[nblgbg]

One of the big problems with Pixel phones is their lack of thorough testing. You upgrade and suddenly you encounter strange Bluetooth issues, call problems, or other features that were working fine before but suddenly stop functioning. Tons of people will be complaining about this in forums, and you won't receive any updates to fix them for months. IMHO all Pixel phones are just developer devices and you can't seriously use them as daily drivers. Adding more AI features won't help unless they start taking their customer service seriously!

[itsoktocry]

>IMHO all Pixel phones are just developer devices and you can't seriously use them as daily drivers.

I've had Pixel 3XL, Pixel 5, Pixel 8, and Pixel Tablet all without issue. I realize that can't be everyone's experience, but the idea that you can't "seriously use" these devices is untrue.

[rahimnathwani]

I upgraded from a Pixel 3XL to a Pixel 7 Pro XL. I've been generally happy. But...

Back in September 2019, my Pixel 3XL had a problem doing an OTA update. I spent hours with Google support (both live and over email). Their only suggestion was to reset the phone and restore from backup.

The problem is... I had had the 'backup' option in settings enabled, the whole time I had the phone. I thought it was being backed up regularly. But I could not create a backup from my phone. I tried rebooting the phone, but the 'Backup Now' button was still greyed out. Based on some information from the web, I disabled my PIN. That caused my Google accounts to be logged out, but DID enable the 'Backup Now' button. However, the backup failed. I tried doing a backup via adb, which also failed.

IIRC this was before Google Authenticator had the ability to transfer 2FA codes from one device to another. So, without the ability to restore from backup, a reset would mean I needed to recreate 2FA codes for tens of services, which is pretty time-consuming.

I wasn't the only person with this problem: https://support.google.com/pixelphone/thread/13519859?hl=en

I really like Pixel phones, and just ordered a Pixel 9. But for the foreseeable future my parents will continue getting iPhones.

[ilrwbwrkhv]

As shocking as that sounds, I had a Pixel 7 and after sometime calls stopped coming through making me miss some emergency calls.

I have never ever had a phone do that and I have used some really cheap phones.

So I don't think what OP is saying is far from the truth. I am resolved to never buying a Pixel again.

[rhinoceraptor]

The last I read there were still ongoing issues with 911 calls with Pixels, it didn't seem limited to any particular phone model or OS version.

[jeffbee]

Really? The Pixel 8, my first Pixel, shipped without working USB webcam support, which was one of the advertised launch features. To actually get that feature you had to switch to the beta release track, which of course broke lots of the other things on the phone. Notable things that have been broken for a month or more on the beta track since I owned a Pixel 8 include tap to pay and the unlock screen.

[PUSH_AX]

We could do anecdotes all day. Unless there is hard data on how brittle or robust these devices are it all seems a bit pointless.

[ibash]

No, anecdotes are data. You can't just ignore customers and claim their experience isn't hard data.

One of my pet peeves is engineers making excuses for incompetence.

[glenstein]

>No, anecdotes are data

They're not good data, they're some of the worst. Your idiosyncratic one-off experience should be addressed, but not necessarily generalized from. I feel like this is an important, perhaps even the most fundamental prerequisite for information literacy.

[mardef]

Ok, so my Pixel 1, 3, 5, and 7 have had no problems.

Data shows 100% reliability then?

[tick_tock_tick]

I agree they are 100% data that's why we can say with absolute confidence there are no issues. (source my anecdotes)

[zoeysmithe]

tbf this is abusing the word anecdote a bit. Anecdotes are unreliable narratives and hearsay, not facts or data.

An anecdote is "I forgot to pray before bed last night and now I have a headache. See God is punishing me." and other people agreeing with this happening to them.

Saying, "here is a documented pixel bug that was released on day x but wasn't fixed until day y" is evidence and data.

Once its documented as a real bug then its no longer in the land of weird anecdotes.

How you categorize that is up to you. You can be dismissive of what that bug broke as an "unimportant feature" but its no longer an anecdote.

[PUSH_AX]

Good luck with that. Sure it's data, it's the worst possible data you could choose to make an informed decision. If you want to gain insight by selectively reported, highly biased reports of a tiny sample size, go for it.

