Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced

I witnessed my girlfriend&#x27;s Nexus 6p support experience with Google and it was not pretty. I would never buy a Google phone after that. The phone, just barely out of warranty, goes into a bootloop and becomes a paperweight. Google helpfully shrugs the problem off on Huawei, and Huawei will of course not support the product since it&#x27;s out of warranty. There is no repair option.<p>I tried Android early on, had similarly unacceptable support experiences, and whenever I&#x27;m tempted to dip my toes back in the water I&#x27;m reminded of how bad things are with cases like this. In the case of the Nexus 6p it&#x27;s Google&#x27;s flagship product and it&#x27;s a worthless paperweight 13 months after purchase.

I am an Android user but it seems to me that it gets more and more invasive. Everytime I go somewhere it wants me to take photos and just now it advertised some Play Store movie. Search asks for location access on almost every search. To get rid of the search bar I need to install third party software.<p>When I buy a premium phone I want the phone to work for me and not the other way around. The notification bar should only be used for stuff that I want to be notified about - not ads or cheap tries to get me working for free.<p>In the future I sometimes imagine two classes of devices: one controls the lives of their owners and one helps their owners to control their lives. What does Android want?

There&#x27;s a reason that Samsung still leads the pack in sales, and it&#x27;s not solely due to marketing: they keep the stuff people want. People want a headphone jack, they held onto the headphone jack. People want SD card slots, they keep SD card slots.<p>I held off on getting a GS8 about two months ago when Amazon had a great deal on them going because I was in the process of moving, and I wanted to wait to see what else was coming out. Even though the S8 is lagging behind on updates, it still seems to be the best option. The HTC 11, Pixel 2, and Essential phone have all disappointed.<p>Waiting on the reviews for how the Sony Xperia XZ1 compact fares, because I wouldn&#x27;t mind a smaller phone.

Honest question: for those of you who own a mobile device without a headphone jack, do you find it to be an encuberment?<p>Personally I still find it a bit hostile to not have the jack available, since often times I find myself charging the phone and using the headphones (when watching videos for example), so having an adapter dongle for such a frequent task seems counterintuitive to me. I believe that if a device is correctly designed, then it should serve most of its usecases without the aid of an extra adapter. These should be reserved for edge cases.<p>Moreover, I use headphones for a good part on my day and I am not sold on the idea of having a wireless device next to my brain for such an extended amount of time. Sure, we are already exposed to a good number of electromagnetic radiations, but this one I might want to pass. Not to mention the need to charge yet another device.

Edit up top: The identification is done on-device. The Verge article didn&#x27;t mention this.<p>&gt; And this year’s Pixel will take advantage of the phone’s always-on microphones to listen for music (not just the phrase “OK Google”) and display what you’re listening to on the screen, even if it’s something on the radio.<p>This sounds creepy. So now when excessive microphone data is seen to be going out to the cloud, they can just say &quot;Oh, the phone thought there was music playing and was trying to identify it. Simple misunderstanding, nothing nefarious!&quot;.

I bought a Pixel when it came out, switching from the Nexus 5 primarily because Project Fi was an easy, cheap way to get off my parent&#x27;s cell-phone plan and gain some personal independence. It was about time for a new phone anyway.<p>I wish I had just stuck with the Nexus 5... it was a fantastic phone. Wireless charging (which I personally found to be the most useful feature), excellent dimensions, excellent price, and the notification light was bright. The case was made of some sort of rubberized plastic, so it could withstand a real beating.<p>Squeezable sides and marginally improved specs aren&#x27;t enough for me to consider upgrading, and at this point, as an Android fan since the Nexus 4, I would strongly considering making the switch the iPhone.

