Category Archives: Reviews

Razer Barracuda X First Impression/Review

Long time no blog.

As with the other white-collar types during the Pandemic, I worked from home a lot–almost exclusively now. That’s great for my hour+ commute life, but I had to upgrade my home IT equipment to make things work well. I can probably get deeper into this at the end of this post.

But it’s in this backdrop that Razer drops their latest wireless gaming headset, which comes with this T-shaped USB-C dongle that works with Playstation, PC, Switch and your smartphone, most likely. I think that’s awesome, and I didn’t really try it out on the smartphone, for reasons I’ll explain, but that’s great on paper. For $99 MSRP that’s a nice set of reqs.

In addition, there’s a proper microphone on the stalk that even has L/R directionality. The padding on the ears are memory foam. It provides great passive audio isolation for a $100 headset arguably for gamers. Prior to the Barracuda X, I was using the Logitech G733, which is, uh, way too gamerZ for this old man who is using it to run, uh, raids, the dungeons are called “Quarterly business review” and “customer escalation bridge.” I mean, I do talk to my team every day, we are on vc often, just that we battle using Zoom, Slack, email, Jira, and, well you get the idea.

Razer Barracuda X‘s sound quality is significant better than the Logitech. The mic quality is also better. There’s more isolation. It purports a longer battery life, and is charged in the same way through a USB-C charging cable. Volume control, secondary button (which is mapped to the power button), and a mute button, plus volume, all on headset. The wireless range is on par with the G733. It’s about the same price. The T-shaped USB-C dongle also comes with a USB-C(f) to USB-A(m) cable for sanity’s sake if you have to plug that into a PC or a crowded laptop port.

It all made sense to me, which is why when it was released, I bought it the day of and went right at it for almost a week. Turns out, this product just didn’t quite cut it, for these reasons:

The memory foam doesn’t dissipate heat well, and my ears get warm after an hour. That’s not going to cut it especially in the summer months.
My head is on the large side, and the fit is a little tight. The G733 uses an elastic band to basically double-support the top of my head (think AKG), while the Razer looks a bit like my Sony WH1000X-MK4. I’m happy with the Sony (in fact I flew transpacific with them all the time no issues, back when that was a thing qq). It’s just that the Sony headphones are notably bigger than the Razer, and actually is meaningfully “over ear” where as the Razer is more “on ear.” Without those comforts the heat and pressure become a notable factor in short order.
The microphone stalk has a cover that is symmetric (like a grape), it is also symmetric once you cover up the mic part with the cover. Which means people may not hear you properly if you didn’t orient the stalk correctly given it is a stereo mic. It’s all black and symmetric, so you wouldn’t be able to tell if the mic is oriented correctly unless you 1) figure it out by touch or 2) remove the cover. This got me on a work call, which basically soured me on this headset completely, even if I now know why and can address it. The funny thing is for people without stereo output on their headsets, they’ll hear you fine. Imagine that confusion while raiding. No thank you.

Overall, this is a great pair of headphones and I probably would be able to put up with these pitfalls, but they’re showstoppers versus what’s on the market now. I don’t think there are better wireless PC/gamer headphones than these on spec, however, especially given the $99 starting price. It’s surely going to get discounted, and these would make pretty good work headphones too.

If Razer makes a v2 that address those 3 problems, they have a winner. Actually all they need to do is make a more directionally visible mic stalk that captures the audio correctly (maybe they can also do a software cue), and make these bigger. For now, back to Amazon they go.

PS. Just as a matter of spilling it out, I basically converted my everyday workstation for work purposes. I put a VM on it to do the VPN stuff. I hooked up part of it with OneDrive for work. I drive my apps mostly via old copies of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and a Chrome window doing everything else (like email and stuff I don’t run local). Since I already run 3 monitors, this makes working easier than I had on hand in the office. For audio, at first I ran with my Blue Yeti with a pair of headphones as monitor, and I would run the Zoom audio into the Yeti. This probably sounds great, but I had to be talking into the mic and it’s tiring for long calls, plus the Yeti picks up all the background sounds. I also tried my previous go-tos, like that Fiio bluetooth dongle I used with my wired earphones back when I get to travel more. I also used my WF-1000m3s. Those all worked, but the mic quality were lacking. The BT transmission is not great either, so the range isn’t good enough–not even so I can sneak into the bathroom. That’s when I went to the G733, about a couple months before the holidays in 2020. In short, the G733 fixed all the issues, even if it is not a great headset either, especially in terms of quality. For video, I had this kind-of-old Logitech C920, which worked perfectly fine. I also did not have a shortage of laptop and laptop-likes that had front-facing cams. Only thing that I wish would work better was the action cam I got, which couldn’t quite just work like a webcam straight and required finagling.

