[padmrajravi]

Originally Posted by am1m

I think we need to forget about that, they're not making good compact phones anymore. The Samsung s24 is now considered a 'compact' phone!

I too want something I can carry in my pocket without it looking like I'm 'really happy' to see everyone around me all the time! And I've been looking, but apart from the ageing iPhone SE, and the expensive Samsung z flip, doesn't seem like there are any other options.

Flip phones are the only option if one needs a compact phone these days. The outer screen of phones like Galaxy Flip 6 and Motorola ones have improved a lot now and you don't need to open the phone at all in most cases. They are very pocket friendly and It is only when you want to watch a video or type a long email that you would need to open the phone. Otherwise use it as a compact phone with just the outer screen. PS : I don't own one yet, but I having been thinking about letting go of my S23U for a Flip 6 just because of its size.

[Chetan_Rao]

I think I'm going to squeeze the remaining life out of my 4a and then get one of the 'smaller' newer Pixels to replace it. 6.3 inches/~180 grams seems to be the new 'compact' nowadays, up from 5.8-6 inches/~150 grams of yesteryear.

I tried a bunch of phones in-store, and I admit I can't deal with the skins and other add-ons on top of stock Android anymore. Flagship Samsungs down to the cheap Chinese stuff, they're all annoying.

Another Pixel at some point it will have to be, I suppose.

[fiat_tarun]

Originally Posted by Sheel

Can you please share a link to the transparent skin? Thanks !

Check out https://gadgetshieldz.com/. I used the clear matte skin but since the Pixel has the rounded edges, it tends to start peeling off after some time. This time I got a random skin off Amazon with a carbon fibre texture which also looks and feels pretty good.

[dragonfire]

I have placed an order for a Poco F6 for my son. He will mainly use it for light gaming (ROBLOX, FORTNITE etc) and Youtube. I searched this thread and do not see any mentions about this phone.

People in the know, please can you comment about how good/bad this phone is and whether it is good enough for gaming? Also how does it fare compared to the cheaper but similarly speced X6 Pro?

I have 2 days to cancel the delivery and pick a different phone. Thank you all in advance.

[shipnil]

Originally Posted by fiat_tarun

This time I got a random skin off Amazon with a carbon fibre texture which also looks and feels pretty good.

Sorry for asking a basic question. What is the difference between a back cover and skin? Are the skins just for looks and offer no protection from drops?

Have you bought the skin from the website or Amazon?

[fiat_tarun]

Originally Posted by shipnil

Sorry for asking a basic question? What is the difference between a back cover and skin? Are the skins just for looks and offer no protection from drops?

Have you bought the skin from the website or Amazon?

A skin is like a ppf on your phone. It offers limited protection but retains the feel of using the phone without a case. I prefer clear skins to keep the original phone look and avoid the bulk of a case.

[vb-saan]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

I tried a bunch of phones in-store, and I admit I can't deal with the skins and other add-ons on top of stock Android anymore. Flagship Samsungs down to the cheap Chinese stuff, they're all annoying.

Once you are with the Pixel its hard to go back to cheap (or fancy) Chinese options. Samsung flagships are quite a good bet nowadays (the UI is fluid and good set of cameras) but you won’t get one in the form factor you’re looking for. I repeat what I mentioned earlier – get the Pixel 9 (or 9 Pro), and you will be sorted for the next 3-4 years.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by vb-saan

Once you are with the Pixel its hard to go back to cheap (or fancy) Chinese options. Samsung flagships are quite a good bet nowadays (the UI is fluid and good set of cameras) but you won’t get one in the form factor you’re looking for. I repeat what I mentioned earlier – get the Pixel 9 (or 9 Pro), and you will be sorted for the next 3-4 years.

9 Pro (the smaller one) hasn't made it here yet. It shows available for pre-orders on Flipkart, so should be launched shortly. Will check it out.

Even the 9 is more than good enough specs-wise for me, but if one's paying that much, might as well get the full-fat one for a bit more and be sorted for 5 years.

[yedukrishnan199]

Originally Posted by dragonfire

I have placed an order for a Poco F6 for my son. He will mainly use it for light gaming (ROBLOX, FORTNITE etc) and Youtube. I searched this thread and do not see any mentions about this phone.

