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▲ Pfhortune a day ago

Feeling like my Pixel 9 Pro was the best timed hardware buy I've made in recent years.

The 10 dropped the physical SIM slot and Google started with their device tree shenanigans that year, with little to no improvements in exchange.

I've got 16GB of RAM and 512GB in an ecosystem that shows every sign of regressing in capacities due to component price inflation.

Very interested to see what Motorola does next year, however.

▲esalman a day ago | parent | next [-]

Pixel 10 was so bad I had to trade it in after using for a month. The version I got was 128GB for a whopping $600. This was my first Google device after Nexus days and I was bitterly disappointed with weird performance bugs and battery drain issues. The software does little to make up for the issues.

The replacement I got is a Motorola razr ultra folding phone.. similar perf point with 16G RAM and 512G storage. This phone is legit.

▲grapheneos a day ago | parent | next [-]

We plan to support future versions of the Motorola Signature, Razr Fold and Razr Ultra. We'll have at least a non-folding Signature successor in 2027 but aren't yet sure if the folding devices will provide what we need.

We're confident it's going to be much better hardware than Pixels and that our users will be happy with it. Our initial goal was only providing competitive security with Pixels but it's now clear we can do better in most areas. Google will likely have a significantly better secure element for a while but that can change too.

What's the point of the Pixel 11 and later now that they aren't supported by AOSP and are no longer going to be best in class for security? The updates and security features are why GrapheneOS uses them. We have ~500k users on the Pixel 6 through Pixel 10a and many of those users had multiple previous Pixel and Nexus devices for GrapheneOS. Our userbase is rapidly growing at an increasing rate and was already significant for Pixels.

▲kangs 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I worked with Moto on simple security improvements a few years ago and while they understood the competitive advantage they would get, being a now-small player - I also wasn't convinced that they were fully committed, their support apps and base image were still full of software i wouldn't recommend to say the least.

I hope they are now. There is a void to fill.

▲glitchbot 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Historically Motorola is a solid product. The Nothing Phone 4 pro looks interesting. Is grapheme in an official relationship with above phone? You can ship them your phone and they set it up for you.

▲kuschku a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Does this mean we might finally get a phone with 3.5mm jack, microSD slot and GrapheneOS support? I believe I've been asking for that for 10 years now.

▲grapheneos a day ago | parent [-]

The last Pixel with a 3.5mm jack was the Pixel 5a launched in August 2021. The 3rd/4th/5th gen Pixel 'a' series headphone jacks had horrible audio quality far worse than using the decent USB-C DAC included with the Pixel 2 and Pixel 3. They stopped bundling that with the Pixel 4.

Extendable storage is usually provided via the SIM tray. Physical SIMs are being phased out which is not good news for the feature you want. Realistically, you'll still need to use USB-C for headphones or an external drive.

You can look at the Motorola Signature (2026) for an idea of the initial device which will be a successor to it. Their high end devices don't have 3.5mm audio or microSD. They have devices with those but they're nowhere near our requirements.

▲kuschku a day ago | parent | next [-]

I have been using Sony Xperia's since the Pixel 1 phased out the headphone jack, and the Xperias have had better 3.5mm jacks than even many dedicated DACs.

Physical SIMs being phased out seems to be primarily a US thing right now, but if that happens I'm just gonna stop using phones entirely.

If you want to glue a usb hub, DAC and card reader to your phone, go ahead, but I'd consider that a little bit inconvenient.

Seriously, the latency on wireless and usb-c headphones is so unpredictable that for lecture recording at hacker conferences they've now been banned for both live video/audio production and for video editing, with 3.5mm as the only option going forward.

▲jasomill 20 hours ago | parent | next [-]

For what it's worth, Apple's cheap (<$10) 3.5" adapters tend to have excellent audio quality and should work with Android devices.

▲kuschku 16 hours ago | parent [-]

They're still significantly worse than the builtin 3.5mm ports Sony provides, and they're obviously still a major inconvenience.

