Google Nexus has always been a very good choice for users who opted to choose a stock android experience at a very reasonable price. But the Pixel changes the story. It's basically a Google's iphone equivalent. Pixel is exactly one overpriced phone that an iphone already is for ages.
Android fans are now given their test of faith. Their years of making fun of apple's religion is over. Would a self proclaimed apple hater or android hardcore fans swallow the bullet and splutter his/her guts to buy what Google is selling to him/her? We'll find out.
If you're still living under a rock....
Google's Pixel is priced exactly where all the bad boys are. Here's the breakdown.
Pixel 32GB/128GB is $649/$749
Pixel XL 32GB/128GB is $769/$869
Does the price looks familiar to you? Yes! It's the iphone7's price. It's the Samsung Galaxy's price. Android fan's argument of spending less for more is now invalid.
So the conclusion of the day. You want something good, you got to pay. Like Jeremy Clarkson says, there's no such thing as cheap and cheerful. There's only cheap and nasty or expensive and cheerful.
Now, I am eyeing the smartphone market for a while cause my old faithful iphone is at the penultimate year before it'll officially EOL next year. So if you're on the market of buying the best smartphone in the market, read on. I'll try not to be bias.
I am going to group the choices into 3 categories. Apple, Pixel and Samsung.
The reason, Apple, cause it's apple. People will compare everything to the apple smartphone.
Pixel, cause it's the Google's golden child. It's used to be Nexus, but Nexus is no more.
And Samsung, cause Samsung is probably the best 3rd party android device. Yes, there's LG, HTC, Motorola and so on but those are just stripped version of the galaxy. So it's essentially what feature you want, at which price point. Samsung has everything, that's why it's the top of the line premium 3rd party android. Remove the curved display, you'll get the Moto Z or the LG V20. Remove the aluminium unibody, you get something else. You get the idea.
Also note that all price are approximated in US dollars. It should be priced around the same price range plus tax in your respective currency.
The smaller sibling. Starts at ~$650, you'll get the 32GB version of iphone7, galaxy s7 and pixel. A $100 bump each time for additional storage or the s7 edge. Price topped at ~$850.
The larger sibling. Starts at ~750, you'll get the 32GB version of iphone7+, note7 and pixel XL. Again, a $100 bump for additional storage. Price topped at ~$950.
In case you want to splash those hard earned money, you'll need to be damn sure what you bought is well worth it. So here's my thoughts and comparison of all the available choices.
1. Design
This is subjective. People can buy smartphones for the aesthetics alone. That's why gold or diamond plated smartphones exist. If you pay that much money, you have to tell yourself what you bought looks damn good. But the choice of design boils down to whether you want the smaller or larger variant of the phone. Smaller for easier handling, larger... cause bigger is better right?
2. Power and performance
All 3 are powered by top of the line SOC. So processing power is not a question here. Comparing A10 fusion with snapdragon 821 is like comparing s class Mercedes and 7 series BMW. Both are top class, the difference are minute.
The other side of power, the battery. All 3 have a decent battery that will last you for about a day. All 3 have rapid charge. Apple does not officially say their iphone has quick charge but we all know you can use the ipad charger. The only difference between the 3 is that Samsung have wireless charging. But please be reminded that almost 99% of smartphones out there doesn't have wireless charging so that's a premium you pay for getting a samsung device.
3. Repair-ability
The processing power should able to last you for many years but the battery might not. A lithium ion battery's life span averaging 2 years though excessive usage and abuse.
So the repair-ability of the phone is also very important. Do checkout the ifixit channel on youtube who did teardown and repairs of modern smartphones. So you'll know how complicated the surgery procedure on your phone is and the likely hood of the phone surviving the knife, and screwdrivers.
Apple is scoring better in this department. We'll find out how Pixel fare on the repair-ability.
4. The Display
Big win for android camp for the display department. All larger models is having 1440p display while the plus model for iphone still behind with 1080p panel. Apple fanbois are defending saying your eyes can't differentiate anything above 400ppi. Well, who starts all the retina display argument?
Of course I would love having more pixels but as a trade off, you'll need more juice to power more pixels. Thus the larger battery capacity that last no longer than iphone.
