12 ms·

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I had a Nexus 6P and after that experience I promised myself that I will never buy a Google hardware dev

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I had a Nexus 6P and after that experience I promised myself that I will never buy a Google hardware device ever again. The company has the wrong mentality regarding its handsets and how to take care of the customers who buy them.

joelthelion 5y ago
Other hardware companies tend to have even worse update policies...
jjkmk 5y ago
It's hit or miss, I have had a number of Nexus and Pixel devices and haven't had any issues.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
akamaka 5y ago
The last time I bought a Google-branded phone, they cut support after only 18 months. I’ll never buy a Google hardware product ever again.
- duffyjp 5y ago
  I bought an LG G7 from Google Fi, and it was exactly 18 months from the phone's release to when they stopped updating it. I didn't buy it on day one either, so I got even less. I vowed that was the last e-waste phone I'm buying and moved to an iPhone last year. There are still a lot of things I like better on Android, but it's not worth it.
  - emptyparadise 5y ago
    This is in large part due to poor luck and changing phones a lot, but I managed to use Android for around 4 years without ever receiving an over the air system update.
micromacrofoot 5y ago
I jumped off when the third Nexus 5X replacement Google gave me also bootlooped. Total junk and probably the most frustrating product experience I've ever had. The writing's on the wall when it comes to Android SOCs now anyway, Apple phones from 4 years ago perform better and still get updates. They have their own issues, but they're not existential level problems.
- naasking 5y ago
  > I jumped off when the third Nexus 5X replacement Google gave me also bootlooped Shame, because my Nexus 5 and Nexus 4 still run great. I don't use them as phones, but they're still solid devices I use for other projects.
- fluidcruft 5y ago
  This is sort of what I wonder about the Tensor in the new Pixels... but after Pixel 3 I'm not willing to gamble that much money on what looks like yet-another of Google's attempts to shift blame about why they can't support their phones. If Pixel "6a" has Tensor and is priced like a phone that will only be supported for 3 years, I'll consider it. But frankly it's really hard to justify not getting an iPhone anymore. I have three kids and they all want iPhones and all their social life is on iMessage. Not to mention that all the apps I have to use for work are better supported in iPhone and have issues on Android but IT doesn't really care. It's becoming really difficult to justify not just getting my wife and I iPhones in the next cycle and planning to hand them down.
  - RHSeeger 5y ago
    Apple makes some really nice devices, but there's a lot of people (myself included) that have a strong aversion to their "you don't want this, you want this other thing that we decided" mentality. Their software commonly does something totally different than what you tell it to do, because they decided it's better. Because of that, I will never own an iphone. Its frustrating that all the big companies act like "we're big, so we'll do what we want, no matter how annoying it is to the end user" ... and the small companies really can't compete/disrupt the market because they're not big enough.
fluidcruft 5y ago
Have things changed in the Android space, though? My impression is Google's are still the most updated. I've had a Nexus S, 4, 5 and currently have Pixel 3. I've never really had any problems with the Google-managed devices. Motorola and Samsung... let's just say I will never, ever buy a phone from them ever again. The choice is between Pixel and iPhone. But after the Pixel 3 I will not pay for the "premium" class Pixels.
- zrm 5y ago
  When is a hardware maker going to figure out that selling something that works like a PC in terms of third party system updates will immediately become the thing that techs buy and recommend? People are willingly paying iPhone prices for Purism and Pinephone hardware with low specs and old chips. Does Samsung not want this money?
  - dsr_ 5y ago
    It used to be that people talked to their local techies before making technology purchases. Now people look at the ads and the product placement. If you want to sell millions of a device, that's how you do it.
    - zrm 5y ago
      People still regularly ask me what kind of phone to get. I start by excluding the ones with literal malware and after that the primary determinant is price, because if it's going to be rapidly disposable anyway then there's no point in making a large investment. "Let's force them to buy a new phone more often" is the kind of first year on the job MBA move that sounds profitable on paper as long as you fail to notice that the average Android phone now sells for less than a third of the price of the average iPhone. And that's revenue; the difference in margins is even bigger.
      - throw10920 5y ago
        Not a single one of my friends or family (n=50) has asked me for phone recommendations in the past 4 years (and I can only recall two recommendation requests ever). It's certainly not common enough that you see mentions about it on HN or Reddit - and yet, you see mentions of adjacent things like requests for tech support. So, it's clearly not very common.
dont__panic 5y ago
If you pick and choose your hardware correctly (waiting for reviews and news of major defects to come out), you can do fairly well -- my SO has the 4a, and it works admirably for her. Had a 3a before that and she only upgraded because the screen broke and it would cost more than the phone to replace it. But I'm inclined to agree. Just look at the 6 and 6 Pro. They rolled out an upgrade, ruined cellular connectivity for a good chunk of users, and then all of the engineers peaced out for the holidays, with no way to downgrade to a usable release for effected users other than wiping their entire phone and starting from scratch. For their flagship phones. With word that the 6a is ditching the headphone jack and rear fingerprint sensor, and also inching up in size to gargantuan phablet dimensions, it'll be easy to switch away in the future.
- polishdude20 5y ago
  I've still got a pixel 2 and it works swimmingly. Sometimes the 4k video stops recording and sometimes there's a bit of slow down but it hasn't convince me to change devices just yet.
  - bartvk 5y ago
    Does it still get security updates, or don’t you do anything sensitive on the phone?
    - matt_heimer 5y ago