[izacus]

So the fact that my iPhones wifi failed means that they're all terrible products and we shouldn't look at engineering practices like failure rate statistics?

Or do we just do that for brands we're not fanboys of like __true__ engineers?

[oxide]

anecdotal evidence is what I usually base my purchases on, which is why I've never bought a Google device after being burned (literally) by the Nexus 6P battery issues.

you can pretend it doesn't matter, but bad word of mouth is all it takes for me.

[digging]

> but bad word of mouth is all it takes for me.

That's fine, but it's also entirely different from saying that the phones are objectively unstable and bad for everyday use.

[Gigablah]

I have been burned twice by iPhone battery issues (specifically my iPhone X).

Battery started discharging rapidly, I got it replaced, barely a year later it’s dying again.

[hello_moto]

This is me + wife with Pixel 3 despite "Battery Saving" mode and killall apps.

The screen is eating up the battery like me drinking water on a hot California weather.

[webnrrd2k]

A quick search turns up problems, enough so that, as a consumer, I'd be concerned. Is that hard enough data to reach a conclusion in a major scientific journal? No.

Is it enough data so that, as a consumer looking to purchase one, I would be concerned? Probably.

Is it enough data that I'd expect some engineer at Google (or wherever) to pay attention and address? Certainly, I would expect some engineering team to pay attention to public forums and address issues as they arise. It doesn't seem to be happening. If these phones are supposed to be a flagship items, and I think it's reasonable to claim that they are, it's also reasonable to expect flagship support.

[lordnacho]

But who is going to have the data that we need to assess this?

The firm that has an interest in everyone thinking there's no data, and that we should withhold judgement.

There's not a lot of good choices here, either you assume that because there's no info, everything is fine, or you assume that the one guy complaining is one of many.

[seattle_spring]

I'm sure we could also find anecdotes of some iPhone users having features necessary for them blocked or non-functional. It does not mean that the vast majority of people cannot still use the device without incident as a "daily driver."

[jeffbee]

I used an iPhone from launch to the iPhone SE3 and I can't recall there ever being a feature printed on the box or hyped by Steve Jobs on stage that did not work out of the box, or that later stopped working.

[glenstein]

Here's one about battery life:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255046014?sortBy=rank

[SideQuark]

You must have had that single magic version of Apple Maps no one else got for a long time on release.

They lost the batterygate lawsuits, right? Guess you missed that fiasco that resulted in Apple paying out over half a billion. In this case Apple deliberately degraded previous user experiences on older phones, which means previous behavior (in this case performance) stopped working, done deliberately by Apple.

yes, it didn't go to zero, but it didn't do what it once did as decided remotely by Apple).

Apple also promised user data security, sold user data, and got hauled before Congress in 2011 for that. But I guess your user data was safe in offshore data silos.

I could go on, but I think your recall on iPhone downsides stopped working.

[Dylan16807]

The only thing they did on purpose was run too close to the limits of the battery.

The battery degraded because it was a battery, and the performance had to degrade along with it because of physics.

Apple didn't decide remotely to weaken performance. That performance was on borrowed time. What Apple did wrong was not making it clear upfront that the performance was on borrowed time and wasn't sustainable.

[kaba0]

> They lost the batterygate lawsuits, right? Guess you missed that fiasco that resulted in Apple paying out over half a billion. In this case Apple deliberately degraded previous user experiences on older phones, which means previous behavior (in this case performance) stopped working, done deliberately by Apple

Let’s not share this absolute misinterpretation of what happened.

Apple fcked up big time on communication, that’s for sure, but it was an absolutely well meaning feature for an old device, lengthening their lifespan. They saw a bunch of random poweroffs due to degrading batteries not being able to output enough power to the CPU, and pushed an update that decreased the CPU clock down a bit. This of course degraded performance, and not having informed the buyers, making it a choice, they lost a lawsuit. But if they would actually do the communication well, it could have been an excellent positive PR, them fixing a bug for a 4 or so years device!

[refulgentis]

So you think there should be more testing so the testing track is stable?

