Android is struggling to keep its market share in the United States, as Apple continues to take over in the market. But, despite Android as a whole losing ground, Google Pixel phones are becoming a bigger slice of the US market.
Counterpoint Research reports that, in Q2 2023, US smartphone shipments dropped by 24% year-over-year. That includes both iPhones and Android phones, and virtually every brand saw a drop in shipments. Samsung saw US shipments drop by 37% while Motorola saw a 17% drop. TCL saw the biggest decline at just shy of 70% year-over-year, and even Apple saw a 6% drop.
I use a pixel and I have a hard time justifying a different phone.
Maybe things have changed but the last Samsung I had was an S7 and I didn’t like it. It suffered from bloat and didn’t last all that long. Battery issues and the screen started to lose sensitivity.
I’ve used iphones and they aren’t bad, but I really dislike apple’s app store and effort to control everything on my phone. Also everytime a new phone came out my old phone became next to unusable for a month.
I got a pixel 3 and loved it, now I have a pixel 6 and don’t see changing my phone any time soon or going to a non-pixel phone. They last a long time, they work well with everything and the camera is excellent.
I have a hard time justifying a different phone
A pixel doesn’t have SD card slot or 3.5 mm jack. My Xperia 1V has both. There. Justified.
I mean most consumers don’t care about those 🤷♀️
most consumers have shit taste 🤷♀️
Or those features just aren’t that useful in modern phones…
If I’m paying flagship money then I want all features that’s even slightly useful
So why did you buy a Sony that doesn’t have adaptive refresh rate or a good auto camera?
The camera in auto mode is quite good as far as I can tell. I’m not sure what you mean by adaptive refresh rate? Is 120Hz too low for your taste?
While I understand the appeal, those are 2 features that I don’t need. Having the option would be nice though.
I think more people should have this kind of view, and less of an all or nothing approach.
I’m looking to switch from Samsung to a non-Google phone, It’s too bad no networks seem to carry the Xperia in Canada. Really don’t want to shell out $2000 up front for a phone.
You know I used to be with you on the SD card slot thing because phones used to have barely any internal storage. But now we’re seeing phones with hundreds of GB of onboard storage and having an SD card expansion on top of that feels wholly unnecessary.
I’m with you on the 3.5mm jack tho.
Your phone doesn’t have an adaptive refresh rate screen, a good auto camera, etc etc. Swings and roundabouts.
I’ve used https://shop.fairphone.com/ for a while now, a bit less slick and more expensive, but I’m very satisfied. I already degoogled completely, can’t have a Google phone now :D
What does Fairphone offer for the car infortainment interface, or are you stuck without one?
I don’t own a car, no idea.
Lmao, god I’m so jealous of Europe sometimes. I have to assume you don’t live in the US.
There are some places here you can get away with not having one, but its basically a non-option for the vast majority of the US
True, sorry about that :(
All good lol. There are things I appreciate about my country, but definitely also things I don’t 😅 city planing and viability of bikes & walking are 100% the latter
NotJustBikes
I mean, Fairphone runs Android. So the same Android Auto that a Google Pixel would have
That is by Google though. Right? They said their phone is de-googled. So maybe the question isn’t what does Fairphone have, but what does a de-googled Android phone use?
fair enough, my bad
Which OS do you run on it?
The maddening thing is how much effort Samsung wastes duplicating basic gapps. Their contacts manager, calendar, etc has no real advantages over the Google ones. Just focus on the hardware and overall experience? Stop wasting time reinventing the wheel. Same with their app store. I’ve had an S20 for the last 4 years. Used Samsung since the S2 which I still have. And am looking at a pixel to replace it since my security updates are running out.
The maddening thing is how much effort Samsung wastes duplicating basic gapps. Their contacts manager, calendar, etc has no real advantages over the Google ones.
They do have advantages over the google ones though. One big advantage is that “they’re not google ones”.
Stop wasting time reinventing the wheel. Same with their app store.
A google monopoly should be the last thing anyone wants. You should be wishing more developers would put their apps on the Samsung Store along with any other stores.
Can you explain what you mean by bloat with the s7? I have that and like my phone, just wondering why others don’t.
I remember having an S6 and it come with so many apps preinstalled that you can’t uninstall. There’s the default Google/android apps which is fine because those are the basics. Then Samsung puts a bunch of their own apps on there that basically duplicates a bunch of these and can’t be uninstalled, and then there’s other bloat apps like Facebook, maybe candy crush or some shit, maybe Netflix, that all can’t be uninstalled. The worst offender is Facebook because it was on almost any other phone not running stock android but supposedly had deeper privileges as a “system” app
There’s the default Google/android apps which is fine because those are the basics.
And this is the problem, and it’s absurd that google haven’t been stopped from doing this by any anti-competition regulators. Samsung don’t want google apps on their phones, they have to have them. Samsung make their own, and they’re often better than googles and are far more integrated into the OS.