Sony WH-1000XM4

I finally bit the bullet and upgraded my Sony WH-1000X, the OG wireless bluetooth cans with badass sound cancelling–the one that didn’t use SBC! I went from mark 1 (technically they’re just not mark anything, but I’ll call them XM1 to keep it simple) to XM4, so there are actually some big differences. Most of them are probably already there if you got the mark 3s.

For one, I went from a refurb pair to a new pair. My 1000X was $180 refurb back in 2017 holiday season. It’s 3 years later and I went up to about $275 for these. I think that is a stretch, not because the sale was not big enough for me, but because I haven’t had a regular commute to work since March. If I had my usual workday commute, $300 for a three-year investment is well worth it, because these cans are just great all around.

Since I’m comparing the XM4 with the original, it is probably easier to just say what remained the same between the two, and what didn’t.

SAME SAME:

Sound signature: still a tad thick overall versus neutral, is what I’d call it.
LDAC and AAC support
Basically the same form and form factor, with small changes.
Still comes with a carry case with the same fold style and shape
Still comes with a 3.5mm jack for wired use
Same kind of ear pads
Still fits my large-ish head comfortably, if on the snug side
Still comes in black (I got the black one, but there’s also a silver XM4)
Freakishly good ANC
Touch control on right can, buttons on left can (only 2 buttons now on XM4)
Mic still not great (XM4 is better though)

Differences:

XM4 has nearly double the battery life
There’s an app. Since XM2 there was an app but the XM4 stuff is pretty wild. It’s the same app for the WF-1000 line (I also own a pair of WF-1000XM3).
Seamless pairing thanks to Android advances (not that it was particularly an issue before, just much easier now). Also smooth onboarding that’s more or less automatic.
More…bass in the XM4. By a good amount.
XM4 is lighter and less rigid than XM1, which addresses the stress tension failure they had in the OG.
Multi-point support–it’s barely working but it does work. Only caveat is it only supports SBC/AAC when you enable this feature, up to 2 devices max. Honestly AAC is fine for me, but sometimes I still prefer LDAC with the high resolution stuff.
The case is a bit lighter but also a bit flimsier. XM1 case is quite rigid and took a lot of beating (I beat on it a lot, on that note). XM1 case is also a tiny bit more circular and thus a tad bigger. It also didn’t have the little hole in the divider inside to stow the airplane adapter, 3.5mm cable, and possibly your charger cable.
Oh, USB-C on these, so I probably will just ditch the charger cable in the case. My XM1 was literally one of the last two things I carry that still used micro-USB. That said I am likely still to carry a micro-USB cable around even when I go to 0 micro-usb items just because I have some packrat tendencies. [The other micro-USB thing is a BT audio dongle/DAC.]
I think the USB-C port on the XM4 actually has data, where as it’s just power on the XM1, correct me if I’m wrong here.
The XM4 also is $50 more on MSRP, but this is the kind of thing you would never buy MSRP, so not a big deal. I got mine for $278 plus tax minus some credit card promo. Not bad for newish hardware on a Black Friday sale, as the XM4 came out in August 2020.
XM4 sound is more delicate than XM1, but I think this is just a general improvement on Sony’s part.

Overall I think once the ‘rona stay-at-home vibe is over I will be working these hard. I find these headphones teetering more and more towards “need” than “want” over time, even if obviously I don’t need them. It’s just such a nice luxury. Also my XM1 is heading towards physical breakdown due to the headband stress fracture issue. It’s not beyond repair, that said, so maybe they’ll make as great backup or a hand-me-down.

Pixel 4 One-Month Look

The fourth Pixel that I own is a limited-edition Orange 4 with 128GB storage. I already managed to lightly scratch the display (probably because I put it and a lanyard in the same pocket without thinking). Other than that, it’s pretty nice. I’ve even gotten used to this Spigen case, which is the clear TPU one that is a little thicker than the one I rocked with the 3 (which was black).

I think the 4 remarkably similar to Pixel 3, with even better build quality. After using Pixels 1, 2, 3 and 4 each year, you can begin to tell the improvements. Pixel 2 was definitely kind of the odd child out versus the 1, which remains a solid phone if you can get it cheap (although the 3a probably is the better bet now). Pixel 2 was great more because of its crazy software. Pixel 3 was great because it is more like what Pixel 2 should have been–kind of like the 2 XL was for the 1. So Pixel 4 definitely feels more like a “S cycle” upgrade for the 3.

