better (Score:2)
than my 150 Android phone that I use to sell weed, buy coke on Fri night and order hookers from Leoslist and take photos of the party to post on Fetlife to make it look like I pick up ladies all the time.