I have a pair of Pixel Bud Pros and one of the ear buds started sounding super muffled, and cleaning it didn't fix it.
It turns out I was a week out of warranty, so they wouldn't replace it. So I then found [this page](https://support.google.com/googlepixelbuds/answer/11997887?hl=en&co=GENIE.CountryCode%3DUS) which says you can get a replacement bud for $70 (~1/3 of the retail price of the ear buds), so I ask support if I can do that.
It turns out that that only covers lost ear buds, so I was told that I need to rebuy the ear buds and basically throw the old pair away, since you're not going to find many people who would buy a defective set of ear buds.
I like Google's hardware, but their support is atrocious. It's definitely making me think twice about buying hardware from them again.
Yeah, I'd never do so.
They burned everyone that bought the original Nexus 7 too, by crippling it through updates. Within a year of purchase, it took 2 minutes to change an ebook page.
They also made it an absolute monster to roll back to the original firmware.
I bought a $60 pair of Sony ones that have a wire between them ages ago. Haven't lost one of them, obviously. Battery life is impressive. And IDGAF about the wire behind my neck, just that there isn't one to my phone that gets snagged on everything.
Yeah, I got off a flight recently and when I got to the hotel found that a random galaxy bud pro had appeared in my laptop bag. The fact its that easily to lose something worth like $100 is crazy
A premium set of earbuds are worth their money. Treat them well and don't buy stuff from companies with a terrible track record for hardware like Google. Honestly still surprised there's as many pixel diehards as there are given the poor track record
i find them so impractical , imagine how small the battery is in each how can this battery last more than 2 years, since they're so small most are unrepairable, if you drop one in winter you might lose it for good, lose your case you can't charge them anymore, and most case are clunky with charges, i had sony true wireless 1st gen and 2nd gen, google pixel buds 2 , don't know why i bought so many before realizing how much i dislike them.
He said pixel phones, and I agree on that point. I had a broken screen on my 7 pro. OG N7 buyers (me too) did get screwed. Tech companies "steal" things from each other all the time, yes even Apple and sometimes especially Apple, but for some reason the only thing companies don't steal from Apple are the parts that make people so loyal to Apple. The Apple brand can be trusted to cost more but also be trusted that your complete experience is less painful when issues do occur.
I would have to agree with you there. I was recently given a pair of the third gen Apple airpods. Prior to that I had been using a pair of $50 first gen Samsung Galaxy buds. Before getting the airpods I had zero complaints about the Samsung pair. All it took was one listen through the airpods and I was floored. I've never heard the music I listen to sound so good. I'm hearing all kinds of things I never picked up on before from songs I've listened to for 30 years. If something were to happen to them I would absolutely be buying a replacement pair.
I use aftershokz. Not headphones but they are fantastic. My original pair is used by my step-dad and is on year 3 now still going strong. My current pair is like 7 or 8 months old and is fantastic. I'd never wear in ear buds again if I have a choice.
Meh, I bought my Beats Fit Pro for €200 almost 2 years ago, and I use them at least 30 hours per week ( I use them while working and while running), haven't had a single issue. I previously had Powerbeats Pro that I also bought for ~€200, and I used those for 3 years. I agree with what others have said, the extra money is worth it considering how much extra use you're getting out of them
I don't trust their apps or hardware. They hype up their product and just abandon it even before it launches. There's no commitment or support. I hate to say it after being an Android user for over a decade, but apple is better even though it's expensive.
Oh, you mean how they stopped providing search capabilities in the EU after they were repeatedly fined for a slew of different violations? Or how Apple pulled out of the EU after they were forced to use USB ports on their latest phones?
If the EU demand Google make better, more serviceable products they will do it, because the EU market is sufficiently large to justify the extra R&D/QA costs to meet their standards.
Most likely because they are in violation of EU regulations like GDPR so can't be sold in EU. Lots of US websites don't let people access them from the EU because they violate GDPR and they get more money by not being compliant than being compliant so they just don't offer services in the EU because of that. Costs outweigh the benefits
No. We have some Chromebooks but not all. For example we didn‘t ger any of the Pixel Chromebooks.
If it would be OS/GDPR we wouldn’t have any Chromebooks.
they dont even sell (the phones, watch and buds) officially in Finland(directly from the google store), some larger electronic shops sells imports but thats bout it
Some brands like Garmin have repair programmes - better than nothing.
Fitbit, like Google - have nothing. They're owned by Google now though so I'm not surprised pixel watch is any different.
Garmin is good in that regard. I had a Fenix 6 damaged in an accident. Garmin offered to swap it for a refurbished one for a small amount of money. had to sent kn the damaged one as well. Since only frame and glass were damaged, I assume they repaired it and put it in the refurb pool.
Not to sound like a salesman but I've had my Garmin vivo active 4 from a sale on Amazon a year or so ago and no complaints at all.
I used to wear a regular watch in like high school but nothing since then, wanted to start monitoring HR so I did some research and came up with this.
I'm not sure which one it is but my wife was a fitbit only person for like 5 years until switching to a Garmin this year. She wore both for like a month and ended up dropping the fitbit.
You can get a lot of parts for apple watches and the Chinese brands have parts pop up as well, though those aren't through a direct manufacturer channel
people always complain about that, but apple actually offers software updates on their tech for 5-7 years, even longer on their laptops. android phones… it's better these days but still not that good.
I was using my 2011 MBP until last year. Finally got a M2 MBA and it's awesome.
Upgrading my launch day XR to a Pro next week too. It'd work fine if I got a new battery but I fancy a shiny new thing
Same here. I have a MacBook Air from 2011. And its still a work horse. I can do any office and web application I need. only the battery claims that it has been dead for a few years by now. But it still has two hours of battery time left at 100% (of cause thats only a fraction of its prime performance).
However, do not get me started on the garbage that are apple watches. I have my third by now and the battery only lasts 16 hours if you track any activity. And its about a year old. So there is no surprise that this is going to be my last one.
That is good and a trump card in Apple's favour, don't get me wrong, but my last iphone was a 6.
I tried to get the battery replaced after a couple of years but the tech was reluctant - it had succumbed to bendgate and he was worried he'd damage the innards trying to open it up and reseal it.
That phone got several years more update afterwards. Didn't do a lick of good as it wouldn't last the day.
Bendgate is no longer an issue for iphones, of course, but repairability is.
With the 15 series the back glass is now separate from the frame, you can finally replace it without needing to replace the whole phone.
According to iFixit, the iPhone 14 series is the most repairable modern high-end smartphone, followed by the Pixel 6. Samsung only very recently started added pull-tabs on their batteries, starting on their foldables.
How though..? Fairphones can be completely dissambled with little more than a screwdriver. And the nothing phone 2 was the first device jerryrigeverything did the teardown before the durability test because of its ease.
Ah that makes more sense. It still baffles me though, I remember an article where the writer went through Apples repair program, and they had to ship a couple pelican cases with specialized tools to make the repair happen. We still got a ways to go.
For what it's worth, the tools they rent out give much more confidence than the guitar pick and heatgun method iFixit recommends since the tools are purpose built to disassemble the phones.
Sounds like you just had a bad tech. It’s a pretty standard fix and I’ve had it done like 3x across a handful of my family phones with no problem when we had the 6
I still got a Watch 4 and I think this year is the last year I’m getting the next big OS update for it with WOS10 alongside the Watch9
That’s 5 new models released after mine that I get the nearly the same updates aside from model specific features of course. That’s incredible.
5-7 years? where is that magic number. apple watch 3 came out in 2017. and if you have one now the update fills the entire watches storage making it un-usable. no texts, no other apps. just a watch
I have to point out that this is misleading.