▲hexfish 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There is no significant latency on usb-c DAC's. In fact most internal DAC's are just the same chip connected to an internal USB bus.

Bluetooth absolutely has a noticeable delay depending on the codec/profile.

▲kuschku 13 hours ago | parent [-]

USB DACs themselves are fine, but many wireless headphones that also support USB-C run active processing with unpredictable latency.

▲ysnp 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If you know any top level mobile division people at Sony you could encourage them to reach out and commit to meeting GrapheneOS's requirements.

▲terribleperson 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Please consider trying to bring Graphene to the Moto G. Security is not the only reason someone might want to use Graphene - some of us just want to untangle ourselves from Google.

The option to have supported Graphene as well as an SD card slot and headphone port would be wonderful.

▲ethbr1 10 minutes ago | parent [-]

> Security is not the only reason someone might want to use Graphene

I was thinking about this and am curious if the Graphene team are specifically treating 'more secure than stock Android' as a non-negotiable for the purpose of having a strong pipe to swing at Google should Google ever play the 'third party distributions need to be shut down... because security' card.

▲canada_dry 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Graphene on Razr Ultra - YES! Can't come soon enough.

▲port11 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Ahm… phones have as much memory as my laptop? Man, here was I thinking a Pixel 7 would make a good Graphene device.

▲jmaksv a day ago | parent | next [-]

I have multiple Pixel 7 phones GrapheneOS in my family with close to zero issues. It's a good choice for GrapheneOS IMO, except that support ends in Oct 2027. The Pixel 8 is still great also but has a more fragile screen.

I haven't used any newer devices with it yet.

▲ a day ago | parent | next [-]
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▲port11 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Sounds good, thank you. The Pixel 8 is way outside my budget, it’ll mostly be a testing device for my mobile apps (gotta make them work on GOS).

▲grapheneos a day ago | parent [-]

Get a used Pixel 8a instead of a Pixel 7. Pixel 8 and later have 7 years of support from launch instead of 5 along with MTE. The 'a' series devices are cheaper but have a variant of the same SoC for 6th through 9th gen. A used Pixel 8a or a new Pixel 10a are both very good value.

▲Grombobulous a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

32GB is pretty common for new laptops, especially if you’re looking to utilize your integrated graphics (shared memory). Also keep in mind that modern integrated graphics can be really good, and therefore play games that demand more memory (e.g., Panther Lake X7).

The 24GB MacBook Air is the sweet spot of that model lineup in my opinion. Even if you’re a true “web browsing only” user, you can definitely find a sale or refurbished model with 24GB and that’s a much more wise purchase for long term ownership than being stuck with 16GB.

Especially considering most laptops have soldered memory, I’d have a hard time recommending a new laptop purchase with 16GB if your intention is to keep it many years.

Even though RAM is expensive, there are deals and sales out there.

▲fc417fc802 a day ago | parent | next [-]

> keep in mind that modern integrated graphics can be really good

Sort of but not really? Without the wider bus (and various drawbacks) of GDDR any iGPU is very severely memory bandwidth constrained compared to a dGPU from an equivalently recent generation. It's just that a 3 or 4 generation old dGPU is sufficient for an ever increasing number of titles.

TBF it entirely depends on what is meant by "really good".

> I’d have a hard time recommending a new laptop purchase with 16GB if your intention is to keep it many years.

One of my devices still has only 8GB and I use it daily. It's really not an issue for most things.

▲Grombobulous a day ago | parent [-]

Don’t forget that all MacBook models are “integrated graphics.” If you start doing graphical stuff or gaming you’ll need more RAM. If you’ve got a Windows laptop with an RTX 5050/5060 with its own dedicated memory, then yeah, you don’t really need more than 16GB unless you’re doing something specific.

Integrated graphics are constrained but often sufficient to play AAA games.

Panther Lake laptops are roughly equivalent to an RTX 4050, which is only a single generation old. Obviously not the strongest GPU to compare against but you’re also pulling a lot less wattage doing it.

I’m sure your 8GB device is working great, but someone buying a brand new device really should avoid that since the implication is that they’re going to keep that device for somewhere between 3-7 years.

