Seems like Motion Sense is not working in some countries, specifically, Japan:
"²Not functional in Japan and may not be functional in other Pixel countries. Motion Sense is functional in the US, Canada, Singapore, Taiwan and most European countries."
"Check that you’re in a country where Motion Sense is approved. Currently, Motion Sense will work in the US, Canada, Singapore, Australia, Taiwan, and most European countries. If you travel to a country where it’s not approved, it won’t work."
What's up with that? Is there any regulation against moving your hands in front of the phone?
The only thing I can think of is the "kind of" mandatory shutter noise when using the camera on Japanese phones, to avoid up-skirt photos and the like. An I say "kind of", because depending on who I've talked to, some say it's a mandatory law, some others say it's a good faith agreement between manufacturers.
Anyway, maybe, if the hand waving stuff is detected using the camera, might be problematic on some countries as in Japan.
The star tracking feature of the astrophotography mode definitely has me interested. I'm disappointed to see the continued lack of battery capacity on the smaller phone though. While I'd love a larger battery, I'm one of the unfortunate ones whose small hands can already barely reach across my Pixel 2's phone screen -- much less the top section.
I'm also incredibly excited about the face unlocking feature -- I owned a Pixel Xs for about a week before returning it, and face unlock was my absolute favorite feature. It's very seamless especially compared to fingerprint unlock.
As an aside, Marc Levoy, who spoke at the Google event today is a Professor Emeritus at Stanford, and has a great series titled "Lectures on Digital Photography" available for free on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7HrM-fk_Rc
Fingerprint sensors are so convenient that they have become must-have features on my phones. Removing it from the Pixel 4 is an unfortunate step backward in terms of everyday usability.
I loved Marc Levoy's presentation. I wonder why no video improvements though - dynamic range is so important in a camera, why limit it to just photos? 10bit h265 would be nice, perhaps with some of that hdr+ tonemapping.
Would have been nice to see a wide angle lens too. The radar thing feels gimmicky.
Not impressed at all this iteration. I may have to wait for Pixel 5, or I'm tempted to return to the iPhone solely so I can take advantage of the Apple Watch. I had hoped for better specs, better phone design, and most importantly - I'd have liked the fingerprint reader to have remained. I really don't want to be a voluntary part of facial recognition.
Pixel 4
2800 mAh
Ughh... why can't they make a phone with bigger battery?
XL model has a decent size battery but it is way to cumbersome to use as mobile device and 2800 mAh is barely enough to last day (not to mention degradation over time).
Is it that i am in a filter bobble? But most of my friends and family complains about low battery or agrees with me that they would love a phone that last more then a day.
The motion tracking / hand gestures / radar thing seems cool, but it also screams "3D Touch" to me. It'll be really interesting to see if apps successfully leverage it, or if it will fade away and disappear by the time Pixel 5 comes around.
I bought the original Nexus S and the Galaxy Nexus when they were released, and I was excited about the device and Android. Since Snowden, the ever increasing reliance on Google of many people and institutions via its cloud services, and the encroachment into our private lives via constant listening devices like Googles Nest, I want to get Google as far from my life as possible.
In the German version of this announcement, the first thing written under the title is that you if you order soon enough, you'll get a free Google Nest Hub with the phone. Well, uhm, no, please don't.
Further down, Google praises itself with "Stets an deiner Seite: Google Assistant ...", which means "Always at your side: Google Assistant ...". This is just creepy to me now.
I'm astounded by how much my perspective of Google has changed since a couple of years ago. Their marketing is off-putting to me now.
I was so ready to jump into a Pixel (long time iPhone user). I thought on-board voice recognition would be a game changer. This had to be the most lacklustre event I've seen:
- Nothing on video.
- No details on the processor (or most hardware specs).
- Nothing on the forward-facing camera.
- Nothing on battery life.
Moreover, and this is purely a marketing-spin thing, the event had no energy. There were some super cool demos, and they were received with pure silence from the crowd. It was very weird.