They don’t have to have them. Mine doesn’t.
They have to from the factory.
No. They don’t.
What Samsung phones come without google apps and google play services installed?
I don’t know what OP is talking about, by the time the S7 came around the bloat was already heavily reduced, I’m on an S10E still and think it’s one of the best phones ever, apart from the lackluster battery maybe. But current day Samsung Android I don’t consider bloated.
Maybe I had an S6, but I remember a bunch of apps I couldn’t get rid of, Facebook being a big offender. I didn’t save a list of what I disliked, but it was enough for me to go back to the iPhone for a bit.
This is all personal opinion though, I like my current phone, I like it enough to stick with them unless things change drastically. Maybe part of the issue is that I upgrade my phone every 3-5 years.
Also this might be a newer phone thing not a pixel thing, but it seems to be way more water resistant. I accidentally put my pixel 3 in the washing machine for a full cycle and it worked fine afterwards.
Yeah I would never buy a non-Pixel phone now.
They’re right at the top in the battery department, there’s still a little bloat but you can disable things. Maybe 5 garbage games and FB
Same still have the original pixel xl and it felt amazing to use and now I got a refurb pixel 6 for like 200$ with grapheneos and its honestly the best thing I brought in a while
Maybe things have changed but the last Samsung I had was an S7
An S7 may as well have been a Symbian phone compared to the OS Samsung phones now run.
Still using an S7E to this day as the battery seems basically indestructable…
The one single weak spot? I actually had to replace the glue.
GrapheneOS is what keeps me from switching from Pixel.
Watch the Louis Rossman video on YouTube about Graphene OS developer.
One of the Lemmy developers appears to be a militant communist who denies the Uyghur genocide, yet here we are. Quite a few open source developers are insane and trying to avoid software with problematic contributors is an easy path to follow them into madness. It might stop me from donating money or getting heavily involved with development, but it’s not going to stop me from using the software.
I didn’t immediately reformat my ReiserFS partitions when Hans Reiser was arrested for murdering his wife either.
People defend capitalism too. Not that one justifies the other. People tend to cling blindly to ideals rather than compromise for the good of everyone.
That developer stepped down
I apply the rule of separating the Art from the Artist in this case. No doubt he is insane but Graphene OS is the most secure+private OS that he has build
This one?
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/4To-F6W1NT0
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
You should watch it again. He said that GrapheneOS is great, but the Developer isn’t.
Google keeps locking tons of Android features away behind their own privatized software stack.
Better for Google, but they are cutting their nose to spite their face here, as Android as a whole suffers for it.
Stuff like call screening in the android dialer would be possible on any brand of device. But no, pixel only.
The pixels have the very best android experience. It comes close to iPhone. But pixels aren’t the whole market. Overall Google is trying to claw back control of the entire platform and I hate it.
There needs to be a 3rd mobile platform that isn’t tied to Android. I really wish the Ubuntu phone took off, but Linux on mobile in general would be a really good thing… stock Debian or something. Then if an OEM wants to make their own distro to customize some things they can. I know this is done with Android today, but the ties to Google and the conflict of interest will also make that a weird relationship. I think the road for that will be very long without some corporate backing to fund full time developers for it.
The problem of android is that it is “fake opensource”. The OS itself is open source but google locks it down with GMS so google still controls everything.
Bingo.
AOSP is open source. Cool. In order to make AOSP useful to 99% of the population you need Google Play Services, which aren’t open source. To get Google Play Services you need to agree to install 20+ non-removable Google apps, none of which are open source.
Not only Google services. If you want to make a phone you need to buy SoC from Qualcomm or MediaTek and all the drivers for it are proprietary (often including Linux kernel modifications). Sure you can technically make your own but it’s impossible for 99% of phone makers.
There needs to be a 3rd mobile platform that isn’t tied to Android
There wont be a 3rd platform for the same reason that America wont have a 3rd Political Party.
You’ll never edge out the incumbents.
Mobile operating systems aren’t winner take all like a political election. The existence of a 3rd party doesn’t hand a win to one side or the other. It could also help the incumbents avoid some anti-trust issues.
Especially when the biggest current one, Google, did everything in their power to stop a fantastic 3rd platform in Windows Phone from becoming successful.
Not really sure they needed to lift a finger tbh.
They did though. Windows Phone was pretty rapidly gaining marketshare in the US and also in Europe at one point - I believe they hit 10% which is massive for a new OS.
Google’s response to this was to block any and all third party apps for their services, even when they broke no rules. Read up on the shitshow that was Youtube on Windows Phone to see just how aggressive they were in making sure Windows Phone died. They also refused to put any of their services on the platform.
Actually there’s a third platform being developed, based on Linux, by Puri.sm with their Librem 5 phone.
And they’re as likely to stay around as the Green party is.
Hello, it actually exists and they started developing it with crowdfunding (now it seems like they are self-sustaining with sales)… Do you know Puri.sm?
