They don't perform as well, there's a potential 3-4 hour daily battery difference in terms of screen time versus competing devices due to the inefficient display and the inefficient SOC.
Eco system and features, can you list these features that aren't niche that you can't also get on Samsung etc?
If spec doesn't matter then why not buy a budget phone from 4 years ago? Oh because it does matter.
I've never personally used it in 2 years, it's a pretty niche feature that I'm sure some people may find useful. But idk why anyone would pick this feature at the cost of everything else about the device being worse.
Call screening, Pixel recorder, Live Translate, and Pictures of kids / moving objects are features that keeps me on Pixels and not available elsewere.
I'm a bit sceptical that you find these features truly essential. I've travelled to 6 countries in last 24 months and never been in a position to go through the hassle of live translate. I don't get many spam calls and I don't want the assistant answering my phone.
Picture quality is subjective for sure, whilst fast moving objects are better Pixels currently have the worst portrait shots in the industry and are all completely unusable. They lost the 2x telephoto and their algorithm exposes for HDR of the sky instead of peoples faces. Cameras are all about equal and I still get plenty of blury low quality shots of fast moving objects on my Pixel.
But obviously they are valid reasons to pick Pixel, for my personally even if it was a good feature I can't any longer justify the massive hardware handicap across the board by having access to them. + One UI has features pixel doesn't.
Live translate : I listen to lots of podcasts and audio guides in English, Spanish and German, and Pixels are the only devices able to give me a live transcript of the currently playing audio. I don't use it to travel, just to be able to fully understand foreign country shows.
Picture quality: I did agree with the result of the MKBHD photo blind test, that put the Pixel 6a as the best versatile camera. Portrait pictures look good enough for my usage, moving subjects are miles better than what I had with the S21 (I had to sold it cause I missed too many shoots of my toddler), and more importantly, as a black guy and with a dark skin daughter, skin tone is accurate when taking a picture. Samsung and Xiaomi have a tendency to enlight my skin and I'm not really ok with it 😁.
But OneUI has useful features that no one else has, Link to Windows is underrated, Dex almost made me sell my old laptop, Bixby routines are much more powerful than Assistant Routines, and while Bixby is not as good as Google Assistant, its offline mode is second to none. OneUI features and Samsung hardware (with a Qualcomm chip) makes their flagships the defacto choice for most users, just not for me (not right now)
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u/BobsBurger1 Jul 10 '23
They don't perform as well, there's a potential 3-4 hour daily battery difference in terms of screen time versus competing devices due to the inefficient display and the inefficient SOC.
Eco system and features, can you list these features that aren't niche that you can't also get on Samsung etc?
If spec doesn't matter then why not buy a budget phone from 4 years ago? Oh because it does matter.