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[–] 59 points 2 years ago

This is an overall win. The upward pressure is good for everyone, as phones have passed the meteoric rise of speed. Devices have been able to last far longer than their update cycle for a few years now.

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  • [–] 52 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Cool do the same for the rest.

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  • [–] 23 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    My thoughts on it: cool, now give it a headphone jack again and I might buy it.

    I'm not buying a phone that requires $100 wireless earbud DLC (which honestly feel like just another thing to become e-waste in a few years when the battery gives out).

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    My soundcore wireless headphones have lasted longer than any pair of wired headphones I've ever had. Going on 4 years now and just as good as the day I bought them. They were only $70 too. Not saying you're wrong but there's reasonably priced quality ones out there if you look

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Do you spend $70 on your wired headphones though? Or are you comparing the durability of cheap crap wired headphones to decent value budget wireless headphones? I have both a pair of Soundcore wireless headphones and a couple of pairs of wired headphones at home that all cost around the same amount and I'm certain I could smash the Soundcore headphones into tiny pieces using the wired ones and the wired ones would still work fine.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    I spent $30-40 a few times on some wired headphones. This was around 10 or so years ago so, what 50/55 in today money? Maybe more. They'd last me 8 months to a year instead of the 3 or 4 from the cheap ones but eventually the wire at the buds or the aux plug would wear out from being shoved in my pocket, bag, etc. For everyday use I prefer wireless. I have a nice turntable, amp, and speakers for when I want to listen at home. Headphones are exclusively an "on the go" thing for me and my several years old set of BT headphones do the trick just fine

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    you can still use an adapter.

    I did on my T-Mobile g1. the first android phone

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  • [+] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Fair enough, adapters do exist, but as you point out, there are situations where that is not ideal. On a long flight, for example, where I might want to charge my phone and also listen to something, or (in my case) someone who does some amateur audio engineering work on the side, where having the ability to simply wire in a device to play some audio is a big plus. My biggest problem is that phones from five years ago could do both wireless and wired headphones just fine, no adapters needed. What have we gained as consumers by the loss of one of those options?

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  • [–] 29 points 2 years ago

    Yes please do the bare minimum

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Wait I'm confused are they going to up it to 8 years now for the 8th gen or is the number of years still up to debate? Either way not bad especially if they keep their current practices of being repairable and third party os friendly

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago*

    One can dream. Also, given the upcoming EU regulations around replaceable batteries, they may have some work done around this area too. That would be essential for a device with long term support.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Would have loved to see this for my 4A but glad they're looking to extend the support window moving forward. Many phones now are powerful enough to go years past their obsolescence date and chucking them away is just e-waste.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Only 3 years of OS updates, then you need a new phone. Give 5 years directly so you can start thinking about competing with iOS. What is the problem? They have control of the software and the hardware like Apple.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    The 'problem' is that supporting 'old' hardware won't net them the same high profit margins to which they've grown accustomed.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Not really true because Apple can do it, higher margins and support OS much longer. The problem is how they design their OS and the amount of work required. Just look at how long time Windows support all hardware. It is possible, all is just software. They just need to take the hugh upfront cost of the software development that can even help other vendors and suddenly you can do a lot of about the big OS fragmentation problem. You want your latest OS to run on like 90% of all devices. Today, I guess that number is down to like 15%.

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    [–] 10 points 2 years ago

    Custom roms have proven that Pixels could have lasted about an extra 1-2 more android versions before performance really caught up. The Pixel 2 could run Android 13, albeit a bit buggier since it's unofficial. My only guess would be costly reasons for Google to further support those devices longer at the time.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago

    This article is garbage. It never says what the expected change even is. Like is it 5 years? Idk since it never says.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    It's pretty embarrassing that Google got outdone by Samsung on the update front. Mid range Samsungs getting more Android version updates than flagship Google Pixel devices should never happen. Google matching or exceeding them is the minimum of what should be expected.

    Also the first few generations of tensor just being a rebadged Exynos processor has hit their reputation hard. Everyday users don't know what chip is in their phone, but they do know that cell reception and thermals have gotten worse since the change.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    With how terrible my P7P update experience has been (literally every update has made the phone buggier and more unstable) I'm no longer sure if this is a good thing or not. Maybe if they fix their insane QA issues.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (6 children)
  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I got my phone through my carrier. Unbeknownst to me at the time, carrier provided phones have locked bootloaders so you can't install grapheneOS on them, or if you can, I haven't found a guide to reliably do so. The phone was $800 off through the carrier so I can't complain too much, but I would have got it straight from Google if I had known prior to buying that you can't install grapheneOS on it.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Wish I could unlock my Verizon Pixel 7 Pro's bootloader so I can put something less robust on it.

    My Pixel 5 was going strong until it landed face down on some granite.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Doesn't mean much with how bad the QA and overall lifespan of Pixel devices have been unfortunately. Hopefully better this time but hard to want to put money in when the previous generations all had such issues and bad QC.

    Extending warranty for the 5As then handing out equally defective devices is a pain. I'm on my 3rd one and I'm really not planning on it surviving over a year since none of the others did and when they died I was sitting down using the phone.

    Only thing keeping me on them is GrapheneOS, too difficult to go back after getting a taste of it lol

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