Google hardware event 2019

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Discussion

hotchy

4,454 posts

125 months

Friday 8th November 2019
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CubanPete said:
heisthegaffer said:
Z2 or Z4 TABLET? I always wanted one but 400 quid to pricy for me. I liked the Idea of watching videos in the bath.

I ended with a Huawei m5 10.5 which is really good. Lovely screen, excellent battery life, pretty good sound. Cheap too.
I've got a Z2 tablet, wonderful bit of kit. I got it in a end of line clearance when the Z4 came out for a song. They still make more second hand than I paid for it.
Iv got the original Z tablet. (I think maybe it's a 2?) Had this thing for 5? Years. Used every single night and only now its showing signs of the battery going. Battery used to last an obscene length of time aswell and wished they would bring out a new top spec one. I'd be first I'm the que.

AJB88

Original Poster:

12,269 posts

170 months

Saturday 9th November 2019
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Been using mine at work all week and getting a full day use out of it, Pixel XL 2 would last me from 0700-1700 (I'm quite a heavy user).

I just bought a cheap gel case off ebay.

anonymous-user

53 months

Sunday 10th November 2019
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AJB88 said:
Been using mine at work all week and getting a full day use out of it, Pixel XL 2 would last me from 0700-1700 (I'm quite a heavy user).

I just bought a cheap gel case off ebay.
Yeah I got one for about £7 off amazon, a clear one. See how it goes. Had the google one for the pixel 3

768

13,601 posts

95 months

Sunday 10th November 2019
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The 7T ships with a silicone case... getmecoat

cb31

1,135 posts

135 months

Sunday 10th November 2019
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Had mine just over 2 weeks now, follow-up thoughts if it helps anyone.

Pluses
Screen is nice
I like the squeeze the sides to access the assistant, I hate saying "ok google", it's nice to just squeeze and ask the question.
Everything just works and no bloatware which is great
Camera is very good

Cons
Battery not good enough, I'm used to lasting a day easily. I've never run out but it's come close a few times.
New assistant still not available in UK
Motion sense gestures a bit of a gimmick
Too costly but this applies to most premium phones nowadays

Overall a very good phone but would prefer a Oneplus 7T if I didn't get such a good deal.

Funk

26,254 posts

208 months

Sunday 10th November 2019
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I've put mine in a Spigen Tough Armour case: https://www.spigen.com/collections/pixel-4-4-xl/pr...

I've also put a Zagg InvisibleShield Glass Elite protector on it: https://www.zagg.com/en_uk/glass-elite-pixel-4-xl

alorotom

11,908 posts

186 months

Sunday 10th November 2019
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Looks like there wille be $200 off the pixel4 for Black Friday and then Cyber Monday week but not for the Oh So Orange as stocks are already low and it's limited

AJB88

Original Poster:

12,269 posts

170 months

Friday 22nd November 2019
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Chromebook arrived today, thought I would have a quick go on it before powerwashing it and packaging it back up for mum.

Got to say really disappointing the screen, here it is next to my LG Chromebase, you cant really see it that well on the photos but the colours in the Chrome logo for example are bright on my Chromebase, they are like pastel colours on the HP.

Even white backgrounds are grey in colour.


anonymous-user

53 months

Friday 22nd November 2019
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Mine also arrived. Tempted to give it my mum too. Doubt she will notice the screen issue.

Funk

26,254 posts

208 months

Friday 14th February 2020
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Starting to find issues with my 4 XL...

Google Assistant has stopped responding to Hey/OK Google if the phone's left idle for a couple of hours. Manually tapping the Assistant icon (or a squeeze of the sides) makes it start responding again properly until it's left for a couple of hours again. Google Support have been a bit ste really (they tried to tell me it was a security feature!), it was a hell of a mission trying to get them to understand the ACTUAL problem. It's highlighted how much I do actually use GA's voice activation. I've been through every setting and checked nothing's been turned off etc (it hasn't) - it's literally just stopped working. Uninstalling which reverts it back to the Google app which was installed from build makes it work fine so it's definitely something in the Google app update.

I'm also finding battery life is becoming an issue which isn't great when the phone's only 4 months old. I'm frequently running on fumes toward the end of the day and whilst I can give it a charge whilst I'm at work it seems like such a dumb move to have fitted such a small battery. How P4 users survive I've no idea. I came off-charge @ 100% 10 hours ago and it says I have 8 hours roughly remaining so it'll only *just* see me through a day but would be into single digits by the time I go to bed. Screen use since coming off-charge is 3h 32m so far.

Google do this every time - they get >this close< to making a great phone only to hamstring it in a major way. With the immense resources they have at their disposal I don't understand how they drop a bk every time - it's the reason their phones have so little market share. I'd happily trade useless gimmicks like the wavy-hand gesture crap for a better battery. In fact the skip song thing was more of an irritation than a useful feature. Also the face unlock doesn't always work well, especially in the dark so I'm often entering my PIN - I'd trade face unlock for a fingerprint sensor again in a heartbeat.