They started some years ago creating a new Linux phone, the Librem 5, and they are developing firmware support and a mobile GNOME interface around it that also other project, like PinePhone, is using.
Interesting… not long after I replied to this, I saw this post on Lemmy about Purism maybe not being so pure. I don’t have time to watch it all now, but figured I’d pass it along. Either way it’s it seems like the best Linux experience is using Ubuntu touch on an old Pixel 3a, still being tied to Google at least with the hardware, and it’s an old phone.
thank you for the link…it’s speaking a bit fast for me as English is not my main language but I got the point. I would be curious to ask directly to Purism people what they think about this.
Also I would consider /e/os with Murena Fairphone 4 as a good compromise and a safe choice.
Ah, yeah, New Yorkers aren’t the easiest to follow. I got a chance to watch the full video. The main points, which you may have gotten, were that Purism didn’t honor refunds, and the security/privacy which they claim is very surface level and doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny.
Yes, I watched it with subtitles and understood the 2 points explained…thank you anyway for the recap!
Yeah, I’ve watched some videos on a few different phones and different operating systems, but they all seem very early in development and more of hobby devices rather than anything someone can use as their daily driver. At the current rate it seems like it will be decades before it’s ready for prime time.
yes, it’s true that they’re still not ready as daily driver for not-geek people
RIP Windows Phone
And WebOS. I know it’s still exists on LG TVs, but that shitty HP CEO killed it before it even had legs. What an idiot, he tried to shut down HP’s PC division too. He didn’t last a year in the role and WebOS was the biggest casualty. A lot of design elements from WebOS are now seen in modern phones, like the card based multitasking and swipe to close.
If you have any corporate backing wouldn’t it turn back into same situation as Android? Maintaining the app store, build tools, making new features, patching vulnerabilities e.t.c all require massive amounts of capital. Why would a company openly take initiative to do that? Meanwhile all others could free ride on it? Also any OEM’s coming in and customizing it to their liking and not following the standards because they are not bound too like in Android, wouldn’t that cause massive fragmentation. Back in the Symbian days this was the case where you need to customize your app slightly for each Symbian device, which meant you had to have the physical device. I remember back in the back in the day your office would be filled with these devices.
Major linux distributions get a lot of contributions from corporations that don’t compromise them to the whims of the company. The same model could be used. The companies contribute, because it ultimately benefits them, even if others can also benefit.
Fragmentation would likely be an issue, as we see with traditional Linux systems. However, systems like flatpak have helped standardize application distribution. Some of they fragmentation can also be seen as providing choice to users. As long as they all share the same protocols to talk to each other, which have been pretty well established by now, it shouldn’t be a huge issue.
First of all major corporations contribute to Linux kernel and there is very little contribution to a distribution. Why are they doing it? Because they benefit from their hardware being supported by Linux kernel(e.g Samsung contributing to Linux Kernel for SSD drivers) and now they can sell more, they can do this because it works with their business model. That is not the case with smartphones, in the smartphone world they are selling directly to a consumer and they need to do everything they can to differentiate themselves from other Smartphone makers. Mozilla tried the business model you mentioned but it didn’t catch on. Lastly you forget to understand the number of apps available on Google Play vs on Flathub. Google Play has ~3.5 Million Apps vs ~2000 Apps on Flathub. We are talking a different scale here
Also speaking about Flathub, Flathub solves the issue of fragmentation by building an entire OS on top of another OS just to avoid the challenges of backwards compatibility. This has implications like huge app sizes because you are basically downloading the runtime and everything it depends on for each app. It works for most people because storage is cheap and can be upgraded at least in PC world. But still you will have issues with RAM because most flatpaks don’t share the runtime and you need to need load each runtime to memory and this implications like higher memory usage, slower app start times because you need to load the entire runtime first before even you start the app.
Ideally, a standard would be made for app distribution that everyone could align to so they don’t have to resort to something with the overhead of Flatpak. In terms of the numbers of apps… I don’t think anyone really needs ~3.5m to choose from. I need 1 decent task app, not the 10,000+ that are probably out there.
Stuff like call screening in the android dialer would be possible on any brand of device. But no, pixel only.
Other OEMs also have their own features that are exclusive to their own phones. They can also implement them into AOSP, but they don’t. Instead, they keep the features to their own devices. A lot of times when there’s a new feature on Android in general, more often than not you’ll see comments like “Samsung had this since years ago”.
So if other OEMs are allowed to have platform specific features, Google is allowed to have theirs too. Or in other words, if you want to hold Google responsible for holding back Android, you have to also hold other OEMs responsible too.
Google owns the platform. You’re not really comparing like to like.
It’s like saying since Google can modify some files in Windows that Microsoft doesn’t control the platform.
Sony upstreams many of its changes, but you’re right that Samsung does not. This is both because of differentiation, but also because often the changes are in defiance of the “official” Google spec in android and merging is refused.