I worked on Pixel, left Google in October. I agree vehemently with what you're saying, its just, you're barking up the wrong tree on a couple different levels, the easy one above, and a more difficult one below.

Management did what you wanted a few years back, #1 and #2 and #3 priorities were "stability above all else" since Pixel 6.

This unfortunately didn't do anything in practice, other than enable newly minted middle managers to punch down, hoard work[1], and hide poor decision making and lying easily.[2] Net negative effect on product of course.

What managers wanted to legislate was "care about your features", but I observed over years that you simply can't enforce that. Ironically, given the above behavior from the new management layer, people got more detached. Unit test coverage went up, I'd bet, which is also a lesson in unit tests have significantly diminishing returns. E2E tests are hard and flaky, but they pay 100x dividends in these situations.

What you want to legislate is the truffle hunting that lowest level management does is bad. i.e. say we can definitely do whatever pet thing some guy 3 levels up says we need to copy from iOS this year. Then, hold it back because it's not done, but still announce it. Then, layer on a special process to get you on the betas to get the feature you thought you were buying. All of this keeps each individual happy and yet, remarkably, leads us directly back to the initial situation we were trying to fix.

From all this, you can also derive why things only launch, and never improve (tl;dr: management has 0 incentive to do anything other than latch onto the latest vague ask / iOS copying from above)

[1] Estimate everything takes 3-5x engineers it did 3 years ago. it's a huge win: I'm managing this team because I did it myself 3 years ago, so this makes clear what a talented engineer I was/am. When I solely listen to the vague asks from people 3 steps above, they'll want to give me the headcount I need to get their pet project done, so this gives me more reports. My compensation scales with report count. And if the estimate is questioned in any depth, well, we're making sure we have enough to deliver this Priority™ at high Quality™. Also, no one is going to question it anyway, my manager made me a manager because they trust me.

[2] it's very easy to work around blatant irresponsibility by flipping it into "the guy lower on the totem pole is insufficiently committed to quality and collaboration [taking forever to do anything]"

[jeffbee]

Yes, I think the dogfood stage before the beta release should be more thorough. For the record, I was also adamant about this while I still worked at Google. Google, especially Android, is way too eager to release to beta. You should not release to beta until you have stopped generating new defect reports in dogfood. If you do, you just annoy the beta testers and get a huge number of duplicate reports. That is exactly what happened this year with the lockscreen bug. If anyone in dogfood had even touched the phone once the problem and its severity would have been obvious. And breaking Wallet generated 13000 duplicate reports, breaking a core use case for beta users.

[refulgentis]

That's actually the policy as I understood it, though, it was being enforced starting in an OS cycle, and I was only there for a month of it. When I think of institutionalized maladaptive dysfunction, I think of the lock screen.

[ravenstine]

> IMHO all Pixel phones are just developer devices and you can't seriously use them as daily drivers.

While there's a lot you said that I agree with, I find this statement quite an exaggeration. I've owned Pixel phones for the last 7 years, both with stock and custom ROMS, and as much as Pixel seems to always have weird quirks, it's been reliable enough for me that I don't see why it couldn't be a daily driver.

That said, I share your view on upgrading so far that I really hesitate to upgrade anything, whether it's my Pixel phone or something else. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been legit hacked, but I don't have enough fingers to count all the times that software bugs did things like get me stranded, cut me off from my finances, almost get me killed on the road, and so forth.

Although I've never been an iPhone user, Pixel is the best Android phone I've used. I'm a bit biased since it's developer-friendly I'm a software engineer, but I've had the least catastrophic issues (and less crapware) with them compared to other phones like Samsung's line. The strange thing about Pixel is that updates seem to always destabilize the UI, and I'll get weird things happening like the lockscreen coming up and remaining frozen for some time.

[dbspin]

>I've been legit hacked, but I don't have enough fingers to count all the times ?>that software bugs did things like get me stranded, cut me off from my finances, >almost get me killed on the road, and so forth.

I hesitate to defend apple on Hackernews but I have never experienced anything like these issues with any iPhone. Major problem is battery life, other than that I can say the core features of every iPhone I've owned have 'just worked' pretty consistently.

