**** The Official Google Pixel 2/Pixel 2 XL Thread ****

AndyCr15 said:
Ha ha, I think you we're a couple of years back. I know it seems rather passive aggressive, but I'm quite the argumentative type and I use it to stop me arguing and generally wasting my time in an argument that no-one gains anything from (not if I feel the other party has too much of a slant on things and doesn't really want to discuss something, just have a rant/moan)

I assume you quoted the guy saying 'were going crazy' for the Pixel 2, or some similar rubbish. Take the comment about stereo speakers for example. As Glaucus backs up above with them being one of the two things he mentions as him liking, there are a lot of people that really want the dual front facing speakers. Many of them commented in the last few Nexus/Pixel launch threads that they wouldn't upgrade from their Nexus 6/6P because of it. It's happened. I could go through and find the quotes if I had a spare few hours and really cared. To claim only 5 people want them and dismiss them like that (likely because he has no care for them) is just a little silly and makes me think there is no point discussing it with this person. Don't get me wrong, I don't particularly care for them. I don't watch video on my phone apart from the gym when I have earbuds in, but I understand it's a strong selling point for many. People seem to get angry when something is priced above what they feel it's worth and they then have this bias against it.



I was hovering over the order button for a little while, but the price point made me hold back. I know it's only £70 more than the Pixel I've just ordered, but even that was a bit of a reach at £799. £870 just seemed too much. The draw of stock Android (especially now as a developer) was too much.

Through yesterday (pre announcement) I was considering if the price is too high, do I just stick with my Pixel XL. For me that used to change phones every 3 months or so, that's quite an odd thought, but I really was considering it. How much higher do these prices go and where do we draw the line? I think we're getting close. As has been discussed, the Pixel 2 isn't a massive leap forward, but there is enough for me to be impulsive enough to place an order.

Will there be huge leaps forward now though? Look at Apple, how much different is the iPhone 8 from the 7? I hear very little indeed. Probably a lot less than the Pixel to Pixel 2?
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im purely getting the pixel 2 for development as im an android developer
 
No, the reason google didn't go into the hardware as much is because it's not really that great. Apple had something to shout about. The A11 chip is pretty damn awesome, I think everyone agrees on that. FaceID is technically brilliant no matter what your option is on its implementation. They have dual cameras for great portrait mode, and the X has OIS on both cameras. They may have been behind with wireless charging but at least it's here and they spoke about the charging mat. Switch over to the google presentation....what were they going to say? They made a fleeting comment to the DXO score for the camera and went back to talking about Oreo and AI. Speaking of which, it can't be that great considering it thinks the England v Slovenia score is 0-0.

Thank god they bought HTC as they are in dire need of hardware technicians.

I mean, LG built the XL2 yet side by side with the V30 everyone knows which is the better phone.

Kinda wish the XL2 was the V30 with stock android to be honest.
 
You know, all my issues with the XL2 have been addressed with the V30

It's a better looking phone, sd card, wireless charging, ip68, quad dac, dual cameras with ois

The ONLY thing is that it isn't stock android....mmmmm..WHY!!!
 
sesevans said:
I have read your post and wonder if the bottom line of your "gripe" is ultimately just pricing? Reasonable people can hold reasonably different opinions about Pixel 2 pricing.

But your emphasis throughout your post is hardware and in my opinion, you missed the forest for the trees. I did not see a single reference to software. Perhaps I was listening to a different Press conference than you? If you listened to the last Apple presentation, it was loaded with talk about chip speeds and screen resolution. Google spent little time on product specs.

I am of the view that we have reached a near-term limit on what can be made new in hardware -- it is becoming an increasing commodity-driven business, esp with the invasion of Chinese OEMs into international markets. Sure we can tweak around the edges of hardware but to be a Pixel 2 owner, I believe you are increasingly buying into Google's vision that the real quantum leaps now will be in software: esp AI and machine learning. Google's CEO spent ten minutes talking about how AI was helping Google Maps and translations. Simply put, Google wants a radical rethink about how computing should work.

Catching up to Apple and Samsung? Google said that they were not the first to do email or search but that their approaches redefined what email and search should do. The result speaks for itself. Will they repeat in the hardware business? Their answer: AI.

The AI makeover was on full display at the presentation. Pixel 2 phones come with an image recognition app called Lens that can help a user find info about from a film poster or ad simply by pointing the camera. The new "smart speaker" uses AI to adjust its sound for the layout of a room. The new wireless headphones let you get instant translation of different languages.

