Cool Pixel 2 pixels

Intro

I've been using the Google Pixel 2 (manufactured by HTC) for almost three  months now so I think I've got my bearings roughly right with this camera - I mean the phone. There were three main reasons why I decided to pony up the pretty substantial amount of hard currency:

• The camera

• The camera!

• Plain vanilla Android

• Latest updates straight to the phone

Oops, that was more than three! Anyway, let's say I had three main reasons and then there was this one more thing: the extremely cool Moment lenses that attach to their special Pixel 2 case (sleeve, whatever). So, I got the Pixel 2 together with the Moment photo case and two of their lenses - Wide and Superfish.

The larger phone - XL, made by LG - was never an alternative for me. I find it too big and there have also been several pretty serious issues with the device, connected both to the software and the hardware. Obviously, the hardware related problems are extremely difficult or completely impossible to fix by software updates. Surprisingly messy for sure, no way I’d want to deal with any of that.

Getting started

Let's start with the general user experience. It's been a long time since I was using a brand new phone so everything immediately felt extremely responsive and fast. Lightning fast! The fingerprint sensor (whoa, high-tech) - is conveniently located on the back of the phone and it works flawlessly. There is no traditional audio jack and that sure is a bummer (hate the adapters) but not a deal breaker for me; I use my old, tiny Sony MW600 bt receiver together with the in-ear Bose QC25; the bt connection has been rock solid. There is no external sd-card slot either and no exchangeable battery but I’d guess that’s just the way things are these days. The screen looks just fine but the ‘Adaptive brightness’ feature is way too nervous, often changing the brightness even when there’s no noticeable change in the ambient light. So, I often prefer the manual setting 2-3% indoors and when I then go out to the bright sunshine it’s impossible to see anything on the screen! It drives me nuts; guess I’ll have to see if the Lux app functions okay with the Pixel 2. 

Battery life seems decent enough for me, perhaps because I hardly ever play games and very rarely make (or receive, yay!) phone calls. The Battery saver gives me some additional hours and affects my use of the phone less than I thought. Most often - if I don’t go completely crazy, shooting photos and video - the fully charged battery takes me through the full day with some juice to spare when it’s time to hit the hay. Charging is not wireless but pretty fast anyway, especially when using the dedicated charger that came with the phone. I must also admit it’s neat that I can’t insert the plug into the phone the wrong way any longer! That’s part of the USB-C upside for sure.

The looks of the phone? Sure, very nondescript and kinda old fashioned with the large bezels both on top and at the bottom. However, that’s fitting for me in general - I’m slightly nondescript and old fashioned myself - so I don’t mind at all. I also always have the phone in the Moment photo case (wooden back!) which I really like a lot. Re-booting the Pixel 2 is something I haven’t done many times but it sure is very fast. The only weird thing, when re-booting, is that the screen turns super bright for a couple of seconds. What on earth is the point with that?! 

The camera

It’s definitely true: the Pixel 2 camera is pretty darn great. Demanding sunshine-and-shadows combinations, really low light conditions, the computational ‘bokeh’ (simulated shallow depth of field) - all of this works amazingly well. Add the superb Moment lenses and hey presto: it’s almost like real photography once again, brought back from the days long gone straight to my phone! Video quality seems very good, too, and the built-in stabilization does an excellent job. On the wish list, still: more manual control (naturally optional, only for those of us who like that kind of thing) in the camera app. There are lots of additional bells and whistles in the app which are not that interesting to me; the Lens is an exception though. You can already get quite a bit of interesting information through Lens and it’s most probably going to get even better in near future.

Just Android

I’ve never been a great fan of the apps - or the OS modifications - various producers of Android phones add to their devices. The apps that I never use tend to take quite a bit of storage space and most often they are impossible to erase completely from the phone. It’s a very real blessing, to skip all that crapware!

Latest Android

As soon as Google starts rolling out the latest Android updates, they will also be available to my Pixel 2 - which is the way it should be with any Android phone. However, I can’t help it, being a bit anxious every time it’s time for an update but I haven’t had any issues so far.

Summary

I have absolutely no regrets about my purchase so far; I had done my homework in advance and got my money’s worth, even though the auto brightness should function more smoothly in a premium device like the PIxel 2. Almost forgot: the phone is able to cope just fine with rain as well, or even worse. However, I’m not going to throw it in a bucket of water just to find out if the water protection really cuts is or not!