[patall]

Neither have I on all my android phones. Only device that failed me was an iPad 3 (yeah 12 years ago) that I got replaced in the store due to it crashing right in their hands. But hey, anecdotes.

[ascorbic]

I've had a Pixel 8 Pro since launch day and have had zero issues with it. Really great phone.

[jerlam]

Not doubting your experience, but you've had the phone for less than a year and haven't had a major Android version update.

You are 1/7th of the way of your total support period. If you can say you have no problems in 2030, that would be much stronger evidence.

[ascorbic]

Sure, though in the past when I've had problems with phones they've either manifested within the first few months, or it's been 4-5 years down the line when I'm fine with replacing it. I'm not being complacent: it's true I've not had a major OS upgrade yet, and this is of course anecdotal. My main point is that I'm really happy with my first 10 months with the phone, and would recommend it so far.

[sigzero]

Wow, talk about an unrealistic expectation. 2030? lol

[zepearl]

> That means your Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro will be supported all the way into 2030

https://store.google.com/intl/en_uk/ideas/articles/newest-pi...

[dmix]

Some stats from another site

- As of 2023, the global average replacement cycle length for a smartphone is 3.6 years.

- 40.4% of people upgrade their smartphone every two to three years.

- The majority of people (75.0%) upgrade their handset due to issues with their battery life shortening over time.

[morsch]

For the majority of Android phones, two to three years was also the length of time you got software updates of you bought the phone right when it was released, if you were lucky. I would have loved to pay somebody 80 EUR to replace the battery in my Samsung S10, but that wasn't an option since it was EOL.

Upgrading a phone also doesn't mean that the old phone goes to the bin or the new phone wasn't used before. Lots of people upgrade from one hand-me-down phone to another, others buy on the secondary market. Longer software support also extends the lifetime and viability of that market.

Sure, eventually the battery dies and the screen breaks. For many devices it's cost-effective to have somebody repair it. Having user serviceable batteries would make it much easier still.

[WA]

That is Google‘s stated goal of long term support.

[practicemaths]

People trade in cars every 3 years. I imagine it's similar to phones. Plus phone battery life does degrade pretty heavily over time and heavy use.

[epolanski]

I trade them when the old one breaks.

Phones stopped having any meaningful reason to update since a decade.

My 2019 Xiaomi Note 8 Pro is still perfect and capable of answering posts on HN like this, going on YouTube or answering WhatsApp. Pics are also great and battery life is too.

[practicemaths]

Yes, your personal experience is not the same for the average consumer class. Which is the majority of phones & cars are designed for and sold to.

[dogsledsleddog]

A subculture trades in cars every 3 years, as in they are resold on the used market for another 13 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_longevity

[StevePerkins]

Is that really a large subculture, or is that mostly car rental places cycling vehicles through their fleet?

The rental companies typically buy vehicles from the manufacturer at such a volume discount, that they're able to flip them onto the used market a few years later and come out even with taxes benefits factored in.

[practicemaths]

Do those same cars have 0 problems with them and not require any scheduled maintenance in those 13 years?

[romwell]

>People trade in cars every 3 years.

Looks at their 2010 Honda Fit in the parking lot

Umm, yeah, some people do.

[practicemaths]

Yes, but the automakers and car salesman aren't selling to you.

[gen220]

I don't think it's an unrealistic expectation for a hunk of bleeding-edge electronics that costs ~$1k and you interact with for a couple hours each day at minimum.

I've had an iPhone XS since 2018/09 (equidistant to 2030 from today), and have had no significant issues – my upgrade cycle is ~6 years, there is at least one of us!

[olyjohn]

I had a Pixel 4XL that could not do basic phon calls. 7/10 tries I would get no audio but the other person could always hear me. I wiped the phone and it magically started working, then about a week after that it was back to not working again. Also the back cover started peeling off the phone since all they did was use a tiny bit of glue to keep it on.

[mgraczyk]

Wait until they update the OS

[bsagdiyev]

I'm in Android 15 beta with my P8P. Zero issues. So where are the problems I'm supposed to have?