One plus for example offers further customization on gesture input that is missing in Android 13, allowing corner bottom swipes, hiding the little nav line, etc. But this cannot merge.
Google has decided a “solution”, to hell with if your features are better. I would love to see these features in android mainline. But Google won’t allow it. Sony made a theme system years ago, but Android wouldn’t fully merge it, and took another 5 or so years to make something.
It’s like saying since Google can modify some files in Windows that Microsoft doesn’t control the platform.
You complain that I’m not comparing like to like, yet you’re taking Windows, a closed sourced operating system, as an analog to AOSP, an open sourced one?
This is both because of differentiation
But why are other OEMs allowed to differentiate, and Google is not?
Yes, Google has the “official control” of how Android should be, and not all OEM changes are in line with that. But contributing upstream is not the only way to make the Android ecosystem open.
Take for example, Galaxy Watch with WearOS. There are multiple features that the watch can do, ONLY IF ITS PAIRED WITH A GALAXY PHONE. I have a Galaxy Watch 4. It has ECG and Blood Pressure sensors. But I can’t use it (officially), because I don’t have a Galaxy phone. Why? Because Samsung is keeping that exclusive with a software lock that totally doesn’t have to be there. Measuring ECG and Blood Pressure doesn’t need anything from my phone, it’s all on the watch.
Another example also regarding using Galaxy Watch with a non Galaxy phone, which is even more absurd, is that if you’re using a Galaxy Watch with Galaxy phone, they will sync DND status between them, but if you’re not using a Galaxy phone, it’ll not sync. They literally added codes for it to not work on non Galaxy phone.
Also, the example you used in your original comment, the call screening feature, uses language models that Google paid for the development and trained. I think it’s fair for them to uses that technology that they invested in to help boost their own profit instead of just giving out for free.
Other OEMs also have their own features that are exclusive to their own phones. They can also implement them into AOSP, but they don’t.
Well no, they can’t just implement them into AOSP - the owners of AOSP have to approve any and all changes into AOSP. Who’s that? Google.
The pixels have the very best android experience.
I agree with the rest of your post, but not this. The best android experience to me is the one that isn’t the most locked down, but the one that is most open and customisable - Samsung. I’ve got a few pixels, and funnily enough my last Pixel I owned was what lead me to switch to an iPhone. I figured if I was going to have a heavily locked down non-customisable phone, it may as well be the one that’s the best at it, which is the iPhone.
How exactly is a Pixel locker down and not customisable?
One thing that drive me nuts on Pixels is how uncustomizable the launcher is. Can’t even change basic things like the grid size or whether I want Google widgets locked permanently on the homescreen. Then, if you replace the launcher, gesture navigation gets all janky.
This. I have a pixel and i despise the launcher. Google search bar locked to the bottom of every screen, google calender locked to the main screen. The 3 buttons navigation bar is the worst i have seen and has zero customization options.
Why not load a rom(that supports relocking) and lock it?
On the launcher you can change basically nothing. Can’t move or remove the at a glance widget or the google search bar that takes precedence over your app bar. Can’t change the size or number of quick setting icons. Can’t change icon packs. Can’t change the grid size. Can’t change the task switcher look.
You can basically change nothing other than the accent colour.
You can literally change the launcher.
And you still literally can’t change the quick settings tiles or the theming etc.
Also changing the launcher fucks up gesture navigation.
There’s decent customization for the quick settings tiles, what are you looking to do? Also never had changing the launcher fuck up gesture navigation. I use NeoLauncher without any issues at least.
What customisation for quick settings tiles is there? I want to be able to have 12+ on screen at once if I want to, I want to be able to change their size, etc. I don’t want them to be those huge arse ugly blobs.
Also never had changing the launcher fuck up gesture navigation.
It’s a known thing. Google basically slightly broke gesture navigation for third party launchers, likely intentionally. It still works, but it’s buggy and worse than on the default launcher.
I think it’s beneficial for Google to distance itself from Android. By default, it’s way too entangled with Google services. It would be nice to have Google call screening on every Android device, but is it really that far fetched to expect manufacturers to develop their own suite of features? I wouldn’t expect iOS to have Android’s features of vice versa.
Google has always held tight control around their platform. It sucks that AOSP is in the state it currently is, but AOSP hasn’t been useful for years. Anyone can take LineageOS’s source code and build their own platform, though. /e/ actually did! That said, the Google dialer works just fine on my phone. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be missing.
I don’t think Google’s online APIs belong in open source Android, so call screening and assistant tricks don’t make sense either.
The AOSP dialer is based on an older version. Google removed it going forward.
Agreed, but then why not make an api for your “open operating system” so users of Samsung/One Plus /Sony/etc could see the dialer with their call screening /assistants if they so choose?