      Also rocking a Pixel 2 (XL) 128GB here, even recently swapped the battery and its like new again. Replacing it with an equivalent or better phone would cost a good bit of money. What security issues should I be concerned about? It's difficult to spend the time going through the CVE database to figure this out, I see a lot of privilege escalation issues but I don't install apps that I don't trust anyway. I still get browser updates. I care less about the bugs and more about the attack vectors.
      - grayfaced 5y ago
        What does trusted app mean? A priv esc means you're now worried that any other app has a vulnerability. You might trust your default weather app to not be malicious but do you trust it and hundred other standard apps to be secure? I'd rather have a secure sandbox with untrusted apps then have insecure sandbox with a ton of attack surfaces in trusted apps.
MisterTea 5y ago
I had one of those defective google Nexus 7 tablets which suffered from bad hardware and software rendering the device unusable. It died after a year. Well not completely dead, it booted but was so slow as to be totally unusable. Google did nothing to compensate save for some bullshit discount on a new nexus device. Like I'm going to give them more money after telling me to go fuck myself. I also bought a Nexus/Pixel 5 phone or whatever around the same time and that too had issues after 2 years. I forget the issues but it had to be rebooted frequently, at least once a day due to slowdowns. Replaced with an HTC that ran much better for 4 years until I accidentally killed it. After those two turds I will NEVER buy google garbage ever again.
gonehome 5y ago
Yeah, I jumped ship earlier. I had the Nexus One, Nexus S, and Galaxy Nexus (which was a horrible phone) and then jumped to an iPhone 5. It's hard to find hardware as consistently good as the iPhone and after the redesign from 12 onward it's been really great (I wish they'd keep the mini around). I would have thought Google finally bringing the hardware design in house with the pixel phones would let them create a real competitor, but they seem to be just okay? Lack of focus maybe? Might just be a case of commoditize your complement, in this case the complement for Google is the hardware.
- Osiris 5y ago
  I've had an Android phone since the TMobile 3G (second ever Android phone) and I'm starting to seriously consider an iPhone. I'm not an Apple fan. I don't use any Apple products right now. However, it's impossible to deny that Android phones are always 2-3 years behind Apple in terms of hardware and software. I also never spend more than $500 on a phone, which has iPhones out of reach.
  - wand3r 5y ago
    I think the iphone SE is under $500. I used an apple iphone 8 up until this Christmas. The iphone SE is basically a slightly upgraded iphone 8 which i think has 1 more gb of ram or something. I will sometimes just buy a model or 2 back used or refurbished since they last for quite a while. You could probably get the 11 for under $500 as well.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      iPhone SE is $400 (64GB) and $450 (128GB): https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-se https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-se
  - kingaillas 5y ago
    >I also never spend more than $500 on a phone, which has iPhones out of reach. I migrated to Android back in the IPhone 8 and IPhone 10 Max Plus++ whatever era. I just couldn't deal with a $1000 phone. But now Apple has the IPhone SE which goes for as low as $399.
BTCOG 5y ago
Well, they also have the wrong mentality on virtually everything else that Google does. They've shut down many more half-baked projects, far more than their successes. Google at least to me was/is solely successful at search, and ads. Even those are quickly turning to junk and the bane of the entire internet. Google should be busted up, sooner than later. But that's just me!
Bluecobra 5y ago
Same here, except it was the Galaxy Nexus that pissed me off so much to switch to Apple.
Accujack 5y ago
My Pixel XL bricked itself one morning due to a software update that triggered some kind of hardware bug. Great phone until that point, then poof, and it wouldn't even connect with a debug connection to my PC to replace the firmware or recover itself. I've put it on a shelf until I can get time/money to recover the data from the flash, but lesson learned. I bought a Samsung.
- jonty 5y ago
  Regret to inform you that it almost certainly isn't a bug - the flash died. It's unrecoverable. Large numbers of pixel 3/3xl's have started dying in the last year and it looks like it's the flash wearing out on all the early adopter/heavy user devices. This happened to me too.
notyourday 5y ago
> Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I had a Nexus 6P and after that experience I promised myself that I will never buy a Google hardware device ever again. The company has the wrong mentality regarding its handsets and how to take care of the customers who buy them. Regardless, as of 2020 the only non absolute shit Android phones are Pixels. Essential, which was another non-shit Android, is dead because rather than re-iterating its boneheaded founder decided the market was in the TV remote control like device. Samsung's flagship phones push ads as a part of the operating system. Let that sink in. On a $1,200 phone! OnePlus can't make its interface not crash. Neither can it convince the carriers to whitelist its profiles in the United States for 5G and Wifi calling.
- mr_aks 5y ago
  I believe Samsung cancelled ads last year. Source: https://www.engadget.com/samsung-removes-ads-pay-health-weather-203218433.html https://www.engadget.com/samsung-removes-ads-pay-health-weat...
  - notyourday 5y ago
    My neighbor has a Galaxy S21 Ultra. It had ads last week. Out of all sucky Android devices and due to my work I probably touched at least 3/4 of models sold via non-grey market channel in the US the only phones that are functional are Pixels, which sucks. My wife has an iPhone 12. Pixel 6 today is either in the same class or beats it. Of course it is highly unlikely that it will beat it in 2024 given Google track record of refusing to reiterate.
- totalZero 5y ago
  Samsung flagship phones are excellent, their customer service is attentive, and the devices aren't assembled in China. I admit that Bixby is a ridiculous barnacle whose eradication would improve the product.
  - notyourday 5y ago
    Their hardware is excellent. The stock S21 Ultra and A32, A42 and A52 software is garbage.
jay_kyburz 5y ago
Problem is, I've been fooled by Apple, Samsung and Google. I'm running out of people to buy phones from.
aixi 5y ago
I had the exact same experience! Had a Nexus 6p, it boot looped and I sweared off Android forever. Ever since then I've been iPhone only and I have no complaints --- went from the 8 plus to a 13 Pro Max recently, but honestly it was a vanity upgrade and was not necessary at all.