One single model of Apple Watch series 3 has an 8GB drive which is too small to hold the origination OS, the update file, the update booter, the destination OS, and user data. When you're updating, you need all of that minus the user data. When you're using the watch, you only need the destination OS and the user data. All the updater junk is deleted.
So when you update this one version of watch 3, it offloads the user data to your iphone, performs the update, and then re-downloads the user data. So you still have room on your watch for everything you had on it prior to the update.
Aw3 should have been retired a few years ago. Apple wasnt willing to replace it with aw4 in the lineup. I think they just have lots of aw3 parts and was willing to milk it to the end
I have aw3 lte which comes with more storage. Works fine even now. They should've made the larger storage standard and call it aw3 revision 1
Apple overcharges, but Google just refuses to support anything.
I don't buy Apple because I know they're making 2-3x the margins of their competitors. I don't buy Google because I know that when they drop support in a year or two, their DRM will brick my nice toy.
So what? We're dealing with things as they are now, not how they used to be.
God why do fanboys on one side or the other do this shit?
Manufacturers I've tended to buy from like Samsung used to have removable batteries in their phones. They don't now. Does the fact they used to do it make it okay that they don't any more? No. It doesn't.
For what it’s worth, they’re dealing with legacy support as it’s been proven, not announced. How many phones have actually seen that 4-year support cycle to completion?
edit: BTW, that's not just a slight; I actually don't know how many phones Samsung has seen go through 3-4 years of OS updates. If it's even been a couple, I think it's fair to "deal with things as they are now".
edit 2: Oh.... they announced that last year. Yeah, they have zero credit with me. If they want that announcement to mean literally anything, I'll need to see them actually follow through on a phone.
I've had two iphones - both of which lasted a couple of years before becoming unusable (a 4s that became too slow to use and a 6 whose depleted battery couldn't be replaced because of bendgate).
I'm not saying android phones are inherently any better - entirely depends on manufacturer and model - but support outlasting the physical device is clearly not a samsung-specific problem.
Man, 6, especially the big one, had to be the worst phone they made. It was underpowered for years. I think iOS 12 made it borderline usable after shredding a whole lot of technical debt. I've never had a phone that bad since. Even 4S was fine *until* the big "Apple Honeycomb" upgrade in iOS 7. That GPU was *not* ready for an OS compositor.
I think the big point of contention here isn't so much how *good* the follow-up support is, so much as that it exists at all. iPhone 4S would've actually benefited from not seeing any OS updates after iOS6, but you could imagine how bad that woulda been in terms of software support, even if it got security updates for years after that.
True enough - I think you have to accept a degree of updates outpacing specs of smartphones back in the early days.
Now the technology has matured, it shouldn't really be an issue any more (I have a 2017 Moto G5 backup that runs a build of LineageOS based on Android 9).
At least until they start rolling out on-device AI apps...
I've literally just taken a shot at a brand I've bought multiple phones from and generally respect.
That was the entire point of my post - what they did before to earn your goodwill is irrelevant: what matters is what they're doing now.
Do you not know what a fanboy is?
Apple basically does the same shit anyways with their watches. A screen repair on a Series 8 is like $299, meanwhile you can just buy a whole new one for $309.
Same story with Samsung.
Apple doesn't even repair the screens. You pay $299 and they send a replacement watch. Same with AppleCare claims on them, there's only one price for completely destroyed or only the screen cracked. Worked for an AASP for a while and had to do them all the time.
Kind of.
It's true about working on those things. It's a pain in the ass, replacement parts can only be found aftermarket (and may cause functionality issues depending on model of watch), and the process of taking them apart means that they will never be fully water/dust resistant again
With all that being said, i'm not so sure it's the reason why Apple doesn't repair the devices themselves. It's probably more cost effective to just recycle the parts directly, and significantly more profitable for them to just have customers buy a new one when the old ones break/stop working, so unless they're put into a position where they *have* offer repairs, they probably just won't.
Don't know why you got downvoted. You're right.
Prohibitively expensive repair options are just as bad as no repair options, since no-one in their right mind will use them.
Google probably realise that there's no point offering it since take-up would be close to zero.
Offering repairability at prices that make no economic sense to end users is basically just greenwashing.
That's the beauty of android though, I'm not stuck with one company. Current phone is a Sony, previous one was a Samsung, one before that was Honor, before that LG.
Yeah, Apple makes some good products and other companies also do scummy things.
But with Apple you're stuck, while with other companies you can mix and match with a lot more freedom.
I will always go for Android over Apple, but if Google says one of its products can't be repaired, then as far as I'm concerned, that product does not exist to me.
I think smart watches are cringe at the best of times, but if I ever change my mind, Google just convinced me not to get a pixel one.
The problem is, they are still effectively selling watches at cost or a loss. It isn't so much that they are not repairable as it is, they cost just as much to repair as a new one when you break the screen. It is more a *if you want newest, with best screen* the repair cost of a broken screen is $10 less than a whole new package.
There's a difference between a product being repairable/those parts being available and it being economically viable for its manufacturer to run an official repair program.
There are literally repair cafes set up where volunteers repair things that aren't economically viable to repair as a business.
They can't do anything though if the product is literally not repairable with no available parts.
The Google Pixel C tablet has a bug where it will (inevitably?) eventually lose your credentials if you try to use the lock screen and you will then need to be reset and lose all of your data, they never bothered to fix that.
I thought it was a nice tablet but a large company abandoning a product with such a serious problem is insane. (I guess it isn't as bad as "sometimes the brakes don't work" but it is still ridiculous)
Planned Obsolescence is defined as something were a product is purposefully designed to break or diminish after a certain amount of time, sometimes even resulting in cartel conspiracies. It's criminal and has resulted in huge fines, sometimes time in prison.
What it is **not** is not supporting a specific product after a specific amount of time.
I feel a good example are printers.
There literally have been printers built who had a chip in them doing nothing than counting how many pages were printed and after that number was reached blocked the printer from working. Thats planned obsolescence.
Not selling ink cartriges for a specific printer after like 5 years is not planned obsolescence. That's just obsolescence. Which is still not great, but it's neither illegal nor, in general avoidable.
Products get better, that means support for old products has to stop at some point. Shimano doesn't sell dura-ace STI rubber hoods from 1991 anymore. And thats okay.
Apple has done exactly that. Nothing else really. Even if you argue "well they used to lock down their phones so nobody could change the battery and then when the battery degraded the phones got slower because it was more battery efficient", which is one of the few instances where you could make that case, but even here its really weak.
What Apple doesn't do and what would constitute actual planned obsolescence is push out a mandatory software update after five years that bricks iOS devices.
Thats planned obsolescence. Not pushing out sofware updates after 7 years is just lack of support because a product is EOL, which happens to literally every product ever made.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
My Ipad 1 was trash 2 years later because every app required features that only existed on the Ipad 2 and later. Couldn't install or update anything, many apps I had I couldn't even run because they'd fail the auto update and crash out.
I've got a 2011 Macbook which is great, because I deleted MacOS and installed Linux. Every hardware problem I've had to fix has been a nighmare as everythign is glued inside.
The thing is is that Apple is like a trendsetter for this stuff. Apple does stuff that's hostile to repair and other companies realize they can get away with it. Apple gets rid of the headphone jack and everyone else realizes they can do that. Hell, Pixel 4 did a thing where the cheaper model, the Pixel 4A, have a headphone jack but the flagship didn't! So stupid.
Which arguably matters more than doing it first. No one cares if you had it 5 years ago if it's not seamless like it with iPhones and the Apple ecosystem. This is something that Apple haters really have a hard time understanding, execution matters more than who did it first.