All these displays are doing a very good job. They're vibrant, bright, colors are very accurate. What differentiate the display between these competitors are the gimmicks they offer. Apple has the 3D touch, while Samsung has curved edges, always on display and s-pen for note models. And pixel has, well it has a display. Suddenly the high ppi pixel feels a bit too normal.
But those 1440p display are very future proof as they're VR ready. Not that I care of hooking a chalkboard eraser on your face but VR is not a matured technology. It's expensive, it doesn't have a lot of contents to go with, plus you look stupid with that thing slapped on your face.
5. The Storage
Android users bragged about expandable storage. Right until Google shit on their face. But many android manufacturers are bringing back the option, which is great.
Apple offers 32GB as a base model and can be upsized to 128GB and 256GB, The only one here that offers the whooping 256GB at a whooping $950.
Pixel offers 32GB and 128GB models and offset the need for 256GB by offering unlimited online photo and video storage for pixel owners. Good if your internet connection is fast.
Samsung and most 3rd party android doesn't offer such large internal storage. Their range topping note7 has 64GB. But they provide expandable storage. Micro SD cards are pretty cheap, ~$50 for 128GB. But do take note that the access speed to SD are slower compared to internal flash and they are prone to broke down.
6. The Camera
These 3 models probably has the best cameras in the smartphone business. Pixel claims to have the best of them all. But we need to wait for a few days for real life test to pop up in youtube.
iphone7+ is the only big 3 with dual camera lens. Other models like Huawei P9 and LG V20 has it as well. I'm expecting more 2017 flagships to adopt dual lens setup. If dual lens is your thing, then there aren't many choices as of now. Still, all flagship phones takes very decent images with their camera. Nothing to divide here.
7. The software
Software is a hot topic. People debate the open-ness of android vs the restrictive ios. But both OS has their pro's and cons. ios can do some stuff better than android, and vice versa.
The real loser here is the 3rd party android. Samsung's touchwiz, HTC's sense, Huawei's emotion... all are just another layer of bloat-ness to android. Plus all the bloatware that you probably could not remove. That's why vanilla android is so good.
Let's take a moment of silence to remember the passing of nexus.
8. The software updates
Now, another topic of software is the length of support. For apple, the average software support for an iphone is 5 years. That means if you purchase iphone7 now with ios10, you can expect to enjoy updates and enhancement on your device up until ios14. This is a very big win for apple compared to android.
Speaking about the devil. Android's software support is a bit shorter. 3 years for flagships and 2 years for lesser models. So if you bought a pixel with nougat now, you can expect to receive further 2 updates of O and P dessert. Nexus 5 won't get nougat, Nexus 6 will most likely won't get android O. Nexus 6 owners, fingers crossed.
If you decided not to splash money on flagship androids, you will probably get 1 major update, some minor updates and then you're on your own. xda developers are probably your best bet but don't expect everything to work out of the custom ROM.
The problem is fragmentation. iphone users can get the latest ios as soon as it's announced. Although really not recommended. Android, nexus/pixel owner maybe 3-4 weeks after it's announced. 3rd party android, probably 6 months after.
You probably asked why software update is so important. Yes, getting latest and greatest features are great. What's the point of Google making a big fuzz about Nougat if mass majority of the world won't get to enjoy it?
The better reason is security. You must have heard of stagefright. If you don't, shame on you. Stagefight should have evolved the industry in delivering security updates to android devices. Should have. But as of now, it looks like a major failure. You got to think twice logging into your bank account from these devices.
9. The conclusion
So in the end, none of these phones are superior to the other.
Apple probably have the best ecosystem but their hardware are average at best with a few nifty features.
3rd party android devices always wins on the hardware department. When apple rumors comes out on what is coming to their next iphone, they're the first to release a phone with the said feature. Force touch, dual camera, fingerprint scanner, retina scanner (rumored) are just some of them. The downside, is the software department. Fragmentation. Bloatware. Un-optimized. Android has been hit by the same problem for years with no closure in sight.
Nexus/Pixel devices on the other hand provides the best android experience. No bloatware, first in line for new software upgrades and the lots that Nexus owners are enjoying. But bad news, it's now priced like an iphone.
I was actually expecting the pixel to retain the current pricing scheme or at least having a super souped up spec like triple camera, 4K display, hologram or tourbillion when priced like that. But well, Google turns out to be just another apple.
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