> Greentext

People repeatedly say that pixel phones are really good, but I made the change to a Pixel 7 in about... late 2023? Early 2024? around there, and have just kind of been repeatedly and consistently whelmed by it.

It's fine, but it doesn't do anything great. That or standards have just fallen a lot. I remember when I got the Galaxy 6 back in, like, 2016, that it completely blew me away and I was in love with it from the jump. This one is just a phone that does phone things and does not really surpass or fail to meet my expectations in any way.

Although given the recent trend across all technology for newer hardware iterations to just keep getting worse or less impressive, it wouldn't surprise me if flagship models from other makers are just that much worse by comparison.

Pixel phones are a joke? They've been the best phones I've owned.

I hate Google and try not use it anymore but there's still one thing I can't do without : Google Maps.

Hate it like you want, but the effing pixels are still the best phones. Not by os, not by spec, but simply by being the most open android of them all. The easiest to de-google. Sounds stupid, but is not.

I hate google with all my heart (since they dropped their slogan "don't be evil" and went... Well.... Evil). But i will buy their fucking phones until a viable alternative comes along.

What exactly does Google have left that people like? Gmail?

Shhhh! Dammit. Now they are definitely going to realize they haven't ruined it yet.

Maps. There's still unfortunately nothing better.

Theres much much more.. Smaller kills sometimes are the most effective. Think about Google RSS Reader the best rss reader to ever exist…

I mean, a lot of the points are valid, but the Pixel phones are pretty great, Android is pretty great and getting better, and the Chromebook gamble is playing a really long term game where they could end up uprooting Microsoft if they play their cards right. From my understanding, US kids now on average know Chromebook OS better than Windows by far, and will probably prefer to continue using it if they could. If Google makes the OS more viable for professional use and flexible and play their cards right, they'd have a really good chance at uppending Microsoft's dominance, especially since Microsoft is seemingly trying to shoot itself in the foot with Windows.

Android worse every year? How? Every update I've received (on a Samsung, mind you) has made my experience better.

the chromebook keyboard layout is stupid, especially if you like tiling wms

they removed capslock and moved super to where it would normally be, and renamed it to "search"

they put nonsensical function keys that don't exist like "refresh" and "fullscreen"

and then the keys are mushy too

I think the general rule is anything google acquired was good and anything they built themselves was bad and ended up getting killed.

There are exceptions but some of the only decent parts of google; maps, YouTube, AdWords were all acquisitions. I think they even just got HTC to build the pixel exclusively for them

I’m an iPhone person because of reasons, but I honestly think Pixel phones are the best Android devices I’ve ever seen.

Android is still great. The Pixel phone is the best Android phone by several metrics. Usability and Camera come to mind. Android TV is by far the best TV interface. Just because it's sideloadable and decently usable. Low bar, but here we are.

Gboard is good. The pixel launcher is good enough to not bother switching off. The Google Home certainly turns my lights on and off. And as soon as Google opens RCS, I'm leaving Google Messages.

But that's the only Google stuff I use. And I'm thinking of switching to Graphene OS.

Chromebooks are insanely locked down at schools. I got one on eBay for $40, installed linux, and now it can play Minecraft Java at 60 fps so that’s something.

Aside from Pixels, they've pretty much ruined all their products.

It sucks, because I actually like Google products, minus the gross privacy violations and ads. I used to pay for YT Premium.

They're the #1 in streaming. More people watch youtube on their TV's than Netflix

The UI for GMail is awful. Can't even follow conversations on my phone app. Just put that shit in order like Outlook does. Fuck.

If/when they screw up gmail, I’m blacklisting Google for good, that’s gonna be such a goddamn pain to disentangle myself from.

The timeline got fucked when they killed Google Reader. That was Google's Harambe incident.

Google search is still better than bing, somehow. Gmail is good for signing up to stuff I don't want mailing my protonmail. Google maps is still genuinely useful. Youtube is, for now, still better than any alternative I know about. I don't see what's wrong with Pixel phones.

Don't get me wrong, google is evil now and I don't like it. But I don't know any better alternatives for those things. Mm, except gmail, I could replace that I guess but it's such a pain.

Honestly Google Drive works great as free storage (Though for large storage there's no guarantee they won't accidentally delete it, it's happened before).

And Google Suite is good enough if you can't be bothered to get Microsoft Office. Though they're forcing AI into it and have some weird quirks like being unable to copypaste external text with rightclick.

Google has become Microsoft 2.0 where everything (consumer facing) they touch turns into shit.

They are the IMO most supported Single-Sign-On provider. I think Facebook, which I don't even have, was mostly for games, and then apple also isn't an option, and that's just it besides using firefox' built in password manager for another email/password combination. What's your opinion on log in providers?

My latest day-job employer has made the switch from Apples (and s20fe) to pixels. The staff - mainly nerds - is actually generally pleased with the switch.

If the embarrassment that is Purolator (our national postal service offshoot courier 'service') was adequate last week, not only would they break a 20-year streak but also I'd've had my shiny company pixel by now and could pepsi-challenge it against my wife's shiny new company iphone.

https://xkcd.com/1361/
't was just a matter of time.

Mate, I haven't forgiven them for google reader.

They killed my boy.