[GuB-42]

> IMHO all Pixel phones are just developer devices

These were the Nexus. Pixel phones are definitely consumer devices. Nexus phones were designed to be rather generic, meant to be used as a model for other manufacturers and as a test platform for developers. It was when Android really was open (or at least more than it is today). They were usable phones, even good ones, but without any "personality".

Pixel phones on the other hand advertises exclusive features, and is mostly picture-focused, hence the name, and also AI, but who isn't nowadays. Nexus advertisement was little more than its spec sheet.

[paxys]

This describes the average Android phone for sure, but the Pixel line has been pretty solid in my experience.

[0x1ch]

The fact that more than once, you could not call 911 due to a bug, should be enough to convince people that Google doesn't test their products or have any quality control.

[digging]

I would seriously hope that 2 instances of a certain bug, no matter how critical, would not convince anyone that the manufacturer "doesn't test their products or have any quality control".

[0x1ch]

Any other service wouldn't have bothered me. This was a reoccurring issue across different releases of the Pixel line... If there is a single thing you should be able to do with a cellular device, it's call 911... Not acceptable.

[eldaisfish]

This alone is why I will never buy another android phone.

It is inconceivable to me how a phone dialer bug can happen more than once, especially when it involves a life and death situation.

[creato]

I switched from pixel to iPhone because I was fed up with bugs. I’m going to switch back to pixel for my next phone because I’m fed up with bugs on iOS. It’s really not better, just a different set of bugs.

[notfed]

I've had a dozens od Bluetooth devices (of both computers and headsets), and have never not had Bluetooth issues. I would not isolate "Bluetooth issues" to Android.

[Atotalnoob]

Bluetooth on android is quite terrible.

Especially BLE, a startup I worked at had a device that broadcast every 500ms for 375ms. We tested over 100 android devices and the best phone had a 40% chance of detecting the device within 5 seconds…

[dns_snek]

Any interesting observations with respect to different brands? What does the overall distribution look like and how does it compare against other devices you tested, e.g. iPhones, laptops?

[Atotalnoob]

Our app was specifically only for androids.

We didn’t test anything other than androids, my work laptop, and software defined radios.

Different brands, I recall Samsung devices being the worst on average. I believe the better Bluetooth devices were actually nexus/pixel phones… I think the top, by far, was the nexus 9, but it’s been a while.

The product was pretty cool that we built. It was essentially tile or Apple AirTags before both of those were around and ruggedized for usage in commercial usage to keep track of items (dumpsters, underwater diving equipment, mining equipment, portapotties, etc). You’d be surprised how easy it is for some of these companies to lose a dumpster or something else of considerable size and mass.

Building the mesh network and algorithms to determine if someone passed by, moved, etc the item the beacon was attached to was pretty cool stuff.

We also didn’t want to use data as much as possible, but the final determination of “what happened” to the item needed to be server side to ensure we took into account scenarios like 2 unrelated items traveled together for 2 miles, then went their separate ways. So we had to optimize for data, geo, temporal, spatial data, etc.

Given the speed a vehicle might travel and Bluetooth range, you could have 1-5 bbroadcasts to detect a beacons presence and update its location so missed detections were critical.

[guzik]

Well, on the contrary, we’ve worked extensively with Bluetooth since we're in the business of creating wearables. Unfortunately, we've had to compile a list of unsupported Android phones that exhibited unusual behaviors, such as sudden disconnections.

I must say that both Samsungs and iPhones have always been rock solid in terms of stability.

[chimeracoder]

> One of the big problems with Pixel phones is their lack of thorough testing. You upgrade and suddenly you encounter strange Bluetooth issues, call problems, or other features that were working fine before but suddenly stop functioning. Tons of people will be complaining about this in forums, and you won't receive any updates to fix them for months. IMHO all Pixel phones are just developer devices and you can't seriously use them as daily drivers. Adding more AI features won't help unless they start taking their customer service seriously!

I've been using the Pixel/Nexus phones for over a decade, and I find this complaint bizarre. I've had issues with the phones (just like I have with my Apple hardware) at times, but nothing like what you're describing.