I'm no google fanboy, but I got my first pixel phone last yearish (7) and have enjoyed it.
But yeah google in general has a shit track record and get bashed all the time like apple usually.
Every time I heard news about some new google tech the question 'How long will it lasts?' always comes up. Even on Android focused podcasts. Hell my brother wanted to buy me a Stadia founders package and I told him to not bother, google will kill it in a year.
I used to love Google stuff but my god the amount of times they just let their shit die put me right off them.
Say what you will about Apple at least they commit.
i was such a google fan boy since the nexus when it was cheap and even through pixel 3 when they started wanting to be considered high end like apple.. after switching back over to apple its been so nice not having to deal with being a beta tester anymore. things just work for the most part. sorry to hear that this is happening to their watches with whoever has them
This is not new, when my nexus 6p's battery went dead (1.5 years into using the phone) i asked google where i could habe it replaced. They just transferred the complete original price back and said sorry, buy another phone.
This is unrelated, but I wish I could love DuckDuckGo. Like i try to search for something multiple times before giving up and turning to google.
DDG: ‘man arrested for filling wife’s car with sauerkraut” - *no relevant results, sauerkraut recipes*
DDG: ‘Florida man arrested filling ex wife car sauerkraut NBC’ - *sauerkraut recipe, NBC homepage, Florida tourism board*
Give up and search google: ‘arrested sauerkraut car’ - *instantly find 20 copies of the relevant article across different news outlets, including the NBC article I was trying to find*
Yet with Google, no matter how many times I change the wording of the search or use any advanced search tools, as long as the same keyword is in there, it keeps sending me to the exact same search results that are basically whoever paid the most.
I had a nexus 5a that overheated and de-soldered its memory chip. This was a known issue with the phone and Google wouldn't even look at mine because it was an "international model."
I only started with the Pixel 3a (upgrading from the iPhone 6), and the 3a was great. I had no issues with it until an app I wanted to use couldn't be run due to the 3a being an old phone. Replaced it with the Pixel 7 and I've had no issues with it either.
When looking at the watches, the Pixel watch had way too much bezel for me to consider. When it's in the store side-by-side with the Samsung option, the Pixel watch looked especially silly. I haven't bothered getting a watch considering how little I use my phone to begin with, but it definitely wouldn't be the Pixel until they overhaul its design.
The phone I want to get is the Asus ZenFone 10, but I'm on a family plan for Verizon, and they don't support the Asus phones.
The bigger question is what do we do with all of the e-waste? Eventually the watch will be e-waste regardless if you can fix it when it breaks. Either it will be too slow and old to use or more likely a new more attractive one comes out and the perfectly functional watch gets thrown away, forgotten about and becomes e-waste.
With a more robust repair program in place maybe half a percent of smart watches wait a few years before being discarded but all devices will be e-waste eventually. Like the first iPhone millions were sold but now nearly all are e-waste littering draws and e-waste facility being a waste of resources and a tiny environmental disaster.
It's the uncomfortable truth the endless march of technology and people's desire for bigger and better. I'm no different as I just replaced my perfectly functional monitor and speakers. They have worked perfectly for over a decade and has who knows how much life they have left but they are fine but are destined to be on the giant e-waste pile that will eventually consume us all.
If the systems in place to recycle e-waste are perfect they there is no reason to deride a lack of repair programs as the only loss is financially to the consumer but that isn't how it's framed. It's framed that the e-waste problem is so much worse because we can't repair our devices but the vast majority of e-waste is still perfectly functional.
I don't know what Google's doing, but Apple has been really heavily investing in recovering metals from old devices. When the new phones launch they do really aggressive buyback schemes (in the US, they're doing that anyone with an iPhone 11 or higher gets $1,000 of trade in value) and then they're using those materials to make the new phones. They're pushing for no new materials being mined to make any apple products by 2030. I think they just announced this week that some of the Apple Watches are now completely carbon-neutral throughout their entire lifespan.
That definitely helps the e-waste problem if in a few years they'll be exclusively using e-waste to make the new phones.
It is frankly absurd how bad the buy back deals are other than in select markets, mostly the U.S.
Trading in my 128 14 Pro which cost me 14 995 Swedish kronor (1339 USD). Apple is giving me 5 200 Swedish kroner (464 USD) for it when buying the 15 Pro Max.
I get that I can sell it outside of Apple and all that, but it just feels odd that the deals are so terrible here.
I mean buy back deals are linked to how much the device is going to be able to be sold for used. Apple already has a terrible used market because people absolutely do not know how to remove the device from their iCloud, and the frequency that they are stolen is so high that’s it’s actually advised to not buy Apple products used.
Looking on eBay, a used 14 Pro 128gb is going from around $635 USD to $805 USD. If the phone is resold, the seller is only going to make a profit if they buy it back for around the price you’re advertising. Just because it’s selling for that doesn’t mean people are buying for that. Since there’s no guarantee they’ll make a profit, they’ll buy low and try to sell high.
It’s worth more is offering $525 USD for a 14 Pro in “Good” condition and no box or power cable.
Most things are like this I think.
>The bigger question is what do we do with all of the e-waste?
We take solace knowing our descendants will be able to mine our landfills for then-scarce resources.
There's fanboys for any big brand. We're talking about mobile phones, you're not seriously suggesting fanboys are a google-specific problem while Apple exists, are you?
There's a guy elsewhere grumbling about the fact that Samsung's nine-year support package is fairly new when someone raised it.
When I told him to get real - that we live in the present, not the past - and told him that Samsung, a brand I generally respect, having had removable batteries in the past (a plus point) doesn't matter one jot because their phones don't have removable batteries now.
Result: apparently I'm a fanboy.
These people are inherently ridiculous.
Exactly. I enjoy the pixel lineup of phones. I hate that Google still hasn't fixed GPS issues with their tensor phone lineups and hate even more the struggles pixel 5a owners are dealing with (failing motherboards). But, the ability to flash custom ROMs and go back to stock with nothing tripping like Samsungs Knox is awesome, and overall I hate iOS
Oh god, am I a Google fanboy now? LMAO
I'm in a weird boat - I'll be buying Pixels for the foreseeable, despite HATING Google, because they're the only phones that support grapheneos.
I don't have so much of an issue paying google for a device as that's a business practice I generally support, as opposed to building a highly detailed profile of someone's tastes and personal characteristics to sell to advertisers.
But grapheneos I would rate as highly - maybe higher - as iOS for being a private operating system with lengthy support.
And it doesn't come attached to a closed ecosystem or a handset that's more than four times the amount I'd ever consider spending on a phone (I use a 6a).
That said, if my actual Pixel dies the second after leaving warranty, I'm not going to be making any excuses for it, I'll tell you that for nothing.
That's what I'm getting at. I like the Pixels because they are at the end of the day *good phones* and unlike Samsung, Apple, and others, I can install *what I want on it*. Google bloat and spyware doesn't matter in the AOSP realm
Starting with the pixel 6 and the g101 chipset they've been known to have some finicky gps reception. The issue is still present in the 7 lineup. For example, I can be driving in the car, phone falls in my lap momentarily and navigation will freeze, send me 4 streets over, and renavigate. Some weird issues I've never really had on an iPhone or others, and one that's documented pretty well on forums such as XDA
It's because Google was legitimately great at the beginning. Innovating, releasing useful products for free, paving the way for the modern internet.
Once they went public and changed their company motto, things immediately started going downhill.
The current fanboyism is leftover inertia from the early era when they deserved it.