The 4 is great build-wise. Like this is close to Sammy quality. The display is Sammy quality in fact, and it’s got the 90Hz screen that almost got me to buy a OnePlus 7T. Actually without this I would not have bought the 4, at least as I tell myself. It does justify the price a bit.

The new speakers on the 4 sounds better than the 3, which sounds worse than the 2. The polish on 4 is better than the 3, which, in a way, is what makes 2 XL good. No screen gacha meant it is a phone people can recommend, other than the ludicrous price of $799 (or $899 in my case).

So in a lot of ways the 4 is really what things should have been a year ago. The more I think about stuff to write, the more I feel this is true.

I sold my Black 3 128GB for about $350, which reflects the deep discount I got from the Fi deal that were prevalent when the 3 came out. No such a thing came with 4 unless you sign up with Verizon or another contract-laden tier-1. I’m vaguely tempted actually. Sometimes I think the limited color actually would help the aftermarket price.

In the end, I think it’s still worth it, because the hardware is nice. It’s just not a huge jump. Losing full-size backup of Google Photo is a hit but not too bad of a hit. I would think during BF you can probably do enough of a deal to justify, should you fancy that.

As for the new features? 90Hz is as advertised, it is also not worth that much. You can tell, it is nicer, but it is also not a huge deal. Same with the astrophotography mode–you can make some great pics with it, but not really relevant for most people. The new swipe gesture takes getting used to, because more the lack of easy home screen access. The added memory makes the 4 actually practical versus the 3. Again, build quality type improvements in this phone makes the 4 actually a lot more desirable. Face unlock is overall better than fingerprint, but what Google really should have done is combine radar detect with accel method in the iPhone. As is, there are some edge cases where fingerprint is still better. If you use a pwd manager that supports face unlock (like lastpass) you can seamlessly access your app with face unlock.

It’s just that if you are not already doing the Pixel life the past years, there isn’t much candy on that stick to get you forward.

My Model 3 1-year review

[First impressions here]

I have owned my Tesla Model 3 for just over one year. So now is as good of a time to update this on this dead blog I guess.

In the interest of time and brevity I’ll try to cut the fat.

Key details: I live in NJ and we get all 4 seasons. Last winter had a few brutally cold days (<15F or <-10C). The car is a Long Range RWD, black paint and interior, 19″ wheels, with the EAP package at the time. It’s kind of mind boggling that for the same price of my car, I can basically buy the Dual Motors version today. It’s basically the difference of the Federal incentive.

Those were, basically, what I’m lampshading regarding this car.

There weren’t any real issues at delivery. Panel gaps were on average, average. Other than maybe a couple places things were within tolerances.

Day to Day Stuff:

I love the car in terms of just normal, every-day handling. The range is no problem for normal local driving. It’s fast, and the acceleration is extremely notable at higher speeds. Like a gas car can do just as well 0-60 as electric, but if you are already going 65 on the highway, it is a cinch to get to 85 in my Model 3, where as it’s a downshift and uprev in a gas car. The time it takes to get that 20mph probably is less than the time it takes to shift and for the turbo to ramp for some cars. This aspect I love a lot, mainly because it is a practical performance characteristic, and thrilling to apply.

Engine sound used to be my audio cue to how fast I’m driving on the highway often, so in a car without an engine it means I have to learn again how to not speed. With its fast acceleration even at high speeds it was easy to get to 90, 100mph with just stomping on the accel briefly. Only the wind noise cues me in.

I also kinda love summon, and this is not even the enhanced one Musk shows off with these days. At the base level, it lets me park the car into my small garage without having to mind opening the car door inside the garage. The car can pull in and out on its own. Unfortunately the feature was kind of not reliable in version 9 of the software and earlier, but it’s pretty good now. There are also some tricks. For one you need relatively even lighting to let the camera see your garage versus outdoor lighting. Having a person behind the car while it pulls out is also good, as a marker of sorts. The car technically lets you automate the doors as well if your garage opening system is hooked up to it, but I don’t use it. I think it’s possible to hook Alexa up to it and tell it to open the door and pull out your car, but I didn’t look into this.

Having to charge at home means I never need to get “gas” unless I am on a road trip. One less thing to do, but as someone who don’t normally drive this is not a big deal. If you drive everyday this is a huge deal I imagine.