The real issue with Pixel phones is not that their software or hardware support is worse (it isn't) but the customer support. If my iPhone breaks under warranty, I can walk into an Apple store and get it fixed or replaced immediately. When my Pixel device breaks, even though I live near the flagship Google store, the best Google will do is send me a replacement phone "within 5-10 business days".

The customer support experience is a huge issue, and I wish Google would do something about it. But the other points don't resonate at all.

[eldaisfish]

More than once, pixel devices were left unable to call emergency services - 911.

Just imagine, you are in a life or death scenario and your literal phone has a bug preventing you from calling help.

All other issues are minor. I cannot forgive a bug of this nature.

[chimeracoder]

> Just imagine, you are in a life or death scenario and your literal phone has a bug preventing you from calling help.

> All other issues are minor. I cannot forgive a bug of this nature.

Does that mean you will never use Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile, all of which have had carrier-wide 911 outages? Will you never visit the state of Massachusetts, which had a state-wide 911 outage, affecting all carriers, just six weeks ago?

This type of failure is bad, but it's unfortunately a lot more common than you think.

[eldaisfish]

this is a bad faith response and you know it.

[Dylan16807]

It looks like a valid question to me. Obviously it's rhetorical, but it makes a reasonable point that the hard-line stance of "cannot forgive a bug of this nature" is probably not viable. These are not strawman examples, these are similarly horrible failures.

[cbsmith]

I don't think you can really tie that to the brand. Because it's wrapped on different OEMs, I find it varies from OEM to OEM.

[oysterville]

First adopters are now the beta, or even in some cases alpha, testers and will continue to be for as long as there are enough people willing to sacrifice stability for having the newest tech.

[fullstop]

I have a Pixel 7 Pro, and my Bluetooth has been fine. No issues there, ever, but I do have complaints about features suddenly not working and it mostly revolves around Google Assistant. It is utterly inconsistent with what it does, and it is maddening.

It randomly wants me to unlock the device to play music, but I'm using voice controls because I'm driving. It has my car's bluetooth device set as "trusted" so it shouldn't even require it to unlock to continue, and it's not like asking it to play something on Spotify would reveal any information about myself. Additionally, sometimes it just leaves the screen on in the off chance that it _does_ start to play music, and I feel my pocket getting warm but there's nothing that I can do because I'm driving and I don't want to mess with my phone.

If I knew that it was going to leave the screen on I would just queue up music before I leave, but it doesn't always do it and it drives me nuts. I don't think that my next phone will be a Pixel.

[nebula8804]

Nice to see they haven't changed anything from the Nexus 5 days. I purposely stayed on the official firmware in the hopes that I would have a seamless experience. The day before an epic trip around Europe, I upgraded to the latest version. It broke video recording so that all videos had garbled audio. Ruined priceless memories. Meanwhile my friend's iPhone 5 was operating perfectly fine and wasn't always running out of battery like the Nexus was. After the trip, I had enough and bought a used iPhone. That was the last time I ever considered Android. This also turned me into a die hard Mac user. Can't believe I wasted years of my life trying to make Linux and Windows work when I could have just used a Mac.

[PhasmaFelis]

The win-win solution is to only buy Pixel phones that are several generations old. The kinks are ironed out, they're less than half the price, and for 95%+ of users, they're just as capable as the latest-and-greatest.

[nicbou]

They don't get security patches though

[tweenagedream]

Which ones?

According to https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en pixel 5a is getting eol this month, with the next security update dropping for pixel 6 starting in October 2026

"Last gen" pixel 8 is going to get android and security updates through October 2030

[londons_explore]

Phones are really rather secure. Even a 2 year past security patches android rarely has any of the most severe vulnerability (remote code execution with no action from the user).

The common security issues (app can get permissions it shouldn't have) are nowhere near as important if you don't download random APK's from dodgy sites.

Overall, my fully patched linux laptop has far bigger security holes than a 2-years-unpatched android.

[treyd]

Thirdparty roms are very good about backporting patches after Google drops support.

[nicbou]

My bank apps don't run on rooted phones.

