Well TFA ignored that few to none of the phones on this list that are better than the Pixel 6a include a 3.5mm headphone jack.
That's what's wrong with the US phone market.
No headphone jack. WHY? Over 100 years and dropped for what? No reason, just handwaves about design and 'waterproofing' that are easily debunked by the Samsung Galaxy S5 Active from 2014.
Pardon me while I go throw away my custom in-ear headphones I've had for over a decade, or my Ear Hero receiver-in-canal headphones that leave my ears open without pinching my glasses against my head like bone conduction headphones do. Where was I? oh yeah, phones getting designed to death.
No removable batteries. So glad Europe did that rule, soon we shall have something again, I am very pleased with that development, I'm happy to say.
I will grant the rant about the carriers - it's true.
What physical keyboard? What pogo pins? What microSD card? What IR blaster? Nonono we don't need all that, we just need a SLIMMER DEVICE (that you can stick in a huge case)....we just need a new instagram tiktok eating device!
About five years ago, I left a job which had been providing me a phone. I was replacing them every two years since that was the regime at the time, usually for an "exotic" flagship-- I had an early LTE Galaxy S2 which had zero long-term support, a Lumia 1020, and a LG V10, for example.
When it stopped being funny money, I ended up buying only low-midrange devices (Motorola E4, Umidigi F1, and most recently, a Nokia G20). Once you get to like $150, you've left the absolute bottom corner-cutting segment of the market and can get a competent device. It seems like at every price increment much above there, they start doing the "hand you something while taking away something else" game. At about $300, you start losing MicroSD and 3.5mm. At about $500, once you get past Pixel territory, you lose the option for vanilla Android and have to deal with big ugly vendor packin BS. At the very top, half the phones are now less usable devices and more science-fair projects to demonstrate how hinge technology is advancing.
I suspect it's really "device as jewelry/status symbol" at this point so you need the gimmicks to close the sale.
Meanwhile, weird bottomfeeder brands like Oukitel can sell a $200-300 phone with a 10000mAh battery, but the combined engineering might of the Samsung organization seems unable to spin that particular magic even on a $1300 device.
I got a new phone recently, a Samsung S22. I wasn't worried about the lack of headphone jack because my previous phone came with a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter.
I plugged in my headphones through the adapter and my new phone told me it wasn't compatible with that adapter.
Smartphones are a mess right now, they're used as platforms to get consumers to buy into other products and services. You don't need a headphone jack because you can buy wireless earbuds, and you don't need an SD card slot because you can back up your photos to the cloud, and you don't need a radio because you can subscribe to a streaming music service, and you don't need a charging brick because you can buy a wireless charging mat. They're very aggressively pushing people towards all this new and expensive tech.
I remember how a set of people back in the day would praise that decision from a certain company and all copycats later as "courageous", "innovative" and so on. "It'll give space for a better battery" may be the most deluded one if you looked at the competition and their offerings at the time, followed by "slimmer phones" (as if a good thing regardless after a certain threshold not limited by the 3.5 jack) and so on. Plenty waterproofed phones before 2015 too. In reality it's more about enforcing a vision and making bucks selling wireless sets, Airpods being annunced back to back with the removal of it. (and a lot of OEMs trying to do the same identical thing, such as Samsung and Google)
Apple's 10 bucks USB-C DAC may be great for the price, but dongleism is one of the worst and most disgusting trends hardware has had in the past decades, "just use and carry around an adapter (two if you want to charge at the same time too) at all times with you lmao". I wouldn't even care, if it wasn't forced for the rest of us. Feels like such a weird thing to have to complain about like this, too, it's very divisive.
And also make the default, non-dongle, headphones they buy from us over a hundred dollars more expensive now that we don’t provide headphones in the box anymore.
You say that as if the power and sway of a trillion dollar company has no effect on that.
The thing is, Apple lied about why they got rid of the headphone jack, and the market lapped it up and subsequently coughed up the dough for their overpriced earbuds.
My LG V35 was thinner, lighter, and faster than the equivalent iPhone, but it still had an IP68 rating while keeping both a headphone jack and an SD card slot.
Is that a trick question? The answer is "The newer one", because having the latest iPhone has become a social signifier. I bet you if Apple brings back the 3.5mm jack,airpods will be seen as tacky in record time.
Without, personally, as I think I'd have to be completely detached from reality and good taste to opt into wired earbuds.
...but I /do/ think the rest of y'all maniacs deserve a choice, too, even if it's utterly unhinged, so ceteris paribus I'd rather you be able to have a 3.5 than not :P
The Apple excuse group on the other hand is both large and loud.
You don't get to be a 1T$ company by giving your users what they want and especially not what they need. You do that by persuading them that your expensive thing is what they want and then selling them more expensive things they need to actually use the thing they bought.
Nah. You get to be a $1T company by making excellent products that have no competition and adding excellent support on top of that. I recommend you to try it. I also used to hate on Apple, but now I think I used to be silly or even dumb; it was a huge lesson in trying what I hate first for a few weeks before I go on the internet spouting uninformed speculation.
The iPad I gave my grandmother is the best specced, fastest (other tablets with similar specs are not even nearly that smooth) and cheapest thing at the same time I could get her. She can use it perfectly well (but had big problems with inconsistencies on Android). I don't have to worry about her doing something to it (whereas the Android phone, which I locked down, still had to have factory resets every year or so - and support non-existent, updates gone).
The MacBook Air M1 I got for myself is running laps performance-wise around my other computer with i9 - and it doesn't even need a fan, and I can work 2 full days (16 hours) on a single charge - doing Node.js and React Native development so nothing lightweight. The display has no competition, period - and that alone would be a reason to prefer Apple. The keyboard is the best from modern laptops too (yeah they used to have problems there, not anymore), and the sound is godlike. This computer also has much better price-performance ratio than any other option on the market, and there's not a single comparable product for that price ($1200).
The iPhone is the same story, don't want to repeat myself.
For sure. For example, I am not happy about their push to (i)cloud, fortunately it's entirely possible to avoid all that - unlike Android, where getting Google cloud functionalities disabled is impossible without losing the warranty and flashing the ROM.
Just don't sign up for Google account and you don't get Google apps.
Your phone is not as usable as it is with Google but it does work as a phone.
Can you use iPhone without App Store and Apple account?
I know Google collects data on their users but so does Apple, probably more so now that they are pivoting to services as the main focus. Apple just gets the free pass from their users because they haven't used the collected info so far.
But it IS just a matter of time before they start and then all their users will experience the power of that fully operational battle station.
