Google October 4th Event

Google are a software company first and release phones occasionally. They make money from the OS via the play store and for patents and the like. The phone they have built is simply priced to try and take some of the premium market away from apple. They have built a phone that is not the best on the market and are charging iPhone prices which android fans have always used as a stick to beat iPhone users with.

If they charged £500 for this phone they would not be losing money on each handset. They are pricing it to compete with the iPhone and move into the premium market. As it stands they haven't built a phone that is anywhere near good enough. Software wise it looks good but the hardware is less exciting. Its very good but not industry leading.
 
I think this is a very interesting move from Google.

They are clearly going after the Apple space with their phone (iPhone), Chromecast (Apple TV) and WiFi routers (Airport).

In addition, their VR headset and Google Home (ala Amazon Echo) are also interesting.

It is clear from all these products that they have taken a leaf (and probably some employees) from the Apple manual. They look on screen well designed with premium materials.

Yes, we have been spoilt with cheap Nexus phones but it looks like Google is positioning the Pixel as uber premium phone competing with the iPhone as opposed to the One Pluses of this world.

They may just succeed with the superior Google Assistant that will be across many other products and their desire for third parties to integrate with it.

I have summarised some of my thoughts along with UK pricing here: Google Product Launches
 
This is bad news for us all.

The net affect is that is now more expensive (condition 1) to own a phone and will further fragment Android (condition 2).

Reasoning:

If you want a phone with uptodate OS updates then you have to buy from Apple or Google. Both Apple and Google are marketing their products as ultra high end phones. Meaning it is now more expensive to satisfy condition 1.

This will further fragment the market. Where are people going to go for more affordable handsets? Oneplus and all the other plethora of Chinese handsets.... all running their own bloatware/skins and most importantly not keeping up with security and android versions thus satisfying condition 2.

This is not a good move.

Google ideally need a stack. High end and affordable.

This going to be Googles strategy moving forward?

Where am I going to go for uptodate Android software running on my phone?

Flashing it is not the answer either. This is par of the fragmentation problem. not the solution. Why do you think Apple lock down their handsets.

Yesterday was a dark day.
 
As far as I've observed the time it takes for Samsung to update has nearly always worked in my favour as by the time I get the update it's out of beta and works.
 
thep02 said:
As far as I've observed the time it takes for Samsung to update has nearly always worked in my favour as by the time I get the update it's out of beta and works.
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I agree with that. And I'm on a Nexus 6.i wait for the custom roms to add the custom features back to the new OS before I update. Usually takes a few months. I have no issues staying with Marshmallow for a few more months as it does what I want without issue and there are no real new headline features in N that a care about that I must have right now.
 
opethdisciple said:
Yesterday was a dark day.
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It was a strange move from Google for sure.

Google can't go head-to-head with apple. If you want iOS you need to buy an iPhone. If you want android, you don't need to buy a Google phone.

They seem to play on the value add of Google assistant, is that any better than Google now? Plus that is already available on Allo. Then there is the 24 hours support, only time I need support was when the phone broke.
 
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thep02 said:
As far as I've observed the time it takes for Samsung to update has nearly always worked in my favour as by the time I get the update it's out of beta and works.
Click to expand...

I haven't had any real issues with android updates on my n5, n7 2013 or n5x and if there are any, they are usually easily fixed by a cache partition wipe. All my apps were updated to support nougat long before I got the nougat update on my n5x as well.

Besides, pretty much every phone will have a few bugs, usually battery drain or slow downs and Samsung/touchwiz are certainly not exempt from this, you just have to look at the gs 7 thread to see all the complaints about battery drain, media server or something and usually after a year or so, you see people complaining about slow downs.

Nougat has brought some very nice improvements to stock android for myself i.e. even faster/smoother, the updated UI with the toggles/notifications/settings menu, DPI, doze active all the time rather than just when the phone has been left idle for a long time, split screen mode with better multi-tasking i.e. double tap amongst a whole load of other little improvements. Yes, Samsung and other devices probably already have a lot of the features but it still isn't "stock" and it's not supported by google. Yes, a lot of people are experiencing battery drain, which has supposedly been fixed in 7.1 but again, just looking at the last few pages in the gs7 thread, I also see people complaining about battery drain...

It is certainly better than waiting 6+ months for an update imo anyway... and if the phone is last years model, you will be lucky to see an update within a year... 7.1 is right around the corner for the nexus devices which will be bringing even more features/improvements to nougat.


Also, aren't google the only ones providing monthly security updates? If so, this alone is a huge advantage given all the personal information our phones carry now.
 
opethdisciple said:
If you want a phone with up to date OS updates then you have to buy from Apple or Google.
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Not correct. Buy a Windows 10 phone, subscribe to the Windows Insider programme, and on the fast ring you will have an O/S that is constantly being updated with bleeding edge updates.
 
smokedog said:
It was a strange move from Google for sure.

Google can't go head-to-head with apple. If you want iOS you need to buy an iPhone. If you want android, you don't need to buy a Google phone.
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Possibly not, but if you want Google Assistant and all the benefits it brings you'll need to buy their phone.
 
Father Ted said:
To me that's the most interesting part, the rest is just so meh...
Wonder what chance of pushing this out to supported Nexus devices, next to nil probably.
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Yep I agree GA looks great, just not enough to buy this phone at the current price/spec.

I bet someone over at XDA will port it across. But you'd need to root.
 
Nexus18 said:
Nougat has brought some very nice improvements to stock android for myself i.e. even faster/smoother, the updated UI with the toggles/notifications/settings menu, DPI, doze active all the time rather than just when the phone has been left idle for a long time, split screen mode with better multi-tasking i.e. double tap amongst a whole load of other little improvements. Yes, Samsung and other devices probably already have a lot of the features but it still isn't "stock" and it's not supported by google. Yes, a lot of people are experiencing battery drain, which has supposedly been fixed in 7.1 but again, just looking at the last few pages in the gs7 thread, I also see people complaining about battery drain...

It is certainly better than waiting 6+ months for an update imo anyway... and if the phone is last years model, you will be lucky to see an update within a year... 7.1 is right around the corner for the nexus devices which will be bringing even more features/improvements to nougat.
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Samsung and Nexus both have their advantages, hardware and software, so it all depends whats more important to the user.

Also, aren't google the only ones providing monthly security updates? If so, this alone is a huge advantage given all the personal information our phones carry now.
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Nope your wrong there, Oneplus and Samsung, plus others are pushing out security updates monthly :p
 
kona786 said:
Samsung and Nexus both have their advantages, hardware and sofware, so it all depends whats more important to the user.



Nope your wrong there, Oneplus and Samsung, plus others are pushing out security updates monthly :p
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No doubt regarding software and hardware but I am purely talking about updates here though, the original point was about how updates for nexus/google phones are buggy at first and that by the time it hits other phones they are stable/working and that is just plain wrong, as you know yourself, every phone has niggles regardless of the software version, some more than others even if on an older version of android. I rather get all the new features and improvements (without having to faff about with flashing images/root etc.) in a timely manner and deal with a few niggling issues if any i.e. not 6+ months down the line when the next version is already out...


Ah glad to hear that! First I have read about it! How long ago did they start doing that then? I think google were the first to start this?
 
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