Pixel 4

- Turned off all location crap, no GPS on ever, unless actually using Maps, no apps using locations, and never scanning or searching.
- Turned off AoD ( Always on Display )
- Screen timeout set to 30 seconds
- Apps shutdown upon closing them
- Ambient EQ off
- Nearby Songs and that fluff all off, no squeeze to activate and that crap
- Motion Sense on, but only have Reach to check Phone enabled
- Smooth Display off, but Forced 90hz on

I'm at over 7+ SoT and I haven't done anything but leave screen timeout to 30, turn off AoD (i simply don't need it), and eliminate animations. I absolutely hate animations. I don't need to watch something fade away or shrink to the taskbar. Just get it the fuck outta my way.

I never have location on ever, I don't want my GPS running in the background so people can track me.

You're tinfoil is on too tight but not quite tight enough I guess because you still have a smartphone. You're still being tracked. :p

Yup, they took that away. You have to swipe in from either the left or right edge to do a back now and for some people it's difficult (I didn't have trouble on my 2 XL but it caused other problems).

I have no opinion on the launcher swiping version from Pixel 3 as I've never used it but I moved to just gestures on my OnePlus 6T a long time ago and found it far nicer than anything before. I have a bit of a learning curve right now with my 4XL since the gestures are much different but another few days and I'll have erased all the muscle memory from the 6T. Once you use it for a few days you realize how much faster it can actually be. My only wish is that we could customize the gestures to suit our needs. That would be awesome.
 
Every time I look at my 11 Pro Max next to my 3XL I wish there was some way to install Android on the iPhone.
that would kind of defeat the purpose though. The reason why an iPhone perform the way it does despite having less ram and battery capacity is its OS (specifically the memory management part). I’d rather have the opposite and get iOS on android flagship hardware. Can you imagine what iOS could do with 6-8GB of RAM and over 4000mAh of battery?
 
that would kind of defeat the purpose though. The reason why an iPhone perform the way it does despite having less ram and battery capacity is its OS (specifically the memory management part). I’d rather have the opposite and get iOS on android flagship hardware. Can you imagine what iOS could do with 6-8GB of RAM and over 4000mAh of battery?
I just don't care much for iOS -- its look, restrictions, etc. iOS on a flagship Android phone would be a waste of good hardware, IMO.
 
i got 8hrs of SOT from my 7T just using the phone normally or default settiings. If you don't want to be tracked do not use a smartphone.
 
In theory it could be possible with the CheckM8 exploit on the the iPhone X and earlier but in practice it's pretty impossible.
 
Gotta say this Pixel 4 XL has outstanding battery life. One of the best battery phones I've owned in years. Right now I unplugged at 7:00am with full 100% charge, it is now 3:00pm and battery at 83% showing 1h 53m SoT.
 
Almost all phones also have a bit of a "dead zone" where it takes more usage than normal to drop it from 100>>99%

A "real test" would be to leave the phone at around 80 percent, let it sit overnight and then start using it the next day and see how much SoT you actually get.
 
Almost all phones also have a bit of a "dead zone" where it takes more usage than normal to drop it from 100>>99%

A "real test" would be to leave the phone at around 80 percent, let it sit overnight and then start using it the next day and see how much SoT you actually get.

I have the regular Pixel 4 and here's a couple screen captures of my battery life. I started my day off at 91% battery since I didn't leave it to charge all night, started using it at 7am. I got 6 hours and 12 minutes. It was on WiFi, so on cellular I'm probably looking at closer to 5-5.5 hours SoT which exceeds my normal usage habits.

- SoT
- Usage 1/2
- Usage 2/2
 
Almost all phones also have a bit of a "dead zone" where it takes more usage than normal to drop it from 100>>99%

A "real test" would be to leave the phone at around 80 percent, let it sit overnight and then start using it the next day and see how much SoT you actually get.

Same is true for the last 1% to 0% and dying. I think the true test is going from 100% to dead, as a lot of times that last percent lasts a lot longer than any other 1% increment, or sometimes you don't even see that last percent if the battery's health is bad and it's pretty worn.
 
