The Nexus 4 was too good for us
Faster than flagships for half the price
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Google Pixel 3a / 3a XL announced (available today $399 / $479 ; headphone jack)
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Faster than flagships for half the price
Unfortunately so. Budget prices are around $250. $400 is a lot to swallow for these specs, even with the camera.
With the exchange rate, 299 euros is about $400 in the states. Both the G6+ and G5+ were priced lower, IIRC.
I have quite a bit in Amazon gift card and was planning on buying a phone from there. I use Mint Mobile which uses T-Mobile's towers/bands.
People shopping for cheaper devices care more about practical features like a headphone jack than a thinner build etc. I think most budget devices feature one and budget phones were the last to get rid of replaceable batteries.
This is being called mid tier/Junior flagship. There are decent ~$200 Android budget options.
I understand that, but don't moto phones follow the stupid 1€ = 1$ rule? The G7+ happens to not be available in the USA at all (guys, I feel teribly sorry looking at your awful budget smartphone market lol) but if it was it would be at 300$ no?
The mid-tier/junior flagship doesn't have a lot of value these days, unfortunately. A lot of the mid-tier phones got cheaper and cheaper towards the budget end, and others got upgraded to near flagship tier.
The 600-series Snapdragon processors are quite common on the budget end these days...
Oh, I must've been misinformed about the availability of the G7+. I always thought that it was available in the states.
But yeah, checking Amazon.com, it's around $300 USD for the international version... which makes it a really good buy. Interesting... thinking of picking this up.
You guys are missing tons of great cheaper phones from Xiaomi and Huawei just because your Chinaphobia.
Both companies make gorgeous and affordable phones.
Both companies make gorgeous and affordable phones.
Many posters here are Americans and all the phones people tend to recommend from these companies end up lacking needed LTE band support.
They seem to have one at the moment, although at $250CDN for a 6S Plus you aren't shaving much off even the base $1100CDN XR.
With a $150 store credit the Pixel 3A is less than half the price right now.
I would take the Google Camera, OLED screen and 3 years of monthly security updates for a few hundred more. Plus the bezels aren't fabulous but otherwise I really like the design of the phone. But if you are right and consumers don't see the value, I hope Google keeps it around for another year at least as I'll strongly consider the 4a.
I'm going to have to check out some videos but the 3a is looking really nice at $399. My S7 is a bit long in the tooth.
I used to have a Mi A1, android one and all, but the software got progresively more buggy.
7.1 to 8.0 was mostly ok, but 8.0 to 8.1 deleted all the SMS for a lot of people, including me. Not a big deal in practical terms since no one uses SMS in Europe, but unnaceptable nonetheless. And 8.1 to 9.0 was the worst update. It broke the 800 MHz 4 GHz band (band 20) FOR A WHOLE MONTH, until the first security patch after that arrived. And it introduced a lot of other bugs that were never fixed, such as the 5 GHz wifi hotspot not working, random battery drain for no reason, apps visually frezzing until I multitask out of them and back in, etc. I tried factory resetting it, even flashed the stock ROM from stracth, the bugs were still there, in fact they're common, it wasn't only me. I ended up using LineageOS for a while but in the end I got fed up and got my Moto G7 Plus because the G5 Plus I had before the Mi A1 was the most stable software experience I've ever had, never gave me any problems. Even if I had wanted to stick with Xiaomi... these are my requirements for a phone:
- Stock or near stock Android
- Headphone jack
- Good performance
- USB-C
- 64 GB+ onboard storage
- 4+ GB RAM
- Unlockable bootloader (this is the only requirement I might entertain dropping, but I'd prefer not to)
- Bonus points for MicroSD slot
I have no "chinaphobia" at all but I fucking hate MIUI from the bottom of my soul and, in my personal experience, Xiaomi's attempt at Android One is too buggy. So for now at least I'm out of the Xiaomi train.
And Huawei... non-stock android and non-unlockable bootloader. Nope.