My bottom line: Buying a Pixel is a buy-in to Google's re-imagining what a smartphone can do.
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Sorry, but you have to be working for Google.
 
TheOracle said:
No, the reason google didn't go into the hardware as much is because it's not really that great.
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It is "great" enough to support their vision of how computing should be reimagined: AI (apart from the England v Slovenia score).

I did not say that improvements to hardware cannot follow. Apple is putting that processing power locally into the A11 chip for example. It seems to me that Google is taking a different approach......Google is famous for skating to where the puck is going to be rather than where it is now (I heard that quote a few years ago and still think it is applicable today). Why?

I have posted previously for example about TPU (tensor processing unit). There’s a common thread that connects Google services such as Google Search, Street View, Google Photos and Google Translate: they all use Google’s Tensor Processing Unit, or TPU, to accelerate their neural network computations behind the scenes. In the Google Cloud, Google has said recently that TPU delivered 15–30X higher performance and 30–80X higher performance-per-watt than contemporary CPUs and GPUs. Compared to Apple, Google's strength is in the cloud and the services it can run with it. Siri for example is not considered as good as Google Assistant for example.

Google's AI display on its new hardware mostly depends on what goes on in the Google Cloud. That is where their advantage lies and where they believe computing is headed. Their bet on their acquisition of Deep Mind from the UK seems to be paying off and supports my view of where they are heading (eg the WaveNet algo):

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-how-a-400-million-bet-is-starting-to-pay-off

Meanwhile I agree with you that the acqui-hire of 2,000 HTC mostly hardware engineers was a smart move to at least hedge their bets, if not much more.
 
Raymond Lin said:
I don't understand this need for good speakers, all it encourages are chav behaviours who play their music loud in public.
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More about media consumption at home. Don't always want to be wearing headphones, but I don't want the voices to sound like they're all on helium

sesevans said:
I have read your post and wonder if the bottom line of your "gripe" is ultimately just pricing? Reasonable people can hold reasonably different opinions about Pixel 2 pricing.

But your emphasis throughout your post is hardware and in my opinion, you missed the forest for the trees. I did not see a single reference to software. Perhaps I was listening to a different Press conference than you? If you listened to the last Apple presentation, it was loaded with talk about chip speeds and screen resolution. Google spent little time on product specs.

My bottom line: Buying a Pixel is a buy-in to Google's re-imagining what a smartphone can do.
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Did Google even mention the SoC in the event?
 
sesevans said:
You can think that if you want. But you would be wrong.
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Rumour has it, if you whisper "OK Google" three times in the mirror with the light out, sesevans will stroke your hair and give you a totally pointless reason to get excited about a Google product.
 
TheOracle said:
FaceID is technically brilliant no matter what your option is on its implementation.
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and surely you must work for Apple? how do you know how well it works given it's not even released yet? faceId is old ideas that were implemented years ago and not used. I guarantee next year when apple add a new feature like a finger print reader, faceID usage will drop massively. It will be popular for one reason and that's because the other better option has been removed. And how do we know it's any good yet? I don't get this "technically brilliant" comment is about. a police officer could unlock my phone by pointing it at my face. seems **** to me. my friends could lock my phone just by holding it. seems "technically ****" to me.
 
TheOracle said:
You know, all my issues with the XL2 have been addressed with the V30

It's a better looking phone, sd card, wireless charging, ip68, quad dac, dual cameras with ois

The ONLY thing is that it isn't stock android....mmmmm..WHY!!!
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Completely forgot about the v30....

It is between that and the gs 8 for me now, main deciding factor would come down to who delivers android updates quicker.

How are LG these days?
 
Fairly sure the answer is no said:
faceId is old ideas that were implemented years ago and not used.
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To be fair to Apple, the old way was rubbish and could be unlocked with a photo. Apple's way could not and from what they say is ultra reliable and fast. We do of course need to wait and see if this is true though.

I don't quite get why people are writing off Googles Portrait mode though. Dual lenses works as it has two slightly different angle on the same picture. Google's works basically the same way, I think they said with two slightly differently angled pixels within each pixel.

Why would one be better than the other? Sample shot's I've seen are really impressive from Google.
 
did google say why the translation is only available on pixel 2? is this something that they are artificially limiting, or something that will come to other devices in 6 months or so?
 
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