People in the know, please can you comment about how good/bad this phone is and whether it is good enough for gaming? Also how does it fare compared to the cheaper but similarly speced X6 Pro?

I have 2 days to cancel the delivery and pick a different phone. Thank you all in advance.

The Poco F6 offers an excellent OLED display with HDR10+ and Dolby Vision with the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 providing unmatched performance in this class. It comes with 90W fast charging, a very good stereo speaker setup and a good main camera.

However, it has pretty mediocre battery life, with a poor ultrawide camera and only has a virtual proximity sensor (instead of a proper hardware-based one)

The Phone is best suited for gaming and performance and the chipset and memory options prove that.

The X6 Pro on the other hand is a good phone for the price with exceptional performance for its class, but against the Poco F6, the Poco F6 would be the better buy.

At its price, its major competitors are the Realme GT 6T, and OnePlus Nord 4 but they both cost much more than the Poco F6 which makes the F6 a better VFM buy overall.

[tbppjpr]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

might as well get the full-fat one for a bit more and be sorted for 5 years.

Expecting 5 years out of these Exynos based Pixels is too much optimistic even when Google is promising 7 years of software support.

I have been using Pixel 6 since Aug 2022. Few days back updated to Android 15 and all was going fine until I noticed popped out screen all of sudden at upper right corner of the phone.

Culprit turned out the swollen battery. But why when I updated the firmware? Because Exynos based Pixels heat up too much. And it was a long session of update since I prefer to format-update-reformat while updating the OS. So phone had to go through lot of heat during the process.



There is reason why even Samsung buyers prefer Snapdragon variants over Exynos. Same is the case with Mediateks, both these processors just kill the batteries and other components prematurely.

Contacted Google service station, they refused to touch my Pixel 6 being an unsupported device in India, which was expected and I was aware of it when I bought it. That time Google was not selling Pixels in India, they re-entered in India with 6a after few months I bought the 6.

I did some research about some sources to get genuine spare parts before buying Pixel 6 and learnt that iFixit has tied up with Google as official 3rd party partner who will keep providing 'genuine' spare parts for 5 years, it was great. But When I tried to buy the battery now, I could not because they don't deliver to India.

So finally I had only option left to visit the third party mobile repairing vendors where my experience has been terrible so far. Got the battery replaced and returned back to home. There came a call and I could not attend it because there was no audio. I checked the audio in videos, no audio. vibrations also malfunctioned. I tried to open the volume control and ended up with error. Even payment apps stopped working. So the first bummer was quicker than past experience this time.

Again had to go back to the outlet where the guy kept the phone for few hours to get another battery and install it. Phone has started working fine, atleast for now. But I have very little hope with this new battery considering my past experience with the replacement batteries.

Expecting anything over 2-3 years is way too much with these Exynos based Pixels. Google has taken it too far with the Pixel 9 by modifying and dragging the same chip since Pixels 6. They are good buy only if priced under or around 35K.

If you are also a person who prefers to keep the device for long term then wait for 2027, courtesy this:

European Union : Smartphones Must Have User-Replaceable Batteries by 2027

Until then you can get something like Pixel 8a which is currently selling at 35k or even can look at something from the Moto Edge 50 series (Snapdragon versions). These may look big in size on paper but ergonomically they are far greater to hold and use compared to the heavy and huge Pixel bricks. I suggested Edge 50 to few people in my family and friend circle. Whenever I hold and use their Edge 50, Pixels start feeling like some ancient bricks.

But I must point out, Android experience is fluid in Pixels and is going to remain that way since google optimizes Android on Pixels. This fact can be considered as a logical reason to consider other low priced mid-range mobiles since Google will try to optimize Android for their current crop of mediocre Pixels so other midrangers also should be able to perform well for long period of time.

When I had to leave my Pixel 6 at the service vendor for rectification of the battery issue, I used my old Motorola One Power as backup phone which I bought as battery powerhouse in 2019 since I was traveling a lot that time and my primary phone, Moto X2 (genetic brother of that times Google Nexus 6) was not able to hold up for full day with it's small 2200mah battery.

My idea behind buying the midrange One Power was to get a secondary phone which can survive for atleast two days so that less frequent charging will result into fewer charging cycles per year. That idea seems to paid up. Surprisingly the Motorola One Power's battery is still holding up fine.