Instead of just removing the dialer entirely. https://www.androidauthority.com/google-kill-android-aosp-dialer-messages-app-3334980/
There is a dialer api but you need signatureOrSystem protection level, which is why it does not work, unless a user on a rooted phone makes the app a system app. I haven’t checked how it is now, but back in S3 days, I had a rooted S3 with Google Phone dialer and it worked fine.
Samsung and major carriers are shooting android in the foot with the bloatware. There are less and less viable android models that aren’t half filled with carrier or manufacturer specific apps that can’t be deleted. The pixel might be a tool of the Google devil but at least it provides the illustration of customization. iPhones are still Iphones. People they phone is pretty much the same butvthe hardware gets slightly better. Combine all that with messaging on Iphones essentially excluding android and ut becomes though to stick with anything but a Pixel or iphone. If I didn’t have lots of Google stuff setup for work I might reconsider iphones, but the pixel really has made my life easier via Google big brother. If work used apple big brother I would switch.
At this point google is pretty much the only company providing an Android experience that isn’t shit
Anyone I’ve met that hasn’t liked it has used a Samsung. They try so hard to be apple but they don’t understand the parts that work and just create an overall bloated and shitty experience
Doesn’t help that they have overpriced everything
Fairphone provides stock Android.
At this point google is pretty much the only company providing an Android experience that isn’t shit
They try so hard to be apple but they don’t understand the parts that work and just create an overall bloated and shitty experience
These 2 sentences are the complete opposites of each other. Google are the ones trying to be apple, removing customisation and dumbing everything down. Samsung are the ones that are providing the android experience that most people want, which is why they outsell Google 100 to 1 or more.
Yeah to be fair I’ve always had a Samsung, either flagship or midrange and never had an issue.
Samsung has gone way overboard with their pricing for flagships recently but their midranges are pretty decent on that score and I guess I just go with them because I’m happy with what I’m getting now. The A52s is what I have now, upgraded from an S10+ which had pretty much the same specs.
In terms of bloatware, I just disable it or uninstall it, same as I do with any software which comes on a work phone or home PC that I don’t use. Is this a big deal?
As for pixels - it’s great that they get regular updates. But they’re also expensive. They seem to look nice. Generally speaking though I agree they are the attempt to do an iPhone version of Android which probably only really matters in the US market
It’s still 45% marketshare Android vs 55% iOS. With the way the title reads, you’d think Android was down in the single digits and barely hanging on.
Personally I just don’t see how anyone uses iOS. The iPhone I have is just awful. The UI is clunky and I’m absolutely baffled why this stupid phone weighs so much. That’s not a good thing, damn it. My Samsung is infinitely better device in my opinion. But I’d still love to see a third player come in. I was sad when Microsoft killed off their phone OS. It might not have been great at the time, but more competition is always better. And then if course there’s also PalmOS. So sad to see such a cool OS die off.
iOS seems to be meant for simplicity and ease of use. I mean, not that Android is confusing at all, but it seems that the less tech focused you are the more you gravitate toward iOS. I would never want an iPhone, but they seem to really kill it in the battery and camera departments.
The UI is clunky
What do you mean by this? Is this just another “snappy” type thing that is meaningless?
Thanks grapheneOS!
I feel like Google really hit their stride with the Pixel 6/7 series. The 7 series especially is just such a nice phone to use and doesn’t feel as cheap as previous iterations of the Pixel. It’s also great value for the money. I went with the Pro and would recommend against it honestly, because while I like the extra camera and the bigger screen it really doesn’t fit great in the average persons hand and the features don’t really justify the cost. If I had to do it over again I would get the 7 or 7a.
I honestly think the Pixel 5 is the best phone I have ever used. I have the P7 and I kind of wish I had stuck with the P5.
Pixel 5 user here and I have to say I am going to make it last as long as I can! Battery still keeps its charge all day even as a fairly big user too!
I bought the s22 because Google abandoned this size phone
My problem with Android phones other than the Pixel line is all the bloatware they have installed that you can’t get rid of. I’ve been a user of the more “pure” Google phones since the start, from the Nexus to the Pixel.
The Nexus 6P was so good.
My 5 had a screen issue so I had to replace it. Gone for a 6a for now. The pixel 8 looks nice as it’s smaller than previous years. Although it’s still slightly bigger than the Pixel 5. The 5 had a perfect one handed form factor.
I actually returned the Pixel 7 earlier this year, because of its size, weight, awful display (rainbow effects when viewing it at a slight angle) and fingerprint reader.
I also found the camera to be noticeably worse when doing closeup shots (which is what I do the most with my phone’s camera). All the pictures I took from the battery replacement of my Pixel 5 are slightly unsharp because of the 7’s camera. I later learned that you can use 2x zoom to workaround the problematic lens, but for the price of the phone I consider this to be unacceptable.
I got it at a discount and still found the phone to be too expensive for what it is.