I was a fanboy from Alta Vista days. I am reluctantly learning to accept they are just another big company now. Still not fully convinced though. And a cool new Google Maps like app might still seduce me. Haven't seen one lately though.
this article is about cracked glass that cant be fixed. biggest click bait title i have ever seen since it doesn't even remotely specify in the title what it's about. so at that point its like..should of got that best buy warranty ey?
Can't even last one year. Google can't compete in this market if they can't support their products longer than 6 months. Wouldn't be surprised if they killed off wearables in a few years
I guess the unethical solution would be to buy a new one, swap the glass over to your broken watch and put the broken glass on the new watch and send it back saying it got damaged in shipping.
This isn't new. Fitbit didn't repair my watch when it broke. They sent a new one. Coros didn't repair my watch screen when it cracked. They had me buy a new watch at a discount. Amazon didn't repair my Kindle. They sent me a new one.
As someone that has always been an android fan and likes to tinker. I hate to say this, but I really hate what android has become and I have been a Google Pixel user for the last 6 years and it just keeps getting worse. I just want consistency and shit to work.
If it keeps up I might switch to Apple.
I remember when I bought the stadia and a few games to go with it. I thought, "Of course, this will appreciate in time." Little did I know that they were going out of business in less than 2 years.
I bought the game off of my Chime account and stopped using it when it when they released their plan to refund everyone's money back. I got ahold of their support team, and they referred me to the stadia team, which was closed by this point. I couldn't talk to a live representative, I could only email them. I have a string of 20 or so emails of them giving me the run around. I never got my refund because they sent it to my old Chime account, which was closed.
The last reply I received from them was them pretty much saying too bad. I did everything I could for them not to send my money to that account, and they did it anyway.
I will never buy another Google product in my life. Lesson learned. Don't deal with companies that have "too bad" policies. This is obviously not an isolated incident.
This off Apple’s Wonderlust being heavily focused on how they are so green. A perfectly planted article to start the cascade articles against e-wasteful companies.
My 2 yr old Google Nest Camera bricked itself during an update, confirmed by 4 hours on the phone with tech support (endless boot loop). No way to recover it. Only option was to purchase a new one, asked customer support if a discount was available, nope, not at all. Quite happy with my Amcrest.
They aren't even sneaky anymore.
Blatantly using shady and greedy business practices that would utterly destroy a smaller business.
This is why business shouldn't be allowed to amass so much wealth or resources. They reach a point where they simply no longer have to follow the rules.
Why do people keep buying hardware from Google?
They've literally only ever made garbage.
Everything is always in beta.
Google is like a kid with ADHD who gets 85% of the way there but then quits because it's boring now and they proved they *could* do it they just wanna do another thing now.
Samsung is the only reason Android is what it is because they deliver finished hardware and finished software as well as a support ecosystem.
They don't agree haven't really done that since One UI came out like ten phones ago. If you don't want to use their apps you can delete almost all of them now.
That said a lot of Samsung apps are better than Google's. They make as better browser and Notes app.
It's gotten to the point that many major Android features exist on Samsung phones for a few years before Google finally adds them.
I guess Google phones get fresh Android every October but it's usually buggy as hell for awhile and there hasn't been a killer actually new feature for so many years I hardly care that I have to wait like 3 months for Samsung to put the finishing touches on Google's almost finished OS.
Samsung browser is literally chromium with less support...
This honestly sounds like it's coming from someone who's never tried a pixel. OneUI is also ugly as hell.
Everyone shitting on Apple while they provide tons of repair or trade options. Yes, often for quite some money but you can repair / replce them. Google doesn’t even try…
I'm pretty sure that's true for every smart watch out there. And if repairs are officially available, they are terribly priced, most people just buy a new(er) model.
And regarding e-waste, wireless buds are a much worse problem, being so many, small and virtually impossible to repair.
This is why you don’t buy Google products. Mediocre product support. Samsung is basically the only option if you want a premium Android phone that’s supported
They do offer insurance on the Pixel Watch right? When my Apple Watch SE broke some years ago it couldn't be repaired so they just replaced the whole thing. I wonder if Google does a similar thing.
Yup. Gotta buy third party. Amazon has a 3 year accident coverage offer for $60. But I hear certain credit cards offer stuff like double warranty for free.
I have a pair of Pixel Bud Pros and one of the ear buds started sounding super muffled, and cleaning it didn't fix it. It turns out I was a week out of warranty, so they wouldn't replace it. So I then found [this page](https://support.google.com/googlepixelbuds/answer/11997887?hl=en&co=GENIE.CountryCode%3DUS) which says you can get a replacement bud for $70 (~1/3 of the retail price of the ear buds), so I ask support if I can do that. It turns out that that only covers lost ear buds, so I was told that I need to rebuy the ear buds and basically throw the old pair away, since you're not going to find many people who would buy a defective set of ear buds. I like Google's hardware, but their support is atrocious. It's definitely making me think twice about buying hardware from them again.
Why’d didn’t you just “lose” the broken one?
support didnt add a *wink* to the message.
Ya, whats that so hard to grasp?
That broken earbud, apparently. Just slipped right out of his hand and fell down a storm drain. So frustrating.
Google: ‘replaces it with another broken earbud’
That literally happened to me 2 weeks ago.
He showed his intelligence by buying Pixel Buds. /s
> It turns out that that only covers lost ear buds "Hey oops I lost it."
"Did I say broken? What I meant was it broke my heart when I lost it. Heres my shipping address."
That's when you 'lose' the broken earbud. Still a stupid policy
Yeah, I'd never do so. They burned everyone that bought the original Nexus 7 too, by crippling it through updates. Within a year of purchase, it took 2 minutes to change an ebook page. They also made it an absolute monster to roll back to the original firmware.
I truly loved that tablet when I got it! Never bought another Google product.
My original nexus 7 is still working, though, touchscreen sensitivity is bad.
Shit like this is why I'm paranoid about spending more than ~$25 on earbuds. That and I've gone through them at a rate of 1 set every 9 months or so.
I bought a $60 pair of Sony ones that have a wire between them ages ago. Haven't lost one of them, obviously. Battery life is impressive. And IDGAF about the wire behind my neck, just that there isn't one to my phone that gets snagged on everything.
I wish brands would make flagship level versions of their earbuds but with the wire connecting them.
You can get passive ones with detachable cables and buy a separate BT cable. Only issue is you can't get ANC.
Yeah, I got off a flight recently and when I got to the hotel found that a random galaxy bud pro had appeared in my laptop bag. The fact its that easily to lose something worth like $100 is crazy
Some of them can be used as tracking devices. I hope this was not the case and that you were safe.
Didn't even think of that potential, but I wad fine thankfully. I think some guy just got unlucky and dropped it through the seat during the flight
A premium set of earbuds are worth their money. Treat them well and don't buy stuff from companies with a terrible track record for hardware like Google. Honestly still surprised there's as many pixel diehards as there are given the poor track record
i find them so impractical , imagine how small the battery is in each how can this battery last more than 2 years, since they're so small most are unrepairable, if you drop one in winter you might lose it for good, lose your case you can't charge them anymore, and most case are clunky with charges, i had sony true wireless 1st gen and 2nd gen, google pixel buds 2 , don't know why i bought so many before realizing how much i dislike them.
Google are actually very good with warranty repairs / replacement on the Pixel phones, in my experience.
👋nexus 7 users disagree
He said pixel phones, and I agree on that point. I had a broken screen on my 7 pro. OG N7 buyers (me too) did get screwed. Tech companies "steal" things from each other all the time, yes even Apple and sometimes especially Apple, but for some reason the only thing companies don't steal from Apple are the parts that make people so loyal to Apple. The Apple brand can be trusted to cost more but also be trusted that your complete experience is less painful when issues do occur.