Another issue is that 100% is actually a range in most smartphones because it's significantly better for the battery to not actually hold it at "true" 100%. That's probably the source of the "extra" 100% time.

On the other end of the spectrum, with a very heavy workload, your phone might shut itself off before 0% but still be able to turn on and be used for light workloads for quite a while longer.


Batteries are not simple and that's the reason why I consider it corner cutting to fit a smaller than market average battery in your phone. It gives a buffer to avoid the extremes which means less battery wear, less battery anxiety and fewer unexplained shutdowns.
 
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Another issue is that 100% is actually a range in most smartphones because it's significantly better for the battery to not actually hold it at "true" 100%. That's probably the source of the "extra" 100% time.

On the other end of the spectrum, with a very heavy workload, your phone might shut itself off before 0% but still be able to turn on and be used for light workloads for quite a while longer.


Batteries are not simple and that's the reason why I consider it corner cutting to fit a smaller than market average battery in your phone. It gives a buffer to avoid the extremes which means less battery wear, less battery anxiety and fewer unexplained shutdowns.

0% can also be very misleading with temperature. Take a 0% battery from a cold environment warm it up then restart might even go up to 1% lol
 
As you probably know,

At the present time, to use the new Google Assistant, you need a Pixel 4 with:

  • The Google app, version 10.73 and up.
  • Google Play services.
  • A Google Account that’s not through your work or school.
  • The Assistant language set to "English - United States."
  • Navigation mode set to Gesture navigation.
Update:
Spoke to Google Support and the CSR performed a live remote to my Pixel 4 XL . The CSR viewed me accessing the New Assistant in Gesture Mode and viewed me being not able to access the New Assistant in 3-button mode. I requested that they issue an update to fix the issue.

CSR said Google is presently addressing issues with the Pixel 4. The CSR submitted my request to their Technical Department.

Keeping my fingers crossed that they will issue a fix for the New Assistant/3-button navigation issue.
 
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I just don't care much for iOS -- its look, restrictions, etc. iOS on a flagship Android phone would be a waste of good hardware, IMO.

iPadOS didn’t do much to make file system restrictions easier to deal with either.
I’m kinda questioning what Apple considers Pro.
 
Droid Life's review title's were amusing:

Pixel 4 XL Review: This Isn’t an $899 Phone.

Google Pixel 4 Review: Nope, Not This One.

Pretty sure I'm passing on the 4 at this point, even if there's a good BF deal. I may change my mind when the time comes though. I would just really like my next phone to have a wide angle lens, more/faster storage, and I'm still really annoyed at losing my original pics/vids backups. Pretty sure I'd be fine with the battery on the 4 XL at this point, but Google is really trying to put the bare minimum in these phones in terms of hardware to justify anywhere near their asking price. They dropped one of their most significant perks (unlimited original media backup) and with how many bugs they let slip through in every other update, that almost seems like a con as much as it is a perk at this point.
 
Droid Life's review title's were amusing:

Pixel 4 XL Review: This Isn’t an $899 Phone.

Google Pixel 4 Review: Nope, Not This One.

Pretty sure I'm passing on the 4 at this point, even if there's a good BF deal. I may change my mind when the time comes though. I would just really like my next phone to have a wide angle lens, more/faster storage, and I'm still really annoyed at losing my original pics/vids backups. Pretty sure I'd be fine with the battery on the 4 XL at this point, but Google is really trying to put the bare minimum in these phones in terms of hardware to justify anywhere near their asking price. They dropped one of their most significant perks (unlimited original media backup) and with how many bugs they let slip through in every other update, that almost seems like a con as much as it is a perk at this point.

I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that I'm passing this go around. I need a physically smaller phone compared to the XL, and the non-XL battery is just too weak. Unless they start giving them away closer to $500, I'm not biting.
 
Droid Life's review title's were amusing:

Pixel 4 XL Review: This Isn’t an $899 Phone.

Google Pixel 4 Review: Nope, Not This One.