The radar chip is especially interesting. I remember being intrigued when it was presented by the ATAP team years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QNiZfSsPc0
The team showed an impressive amount of cool stuff back then, it's nice to see one of these projects shipping on a flagship product. There's more info here on how it's used: https://www.blog.google/products/pixel/new-features-pixel4/
EDIT: found the original presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpbWQbkl8_g . I think the touch sensitive cloth project also made it into a few products.
I'm not from the US, the store page redirects me to my region
Appending a locale parameter to the url works well [1]
I want a decent 5" screen phone again. I have the pixel 3, and I swear I'm getting hand cramps because it's too big to use with one-hand. Miss the old Nexus 5.
Another maintenance release from another manufacturer. Are we just in a stagnation cycle until 5g comes around?
What are the odds that the camera block would look like the iPhone 11 pro!
Edit: a lot of sarcastic answers down there :D
That page will not show you the Pixel 4 if it's not available in your country (I'm in Mexico, for example), but if you're still curious here's the blogpost: https://blog.google/products/pixel/pixel-4/
We have some contradictions in our lives.
For example, think about computer releases. As someone who likes to build a PC and install my own operating system, I love how these two things are somewhat decoupled (albeit imperfectly.) So I was excited about individual component releases, of course the CPU and GPU in particular, not to mention the rapid advancement of storage technology! And I was happy to try out a whole new version of Windows. (I particularly like 2000 and 7.)
Computers, on the other hand - well I've all but ignored desktops and announcements about them my whole life. Laptops were more interesting, because I was excited when they started to have decent internal components, nice screens and usable battery life. (I've been less impressed with increasingly closed systems with fewer options for upgrades.)
So back to the point at hand? I'd like to think that new phones should be focused on performance, and in my dream world, decoupling from software. I don't want "new gadgets" to be a thing on a phone. If I want to use it a certain way, i.e. hand waving away my song tracks, I have to now rely on a specific manufacturer running a specific operating system on at least the minimum version. No real options there, though.
I'm still not sure "modular" can work for phones, or maybe it can but we're not there yet, or there hasn't been enough market success to push manufacturers to go that way. But even that feels mostly unnecessary. I haven't had any complaints about my phone hardware, except for batteries wearing out, and being difficult to replace. Cameras have been "good enough" for my needs for several years now. Storage and computing performance has been fine, too. (Of course, new features are compute-intensive and will require hardware to keep up.)
If I have a point, it's that this is a boring phone release to me, but I kind of wish all phone releases were boring at this point. I'm sure some of the imaginative features coming out will become important, but right now, I feel like I don't need them. What I would prefer would be an improvement in decoupling between phone hardware and software.
The better processor is appreciated, but I would prefer that it had 5G and Gorilla Glass 6
I miss my Moto X (2gen) with the infrared sensors to detect your hand and other stuff. It seems pretty similar to the hand gestures. Moreover I could personalize the external materials.
And the best device that Google has remains the Pixel 3a XL. They continue to remove features that people actually use and add things that nobody wants.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up with my first iphone when my op6 kicks the bucket (no sign of that anywhere in sight). I've just been so underwhelmed with every Android phone release that now the main thing that matters to me is the years of updates that the iphones get. I never thought I'd care about that but it looks great now.
I'm going back to iPhone soon for privacy support and better features. I had all Pixel/Google phones until Pixel 2 and they all died within a year and half (Google returned me the money).
Looks like the lovechild of Galaxy S9 and iPhone 11. It's good to see project Soli graduating out of Google ATAP!
iOS has UX so well executed compared to Android in my opinion. Android may have better specs and features on paper but falls far short when it comes to a satisfying user journey where everything "Just Works".
Love to see more devices using higher refresh rate.
> Quick Gestures uses radar to sense motion
WTF. I don't want more EMR coming from a phone. I just want a phone. All this extra technology literally noone asked for adding to the price of a phone, same with fingerprint readers, same with face scan.
Ultra-privacy intruding phones.
> 3 years of security and OS updates will keep your phone performing at its best.
I’m still using an iPhone 6s which has gotten its last major iOS update after owning the device for 5 years. It will continue getting security fixes for another year until iOS 14 is released.
iPhones last twice as long as Pixel devices, which is a big plus when you must have a secure phone.