6 ms·

Because most of them are?

by rrix2 9y ago

kllrnohj 9y ago
Most of them certainly aren't true on my Pixel XL. Play store loads immediately, GPS locks immediately, idle battery life is excellent, volume controls consistently adjust whatever is playing, etc... GP's list of complaints also don't apply. My AOSP Pixel XL never lags, has no malware, the UI is great, and it doesn't feel cheap at all. Reviews all match my experience as well, so I don't have any reason to believe I somehow got a golden lucky device. It seems far more likely that Xiaomi's implementation is just garbage, particularly since OEMs have a well established history of fucking this up. The only complaints that match my experience are no native themes and no good ad block solution, but I also think native themes are a terrible idea. It seems op just wants dark mode instead of native themes anyway, but Android sort of has that it's just called night mode instead.
- pdimitar 9y ago
  I forgot to mention I used 13 Androids over the last 5 years, of several brands. The Mi 6 is actually the best experience I had so far, by the way. I see you lean heavily towards Google's take on devices which is okay. But right in this thread people recommend apps to fix things that are missing from the pure Android. That is... not very okay. When I used Samsung, they had a mini app for everything. Even their clock / alarm / stopwatch / timer app was extremely easy and convenient to use. It's hard to quantify, it's a feeling that adds up over time. I also happen to think the Pixels take away too many features. microSD slots used to be one of the differentiating features of Android devices over iPhones, for example. Now we don't have that and we also no longer have a headphone jack, a decision that was widely frowned upon even by iPhone fans. To me, as a mostly neutral side observer who never was fanboying on neither platform, it looks like Google is trying to emulate Apple, and is failing.
  - kllrnohj 9y ago
    > When I used Samsung, they had a mini app for everything. Even their clock / alarm / stopwatch / timer app was extremely easy and convenient to use. It's hard to quantify, it's a feeling that adds up over time. But you pay for that in the form of a bad core system. Samsung's kernel tuning is bad. Their low level services are bad. Their system UI is bad. I'd much rather have a healthy core system since I can't replace that than a few fancy apps that are trivially replaced via play store. It's a night & day difference between a Samsung & a Google device when you systrace them and look at how the core device is actually responding. Benchmarks don't capture this, which is why most OEMs don't bother getting it right. If you still need microSD for some reason great, but honestly with 128gb phones I can't say I have any use for it. The phone's internal storage is more than plenty, especially with large things like photos being offloaded to cloud storage (with many providers to choose from if you don't like Google Photos for some reason). microSD was necessary when devices still had a base of 16GB, but that's not the world we live in anymore. Pixel 2's base storage is 64GB.
    - pdimitar 9y ago
      > I'd much rather have a healthy core system Google is aiming for a wider audience now and not only for techies. The average Joe and Jane don't give a damn about a healthy core system, that's not a selling point for them. They'll play with the phone and say "WTF? Google's clock app sucks!" or "Can't find anything in these settings" and will walk away. In fact, a friend of mine working in a mobile devices shop told me those exact two examples. People were baffled what was the hype about the first Pixel (or Nexus 6P) and were like "meh, show me the Samsung / iPhone". It is what it is. Call them what you want, but good UX is good UX. Pixel is not an improved Nexus. It has aspirations for audience as wide as iPhone's and Google's marketing efforts prove it, IMO. It's time for Google's UX team to grow up and stop thinking like a bunch of nerds patting themselves on the back in the dorm room. This phase of Android development is over and won't ever come back. > If you still need microSD for some reason great, but honestly with 128gb phones I can't say I have any use for it. I personally agree, plus UFS 2.0 internal storage can put some laptop SSDs to shame. I am actually quite happy with a 128GB UFS 2.0 storage Android (Mi 6). I kept hearing in the past that the microSD controller introduces slowdowns in the overall system -- don't ask me how, I don't know. Still, I knew people who claimed they needed the feature daily. I just don't see why the choice must be taken away if it didn't do any damage (if it did indeed slow down the kernel in some way then I can see a case against it though). And why was the headphone jack removed? The device doesn't even have IP67 rating. My former S7 Edge survived falls in 5cm deep potholes full of water with its headphone jack wide open. Dunno, man. It seems to me like Google is trying to emulate Apple and is doing a bad job at it. "Healthy core system" and "apps for every possible quality of life improvement" aren't mutually exclusive ideas. I've heard many people pull out the "bloatware" card which is just laughable. Yeah, 0.5 - 3.0 more GB on a 128GB is bloatware... sure! Some imaginary concept of "pure OS" which never really happened and is still not happening, having in mind all the AI-related benefits Google is pitching for the Pixels.
      - kllrnohj 9y ago
        > The average Joe and Jane don't give a damn about a healthy core system, that's not a selling point for them. That's not true at all. Do they look for that feature on the box? No, of course not. Do they get pissed off when instagram suddenly fails to launch quickly or the device hangs randomly? Abso-fucking-lutely. > They'll play with the phone and say "WTF? Google's clock app sucks!" or "Can't find anything in these settings" and will walk away. In fact, a friend of mine working in a mobile devices shop told me those exact two examples. People were baffled what was the hype about the first Pixel (or Nexus 6P) and were like "meh, show me the Samsung / iPhone". It is what it is. Call them what you want, but good UX is good UX. Sounds like you haven't ever touched a Pixel phone. Bad apps or confusing settings are not accurate descriptions at all. Nor is a bad UX. The phones are superb for an average user. It's the previous Nexus owners, the ones used to settings out the wazoo and customizations for days, those are the people that are pissed off about Pixel. Not the average user. > The device doesn't even have IP67 rating. Pixel 2? Yes it does. It's IP67. It's not IP68, though, like the S8 is.

