Anyone want me to pick up a Pixel 8 in Aus let me know. I'm back this weekend.

heavenlywild:

Anyone want me to pick up a Pixel 8 in Aus let me know. I'm back this weekend.

timmmay: I read some research papers a few years ago, and some articles published by AccuBattery. The conclusion I came to was to prolong lithium battery life do not charge over 80%. Conversely, it doesn't particularly matter how low the battery level goes, though I tried to keep it above 10%. I charge to 80% or 85%, with approx monthly charges from 10% to 100%. I think I have some of the research and PDF form at home, I could dig it out if anyone is interested.

My pixel 4a battery was kept in the range of 20% to 80% most of its life, with monthly full charges. After 3 1/2 years of usage at AccuBattery said the battery was still a rated at 97% of original capacity. It may have still been that if I charged all the way to 100%, I don't really know for sure.

Samsung phones have a protect battery function which stops charging at 85% but pixels don't have anything like that as far as I'm aware. Instead I use the AccuBattery app which can make a noise when it reaches a given charge level so you can manually unplug the phone.

To automate that I had the home assistant Android client monitor my battery level, including sending level every minute when it is plugged in and charging. When it reaches 80% I have the smart plug that the charger is attached to turn off. It's quite a simple automation if you know home assistant.

I doubt any battery will last 8 years. I think I read that Google will provide replacement batteries, there's already an unofficial ifixit process. It might be simpler to just charge your phone as normal and replace the battery every few years.

Useful article here. Key conclusion: "The result showed that, when only considering ageing from different types of driving in small Depth of Discharges (DODs), using a reduced charge level of 50% SOC increased the lifetime expectancy of the vehicle battery by 44–130%. When accounting for the calendar ageing as well, this proved to be a large part of the total ageing."

There's also this, but it's more difficult to read.

Jvipers2: I did that on an iPhone and it didn't work, battery still degraded to 95% after 18 months. So I was wondering if it was a myth.

gzt: Imo not enough time to know if it made any difference or not. 5% is within all kinds of margins for error.

lchiu7:

 

Well my phone and Nest Camera solar charger have been held up by Customs

 

This is the message when I go to tracking.

 

 

 

The parcel or shipment has been assessed by New Zealand Customs and they require an import entry before it is released from our facility. Why does this happen? Your parcel requires a Duties and / or GST assessment which will be undertaken by:
- A Customs Broker as nominated by you (Personal use goods or commercial goods)
- Yourself directly with the New Zealand Customs Service (Personal use goods only)   What happens next? You will receive (or will have already received) a letter or email advising of the requirement for a customs clearance to be undertaken to enable the release of your parcel.   I guess since Customs won't have my email they will snail mail advisement.

 

Good news for me in the end. Turns out that Customs had sent me an email which I had not seen. They just wanted me to provide a NZCS-236 form with a personal Customs number. I had that and so sent it off. They the asked for the street address of Google :-) I provided that and a link o the phone/bud on Google US store front and that seemed to satisfy them. The phone is now wih NZ Post; I can't wait :-)

Anyone know where MightyApe is getting their stock from? I know they've sourced Pixel phones from Japan in the past which is something I'd like to avoid

timmmay:

 

Pixel 8 speed tests on Vodafone. Both from inside a car.

 

• 5G in Newtown, Wellington 66Mbps down, 9Mbps up. 
• LTE in another inner Wellington suburb, 67Mbps down 43Mbps up.

 

 

Cool since I use Kogan and they are a One MVNO.

How are people finding their 8 Pro? I've been in the Apple walled garden for the last 2 years and I'm about done with the software updates breaking something new every time it's released, not to mention the horrendous text correction experience. Never had a pixel phone before and tempted to make the switch across, am over in Melbourne next week and JB have it on sale for $1298, which seems an insane deal. One reservation I have is going from the battery king to a middle of the pack battery, how have people found it so far in that regard? Any regrets with the purchase so far?

timmmay: I have the pixel 8 non-pro. It's really just another phone, works quite well, partially supported by carriers in New Zealand (no voice over Wi-Fi), a few nice features mostly around photos, but I don't really use any of them. The battery life using mobile data is quite terrible, but on Wi-Fi. The battery life is quite good.

In your place I would strongly consider the Samsung S24 which should come out early next year. It has a telephoto lens, no weird camera bump, should have some AI features (not that I think they are particularly valuable), fully supported in New Zealand. You miss out on a few pixel specific features, the only ones that seem to work well in New Zealand are photo related. The mobile data battery life should be much better if it uses the Qualcomm chipset.

Interesting, doesn't sound like a particularly top tier experience sadly. Not sure I have the patience to wait for the S24 release, want off the sheep train ASAP :-D

Just received a new security update for Android 14 on my Pixel 7a (Dated 1 Nov 2023).

Interested to know if anyone on 2Degrees can use WiFi Calling after this update on late model Pixels?

I'm currently with Spark who provide WiFi calling on my Pixel, but would like to move back to 2Degrees with the rest of the Family so we can share our data.

Spark also has zero mobile reception where I am whereas 2Degrees at least gets a few bars.

Thorak:

 

timmmay: I have the pixel 8 non-pro. It's really just another phone, works quite well, partially supported by carriers in New Zealand (no voice over Wi-Fi), a few nice features mostly around photos, but I don't really use any of them. The battery life using mobile data is quite terrible, but on Wi-Fi. The battery life is quite good.

In your place I would strongly consider the Samsung S24 which should come out early next year. It has a telephoto lens, no weird camera bump, should have some AI features (not that I think they are particularly valuable), fully supported in New Zealand. You miss out on a few pixel specific features, the only ones that seem to work well in New Zealand are photo related. The mobile data battery life should be much better if it uses the Qualcomm chipset.

 

 

 

Interesting, doesn't sound like a particularly top tier experience sadly. Not sure I have the patience to wait for the S24 release, want off the sheep train ASAP :-D

 

I think experience can be dependent on the carrier.
Spark / Skinny are currently the only carriers that support all calling methods.
5G can be quite draining on the battery, but Pixels have a setting where it can turn off 5G unless you are using enough throughput that it actually requires 5G - then it turns it back on for you.

Haptic experience across Pixels is probably better than any other phone you will touch.

Any phone can be slightly broken with an update - including pixels