Pretty sure I'm passing on the 4 at this point, even if there's a good BF deal. I may change my mind when the time comes though. I would just really like my next phone to have a wide angle lens, more/faster storage, and I'm still really annoyed at losing my original pics/vids backups. Pretty sure I'd be fine with the battery on the 4 XL at this point, but Google is really trying to put the bare minimum in these phones in terms of hardware to justify anywhere near their asking price. They dropped one of their most significant perks (unlimited original media backup) and with how many bugs they let slip through in every other update, that almost seems like a con as much as it is a perk at this point.
I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that I'm passing this go around. I need a physically smaller phone compared to the XL, and the non-XL battery is just too weak. Unless they start giving them away closer to $500, I'm not biting.
After careful consideration, I'm passing on the 4XL, too. The deal-breaker for me is face unlock vs. fingerprint scanner. I have to use FU (pun intended) on my job-provided 11 Pro Max. It works about 70% the first time. Every time it fails I'm reminded of how much I miss the fingerprint method. Sure, FU is supposed to work better on the 4XL, but I still won't like it. No sense spending nearly $1000 on a phone that's already got a major strike against it.

Maybe the 5XL or OnePlus 8 will inspire me to upgrade. Until then...
 
You know me. I typically won’t recommend oneplus but will recommend the Pixel and the essential phone as the only android phones to get. This year the 4/XL will not get my recommendation. And since Essential 2 and the essential candy bar (evidently the essential 2 isn’t the candy bar) aren’t available yet, the only 2019 android flagship that manages to pass my tests based on price, smoothness, battery life, camera quality and security is the OnePlus 7 Pro/7T. I got two members of the family itching to upgrade their android devices; I’m hoping their essential phones to last one or two more seasons.
 
Every time I reconcile myself to accept the changes Google has made on the 4XL (loss of fingerprint scanner, weak battery) a new one is revealed. Google is making it very easy for me to tell them to go fornicate themselves with the new Pixel. :rage:
Kinda where I'm at. I wanted to replace my 3, but I just can't bring myself to spend the cash on what I consider to be a down grade.

Hopefully the 5 brings back the hotness. Until then I might pick up a 2 if I can find a good price for them; easily the best phone I've ever owned ( over the 3 really ).
 
I must admit, as much as I think I'd enjoy the Pixel 4 XL, it reminds me of why I'm comfortable having an iPhone as my main phone. Android currently feels a bit like a pick-your-poison situation where there's some gotcha you'll have to live with.

Pixel 4 series: sub-par battery life and low max storage
OnePlus 7 Pro: mediocre camera
Samsung anything: lousy update policy, gimmicky software strategy and Bixby
Huawei anything: US restrictions affecting updates

And that's frustrating, because I'd like to think that there's some Android phone out there that would cover all the bases. But nope -- the drawbacks are hard-to-ignore problems.
 
The phone I'm most looking forward to is a Pixel 4a next summer (hopefully).
 
To be fair, it's not a realistic test.

But on the counterpoint, most phones in 2019 are reinforced against this sort of thing.

Apple got shredded for it back with the 6 Plus and has been a pretty standard “test” for Jerry since then. Surprised that the Pixel 4 XL would be on this list as it feels like a very solid phone.
 
Jerryrig (Zack is his real name) was the one to fold 2 Nexus 6Ps in half too, which I had that phone and didn't have any bending issues even after sitting on it in my back pocket plenty.

So while his tests shouldn't concern most people, it's interesting and worth pointing out that these phones are almost twice as expensive as the 6P was too, so they should definitely be designed better than that considering no other phone recently has done that bad.
 
I never have location on ever, I don't want my GPS running in the background so people can track me.

Every cell tower you ping and wifi signal you walk by is logged. They know where you are.

I went on a late night walk in Sydney for two hours with 20% battery life and decided to try out the new camera modes (the last picture was earlier in the day). They're okay. I'm no photographer by any means and I have not edited these pictures in any way. At the end of the night I had 8% remaining. I've never worried about battery life with my phones. I'm always near a charger. I think the Pixel 4 XL is on par with the rest of the Pixel line up. I use standard settings with wifi/bluetooth/gps on. I haven't customized the phone in any way.
 

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Every cell tower you ping and wifi signal you walk by is logged. They know where you are.

not to mention turning off GPS just means that certain apps are prevented from accessing it, all Google apps and a few other normal apps still use it.
 
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