I preordered the Pixel 5 (the only preorder I’ve ever done) to receive the Bose QC35 headphones as well. It was a great and well-priced package and I use both products to this day. The Pixel 5 is just right in my opinion. It has the right size, weight and hardware and its fingerprint reader is reliable (as long as it is dry). The vibrator is terrible in comparison to the Pixel 7, but everything else is better in my opinion.
I am really not sure what phone will be the replacement for my Pixel 5 … I either want a phone with GrapheneOS or mobile Linux. It has to be more compact and lighter than the Pixel 7 though.
I love all the input in this thread. I’m currently a Pixel 2 user, so it’s interesting seeing different perspectives
Don’t be fooled. The 7pro is an incredible phone. I have nothing but positive things to say about it 1+ year later. And I also had a pixel 2.
You might like something from the a series, although the fingerprint reader on the 6a is still awful and the cameras are not amazing. The size and weight feel right though, closest ive come to a Nexus 5.
For me it was the 2XL.
That camera was just 5 years ahead of everything else, fruit included.
Got a 5 after that, but the selfie cam was crap. And to some extent, it still is on current models. I wish Google did something about it, I can’t be the only one noticing.
It is even worse on the Pixel 7, as its front camera is fixed focus. The Pixel 5 has a great front-facing camera in comparison!
I’m riding 5 until it dies. Love it
I love the size and feel of the 7a. It was an adjustment to get used to a small screen again but honestly, so happy with that element of the phone.
The battery life, on the other hand, feels worse than my 4 year old OnePlus 7 Pro’s is. I am not sure if it’s a me problem or a Pixel problem, but that aspect has me seriously worried about the longevity of the device. I guess you get what you pay for, but I’d expect a bit better for a mid-range phone.
It’s, unfortunately, a Pixel problem. The Tensor G2 is notoriously bad with battery life, and the fact that every manufacturer thinks we want paper thin phones doesn’t help.
The 7a is not a thin phone though, it’s noticeably thicker than my S9+, I think the 7a has a 4385mAh battery? A phone with such a large battery capacity should be better. You can tell the inefficient SoC is to blame because it gets hot easily.
Just makes me appreciate how amazing the S9+ was for it’s time that the 7a doesn’t completely blow it away when it’s much newer and nearly as expensive.
Respectfully disagree. I’ve been with Google phones since the Nexus 6p. Upgraded to the Pixel 2 which I still have and still works, then to the 5a which I hated, and now the 7pro. I didn’t think it would ever get better than the 2, but the telephoto lens on the 7 pro plus pretty much everything else still amazes me now over a year later. It’s perfect and I’m happy I didn’t go cheaper.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the telephoto lens, but I have a strong feeling I would sacrifice the extra lens for a smaller screen. Then again I do watch a lot of videos so who knows. I think the biggest problem is there isn’t really a way to test the two side by side to see.
That’s pretty cool. I’ll give it a try.
Should’ve mentioned to you that this app is probably low-key the most valuable one I own. It took about a week to get used to, now I wouldn’t have a phone with a big screen without it.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.quickcursor
As someone who switched to a Pixel from an iPhone, I’ll tell ya that I think the Pixel is a better phone. The only things iOS has going for it that are better is tap to scroll up, swipe to go forward, and a slightly better camera. Everything else works better on my Pixel.
The camera is a bit subjective and varies by generation. The tech and algo on the backend has more effect on the pictures than the camera on most pictures these days. I think the pixel does much better wide angle and scenic type photos.
A pixel with custom firmware that removes the Google is my preferred phone choice.
Is there a way to recover the stock OS if you brick it?
I know PCs are completely fail-safe in this regard, since you can always factory reset the machine by booting an installation image of the stock OS, but what about phones?
Google makes it very easy to flash Pixels back to stock through Chrome browser. Recently I was trying to flash /e/os to my Pixel 4a 5G. I bricked it 6 times and still can’t get it to install but I was able to flash back to stock easily. I recommend Graphene OS on the Pixel of you want to start taking back your life and start removing Google from it.
Nice.
Which keyboard do you use? I’ve been trying FlorisBoard (installed from F-Droid) on the stock OS, but the swipe typing is frustratingly inaccurate compared to Gboard.
I tried out FlorisBoard earlier this year and was having the same issues. I am currently using this and it works more or less like gboard but without the G.
Any idea why it isn’t on F-Droid?
I would assume because it was a one off type thing. People liked open board buy wanted swipe typing so it was forked and it was added. The apk is available on github.
When you’ve got a miniscule market share it’s much easier to increase it than it is when you have a much larger market share.
This. People that can afford a higher-end phone still can. Everyone else doesn’t have the money right now due to inflation and the income gap widening etc. IPhone and Pixel are the most well-known higher-end phone brands.
Feel free to correct me if it gets more complicated than that.
IPhone and Pixel are the most well-known higher-end phone brands.
iPhone and Galaxy. Pixels aren’t well known (or if they are, they’re not desired), hence the teeny tiny market share.
or if they are, they’re not desired
I couldnt say. They are at least the ones most advertised where i live.
