Google Pixel 5

LiE said:
My point is if people are buying purely on specs, we should all be using iPhones :p

The Pixel has some main advantages over the competitors:
- The camera software.
- Zero bloatware. I disliked Samsung phones, I don't want a browser, gallery, calendar etc from Samsung when the Google ones are superior and already what Android users will use.
- Support - the majority of the software features Google work on for their phones comes to older devices. No waiting for fixes/bugs/versions.
- Pixel only software features. Superior Google assistant experience, Duplex, Adaptive battery, Recorder app. This is added to with each version of Android, Google develop these features for Pixel phones and many never reach OEM Android variants.
- The integration and experience within a Google ecosystem.
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iPhone is a completely different platform and eco system, of course that is going to be an overriding preference, but comparing Android to Android is very different, specs play a much bigger part, also these features you have mentioned are still not worth a premium imo, you made a comparison to iPhone but iPhone at the very least offers you very good specs and software experience. I firmly do not believe that software alone is worth the extra cost combined with poor/worse processing power, Apple can easily differentiate itself being an entirely different platform, Pixel will struggle.

Also I have bought many Samsung phones for friends and family, I am setting up a budget a10s and s20 right now, I can assure you it really doesn't take much effort to uninstall a few apps and customize it to a stock experience if that's what you want, I really don't know what this 'bloat' is people talk about, once I setup a phone for someone (which I do a lot) they are pretty much identical on the surface.

To be quite frank I'm just not a fan of Pixel phones, I think they are overpriced for what they are and I certainly don't believe they are the Apple of the android world, I wish they were, I would onboard straight away.
 
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Things change I've changed said:
specs play a much bigger part
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Only if they are a hinderance to your experience and usage. If not, the specs become irrelevant. Most people use phones for a small number of things and that hasn't changed over the years. Do you think phones from 5 years ago struggled to browse the web, take photos, message, social media etc?

Things change I've changed said:
Also I have bought many Samsung phones for friends and family, I am setting up a budget a10s and s20 right now, I can assure you it really doesn't take much effort to uninstall a few apps and customize it to a stock experience it that's what you want, I really don't know what this 'bloat' is people talk about, once I setup a phone for someone they are pretty much identical on the surface.
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Yes it can get close, but still there are things you cannot remove or get around. People buying Pixels are doing so for the clean Pixel OS experience. They don't want a hardware Bixby button, Samsung's Gallery, OneUI etc.

I'm just trying to give you some insight why people buy Pixel phones, and specs are not at the top of the list.
 
Things change I've changed said:
I firmly do not believe that software alone is worth the extra cost combined with poor/worse processing power
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But up until the last few years, this is exactly what Apple did. Software experience and marketing. I don't believe their hardware was all that great, but people bought iPhones in their millions.

Now, yes, they've caught up and perhaps overtaken many Android manufacturers. Specs really aren't that important. Ask your average 100 iPhone owners what chipset their phone has, how much RAM it has... I would expect maybe 1 or 2 at most would know.
 
LiE said:
Only if they are a hinderance to your experience and usage. If not, the specs become irrelevant. Most people use phones for a small number of things and that hasn't changed over the years. Do you think phones from 5 years ago struggled to browse the web, take photos, message, social media etc?



Yes it can get close, but still there are things you cannot remove or get around. People buying Pixels are doing so for the clean Pixel OS experience. They don't want a hardware Bixby button, Samsung's Gallery, OneUI etc.

I'm just trying to give you some insight why people buy Pixel phones, and specs are not at the top of the list.
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Are you really arguing for value of software only but less performance? If people are only choosing phones for software only experience then why do Apple spec their phones so well? They could easily downgrade the specs of thier phones still offering more performance that Pixel 5 for example, specs mean more than you give them credit for, if you believe Pixel is worth the price of entry on software alone then good on you but I think it's a very poor showing from Google.
 
I pre-ordered direct from Google on evening of 30th, but payment has vanished from credit card statement today. Not sure what's going on, but had something similar with an order direct from Logitech early in the year.

Anyone else noticed this today?
 
Things change I've changed said:
iPhone at the very least offers you very good specs and software experience.
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iPhone offers an unbeatable SoC and average specs everywhere else.


Things change I've changed said:
I really don't know what this 'bloat' is people talk about, once I setup a phone for someone they are pretty much identical on the surface.
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For me, I get annoyed at apps which are pre-installed but can only be disabled rather than uninstalled. This is the manufacturer effectively telling you that the phone you bought isn't really yours. Then you have stuff like Facebook services sneakily uploading mobile data even after the (preinstalled) app is disabled. Who knows what it's doing and why? I'm sure most people would like to have full control over their phone software and I imagine this is a pretty big selling point for iPhones.
 
Things change I've changed said:
Are you really arguing for value of software only but less performance?
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No, I'm saying people want the Pixel software experience. They don't want less performance, but it isn't an issue that does have less performance, because that device isn't a Pixel. Just like you don't use an iPhone because it's faster, you prefer Android, so it doesn't matter if the iPhone is faster.

Software is the real differentiator these days. The software features a device offers absolutely do make a difference to how you use and experience a device. Opening an app 0.8s quicker is inconsequential. Being able to take consistently great photos in any condition, that is meaningful.

I'm using an iPhone 6S currently and you know what, the experience is vastly similar the iPhone 11 pro I had earlier in the year. The power of these faster chips is only realised in specific usages, and for those who need the power it's there.
 
