Fallout probably got a boost from the new series, that was quite well received.

Just to throw another option into the mix:

Maybe create a VPN connection with wireguard, then you can just transfer them however you’d do it in a local network? Tailscale would be an easy solution to achieve this.

Is the 10 VI Sony’s midrange? It’s certainly priced like one, but within their lineup it would be the lower end, no? The 5 would be their midtier offering.

Yeah, slightly better now, but still lackluster in a phone of this class.

Especially considering that eventually every phone in the EU starting June 2025 will be required to offer at least 5 year updates. You’d think that they could offer that level of support slightly earlier to someone willing to drop well over 1k€ on their phone. Unless of course they plan to pull out of the european market at that point.

Bloat and bad performance aside, you don’t see a benefit in having a all-in-one solution that in a way acts as a drop in replacement for people wanting to switch away from the likes of Google/Apple? I certainly do.

Yes, having a dedicated app selected for each use case will likely give better results. But it also means more management. And many users don’t actually need more than basic functionality.

But yes looking at the complaints, they should look at polishing existing features first.

I don’t understand why there isn’t higher demand for audio phones like there is for camera phones.

I agree that there should be demand for a large enough niche audience, but it won’t be even near the same demand as for good cameras.

For most people smartphone are their primary and usually only camera. And there are plenty of situations where you want to take a nice picture or video.

With audio the trend nowadays is wireless for the vast majority of people. And for that a build in DAC doesn’t really help at all.

So we basically make the Purge a reality?

Downside might be that this requires a good internet connection, which depending on where OP travels might not always be available.

This seems a bit impractical. 2 phones to keep charged and manage.

Depending in your use case can’t you just get some external USB storage?

And as always with aesthetics of smartphones: Does it really matter when you’ll likely end up putting it into a case that can be any colour or design you want?

To me price and software support are somewhat linked. Supporting their devices for such a short time is unacceptable especially for expensive high end devices. And by the time prices come down over time the phones are already closing in on the end of their software support.

Regarding the cameras in the midrange you are forgetting the Google pixel A series. I think they are increasing the prices with the 8 series, but the 6a/7a are in the same price range as Samsung’s A5x series. And outside of lacking zoom capabilities they offer flagship quality cameras.

I got a similar story:

I wanted to rewatch the first avatar before the second came out. At the time I had Disney plus, so no problem right? Turns out that here in Germany that only included the German dubbed version, not the ov.

Guess who doesn’t have a streaming subscription nowadays…

3D movies always felt weird to me

I think the big issue is that for most 3D releases it’s more of an afterthought. It is however pretty cool in movies specifically made for it such as the Avatar movies.

Yeah i guess a good case makes a phone durable enough for most people and if you want an iPhone that is your only option anyways.

I’d have imagined that a purpose build phone would still offer some benefits. Like operable with gloves, maybe being the ports better protected against things like dust, or they have removeable batteries. Suprisingly i had to learn (after a quick search) that they don’t seem to offer much brighter displays for better visibility outdoors. I’d have thought that could be another feature.

I’d have thought that the niche for rugged smartphones might be small, but offer a relatively stable profit. What are the other competitors in that market? I know samsung offers some rugged phone, any other major brands?

Google struggles with presenting a unified interface, design language, and overall experience across their scattered hardware platforms

Agreed, but that to me seems more of a conceptual and software issue, rather than the hardware side. Although the article makes it seem like the teams getting merged are also (at least partially) responsible for that:

Currently, all three teams operate separately, making standalone decisions on things like design, software, hardware engineering, etc.

However they also need to be more reliable to build an ecosystem that people buy into. It’s kind of a meme that in every google thread killedbygoogle.com gets mentioned, but there is truth behind it. Especially in the smart home space you really need to project long term support for people to buy into your product suite.

Very late to reply, but thanks for posting. I got the OP11, Pixel 7a and Pixel fold in the standard test. I might do the others at a later point.

Always fascinating to see how much the skin color and sweater colour can vary between pictures.

Here in Germany I can get it certified refurbished for 340€ (64gb), 440€ (256gb) or 540€ (540€). You can go for the cheapest and upgrade the storage. Seems affordable to me.

First of all why are we comparing a handheld to a console? That just doesn’t make any sense.

And since when are games for consoles cheaper anyways? Seems like PC games go on sales much faster.

For any PC gamer with an existing library (or any pirate) you already have plenty of games to play on the steam deck. No need to buy anything new.

Also don’t some games on the playstation for example need a subscription for online play?

That said you are right that if you want access to a large variety of games then game pass+Xbox is a solid option. But look at streaming services and mark my words: this won’t last forever. They WILL enshittfy it eventually.

That sounds pretty useful. Is this “tool” just software that could also be rolled out to other pixels or is there something physically different on the hardware level?

It’s not neccessarily about being unique, but also serving as a reference.

Microsoft introduced the Surface line in 2012, same year as windows 8 that had a new UI designed to be used with a touch screen. They’ve also released devices with ARM processors to bring windows into that space, presumably with the idea that others might follow. But those attempts so far have failed. Probably due to simply not having any great SoCs available like the Apple with the M1.

You do have a good point with the Pixel exclusive features.

Isn’t longer software support actually something that might decrease hardware sales, rather than increase them? Considering it might lead to people using their device for longer. That said i think it is partially to avoid bad optics compared to apple and some of the android manufacturers like samsung. This also seems like a point where the pixel line might try to set an example for more to follow. It might have benefits for google, if more phones are consistently running the newest version.

I wonder if they’d develop a SoC themself, if there were a great mobile SoC on the market with dedicated hardware for ai/machine learning. Apple has with the neural engine in their chips, but that obviously isn’t for sale. Google, like many others, is rolling out products that might make use of it, so it is definitely desirable to have. And Google is actually in a good position to develop it, since they didn’t start from scratch designing chips, but have done so for a while with the TPUs for their data centers (where they do care about hardware). So this might be aimed at leading the market due to neccessity, since outside of apple others might not have the hardware ready for when the software/service side might need it.