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Google Pixel 2 – S@!$ing The Bed Again

I was hoping…I was REALLY hoping, actually! No lies! I really wanted to see Google deliver a good phone this year so I could recommend something over the Galaxy S8. But nope, the bed the Google Pixel 2 arrived in is thoroughly defecated upon. If you choose to listen to the tech media and join them on that smelly and bacteria ridden mattress, then you deserve to lay in the squishy mess. AND it’s still ugly.

pixel 2

“Black & White”, “Just Black” and “Kinda Blue” – Names Google thinks are funny.

Pixel 2 For Android Fans Review

For an Android, the Pixel 2 is certainly not bottom of the barrel. It features the same Snapdragon 835 processor and 4GB of RAM found in the Galaxy S8. The camera on the Pixel – though short of it’s self crowned “best” title – was very good. This year’s brings in Optical Image Stabilization, but leaves out the dual camera depth sensing cameras and other features of most modern flagships.

Like last year, the Pixel 2 lacks a MicroSD slot and removable battery so popular with Android fans, but does finally bring in water and dust proofing in an IP67 rating.

Speaking hardware only, you may be better off with the Samsung S8 (jeeezzz…I can taste that yuck like a mouthful of spiders) that has a far superior screen, better waterproofing, a plethora of features, and a much more pleasing industrial design.

Software speaking, the Pixel is promised 3 years of software updates which is a near impossibility in the fragmented Android universe. You are running raw, organic, pasture fed Android Nougat. Samsung still saddles Android with their poorer TouchWiz UI, slowing it all down and making updates a shot in the dark.

There are other factors to consider over the question of hardware or software though.

UPDATE: Some early durability tests have come out showing it’s the exact opposite of durable. The “unibody metal case” is in fact coated with paint that scratches real easy and can be stained by bluejeans or other colour carrying fabrics or leathers. The camera lens is glass not sapphire and scratches under the same rating as the front screen. And get this, it failed a bend test catastrophically… the antenna bands are plastic and the entire case ruptured around the antenna gap! This is NOT a tough phone!

Pixel 2 For Apple Fans Review

BAHHAHAHAHAHAAH!!

Can the Pixel 2 compare to the iPhone 8, let alone the iPhone X?

Not a snowballs chance on Satans crimson buttocks.

First off, every benchmark out there has the A11 Bionic processor in the iPhone 8 absolutely blowing away the Snapdragon 835, and this doesn’t even begin to reflect real world performance widened by Apple’s incredible memory management and tight hardware/software ties. This may never get better since the demand for high end Android phones, with high end processors, is not enough for companies to invest in R&D. The fact that most Android phones are cheap and underpowered keeps the market alive for slower processors, not super fast ones.

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Design matters, and though the iPhone 8 is a more traditional smartphone screen design, it’s surprising Google didn’t spring for a minimum bezel phone like the S8 or Essential. The industrial design is still clunky like last year’s, and the dual tone glass inset in the back is tacky, scratches easily and is prone to cracking. At least the camera lens won’t crack this time thanks to it be raised and separate. It’s not refined and simply feels… old. Though one thing over the Samsung, the back mounted fingerprint scanner is at least centred.

The Pixel 2’s 4GB of RAM is no more then last years, but exceeds the iPhone 8’s 3GB… not that it matters… as mentioned, Apple does so much more with that then the competition, still beating out phones sporting 6GB and matching 8GB equipped phones.

The screens on the Pixel may sounds good on paper, being AMOLED and all, but their unnecessary high PPI is going to strain the poor 835 yet more. The screens are also the clearest evidence that Google decided to toss consistency out the window and choose HTC to make the Pixel 2, and LG to make the Pixel 2 XL. They use difference species of AMOLED screens with completely different PPI, one is rounded the other square, difference aspect ratios, different resolutions… and the XL has a noticeable blue hue at low viewing angles. Bloody hell, even the logo treatments are different between the 2 and 2 XL!

Battery life should be better on the iPhone, the Pixel having a smaller battery than last year’s. Additionally, it has more pixels to push and an always listening, battery and PRIVACY sucking microphone won’t help that.

The iPhone 8+ and iPhone X sports the dual camera setup that allows true optical depth sensing, giving us the ability to do proper portrait photos and more. Google laughably makes the claim it “doesn’t need” dual cameras to get the same effect, relying upon a simple software edge detection. Sorry, but as much as your vegan friends claim, that steamed lump of nutritional yeast, flavourings and “various protein flours” is NOT a thanksgiving turkey.

The lack of optical zoom is pretty silly for a phone in the Pixel 2 price range. The fact it only has a dual LED flash to Apple’s 4 LED TrueTone flash, no HDR function and doesn’t have the super cool delayed flash. Also odd how the “camera bump” of the iPhone (and most good Androids) that was sacrilege last year is suddenly A-OK.

