That’s odd, I installed the Gemini app on my 6a like a week ago. Unless you’re specifically talking about grapheneOS.

Currently have a 6a, the fingerprint sensor was garbage when I first got it but Google really did some work to improve it over the years. It’s not perfect but it works.

Come on now, that’s not just a Google problem and you know it, no need to shit on Google for something damn near every tech company does. Google does their fair share of shitty things, this isn’t really one of them.

While I liked Niagara for what it tries to do, it’s price for a launcher was steep, and Nova IMHO is not a good company to emulate. May I ask why the need to join the Google group?

Make it open source and don’t charge for a “premium” version when it’s fully released that will hamstring your capability if you don’t pay.

Very stock Android, but they use older hardware for these phones and it shows. I had a moto g power, at one point it had to install updates and when it rebooted it sat at a blank home screen for ten minutes before showing any icons. I ditched Android altogether and went iPhone, but I heard really good things about pixel phones, so I switched back and gave my old phones to my kids.

We’ve stuck with fire tablets forever, they can install the Google Play store and the kids tablets still receive updates a few years later. The newest ones have USB-C, headphone jack, good enough WiFi for us 2.4 and 5GHz, and can be picked up under $100. The 8" version is really good and they have a 10" version as well. I know fire os isn’t amazing and gets a ton of flack but it works for what it’s designed to do.

If you’re just using it to read, I would highly recommend selling it and getting an e-ink display. I have both a Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle fire 8 plus. I just can’t read books on the fire 8 anymore, the Paperwhite is so good. If you can’t stand Amazon then rakuten makes a really good e-ink readers with their kobos.

So me not wanting to upgrade my pixel 6a to a pixel 8 because it works just fine is a problem for the global Smartphone economy? Fuck these guys. I want hardware that lasts and doesn’t end up in a landfill. I don’t give a shit if these executives can’t buy a third yacht or another tennis court in their back yard, I’m going to stick with what works. The hypocrisy of these kinds of articles is disgusting at best and immoral at worst.

Same, just started using Niagara actually, it’s really good.

Part of the issue is that the biggest smartphone manufacturers are all sister companies to each other. Oppo, OnePlus, xaiomi, they’re all different companies under the same banner, so they’re bound to share hardware specs and manufacturing.

Personally I think nothing phone is the only phone brand that’s innovating on design with the candy bar style phone, but even that’s hard to justify. Samsung has been repeating the folding phone designs and refining them year after year and Google has been pretty lazy with the pixel phones in regards to hardware.

It’s a weird time for smartphones, can’t push more power without destroying batteries, can’t really innovate with batteries because we’ve hit a wall that only software can help mitigate. Not only that’s we all apparently want bigger and bigger phones, and the only way to realistically get that is with folding display tech, which again chews up battery power.

LOL you think I’m a PCMR neckbeard? My PC is old, it’s running a Vega56, not even in the last two generations of graphics cards, I’m fine with 30FPS when it makes sense but I’m talking sub-25FPS with shit frame times that make it feel like a damn slideshow. I prefer consoles, FFS I run a steam deck docked to my TV more than I use my gaming PC. Why do you think I use GeForce Now? So I can play games on high settings and not deal with settings that make my games look like they’re running on an N64. You keep calling me a member of PCMR if you want but I’m not ever here riding Bethesda dick for a shitty game.

Starfield plays like shit, looks like shit (by today’s standards) and the quests are shit. Neon is a lazy world that only ends up becoming one giant hallway with a few shops. Everywhere else feels lifeless and boring. Starfield was a flop, and while Elex isn’t the best game out there, the fact that it can in fact in some situations stand toe to toe with Starfield on graphical fidelity is just an absolute disgrace. I was on a desert planet in Starfrield in the main story (can’t remember the name) at night, on a balcony running on GeForce Now with an RTX 2080 and getting less than 24FPS, that’s absolutely pathetic, game is just bad.

China absolutely steals, my company had a data breach about a year ago, the bad actors were traced back to a Chinese competitor. Thankfully they didn’t get any of our IP, but they were specifically looking for IP to steal. It’s a known thing, China simply steals and uses shitty materials to make substandard products, they’ve been doing it for decades.

Okay, I’m running an arch Linux install as a daily driver with multiple open source application alternatives to proprietary software, but yes, I have no idea how open source works…come on…I’m done with this conversation.

I literally gave your proof that Google owns Android… You’re clearly not willing to accept that simple fact. You can fork it, go ahead, but Google still owns it, you’re never gonna get away from that fact.

Google owns Android https://www.scaler.com/topics/which-company-owns-the-android-operating-system/

It’s licensed under an Apache open source license and is co-developed with Google and the Open Handset Alliance (OHA). Google’s Android team is the primary developer and maintainer of the OS.

Google owns Android, there’s no “breaking control” over Android from the company that created and maintains the operating system.

Does their app store run on Android? Then it doesn’t really matter, it’s not toppling Android because it’s using Android. Samsung has an app store too, and Motorola, guess what? They all run on Android. What you’re wanting is something like Samsung’s Tizen, which was it’s own OS outside of Android. If you are specifically calling out the Play store, then that’s a completely different scenario.

Um, no. If they’re still using Android then they’re only adding to the monopoly. The only way your comment would be true is if Huawei made their own operating system that wasn’t based off Android, and frankly nothing that has actually tried to kill Android has ever worked, not even Samsung’s attempt.