joelthelion 5y ago

Other hardware companies tend to have even worse update policies...

jjkmk 5y ago

It's hit or miss, I have had a number of Nexus and Pixel devices and haven't had any issues.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

akamaka 5y ago

The last time I bought a Google-branded phone, they cut support after only 18 months. I’ll never buy a Google hardware product ever again.

duffyjp 5y ago
I bought an LG G7 from Google Fi, and it was exactly 18 months from the phone's release to when they stopped updating it. I didn't buy it on day one either, so I got even less. I vowed that was the last e-waste phone I'm buying and moved to an iPhone last year. There are still a lot of things I like better on Android, but it's not worth it.
- emptyparadise 5y ago
  This is in large part due to poor luck and changing phones a lot, but I managed to use Android for around 4 years without ever receiving an over the air system update.

micromacrofoot 5y ago

I jumped off when the third Nexus 5X replacement Google gave me also bootlooped. Total junk and probably the most frustrating product experience I've ever had. The writing's on the wall when it comes to Android SOCs now anyway, Apple phones from 4 years ago perform better and still get updates. They have their own issues, but they're not existential level problems.

naasking 5y ago
> I jumped off when the third Nexus 5X replacement Google gave me also bootlooped Shame, because my Nexus 5 and Nexus 4 still run great. I don't use them as phones, but they're still solid devices I use for other projects.
fluidcruft 5y ago
This is sort of what I wonder about the Tensor in the new Pixels... but after Pixel 3 I'm not willing to gamble that much money on what looks like yet-another of Google's attempts to shift blame about why they can't support their phones. If Pixel "6a" has Tensor and is priced like a phone that will only be supported for 3 years, I'll consider it. But frankly it's really hard to justify not getting an iPhone anymore. I have three kids and they all want iPhones and all their social life is on iMessage. Not to mention that all the apps I have to use for work are better supported in iPhone and have issues on Android but IT doesn't really care. It's becoming really difficult to justify not just getting my wife and I iPhones in the next cycle and planning to hand them down.
- RHSeeger 5y ago
  Apple makes some really nice devices, but there's a lot of people (myself included) that have a strong aversion to their "you don't want this, you want this other thing that we decided" mentality. Their software commonly does something totally different than what you tell it to do, because they decided it's better. Because of that, I will never own an iphone. Its frustrating that all the big companies act like "we're big, so we'll do what we want, no matter how annoying it is to the end user" ... and the small companies really can't compete/disrupt the market because they're not big enough.