The UI took getting used to but I was over it pretty early, maybe a month in owning? There were some tips that I learned on youtube which were helpful. The most helpful one is, how to stay awake when Autopilot nags you to keep your hands on the wheel. To do that, just rotate any of the dials on the wheel, and it will go away.

I do have EAP package, so I use Autopilot on the highway more often than not. It is extremely helpful for long drives on the highway, and makes things much less tired if just not having to center the car the whole time. A month ago I was driving around all day in a Honda Fit rental in Japan and it made me miss Autopilot a lot. I can totally attest how driving while tired is actually not going to kill you in this car.

Navigate on Autopilot is neat but it isn’t very good, so I don’t use it often. Mainly two reasons: it is not great at lane changes, and it is not great at adjusting speed (it doesn’t, but it ought to). You can manually change lanes to avoid NoA from doing stupid things, but why bother with Navigate on Autopilot at that point.

Issues:

The only trouble I have encountered purely as a matter of the car was the frozen charging cable latch. I was unable to engage it once on a road trip (thus could not charge my car when it needed charging), and I was unable to disengage it once when it was parked in my (detached) garage. Both times, the temperature on average was 17F or less. This is not a deal breaker but a major issue since you can get stranded (in the first-mentioned case).

The solution is to heat up the trunk of the car, so the charging latch defrosts. It is a mechanical device that comes up from the bottom of the charging port and locks in the charging cable. There is a manual release for it, but when it’s frozen it does squat. Really it’s just a proxy for the electronic release available from the dash or your app.

I have contacted Tesla roadside assist the one time it locked up on my road trip, who told me about the workaround: turn heat up, lower back seats, let air in. Their preferred method is a hair dryer (and maybe heat gun but they don’t wanna melt anything).

I also visited the local service center (about 40 minutes away) twice. Once to address my front right wheel which was slowly leaking–that turned out to be a bent wheel due to jumping a curb (don’t ask). I was immediately given a loaner wheel that day when they sent me home with a large bill (~700) so to wait for the replacement wheel to come in. It turned out I actually did not have to pay for it. Long story–about 6 weeks after the visit, I was contacted to make a follow up appointment to do the replacement. I was also quoted a price about half as much (all by a separate dude). I’m like, well ok. So the week before the appointment another guy called and said if they can do the mobile service thing at an even later date. I said OK as it sure beats driving 40 minutes back and forth on a Saturday that I had free, at any rate. Then on the day before the appointment I got a reminder call. On the day of, I left my car in my driveway the day of, and when I got back I got a bill of zero and the work was done. It’s hard to complain about 2 months late service if I didn’t get billed for it. Plus it was not a pressing problem due to the loaner wheel that I had.

So yes, service can be very slow, but if your issue has to do with, say, a leaking wheel, that is high priority and you can just go to the service center, they have to send you out in driving shape. YMMV I guess.

As for damage, my car had some curb rash on one of the wheel (I am all too familiar with this as my Miata had the same proclivities, both having low profile tires) and the front bumper has some minor scratch on the bottom, just because sometimes I can’t see the curb and drive just over it.

As they say, the black interior is not the best for hiding dirt. I haven’t had much time spent wiping down the interior. The center console can look grimy. It fogs easily inside the windshield but I solved this by applying an anti-fog spray/cleaner.

Road trip:

I don’t drive regularly, but I did drive to Toronto twice, Baltimore twice, DC/NoVA once, and just normally on weekends around the area.

Autopilot definitely is great on long drives. I guess part of the difference here is my last car, a MX-5, is pretty intense even on long trips. LIke, I don’t fall asleep because it’s such a responsive car, even when driving at highway speeds it feels really exciting, just going straight (or around traffic or what have you). But I am very much not tired out by driving anymore with the Tesla.

Navigate on Autopilot is a different bag. I think it’s mostly useful on simple use cases, but it still has a lot to make up when it’s going through a ramp or interchange. For one, it does not automatically change speed well. Some ramps have also no posted speeds but the map says 5 or 15mph, which is ridiculously slow. And once you’re out of the ramp the speed autopilot is on is sometime stuck at the low speed. Likewise, when you are about to exit the highway it doesn’t really slow you down more than it has to, which can be going from 75 to 45 to 25 while you’re making a really tight corner.

The other issue is how it sometimes does not know when not to change lanes. You could let it run the course but it isn’t always making lane changes at the best time.