[ruthmarx]

You could use only the banking websites or switch banks. That's what I did personally since I want completely control over any device I use, and more importantly over my data.

[treyd]

I didn't mention rooted phones, I mentioned custom roms.

[e44858]

Most of the important parts will continue to get security updates: https://www.androidpolice.com/project-mainline-android-14/

[locallost]

I've used Pixel 6 for the last few years and Pixel 3a before that. "As daily drivers" whatever that actually means, as I for sure don't have any other phone laying around.

[khaomungai]

I've had several Pixel phones and using the 6a currently. Never ever had any issues. My strategy is to delay updates for a few days to be not the first one bricking my phone. :)

[shadowgovt]

Yep. I think I'm in the "fool me twice" category on Pixels now. This is the third one in a row with a bad USB socket.

[queuebert]

So who does make good phones?

[freedomben]

Pixel phones are among the best, and getting better as Google gets more experience shipping hardware. I've had a ton of Pixel phones and there are definitely paper cuts here and there, but:

> IMHO all Pixel phones are just developer devices and you can't seriously use them as daily drivers.

Is ridiculously hyperbolic.

OnePlus phones are also really good when new, although updates often introduce new bugs. When OnePlus was more affordable it was less of an issue, but with current prices I expect several years out of a device that expensive.

Just get a Pixel.

[__MatrixMan__]

Nobody, you just have to chose which kind of bad you can tolerate.

Personally, I navigate the Android fragmentation mess to avoid Apple's control-freak tendencies. One is annoying, the other is offensive. But I totally see why you might prefer the opposite.

[fortyseven]

I've been quite happy with the Galaxy phones since the S21 Ultra.

[StevePerkins]

It's crazy that I'm the first person in this sub-thread to mention Samsung, when they are by far the market leader in Android phones. They have decent options at pretty much every price point.

For some reason, HN and Reddit just hates this company, and I don't understand why. People talk about "bloat", because Samsung ships with their own apps for things like phone, clock, calculator, etc. But it's trivial to uninstall those, and/or set the Google stock Android counterparts as your system defaults.

People get all weird about One UI, but my son has a Pixel and I have a Galaxy and I honestly don't see much meaningful difference between the two (other than his phone getting hot as hell because Google's own Tensor silicon sucks). I just recently switched back to Android from Apple, perhaps these UI skins were further apart in the past?

I think a lot of contrarians just hate Samsung because it's the market leader, simple as that.

[__MatrixMan__]

They switched the home and back buttons... why? I can only assume it was to make competing android phones feel awkward such that those who step foot outside of Samsung quickly run back to "safety".

[StevePerkins]

This?

https://i.imgur.com/9uUJLaz.jpeg

I've never seen any kind of UI where the "Home" button wouldn't be in the center. And you have the option of placing the "Back" button on the left and the "Open Apps" button on the right, or vice-versa.

[__MatrixMan__]

Agreed, home is always in the center. My comment is regarding whether "back" is left or right of home. Samsung defaults it on the right side, everybody else puts it on the left: https://www.androidcentral.com/how-switch-position-navigatio...

Recent android versions have put more of this in the the hands of the app, for better or worse. So it's not especially material nowadays.

My point is just that it's an example of Samsung making design decisions which leverage the fragmentation to create confusion among the users.

I noticed it when my boss said that non-galaxy devices feel awkward. I ended up using his phone later and realized why: vendor lock in through muscle memory. It's the kind of monopolistic move that only the largest fragment can benefit from--anyone else puts themselves at a disadvantage by departing from Android defaults. But Samsung, since they control the majority, can bias the market in a way that makes the defaults feel weird. It's rather Apple-like if you ask me.

... which is why I use a Pixel. I hate Google, but they're what I'm stuck with, so I might as well not be messed with by anyone else.

[StevePerkins]

I'm sorry, but this is absolutely nonsensical. I literally just posted a screenshot showing that this is configurable on a Samsung.

In fact, when I first setup this phone, I had to specifically choose to make the home bar visible at all. Because the current default setting on Samsungs is to use "gestures" only. The same as the default setting on a Pixel now. All Android manufacturers seem united in pushing this, to ape iOS.

