These updates are fire!
I just got rid of my Pixel 6a because it had one of the bad batteries. Tip to anyone taking advantage of the trade in rebate, DO NOT get the $150 Google Store credit and be like me thinking you can use it on the Google Fi Store to purchase a new Pixel. The $150 store credit is only towards the purchase of a Pixel phone via the Google Store. Take the $100 cash rebate option instead because it tells you once you choose either option, you cannot change it.
My hope was to get the Pixel 9a on my account for $249 (activation discount) on my account and then use the $150 store credit… nope.
My coworker has been fighting Google for months to get their cash rebate. So you’re fucked regardless which option you take.
Good to know, thanks. Now I’m not as annoyed as I was, lol.
Have you tried not purchasing a Google phone? I heard this works extremely well.
It’s all well and good being oh so principled like you’re making yourself out to be, but phones are expensive, and the above user is being completely rational for wanting a Pixel 9a for $250.
Get off your moral high horse.
I have owned 3 pixels.
5a - bricked randomly 8 - screen failed within 6 months 6a - stuck in a bootloop, gave up on fixing it just before the battery issue made headlines
I gave them a fair shake. Never again.
The 8 had known screen issues, and they were fixed even out of warranty. After six months it would have been within warranty, so you definitely should have been able to get that fixed. I know, I had to have mine replaced too.
I’ve had a 4, 6, and 8. No issues. But I know that if I do have hardware issues, Google will address them like these screen and battery issues.
During which time I have no phone.
Not acceptable. Bought something else.
I went to the nearest Google store. The time without a phone, I spent going and having a coffee.
Cool. I’m not going to do that another three times when I can spend less money on phones that don’t break.
Not to mention Google doesn’t do stores where I live.
I went to the nearest Google stor
A “Google Store” doesn’t even exist in my country lol
I had the 3a for three years, passed it on to my son who used it three more years. Bought a 6 after the 3a, used it for three years and passed it on to my son. I am typing this on my 9a. Never had any issues on any of those phones. Either I have been very lucky or you got two rotten apples.
Before the pixel existed I owned a Google Nexus
54 which was manufactured by LG and to date that was the worst phone I’ve ever owned. I guess my point is it doesn’t matter who is manufacturing the hardware; if Google is involved it’s gonna be junk.Edit: it was a 4 not a 5 but either way it was such an awful experience I’ve never bought another piece of Google hardware since
Really? The Nexus 4 was my favorite device to date. I pushed mine to its limits, it was great. Even took a trip through the washing machine and still kept ticking.
The Nexus 4 was a great phone in my opinion.
Had it rooted and everything for about 6 years.
I had a Nexus 5 (also LG) and it was the best I’d had for years. Ran lineageOS on it (maybe it was CyanogenMod still I can’t remember) but that thing was the shit.
I left it on top of my car once and ended up destroying it. Swapped the modem into an EU model (the modem and GPS module survived, all other components failed) and had basically a brand new phone afterwards.
I don’t agree. Many of the cheaper phones are pretty shit and barebones. I’ve had Samsung flagship phones for years, and they have never disappointed me. Friends and family have had the cheaper Samsung phones, and they have been pretty hit and miss. You just kinda get what you pay for. Wanna pay €200 for a phone? You get something that can barely turn on, that’s it.
I think you replied to the wrong comment
I didn’t? My point was that you get what you pay for, Google or not.
I was thinking about going with a pixel for my next device so that I could use graphene because I’ve used pixels in the past and they were fine but with all these battery issues I’m having serious second thoughts.
They are doing free battery replacements. So at least they’re doing the right thing.
The battery of my Pixel 6 started to bloat and leak last week. I contacted support. After a bit of back and forth where they asked me to provide proof of purchase and pictures of the phone, they sent me a brand new Pixel 6 and told me to just recycle the old one.
I reported the issue on Tuesday, received the new phone on Friday. That’s not bad support for a 4 year old device that’s long out of warranty. I fully expected them to tell me to go F my self.
My battery sucks after this update. Once I get down to 30% it free falls.
And no licensed repair places near me have batteries in stock
I switched my 6a to GrapheneOS a few weeks ago and the battery lasts like twice as long, its unreal.
i originally wanted to get pixel, after the 5A died from a fall, but i went with OP instead better battery life, dont really care about the photos that much.