This is pretty much it. I still use an iPhone 7 because the size is perfect. Good luck finding many options in the <6" smart phone market.
That said, Apple sells tens of millions (hundreds of millions) of phones, and the amount of data they get on customer preference must be amazing.
They clearly don't feel like the "mini" market is worth spending that much time on. I'm glad to see they offer it, but it's clearly not their key product.
Most people I see making this argument assume that people not buying Apple’s mini offering in crazy numbers was a sign that there was no attraction to small phones. But there’s too many other variables to make that kind of assumption.
If we allow this kind of logical shortcut, smaller Google Pixels all vastly out-sold their bigger version, so smaller sizes have more attraction, right ?
The note was for me the pinnacle of phones. Large display, textured back so it wasn't slippery, and no back to get cracked, metal frame around the screen, sd card, exceptionally easily replaced battery (the back popped off easily) , great battery life for the day, headphone jack. The only thing it lacked that is nice is waterproof. Everyphone I've had since has had a subset of what it had. A SW update bricked mine, and if it was not for that I can't see myself replacing it.
> just handwaves about design and 'waterproofing' that are easily debunked by the Samsung Galaxy S5 Active from 2014.
Not to mention continue to be debunked. I'm typing this comment on a Unihertz Titan. Ostensibly waterproof (and in my testing it seems to care very little about whether or not it‘s wet). Still has a 3.5mm jack.
I used the wired default iPhone lighting headphones for years. Worked just fine? And came with the phone and was covered by it’s AppleCare for years. I broke so many I must have gotten dozens of free replacements! I only switched to wireless when I got some AirPod pros for 50$ CAD and actually just liked them a lot more.
Well, that was just a stop-gap to ease the criticism... Also, the included headphones has always been pure garbage. Anything is better, which is of course was the point of the 3.5mm jack - not that it enabled the use of the bundled garbage.
Not sure exactly what your point is. I've used bluetooth for well over a decade and they are awesome. But that doesn't mean they somehow could replace the 3.5mm jack.
Parent comment was basically “removed to force people to wireless” - I disagreed.
That’s all said I do still wish the iPhone had a 3.5mm Jack, or heck even 2.5mm would be fine as the dac on the iPhone is better then most you’ll find in a usb-c dongle.
When they replace older, functional tech with newer, less functional tech; it's fair to complain about it. I was unable to find a reasonable phone (that had the other features I wanted) with a headphone jack when I bought a new phone recently, and I'm constantly annoyed at the lack of it. Bluetooth is nice to have, but it's not a replacement for a physical jack.
Is there not USB-C headphones and adapters? I can see why it isn't exactly preferable but if they started making phones with 2 USB-C jacks I probably wouldn't mind all that much, but I would prefer a magnetic type of adapter that is low profile so that there is less risk of damaging the port.
USB-C headphones are either free and desperately shit or a very expensive mic+headset arrangement, not simply "headphones".
And adaptors are universally unreliable. The one my samsung phone came with works with literally NOTHING else, and the 4 or 5 I've bought have connection issues.
Also if you care about audio it's another slap in the face as the DACs in those adaptors are pretty high-noise.
Yes. However most of the adaptors aren't analogue, or are universally so shoddily made that they are useless, to the point where your walking motion or road vibration inside a car will dislodge the connection.
When I was using my pixel 2, I tried the adapters. They were so bad that I changed 5 adapters in 2 months. Finally, I just gave up. The adapter just stops working.
To go a step further, I ordered Google's pixel earphones which are USB-C. They got to shit in a month and when I asked Google, they just sent another one and asked me to keep the older one.
Long story short, I tried very hard to use wired headphones and because I couldn't, I just lost the habit of using a headphone with mobile.
I got some USB buds for my Pixel 6 for about twice the price of a pair of 3.5mm buds.
I grumble about not being able to use the buds and charge the phone at the same time, but it's a minor concern overall. The USB buds have equivalent quality and latency to 3.5mm buds, so you're not forced to take a step down like you would be with Bluetooth.
Yes it is. For majority of people convenience of wireless far outweighs ehh… what exactly it outweighs again? I’m not an audiophile, so whatever 3.5 provides.
People are just clamoring to pay over a $100 for something they could do with much higher quality for $9.99 earbuds they could buy at a convenience store.
I just had an idea! They should embed the adaptor inside the body of the phone so it won't get lost and then the people complaining about adaptors can shut up about them getting lost!
I don't understand this though; 3.5mm audio jacks are not old tech, new headphones are still being made with them as the sole way of connecting them to your devices.
They are old tech, doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with that. They also still make horseshoes and saddles only suitable for horses because there’s still a niche market and that’s what wired audio has become.
Most people are very happy with Bluetooth headphones and don’t care about the benefits of the 3.5mm jack.
This happens all the time with tech, streaming is lower quality than physical media and has ownership concerns but for the majority that’s not an issue.
Having cables dangling is not great, but you know what's truly terrible? Having headphones with empty batteries. Having to charge them is a massive inconvenience to me.
Except not providing a headphone jack has been a clear regression. Other than saving the manufacturer a few pennies, what benefits do I get from not having one?
[probably came into prominence with the appearance of the KL-10 (one model of the PDP-10), none of whose connectors matched anything else] The tendency of manufacturers (or, by extension, programmers or purveyors of anything) to come up with new products that don't fit together with the old stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensive interface devices.
> Well TFA ignored that few to none of the phones on this list that are better than the Pixel 6a include a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Current 4a owner, always had Google phones, and this is precisely the reason why the next one is going to be a 1+ for me.
I don't want to sacrifice all the 3.5mm devices I have for a fad like this ,and Bluetooth audio is horrible anyway.
for me just like agile broke my software enjoyment, annual iterative hardware release broke hardware enjoyment.
they intentionally don't build things to last, because the focus always how to sell you next product for you to consoom.
one company especially bad, talk about environment while release same product every year with minor changes. changing the appearance of the OS's every year because marketing needs to give superficial illusion of newness
> Pardon me while I go throw away my custom in-ear headphones I've had for over a decade, or my Ear Hero receiver-in-canal headphones that leave my ears open without pinching my glasses against my head like bone conduction headphones do. Where was I? oh yeah, phones getting designed to death.
Come on. USB-C to headphone jack adapters are $10, and apparently Apple's (which is universal) contains an excellent DAC.
It doesn’t necessarily mean a return to the classic Nokia pop off the back model. As long as it’s user replaceable a couple of screws wouldn’t be a problem. But e.g. soldering the battery to the motherboard, or gluing the case together with no reassembly prospect would be issues.
