Google Pixel 7/7 Pro & Pixel Watch

Associate
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Bluetooth fine for me. I only use two Bluetooth devices which is the Audi MMI and my Sony buds and it connects to both automatically and quickly. I did clear the car's Bluetooth connections first though.
 
Soldato
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2,691
It's been a month now since the Pixel 7 release, I was going to give my thoughts after a week but never didn't around to doing it.

I have the P7P and chose the LTE Pixel Watch free gift. I have more to say about the watch so I'll start there. I love it, it's my first smartwatch and my first any watch in twenty years and I love it. I don't have any issue with the screen size, I know people criticize for it's size. The battery life is fine for me, I wake up at 6 or 7pm depending if I drive or cycle to work and stick it on charge when I wake up so it's 100% when I leave, this is after I charge it to full in the evening so the morning charge is a top off. From 7:20am Friday to now Saturday 10:55 as I'm typing this it's on 27% battery although I didn't use it much yesterday, typically I use it to control Spotify and make payments. I do not use AOD as I don't see the point in the display being on if I'm not looking at it and the wrist tilt to display on is about 0.5s. I mostly wanted a smartwatch for the fitness tracking and I use those functions daily as well as the sleep tracking, and I now use it as my alarm clock too. I'm very happy with it. What would I change? even though I have more than enough battery life I do think it's a bit naff having what Google say is 24hr battery life, I'd like at least 48 with 72 being ideal.

The P7P itself. I like it although I don't feel it does enough to outshine my old HTC U11, released in 2017. In fact I think with immediate hands on my U11 is better. The squeeze gesture I think is amazing and I miss it dearly. The home screen on the HTC was perfect, the P7P home screen is bloody awful. My HTC was my alarm clock, so was the P7P before I started using the Pixel watch and all I had to do is from the home screen was press on the time and I'd get all of my clock options, on the P7P to have that same function I added the clock widget, but now I have the time in the top left with the day/date/temp below that and a giant 2x8 block clock widget below that repeating that info and the biggest offender is I can't remove the the day/date/temp so although the P7P is 1.2" bigger than my HTC U11 I actually have less real estate on my home screen because of non-customizable crap, that includes you search box at the bottom of the home screen, I do not like you and I don't want you there. In fact why do you even exist when by default Google has even put a Chrome app shortcut right above you, you are taking up four useful tiles where I can put useful apps. The swipe left and right gestures are fine and the swipe up to see all the apps is fine but the swipe up from the bottom to change app is super inconsistent for me, often the screen just wobbles and doesn't open, it may be my angle of attack, an angle that isn't helped if you have a case on the phone. The annoyance is getting to the point where I'm considering switching over to on screen buttons. I use my phone at work for about 6 hours a day, roughly 1hr screen on while browsing and 5hrs of Spotify. The same as the Pixel watch I start my day at 6 or 7am with 100% battery and get home with about 60% which is way better than my HTC which I'd stick on charge around midday, so very happy with battery life. The camera is amazing and have nothing to add on that discussion.

I didn't need to have a new phone in the first place but my head said the phone is only £450 on top of if I just bought the Pixel watch at market value, this is after 10% off code, which I didn't actually use, and Topcashback after that which didn't track so my manual claim has been waiting for approval for 4 weeks, and on top of that my HTC U11 wasn't an option to trade in for money which to me seems bizarre because it's an awesome phone and older HTC phones were eligable. So while P7P is obviously a better piece of technology it doesn't feel like it's faster than my old phone and I didn't think my old phone was slow, for the having the latest tech it doesn't feel like I've gone from a GTX 780 to an RTX 3080.
 
Soldato
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@esoteric

If you want to customise your home screen tye way you want to then get another launcher. No point complaining about it when an easy solution exists.

And the fact that you can't notice a performance difference of the P7p over an ancient U11 is on you, not the phone.
 
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Associate
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18 Sep 2012
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I quite like not having my home screen overwhelmed with icons and I use folders to keep things neat. Although, it would be nice to be able to change the date to the time as well and have it link in to the clock app without having to use a custom launcher.

You could also use the second home screen page instead and although that won't eliminate the search bar at the bottom, it will avoid the date at the top.
 
Caporegime
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Norrbotten, Sweden.
Yeah I know I can get a custom launcher but there are some ultra basic features that should exist in android 13 with customization of home screen.

Why no wrap around scrolling?
Why no get rid of Google search bar?
Why can't get rid of clock etc?
 
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Soldato
Joined
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Yeah I know I can get a custom launcher but there are some ultra basic features that should exist in android 13 with customization of home screen.

Why no wrap around scrolling?
Why no get rid of Google search bar?
Why can't get rid of clock etc?
No not really. This is Google's way of doing it and it's their phone. Just like Samsung and others have their own quirky way of doing things.

To think any one handset will have all the features tailored to your specific needs is barmy.
 
Caporegime
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Location
Norrbotten, Sweden.
No not really. This is Google's way of doing it and it's their phone. Just like Samsung and others have their own quirky way of doing things.

To think any one handset will have all the features tailored to your specific needs is barmy.
Disagree.
That's utterly basic functionality in my opinion.
No biggee I've gotten used to it.
Being "basic" i get its the niche market.
I bought this for the camera, which certainly isn't disappointing, but I'd have loved to have been able to compare it to say, s22, 12t pro etc.
Anyway. It's a huge speed upgrade over my previous phone. The niggles I'll just deal with or get another Launcher, as you constantly say. :p
I guess I'm just not into phones to care too much. I'm sure this will last my a few years
 
Soldato
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13 Sep 2008
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Ah that's good to hear - was wondering when the watches would start getting sent out. Quite looking forward to getting and using mine!
 
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