I have one of these phones. Google has reached out and I applied for the $$ to get a tradein, but google has yet to give me the $$ or contact me further. Its been a while too. Honestly, I got the 6a because it was going to be supported for a long time compared to other phones. This rubs me the wrong way.
Considering it is a Google phone their long term support is still crap compared to things like Fairphone or even iPhone.
But it sucks that this happens and I hope they contact you for a trade in. Rules are also changing so all phones need to have a minimum lifespan of 5 years or so
Considering it is a Google phone their long term support is still crap compared to things like Fairphone or even iPhone.
At least it beats Samsung, I’m not buying any product from them ever again
I have had terrible luck with Samsung phones as well
Already received it here, did you follow the procedure on payoneer ? That took me about a week to get my money. Got a fairphone now instead 😎
I was going to opt for a battery replacement, but I called the local store that does the replacement, and they told me that it’s common for the screen to break during the battery swap process. And if they break the screen, I would be on the hook for the cost to replace it, around $160. I don’t know how that is even legal in the first place, but it certainly turned me off from wanting to let them change my battery. And mailing the phone in for a battery swap would leave me without a phone for weeks…
Even if you mail it to Google, they will make you pay for the screen before they will do the swap. That’s what happened with my 4a. I had them ship it back instead and took the cash.
What do you mean? Did your phone already have damage to the screen, or they were making you preemptively pay in case the screen broke?
I too don’t understand why you would be responsible for THEM breaking the screen.
Imagine your mechanic breaks a part while changing your oil then says you’re responsible for the cost of it.
You’ve got a better mechanic than me I guess. If you bring in an old shitty car for repairs you can expect more than one thing is in bad shape.
If it’s already fucked and it breaks during work then you pay. The screen is not already fucked.
The shop has experience. They know it’s very probable it will break. They didn’t pay for the lesson, but you will pay for their experience. Get mad at the engineer of the phone not the repair technician.
If the carmaker has a recall on the airbags, and the dealer breaks the instrument cluster in the process of replacing the airbag assembly, you’re goddamn right I’m not paying for the instrument cluster. I don’t care if the car is ten years old. It’s a recall, which means it’s bad design and always was. That is 100% on the mechanic, the manufacturer, and the engineer that designed the instrument cluster to break if the airbag is replaced.
They can fuck right off with that shit
This is apples and oranges.
How, exactly?
At least they were upfront about that issue.
Maybe they should do a recall.
A battery exchange program is not quite the same thing as an actual product recall.
Damn. Never knew batteries catch on fire when angry.
people still uses the 6A? it was hasty replacement for the defective 5A. thats why i went with OP, because every pixel after it sucked, because all they could see as improvement is the tensor chip.
Uh, big oof, that’s my phone model.
You might want to check if they’ve recalled it, I believe I saw an article today that said Google was recalling the pixel 6a because of this.
Yeah, the other day, I left it charging in the car while I was doing chores. I came out and the phone was scalding hot. I chalked it up at the time to it being hot in the car, and the fact probably shouldn’t have been charging at that temp. Now I’m tripping on if this thing is a time bomb.
I just want a comeback of phones with swappable batteries.
Typing this on an samsung xcover 6 pro right now. Costs less than 200 used, has a removable battery, up to 1tb micro SD card support, and a headphone jack.
Seems like it has a 778G SoC too which would be pretty solid for emulation as well. That’s an interesting option!
Does it run lineage, because that is the only way I’ll touch Samsung’s abysmal OS ever again
Hi, I was considering samsung as an option. Could you please tell me why you dont like samsung? I’m looking for cons but review sites only want to sing praises.
Samsung locks the bootloader, even for carrier unlocked versions traight from samsung’s website. (At least for those sold in the US, not sure about other places)
If you don’t intend to use a custom RON like Lineage OS, you wouldn’t notice a difference. But if you do, then it might be a dealbreaker. As for the Xcover series in particularx the specs are worse for the amount you’re paying. Camera is worse, SoC is slower, assuming if you are conparing the price of a brand new mainstream S or A series phones to a brand new Xcover series. But if you don’t care about worse specs for the swappable battery, then sure, go ahead. I personally wouldn’t get the Xcover series, doesn’t seem like a good deal, the screen is LCD and I’m way too used to OLED/AMOLED of the more mainstream phones.
