Recapping Pixel software and Feature Drops in 2023
Some Pixel Feature Drops are bigger than others and that continued to be the case in 2023, while the other two software moments...
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Pixels are so damn tempting, but their in house SoC is just a deal breaker sadly. If Google made the software for Samsung phones, they would be perfect in my opinion, Samsungs OneUI and software support is a bit meh in my opinion, especially for a major brand and not a Chinese OEM
Why is it a deal breaker? Synthetic benchmarks don't mean anything. The real world experience of using a Pixel is faster/smoother.
It's about the battery life and heat output for me. I couldn't care less about peak performance, but I do care about efficiency. I had a phone (Zenfone 8) with the SD888 (Samsung Foundry like Tensor) and I will say, this was perhaps one of the worst phones I've used. I could barely get 3h of screen on time after 1.5 years (while taking care of the battery). My S23 gets double or more the battery life while having a smaller battery. I also care about device aesthetics like the even bezels on the screen. And the ultrasonic fingerprint scanner on the Samsung's is just leagues ahead of any optical sensor both in terms of speed and accuracy
And that's not to mention the bad signal issues
My Pixel 7 Pro doesn't have overheating issues and the battery is more than sufficient for me. Only the 6 series had unusually bad battery life.
Remember those Google Play editions??
That google play HTC m8 was chefs kiss, I also loved the m8 for windows.
That phone was gorgeous too!
Support is really good on Samsung, no?
Heh, they get 4 years OS (5 total) but the thing is after the new device generation is released, the previous year immediately falls behind in terms of update speed and overall optimization.
Nah. On basically all other OEMs once your phone isn't the latest and greatest anymore it falls behind in terms of updates, even if it does get updated. The same update may take longer to arrive, maybe a week, maybe a month, who knows? Meanwhile on Pixels and iPhones everybody gets updated on the same day.
I don't think that's the case these days to be honest. Samsung's good with updates.
Here's the release schedule for Samsung's Android 14 update. The Galaxy S22 series was like 2 weeks behind the S23s.
Week 43
Week 45
I totally feel this and really wish Google would just drop this tensor bullshit. I absolutely despise Samsungs software, but much to my chagrin, they were basically the only ones creating a decent foldable. The second the Pixel Fold dropped, I jumped ship, but holy moly the Tensor is fucking this device sideways. I get more signal problems than I should, and my wife's pixel 6 is having the same shit.
I was fine on Pixel 4 and don't remember having much issue, but holy moly is this one noticeable. I hope they either fix it or switch, but I hear the Tensor 3 isn't much better.
I don't. I think Google should continue with Tensor, and similarly, Samsung should continue with Exynos. I don't like this dependence on Qualcomm at the flagship level.
Sure, dependence on Qualcomm isn't great.... But I find having a phone with no functional signal to be worse. And if you want to argue "then buy a Samsung" etc, then you're just replacing a CPU dependence with a manufacturer dependence. I find that to be even worse.
I also switched from being a pixel user since forever because of the p7p signal issues. Agree on the tensor thing too.
