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I hate Google and try not use it anymore but there’s still one thing I can’t do without : Google Maps.
Have you tried open street maps? I suggest organic street maps for your phone
OSM is great in some places. But outside of the more techy areas, it’s a barren land. I something do my part with streetcomplete, but anyway, it’s not there yet (in most places)
I can never stick with those alternatives, the traffic conditions feature is simply too good to miss
Organic Maps are great, however if you’re looking for shops and restaurants (or rather their reviews) Google Maps are second to none.
OSM can technically replace Gmaps for shops and restaurants if enough people were using and updating it.
However, Gmaps in unbeatable for public transportation :( no alternative at all
In Europe you can usually download an app for the public transit in that specific country/city. However, Google Maps is the only one that will show you how to get to a specific address (not just the train/bus station).
I use Transportr for that. It integrates with the different local metro systems. Works great in Sweden at least🙂
Pixel phones are a joke? They’ve been the best phones I’ve owned.
Yeah I like them the most as well and funnily enough they are the easiest phone to degoogle
So to name a few issues:
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pixel 1: headphone jack issue so bad they needed to issue a recall, audio would just FULLY stop working, loud speaker as well.
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pixels 2, 3 (and theorized 4 and 5): using cheap ram that literally just died within 3 years. They refused to issue a recall claiming that was “fine for the expected life span of the phone”
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Pixels 1-4: if you let them discharge long enough, they don’t charge anymore, ever!
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Pixel 4/a and 5/a: lemon units. Bad ram, bad flash storage, things like that. Some would be very slow and others would be fine. My pixel 5a died in 7 months.
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During this period of time from the 4 though 6 lines they were notorious for trying to deny your warranty replacement any way they could. It took me 5 months to get a new pixel 5a.
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Pixel 6: buzzing coming from loud speakers (not sure if recall issued)
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Pixel 6 and 7: first 2 tensor chips, known for draining battery too quickly and overheating.
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Pixel 8: OLED issues, I think random lines showing up on the display. They have issued a recall tho.
So in sum:
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In the older pixels there were some shitty cost cutting measures they used in order to recoup cost of development of the phones.
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their warranty service around this time was also piss poor
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QC issues with just about every pixel phone released.
Where we stand today:
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their warranty replacements are much better I’ve heard.
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There are significantly less glaring issue with the pixels, and they’re still reasonably priced
So, back in the day, if you got lucky you got a decent phone for a good price, if you got unlucky you got a shit phone and they probably wouldn’t replace it. Now, you’ll probably get a good phone, with some semi useful AI features and a decent warranty.
Can confirm, my Pixel 4a 5g just suddenly died one day and wouldn’t respond to anything or even boot, almost exactly two years after I activated it.
I’m sorry but you could easily find facts like this about every phone company from the past as of now they are great phones but cannot comment on the AI tools because I remove those
The ai tools are thankfully just an app. I could easily remove it. Unlike google assistant your phone had to be unlocked to do anything basic like pausing music.
The shitty ram thing is especially egregious and was not the industry standard at the time, especially for your flagship phone.
The weird audio issues on multiple devices is also out of the norm.
Current pixel phones are pretty good! But it’s clear that for at least the first 4 gens they had some QC and quality of parts issues.
Edit: also to add, it’s a basic thing that if your phone is dead dead then you should use wall power to power the circuit to charge the battery. But if you let it sit for a few months, your older pixels will not charge again unless you put in a new battery with some charge, that is definitely out of the norm and is also something that should have been rectified sooner.
As much as like to shit on Apple for many other reasons, they’ve had fairly few mishaps with their phones. Even counting bending phones, “you’re holding it wrong” etc., their track record is still decent compared to the competition.
Yeah but they’ve got their own issues. They’re so anti right to repair and their OS is so much more restrictive. That’s how it is under capitalism, kind of just have to pick your poison :/
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