Be careful with the unlimited video storage deal because it&#x27;s not really unlimited video?<p>It&#x27;s unlimited until 2020[0] and then I&#x27;m guessing you&#x27;ll have to pay for it afterwards, and after a few years of taking videos without caring about space, you&#x27;re probably going to rack up a massive bill or have to spend a ton of time cherry picking what you want to save.<p>Their plan is pretty smart tho. Most people will be like &quot;screw it, I&#x27;ll just buy another phone to avoid spending that just to keep my videos&quot;.<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;M5LYvrH.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;M5LYvrH.png</a> (read the fine print)

I picked up the Pixel on release, but I&#x27;ve been disappointed by the quality of the product overall. The screen scratches easily , battery life is mediocre, and the changes to android recently have not been positive. I&#x27;ve had the device replaced once by Google, which was a painless process, but the new one scratches just as easily as the old, and loves to reboot on occasion.<p>Interestly enough, I started a new job right around the time I got my Pixel, and work provided me a brand new iPhone 7, so I&#x27;ve been able to compare them side by side for a year now, in nearly identical usage. I&#x27;ve been on the android bandwagon for a long time now, but the iPhone 7 is hands down the better hardware. The Pixel has been replaced once ~6 months ago, and spent most of its life in a soft shell case, but it has not handled general wear and tear well. The iPhone 7 has been blatantly abused (work phone, don&#x27;t care) but still looks brand new. iOS leaves a lot to be desired, but with all of android&#x27;s missteps the difference isn&#x27;t as drastic as it used to be.

As an audio engineer, the headphone jack removal trend is an absolute travesty in an industry that utilizes AUX IN audio capabilities night after night.<p>I&#x27;m often using iPods or other local-music devices to pump sound into concert venues between acts. Taking away 1&#x2F;8&quot; audio standards in favor of USB-C or Lightning non-standardized ports causes chaos when needing to fill in music in a pinch.<p>In my industry, I simply cannot live without a standard audio port, which absolutely no one was clamoring to discard.<p>If my 1st generation Pixel were to break today, I&#x27;d buy another 1st generation Pixel.

I really wish they would reintroduce the Nexus series. The money felt worth it for the phone. Not sure if I can say the same for the Pixel series.

The only reason to remove the headphone jack is to sell more dongles and wireless headphones. That&#x27;s it.<p>Consumers are not asking for it for the aesthetics. It doesn&#x27;t make the phone much thinner. It doesn&#x27;t make the phone easier to manufacture.

When they mentioned the headphone jack being removed, I thought it was a joke. I have a 6S now and was considering getting the Pixel, in part because of the headphone jack and also for the more &quot;open&quot; ecosystem of Android (and things not proprietary-Apple). But now it&#x27;s basically the same, so there&#x27;s less motivation for me there. I just think Google could&#x27;ve swooped in and gotten the people who still appreciate headphone jacks.<p>Interesting round of new devices this year around, I wonder what the consensus is on who did it better, Google or Apple?

It looks great, I hope Google can keep up the shipments. I really like the white and black XL, and the orange button really reminds me of Dieter Rams calculator from Braun.

Is there a way to remove the auto-scanning and microphone listening features? I have an Iphone so I don&#x27;t know. Every phone does this now I know. It just seems weird that it is brought up so non-chalantly in the article. Like I guess we are just okay with this now.

Seems pretty nice.<p>I may consider the Pixel 2 XL over the IPhone X in a few months, but will definitely need to see some reviews of both first.<p>The removal of the headphone jack is devastating. I listen to music nearly every waking moment, so I am unsure about moving to Bluetooth whenever I use headphones.

I wish Google would do a mid range Pixel, or call it something else if they want, just something like a follow up to the 5x.

Guess it’s for many a minor thing but why can’t the phone just be symmetric (top and bottom bezel have the same height)?

Looks great for $849. The camera is amazing with a 98 Dxo score. Also, the free unlimited Photo and Video storage is a great deal.<p>Only conern is the inventory, they make 100 pieces and do marketing for a million, I don&#x27;t understand the logic, smh.

Is that a broken link in a major Google product release blog post? Gasp! Screenshot for posterity: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;r7TpRQY.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;r7TpRQY.png</a>

No headphone jack, twice as much as my nexus 5x. You lost me and my family as a customer for both phones and service.