fluidcruft 5y ago

Have things changed in the Android space, though? My impression is Google's are still the most updated. I've had a Nexus S, 4, 5 and currently have Pixel 3. I've never really had any problems with the Google-managed devices. Motorola and Samsung... let's just say I will never, ever buy a phone from them ever again. The choice is between Pixel and iPhone. But after the Pixel 3 I will not pay for the "premium" class Pixels.

zrm 5y ago
When is a hardware maker going to figure out that selling something that works like a PC in terms of third party system updates will immediately become the thing that techs buy and recommend? People are willingly paying iPhone prices for Purism and Pinephone hardware with low specs and old chips. Does Samsung not want this money?
- dsr_ 5y ago
  It used to be that people talked to their local techies before making technology purchases. Now people look at the ads and the product placement. If you want to sell millions of a device, that's how you do it.
  - zrm 5y ago
    People still regularly ask me what kind of phone to get. I start by excluding the ones with literal malware and after that the primary determinant is price, because if it's going to be rapidly disposable anyway then there's no point in making a large investment. "Let's force them to buy a new phone more often" is the kind of first year on the job MBA move that sounds profitable on paper as long as you fail to notice that the average Android phone now sells for less than a third of the price of the average iPhone. And that's revenue; the difference in margins is even bigger.
    - throw10920 5y ago
      Not a single one of my friends or family (n=50) has asked me for phone recommendations in the past 4 years (and I can only recall two recommendation requests ever). It's certainly not common enough that you see mentions about it on HN or Reddit - and yet, you see mentions of adjacent things like requests for tech support. So, it's clearly not very common.

dont__panic 5y ago

If you pick and choose your hardware correctly (waiting for reviews and news of major defects to come out), you can do fairly well -- my SO has the 4a, and it works admirably for her. Had a 3a before that and she only upgraded because the screen broke and it would cost more than the phone to replace it. But I'm inclined to agree. Just look at the 6 and 6 Pro. They rolled out an upgrade, ruined cellular connectivity for a good chunk of users, and then all of the engineers peaced out for the holidays, with no way to downgrade to a usable release for effected users other than wiping their entire phone and starting from scratch. For their flagship phones. With word that the 6a is ditching the headphone jack and rear fingerprint sensor, and also inching up in size to gargantuan phablet dimensions, it'll be easy to switch away in the future.

polishdude20 5y ago
I've still got a pixel 2 and it works swimmingly. Sometimes the 4k video stops recording and sometimes there's a bit of slow down but it hasn't convince me to change devices just yet.
- bartvk 5y ago
  Does it still get security updates, or don’t you do anything sensitive on the phone?
  - matt_heimer 5y ago
    Also rocking a Pixel 2 (XL) 128GB here, even recently swapped the battery and its like new again. Replacing it with an equivalent or better phone would cost a good bit of money. What security issues should I be concerned about? It's difficult to spend the time going through the CVE database to figure this out, I see a lot of privilege escalation issues but I don't install apps that I don't trust anyway. I still get browser updates. I care less about the bugs and more about the attack vectors.
    - grayfaced 5y ago
      What does trusted app mean? A priv esc means you're now worried that any other app has a vulnerability. You might trust your default weather app to not be malicious but do you trust it and hundred other standard apps to be secure? I'd rather have a secure sandbox with untrusted apps then have insecure sandbox with a ton of attack surfaces in trusted apps.

MisterTea 5y ago

I had one of those defective google Nexus 7 tablets which suffered from bad hardware and software rendering the device unusable. It died after a year. Well not completely dead, it booted but was so slow as to be totally unusable. Google did nothing to compensate save for some bullshit discount on a new nexus device. Like I'm going to give them more money after telling me to go fuck myself. I also bought a Nexus/Pixel 5 phone or whatever around the same time and that too had issues after 2 years. I forget the issues but it had to be rebooted frequently, at least once a day due to slowdowns. Replaced with an HTC that ran much better for 4 years until I accidentally killed it. After those two turds I will NEVER buy google garbage ever again.

gonehome 5y ago

Yeah, I jumped ship earlier. I had the Nexus One, Nexus S, and Galaxy Nexus (which was a horrible phone) and then jumped to an iPhone 5. It's hard to find hardware as consistently good as the iPhone and after the redesign from 12 onward it's been really great (I wish they'd keep the mini around). I would have thought Google finally bringing the hardware design in house with the pixel phones would let them create a real competitor, but they seem to be just okay? Lack of focus maybe? Might just be a case of commoditize your complement, in this case the complement for Google is the hardware.