It's funny -- and I do sympathize, it's always frustrating when you have some preference and the market moves so you can't get what you want, it happens to all of us -- but when people particularly bemoan newer technology as being unable to be maintained or upgraded or having built-in obsolescence... I have to wonder, why aren't they still using their 12 year old battery-swappable phone, upgrading their pin-compatible 486 motherboard, or driving their all-mechanical car from 1963.
Some people who would rather use their old phones don't because they can no longer receive software updates, either to the apps they use, or the OS. There are other reasons also like replacement parts are no longer easily available.
But anyway, you're missing the forest for the trees. Most folks who bemoan what you speak of simply want the option to repair their items easily in the case that something does go wrong.
> Some people who would rather use their old phones don't because they can no longer receive software updates, either to the apps they use, or the OS.
You can though. Many old phones are hackable.
> There are other reasons also like replacement parts are no longer easily available.
Also doesn't seem to be true. You can still buy second hand parts and whole phones for old models for almost nothing.
> But anyway, you're missing the forest for the trees. Most folks who bemoan what you speak of simply want the option to repair their items easily in the case that something does go wrong.
You can likewise buy all parts for your 1963 Cadillac, you can buy manuals, you can repair it in a modestly equipped home-garage. Very few who complained about the computerization of cars do though, because new cars are so much more reliable and performant and relatively cheaper (in large part due to said computerization). It wasn't just a conspiracy to prevent people repairing their cars (the few who actually could repair their own cars back in the 60s even).
I accept there are real valid concerns about repairability, planned obsolescence, etc. But like I said, a lot of complaints about this stuff is wide of the mark IMO.
Having a phone with IR and headphone jack and SD cards and micro USB and replaceable screen and replaceable battery and upgradable RAM and pogo pins and physical keyboards and never-ending software updates sounds great. The reality is it will make it a much worse / more expensive product for the 99.999% of people who don't care for those features.
Many != All. For example, up-to-date custom ROMs of LineageOS do not exist for all phones.
> Also doesn't seem to be true. You can still buy second hand parts and whole phones for old models for almost nothing.
Chances are more likely that you'll find damaged used phones with drained batteries, or low quality Chinese replacement parts. Sorry, but it does seem to be true unless you're willing gamble money on questionable eBay listings.
Personally, I've attempted to keep old phones from 2012 usable for my parents and older relatives, but it seems less and less viable as time goes by for the reasons I've already listed. Unfortunately, it's simply not as easy as you make it out to be.
I use a newer phone (Pixel 5) that lacks a 3.5mm audio jack and removable battery. I accept that I may be on the fringe for wanting that audio jack (although I'm not sure what survey to look at to prove this), but I disagree that we as consumers are better off without it, or that it makes the phone more reliable/performant/worse.
We can't use our old battery-swappable (physical keyboard, headphone jacks, etc) phones because the networks they run on, which also run just fine (UMTS, CDMA2000, CDMAone, GSM, etc) have been shut down.
Not many people did before those networks shut down, as far as I saw. You can get 3G phones with swappable battery and headphone jacks and physical keyboards too though, can't you?
Charging is a fact of life for a lot of things, latency is not an issue for the better Bluetooth devices, the brand I mentioned has a good rep in this respect, bidirectional audio quality has been an issue IMHO so I use different headsets for calls and audio and tbh it works out v well. Give it a go at least, the Bluetooth adaptors are not that expensive and may improve your experience.
DACs are essentially a solved problem, the only crap DAC and headphone amp I have found on a device that actually sounds different than any other DAC was on a raspberry pi. Which to be fair they tell you straight up that the audio jack on the raspberry pi sucks. They probably found the one factory in china still bothering to manufacture subpar DACs and amps.
Otherwise every other single device with a headphone amp has sounded the same, especially when you factor in normal use of an eq to get your sound system/headphones to sound good. People that say you can tell the difference between audio DACs are letting the placebo effect convince them to support a crap, cottage industry that robs people of their money lol.
Now, there are DACs and headphone amps that can put out a LOT more power than other DACs and headphone amps. Yes if you buy headphones that take a lot of power to drive a normal DAC/amp might not be able to drive them but that is an entirely different question than "my DAC just sounds better than yours" snakeoil. Also... hard to drive headphones and speakers are relatively niche and rare. There are PLENTY of """""""audiophile"""""""""" headphones and speakers that are easy to drive.
I've a macbook pro at work and have to use 3 dongles, to get hdmi, display port, full sized USB, etc. I still don't have a wired ethernet, or headphone jacks, probbaly need another 2 adapters. It looks like an octopus, and is not mobile with that junk plugged in. Adapters suck. Basic connectivity should be maintained on all devices.
And you really think your use case is ordinary? That majority is using like you do? Because the alternative is majority walking with Swiss cheese of a MacBook without using even half the ports.
Don't Macbook Pros have Thunderbolt ports? If so, then you don't need all that crap; just get a Thunderbolt docking station. It'll have all the ports you want in a single box, which plugs in with a single cable (which also carries power). My Dell laptop has this, and it works fantastically.
Of course, it still sucks not to have HDMI or full-sized USB on the laptop itself for when you're not at your desk, and that's a great reason not to buy a Mac in the first place, but I'm assuming you were stuck with that POS by your employer. My Dell has HDMI, 2xUSB3.0, and a headphone jack all on the computer, and still manages to be quite thin and light. (No, there's no wired ethernet or DisplayPort, but you don't really need those on a laptop outside the docking station.)
The meeting rooms don't have docks, they have hdmi only, one for videoconf TV, another one for the projector. Should the room have 2 docks, one for each? Why cant a 2 to 3k laptop just offer the ports they used to.
Don't think of the USBC/TRS adapter as a dongle for your phone. Think of it as an extension for your headphone wires. Why would you ever remove it from the headphones?
Are you using the OEM provided adapter? The reason is probably due to the usb-c standard being a clusterfuck and essentially having two different types of "usb-c to 3.5mm dongle":
1. active dongle that gets digital audio signals from the phone, and converts that to analog using an onboard DAC
2. passive dongle that receives analog audio signals from the phone, and simply converts the pinout from usb-c to 3.5mm[1]
If you try to use the latter dongle on a phone that doesn't support that use case (ie. it doesn't contain onboard DAC), it will fail to work.
Passive dongles are the only ones that actually have something to do with USB-C standard, as those allow to simply route the analog connection through the USB-C port. Active dongles are just regular USB sound cards that you can plug into a PC too and which could use a USB-A plug just as well.
Yeah OK, let me know when Bluetooth latency is the same as a physical wire connection. Or when a good Bluetooth pair costs the same as a good wired pair.
