a) cases and screen protectors are mostly nonsense.
b) the quality of the DAC is a legit thing. Probably my biggest issue with my Pixel 3 – it just sounds like butt on good headphones compared to even my Lenovo work laptop.
Hahahahah. Do you know who I learned from that cases and protectors were not nonsense? From you Adam!
Hmmm, just found out that AT&T is giving $1000 for trade-ins on Note 20 Ultra. I may need to take another look with a Tab S7+ in the ecosystem mix.
I only really listen to podcasts on my earbuds, so I go as cheap and cheerful as possible, these have served me well:
As well as these:
I just track the prices on camelcamelcamel and buy if needed when they are around $20-$25. If I want to listen to music, I have a pair of Sony over-the-ear headphones or a big receiver with a 5.1 speaker setup in the den.
Using the Pixel 4A this past week. In my opinion so far (and my references are the Nokia 7.1, before that the MotoX Pure), it’s a good $350 phone with a great camera. For me, the biggest selling point is pure Android security. Android One was pretty well updated on the Nokia 7.1 as well, but the phone was just failing and had to be replaced.
I grabbed moto buds for $25 a few weeks back, they work well. But the price shows $40 now.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B081RHCD42/
I have changed my opinion on the matter several times, heh.
Having the privilege of paying that lovely Asurion deductible a couple of times back to back when I was getting used to how Samsung’s fucking curved screens made usefully protective cases hard to find, I’ve accepted that I am a hopeless klutz and cannot be trusted with my $1300 magic rectangle’s safety.
Keep it safe, plus you could sorta be like Ironman ;)
I have to have a case, though I go for something sturdy and ugly that protects the edges, mostly, as well as the back. I do drop it once in a while. And on my Pixel 2, the glass screen protector is cracked but the actual screen is not, so eh, I like it.
The do another 50% off day after thanksgiving sale, and I will be all over this. :)
My guess is a lot of people weren’t buying $800+ Pixel phones. :P
Given the rumoured specs, you’d expect it to be a lot cheaper than the Pixel 4 was.
This sounds like a great budget phone.
Can’t say I’m a fan of the way Android 11 handles media players. My media players already had widgets in the notification tray. Now it just takes me longer to get to them most of the time. And it seems completely arbitrary whether it shows up on the lock screen now.
Gladguy
2687
@Ginger_Yellow, have you tried using a different launcher? I use Niagara Launcher, and it manages media players beautifully.
I’m on Nova. doesn’t affect the notifications/settings menus though.
Been away for a while, catching up this thread. I know all of you love OnePlus…I have 3 of their phones too! (1, 3, and 5) But as a counterpoint, I present Mr. Mike Elgan:
My daily is the 3, which stopped getting updates last year after 3 years of update. 2 months ago I took the plunge to root and install a custom firmware to get the latest OS update…Havoc OS, to be exact.
How many of you folks install custom OS on your phones? I’ve also got a technical question…do I “dirty flash” a new version of the OS to update it? Havoc doesn’t have any OTA updates.
Tortilla
2690
Interesting rundown, but most of it doesn’t move the needle for me in terms of corporate misbehavior. That stuff all seems pretty par for the course in the wild west world of tech.
I care about the data and ownership concerns, but like @Tortilla I don’t find these complaints go significantly beyond what is standard these days in the sector.
It would be better if the author (or, someone here) suggested which hardware company he thinks is providing a better clean Android experience. I’m not interested in Apple or Android with bloatware.
Currently, OnePlus has the closest-to-Android experience. There’s rumors about the next release of their OxygenOS becoming less basic Android, and more Samsung UX.
It seems that many custom-built replacement OS all stick to having base Android UX, so that might be the only way to go…get an easy-to-root phone, root it, and replace its OS.