Osiris 5y ago
I've had an Android phone since the TMobile 3G (second ever Android phone) and I'm starting to seriously consider an iPhone. I'm not an Apple fan. I don't use any Apple products right now. However, it's impossible to deny that Android phones are always 2-3 years behind Apple in terms of hardware and software. I also never spend more than $500 on a phone, which has iPhones out of reach.
- wand3r 5y ago
  I think the iphone SE is under $500. I used an apple iphone 8 up until this Christmas. The iphone SE is basically a slightly upgraded iphone 8 which i think has 1 more gb of ram or something. I will sometimes just buy a model or 2 back used or refurbished since they last for quite a while. You could probably get the 11 for under $500 as well.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    iPhone SE is $400 (64GB) and $450 (128GB): https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-se https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-se
- kingaillas 5y ago
  >I also never spend more than $500 on a phone, which has iPhones out of reach. I migrated to Android back in the IPhone 8 and IPhone 10 Max Plus++ whatever era. I just couldn't deal with a $1000 phone. But now Apple has the IPhone SE which goes for as low as $399.

BTCOG 5y ago

Well, they also have the wrong mentality on virtually everything else that Google does. They've shut down many more half-baked projects, far more than their successes. Google at least to me was/is solely successful at search, and ads. Even those are quickly turning to junk and the bane of the entire internet. Google should be busted up, sooner than later. But that's just me!

Bluecobra 5y ago

Same here, except it was the Galaxy Nexus that pissed me off so much to switch to Apple.

Accujack 5y ago

My Pixel XL bricked itself one morning due to a software update that triggered some kind of hardware bug. Great phone until that point, then poof, and it wouldn't even connect with a debug connection to my PC to replace the firmware or recover itself. I've put it on a shelf until I can get time/money to recover the data from the flash, but lesson learned. I bought a Samsung.

jonty 5y ago
Regret to inform you that it almost certainly isn't a bug - the flash died. It's unrecoverable. Large numbers of pixel 3/3xl's have started dying in the last year and it looks like it's the flash wearing out on all the early adopter/heavy user devices. This happened to me too.

notyourday 5y ago

> Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I had a Nexus 6P and after that experience I promised myself that I will never buy a Google hardware device ever again. The company has the wrong mentality regarding its handsets and how to take care of the customers who buy them. Regardless, as of 2020 the only non absolute shit Android phones are Pixels. Essential, which was another non-shit Android, is dead because rather than re-iterating its boneheaded founder decided the market was in the TV remote control like device. Samsung's flagship phones push ads as a part of the operating system. Let that sink in. On a $1,200 phone! OnePlus can't make its interface not crash. Neither can it convince the carriers to whitelist its profiles in the United States for 5G and Wifi calling.

mr_aks 5y ago
I believe Samsung cancelled ads last year. Source: https://www.engadget.com/samsung-removes-ads-pay-health-weather-203218433.html https://www.engadget.com/samsung-removes-ads-pay-health-weat...
- notyourday 5y ago
  My neighbor has a Galaxy S21 Ultra. It had ads last week. Out of all sucky Android devices and due to my work I probably touched at least 3/4 of models sold via non-grey market channel in the US the only phones that are functional are Pixels, which sucks. My wife has an iPhone 12. Pixel 6 today is either in the same class or beats it. Of course it is highly unlikely that it will beat it in 2024 given Google track record of refusing to reiterate.
totalZero 5y ago
Samsung flagship phones are excellent, their customer service is attentive, and the devices aren't assembled in China. I admit that Bixby is a ridiculous barnacle whose eradication would improve the product.
- notyourday 5y ago
  Their hardware is excellent. The stock S21 Ultra and A32, A42 and A52 software is garbage.

jay_kyburz 5y ago

Problem is, I've been fooled by Apple, Samsung and Google. I'm running out of people to buy phones from.

aixi 5y ago

I had the exact same experience! Had a Nexus 6p, it boot looped and I sweared off Android forever. Ever since then I've been iPhone only and I have no complaints --- went from the 8 plus to a 13 Pro Max recently, but honestly it was a vanity upgrade and was not necessary at all.