The € price is ridiculously higher than the $ price. The smaller pixel costs 799€ which includes 19% of taxes (in Germany), the 649$ does not contain taxes. Still that&#x27;s a difference of 150€ on top of my hat. There&#x27;s also a fee which manufactures have to pay (GEMA which collects money for artists and so on). Guess they also include that Google Home Mini in this price which is kinda dumb. Not going to buy with such a huge price bump

This phone is as expensive as the latest iOS phones, at least ball-park wise. Yet, Google only supports its hardware for two years, while Apple does so for four, at least (still too little, but at least twice as good). I am using a &quot;bricked&quot; Nexus 5 right now and need to update because I get no more updates. No more Google phones for me, unless they cost half or less than the current iPhones.

I&#x27;m very disappointed they didn&#x27;t drop the price of the 1st generation Pixels more. There was a 1 day sale on the Pixels earlier this year (that included a free Google Home device) that was much lower than what they have dropped them to today. My wife&#x27;s Nexus 5 recently died. I had hoped to get her the 1st generation Pixel to replace it, but I&#x27;ll probably get her the iPhone SE instead.

I bought a second-hand Pixel on Ebay. The seller sent it complete with boxes, manual, etc. After 6 months it received an OTA and now is a 600 dollars paperweight. They tell me that since the phone, which is not reported stolen, is assigned to another account they cannot do anything about it. I have contacted the seller but she won&#x27;t respond. Be aware of this.

Oh dear. And I&#x27;m already seeing stock issues also. Pre-orders for the 2 XL in B&amp;W just went &quot;out of stock&quot;.

Android Nougat still 17.8% on the market.<p>I&#x27;ve been developing Android apps since 2011, and Android development is getting worse. The support I have to deal with goes back to Android 4.4 which is like 4-5 years ago. And the phones in the market here in Asia are still mostly on 6.0. I am no longer getting excited for Android releases anymore.

Very underwhelming.<p>The camera solution they adopted is technologically inferior to the (much more common) dual wide&#x2F;tele lens solution, since the former offers only some of the advantages of the latter (e.g. bokeh: yes, 2X optical zoom: no).<p>And they gave that guy who retrofitted a headphone jack in the iPhone 7 a reason to come out with a new video.

I love my Nexus 5X, but the high end phone market has no appeal to me. I don&#x27;t need a phone that can do 5% more and cost 150% more. I&#x27;m not sure why anyone needs a phone like this really.<p>Perhaps the Nexus 5X is only good because it is basically an LG G phone.

I wonder if Nexus 6 users would move to the Pixel XL2? I love that it has stereo front-facing speakers with the full 6 inch screen, but as Darth Shamu said: &quot;I find your lack of a headphone jack disturbing&quot;

No wireless charging?

In my experience with Nexus (4&amp;6P), it always had microphone issues (person on the other side not being able hear you for first few minutes); since I always used Bluetooth headset for calls; I didn’t bother much.<p>But I’ve seen some good support cases from Google for nexus, my friend exchanged his nexus 4 after a year out of warranty by sending to US though; it was not bought from Google in India. I hope the support would be better for Pixel series of devices now that they own the manufacturer responsibility.

how can an adjacent pixel be used to calculate depth map. Are they telling me the sensor and their algorithm is that sensitive to generate none binary depth info from adjacent pixels?

Thanks Google. Even with your $400 trade in refund, I think I&#x27;ll stick with my original Google Pixel XL and forego marginal improvements and no 3.5mm jack on the phone itself. Forget your USB-C-&gt;3.5mm plugin... it&#x27;s a pathetic attempt to move us away from wired to wireless headphones which never will work as well as 3.5 mm headsets&#x2F;buds.<p>In fact, if you don&#x27;t shape up in a year or so by the time I will upgrade, I&#x27;m probably going back to Moto, or getting a Samsung...