If normal autopilot is like “co-pilot” or as I say, driving with a new system, NoA is like babysitting an AI and you really need to work with it or work around it to drive smoothly.

Range isn’t a problem. Supercharging location is kind of a problem. Going from where I live to Toronto requires 2 stops, maybe 3 if I don’t have destination charging or I don’t stop for the full time. That’s not too bad, other than I kind of have to stop 30min each or more every time.

DC Metro area is really not bad at all. It’s just one stop and maybe zero if I have destination charging, maybe 2 if I don’t. In my prior trips I did 2 and 3 for each round trip, depending. By the way NY State needs more going up to Toronto. I have really 1 route due to the way things are laid out. But it isn’t far at any time, between you and the next Supercharger.

Range anxeity:

Range anxiety is definitely a thing, especially in winter and you have no power left, LOL. Also for long trips you have to plan your stops, at least if you want to be efficient and stop at places that are more optimal (schedule, distance, amenities).

You also get used to it. I don’t fret much at all now.

Supercharging is also not really cheap but it’s not much. Maybe half the price than gas, on a per-miles basis?

The other issue with managing range is that speed matters a ton. If you are driving fast your range will go down. I like to drive between 75-80 on road trips so I get maybe 230 miles for each full tank. Not great. It’s also one of those conceits of ICE cars–highway is more efficient than city, and it’s the opposite for electric cars. Just something to be aware of–you’re more likely to not get your full range unless you are driving close to the limit.

Another anxiety-inducing thing is the range calculation in the Tesla does not take into account elevation. Going up hill will suck way more juice than down. Real-time energy measurements will adjust to that eventually, which means the car will tell you you might not make it to your destination before needing charging, but it’s not taken into account on the navigation level.

When I go to superchargers, sometimes I want to blog about them. There is probably such a thing…

Accessories:

The Model 3 barely had any accessories when I bought it. Now it has a ChaDeMo adapter, roof rack, floor mats, and even a wireless charging pad, all from Tesla. I obviously did not buy any of them–I got 3rd party floor liners…and that’s pretty much it. Air freshener? But the floor liners are holding up and are of decent quality. I thought about a trunk mat, but I barely use the frunk (and it’s small as it is), and the trunk mat would block the underneath compartment that I actually use quite often.

I might go buy that center console liner at some point and ask my dad to put it in. Oh, I tried buying some 3rd party USB-C L-head cable but it doesn’t really fit. Not sure if I want first-party ones, because too often I pick up the phone. Usually I leave it in the cup holder.

So more as a to-do for me: I’d like that ChaDeMo charger especially when Walmarts roll out their fast charging. Maybe a tow package in the future? A better charging situation would be nice too, which I will detail below.

The third-party stuff nowadays is plentiful and if you have any great tips please let me know. Of course a lot of things that you’d put on a luxury sedan will work well on a Tesla, just note that it is fairly low maint.

Sound System Nitpicks:

I want to talk about the sound system a bit. It is definitely very good. I would say it is audiophile level. When you’re on the road, since there is no engine noise setting the floor, you hear more of it. The dual-edge-sword of all that though, is that you also hear more road and wind noise in your music, let alone the quality of the audio source showing.

The best way to get high quality audio in the car is from streaming directly via Slack or Tunein, or by the USB drive feature. The car supports bluetooth audio over AAC, which is pretty okay but not the best. Depends on your perspective, that is already above average, or not good enough. I want LDAC or at least AptX support, which all Android phones support since version 7, but I don’t think Tesla is interested in adding these features. They just want to port more unity games, I guess.

I’ve tested highres flacs in the system and they work fine usually, maybe 9 out of 10 times. On the road, sometimes the USB connection skips due to vibration or something, and the cache is not enough. I wish there was more tweaks to this.

Another headache in USB audio mode is how the system will order your music basic on tags. It displays and order the tracks by the ID3 title field. So you have no way to play albums by track order unless you also rename the title field. This is a major problem for people like me, as it basically relegates playback to random play or single track play or a playlist. Supposedly if you use album view it does order by track order? If you google this stuff the internet is full of people who is frustrated by Tesla neglecting the lame-o media playback aspect, and it has been the same complaints for years.

[Sort of an aside, in order to set up the dash cam and sentry cam features, you have to use a USB drive (usually usb stick of sorts) and format it to FAT for the car’s system, and create a “TeslaCam” folder. This happens to clash with the car audio part, as there are only 2 USB ports and you don’t want to use up both of them for data and leave none for charging. To get around it some folks use a hub (lol a USB hub for your car), or you can partition the dash cam/sentry stick to put music on it by doing it a certain way. All of which is PITA at first but now there are some guides for. Forget about racing games, how about some DOCUMENTATION, huh?]

