Android - what's in your pocket?

My god, man. Do you not actually have the tubes in the godforsaken wasteland you call home?

For whatever unfathomable reason, my phone refuses to do background data syncing with the screen off on my specific wifi network at home. My partner’s works fine, and my same phone works fine on every other wifi network I’ve ever tried. But somehow, the combination of the two just fails to operate.

That, and I usually play a Linus Tech Tips or cooking video as background noise when I drive home each day, and listen to an absolutely absurd amount of streamed music besides.

OK hivemind, my 2 year old nexus 5 is starting to act up by constantly loosing net connection and reconnecting, eating up battery like I do chocolate cake. No idea how to fix it. Anyway, what is a good alternative that would be supported with security updates for the next 2-4 years in the 250-350 Price range? I looked at the onePlus three but it is a tad to pricey. The nexus 5x could be an option but it won’t get updates after 2017 right?

Discounts on the 6p and 5x… Not sure when their updates will end, although I can tell you the 6p is a damn solid phone.

Nexus devices have generally been directly supported with updated software for not more than two years. I’m unfamiliar with any device that’s gotten remotely close to four without being open enough to use fan-made patches/updates (and having a huge modding community to support it).

When do the Pixels go on sale? I am in the market perhaps for a new phone. My wife has a Samsung 7 Edge, but I’m a bit skeptical about Samsung phones at the moment :).

Thanks Armando! I better look at the lower spectrum then. Can’t afford to buy a new phone for more then 300 every two years.

Anandtech just posted its review of the Huawei Honor 8 which is $400. Looks like a good phone in that price range. The Pixel looks good but is very expensive to me at least (matches iphone prices).

Asus phones and ZTE make pretty decent midrange phones, but as always, check the reviews.

Also, The Nextbitt Robin.

The OnePlus 3 remains a helluva deal.

I finally pulled the trigger. I’m switching to Project Fi. And I’m using the current sale to pull the trigger. So I bought the Nexus 6p for me, Nexus 5x for my wife. Both 32GB versions. So $399 and $249 respectively. Including taxes it came to $693 for both. Not bad. And it will be $55 a month for both of us plus taxes and fees plus additional if we use more than 1GB of data per month. On T-mobile, we used to pay $100/month plus taxes and fees (which came to $117 a month). So as long as we don’t use much data, theoretically, this switch should mean we make the money back in savings on those two phones fairly quickly.

As far as “upgrading” my phone, I’m not sure going from the OnePlus One to the Nexus 6p will be much of an upgrade. But we’ll see. I ran through some benchmarking apps today on my 1+1. Quandrant SE, AnTuTu, Vellamo, Linpack. I should get my new phone tomorrow or Saturday, so I’ll see if I went sideways or I went up.

Dang it, this story seems to make getting a Pixel a bad idea. The only carrier I can really use is Verizon, as they are the only ones that have coverage where I live (my house at least; others are ok where I work, but there I don’t need the phone as much). I hate the crappy bloatware Verizon puts on things, and the fact that Verizon will be the intermediary for the Android updates doesn’t make me happy either.

Wife’s Asus developed what appears to be a common-ish problem where the wifi turns off and can’t be reactivated without rebooting the phone. So yeah, scoped the options and got her a 5X to match mine and we’re switching to Fi. Seemed pretty obvious.

Why would that matter? If you buy direct from Google you won’t get bloatware, only if you buy from Verizon.

According to The Verge, ‘Verizon will not stand in the way of any major updates…’ to the Pixel, and the bloatware will consist of a few apps that can be easily uninstalled.

But still, it’s a shame Google didn’t go all the way and negotiate Apple-level control over these new phones.

I don’t believe that. You’d have to be crazy to buy it on Verizon-- even if they deliver updates, they will be very late, and the phone is guaranteed to be bootloader locked. Just pay full price up-front.

You guys are obviously a lot more savvy than I am. I’ve only bought phones from the carrier before, and always on two-year contracts where you get the phone ultra-cheap. I was sort of aware you could buy an unlocked phone, but I never really considered it.

Do you just buy the phone wherever, say Best Buy, and have them do all the usual setup, with the only difference being paying for the entire cost of the phone up-front?

EDIT: Holy crap, $730 smackers to buy it outright. Oy.

Maybe I’ll keep my HTC for another few years.

Well, the phones are about a year apart, so in addition to a year’s worth of difference in terms of innards, you’re also getting a bigger screen, improved camera and a fingerprint sensor.

Though, I think OnePlus One used micro-USB, right? You’re going to need to buy new charging cables and adapters since the 6P uses USB-C.

The pixel is not a great value for the $, to put it… mildly.

If you get an upgrade incentive, and don’t care about the bootloader, as most don’t, it’s not particularly crazy. it’s identical to the straight-from-Google phone. Verizon has confirmed in the linked article that they aren’t going to vet Pixel Android updates any more than they do iOS updates. It’ll be same day updates as you’d experience on a Verizon iPhone. It’s also carrier unlocked, so the Verizon bought phone can operate just fine on T-Mobile, AT&T, what have you.