I may place a order today for a pixel 5 from CPW. I currently have a 2XL, but unfortunately the battery life ain't great, charger port has a poor connection and now today it's started powering off by itself every 30 minutes.. my phones have a habit of breaking just as a new phone gets released. Really annoying thought as I'm happy with it's performance, just a shame that phones aren't reliable enough, otherwise I could see myself happy with it for another year.
 
LiE said:
No, I'm saying people want the Pixel software experience. They don't want less performance, but it isn't an issue that does have less performance, because that device isn't a Pixel. Just like you don't use an iPhone because it's faster, you prefer Android, so it doesn't matter if the iPhone is faster.

Software is the real differentiator these days. The software features a device offers absolutely do make a difference to how you use and experience a device. Opening an app 0.8s quicker is inconsequential. Being able to take consistently great photos in any condition, that is meaningful.

I'm using an iPhone 6S currently and you know what, the experience is vastly similar the iPhone 11 pro I had earlier in the year. The power of these faster chips is only realised in specific usages, and for those who need the power it's there.
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I would absolutely love to have iPhone hardware with Android on it, and I yes agree software is a real differentiator, between Android and IOS for the most part, much less so between Android devices, even though I'm not really a fan of Apple they do the right thing, good hardware and software support, the latest Pixel does not do this, they have skimped on the hardware and I believe that is wrong, yet again, and for the final time, I don't believe the Pixel 5 is worth anywhere near the price based off the software experience alone, the SOC is very poor will not offer customers longevity, whether the customers are aware or not that's beside the point, I believe it's underhanded, they are trying to sell the 'Google' experience' but unlike Apple they are not backing it up with the hardware.
 
I agree the price of the Pixel 5 isn't right, but with the included headphones, if you sell those it's about right. Google always drop the price of their phones to the true price after several months. So I don't look at this as a £600 phone, it's £450-500 at best. People are only getting on board because of the pre-order offer, or they are waiting for that inevitable price drop towards Christmas.
 
People obsess about specifications on phones and obviously that's their perogative, the vast majority of users couldn't tell you what SoC their phone is using. Brand, size and does it have XYZ social media app are the overriding choices. A lot of people criticised the Pixel 4 because it didn't have the latest SoC but I bet there isn't a single app out there that would run on a 855+ (which was the only better SoC on the market as the 865 didn't launch until Dec '19), but wouldn't run on the 855.

Ridiculous when you think about it. People were essentially asking for the 855+ which is the EXACT same chip as the 855 with a slightly faster GPU clock, so a pointless upgrade for additional heat and power consumption.

Also you can't just make Samsung phones be like stock and trust me, I wish that were the case. I'm typing this on a Fold2 and there's loads of Pixel features you can't get just by simply installing an app. For example, want the Google feed on left swiping on your homescreen? Well that's not possible unless you change your launcher but 3rd party launchers don't play well with Android gestures which I much prefer over nav buttons.

Plus, want call screening on Samsung? I have to sign up to yet another service (Hiya) to get feature. Then there's just parts of the UI that are completely unintuitive, such as not having a portrait mode but rather you need to put the camera into "Live focus" mode. That sounds to me like some form of mode for continuous focus tracking mode...

There's a lot of things the Pixel gets right (and wrong such as the battery size in P4) and people value that. This Galaxy Fold 2 is an engineering marvel and the mini tablet form factor opens up possibilities but it could be so much better if it wasn't Samsung designing the UI.
 
nade said:
I pre-ordered direct from Google on evening of 30th, but payment has vanished from credit card statement today. Not sure what's going on, but had something similar with an order direct from Logitech early in the year.

Anyone else noticed this today?
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That is the correct way to handle a payment. They ring fence the money and tokenise the card . then let the auth drop off. They will then send a auth and capture on the day of shipping.
 
People just need to work out what is important in a phone and then take the hit. There is no perfect device sadly. All will have strengths and weaknesses.

Stock and photos are key for me as well as a bloat free as intended os. With that I take the hit in cpu and probably many other items

If samsung did a stock Android variant of the s20 /note then I would be in some sort of phone uptopia
 
_Jimlad_ said:
People just need to work out what is important in a phone and then take the hit. There is no perfect device sadly. All will have strengths and weaknesses.

Stock and photos are key for me as well as a bloat free as intended os. With that I take the hit in cpu and probably many other items

If samsung did a stock Android variant of the s20 /note then I would be in some sort of phone uptopia
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Agreed, but I think the manufacturers could have delivered what we all want by now, but for whatever reasons, they choose not to, probably because they want you to keep upgrading. I mean, I would have pre-ordered the P5 on day one if it just had a telephoto, but it already feels like its behind rivals on features, and it would have been as close to perfect as I would want.

I was looking at the Xperia 5-II the other day but then saw it had no wireless charging?! I mean for £800, that’s a deal breaker. Like you, Samsung with Pixel software would be amazing, but then we have Exynos to deal with (except on the FE 5G). Huawei’s phones looked tempting but no google play store is a deal breaker. They’re making it hard for me to spend my money.
 
Tech Spurt briefly showed some Geekbench scores in his unboxing.

The 765g scored 593 single-core and 1581 multi-core. This put it between the 845 and 855 for single core (474 and 666) and between the 835 and 845 on multi-core (1416 and 1727). The comparative figures are from the Pixel 2, 3 and 4.

The A13 Chip appears to score around 1330 on single core and 2800-3400 on multi-core for comparison.
 
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