Anecdotal: I'm not a power-user, but I never really had bluetooth problems (latency, connectivity etc) between my phone and bluetooth devices.
I do however have the rare bluetooth connectivity problems with laptops, even the newer ones, but that could be a problem with Linux.
Also, I've accidentally damaged my wired headphones before by walking around and the wires getting hooked onto something.
Besides, I find it convenient to keep my phone in one place and walk around while making phone calls, or listening to stuff. Like, cleaning my house while listening to stuff.
I agree that it would be better to have both BT and a headphone jack.
Every time I run with Bluetooth headphones, the connection will drop out for a few seconds whenever a certain type of car/bus/ambulance goes by. Certain traffic lights seem to set it off too. Really irritating.
I'll take wired over wireless any day of the week.
This. I constantly struggle with connectivity. It's ridiculous how amateur the connectivity area is. I'm sure things will.be different if they get better at it.
- Still sounds like garbage when side-by-side compared to by ATH-AD700X's, or ATH-MSR7NC's though.
- Still more irritating to have to keep charged rather than just plug in. Still more irritating to switch back and forth between my phone and my laptop and my desktop though.
- Still more irritating (or even impossible) to share my single audio source with someone else's headphones though.
- Still more irritating to pipe into the mixer and play back over big speakers though.
I had a phone with only USB-C for a while. Sure, dongle's exist. They also get buggy and drop out occasionally, since they've got firmware. They also make it challenging to charge and listen simultaneously. They also get lost easily.
There's a lot to recommend a simple 3-wire electrical connection with a standard plug. I don't begrudge people who want to use bluetooth at all, we can all coexist, just keep the headphone jack available so we can. :-)
BlueTooth is basically a necessity in a modern phone for many reasons, not just headphones: fitness trackers, automotive system integration, etc. all use BT. And BT doesn't need any physical space on the edge of the device.
But yeah, the venerable 3.5mm headphone jack is simple and effective and doesn't have many of the problems that plague wireless headphones.
You probably don’t carry a wireless charger with you on the go, which is incidentally when you’re most likely to need this. You’re not going to wirelessly charge your phone while you watch a movie on a flight or a train, but you sure do want to charge it so you have power left at your destination.
Wireless charging is nice but has a few problems. A cable charges my phone ~3x faster, generates less heat, and wastes less electricity. On the go, a USB-C cable is also more useful than a wireless charger.
You need a faster wireless charger. The high-power ones aren't as slow as this.
But still, you're right: wires are more efficient and faster. And the big factor is that no one brings a wireless charger traveling with them. A cable is much smaller and lighter, and the wireless charger still needs the cable and power adapter anyway.
When I first got a phone without a headphone jack, I bought one such dongle. It didn't work. My two subsequent phones have had headphone jacks, so I'm not going to worry about this problem again for a while, but at the time at least it was certainly not as simple as buying a dongle and knowing it would work.
Every answer here is "buy this other thing, no wait, that may not work for your use case, buy this other thing to lug around or that makes your laptop effectively a desktop".
This is strictly worse than the previous status quo.
Firstly, yes, you can can get USB-C to headphone adaptors that allow charging[1]
Secondly, the scenarios where this is an issue are combinations of edge cases. You have to choose not to use wireless headphones, not have a wireless charger AND for some reason be unable to spare the 30 minutes to do a rapid boost charge.
If that's really a problem then by all means get the charger that allows both.
These are a bunch of solutions with their own pluses, minuses, and degree of knowledge that you have to have to even be aware of, in addition to seperate products that you have to purchase - in order to fix a problem that didn't exist before. It's very weird to not understand that people don't want this in their lives in return for little or no benefit.
>You have to choose not to use wireless headphones, not have a wireless charger AND for some reason be unable to spare the 30 minutes to do a rapid boost charge.
Yeah, this sounds like me when I've traveling anywhere, whether it's across the world or just into town. I'm not going to haul around a wireless charger in my backpack, and I don't have 30 minutes to sit around waiting for a charge. And that's exactly the time I want to have headphones available, not when I'm sitting at home where I might have a wireless charger handy. At home, I just use speakers connected to my computer or my home-theater setup. Why would I use headphones at home?
Either their car has a 3.5mm input jack, in which case they probably already have a 3.5mm male to male cable (unless you carry that too?) with an adapter or 3.5mm to adapter cable or they don't have the jack and you just pair with their car bluetooth.
I have the male to male cable; though I keep one in my wife's car, too. As for pairing with the bluetooth
1. In the cases I'm talking about, I want to use headphones + a USB-C charger.
2. I don't like bluetooth for sound; it's inferior in every single case I've tried.
3. I have yet to be able to configure things so bluetooth is used for media/music, but not for phone calls. And I don't want to use the car/speakerphone for phone calls when I'm in someone else's car.
Look, I get it.. with _enough_ adapters and random other things, I can jump through a dozen different hoops in order to get music out of phone. But life would be a lot simpler and easier if I just had a headphone jack. Only they removed it, and now I'm stuck with an objectively [1] worse experience.
[1] Yes, objectively; because prior to that I had both bluetooth AND a headphone jack. So there's no positive aspect of removing the jack. It is objectively worse to not have it.
So you are prepared to carry a male-to-male cable around for this one particular case but not prepared to carry a much smaller USB-C to headphone adapter which literally solves every single problem you have listed in this entire thread?
I just don't understand the reasoning.
> So there's no positive aspect of removing the jack. It is objectively worse to not have it
The benefits of removing the jack form the phone are clear: less connectors mean simpler and cheaper manufacture (so cheaper devices) and larger batteries/smaller phones.
For who don't satisfied with Bluetooth audio quality, I wonder is it fine to use internal DAC on a Phone rather than good quality external DAC via USB-C.
It's kind of amazing that you're clever enough to generate a complete decision tree for all the problems and solutions, and yet still have a blind spot for what the problem is, despite six people trying to explain it.
My point is that these "no I need a headphone jack" issues all take a complex decision tree to get to.
They are all things like "oh I have to ride in my friends car who has a 3.5mm input jack but doesn't have bluetooth input and also only has the cable without an adapter".
There's another comment about how the latency on bluetooth is bad, and this is a problem because they are a music producer who presumably produces on their mobile phone. Again, it's such a small subset and the fact it is solved perfectly with a $10 adapter makes me think the complaints are way overblown.
Wireless is worse in every way imaginable. Worse power use, worse quality, worse latency, much worse convenience (now you have to charge the headphones, too).
And I assume you type this on device connected to Ethernet, right? And no, Bluetooth headphones are convenient, how often do you think you need to charge them?