It does not, but I don’t sign into any Samsung/Google things and replace every system app with one from F-Droid including the launcher. The experience is fairly similar to my old pixel with grapheneos like this. I am sure it is far cry from as secure, but I am realistic about my threat model and am willing to make trades to be more sustainable and convenient. The only other difference is the system ui skin, which does its job just fine IMO
fairphone does that.
600 euro, not so helpful. Thanks though.
I can relate to the feeling, but considering that their hardware and software support can get the phone going for twice as long (for me) as other mainstream ones, I feel tempted.
Its 900$ where im at. I can get 3 phones for the same price. Terracube 2 apparently does too, but last time I had a fairphone, it failed pretty bad. Literally fell apart and no software updates at all.
Didn’t HMD make a couple of those too? Obv not the same country of origin but from what I’ve seen they’re considerably cheaper
Didn’t HMD make a couple of those too?
Yes, the HMD Skyline has an easily removable backplate and battery.
As far as I know, this will be the case in the EU in 2027.
That’s for “easily replaceable” batteries, not necessarily swappable, as in pop off the cover and insert new battery.
The new Fairphone 6, for example, requires a screw driver to open up the phone, and that would meet the legal requirements of the EU law.
For the purposes of disposing of a janky battery before it goes off bang and replacing it with a fresh one, that is probably quite sufficient.
I don’t think even power users these days are going to be strutting around hot swapping batteries from the little holster of them they’ve got on their belts like us turbo-nerds were doing in the PDA era. It would be rad to be able to do so, sure, but I think that will wind up just being a side effect models of the next wave of user-replaceable battery phones on some models.
Yeah, even though batteries have gotten smaller, and I’d prefer a larger one, mine still trivially lasts a day. I’ve got an inductive charger at my desk too, so it’s rarely drops below like 80% even. They easily last long enough that carrying extras to hot swap is not required and just a hassle. I guess if you’re going camping or something, it might be nice, but that’s about the only situation I could see being useful.
I miss my Galaxy S5. I could change the battery while jumping on a trampoline if I wanted to.
I still have two of them in a desk drawer. Both still boot, although the batteries are definitely toast. I have no idea if you can find a new-old-stock battery for one of these that is not likewise also knackered. But fun fact, an S5 will power on and run indefinitely with no battery in it at all if it’s connected to a sufficiently powerful USB power source.
Why pine for the past when you can have one again right now!
What? No takers for a phone that’s stuck on Android Marshmallow?
I put LineageOS on a S4 and I use it as a desk clock. All it needed was an app that shows the time.
Glad I ended up ruining my 6A attempting to replace the battery and had to upgrade.
I replaced my battery in my pixel 6 late last year and I noticed my battery life took a shit recently. I thought I got a bad battery or something and was considering replacing it again
I think when your battery takes a shit, you should probably replace it.
Or if it took shit recently you should check when was last software update.
I got an extra 30% battery life after switching to GrapheneOS. I’m guessing whatever is saving my battery, would also bring down the load on the system.
I did notice my phone heats up much less after switching to GrapheneOS.
Just here to confirm this comment from personal experience.
plan to buy a pixel just to put Graphene on. Which one do you have and any problems?
I’ve got a 7 and works great
I have no recommendations for versions. Depends in your case.
Although I’ll mention that some people don’t like that Pixel by default doesn’t include the bottom menu on the screen, and uses other swiping features on the screen to do the same thing.
However in your system settings you can change the UI to gave the navigation menu at the bottom of the screen similar to Samsung.
String recommend for learning the swipe motions. It takes a few min to learn but it’s free real-estate after that. And it’s faster. At least for me.
I’m happy that you’re happy, but over here I miss the 4 button navigation bar that was standard in ye olde android.
I’ve been runnnng GrapheneOS with charge capped at 80%. Phone has not emulated thermite.
I haven’t found any discussion about the battery issues at GrapheneOS yet.
Meaning you charge till 80% full, or at 80% max charging speed? just curious.
80% full. It drastically helps extend battery life
Is this done manually , or there’s a system thing for it ?
In GrapheneOS, Settings -> Battery -> Charging Optimization.
Many phones support it. My old mid range Samsung galaxy phone from 2020 had it, as does my Pixel 9a.
Yep. It’s the capacity.
Anyone can cap the charging speed by using a garbage $2 700mA charger from 2008.