Can’t wait for the entire cell phone market to be a monopoly…
I got a pixel 7a about 6 months ago. It’s a brilliant phone, once you remove all the google shit / bloat and block all the trackers.
GrapheneOS on my Pixel 7.
GrapheneOS on my Pixel 5.
I wanted to try it out today. The install looked intimidatingly-complex to me, is there an ‘easy mode’ installation method?
The web installer is pretty simple.
It may seem intimidating because they’re being super cautious. (Stuff like “You should avoid using a USB hub” is bordering paranoia.) But that’s not because they need to be cautious. The GrapheneOS installer is very safe. The reason they’re being so cautious is because they want to be more than 99% sure it works.
If something goes wrong, like you use the wrong browser or fail to install the driver/package, it won’t break your phone; the install just stops and you can try again.
The one thing that may break something is if during install the cable gets disconnected or the power goes out. That’s unlikely by itself, but even if it does happen, you phone will most likely be fine.
Thanks for the encouragement & advice. I’ll give the web installer a go once I’ve had some sleep.
iturned
I was shocked how damn simple the whole thing was. You just click a few times, and before you notice, the phone is rebooting and installing the full OS. Takes almost no time and it’s all super automatized. That was the easiest “custom” OS I’ve ever installed.
For me, it’s the lack of a replaceable battery and the lack of an SD card slot. Otherwise, it would be a perfect phone to tinker with software-wise with all the custom ROMs that are available for Pixels.
It would be nice if they didn’t limit the countries you could buy them from.
So true! They can’t be bought where I live.
Is there an Android phone that supports dual boot? I would like to have that so can use Lineage or something similar and only boot into Google android when I need to use banking app or government ID that requires the safetynet antifeture. This would free me from carrying two phones. But I suppose a locked down bootloader can not support dual boot and an unlocked will not support the safetynet antifeature.
I used to dual boot my Oneplus One. It’s definitely possible, but you’ll need to mess with bootloaders and all that crap.
If you just want to use banking apps and government stuff, Magisk with the right modules will probably work. I use the Universal SafetyNet Fix and most apps work perfectly fine. For more annoying apps, you can probably find specific advice online.
My only issue is with streaming apps like Amazon Prime, but my solution to those is to pirate content I’m already paying for if they restrict me to 480p.
Use Magisk, it bypasses SafetyNet. No need for dual boot https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk
You must install the Universal SafetyNet Fix afterwards https://github.com/kdrag0n/safetynet-fix
Tkank you. I already had magisk. I tried installing the safetynet-fix, bit unfortunately it did not resolve the issue on my Xiaomi Mi A2 phone.
On more exotic devices, you have to spoof your device ID as well https://github.com/Magisk-Modules-Repo/MagiskHidePropsConf
Tried that, but the banking apps still claims that the security check failed.
You also need to hide the Magisk app and change its package name and block the banking apps in the Magisk settings.
Try Shelter https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.typeblog.shelter/. I had one app that refused to launch no matter what I did but this fixed it.
There’s risk in that. Unless you go through a bunch of other steps to hide magisk, there’s quite a few apps that will stop working or flag you just for having magisk, and some games may even ban you from playing. Namely Pokémon go.
Hiding Magisk is just 1 click in the settings
almost every good android phones have locked bootloaders.
Get a pixel and install GrapheneOS. The whole install process is painless and easy.
There is also this about SafetyNet Attestation
With a partially broken screen and weak battery it may be time for a new phone anyway. I will look into pixel and GrapheneOS. Thank you for the suggestion.
I love my pixel 6a. Fantastic phone for the money.
To add to this: In GrapheneOS you can install sandboxed Google Play in a secondary profile for banking etc. This way you can keep your main profile Google free and totally isolated from their preying eyes.
This, although the vast majority of users just use the one profile and just enjoy the benefits of a sandboxed and de-privileged Google.
Just be warned if your work uses Google Chat that will not work on GrapheneOS even with sandboxed Google Play.
As an iOS user the bloat on android is a huge turnoff for me.
I’d potentially switch to a Samsung if it didn’t have all that stuff pre installed on it.
It may be the second biggest reason I’m sticking with iOS. Of fact, if they got rid of bloat and iMessage was available on Android, I’d jump over in a second.
Well there’s your problem. You’re looking at Samsung phones.
Honestly, they’re one of the worst when it comes to bloatware. They do it because their devices are so popular that they can get away with it. Stick with a Pixel, and you can’t go wrong.
(BTW, what’s with iPhone users’ obsession with iMessage? Google Messages has the same capabilities. Not trying to hate; genuinely curious. If your only experience with texting on Android is with using whatever came with your device, then I understand why you’d prefer Apple’s implementation. That’s the whole appeal of Android: if you don’t like how a component works, you can swap it out.)
To answer the iMessage thing.
I’m from the states but live in a different country. It’s the easiest free way to stay in touch with family and friends.