Of course I am connected to Ethernet, what kind of question is that?
Having headphones that turn out to be uncharged, or undercharged, when I try to use them even once is completely unacceptable. For what benefit, saving myself the 2 seconds of plugging a cable in?
My wireless headphones were working great until about two weeks ago. Now when I try to connect to them via Bluetooth, the connection fails, every time, due to an "unknown problem" and I should "try again later". Fortunately the detachable 3.5mm jack still works.
> The Google Pixel 6a is good, it takes great photos, and it has great software. Nevertheless, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s missing quite a bit of what other people are looking for. Most people don’t care if their phone has the best camera in whatever class their phone is in, they just want a phone that takes good photos for social media.
So it takes great photos and has great software, but misses what users really want, which is taking photos and using the software?
The actual point of the article seems to be on phone carriers, which are a big problem, but every country that successfully dealt with that stared with setting up strong corporate oversight. I'm not sure the US is there yet.
Agree Also,
> The thing about the Google Pixel 6a is that in the U.S. market, it’s a great value phone. There are basically no other offerings in the U.S. that can provide as complete an experience at that price range. Flagship chipset? Check. Great cameras? Check. Long-term software support with timely updates? Check. It’s got all the basic boxes of an excellent phone… but it costs $449.
Do you want a phone with these features for a great value? I don’t understand the article’s criticism??
This isn't a criticism of the Pixel 6a, per se. This article is not meant to be a critique of the 6a, but rather, is using it as a tool to illustrate an overall greater point. The reason you don't understand the criticism of the 6a is because it's not supposed to be criticism.
The phone costs a lot, and a lot more than most other devices that are in a similar boat of "mid-range". It has a lot of bells and whistles that normal consumers won't necessarily care for, because it doesn't matter how great the camera is when a lot of people are just using their phones for the likes of Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. A Nothing Phone, Nord 2T etc will get 80% of the way there in the camera department after the photo is on social media, and most people won't care for the difference.
However, the primary argument of the article is not to critique the Pixel 6a. Far from it. The problem is how the reason it's considered good value is because of the US carrier market. This article is primarily taking aim at the US carrier market and not the Pixel 6a. It's just a tool being used to illustrate a point.
I think one point you might have missed in your analysis is the form factor. I'm in Europe and I'm seriously considering getting a Pixel 6a because it's the smallest one amongst the phones in this price range. It's not small, but it's also not a comically large slab that doesn't fit any pocket as some of the other "good enough" phones out there. That, plus 5 years of security updates and a stock Android experience are enough to justify the price difference which is not even that big anyway - 469 Euros vs 400 Euros for Nord 2T, same price for Nothing Phone etc
In the current ecosystem, if you're in the market for an android and are fine with Samsung's software, I'm not sure there is much reason for not buying a Samsung phone.
They are hard to beat on the hardware front, and will have a model at almost every size and price point. The only market they don't seem to be covering is hardcore gaming phones.
I'd choose a Pixel phone to have the software fully managed by Google (the camera being tuned to be neutral is part of the package), but I definitely don't see them (or any other maker) as a "good deal"
Speaking of Samsung I wonder if anyone here has experience with the x cover pro series. Looks like a pretty decent deal for a phone with a user removable back and replaceable battery? Looks like Linux kernel 5.4 Android 12
I have an Xcover 4S, not the pro. Though I don't use it anymore. We also have a ton of those at work. The Xcover 5 (also non-pro) too.
It's an ok phone for the 120 euro I paid for that, I bought mine second hand for hiking. They get really long support from Samsung because they view them as an enterprise product (whether it's the enterprise edition labeled one or not!)
However, they are SLOW. The screens are kinda crap LCDs, even in direct sunlight a good OLED screen is much better. I don't know why Samsung sticks with LCDs on these. If they'd have used transflective LCD like most outdoor GPS devices I could see the point for outdoor readability but they don't, they're just cheap crap LCDs worse than what they put in their $200 budget series. OLED is better than they crap they put in these phones in every way. In the past Samsung mentioned they did this because OLED screens cracked more easily, however this cannot be a thing anymore since most OLEDs now use flexible plastic substrate, even in non-foldable phones.
The XCover Pro 6 uses the 778G chip though which is the same as I have in my Galaxy A52s and it's ok. Be aware, Samsung usually pairs this chip with very slow UFS2 flash (Snapdragon 8 models come with UFS3.1) so installing apps is tedious. But during normal use it's ok.
It's kinda cool that this phone has DeX but with only 6GB RAM and a midrange processor with slow flash I wouldn't expect too much of it.
They make you pay an extra feature license to use the side "push to talk" button with apps like MS Teams by the way so be aware of that. I'm a HAM operator so I'd like to use that but it's less interesting this way. It also stops people from building the PTT functionality in apps because nobody has the license anyway.
But I haven't seen the new Pro 6 yet no. It looks ok but yeah the prices are HIGH. And battery availability is tough, I've had a hard time finding an official battery for my 4S. Samsung doesn't sell them directly and a lot of the batteries on Amazon are fakes. Meaning the NFC stops working as this is part of the battery (Samsung WHY???), and you have questionable safety. This kind of undermines the idea of a replaceable battery, if you can't buy genuine batteries easily. Sure, it's a bit old by now, but this is exactly the time when you'd need a new battery.
But really, for 300 euro you can get a Galaxy A52s which is roughly the same phone in terms of specs. Exact same processor and ram. No replaceable battery but half the price, with a much better OLED screen with in-screen fingerprint. Put a tough case on it (I use the Spigen Tough Armor on mine, 15,99 euro on Amazon) and a good screen protector and it's just as indestructible as the XCover Pro IMO. And even if you break it and have to buy a totally new one you still spent only the same as an XCover Pro 6. The A52s still even has a 3,5mm jack like the XP6. The A53 doesn't and it has a slower exynos CPU so I'd recommend the A52s instead.
Also, don't overestimate the ruggedness of these devices. They're 'business rugged' at best. Even with the XCover 4S I used a Tough Armor case on top of it.
Not having seen these displays, I wonder why would anyone care about a higher frame rate. It scrolls even more smoothly? It sounds like a luxury feature or maybe audiophile nonsense.
Well if it wasn't a genuine improvement it wouldn't be so addictive. IMO it's worth it and my galaxy A52s has better battery life than any phone I've had in recent years and that's with 120Hz on.
I can even limit the battery to 85% (to make it age slower) and still last a whole day with ease.
Trust me you can tell the difference between 60 and 120. Whether or not you care is another question.