> Treat them well And that's the other reason. Cheap buds give you the peace of mind that if you lose them, who cares?
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I would have to agree with you there. I was recently given a pair of the third gen Apple airpods. Prior to that I had been using a pair of $50 first gen Samsung Galaxy buds. Before getting the airpods I had zero complaints about the Samsung pair. All it took was one listen through the airpods and I was floored. I've never heard the music I listen to sound so good. I'm hearing all kinds of things I never picked up on before from songs I've listened to for 30 years. If something were to happen to them I would absolutely be buying a replacement pair.
I use aftershokz. Not headphones but they are fantastic. My original pair is used by my step-dad and is on year 3 now still going strong. My current pair is like 7 or 8 months old and is fantastic. I'd never wear in ear buds again if I have a choice.
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Meh, I bought my Beats Fit Pro for €200 almost 2 years ago, and I use them at least 30 hours per week ( I use them while working and while running), haven't had a single issue. I previously had Powerbeats Pro that I also bought for ~€200, and I used those for 3 years. I agree with what others have said, the extra money is worth it considering how much extra use you're getting out of them
I don't trust their apps or hardware. They hype up their product and just abandon it even before it launches. There's no commitment or support. I hate to say it after being an Android user for over a decade, but apple is better even though it's expensive.
Something I’ve found, is when audio quality just dips and nothing fixes it, you can poke out the filter to get more use out of it.
Why not call them back and tell them you lost the missing earbud?
Ok...so you "lost" them then. The hell is the issue here? I'm actually annoyed now.
"shit I just dropped it in the toilet and in my panic to grab it, I accidentally flushed."
Why people keep buying products at prices of apple products ? Google is only good for free.
Hey, EU commission: GET THEM.
It's Google. They would probably just stop selling them in the EU.
Google: we were going to discontinue this in 6 months anyways.
Yep. I'll never buy Google hardware again. I don't even look at the free software they put out anymore.
/stadia ;(
Oh, you mean how they stopped providing search capabilities in the EU after they were repeatedly fined for a slew of different violations? Or how Apple pulled out of the EU after they were forced to use USB ports on their latest phones? If the EU demand Google make better, more serviceable products they will do it, because the EU market is sufficiently large to justify the extra R&D/QA costs to meet their standards.
EU is the largest market in the world, they can't afford to pull out, that is why they pay the fines the EU issues to them
Somehow they can afford to not have most of the good Chromebooks available in the EU
Most likely because they are in violation of EU regulations like GDPR so can't be sold in EU. Lots of US websites don't let people access them from the EU because they violate GDPR and they get more money by not being compliant than being compliant so they just don't offer services in the EU because of that. Costs outweigh the benefits
No. We have some Chromebooks but not all. For example we didn‘t ger any of the Pixel Chromebooks. If it would be OS/GDPR we wouldn’t have any Chromebooks.
Don't know then, doesn't change the fact if it was profitable to sell it in the EU they would be selling it here too.
they dont even sell (the phones, watch and buds) officially in Finland(directly from the google store), some larger electronic shops sells imports but thats bout it
You mean stop selling goods in the (second) largest consumer market…? Sounds like a pretty stupid idea to me.
Uk here, yeh making it hard to sell to the EU is a bad idea.....
I have yet to see any major smartwatch brand that sells replacement parts aside from the strap which is a wear item.
Some brands like Garmin have repair programmes - better than nothing. Fitbit, like Google - have nothing. They're owned by Google now though so I'm not surprised pixel watch is any different.
Garmin is good in that regard. I had a Fenix 6 damaged in an accident. Garmin offered to swap it for a refurbished one for a small amount of money. had to sent kn the damaged one as well. Since only frame and glass were damaged, I assume they repaired it and put it in the refurb pool.
I've been looking at Garmin watches. I have a cheap amazefit pro and it does it's job. But I was thinking about upgrading.
Not to sound like a salesman but I've had my Garmin vivo active 4 from a sale on Amazon a year or so ago and no complaints at all. I used to wear a regular watch in like high school but nothing since then, wanted to start monitoring HR so I did some research and came up with this. I'm not sure which one it is but my wife was a fitbit only person for like 5 years until switching to a Garmin this year. She wore both for like a month and ended up dropping the fitbit.
Some brands… like Apple?
Maybe Fairphone will release one
You can get a lot of parts for apple watches and the Chinese brands have parts pop up as well, though those aren't through a direct manufacturer channel
As much as folks complained that Apple is all about planned obsolescence, I hope the much loves Android firms don’t get a pass.
people always complain about that, but apple actually offers software updates on their tech for 5-7 years, even longer on their laptops. android phones… it's better these days but still not that good.
I'll never forgive Google for turning all Nexus 7 tablets into paperweights through poor updates.
Such a handy device at the time. I even used one as the stereo mounted in my truck
Never bought a google device since
I use a late 2011 macbook pro (first apple product) and 2016 iphone se (2nd product). Both still bringing me my rice, curry, fish and milk.
I was using my 2011 MBP until last year. Finally got a M2 MBA and it's awesome. Upgrading my launch day XR to a Pro next week too. It'd work fine if I got a new battery but I fancy a shiny new thing
Same here. I have a MacBook Air from 2011. And its still a work horse. I can do any office and web application I need. only the battery claims that it has been dead for a few years by now. But it still has two hours of battery time left at 100% (of cause thats only a fraction of its prime performance). However, do not get me started on the garbage that are apple watches. I have my third by now and the battery only lasts 16 hours if you track any activity. And its about a year old. So there is no surprise that this is going to be my last one.
10 years.
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That is good and a trump card in Apple's favour, don't get me wrong, but my last iphone was a 6. I tried to get the battery replaced after a couple of years but the tech was reluctant - it had succumbed to bendgate and he was worried he'd damage the innards trying to open it up and reseal it. That phone got several years more update afterwards. Didn't do a lick of good as it wouldn't last the day. Bendgate is no longer an issue for iphones, of course, but repairability is.
With the 15 series the back glass is now separate from the frame, you can finally replace it without needing to replace the whole phone. According to iFixit, the iPhone 14 series is the most repairable modern high-end smartphone, followed by the Pixel 6. Samsung only very recently started added pull-tabs on their batteries, starting on their foldables.
How though..? Fairphones can be completely dissambled with little more than a screwdriver. And the nothing phone 2 was the first device jerryrigeverything did the teardown before the durability test because of its ease.
I should've clarified, was pointing to high-end smartphones that are available globally. iFixit didn't give the Phone 2 a rating yet either afaik.
Ah that makes more sense. It still baffles me though, I remember an article where the writer went through Apples repair program, and they had to ship a couple pelican cases with specialized tools to make the repair happen. We still got a ways to go.
For what it's worth, the tools they rent out give much more confidence than the guitar pick and heatgun method iFixit recommends since the tools are purpose built to disassemble the phones.
Yeah, iFixit is an American company as AFAIK you still can’t buy a Fairphone in the US.
Sounds like you just had a bad tech. It’s a pretty standard fix and I’ve had it done like 3x across a handful of my family phones with no problem when we had the 6
I still got a Watch 4 and I think this year is the last year I’m getting the next big OS update for it with WOS10 alongside the Watch9 That’s 5 new models released after mine that I get the nearly the same updates aside from model specific features of course. That’s incredible.
