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68% Positive
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#phone#phones#samsung#pixel#foldable#moving#fold#form#factor#folding
Discussion (59 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
Really not sure if we were ever there. Foldable phones still feel like a novelty that is expensive and fragile, among other tradeoffs. Also moving on to what, exactly? The regular slate form factor is what people buy, and have been for years at this point.
Which honestly I support. I still have my LG VX8100 and wish it would work on modern networks.
I like it so much I'd consider a non folding phone in the squatter form factor as well.
I'm foldable-curious and Samsung just includes too much overlapping bloat "features". Gemini is bad enough, I don't need Bixby and whatever else. Not to mention I would have to pay full price.
Gonna hold out for the Motorola/Graphene phone though. One of the models is supposed to be a flagship foldable.
Yep, that's a major drawback. My partner has a Samsung phone and seeing all of the included bloatware, plus the terrible updates and add even more, made me not even consider one of their devices last time I bought a phone.
I have never seen anything like that on a flagship Samsung, nor our daughter's A series.
For example, this form factor of foldable doesn’t give you significantly more screen real estate for 16:9 video content since it’s such a square aspect ratio.
They also generally aren’t large enough to take advantage of tablet layouts, while tri-fold designs fold out to be almost identical to a tablet size.
You have to really want to use two apps side by side in my opinion.
One genuine nice Samsung feature is DeX. Been using it + moonlight (when needed) to make the phone basically a secondary computer when hooked up to USB-C monitor. Honestly I think this phone may end up replacing several other devices - kindle, gaming portable (eg: steamdeck, replaced by phone + GameSir G8 + controller), laptop, tablet. I think it can only replace laptop in my use case because I can remote into my desktop from it if I need extra compute - so if you are laptop only I don't expect it to be a straight replacement.
Honestly, best phone I've ever used - but I hope next year either google gets off the sidelines and adopts passport form factor + gets its shit together on the crease, cpu and dex equivalent so I can get my pixel exclusives and vanilla OS back, or alternatively Samsung makes the wide form factor the "ultra" and gives us better cameras, speaker placement, s-pen and IP68.
Otherwise, in no world is $1100 for a cell phone anything but expensive.
Yes, iPhones are also expensive.
It’s just not really a flagship phone in terms of processor performance.
I know Samsung has a lot more of their garbage software on it but I think if I was in the Android market I’d probably be inclined for a Samsung device over a Pixel. If I lived in Europe or Asia I’d be looking at something Chinese that’s not sold in the US market. Companies like Xiaomi and Huawei make way better phones than Google.
I'm curious to know which apps/use-cases you feel are hobbled by the non-flagship processors on Pixels. It feels like most peoples top 3 activities on phones are infinite scrolling inside apps or a browser, taking pictures, and playing games, which Pixels seem to be great at. It's been many years since I felt that a phone that is slow enough to notice - even the midrange ones, and I (used to) write and debug code on my phone.
Heck, even flagships like the S26 Ultra, which was introduced in March and still dominates the CPU, GPU, etc. charts are currently 500 Euro off in my country.
Even discounted, Pixel have pretty bad prices compared to the competition. The primary reason to buy a Pixel is to run GrapheneOS. Otherwise, just get an iPhone or if you are willing to remove the bloat with UAD some Samsung phone.
Nearly $2000 after tax for a phone is fucking absurd.
A whole lot of people use their phone as their primary and most-used device. I don’t think a high price is insane, it’s just that folks who consider them a utility and a side-device to a desktop computer tend not to feel that way. Many millennials and older who grew up with desktops and laptops probably can’t comprehend the idea of a phone being the only device or primary device.
My iPhone was something like $1300 and I feel like it was worth every penny, and that a cheaper model did not meet my needs and wants.
Personally, I find smart watches a gimmick but maybe I havnt looked into them enough.
I tried one and permanently dented it on accident with the stylus. Can't image what would happen if you did something crazy like go to a beach.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/GalaxyFold/comments/1vhhow0/because...
But I would be nervous about spending that much on a phone if you expect to be dropping it a lot, honestly.
With google the added question though is, are they losing interest again?
I never even considered buying a foldable phone, and they're already moving on from that shape.
But as far as reviews go, this one is just as bad as most. They didn't do any standardized measurements of the battery life including comparisons with similar phones, or performance benchmarks, or charging speed measurements, or any camera measurements that go beyond vibes. They are just reporting what anyone who bought the phone could also tell you: subjective impressions and a few out-of-context sample photos.
Also don't think anyone makes buying decisions based on these reviews. It's more entertainment than anything else.
$1900?
Wow wth
Pixel phones are "great software with a frankly boring phone built around it".
I think this even works for Google: if the hardware ceases to be the differentiating factor as we go on in time, it seems to me Google's position would keep improving over time, certainly over Samsung.
I also can't look on the Pixel anymore, but I remember there were weirdly two different control centers that always got me.