Google Will Release a New Pixel Phone this Year (engadget.com) 55
An anonymous reader shares an Engadget report: The Pixel represents Google's first proper foray into the smartphone market, allowing the search giant to directly compete with Apple and cement Android's reputation as a premium platform. While sales have been steady, it's been particularly hard to get a hold of one due to component shortages. That hasn't dampened the company's plans to continue investing in its own smartphones, though: according to Rick Osterloh, VP of Hardware at Google, there will be a successor to the Pixel this year and will continue to carry a high price tag.
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With the initial Pixel and Pixel XL they already guaranteed full support with updates and new Android versions for a minimum of two years.
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Hey re pixel has only had one release. Getting bored comes with release two
Personally I want a new nexus 7-8 tablet. Mine is three years old and still awesome but I look around for replacements and see only cheap things
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They'll make it work, get a following, then get bored with it.
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Analysis (Score:3)
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The Pixel represents Google's first proper foray into the smartphone market
Can someone who follows Android more closely than I do explain WTH this statement from the summary means? Why is this in any way different from the Nexus phones, and why wasn't that a "proper" foray into the smartphone market? What is so special about Pixel compared to the original Nexus vision?
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Google didn't design the Nexus line. They just provided software and branding. While the fabrication of the Pixels is farmed out to HTC the entire design of the hardware was done by Google. That's the difference and why they qualified it as their first 'proper foray.'
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Pixel was the first phone where Google had complete input over the design and feature spec. This didn't happen with the Nexus line.
I really don't understand why the iPhone-like prices. They would have sold a lot more with a $400 price
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I guess it is referring to the fact that this is the first phone they designed themselves. Nexus phones were built to spec by other companies.
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Steady sales? You mean crap sales. Samsung is expected to do an initial run of 12 million S8s to meet demand.
That's because Samsung's phones have proven to be the hottest devices, and therefore slated for a flaming success. Competing against a company on fire, like Samsung, that has all but reignited the public's interest, is an explosive proposition. It blows my mind that Google is even trying.
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Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
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You've got that right - someone who puts out a phone with a replacable battery and uSD could have a potential windfall of users number in the hundreds - maybe thousands - that they would share with only one or two other handsets on the market.
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And LG G5. Even the Galaxy S7 has a micro SD slot (and IP68 water resistance).
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replaceable battery, and a MicroSD slot.
Designers don't like replaceable battery, Google does not like MicroSD slot -> not gonna happen.
Of course they don't like MicroSD. Google wants everyone to store everything to Google Drive.
Why (Score:2)
Haven't these phone thingies stopped being new? Can't some vendor come up with a model that only changes every other year, rather than every 5 minutes? No wonder phones are deprecated landfill garbage the very moment they're launched, or announced to the press.
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BQ Aquaris X5 Plus (Score:2)
http://www.gsmarena.com/bq_aqu... [gsmarena.com]
Nearly stock Android, reasonably priced.
2 GiB RAM, 16 GiB Flash + microSD.
Root and unlocked boot loader included.
Previous Bq models have LineageOS support. This one will most likely follow.
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If you buy a Samsung on Verizon yo
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For a while the OP3 and the ZTE Axon 7 were neck-and-neck in terms of their flagshippiness. The A7 hardware is actually better (and cheaper than the OP3T), but ZTE has dropped the ball on unlocking the bootloader and working with 3rd party ROM developers. Of course, those promises still stand, and there's apparently a stable LineageOS ROM for the A7 that supposedly turns it into a real powerhouse. But the fancy stereo speakers still don't work right. C'mon, ZTE - you're this close to being what the read
100% FOSS smartphone (Score:2)
Why is no manufacturer capable or willing to release a smart phone with 100% free software from the start?
If they really have to keep the baseband firmware proprietary, isolate it with an IOMMU.
What are they afraid of?
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Few actual examples... (Score:2)
Why is no manufacturer capable or willing to release a smart phone with 100% free software from the start?
There *ARE* a few example of nearly 100% software smartphone.
Random examples :
- OpenMoko's FreeRunner. (about a decade ago)
Basically a "do the fuck you want to do with it" platform, which was designed from the ground up to run free-software. At least within what was possible back then.
They manage quite well on some fronts (the GPS and the baseband are basically glorified external modems talking over a serial line with the main computers), and butchered a bit other elements (screen and GPU aren't quite corre
Marshmallow $40 (Score:2)
There is no reason to spend $500 or more on a phone when I was able to order a Samsung Galaxy Express 3 Marshmallow device for AT&T yesterday that cost a total of $42.50.
Google needs to do several things with the Pixel and greater Android: lower the price, fix the architecture, improve code quality, unify Android among all manufacturers, and implement Google-issued patches that can apply against the whole Android ecosystem at once without interference from carriers or OEMs.
Apple can do all these things.
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You're comparing Apples to asteroids.
Google started the Android project by offering 3 options to carriers, the most popular being that the carrier could control almost all of the "user experience". If they had chosen the option to keep it close to "pure" Android then they could easily have pushed out updates, but you know what control freaks the carriers like to be. Google had to make it palatable to the carriers to get in the game and that history led us to where we are now.
My gripe is that Google wants to
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It may have been a completely different environment in the early days, but the security has become critical. Russia had DOZENS of OEM phones using Mediatek processors sending device data back to China. BLU was doing the same thing here, and the same malware made it into the latest Barnes & Noble tablets. We are talking tens of thousands of devices here, and Russia is certainly moving in the direction of seizing all of Google's Android assets within their borders. A few more major security incidents, and
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> No contract service is $40 a month.
From which carrier??
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You aren't serious, are you? Tracfone is $7/month for minimal usage. PagePlus is $12. Republic Wireless has a $15 unlimited plan with no data. Tracfone is particularly interesting because they operate on all the major carriers' towers.
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I'm aware of resellers. I asked the question since AC could not be bothered to post the name of the carrier while he was typing his message. More information is better than less.
FOOLS! (Score:2)
Have we learned nothing from our mistakes?! This is the new africanized bee aka killer bees! If one of these smartphones gets into the wild it will destroy the delicate smartphone ecosystem as we know it! Do you want killer smartphones because this is how we get killer smartphones! ;)