▲fc417fc802 a day ago | parent [-]

Do those laptops not have on the order of ~64 GB/s bandwidth? Meanwhile your example of an RTX 4050 is a mobile SKU with 192 GB/s while the lowest entry level dGPU from that generation, the RTX 4060, boasts 272 GB/s. The RTX 4070 range ups that to 500 GB/s and the high end breaks 1 TB/s.

tl;dr iGPU vs dGPU memory bandwidth is a >10 year difference.

So now to double check my guestimate of 3 to 4 generations from earlier. Entry level RTX 30 448 GB/s in 2020, eventually downgraded to 168 GB/s in 2024. Entry level RTX 20 448 GB/s in 2018 eventually downgraded to 336 GB/s in 2019. You have to go all the way back to the GeForce 10 series to dip below 100 GB/s and even then that's due to some highly unusual configurations introduced many years after the initial launch. At launch in 2016 the lowest end GTX 1050 pulled 112 GB/s which is nearly 2x Panther Lake IIUC.

▲Grombobulous 20 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Ah, I understand where you’re coming from now. You’re really heavily focused on memory transfer speed. That’s really not the only measure of GPU performance and certainly not the one I’m interested in for my workloads. (I do not care for local LLM work for one thing)

For example, the ThinkPad X9 15p with Panther Lake integrated graphics will do 80FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 while the RTX5060 in a Legion 7a will do 109FPS on the same settings (1920x1200, quality up scaling, no frame gen).

So what that means is you can get a super quiet thin and light laptop that gets double digit hours of productivity battery life and has roughly the same tier of gaming experience as a thicker, heavier, power-hungry gaming PC that is pumping 115 watts into the GPU.

To answer your question, LPDDR5x should be more close to 100GB/s so I think you are underestimating the memory bandwidth of Panther Lake laptops. Not sure though.

That all said, overall a RTX5060 or higher laptop would be preferable, I just find it hard to find one that checks a lot of the “thin and light 13-14” premium long battery life productivity laptop that can game on the side” boxes.

▲addaon 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Do those laptops not have on the order of ~64 GB/s bandwidth?

The Macs? No, they go up to 614 GB/s, nearly an order of magnitude more.

▲jasomill 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Are we talking about gaming or GPGPU? Because AFAIK gaming is more likely to be constrained by SSD performance than GPU memory bandwidth.

▲Grombobulous 7 hours ago | parent [-]

I wasn’t very specific at first but a lot of my purchase decisions are around “productivity laptop that can game on the side.”

I wouldn’t say gaming is constrained by GPU memory bandwidth or SSD performance. As long as you have an SSD of any kind, you’re generally fine. Only a few specialized titles like Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart were specifically designed to show off the technical capabilities of fast SSD storage. Most everything else runs just fine without bleeding edge SSD performance, you’re even generally fine running off of a microSD card or SATA III SSD.

Gaming mostly wants to have sufficient GPU RAM capacity and overall 3D rendering performance (for a lack of a precise technical definition of what that means on my part).

Gaming doesn’t tend to move data in and out of VRAM at a particularly fast speed.

Gaming is also generally designed around being able to be released on the latest generation of home consoles, which is now essentially a 6 year old mid-range desktop GPU with 16GB of total system memory.

▲fc417fc802 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Gaming is highly constrained by memory bandwidth in the general case. It scales with things like resolution, framerate, and number of textures.

But of course in practice it depends on the details of what you're doing. This is why I acknowledged up front that it depends on what is meant by "really good". I think iGPUs are sufficient for a huge number of titles in the exact same way that an entry level dGPU from 2018 also is. But I don't think most people would consider that "really good" as you'll generally be stuck in the ballpark of 1080@60 and don't even think about photorealistic VR.

I think it's interesting to note that a while back GPU horsepower reached a point similar to that of CPU horsepower and system RAM capacity that's "good enough" for most common tasks. You don't need (and presumable never will) 32 cores or 64 GB of RAM to check your email or watch youtube. Similarly 1080@60 is sufficient to enjoy most game concepts.