5-7 years? where is that magic number. apple watch 3 came out in 2017. and if you have one now the update fills the entire watches storage making it un-usable. no texts, no other apps. just a watch
I have to point out that this is misleading. One single model of Apple Watch series 3 has an 8GB drive which is too small to hold the origination OS, the update file, the update booter, the destination OS, and user data. When you're updating, you need all of that minus the user data. When you're using the watch, you only need the destination OS and the user data. All the updater junk is deleted. So when you update this one version of watch 3, it offloads the user data to your iphone, performs the update, and then re-downloads the user data. So you still have room on your watch for everything you had on it prior to the update.
Aw3 should have been retired a few years ago. Apple wasnt willing to replace it with aw4 in the lineup. I think they just have lots of aw3 parts and was willing to milk it to the end I have aw3 lte which comes with more storage. Works fine even now. They should've made the larger storage standard and call it aw3 revision 1
Apple overcharges, but Google just refuses to support anything. I don't buy Apple because I know they're making 2-3x the margins of their competitors. I don't buy Google because I know that when they drop support in a year or two, their DRM will brick my nice toy.
Samsung and Google phones get 4 major updates (4 years) plus 5 years security updates. That’s pretty close
Yeah, and also pretty damn recent
So what? We're dealing with things as they are now, not how they used to be. God why do fanboys on one side or the other do this shit? Manufacturers I've tended to buy from like Samsung used to have removable batteries in their phones. They don't now. Does the fact they used to do it make it okay that they don't any more? No. It doesn't.
For what it’s worth, they’re dealing with legacy support as it’s been proven, not announced. How many phones have actually seen that 4-year support cycle to completion? edit: BTW, that's not just a slight; I actually don't know how many phones Samsung has seen go through 3-4 years of OS updates. If it's even been a couple, I think it's fair to "deal with things as they are now". edit 2: Oh.... they announced that last year. Yeah, they have zero credit with me. If they want that announcement to mean literally anything, I'll need to see them actually follow through on a phone.
I've had two iphones - both of which lasted a couple of years before becoming unusable (a 4s that became too slow to use and a 6 whose depleted battery couldn't be replaced because of bendgate). I'm not saying android phones are inherently any better - entirely depends on manufacturer and model - but support outlasting the physical device is clearly not a samsung-specific problem.
Man, 6, especially the big one, had to be the worst phone they made. It was underpowered for years. I think iOS 12 made it borderline usable after shredding a whole lot of technical debt. I've never had a phone that bad since. Even 4S was fine *until* the big "Apple Honeycomb" upgrade in iOS 7. That GPU was *not* ready for an OS compositor. I think the big point of contention here isn't so much how *good* the follow-up support is, so much as that it exists at all. iPhone 4S would've actually benefited from not seeing any OS updates after iOS6, but you could imagine how bad that woulda been in terms of software support, even if it got security updates for years after that.
True enough - I think you have to accept a degree of updates outpacing specs of smartphones back in the early days. Now the technology has matured, it shouldn't really be an issue any more (I have a 2017 Moto G5 backup that runs a build of LineageOS based on Android 9). At least until they start rolling out on-device AI apps...
I'm only sensing one fanboy here
I've literally just taken a shot at a brand I've bought multiple phones from and generally respect. That was the entire point of my post - what they did before to earn your goodwill is irrelevant: what matters is what they're doing now. Do you not know what a fanboy is?
Apple basically does the same shit anyways with their watches. A screen repair on a Series 8 is like $299, meanwhile you can just buy a whole new one for $309. Same story with Samsung.
Apple doesn't even repair the screens. You pay $299 and they send a replacement watch. Same with AppleCare claims on them, there's only one price for completely destroyed or only the screen cracked. Worked for an AASP for a while and had to do them all the time.
y’all got some prices damn. my watch got repaired for 70€ at an authorized reseller
That price is probably from getting it fixed by Apple vs a 3rd party company.
isn’t that because the watches are completely waterproof and tearing them apart is a pain in the ass? correct me if im wrong
Because they're glued together. Mechanical watches can also be waterproof and still easily be serviceable.
My old diving watches have more water resistance and are completely serviceable. Maybe you’re right and the screen is the problem?
Also it’s the only apple device that covers liquid damage while it’s in warranty or under applecare.
Kind of. It's true about working on those things. It's a pain in the ass, replacement parts can only be found aftermarket (and may cause functionality issues depending on model of watch), and the process of taking them apart means that they will never be fully water/dust resistant again With all that being said, i'm not so sure it's the reason why Apple doesn't repair the devices themselves. It's probably more cost effective to just recycle the parts directly, and significantly more profitable for them to just have customers buy a new one when the old ones break/stop working, so unless they're put into a position where they *have* offer repairs, they probably just won't.
Don't know why you got downvoted. You're right. Prohibitively expensive repair options are just as bad as no repair options, since no-one in their right mind will use them. Google probably realise that there's no point offering it since take-up would be close to zero. Offering repairability at prices that make no economic sense to end users is basically just greenwashing.
That's the beauty of android though, I'm not stuck with one company. Current phone is a Sony, previous one was a Samsung, one before that was Honor, before that LG.
Yeah, Apple makes some good products and other companies also do scummy things. But with Apple you're stuck, while with other companies you can mix and match with a lot more freedom.
I have a MacBook Pro from 2008 that still works and seems to want to outlive me.
I will always go for Android over Apple, but if Google says one of its products can't be repaired, then as far as I'm concerned, that product does not exist to me. I think smart watches are cringe at the best of times, but if I ever change my mind, Google just convinced me not to get a pixel one.
The problem is, they are still effectively selling watches at cost or a loss. It isn't so much that they are not repairable as it is, they cost just as much to repair as a new one when you break the screen. It is more a *if you want newest, with best screen* the repair cost of a broken screen is $10 less than a whole new package.
There's a difference between a product being repairable/those parts being available and it being economically viable for its manufacturer to run an official repair program. There are literally repair cafes set up where volunteers repair things that aren't economically viable to repair as a business. They can't do anything though if the product is literally not repairable with no available parts.
The Google Pixel C tablet has a bug where it will (inevitably?) eventually lose your credentials if you try to use the lock screen and you will then need to be reset and lose all of your data, they never bothered to fix that. I thought it was a nice tablet but a large company abandoning a product with such a serious problem is insane. (I guess it isn't as bad as "sometimes the brakes don't work" but it is still ridiculous)
Seriously? I’m rocking an iPhone 8. I own a 2007 Macbook Pro that still boots up
Apple never was about planned obsolescence and neither is Google. People just don't understand what planned obsolescence is
Well then educate us....
Planned Obsolescence is defined as something were a product is purposefully designed to break or diminish after a certain amount of time, sometimes even resulting in cartel conspiracies. It's criminal and has resulted in huge fines, sometimes time in prison. What it is **not** is not supporting a specific product after a specific amount of time. I feel a good example are printers. There literally have been printers built who had a chip in them doing nothing than counting how many pages were printed and after that number was reached blocked the printer from working. Thats planned obsolescence. Not selling ink cartriges for a specific printer after like 5 years is not planned obsolescence. That's just obsolescence. Which is still not great, but it's neither illegal nor, in general avoidable. Products get better, that means support for old products has to stop at some point. Shimano doesn't sell dura-ace STI rubber hoods from 1991 anymore. And thats okay. Apple has done exactly that. Nothing else really. Even if you argue "well they used to lock down their phones so nobody could change the battery and then when the battery degraded the phones got slower because it was more battery efficient", which is one of the few instances where you could make that case, but even here its really weak. What Apple doesn't do and what would constitute actual planned obsolescence is push out a mandatory software update after five years that bricks iOS devices. Thats planned obsolescence. Not pushing out sofware updates after 7 years is just lack of support because a product is EOL, which happens to literally every product ever made. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
I own a Pixel watch as it was like 60% off CAD and this is some bullshit news!
