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Pixel 4a 5G and Pixel 5 are discontinued, says Google
- nachteilig 5y agoThis is really frustrating - Google make it fairly difficult to have a decent android phone I can reliably order.
- marderfarker2 5y agoThere are tons of other good android phones in the market.
- sarmadsohaib 5y agoYes. Samsung have some good phones too.
- bqmjjx0kac 5y agoAm I misreading, or do you frequently purchase more units of the same phone?
- smallerfish 5y agoThey released the 5A and are coming out with the 6 soon. What's the issue? https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/17/22627253/google-pixel-5a-specs-price-screen-battery-availability https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/17/22627253/google-pixel-5a-...
- toast0 5y agoThe model lifetime is too short. You can't get any idea of medium term reliability (as a proxy for long term reliability) until when the phones are discontinued.
- smallerfish 5y agoI'm by no means a google booster, but the 4A 5G is supported through Nov 2023, and the 5 through Oct 2023. That's not bad.
- sarmadsohaib 5y agoApple providing 7 years of official support, i think.
- verdverm 5y agoAnd yet they lost a class action related to software updates making the hardware unusable and face more. https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/25/22248408/apple-class-action-suit-throttling-iphone-europe https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/25/22248408/apple-class-acti... https://www.smartphoneperformancesettlement.com/ https://www.smartphoneperformancesettlement.com/
- masklinn 5y agoYes turns out dropping support entirely is less risky than bad updates tanking performances, because you’re not immediately and personally causing issues.
- zitterbewegung 5y agoThose are real issues but that misses the point that iPhones have seven years of support which also decreases the TCO of the iPhone to around 62% less than the competition.
- kemayo 5y agoTechnically they didn't lose it -- that's a settlement. This might sound like I'm being pedantic -- and I am -- but it's an important distinction! It means there was never some official legal determination that they did something wrong. The specific thing they were sued over was "we slowed down your phone when the battery got old, because the alternative was it crashing, and we didn't tell you we were doing it". Not explaining it was bad, but they've since fixed that, and the underlying technical thing they did seems reasonable and, to the point of this discussion, actually prolonged the usable life of the phone.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- numpad0 5y agoLooks like external dimensions are different, so they’re mechanically incompatible. With iPhones, mechanical dimensions are so close together that cases are 1-2 generations backwards compatible.
- xur17 5y agoCompared to the price of a phone, cases are fairly cheap. Is the ability to reuse a case important for other reasons?
- steve_adams_86 5y agoI’d say reducing waste is important.
- numpad0 5y agoMechanical dimensions being close together definitely is. It’s a PITA when phones grow but your 3D printed cases don’t.
- shantara 5y agoThe issue is that every new Google phone is available in less and less countries. 5a looks like a good option to replace my current 3a, but it is impossible to officially buy it here in Europe.
- fsflover 5y agoIf you want a smartphone that lasts, consider Librem 5 or Pinephone. They support mainline Linux kernel and will receive security updates forever.
- theodric 5y agoSpecs like a 2013 smartphone, and an OS without any commercial app support to speak of. Can't read my work e-mail, can't access my bank...a computer without useful software is only a toy, and the same goes for a phone.
- fsflover 5y agoAnswers (related to Librem 5): https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Frequently-Asked-Questions#14-do-the-specs-justify-paying-599-899-for-the-librem-5 https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque... https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Frequently-Asked-Questions#32-why-buy-the-librem-5-when-there-are-no-apps-for-it https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque...
- unicornporn 5y agoIn theory I wanted a Pinephone. That's until I saw it run GloDroid. So choppy it's unusable. My next phone will be a Fairphone with LineageOS[1]. At least they're trying[2]. [1] https://forum.fairphone.com/t/official-lineageos-18-1-for-fairphone-3-fairphone-3/74662/122 https://forum.fairphone.com/t/official-lineageos-18-1-for-fa... [2] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/the-fairphone-2-hits-five-years-of-updates-with-some-help-from-lineageos/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/the-fairphone-2-hits...
- mmastrac 5y agoI'm considering the Fairphone as well, but could someone give me a reasonable idea of what to expect with running de-googled vs googled? Unfortunately I still need access to Gmail and Drive from my phone on occasion. Is that still available when de-Googled? I'd love to have a full Android VM running on a de-Googled phone where I could sandbox all of the Google stuff.
- chrisseaton 5y agoWhy do you need to reliably order an older generation of phone?
- masklinn 5y agoCompany fleet?
- chrisseaton 5y agoSeems like a niche requirement that Google aren't aiming or claiming to meet - these are consumer phones not components for building into a system.
- masklinn 5y agoDoesn't really help someone looking for a well-supported "baseline" (no extra garbage from the manufacturer) android phone for company fleets.
- sarmadsohaib 5y agoBTW Samsung s20 FE is a good device. What do you think?
- mensetmanusman 5y agoI was just thinking, since Apple is supposedly going to make a car, wouldn’t it be interesting if Tesla decided to make a smartphone since Google gave up.
- tonymet 5y agoPixel 5a was just released last week, and Pixel 6 will be out in a few weeks
- sarmadsohaib 5y agoYou are right man.
- sarmadsohaib 5y agoNothing can be said. Everyone is behind more and more wealth. EVs makers making robots wo we can consider your are saying right at some extent.
- Razengan 5y agoNo SIM, Starlink-only? Would be interesting.
- sarmadsohaib 5y agoStarlink is not available in many parts of the world.
- 0_____0 5y agoMight be tricky to package a beamforming V/Ku/Ka band antenna array into a cell phone.
- Razengan 5y agoThe phones could only connect to towers that connect to Starlink.
- mhh__ 5y ago
- izacus 5y agoMostly because they're obsoleted and replaced by the freshly released Pixel 5a.
- mikelward 5y agoThe Pixel 5a is effectively an XL. And there's no non-XL version. Now the Pixel 5 is discontinued, the only non-XL option is the 4a. I like the 4a a lot, but it's over 12 months old, with a mid-range SoC, so I wouldn't buy a new one now.
- shp0ngle 5y agoWhat is the difference between Pixel 5, Pixel 5 5G and Pixel 5a? is “5a” better or worse than 5?
- cmeacham98 5y agoPixel X = Flagship, most expensive with best hardware and most features Pixel Xa = Cheaper version of Pixel X, often with one tier down processor, less RAM, and lacking some features like wireless charging Pixel 4a 5G (marketed as a 4a with 5G support) is somewhat of a weird case where it's actually closer to what we'd expect from a Pixel 5a (which is likely why it was discontinued while the Pixel 4a was not)
- shp0ngle 5y agoI am entirely lost 4a is a cheaper version of 4, except 4a 5G, which is 5a? But 5a also exists? I am really lost here
- cmeacham98 5y agoThe 4a 5G and 5a are separate phones, but target roughly the same price point and feature set (basically the mid tier "phone with 5G" market). When the 4a 5G launched years ago the 5a didn't exist. Now that it does the 4a 5G is being discontinued. Yeah, the naming scheme sucks, google should have just called them the 5a and 5b or something.
- vcxy 5y agoThe 4a 5G was launched less than a year ago, fyi.
- sdenton4 5y agoFor comparison, at one point I had three Samsung J2s all with different chipsets...
- fwipsy 5y agoUsually, the Pixel Xa is a newer, more budget-oriented version of the Pixel X. "5G" variants of phones seem to be totally different phones, not just a radio upgrade.
- theodric 5y agoWow, that lasted less than a year. Well done. At some point maybe all their stuff will be vaporware you have to preorder and then 9 months later they can return 40% of your money and cancel the order.
- thunkshift1 5y agoCan load another os on the latest models?