▲Grombobulous 10 minutes ago | parent [-]

Yeah I totally agree with what you’re saying. Basically, that “good enough”-ness for my use case does involve things like not playing photorealistic VR and very much accepting 1080p render resolutions or sometimes even lower (thanks, XeSS/FSR/DLSS!)

The main point with it is that it’s not a matter of “oh I can’t play the games I want to play reasonably” and that is very much not how integrated graphics used to be.

▲kuschku a day ago | parent | prev [-]

And then there's Apple, selling new MacBooks with 8GB RAM (e.g., the neo)

▲Grombobulous a day ago | parent [-]

For what it is, it’s not a bad device, but you’re definitely better off grabbing an M3 MacBook Air 16GB for around the same price.

▲esalman a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Definitely. This is great considering our family Google One plan has 100GB storage which is more than 60% full, but I don't really need to sweat it because I can back up most things on this phone and ignore Google photos backup alerts.

▲kuschku a day ago | parent [-]

And that's why I refuse to buy phones without microSD slot. I've got 2TB of storage in a $300 phone, for all my music and photos.

▲nine_k a day ago | parent | prev [-]

With a BT keyboard, and a decent USB-C/HDMI screen, such a phone may be an acceptable laptop. Both Samsung and Google support desktop mode now.

▲grapheneos a day ago | parent | next [-]

Pixel 8 or later is required for DisplayPort alternate mode. Pixel 8 through Pixel 10a are also the recommended devices for GrapheneOS due to 7 years of support from launch and providing the full set of our security requirements. We don't recommend buying a 7th gen Pixel anymore and definitely not 6th gen.

▲ a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]
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▲tacomagick a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Do they allow Dex on Samsung flagships but without a exernal screen yet? Samsung Tab A10 FE had this and it could turn into a desktop in seconds without needing a second screen. However when I thought this would be a killer feature of the Galaxy Fold it was completely missing and just like the flagships of the time it needed a wireless or a wired monitor to run Dex

▲esalman a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Actually, because it's a fold and the external screen is very good, I end up checking notifications and stuff without having to open the phone, which results in less distraction and screen time.

▲ryukafalz a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Or a lapdock for an all-in-one equivalent. The latest NexDock finally has a decent touchpad.

▲monksy a day ago | parent | prev [-]

At what point do we blame google for going the route of regressive and damaging business tacitcs to earn a penny while burning a dollar?

▲trollbridge a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The 11 is a complete turd. Less RAM than the 10.

Sticking with a 9 Pro or 10 Pro is the smart move right now. I’m actually considering spending $400 to get a broken 9 Pro XL fixed…

▲wolvoleo a day ago | parent [-]

Yes but all phones coming out now are going to be complete turds really. They're all going to cut corners to offset the exploding cost of storage and ram.

▲avipars 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The ironic thing is, the tagline for the Pixel 11 is "Ask more of your phone"

▲glitchbot 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Concur. I purchased the 9 pro fold specifically for the mutli physical/ esim and profile features to compartmentalize tools. Solid construction and material. Runs a lil hot but I push it. Its also through Above phone so a few extra bells and whistles.

▲gertrunde a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"The 10 dropped the physical SIM slot"

I'm assuming that's a country specific/dependent thing?

(My pixel 10 does have a physical sim slot).

▲grapheneos a day ago | parent [-]

It was removed from the non-Fold devices in the US. They kept it for other countries due to only considering the US carriers to be ready for eSIM-only.

▲wolvoleo a day ago | parent [-]

True, here in Europe they're definitely not. Especially on prepaid. I wouldn't buy a phone without dual physical sim. eSIM is nice for travelling but I want physical for my daily numbers. This way I can stick them in any phone I want and even in my 4G backup modem.

▲codethief a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The 10 dropped the physical SIM slot

Not sure about the 10, but at least the 10 Pro still has one.