But is a better screen nonsense? If that was so we'd still have 20 inch black and white monitors.
Does it? The Pixel 6a's primary sensor has really been showing its age for a while now, and often struggles to contrast really dark spots with really bright spots. We talked a lot about that in our comparison of the Pixel 5 to the iPhone 13 Pro. It's part of why Google needed to upgrade the Pixel 6 Pro camera, and I wouldn't really say the 6a is a "top-tier" anymore. It's still really good, but there are a ton of phones that do way better nowadays.
> So it takes great photos and has great software, but misses what users really want, which is taking photos and using the software?
I think the charitable interpretation of that part of the author's statement is "Users only need a camera that is decent enough, since there are more important things. Google focuses too much on the camera".
I had that thought, until the focus went to phones available in eu/asia, with One+, Nothing, POCO being mentioned, and none of those are brands targeted at average users only caring about a phone that basically works with no fuss.
Even Xiaomi feels a bit borderline, they have very affordable and mass targeted phones, but anyone not caring that much would go no wrong with a Samsung, probably discounted at the same price as the equivalent Xiaomi phone.
The main beef against the Pixel phones seems to be that friend's story about the back getting hot sometimes, which is valid, but anecdotal to say the least.
I don't know why but using Google Maps on my 6 Pro for navigation there is a chance it will complain about overheating then go into a degraded state followed by finally shutting down. It takes quite sometime before it will cooled enough to be turned back on.
It doesn't happen consistently and it seems to only happen when I'm actually driving with the navigation turned on. It's incredibly frustrating when it happens. I've tried different phone placements, even placing it directly in front of an AC vent but it still occasionally happens.
I usually don't charge it while driving but it has happened twice while charging as well.
I don't know which world you are living in. Poco and Redmi blow Samsung off of all the ground. Samsung charges for the brand and is super expensive when you can get similar or better phone from Xiaomi.
Give me a headphone jack, give me a "small phone" (6a is my absolute size limit... I carry a Pixel 5 now purposely because of its size... I'd gladly go smaller), give me raw Android, decent photo abilities, and an all day battery (actually using the phone). I've even given up on caring about SD cards because of 128gb phones being available but it would be nice... as would a replacable battery. I don't care about rounded corners, super thin, super light, top/bottom bezels, hidden fingerprint sensors, etc etc etc.
To the headphone jack argument... started flying for work again this year and had my BT headphones go dead halfway through a flight. Options..? Stare out the window. I will continue to be a strong advocate for that missing item.
How many years of security updates? the whole reason I need to replace my pixel 3a is because they stopped giving security updates. If I buy another phone and its only good for 2 more years I'm sort of shooting myself in the foot. I do like the overall ideas behind it, and 3.5mm I definitely want.
Why do you need security updates so often and so bad? I dont know what websites or apps you install, but normally there shouldn't be any problems with normal use even without security updates. And even then, you can always install a custom rom instead of having to buy another one.
These days people’s entire financial life is on the phone with all the banking apps, emails, password managers, MFA etc. We cannot afford to be lax on security in any way whatsoever.
It's a commonly defended-to-the-death trope in certain internet crowds that if you just "browse carefully and don't install bad stuff" your device is unlikely to be compromised.
Carry a battery pack. Have a backup set of cheap old-style tethered Bluetooth earbuds, if you don't have any others. And most importantly, charge your headphones in your pre-flight routine.
I'm a curmudgeonly type who has clung to all of those fading amenities: headphones jack, removable battery, micro SD. And I can say that the headphone jack has mattered the least by far.
Or carry a dongle, or carry... that's the problem. So now your "we made it thinner" phone makes you carry and keep track of several more items to solve a problem that shouldn't exist. Instead of having to carry an entire tech portfolio everywhere, how about the ability to plug in a set of headphones most airlines / gas stations charge $5 for?
You don't really want a headphone jack, just carry a (comparatively huge) battery was a funny take to read for sure. The removal of the headphone jack was obviously not motivated by technological superiority of BT or any sort of necessity. It was for the vanity factor that Apple started on, and others joined, of slightly sleeker looks; and the cynic in me strongly suspects the airpod / other peripheral market was not far behind as a driver of that decision. I don't care so much if technology changes, but when it regresses for what appears to be largely (if not only) vanity and greed, it's fair to call a spade a spade.
had my BT headphones go dead halfway through a flight. Options..? Stare out the window
My bluetooth headphones give around 3 hours of use from 15 minutes of charging. Apple iPods supposedly give 1 hour of use after 5 minutes of charge. Annoying to have it happen in the middle of a flight, but it doesn't mean I have to forgo music for the rest of the flight.
Switched from the Pixel 2 to Pixel 5, the length of the screen is ~20% bigger, so I reduced the resolution height to the size of the Pixel 2 (1080x2340 -> 1080x1920). feels great to me. only drawback is the notch https://i.imgur.com/2eHFfjg.jpg ..
I bought a Pixel 4a a few weeks ago and it ended up collecting dust, even that I find too big to be usable. I'm sticking with a G7 Play for now. It's got pathetic specs, firmware support is long over and parts of the screen are missing. But hey, at least I can kinda sorta still use it with one hand.
I really liked the USB C headphones that came with the Pixel 3. I bought several more. They cost more than the cheap headphone jack ones I usually use ($30 vs $10), but they don't run out of power. And they are pretty tangle resistant.
Though I am happy now with my 5a and its brief return to headphone jack.
Pixel went downhill after they started copying Apple… amazingly they managed to just latch onto the bad things like non expandable storage, non removable batteries, removing headphone jack, dropping a fingerprint reader (a right before mask mandates became a thing) and adding ‘wiz bang’ features that are completely useless like a radar chip… sorta aiken to the uselessness of 3D Touch.
The original incarnation of the pixel was incredible: It bucked all of the stupidity and was a game changing device.
Nowadays pixel is just a yawn inducing device series that is attempting to be as cool as possible by being tone deaf to the desires of consumer; a goal at which they are excelling at.
Is Pixel any more yawn worthy than the other Android competitors (not including actual innovative stuff such as folding phones).
Pixel’s edge is the fact that it’s a relatively stock Android ROM, at least compared to the likes of Samsung. It’s really the only choice if you want a relatively stock ROM, good update support, and you don’t want a Chinese phone.
Well, all the things you presented, were natural way to make more money for the company. This is how it goes with public companies.
People don’t buy new phones if you make too good one with replaceable battery and expandable storage. Phone is also cheaper to manufacturw when removing parts but not adding anything special.