Being spoiled with the Motorola One Power's battery life, I have never been happy with Pixel 6's one day backup. This has betrayed me during the crucial times while traveling where charging was not possible during the whole day and I was in the need of checking flight status and boarding passes. Experience was even worse than the Moto X2.

I remember many people with frequent traveling jobs used to keep one or more backup batteries handy during the old Nokia times where they used to put charged battery in the phone and the dead battery in the separate charger.

Hope the EU's regulations about the user replaceable batteries come to reality without any obstacle put by the greedy mobile manufacturers. Its pointless to spend so much money on the mobiles which have very short life of 2-3 years due to the fast degrading batteries.

EVs will also turn out into use-and-throw garbage like these mobiles due to the batteries. They are actually selling the fuel along with the car in the EVs where refilling (battery replacement) will not be possible or it will be so much expensive to make any sense over buying new car.

They are actually harming the environment in the name of saving it. Battery alone is the single biggest factor contributing in the sell of so many new mobiles every year, same will be the case with the EVs. They are interested in the electric tech just for their business, not for any social or environmental cause.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

I tried a bunch of phones in-store, and I admit I can't deal with the skins and other add-ons on top of stock Android anymore.

Choose your own launcher. My phone looks much the same, and works with me in an almost identical way to my phones over the past ten years. When/if I eventually buy a Pixel, it's still going to be my own launcher, because otherwise Google won't let the Google search box be removed from the home page.

People may ask, why then do I ever bother, other than death or loss, to buy a new phone! Well, I don't, really. And, just like my desktop desktop (haha) which also hasn't changed in essential functionality for years, there are incremental changes. I make them when I want and need something. One big jump, for me, on the phone, has been the shift to gesture navigation. It has a few quirks that annoy me, but I'm glad to be rid of the three buttons. I made that change and I like it.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Choose your own launcher...

Before I got the Pixel, I used a paid version of Nova Launcher (Prime?) for a long time and it was great, until Android started blocking some of the launcher's features at OS level, and using the Pixel just made me not bother with customising anything anymore. I liked it out-of-the-box, even though it doesn't have some of the tricks other skinned OS versions or launchers add in.

A midranger with stock Android (that the 4a was when I bought it) is perfectly fine for my use case. I'm a minimal effort gadget user now. I'm not wowed by anything I have no day-to-day use for

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

Before I got the Pixel, I used a paid version of Nova Launcher (Prime?) for a long time and it was great, until Android started blocking some of the launcher's features at OS level

That's where I am. Nova is still enhancing my Android experience with Android 14 on my Moto, which is also said to be fairly-plain android. I haven't noticed anything that I want to do being prevented, I don't think.

My problems with recent Android are: write/access permissions and preventing a lovely app that reset volume levels at a given time. Now there is do not disturb which one can set for a period of whole hours which is an absurd and ridiculous interface design. But they prevented 3rd party apps doing it.

[Fuldagap]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

One big jump, for me, on the phone, has been the shift to gesture navigation. It has a few quirks that annoy me, but I'm glad to be rid of the three buttons. I made that change and I like it.

I am in the same boat. Using gestures for an year now. In my Moto I use "Smallest Width" as 761 dp (developer options).

The phone works the way i want now but can't use the 3 buttons now, the OS is not able to handle the display of the 3 buttons owing to 761 dp. Had to, therefore, unwillingly use the gestures.

I don't like gestures, but here I am forced to use it. I am really unhappy getting rid of those 3 buttons.

[dragonfire]

Originally Posted by tbppjpr

Hope the EU's regulations about the user replaceable batteries come to reality without any obstacle put by the greedy mobile manufacturers.

I wish they don't succeed. They are a bunch of loonies with so much powers whi think that they can legislate their way to prosperity. I like my slim phones and hate the idea of carrying an one inch thick iPhone in my pocket. If there was a market for a phone with user replaceable battery somebody would have made it. HTC, Nokia, LG all went out of business not being able to sell their phones, yet no one cared to address the crowd that wanted a phone with user replaceable battery and stay in business. They stayed greedy and chose to die. Ironic, ain't it?

What the EU loonies are trying to do is shove their crap down our throats although we don't want it.