▲grapheneos a day ago | parent | next [-]

It was removed from the whole non-folding Pixel 10 series in the US. It still has the SIM card slot elsewhere. We had to return a Pixel 10 bricked due to a firmware bug and it was the US model since we'd bought it in the US and sent it overseas with a forwarding service. Google's repair partner shop was quite confused about the lack of a SIM card slot to get the IMEI and we only had a serial number but they figured out using the serial number instead.

There's still dual SIM support either way and you can store dozens of inactive eSIMs. The main downside of eSIMs is widespread lack of transfer support by carriers.

▲1718627440 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Why do they do the whole work of designing to separate variants, when they could just ship the single variant and the customers simply never use the slot, if they don't want it?

▲Grombobulous a day ago | parent | prev [-]

After switching providers with a recent phone with eSIM, I would say I’d never want to go back to physical SIMs ever again.

They’re going to go away worldwide eventually, they’re just more easily removed in the US where the carriers are more bleeding edge on features and there are only 3 providers to think about in a very large homogenous market.

The difference between waiting for a SIM card to arrive in the mail or traveling to a store, fiddling with a paperclip, tray, and impossibly tiny nano-SIM versus switching providers in 10 minutes via an app is night and day.

Most SIM/dual SIM solutions also involve removing both SIM cards at once even to swap out one of two, and they tend to require device restarts.

In the past I’ve also had network problems as a result of bad/damaged SIM cards.

▲drnick1 a day ago | parent | next [-]

You seem to forget that moving an eSIM between phones isn't nearly as straightforward as moving a physical SIM, and often must be requested or approved by the carrier. If for some reason you intend to use the same SIM in various phones for one reason or another, it's a huge inconvenience.

▲Grombobulous a day ago | parent [-]

Technically, the same thing can happen with a physical SIM. I tried that with a Nexus 5X on Verizon and that's how I learned their network has an allowlist system.

▲drnick1 a day ago | parent [-]

How does the carrier even know what phone you are going to use? My last SIM was bought in store at T Mobile, for cash, and I can freely move between phones. I never buy phones from carriers. My Pixel as bought directly from Google and immediately flashed with Graphene.

▲skirmish a day ago | parent | next [-]

They do know, I experienced it myself.

I had a testing phone and my regular phone, I kept swapping the same Verizon SIM between them. It worked for maybe 3 swaps, then Verizon blocked my account and sent me an email: suspicious activity detected, the SIM is blocked and cannot be restored, the contract has been terminated, you will receive the refund in mail.

Good riddance, US Mobile is so much cheaper and pleasant to use. I am scared to swap SIMs with them now though.

▲Grombobulous a day ago | parent | prev [-]

IMEI maybe?

This could have also been an issue where I needed to activate on some other phone before transferring to a Nexus 5X in order for me to get it to work.

Verizon is known to be the most restrictive carrier in the US as far as allowed devices.

▲fc417fc802 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Can I switch out an eSIM while running an AOSP based ROM yet (ie no proprietary userspace)? Last time I checked (several years ago) it didn't seem to be possible. Did that change?

▲monksy a day ago | parent | prev [-]

ooo I can't wait for the CDMA carrier locking boogaloo all over again.

▲dathinab a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

it might be worth considering that for many Phones different hardware is sold _under the same marketing name_.

The most common versions (in the "west) are AFIK:

- US version vs. international version

(just the most common divide of Phones you will see "in the west", e.g. if a brand sell to China, that also is normally it's own sub-versions.)

the most common differences include:

- different modems

- US phones being carrier locked (which is not normal outside of the US and a few other countries)

- US phones not having sim card slots, the international version of the same (Android) Phones, often still has a physical sim card slot

▲MattTheRealOne a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not in the United States. Only the Fold still has a physical SIM slot.

▲esalman a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Can confirm, pixel 10 is esim only.

▲grapheneos a day ago | parent [-]

It was removed from the non-Fold devices in the US. They kept it for other countries due to only considering the US carriers to be ready for eSIM-only.

▲sieabahlpark a day ago | parent | prev [-]

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