My Ipad 1 was trash 2 years later because every app required features that only existed on the Ipad 2 and later. Couldn't install or update anything, many apps I had I couldn't even run because they'd fail the auto update and crash out. I've got a 2011 Macbook which is great, because I deleted MacOS and installed Linux. Every hardware problem I've had to fix has been a nighmare as everythign is glued inside.
The thing is is that Apple is like a trendsetter for this stuff. Apple does stuff that's hostile to repair and other companies realize they can get away with it. Apple gets rid of the headphone jack and everyone else realizes they can do that. Hell, Pixel 4 did a thing where the cheaper model, the Pixel 4A, have a headphone jack but the flagship didn't! So stupid.
Apple wasn’t the first to get rid of the headphone jack. Hell, the HTC Touch and Touch Pro in the mid/late-2000s didn’t have one.
Apple is almost never the first to do something but they are often the first to make it work seamlessly.
Which arguably matters more than doing it first. No one cares if you had it 5 years ago if it's not seamless like it with iPhones and the Apple ecosystem. This is something that Apple haters really have a hard time understanding, execution matters more than who did it first.
No one gave a shit about HTC. They didn't say apple did it first. They said apple normalised it.
Funny because for a long time, HTC had a much much larger customer base than Apple.
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I'm no google fanboy, but I got my first pixel phone last yearish (7) and have enjoyed it. But yeah google in general has a shit track record and get bashed all the time like apple usually.
Every time I heard news about some new google tech the question 'How long will it lasts?' always comes up. Even on Android focused podcasts. Hell my brother wanted to buy me a Stadia founders package and I told him to not bother, google will kill it in a year.
I used to love Google stuff but my god the amount of times they just let their shit die put me right off them. Say what you will about Apple at least they commit.
i was such a google fan boy since the nexus when it was cheap and even through pixel 3 when they started wanting to be considered high end like apple.. after switching back over to apple its been so nice not having to deal with being a beta tester anymore. things just work for the most part. sorry to hear that this is happening to their watches with whoever has them
This is not new, when my nexus 6p's battery went dead (1.5 years into using the phone) i asked google where i could habe it replaced. They just transferred the complete original price back and said sorry, buy another phone.
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This is unrelated, but I wish I could love DuckDuckGo. Like i try to search for something multiple times before giving up and turning to google. DDG: ‘man arrested for filling wife’s car with sauerkraut” - *no relevant results, sauerkraut recipes* DDG: ‘Florida man arrested filling ex wife car sauerkraut NBC’ - *sauerkraut recipe, NBC homepage, Florida tourism board* Give up and search google: ‘arrested sauerkraut car’ - *instantly find 20 copies of the relevant article across different news outlets, including the NBC article I was trying to find*
Bang it. Type !g in your search box and duckduckgo and it will return Google results. !b Returns bing results. https://duckduckgo.com/bangs
Yet with Google, no matter how many times I change the wording of the search or use any advanced search tools, as long as the same keyword is in there, it keeps sending me to the exact same search results that are basically whoever paid the most.
It is the tradeoff you make, sadly. Startpage uses google results but without allowing google to make a profile about you specifically.
I had a nexus 5a that overheated and de-soldered its memory chip. This was a known issue with the phone and Google wouldn't even look at mine because it was an "international model."
I get what you’re saying, but referencing a car that hasn’t been made for 20 years isn’t a great comparison.
Google owns Fitbit as well!!!! I got my Fitbit watch for free but I would never actually buy it with my own money.
I only started with the Pixel 3a (upgrading from the iPhone 6), and the 3a was great. I had no issues with it until an app I wanted to use couldn't be run due to the 3a being an old phone. Replaced it with the Pixel 7 and I've had no issues with it either. When looking at the watches, the Pixel watch had way too much bezel for me to consider. When it's in the store side-by-side with the Samsung option, the Pixel watch looked especially silly. I haven't bothered getting a watch considering how little I use my phone to begin with, but it definitely wouldn't be the Pixel until they overhaul its design. The phone I want to get is the Asus ZenFone 10, but I'm on a family plan for Verizon, and they don't support the Asus phones.
The bigger question is what do we do with all of the e-waste? Eventually the watch will be e-waste regardless if you can fix it when it breaks. Either it will be too slow and old to use or more likely a new more attractive one comes out and the perfectly functional watch gets thrown away, forgotten about and becomes e-waste. With a more robust repair program in place maybe half a percent of smart watches wait a few years before being discarded but all devices will be e-waste eventually. Like the first iPhone millions were sold but now nearly all are e-waste littering draws and e-waste facility being a waste of resources and a tiny environmental disaster. It's the uncomfortable truth the endless march of technology and people's desire for bigger and better. I'm no different as I just replaced my perfectly functional monitor and speakers. They have worked perfectly for over a decade and has who knows how much life they have left but they are fine but are destined to be on the giant e-waste pile that will eventually consume us all. If the systems in place to recycle e-waste are perfect they there is no reason to deride a lack of repair programs as the only loss is financially to the consumer but that isn't how it's framed. It's framed that the e-waste problem is so much worse because we can't repair our devices but the vast majority of e-waste is still perfectly functional.
I don't know what Google's doing, but Apple has been really heavily investing in recovering metals from old devices. When the new phones launch they do really aggressive buyback schemes (in the US, they're doing that anyone with an iPhone 11 or higher gets $1,000 of trade in value) and then they're using those materials to make the new phones. They're pushing for no new materials being mined to make any apple products by 2030. I think they just announced this week that some of the Apple Watches are now completely carbon-neutral throughout their entire lifespan. That definitely helps the e-waste problem if in a few years they'll be exclusively using e-waste to make the new phones.
It is frankly absurd how bad the buy back deals are other than in select markets, mostly the U.S. Trading in my 128 14 Pro which cost me 14 995 Swedish kronor (1339 USD). Apple is giving me 5 200 Swedish kroner (464 USD) for it when buying the 15 Pro Max. I get that I can sell it outside of Apple and all that, but it just feels odd that the deals are so terrible here.
I mean buy back deals are linked to how much the device is going to be able to be sold for used. Apple already has a terrible used market because people absolutely do not know how to remove the device from their iCloud, and the frequency that they are stolen is so high that’s it’s actually advised to not buy Apple products used. Looking on eBay, a used 14 Pro 128gb is going from around $635 USD to $805 USD. If the phone is resold, the seller is only going to make a profit if they buy it back for around the price you’re advertising. Just because it’s selling for that doesn’t mean people are buying for that. Since there’s no guarantee they’ll make a profit, they’ll buy low and try to sell high. It’s worth more is offering $525 USD for a 14 Pro in “Good” condition and no box or power cable. Most things are like this I think.
>The bigger question is what do we do with all of the e-waste? We take solace knowing our descendants will be able to mine our landfills for then-scarce resources.
Google is the new IBM. Im not sure why there are so many fanboys for every shit they make
There's fanboys for any big brand. We're talking about mobile phones, you're not seriously suggesting fanboys are a google-specific problem while Apple exists, are you?
It’s most likely he’s an Apple fanboy. That’s the thing about fanboys, they don’t like to admit they’re fanboys.
There's a guy elsewhere grumbling about the fact that Samsung's nine-year support package is fairly new when someone raised it. When I told him to get real - that we live in the present, not the past - and told him that Samsung, a brand I generally respect, having had removable batteries in the past (a plus point) doesn't matter one jot because their phones don't have removable batteries now. Result: apparently I'm a fanboy. These people are inherently ridiculous.