I see things quite differently, perhaps because I worked at Motorola in the early 2000s when the same thing happened to feature phones.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.“
The American market for a lot of things is extremely lucrative on a per-capita basis. So you go and base your business on serving it. And then a growth industry turns into a mature industry, and all your fat margins disappear.
The American smartphone market is mature. The American smartphone market is becoming boring. The number of people getting a new phone every year (or two or three) is rapidly declining. For a growing number of Americans, all phones are good enough.
Fixing the “problem” of the carriers in the US isn’t going to move the needle:
If you get paid by getting a lot of American clicks on breathless articles about new phone features or new phone software, your revenue is in an irreversible decline. Americans largely don’t care!
Off topic, but this part reminded me of something.
>They offer financing, carrier-specific features like Wi-Fi calling and VoLTE, and even phone-specific features at times if you buy the phone through their stores.
What's going to happen when carriers shut down their 3g networks by the end of 2022[1]? VoLTE is mandatory if you want voice on 4g. If you don't have it, your phone drops down to 3g when on a call. Obviously that won't work if carriers shut down 2g/3g service.
The real problem is, these features have been supported by old phones, they're part of wireless standards. Just that the carriers are creating artificial problems for you to switch phones and extend your contracts. My BlackBerry Priv sold directly by BlackBerry Canada has perfectly functional VoLTE when it is travelling, even with a prepaid SIM in Asia. Yet no carrier here will enable it, just because it wasn't sold by them.
On ATT, they only allow use of volte for phones on a special list, regardless of the phone's actual capabilities.
When they turned off their 3G, I had to get a new phone to replace my newish 4G phone that works fine on volte on any other carrier (it actually worked fine on ATT for a bit until they caught on that the phone was not on their special list). I have to stay with ATT though, because they are the only ones who provide coverage in this one area where coverage is critical for me. I tried an mvno on ATTs network, but ATT gives all of them 2nd or 3rd tier service.
You know, while phones marginally get better with each generation with a heavy emphasis on marginally, overall the progress is questionable. I am so old I remember when it was laudable a new phone was lighter.
Let's look at the Pixel 2: 145.7 x 69.7 x 7.8 mm, 143g, released in 2017.
>are less than 145g -- it seems like a reasonable way to say "small phone":
That's a bad criteria. It excludes the recent zenfone 9 (and its predecessor zenfone 8) which is around the same size as the pixel 2. The xiaomi 12x also fits the bill if you don't mind the 7mm of additional height.
Hrmmmm maybe, yes. I switched to a Pixel 4 in May, it was a refurbished model for 210 CAD from Best Buy (so not a hit-and-run outfit), that's an offer I can't refuse :) In 2-3 years I might look at the Zenfone 9, it looks like it has a decent camera and even good night mode which of course is the biggest allure of them Google phones.
It depends on what exactly you're looking for with "small phone"; I don't really care about a few dozen grams more or less, I just want something I can comfortably use it with one hand. There are basically zero serious devices that allow this AFAIK, except a few Android Go things that are very slow and have a support cycle of about 3 days.
> For example, the Google Pixel 5 had the Snapdragon 765G and the Pixel 6 series has Tensor with all of its inefficiencies.
The author lost me right there. They are either unable to understand the difference between a midrange snapdragon and a state-of-the-art custom chip with 5 year support, or they are playing out a narrative that supports their argument.
The Tensor might be state-of-the-art on paper, it's still pretty average in practice. And the network performance in the Pixel 6/6 Pro is awful according to a lot of people, I'm not sure if it's the Samsung modem or the radio frontend, but it's not really acceptable when mid and high-end phones get put to shame by $300 phones with midrange Snapdragon in cell reception and speeds.
The 5-year support is nice but I want to say... Finally? It's good that Samsung is making the effort and that the Pixel line benefits from it, but if Google was serious about this issue, it'd also strongarm Qualcomm and other SoC makers into mandatory 5-year kernel patches.
> The Tensor [..] it's still pretty average in practice.
Benchmarks place the Tensor chip at 1.6X to 3X compared to the 765G [1]. Again, my point is, if someone is willing to "bend the truth" to support their narrative, then they have already lost the reader's trust. What value can one possibly place to any subsequent claims they make ?
I don't see the issue with the article's statement really.
> However, time and time again, particularly with its flagships, there has been some kind of compromise.
The Snapdragon 765G in the Pixel 5 is a compromise (if you paid the sticker price, otherwise it wasn't an unreasonable choice).
The Tensor is also a compromise. Good SoC on paper, but not so true in practice: it isn't competitive against the Snapdragon 888, and it offers terrible network connectivity, which a complete showstopper for a lot of people.
5 years of software updates - that's a lol. My wife has had 3 different generations of Pixel phones fail (hardware failure, not dropped or broken by the user).
She keeps going back to them though because the camera smokes the competition (according to her).
I've been on the fence since release about whether I should get the Pixel. I'd much rather get it from a seller other than Google though, because in the past I've had terrible experience with Google customer service. Unfortunately, most deals that I've seen are exclusive to Google. Right now you can get the Pixel 6a for $349 from Fi, but it is $399 on Amazon. Fi also appears to have a better "insurance" option that covers theft and loss, and my experience with Amazon is that their warranties do not cover theft or loss. The other issue is that the unlocked version from what I recall only supports Sub-6 5G. I'm not sure if Fi carriers even support mmWave. I believe Verizon is the only carrier to do so at the moment, however for my first 5G phone I really want to experience a significant benefit. I'm not sure if Sub-6 5G will provide the experience I'm looking for.
FWIW, when I last bought a Pixel phone through Fi (first gen Pixel), you got support through Fi for your device and not through the Google store. Fi’s support at the time was much better and they replaced my phone without much trouble when I had an issue with it, whereas every experience with the Google store I’ve had has been terrible. Hopefully things haven’t changed much for the worse since then.
T-Mobile has band 71 (600MHz), and is using 1/2 of it for 5G. Band 71 is excellent for areas where range and obstruction penetration are important.
If you buy a phone, first make sure you know what bands it supports, as the 5G bands are all over the place, and the millimeter bands only do well line of site with no obstructions.
Unless you’re going to a lot of highly crowed but localized places I don’t think you’ll see the benefits of mmWave beyond showing off to friends at a special street corner.
Off topic, but I noticed today that all the major US carriers now charge a premium for their SIM cards. They all want me to pay $10 just to walk out of their store with a SIM and no plan. AT&T was nice enough to discount it with an in-store coupon. But MVNOs don't seem to do this; their sims are $1 or free.
I'm about to retire one Nexus 5 from phone duty (the other I'm using as a dashcam) only because I'll need to have VOLTE when visiting the US from Canada.
