Google Pixel 8/8 Pro & Pixel Watch 2

Soldato
Joined
28 Apr 2011
Posts
14,998
Location
Barnet, London
I guess the EE deal is fine if you're planning on paying off the handset cost early and then also ditching the SIM as the SIM is terrible value.

The deal posted right above yours is £999 all in for 100GB (£20 more for unlimited), and still you'll be able to pay off the contract any time, and if you don't, you've got a load of data to use every month if you are ok with Three, for just £81 effectively over 24 months compared to the EE handset price.

I didn't really pay attention to the iD deals with lower up fronts as was happy to put a sum down to keep the monthly price down, and also not be so painful should I choose to pay it off in a year.

I'm currently paying EE £22.89 for unlimited SIMO, ends on 13th October conveniently :D
Thinking about it, the £28 I think I was paying might have included £7 a month for the watch, which I recently cancelled. Value from the contract is an interesting point, as not all GB's are equal. I had an iD Mobile SIM for a while, I would definitely prefer an EE SIM and pay more for the privaledge. Going back a few years I left Three as their network just hadn't kept up. I remember the retentions guy trying to keep me. Finally, he gave up when I told him 'you could give me the SIM for free, it wouldn't get any use. Free data is no use if I can't use it.'
 
Associate
Joined
14 Oct 2005
Posts
1,932
Location
Pembrokeshire
Thinking about it, the £28 I think I was paying might have included £7 a month for the watch, which I recently cancelled. Value from the contract is an interesting point, as not all GB's are equal. I had an iD Mobile SIM for a while, I would definitely prefer an EE SIM and pay more for the privaledge. Going back a few years I left Three as their network just hadn't kept up. I remember the retentions guy trying to keep me. Finally, he gave up when I told him 'you could give me the SIM for free, it wouldn't get any use. Free data is no use if I can't use it.'
Aye I definitely agree with this. I've been on EE for years, having dipped into other networks occasionally before crawling back and paying the EE premium.
I get 5G most places I go with EE, no other network has 5G here yet.
But...there are several locations I go to where there is signal but no data, with a ! symbol on my signal bar, and I end up tethering off my wife's Three phone.

Worst comes to worst I could always get another SIM and use an eSIM for fringe signal cases.
 
Associate
Joined
27 Jul 2013
Posts
16
That's not how it works. Ultimately you decide what happens, and if you answer. You see the whole transcript happen in real time and can hang up/block/answer at any point.
I get that - they'll just do what they do now for when people do answer the phone and try their luck by telling the AI assistant that they are from your network provider or some such in the hope that the message relayed to the user gets them a conversation with the person - as is normal the scammer can be wrong 99 times but that 1 time is where they get the pay-out. For sure the answering service combined with a savvy user will kill most of these attempts but there will be the few that still get through, and people less savvy will need to understand that the Google AI agent will have no way of validating what it's been told. My point was that some will just change their methodology (e.g. move away from the "We're from Microsoft and we've detected a virus on your computer" to some other method where people think they need to talk to this person like "We're from the Police / local council / etc. and you have an outstanding fine" or "This is your landlord and I have a bill that needs to be paid on your behalf", etc.) - they will not go away. Maybe I'm being cynical, but with these people even if the rules change, they keep playing the same game.

But as I said, I'd rather they use that bank of servers collecting all this data and well connected to do a quick dial check on the number, reputation check, when a name is displayed instead of a number validate its the real name and not a fake one (e.g. if 'Barclays Bank' is the proper name then drop calls where someone is trying to use a fake variation of it), etc. - surely would take a couple of seconds before the answering service would need to cut in to handle the call.

Granted that Google are looking at this as a handy helper feature but it could be easily expanded to protect some people from themselves. Again this wasn't a complaint - I just think they really missed a trick, especially as they keep pushing the message that they are bringing together the device and datacentre AI...
 
Last edited:
Joined
12 Feb 2006
Posts
17,321
Location
Surrey
I get that - they'll just do what they do now for when people do answer the phone and try their luck by telling the AI assistant that they are from your network provider or some such in the hope that the message relayed to the user gets them a conversation with the person - as is normal the scammer can be wrong 99 times but that 1 time is where they get the pay-out. For sure the answering service combined with a savvy user will kill most of these attempts but there will be the few that still get through, and people less savvy will need to understand that the Google AI agent will have no way of validating what it's been told.

But as I said, I'd rather they use that bank of servers collecting all this data and well connected to do a quick dial check on the number, reputation check, when a name is displayed instead of a number validate its the real name and not a fake one (e.g. if 'Barclays Bank' is the proper name then drop calls where someone is trying to use a fake variation of it), etc. - surely would take a couple of seconds before the answering service would need to cut in to handle the call.

Granted that Google are looking at this as a handy helper feature but it could be easily expanded to protect some people from themselves. Again this wasn't a complaint - I just think they really missed a trick, especially as they keep pushing the message that they are bringing together the device and datacentre AI...
yes i agree. perhaps they will expand in the future. they used to at least tell you when a number that was calling, if it was heavily reported as spam, so you could decide what to do before answering, not seen that in a long time, however as you say, perhaps spam callers got smart to this and just quickly change numbers as soon as ones reported as spam caller.
 
Associate
Joined
27 Jul 2013
Posts
16
I strongly dislike the idea of having to buy buds I dont need and sell them just to get a fair price.
Just wait for a period where there's a deal if you don't need to buy now... Previously they've taken £100-200 off the normal price at certain sales (either at Google or elsewhere such as Amazon) - unfortunately that means biding time / waiting.
I see where you're coming from but I don't quite see it as throwing the watch/buds in to make the price fair... more improving the purchase value to the customer vs a competitor such as Samsung (who offer similar deals on their website).

Usually some companies used to restrict it to the first x hundred / thousand orders but it seems to be unrestricted apart from the deal end date.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
25 Jun 2007
Posts
22,064
Location
Downtown
So when your on a Web page for say a review, you can tell the assistant to either read aloud the content or get it to give you a summary TL DR style.

So useful.
 
Back
Top Bottom