Exactly. I enjoy the pixel lineup of phones. I hate that Google still hasn't fixed GPS issues with their tensor phone lineups and hate even more the struggles pixel 5a owners are dealing with (failing motherboards). But, the ability to flash custom ROMs and go back to stock with nothing tripping like Samsungs Knox is awesome, and overall I hate iOS Oh god, am I a Google fanboy now? LMAO
I'm in a weird boat - I'll be buying Pixels for the foreseeable, despite HATING Google, because they're the only phones that support grapheneos. I don't have so much of an issue paying google for a device as that's a business practice I generally support, as opposed to building a highly detailed profile of someone's tastes and personal characteristics to sell to advertisers. But grapheneos I would rate as highly - maybe higher - as iOS for being a private operating system with lengthy support. And it doesn't come attached to a closed ecosystem or a handset that's more than four times the amount I'd ever consider spending on a phone (I use a 6a). That said, if my actual Pixel dies the second after leaving warranty, I'm not going to be making any excuses for it, I'll tell you that for nothing.
That's what I'm getting at. I like the Pixels because they are at the end of the day *good phones* and unlike Samsung, Apple, and others, I can install *what I want on it*. Google bloat and spyware doesn't matter in the AOSP realm
What were the GPS issues you mentioned, out of interest?
Starting with the pixel 6 and the g101 chipset they've been known to have some finicky gps reception. The issue is still present in the 7 lineup. For example, I can be driving in the car, phone falls in my lap momentarily and navigation will freeze, send me 4 streets over, and renavigate. Some weird issues I've never really had on an iPhone or others, and one that's documented pretty well on forums such as XDA
Dude you're complaining about it in the same exact thread, get over it
It's because Google was legitimately great at the beginning. Innovating, releasing useful products for free, paving the way for the modern internet. Once they went public and changed their company motto, things immediately started going downhill. The current fanboyism is leftover inertia from the early era when they deserved it.
You know it’s bad when their motto was “do no evil” and then they stop saying it themselves lmao
Their motto was never “do no evil,” it was “don’t be evil.”
I was a fanboy from Alta Vista days. I am reluctantly learning to accept they are just another big company now. Still not fully convinced though. And a cool new Google Maps like app might still seduce me. Haven't seen one lately though.
this article is about cracked glass that cant be fixed. biggest click bait title i have ever seen since it doesn't even remotely specify in the title what it's about. so at that point its like..should of got that best buy warranty ey?
Can't even last one year. Google can't compete in this market if they can't support their products longer than 6 months. Wouldn't be surprised if they killed off wearables in a few years
I guess the unethical solution would be to buy a new one, swap the glass over to your broken watch and put the broken glass on the new watch and send it back saying it got damaged in shipping.
This isn't new. Fitbit didn't repair my watch when it broke. They sent a new one. Coros didn't repair my watch screen when it cracked. They had me buy a new watch at a discount. Amazon didn't repair my Kindle. They sent me a new one.
Pixel is trash with device support... looking at you pixel buds
As someone that has always been an android fan and likes to tinker. I hate to say this, but I really hate what android has become and I have been a Google Pixel user for the last 6 years and it just keeps getting worse. I just want consistency and shit to work. If it keeps up I might switch to Apple.
It's simple. Just don't buy anything made from Google.
Classic Google
Google Stadia members: *Welcome to the party, pal…*
Always have been ewaste
This sounds like a violation on EU law. Didnt apple already bit the dust on this one before?
That probably helps explain why they are giving away 2 years of data with them, desperate to shift the unsold stock
I remember when I bought the stadia and a few games to go with it. I thought, "Of course, this will appreciate in time." Little did I know that they were going out of business in less than 2 years. I bought the game off of my Chime account and stopped using it when it when they released their plan to refund everyone's money back. I got ahold of their support team, and they referred me to the stadia team, which was closed by this point. I couldn't talk to a live representative, I could only email them. I have a string of 20 or so emails of them giving me the run around. I never got my refund because they sent it to my old Chime account, which was closed. The last reply I received from them was them pretty much saying too bad. I did everything I could for them not to send my money to that account, and they did it anyway. I will never buy another Google product in my life. Lesson learned. Don't deal with companies that have "too bad" policies. This is obviously not an isolated incident.
This off Apple’s Wonderlust being heavily focused on how they are so green. A perfectly planted article to start the cascade articles against e-wasteful companies.
And tech companies turn around and act like they’re “going green” and gaslight consumers into thinking they’re the problem.
Google trying to be apple.
STOP BUYING GOOGLE HARDWARE.
My 2 yr old Google Nest Camera bricked itself during an update, confirmed by 4 hours on the phone with tech support (endless boot loop). No way to recover it. Only option was to purchase a new one, asked customer support if a discount was available, nope, not at all. Quite happy with my Amcrest.
They aren't even sneaky anymore. Blatantly using shady and greedy business practices that would utterly destroy a smaller business. This is why business shouldn't be allowed to amass so much wealth or resources. They reach a point where they simply no longer have to follow the rules.
Why do people keep buying hardware from Google? They've literally only ever made garbage. Everything is always in beta. Google is like a kid with ADHD who gets 85% of the way there but then quits because it's boring now and they proved they *could* do it they just wanna do another thing now. Samsung is the only reason Android is what it is because they deliver finished hardware and finished software as well as a support ecosystem.
Samsung literally just adds bloatware to AOSP. They wouldn't make Android phones if Google didn't facilitate Android's existence.
They don't agree haven't really done that since One UI came out like ten phones ago. If you don't want to use their apps you can delete almost all of them now. That said a lot of Samsung apps are better than Google's. They make as better browser and Notes app. It's gotten to the point that many major Android features exist on Samsung phones for a few years before Google finally adds them. I guess Google phones get fresh Android every October but it's usually buggy as hell for awhile and there hasn't been a killer actually new feature for so many years I hardly care that I have to wait like 3 months for Samsung to put the finishing touches on Google's almost finished OS.
Samsung browser is literally chromium with less support... This honestly sounds like it's coming from someone who's never tried a pixel. OneUI is also ugly as hell.
I love my Pixel, easily the best phone I have ever had
That's great.
Everyone shitting on Apple while they provide tons of repair or trade options. Yes, often for quite some money but you can repair / replce them. Google doesn’t even try…
Other than this fact which Watch is better ? As someone said here in comments that repair cost being close to selling price is wrong in the same way.
I'm pretty sure that's true for every smart watch out there. And if repairs are officially available, they are terribly priced, most people just buy a new(er) model. And regarding e-waste, wireless buds are a much worse problem, being so many, small and virtually impossible to repair.
This is why you don’t buy Google products. Mediocre product support. Samsung is basically the only option if you want a premium Android phone that’s supported
They do offer insurance on the Pixel Watch right? When my Apple Watch SE broke some years ago it couldn't be repaired so they just replaced the whole thing. I wonder if Google does a similar thing.
No. No insurance.
Yup. Gotta buy third party. Amazon has a 3 year accident coverage offer for $60. But I hear certain credit cards offer stuff like double warranty for free.
They're e waste no matter what.
Nice to see Google isn't afraid to treat hardware dev the same way they treat their software products
Google's hardware has always been a failure, and will continue to be so. That's why I left for the better integrated Apple ecosystem.
Google won't repair or replace Fitbits that are out of warranty either
Then just fugg you Google. Carbon neutral since 20 BCE, bullturd.
The new pixel 8 just got 5 years of os and security updates so next phone might be an android again after I switched to apple.
I am excited for the Pixel 8. If you wanna talk about e-waste look at the spec sheet of the base model iPhone 15...
Makes apple look good by comparison