Another thing that can’t be ignored are the memory options, starting with 64GB like the iPhone. But then what do they give you for $24 more than the 256GB equipped iPhone 8? 128GB. Seriously.

Speaking of past sins being magically absolved, guess what super-amazing-and-important-piss-on-Apple-because-they-left-it-out feature the Pixel 2 forgot about? The 3.5MM HEADPHONE JACK!

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LOOK FAMILIAR?

Funny that.

Don’t worry, they’ve included a dongle.

However, in what must have been a massive fork-up by Carl in packaging, THEY DON’T INCLUDE BLOODY HEADPHONES.

Of course, you can BUY a set of headphones called Pixel Buds. Wireless, but oddly still wired. They don’t have any ergonomic fit, they use the wire to wedge into your bloody ear and then they hang off your ear canal. They don’t detect when they’ve been put in, nor do they shut off automatically. They look look like cheap give aways connected with a shoelace, and they are asking THE SAME PRICE AS AIRPODS.

And lets not forget the lack of haptic feedback, 3D Touch TrueTone display or wireless charging.

So hardware is lacking, design is lacking…what other possible things could Google have done to piss me off?

Google’s Reality Distortion Field

Steve Jobs was very famous for his ability to convince everyone around him to succumb to his vision. It was called his RDF (Reality Distortion Field) and most folks laughed it off or worse, used it as weapon against Apple users in general. Well, Google has being using that same weapon for some time now, and it was in full effect during the Pixel 2 launch.

For instance; how do you manage to pull off convincing people that your edge detecting software is just as good as true depth sensing 3D cameras setups like Samsung and Apple, all the while completely ignoring your own Tango device? How about using a known purchasable marketing company to falsely score your camera? Yes, DxO is a for profit consulting firm who sells a testbed product – tests whose results are largely objective – with scores being attributed to things like “bokeh: not actual lens or component quality. Now that the Pixel has achieved the “All time high” score of 98, what happens when cameras get better yet and we hit 100? Last year’s score of 89 was found to be lacking in real world performance, and so far tests show that the Pixel 2 camera doesn’t do as well as others in low light conditions.

When demoing their Pixel Buds they’d showed off a cool translation feature where you can converse with someone in another language, making you think the Pixel Buds were Bable Fish when in fact it’s just the bloody phone. There are many translation apps out there that offer this feature, and it doesn’t take a $219 set of headphones. But boy does it play cool for the media!

For all the positive talk about the AI that their assistant software is using (Google Lens) they are jingling shiny keys in our face as they rob you of your privacy.

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Pixel 2 – Another Soul Seller

Apple does privacy. Google does not. If this doesn’t upset you, then you have no reason to worry about the Equifax breach or government surveillance.  Google unveiled a Trojan horse with it’s Pixel 2, a cool feature that will display any song playing in the vicinity. Wow! Great! That’s IS cool, just peek at your phone screen to see that song playing in the elevator! I wonder how it works? Press a button? Say “Hey Google, who is this?”?

Nope.

It listens.

All. The. Time.

It picks up your conversation about Aunt Marcey’s club foot, your husband’s fear of sand between his toes, your safe word in the bedroom (mine is “Tall Guy“).

Now, I’m not saying all this data is beamed to Google headquarters (it is) but Google doesn’t do onboard data analysis, and the fact their Google Home Mini was just found to be doing EXACTLY that is not reassuring. So if the price of your privacy is worth knowing that song, you are a cheapskate and a fool. Google has time and time again violated its user’s privacy and as an advertising company they have no intention of stopping.

As a Pixel user, an Android user, YOU are the product.

Conclusion

For the Android fans, it’s a reasonable phone at a premium price that includes the wholesale of your soul. I do have to recommend the Samsung S8 (aauugg.. that taste again) over it. If you don’t care about your soul, then the pure Android experience and 3 years of updates make the price a little easier to swallow.

For the Apple fans, we’ll just sit back and laugh again while we see the true “sheep” fawn over a underpowered, privacy destroying, and overpriced, ugly-ass phone. Android users are absurd in their contempt for Apple users, claiming the iPhone is expensive and boring. They then turn around and drool over a slow, memory strained and hideous thing MORE EXPENSIVE THAN THE IPHONE.

GAH.

Check this out! Thanks to a tear in the fabric (no pun intended) of spacetime, we got a sneak peak at the Pixel 3!

Google Pixel 3

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Ryszard (Rick) Gold, From Calgary, Alberta, Canada has over 20 years of experience working with Apple products in a technical capacity. Passionate about technology in general, his natural troubleshooting abilities, curiosity and appreciation of good design lead him into working exclusively with Apple Computer products.
Ryszard Gold
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