I hate to admit this but I might be tempted to give Samsung a go. Their hardware is pretty much the best out there and they seem to be keeping pretty well updated/patched etc now too (this wasn't the case in the early days).

S100HP

12,645 posts

166 months

Friday 14th February 2020
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Funk said:
How P4 users survive I've no idea
Mine is alright. Turned it on this morning just before 7am with 100%. It's been playing music pretty much all day since, a mixture of BBC sounds and Spotify via Bluetooth.

It's 16.16 and battery is at 51%.

Funk

26,254 posts

208 months

Friday 14th February 2020
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S100HP said:
Funk said:
How P4 users survive I've no idea
Mine is alright. Turned it on this morning just before 7am with 100%. It's been playing music pretty much all day since, a mixture of BBC sounds and Spotify via Bluetooth.

It's 16.16 and battery is at 51%.
Mine came off charge at 6am, I had it on live monitoring of my bluetooth HRM (Polar H10) at the gym and streaming TIDAL for an hour. It's also syncing with my Fitbit throughout the day. Some more TIDAL via bluetooth to the car on the way to work (screen off mostly) and it's been on my desk all day doing relatively little (some light browsing while I waited for lunch to cook) - currently on 41% now.

As it happens I'm not at the gym tonight so it'll probably make it through to bed-time but if I were it'd be streaming again as well as tracking heart rate etc. I had two sessions yesterday for example and it was down to 13% by the time I went to bed...

It's cutting it too fine in my opinion - it needs a bigger battery...

leglessAlex

5,384 posts

140 months

Friday 14th February 2020
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Funk said:
...
Google do this every time - they get >this close< to making a great phone only to hamstring it in a major way. With the immense resources they have at their disposal I don't understand how they drop a bk every time - it's the reason their phones have so little market share. I'd happily trade useless gimmicks like the wavy-hand gesture crap for a better battery. In fact the skip song thing was more of an irritation than a useful feature. Also the face unlock doesn't always work well, especially in the dark so I'm often entering my PIN - I'd trade face unlock for a fingerprint sensor again in a heartbeat.

I hate to admit this but I might be tempted to give Samsung a go. Their hardware is pretty much the best out there and they seem to be keeping pretty well updated/patched etc now too (this wasn't the case in the early days).
I think I would have agreed with you last year, but I can't help but feel they're way off the pace from launch this year.

Design is meh, specs are meh compared to other flagships, battery is not up standard, only two cameras when even Apple is moving to three, sub-standard video ability, an unlock system that isn't supported by a lot of things like banking apps, no headphones in the box and so on.

A lot of those don't matter to people, and indeed they don't matter that much to me, but I could never recommend the 4XL to someone I know. It's too expensive and not good enough in most objective ways. I bought one bcause I really wanted to go back to Google's interpretation of Android and the fact that I really like the stills it takes, but I don't think it's good enough to recommend someone spend the kind of money they're asking for on it.

I tried Samsung with an S10+ last year and I just couldn't get on with it, no idea why. I'm very very very tempted to go to an iPhone 11 Pro Max, even given the silly cost. I don't really [b]need[/] any particular Android feature these days, and really I don't think there's that much between the two OSes.

AJB88

Original Poster:

12,269 posts

170 months

Friday 14th February 2020
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battery is lasting me around 12 hours with quite heavy usage.

ging84

8,829 posts

145 months

Friday 14th February 2020
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Battery life seems to be the biggest real problem with the pixels something they really aught to have been able to resolve, it seems almost like they are holding it back as a quick win for the future when there is even less going on in terms of new features.

OlonMusky

708 posts

53 months

Friday 14th February 2020
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Let's not forget that Pixel 4 is way more powerful than previous gen not to mention generations before it. Hence battery life will automatically suffer.


leglessAlex

5,384 posts

140 months

Saturday 15th February 2020
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Is that really a good excuse given that almost every other flagship manufacturer has made their phones more powerful in the same release cycle (Snapdragon 855+, more RAM) and managed to get mostly better battery life or at least fit a bigger battery.

OlonMusky

708 posts

53 months

Saturday 15th February 2020
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It's not an excuse, but it's somewhat explainable. Lazy of them though.

cb31

1,135 posts

135 months

Saturday 15th February 2020
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Had my 4XL since launch now and still happy with it, if anything the battery has got better.

One thing that is bugging me recently is the lack of controls in the camera, I know Google knows how to make the shot better than me in nearly all cases but sometimes it just doesn't. Two examples, I want to take videos of the kids playing badminton in a sports hall but the lighting confuses the white balance so it just looks wrong. Easily fixed if I could manually adjust it. Second example was in a pub yesterday, again lighting all wrong so couldn't use the picture. Just give us the option of manual controls!

Next phone in a few years will be a Oneplus again, very nearly as good but a lot cheaper.


Funk

26,254 posts

208 months

Saturday 15th February 2020
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I swore I'd never get another OnePlus after the data collecting debacle. Shame, as the 3T was a decent enough handset at the time.