EDIT: Forgot to mention, the A1, A2 and A2 lite are not Widevine L1 certificied meaning they can only play Netflix among other DRM protected stuff at 480p or 540p. Meanwhile my G7 Plus does netflix at full 1920x1080.
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Honestly the price isn't bad at all for a Google phone. If Apple were to release a "budget" phone it north of this price range that's for sure.
One question, I haven't seen answered since I just woke up from nap lol is it the same camera as the regular Pixel 3?
This is rather enticing as a backup phone.
Edit: Considering they out the headphone jack in this one, perhaps that's indication that it'll he back for the Pixel 4. What wouldn't make sense to me is removing it from their flagship and putting it in their lesser model so with that said I feel they may add it to the 4.
One question, I haven't seen answered since I just woke up from nap lol is it the same camera as the regular Pixel 3?
This is rather enticing as a backup phone.
Edit: Considering they out the headphone jack in this one, perhaps that's indication that it'll he back for the Pixel 4. What wouldn't make sense to me is removing it from their flagship and putting it in their lesser model so with that said I feel they may add it to the 4.
Honestly, the OLED screen is a weird feature to have because they could've used an LCD, priced it $50 or more lower, and completely cleaned house.
Will be interested in hearing your impressions. What phone is it replacing for you?
I also wish I knew how long the $100 GC offer will be around, I may jump on it tomorrow myself. My old original Moto Z Play is really long in the tooth at this point.
I'm coming from an iPhone 7 that is pretty much on its last legs due to an aging battery. It sucks because I've been trying to keep my iPhone as long as possible, but I already replaced the battery once and I feel like this time it died even faster.
Ah, that's good reasoning. Honestly, my Moto Z Play is still great on battery since I had to replace it after a year, so this particular phone and battery is only about two years old, but it's slowed down to a crawl (to be fair I haven't bothered factory resetting though) and it's no longer receiving updates, not even security ones, so that's driving my desire to upgrade too.
That's like one of those hidden things that adds to the cost of the phone that nobody cares to mention most of the time.
You guys have other cheaper options, it's more limited in the US. And that VAT plus UK duty add up a lot compare to the pretax number in the US.
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My brother just got this deal.
This phone came just in time when his Lighting to 3.5mm dongle broke for his iPhone. No headphone jack has been the biggest complaint of his iPhone. :/
Now he's complaining to me about switching all his Lighting chargers to USB-C Chargers. :p
Moto Z Play has godly battery life. They did some IO and disk write wizardly with it to cut power consumption.
Having said that, I'd wait to see if Moto comes out with a Z4 Play.
I'm not really interested in the Moto phones anymore since the updates were always spotty (though I was surprised I got as many Android OS updates as I did), and I miss having a Google phone since my Nexus 5. I bought the Z Play specifically for the battery life since I had a very specific use-case at the time where I was frequently on airplanes, into meetings, back on airplanes, and was doing that frequently enough that I didn't want to have to worry about keeping a phone charged. This is not really the case for me anymore so I don't really need the godly battery life anymore.
I went ahead and ordered 3a to pick up at my Best Buy tomorrow, lol!! The $100 gift card will go towards a 4K Blu-Ray player to go with the C9 OLED I'm planning to buy in a few months.
Mainly for Sprint and Verizon. They tend to fully support ATT and T-Mobile. Shouldn't be an issue once CDMA finally dies.
Pretty much what I did.
Installed the Pixel Experience rom and it's been fantastic.
This would be a nice upgrade to my current Pixel 1! The headphone jack pretty much seals the deal. I think I'll get this.
Yep. 3a is a solid option in the US. Dead in other regions due to exchange rates and plethora of options from China.
Good article on Android Police
Source
It basically puts them back where they were before with the Nexus line of products.
Also, Dieter from The Verge made a great point.
"This is a solid phone that costs $400 and has a great camera" "That combination of those 3 things... never happens"
Source
It basically puts them back where they were before with the Nexus line of products.