There are plenty of reasons to choose a Google Pixel. And I wouldn't quibble with any of them. But it's absolutely bizarre to point to a default setting as a reason, when they are configurable and when both brands use the same default setting anyway.

So many of these discussion threads are like this. It's perfectly fine to prefer a Pixel over a Galaxy. But people so often seem to take umbrage against Samsung for some reason, and when you poke at a little it rarely makes much sense.

[croemer]

OnePlus used to - until they didn't anymore. OnePlus 8 was excellent. Pixel 8 Pro has the worst mobile reception I've ever had in a phone.

[bitwize]

Apple.

[causi]

That's been Google phones even since the Nexus days. They review super well then three months after release there's some crazy-ass hardware problem no phone has ever experienced before. Screen discoloration, glass backs cracking while laying flat on a table, power buttons getting stuck, spontaneous camera glass cracking, etc.

[jsheard]

The flaws were much more excusable with the Nexus phones since they were dirt cheap, but the price of the Pixels has crept upwards and now they're more or less at parity with Apple and Samsungs flagship prices.

[AtlasBarfed]

My issue is that they are bottom-barrel of repairability.

My Nexus phones were described as "designed to fail and impossible to fix" by a repair guy.

[abawany]

But that's not true anymore afaik: they get good repairability scores at ifixit and also have a deal with them to stock repair parts.

[minkles]

Yeah that. Pixel 6A and 7A. Unreliable as hell. Went straight back to iOS.

Edit to clarify: constant problems with payments, bluetooth, eSIMs.

[tomrod]

Weird. My 7A runs fine. I do swap out a lot of apps though, like keyboard and application selector.

[moneywoes]

what do you use?

[tomrod]

SwiftKey and Niagara.

[SkyPuncher]

This was a major issue that drove me away from Android. In addition to first party bugs, I got tired of 3rd party accessories not working correctly.

My theory was iPhone probably got tested on most 3rd party accessories. However, the fragmentation in the Android space meant I’d have no idea what devices they actually tested with.

This is further compounded by the fact that Android isn’t really an open platform, at least in a practical sense. I can’t just load up a patch for something (assuming it exists) without fully switching to some open source ROM that’s going to come with its own issues.

[eddieroger]

There's also only one Bluetooth stack on Apple's platforms (presumably shared), so testing is more straightforward. And if so inclined, there's also the Made for iPhone program that requires validation, but again that's with one device in two form factors. It's not a fair challenge comparing Android device support because the task is bigger, though Google could probably do some stuff to make that less painful.

[SkyPuncher]

As a consumer, I just don't care whether it's fair or not. Android and iOS are competing, almost identical platforms. They both do what I need, but only one of them doesn't always break.

Saying it's not fair to compare them is like saying it's not fair to compare a minivan to an SUV when making a car purchase. They're different, but similar enough.

[londons_explore]

Google could just say "Here is our official bluetooth hardware/software. Either use the official hardware/software, or use something else but we will kick you out of the android program if your implementation and ours ever have any kind of difference that is noticeable to a user".

[AtlasBarfed]

It's almost like there should be a, I don't know, STANDARD test suite that peripherals, phones, and chips that want to use the Bluetooth STANDARD would have to pass in order to advertise being compatible with the Bluetooth STANDARD, as directed and administered by the Bluetooth STANDARD organization.

Bluetooth is so old that it was coming into use when Computer Shopper was still published. It's been a dumpster fire of compatibility since its inception.

There's one of two culprits on the Android side: either its the device drivers, or the OS itself. Device drivers should be capable of being subjected to stringent acceptance standards in order to advertise "Bluetooth". If it's the OS, that's even worse since it is higher up the abstraction stack. At least the device drivers being closer to hardware have an excuse.

Bluetooth is 26 years old. A 26 year old industry standard should be better than a coinflip as to whether some bluetooth thingamajig will work with a mobile OS. It's just sad.

[Bluestein]

> year old industry standard should be better

Ballpark as old as USB if not mistaken, and that's saying lots ...