Because most of them are?

by rrix2 9y ago

Because most of them are?

Most of them certainly aren't true on my Pixel XL. Play store loads immediately, GPS locks immediately, idle battery life is excellent, volume controls consistently adjust whatever is playing, etc... GP's list of complaints also don't apply. My AOSP Pixel XL never lags, has no malware, the UI is great, and it doesn't feel cheap at all. Reviews all match my experience as well, so I don't have any reason to believe I somehow got a golden lucky device. It seems far more likely that Xiaomi's implementation is just garbage, particularly since OEMs have a well established history of fucking this up. The only complaints that match my experience are no native themes and no good ad block solution, but I also think native themes are a terrible idea. It seems op just wants dark mode instead of native themes anyway, but Android sort of has that it's just called night mode instead.

pdimitar 9y ago
I forgot to mention I used 13 Androids over the last 5 years, of several brands. The Mi 6 is actually the best experience I had so far, by the way. I see you lean heavily towards Google's take on devices which is okay. But right in this thread people recommend apps to fix things that are missing from the pure Android. That is... not very okay. When I used Samsung, they had a mini app for everything. Even their clock / alarm / stopwatch / timer app was extremely easy and convenient to use. It's hard to quantify, it's a feeling that adds up over time. I also happen to think the Pixels take away too many features. microSD slots used to be one of the differentiating features of Android devices over iPhones, for example. Now we don't have that and we also no longer have a headphone jack, a decision that was widely frowned upon even by iPhone fans. To me, as a mostly neutral side observer who never was fanboying on neither platform, it looks like Google is trying to emulate Apple, and is failing.
- kllrnohj 9y ago
  > When I used Samsung, they had a mini app for everything. Even their clock / alarm / stopwatch / timer app was extremely easy and convenient to use. It's hard to quantify, it's a feeling that adds up over time. But you pay for that in the form of a bad core system. Samsung's kernel tuning is bad. Their low level services are bad. Their system UI is bad. I'd much rather have a healthy core system since I can't replace that than a few fancy apps that are trivially replaced via play store. It's a night & day difference between a Samsung & a Google device when you systrace them and look at how the core device is actually responding. Benchmarks don't capture this, which is why most OEMs don't bother getting it right. If you still need microSD for some reason great, but honestly with 128gb phones I can't say I have any use for it. The phone's internal storage is more than plenty, especially with large things like photos being offloaded to cloud storage (with many providers to choose from if you don't like Google Photos for some reason). microSD was necessary when devices still had a base of 16GB, but that's not the world we live in anymore. Pixel 2's base storage is 64GB.
  - pdimitar 9y ago
    > I'd much rather have a healthy core system Google is aiming for a wider audience now and not only for techies. The average Joe and Jane don't give a damn about a healthy core system, that's not a selling point for them. They'll play with the phone and say "WTF? Google's clock app sucks!" or "Can't find anything in these settings" and will walk away. In fact, a friend of mine working in a mobile devices shop told me those exact two examples. People were baffled what was the hype about the first Pixel (or Nexus 6P) and were like "meh, show me the Samsung / iPhone". It is what it is. Call them what you want, but good UX is good UX. Pixel is not an improved Nexus. It has aspirations for audience as wide as iPhone's and Google's marketing efforts prove it, IMO. It's time for Google's UX team to grow up and stop thinking like a bunch of nerds patting themselves on the back in the dorm room. This phase of Android development is over and won't ever come back. > If you still need microSD for some reason great, but honestly with 128gb phones I can't say I have any use for it. I personally agree, plus UFS 2.0 internal storage can put some laptop SSDs to shame. I am actually quite happy with a 128GB UFS 2.0 storage Android (Mi 6). I kept hearing in the past that the microSD controller introduces slowdowns in the overall system -- don't ask me how, I don't know. Still, I knew people who claimed they needed the feature daily. I just don't see why the choice must be taken away if it didn't do any damage (if it did indeed slow down the kernel in some way then I can see a case against it though). And why was the headphone jack removed? The device doesn't even have IP67 rating. My former S7 Edge survived falls in 5cm deep potholes full of water with its headphone jack wide open. Dunno, man. It seems to me like Google is trying to emulate Apple and is doing a bad job at it. "Healthy core system" and "apps for every possible quality of life improvement" aren't mutually exclusive ideas. I've heard many people pull out the "bloatware" card which is just laughable. Yeah, 0.5 - 3.0 more GB on a 128GB is bloatware... sure! Some imaginary concept of "pure OS" which never really happened and is still not happening, having in mind all the AI-related benefits Google is pitching for the Pixels.
    - kllrnohj 9y ago
      > The average Joe and Jane don't give a damn about a healthy core system, that's not a selling point for them. That's not true at all. Do they look for that feature on the box? No, of course not. Do they get pissed off when instagram suddenly fails to launch quickly or the device hangs randomly? Abso-fucking-lutely. > They'll play with the phone and say "WTF? Google's clock app sucks!" or "Can't find anything in these settings" and will walk away. In fact, a friend of mine working in a mobile devices shop told me those exact two examples. People were baffled what was the hype about the first Pixel (or Nexus 6P) and were like "meh, show me the Samsung / iPhone". It is what it is. Call them what you want, but good UX is good UX. Sounds like you haven't ever touched a Pixel phone. Bad apps or confusing settings are not accurate descriptions at all. Nor is a bad UX. The phones are superb for an average user. It's the previous Nexus owners, the ones used to settings out the wazoo and customizations for days, those are the people that are pissed off about Pixel. Not the average user. > The device doesn't even have IP67 rating. Pixel 2? Yes it does. It's IP67. It's not IP68, though, like the S8 is.