Also, Dieter from The Verge made a great point.
"This is a solid phone that costs $400 and has a great camera" "That combination of those 3 things... never happens"
GSMarena has benchmarks that put the 3a xl at a 25% decrease in performance compared to the 2 xl. I'd say it's an upgrade if you are coming from a 1, but not worth it for any phone with an 835 snapdragon or newer unless you REALLY want vanilla android with the camera and headphone jack.
The best deal is trading in a 1 for a 3a through t-mobile. It's a no brainer if you plan on staying with t-mobile.
The best deal is trading in a 1 for a 3a through t-mobile. It's a no brainer if you plan on staying with t-mobile.
Comparing a SD625 Xiaomi Android One phone to an official budget Pixel is dishonest. Sure it doesn't fill a certain quota of buzzwords like Notches, metal or glass build, and value for money, but it does offer value for its price. At 400€, there aren't a lot of options that do everything it does as well For reference:And that's why I now buy Xiaomi phones. My wife got the Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite... it has Android One (clean Android with updates directly from Google). No modified ROM.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_One
https://www.gsmarena.com/xiomi_mi_a2_lite-review-1804.php
- Snapdragon 625 (14 nm)
- 64GB of storage
- 4GB of RAM
- 1080p Full HD display
- Massive 4000 mAh battery
- Dual SIM
- Android One (stock Android) currently in Android 9
- Metal build
- Slim bezels
- Dual camera
- Fingerprint sensor
And I bought it for $180 USD. And it's Xiaomi (excellent brand). Sure, there is a few compromoses like no USB C, waterprooing and NFC, but for the price is worth it. I'm waiting for the Mi A3 Lite myself.
-Samsung has OLED panels in their mid range, but their Exnyos SoCs are inferior even to the SD660.
-Huawei is in the same boat, pushing the Kirin 710 which is roughly an overclocked SD636.
-Xiaomi has tons of options however MIUI, widevine drm lock outs, and other minor details are detractors for most.
-Motorola is too focused in feature segmentation.
-Nokia is a bit overpriced when released, have to wait 6 months for a price drop. They also have the worst notch implementation.
Amen, nowadays you have to look at anything around 300€ to get the same feature rich experience
Chinaphobia despite the stories of data collection from other countries.
I used a LeEco phone for two years. The problem with a lot of the Chinese phones outside of OnePlus these days is LTE band support. A Pocophone doesn't do me much good if I have to keep the previous device on me as Wi-Fi hotspot. And then you have weird instances where the better version of the Moto G7 Power ($269 for 4GB / 64GB) does not have adequate band support, and now OnePlus is apparently only releasing the gigantic OnePlus 7 Pro in the US. The off contract market seems like it is being deliberately side swiped, but I'm not sure to what end when everyone walking into a carrier store picks up an Apple or Samsung device.
Pixel 3a with the gift card promotions isn't bad, but I'm becoming increasingly glad I got the $277 GS9 promo with cricket. It unlocks after six months of service at whatever data tier you want, it checks the personal boxes for me (SD card, headphone jack, no effing notch), and there's nothing a SD845 won't be able to do in the foreseeable future. Hopefully what Google is doing reinvigorates some competition in the off contract market - I'm not sure what Sony, LG, and HTC have been doing besides shedding market share lately.
I like the trend of Google promising they not going to ghost a product
I'm not gonna lie -- the Pixel 3a is actually on my radar for my next phone, but I have no illusions as to whether or not Google will actually sell enough of these things to keep the product line in the near future.
Speaking of that...
... I laughed waaaaay too loud at this :D
pump the brakes everyone
turns out these things have emmc storage on board
no wonder that verge video showed slower app launch times
i was pretty excited too... now i'm not so sure it's worth it
turns out these things have emmc storage on board
no wonder that verge video showed slower app launch times
i was pretty excited too... now i'm not so sure it's worth it
Tempted to play with an android phone again, but I have an Xr... If it was like 100 cheaper, It'd probs be a impulse buy