Motion photos - if I&#x27;m understanding correctly this is basically &quot;motion stills&quot;[1] integrated into the main camera app. It takes three seconds of video, but no photo with it like in live photos.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;play.google.com&#x2F;store&#x2F;apps&#x2F;details?id=com.google.android.apps.motionstills" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;play.google.com&#x2F;store&#x2F;apps&#x2F;details?id=com.google.and...</a>

My pixel hardware has been a disappointment. The vibrator actually broke off from the phone and it now just makes a rattling noise as it bounces around inside the phone. The screen scratches easily. Bluetooth pops and crackles.<p>I couldn&#x27;t have imagined buying a second pixel, so removing the saving grace, the headphone jack, almost seems gratuitous.

I&#x27;d love to buy a Pixel phone (1 or 2) but Google doesn&#x27;t sell where I live just South of the border.

Bit of a side conversation here, but is anyone else jaded that the only real options are iOS and Android?

$649&#x2F;$849<p>it looks like a nice phone, but i have a hard time understanding how it&#x27;s 5-7x better than my xiaomi.

Its DX0 score is 98

I was really looking forward to this phone. Lack of headphone jack = instant dealbreaker.

As creepy as the increased invasion of privacy on the Google phones, the most disturbing is the Google Clips camera. That&#x27;s literally how the movie &quot;The Circle&quot; started (although it&#x27;s a pretty bad movie).

&gt; Though there is some bad news this year: the headphone jack is gone.<p>Expected, but it still stings. I guess I&#x27;ll look elsewhere for my replacement for trusty Nexus 5X. Speaking of which, how&#x27;s Pixel?

I really really hope they have fixed their supply issues this time around. I live in the 4th largest city in North America and I was unable to get a Pixel within a reasonable amount of time.

An LG G6 for $350 more†.<p>+ Software updates<p>+ Camera software (probably)<p>+ Squeezing<p>- Dual camera<p>Did I miss anything?<p>†Yes it&#x27;s unfair to compare speculated launch price to current store price but that&#x27;s the decision I&#x27;m making right now.

the rounded corners on the pixel 2 xl just looks ugly... dont u guys think...<p>Also the huge bezels in pixel 2...<p>seems like these announcements just boil down to nothing...<p>at least those headphones could have been individual device without a need for pixel or if it needs to be paired then at least it should have been around $50<p>it is basically just a total waste of time, it was fun to listen to those new music in the event though...

Does anyone know how consistent the squeeze feature is on phones that have already implemented such?

Buy OnePlus phones instead of expensive crap. OnePlus is cheap, reliable and replaceable.

Dropped my Pixel 1 in a toilet. Glad the Pixel 2 is water proof. Preordered!

Thanks but no thanks. I love my Nexus 6P a lot (still)!

There is no privacy with those devices.

The pixel 2 was made by HTC and pixel 2xl was made by LG.<p>Two manufacturers for what should be the same phone.<p>There are no words.

the smaller one looks like a stictly worse oneplus5

How could they neglect wireless charging and the headphone jack?

I currently have a Nexus 6P. It was the flagship before the Pixel series. I use Bluetooth headphones daily on my commute using the Philly subway system (SEPTA). In center city and around suburban station I experience sound cutting in and out all the time on two different wireless bluetooth headphones. It seems to work just fine in my apartment when I don&#x27;t need it but is never reliable when there&#x27;s a ton of other signals around.<p>I can&#x27;t stand the current state of the industry. New phones cost more but offer little in terms of value. They also look like trash. Who actually thought it was a good idea to make a flag ship phone have a two tone plastic case?<p>I&#x27;ll be sticking to my aluminum cased 6P for a while. I&#x27;m also likely to get it again when this one finally dies. There&#x27;s absolutely nothing that makes me want a Samsung or a Google branded Android phone right now.

I&#x27;m french, i would like Google to take my money.

Why would anyone pay money to buy a phone from an advertising company?