Like what you're reading? Cool - then get notified of new CGoN posts here!

Bose in-ear QC20: Good, bad and the ugly

This post sure is a (very) old one - yes, from 2017 - but I think it's still interesting today when ANC in wireless earbuds is all the rage 

 Noise cancelling tech is extremely cool – especially for folks like me who have major trouble coping with noisy surroundings. As to consumer earphones with NC, #Bose is probably the most widely known brand on the planet. I hardly ever listen to anything else than ‘spoken word’ using headphones when I’m commuting or sitting in a plane; this also means that I definitely need to have functioning NC. Further, big cans are out of the question – I hate that kind of bulky gear when I’m on the move – so in-ear phones is the only alternative that works for me and Bose Quiet Comfort 20 has been around for several years. Presently, I have my second set but I sure am not going to get a third one; more about that further on.

If you read QC20 reviews – http://bit.ly/BoseQC20Reviews – you’ll notice that pretty much all of them are very positive and many give these earphones solid and even extreme top scores. Basically, there is just one thing you’ll mostly see noted as a downside: the high price. The way I see it, all things considered, is that the price is actually so high that it is completely out of whack – and in my book the final verdict is definitely not as positive as that of those reviews.

Okay, the good stuff to get started: I find the QC20 very comfortable to wear, several hours even – this is probably due to the fact that they don’t go deep in the ear channel at all but yes, they do stick out a bit. However, most of the sales pitch is about the noise cancelling feature and it sure works but there are caveats. The low rumble of, say, a jet engine way too close to my airline seat doesn’t bother me at all when I switch on the electronics (and yes, you can use the set even if the battery is flat but don’t expect much audio fidelity) but you sure still hear the baby crying behind you, loud and clear. With other words: midrange and high pitch noise does cut through, in spite of the NC magic. So do also conversations close to you, providing you’re not blasting rock music full volume of course. The very slim battery that charges through standard micro-USB has plenty of stamina and might actually outlast that of your phone.

Then the bad part : the very design of the set, the way it is intended to be used – the cord clip fastened to the front of your shirt and the earbud cords hanging from the ears – also means that the second an earpiece is not properly stuck to your ear, there is a fair chance of it falling down just far enough to splash into your coffee and that earbud sure takes the other one with it in the fall. Don’t drink coffee? Well, even if there’s no drink involved it’s a real pain having the earpieces dangling from the shirt clip and yes, the buds do sometimes come tumbling down when you least expect it (yup, a comfy loose fit also has a downside). Sure, you can have the cord behind your neck; I did that quite often but it turned out to be a bad move in the long run due to the lousy quality of the cables. Read on.. Some additional not-so-great findings: the plastic cords are loud when touched, the whole set – including the battery/electronics part – is welded together and can’t be repaired and even slight breeze causes wind noise that the electronics can’t defeat.

Here comes the ugly , then. The build quality of a very expensive piece of kit like the (original) QC20 should be top notch – but it’s definitely not. The cables are made of cheap, kinda stiff plastic that after a couple of years just starts disintegrating and there’s quite simply nothing you can do about it: http://bit.ly/BoseQC20cable

There is a newer version of the set apparently equipped with better quality cables – those have a blue-greenish streak along the length of the earphone cables: http://bit.ly/BoseQC20New That’s the main visible difference I know of. See to it, you get those in case you decide to purchase the QC20!

About the audio : what you get is okay – the tailored Bose sound but far from anything that could be described as reference audio though. Your pile of cash buys you functional, compact in-ear noise cancelling and the Bose brand, not top notch audio. There is a very faint hiss from the electronics, too, but it really doesn’t bother me at all.

So, I mentioned in the beginning I have my second QC20 set now. Yup, got a ‘special deal’ through Bose customer service to get ‘a brand new set’ to replace my broken one and expected to get the latest version – but didn’t. Basically, I ended up paying what anyone would have done, after checking the online offerings a bit. Bummer.

Bottom line for me is that when you get used to in-ear noise cancelling phones, there’s no going back to the bare bones gear. I sure hope the cables of my present QC20 set won’t give up completely until well built units from other manufacturers are widely available. Compact, in-ear phones featuring powerful noise cancellation that can be precisely fine tuned by the user should be just around the corner.

Like what you're reading? Cool - then get notified of new CGoN posts here!