Carriers offer "deals" on new phones, like the Pixel 6a. For $10 a month over 2 years, BUT you have to sign up for a more expensive plan for more gigabytes than most people need - an extra $22.50 a month making the real price of the phone $780.
Having had to replace screens from time to time, replacement screens for the newest Pixels are in the $200 range.
Pixel 4a's can be found in the $200-300 range and the replacement screens are reasonably priced.
The mid range OnePlus phones have a number of disgruntled reviews - a shame because OP offers reasonably priced parts directly.
Too bad Fairphone is unavailable in North America.
Worth noting the vendor lock-in offers are quite significant. My wife and I both had Pixel 3as on Google Fi, both got offers of $300 to trade them in to buy a Pixel 6a. The obviously gimmicky trade in price was only for buying a 6a specifically (buy another phone and the trade in drops to $30)
Gimmicky but worth it, $150 each to get brand new phones that check all the boxes.
> In Europe, if you buy an international phone, chances are that phone will just work across the litany of carriers across the continent. That’s not quite the case in the U.S., as fewer international devices support the necessary bands.
Can't modern modems simply support all bands? How hard is that?
The modem supports it just fine, but the carriers all block phones that aren't on their "approved" list (i.e., phones that they sell). I took a trip to the US earlier this year with my European Motorola G9 Plus. My Belgian sim roamed onto T-Mobile's network just fine but charged €13/MB; a T-Mobile SIM next to it worked fine for about 2 hours and then refused to connect ever again. This resulted in a delightful conversation with a support agent who told me without any sense of confusion that my phone physically did not have the hardware necessary to connect to T-Mobile's network while looking at my screen which read "Mobile Vikings - Roaming (T-Mobile)". AT&T wouldn't connect either; I ended up just going without for two weeks.
Afaik modems do, it's the radio frontend that differs between continents. These differences are pretty slim nowadays and open market European phones will work in the US and vice versa. However the performance might be slightly degraded because some bands were prioritized over others that are supported for roaming. Also some combinations of bands for carrier aggregation might not work as well. And then you have OEMs (like Google!) who think it's smart not to enable 5G just everywhere but only for selected carriers, and you'll sometimes need a firmware update before you can utilize your phone fully.
One big difference might be the mmWave support which is pushed by some US carriers and that'd be completely lacking otherwise (no antenna).
I do have a problem with Android security updates. I have a 6 year old Oneplus which works great except software isn't supported. My employer says the only phones that are acceptable patch policy is iPhone and Google Pixel, even Samsung/Sony/Motorola aren't good enough. Ouch.
Samsung actually has a better update policy than Google (at least for their non-trash-tier phones): 4 upgrades, 5 years of patches vs. 3 years of both.
I had a pixel 4 and the heat issues killed the phone. I run a lot, and on 90 degree days listening to music and having a running tracker open made the phone get quite hot. The poor thing died after less than 3 years. Too bad, because it was a great phone otherwise.
The solutions everyone is putting forward in this thread essentially boil down to "stop complaining that your stuff has been designed to stop working and buy more stuff". That doesnt seem... suboptimal to y'all?
I dont understand the rant about US phone market, there are dozens of unlocked phones you can buy and lots of cell phone plans for $10-$30/mo. You dont need a AT&T subsidized phone.
Yeah, their bull**** "certification" program that only allows carrier-sold phones and not unlocked ones are frustrating, especially that in Europe as long as your phone is compatible with VoLTE (and VoWiFi and VoNR) it'll simply work.
Frankly, and I know this might be an unpopular opinion, it should be illegal. Communications are extremely important building blocks of our society, and people should not be forced into acquiring their devices from their service provider. Any device that is technologically compatible should be allowed, and the carrier should be forced to support open standards to guarantee interoperability. It's the equivalent of a toll road only allowing cars they sold onto it.
Because Motorola have actually bothered to pay AT&T more money just to allow their phone in AT&T's network. (https://www.att.com/idpassets/images/support/pdf/Devices-Wor...) It's basically "AT&T approved telephones" all over again. Worse, if you're on vacation in America and your carrier only supports roaming through AT&T and you happened to own a device that isn't approved (probably because that manufacturer doesn't sell their device in the US or it's the Exynos version of Samsung products), you won't receive any calls, period.
Ha, that's not true! Which is what's really bizarre!
I just had a friend hit an issue where his dual SIM Xiaomi phone can roam on AT&T network on a European SIM, while AT&Ts own SIM next to it refused to connect because the carrier said the phone is "not compatible".
I mean this has always been the case - you're gonna get more bang for buck if you buy a second-hand last generation high-end product than a new mid range product. What you trade is warranty, support, and the risk of unknown issues due to the previous owner.
I'm happy with that risk so I often buy used electronics, but I can understand why other don't.
Personally I find almost all new phones to be lackluster.
They are all almost the same, I'm not interested in finicky foldable that will break, because I have seen how finicky thr Zflip is, and the Fold is stupidly expensive, and I dont use my Phone for anything productive anyway, that's what a computer is for.
After switching to a Pixel 4 XL, I can't literally switch back, because I use CalyxOS, and may switch to GrapheneOS.
However other than the OS choice, the Camera still takes better photos than new Samsung phones, the OS is so much better than anything Samsung or all the Chinese iOS clones will design in the next 100 years.
The updates are fast, the battery life is good, and the design is good too, what is annoying though is absolutely the crappy screen, the green shade on lower brightness is annoying, but other than that, no reason to upgrade.
I will probably upgrade around the time security updates stop, oh did I mention how good Pixel software support is?
This web page highlights the problem with modern web sites.
Tried to read this article, but the absolute predominance of ads and the screen constantly shifting caused me to give up. How has this sort of web page become remotely acceptable to readers?
That's what's wrong with the US phone market.
No headphone jack. WHY? Over 100 years and dropped for what? No reason, just handwaves about design and 'waterproofing' that are easily debunked by the Samsung Galaxy S5 Active from 2014.
Pardon me while I go throw away my custom in-ear headphones I've had for over a decade, or my Ear Hero receiver-in-canal headphones that leave my ears open without pinching my glasses against my head like bone conduction headphones do. Where was I? oh yeah, phones getting designed to death.
No removable batteries. So glad Europe did that rule, soon we shall have something again, I am very pleased with that development, I'm happy to say.
I will grant the rant about the carriers - it's true.
What physical keyboard? What pogo pins? What microSD card? What IR blaster? Nonono we don't need all that, we just need a SLIMMER DEVICE (that you can stick in a huge case)....we just need a new instagram tiktok eating device!
Arg.