A number of people have been like “just move to X and if they don’t follow, then forget about them.”
But it’s not really realistic to ask all the people I might contact throughout the year to switch to a new app in case I contact them.
So I truly feel locked in because of that.
Please elaborate further. What’s so special about iMessage that it can be used in other countries, but every single messaging app for Android can’t? Google Messages is free too. Again, not trying to hate. Just trying to understand.
I don’t know anyone who uses google messages and I’m not going to convince the 20 people on my group chat to switch to it since we only catch up a few times per year.
Random acquaintances that I contact a few times per year will also not bother to figure it out as it will just idle 9 months of the year.
It’s just a real roadblock that locked people into the platform.
I use Google Messages to chat with my family who mostly use iMessage. I can see all the reactions and stuff so there aren’t really any compatibility issues. You don’t need an iphone or iMessage to communicate with people on iMessage.
But if I use google messages, it will be sent as an sms. So suddenly I have to pay for every international text and call made.
I’m from the states, but I do not live there at the moment.
It’s much easier for me to keep iOS instead of trying to convert 100 people to use some other messaging app.
Where I live, no one uses iMessage and I have all the major chat apps installed. So it’s not a problem for me, but even my parents struggled to understand what WhatsApp was and they are decently tech savvy.
One thing about iMessage is that you can reply and send messages from all your Apple devices. I know the https://messages.google.com/ but the you need to keep it open on your computer for notification to come. Then there is the Facetime video/audio quality, it’s miles better than Whatsapp, Google Meet or any other video calling app. You can easily share your screens, you can even start a call on iPhone and transfer the call easily to a Mac or iPad seamlessly without even cutting the call. Also the Whatsapp and Google Meet video call quality is like 140p vs 1080p on Facetime. For the average the user who has never used iMessage and Facetime they will never understand what they are missing but for others it’s different case.
You don’t really have to choose. I have WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal and Threema installed all at the same time. I don’t like Apple and since there’s no iMessage for Android (I guess), I can’t use that. But that’s not really my choice, it’s Apple’s choice. I won’t let them lock me down into their ecosystem. Just send SMSes to the people you only have on iMessage and that don’t understand why they are implicitly forcing their opinion on others.
99% of my contacts are iMessage only. It would be cheaper to just buy a second phone than to pay international calling and sms rates.
I have like 10 chat apps installed for local contacts. It’s just US contacts that don’t understand his to get off iMessage.
Can you explain what you mean by bloatware? Do you mean all the apps the phones come installed with, or do you mean something else? Would it be simple to uninstall what you don’t want? Curious bc I have a Samsung phone.
Well here are a few examples.
I don’t like having Facebook and stuff on the phone. If I want the app, ill download it.
Secondly, I do not want multiple calendar apps and browsers on the phone by default.
I don’t need chrome and the Samsung browser.
I also do not think I need to setup a samsung account and a google account and have backups in both places.
I guess it’s just a little overwhelming.
I think this is a big part of why Android is losing popularity but the Pixel is gaining it.
Every manufacturer’s excessive need to fill their phones with as many sponsored apps is getting to a point where people simply don’t buy them anymore.
At least the Pixel sticks to their own Google ecosystem, much like the iPhone and is at least a bit less locked down than others.
But it still installs so many apps I don’t want. I mean iOS allows you to remove almost any app that is preinstalled. Why doesn’t google? I don’t want drive, YTMusic. Their phones have alot of bloat installed.
If Pixel was available in my country in an official capacity that would be the one I would choose. But if I were in the market for an Android, I would go this route for sure. The bloat is more annoying than anything else.
Plus with a Pixel, its just google snooping. With anyone else, it is google and the oem snooping. It would be nice is google pushed using your phone as a desktop more. It could be their way into the desktop space.
I got a Samsung just because I like the phones the best, but otherwise I don’t use any of the pre-installed apps that came with it and disabled/installed all of it.
I honestly think samsung has the best looking phones by far.
If iMessage game to android, I’d switch to a galaxy in a heartbeat, even with the preinstalled stuff. I figure a lot of that can be removed or at least hidden to an extent.
You do know that is up to the OEM right? Just like buying a PC. Of course if you buy a laptop from Wal-Mart from some weird company it’s going to come with a bunch of nonsense on it.
We’re talking about pixel, googles phone. It’s going to come with the standard Google products installed.
Difference is that on a PC m you’re free to remove all of that bloat. On android you can’t, not without fucking around with external tools like ADB.
Thanks for the explanation. That makes sense. I’ve been less aware of that and on recently, after having the phone for a while, have I been deleting many of the pre-installed apps.
I’d potentially switch to a Samsung if it didn’t have all that stuff pre installed on it.
Samsung makes it incredibly easy to just disable all the “bloat” that you don’t like - you can do it through the battery settings. Simply set the apps you don’t want to be disabled and never let them start by themselves or run in the background. Problem solved.
