I assume the event will mostly be about the Pixel 3 camera.
But, I’m interested in the smart display too as they’ll likely be the gift of choice for holidays 2018. Personally I would go for the Echo Show if only it played Netflix (I think the Google display will play it, but via casting from phone).
What else is on tap?
Damn right, it’ll be my next phone once the contract on this Essential runs out, since there isn’t gonna be an Essential 2, sadly.
I’m watching the Verge live blog. I got a chuckle for the new tablet, when the writer says “I don’t see a headphone jack… Nilay don’t throw your laptop at the stage, please.”
I think I’ll go ahead and pre-order the Google Home Hub the minute I can. Last year the Google Mini sold out and was impossible to find all holidays.
I’m a Pixel (1st gen, 32GB, not XL) owner and have been pretty satisfied with the phone. I’m considering leaping up to the 3 for 3 reasons:
I picked up a Home when they first went on sale a couple of years ago, and ended up returning it. It was worthless for many reasons which were all very fixable, and which Google never ever showed any interest in fixing. Google doesn’t respond to customer input and tends to abandon non-flagship products. I have an Echo Dot because it cost less than $50 and I use it all the time to set timers, do calculations, tell me the time and weather, turn on and off the lights, set the TV volume, and that’s about it. I can’t imagine how a smart display would improve on it. I swapped my Chromecast out for a Roku Ultra because I couldn’t play Prime Video on the Chromecast, and I suspect the smart display would have similar brand-vs-brand but customer-hostile issues.
Camera stuff is pretty impressive.
The slate tablet looks great! Oh, it is $600, plus $200 keyboard, plus $100 pen. Consider my interest diminished.
Tablet is an obvious loser, yeah.
Motion autofocus on the phones is very cool though, as is the extreme low light capability.
If they only had a watch that compared to Apple Watch. Oh well…
The automated call screening is a feature I didn’t know I wanted.
Hub Home looks cool, and I would preorder one if Google was more flexible in how you used their smart home devices. They should be absolutely murdering Amazon in the smart home sector. Home is too verbose, give us a brief mode. I have too many Android devices, give us multiple wake words (they even made a commercial about this! C’mon Google).
Why? Still a niche market. If Google was smart they would partner with Fitbit on integrating inexpensive fitness bands into their ecosystem. Or just buy Fitbit.
In my case, the Apple Watch keeps me with an iPhone. I’ve tried to leave (Note 9 + Gear, Pixel 2 XL + Fossil Gen 4) but the Apple Watch integration with the phone keeps pulling me back.
On a different topic - Slate with i7 256 GB is $1599. Do they plan on selling any of these?
Spam blocking been pretty standard on Android phones over here for several years, and is indeed great. My last few Samsung phones had it, as does my Pixel2XL, though the implementation isn’t as solid. I’m not sure the new feature adds all that much. If people aren’t spamming, they can leave a voicemail.
That’s the question, isn’t it? Google keeps trying to make ChromeOS work at the high-end, but due to the fact it’s, you know, ChromeOS, it never will.
They should try to compete with the Surface Go, not the Surface Pro.
It’s pretty neat. One of the call options, if you use Google Voice, is to listen in on a message, and pick up mid-call if you decide you prefer to speak to the caller. This makes it a bit easier for real-time decision making, and apparently without needing google voice.
Is there a good chrome OS tablet form factor (with detachable keyboard) on the market? I checked Dell and their $300 or so 2-in-1 units are Windows 10 with AMD. Seem interesting but my guess is the performance isn’t acceptable.
Not really. The Acer Chromebook Tab 10 is somewhat reasonably priced, but it’s education-only.
ChromeOS just doesn’t work very well on a tablet. The new slate is, of course, supposed to fix that. But at its crazy price-point, who cares?
RoboKiller on iPhone does a great job with spam and robo calls (not sure if there is an Android version). I listened to a voicemail where a survey spam call was actually interacting with the fake RoboKiller automated response (in this case “Hello? [pause] I don’t have the time right now”). There is a subscription cost but my laughter at hearing these interactions is worth the price of admission.
This has not been my experience AT ALL.
Every so often i will get spammed with tons of calls. Native android will identify a decent amount as spam in the caller ID, but do nothing about it. I still get the call and i still get the voice mail.
CallControl has worked decently well.
I want to auto reject every person with a spoofed number or a hidden number. I also don’t want any voice mail. I think google limited the ability to do the voice mail part semi recently sadly, but otherwise the app does great in instant sending all of these assholes to voice mail.
Support for dealing with spam calls and messages has been pretty shameful. These companies are basically stupid and don’t know, or care about dealing with spam. They think that reporting a single number as spam and blocking a single number means ANYTHING at all when these spammers can just spoof a number or hide it. I really fear that their new automated screening thing is just going to be more of the same, something that deals with non spam calls decently, but not with actual, dedicated spammers. If you know the caller is spam, don’t bother me with it at all!
Huh. Spammers here basically never leave voicemail.
Shame about the Slate pricing - I’d be interested in an actuL decent mid range tablet from Google.
I’m really enjoying my Essential phone - enough that I’ll probably wait until the Pixel 4 to upgrade…