Android - what's in your pocket?

Cnet review of the Pixel 3

You know, I thought it was strange, and just a bug that when I went through the options for turning in my Nexus 6p, it kept giving me only the 128GB option for the 6p. So I went through with it anyway. But it just occurred to me today, that even though they’re taking back Nexus 5Xs for $50, maybe they really are only giving $53 for Nexus 6p in the 128GB configuration. So they really don’t want my old 32GB version of the 6p at all. Which means I’m going to get bupkis for this old phone, and yet somehow my wife’s 5X is still worth $50 to them.

Oh well, I’ll still go through with it and return this phone to them once the Pixel 3 arrives today, and the return kit for the 6p should also arrive today.

Well, hell. I didn’t jump on those Project Fi promotions last week- money was tight and I wanted to see how the weekend sales for my business panned out, waiting on an invoice to be paid, etc., but I looked and saw the promotion was supposed to go through 11/30, so I figured I had time.

I just went and looked, and the price for the moto x4 is back up to $250, but they’ve got some promotion to get the same amount as a travel gift card? So on some level the phone ends up ‘free’, with credits in a few months. That promotion is just for today, though. I wonder if the other sale will resume tomorrow? Damn.I

Yeah the travel gift cards are not a good deal imho, unless you travel alot.

I wonder how many Pixel 3’s they sold this weekend.

I don’t travel a lot. It does say you can get it for AirBnB, though, and I occasionally drive down to Portland and stay in one of those for a weekend getaway sort of thing. A couple hundred bucks credit for that would mean a couple nice weekends.

I’m still so in love with this Pixel 3. Need to dig deeper into the Google Assistant stuff, but even without really tapping that potential it’s the best piece of tech I’ve ever owned with a bullet. The Google integrations with things like authentication credentials across various apps (except banking, hooray) have made the transition to a new phone completely seamless.

Loving Android 9 so far as well. The app switcher is going to take a little more getting used to, but I suspect I’ll end up liking it better (not that I had a problem with the old one). Lots of little UI touches that are much appreciated, like popping a “rotate” button on the button bar when the phone is rotation-locked and detects that it’s been turned sidewise, and long-pressing the shade-menu buttons (wifi, bluetooth, etc) to access their full settings.

Overall it’s clear they’ve gone all in on using additional inputs besides just “tap”. Long-pressing and gestures are starting to get integrated more into the core OS interactions, and while some of that’s a bit of an adjustment like the task switcher, I think it’s very much a good thing.

Oh, on the Assistant tip: the At-A-Glance widget is fantastic. Normally date & weather, but switches to upcoming events or other things that Assistant wants to tell you about. Good stuff.

Always-on lockscreen is also fabulous. Love the passive clock display plus icons for notifications.

This thing is just awesome. Much love. Plays the hell out of some Final Fantasy Tactics too, though there’s a minor display/redraw bug that hopefully stays minor.

edit: Oh, one minor gripe: I am really used to pulling down the shade by swiping down across the fingerprint sensor, and that doesn’t work quite as well as it does on my 5X. I have to go a lot slower to get it to register, and it’s not perfect at detecting it. Fingerprint sensor is great for its primary function of biometric unlocking, though.

And just think , we get the next 3 OS upgrades guaranteed! (if they stick to 1 per year cycle like they have now) :)

OH MY GOD

The “Shots in this photo” thing is absolutely the camera feature I’ve always wanted for getting good pics of my kiddos. Woo!

Yeah, no kidding. On the street where I live (hey, that sounds like a song lyric!) my house is right at the midpoint between 2 stop signs three blocks apart. This is a residential street, the official speed limit is 20 mph and yet some people barrel down it doing 40.

Another day and no Pixel 3 yet. I’m hoping it finally comes sometime today. I can’t wait to try out the camera and the wallpaper app that my Nexus could never run well.

Yeah mine hasn’t arrived yet either, and the shipping info from Fed Ex hasn’t been updated in 4 days. D:

Yeah, same here. They should just admit that FedEx Ground doesn’t have tracking, instead of pretending you can track stuff, so you go to their page, and the only entry is that someone ordered a shipment at one time long, long ago.

Bummer, guys! I remain in active love with this thing. Ours showed up right on time, and a buddy got his in like 4 days as well.

East coast here, so it takes longer to travel here, I know this from thinking about taking the Oregon Train in the opposite direction.

Honestly, for me,

No headphone jack means no sale.

I really would rather have a Pixel than a Samsung S9, but they still lack the “courage” to remove that feature. So I am stuck with Samsung.

I was worried about this when switching to my Essential.

But to be honest, I’ve not missed it. Like, at all.

Were you using bluetooth headphones before?

I was, to a limited extent, but now I use them all the time.

Why not just use a USB C to headphone jack adapter?

@inactive_user did the Pixel 3 come with USB-c earbuds?