Charging at home:

At home, I have not installed a 14-50 NEMA. I use 120V wall. I barely drive, as said. As of this writing there’s like not even 7000 miles on it. And it works fine. Part of it is also since my garage is kind of far from the house, I will have to pay to wire it out there and all, so it’s a hefty cost (~1500).

I mention this also because 120V charging is only like 70% efficient, where as you get about 90% with the other methods. Still, since I have residential solar now, there are times when I basically can charge my car for free.

Most of my charging costs are at superchargers, which runs me somewhere between $15-18 at a time. Maybe half as much as gasoline? But it’s a lot versus charging at home, or at a free charging station that you can occasionally find.

Conclusion:

It’s a good car. It is about average at this price range in terms of build quality (taking into account the 7500 tax incentive). Performs above average at this price range (love that acceleration), and the low body roll is the kind of trade off I would take in exchange with the rougher ride (especially in terms of road noise).

The best description of buying the Model 3, in my estimate, is that you are buying an American luxury car. This is a foreign concept to someone like me, because, like, American luxury cars kinda…are not great? This is just a market phenomena–people generally do not buy American luxury cars when they do buy a luxury car. No matter how good the CTS-V may be–and it is a fine car–how does it hold up to the likes of Lexus and Mercedes Benz? And I don’t mean “on the track” or “list of specs” but in terms of cultural cache, in refinement, in residual value, and in practicality.

Turns out the Model 3 has very good residual value for a luxury sedan. It has well-below-average maintenance costs (which is an area of research I’ve done more after I bought it LOL). It has obviously above-excellent fuel economy, and probably will beat most of said cars on a track. It wins on paper and does at least as good as a push in reality.

Culturally…it’s a car that’s in the news regularly. Nothing really needs to be said, at least, because it’s been said by all the news outlets.

It’s quite practical, if you put aside the electric aspect–that can be argued as making the car more practical or less practical. It has more cargo space than a lot of other comparable cars thanks to the frunk, and it is about average in terms of creature comfort features, considering the trim I got was more or less the “standard” at the time. The “Partial Premium” interior that is available today isn’t even that different. There are interesting and useful features like autopilot and the OTA updates, which are definitely practical to me.

So the only real improvement the Model 3 needs to make is in terms of refinement. And that is not just panel gaps or whatever, but also the overall quality of ride and just some of the attention to details that is missing during Tesla’s rush to market.

Which is to say, even having the experience of sitting in a Model S and Model X for some time, Tesla has a long ways to go in that generally. Maybe it’s not a priority today because, it is not like the ride isn’t fine, it just isn’t as fine as their European competitors. And even the CTS-V. But owning and living with the Model 3 really feels like owning and living with American luxury. It just isn’t quite as fine.

But if you think that is a good tradeoff versus the features you get in a Tesla–the OTA updates, the self-driving features, the fact that it’s the only electric car worth buying (supercharging network, range, overall value)–then this is probably the car to buy for you. Since I took ownership of the car, I got free dash cam upgrades, games, stupid easter eggs that are worth a few laughs, and bug fixes. It’s definitely worth that crushing depreciation as luxury cars does.

Now if Elon comes through with that robotaxi stuff and if indeed, as George says, Tesla will win it, well.

Pixel 3 128GB First Impressions

I’ve had the phone for 4 days, cheeky me.

The original plan was to not upgrade this year. My Pixel 2 had a failure in the camera in September (2 days before I left for Taipei and Hokkaido for family vacation). Google sent a replacement while I was away, and basically when the Pixel 3 was announced I had a 3-week old refurb Pixel 2 128GB Black. The phone has a 2-year warranty and that means I will be set even for the next Pixel.

From the keynote and marketing material, it was clear that the Pixel 3 was an incremental improvement over the 2. What’s more, all the cool software features, most of them were slated to be released on the 1 and 2 anyway. I didn’t have much of a reason to upgrade.

Then the sales hit. BOGO on Fi and Verizon? I decided to go in with my sister on Fi and reap that $800 credit. She was going to jump from a Nexus 6P, so it’s a huge jump. We ordered the day it was announced. Reselling the refurb plus the credits would basically pay for 90% of a new Pixel 3.

The downside was switching to Fi. I’m not entirely sure if I have signal inside the river crossing tunnel. I have not personally checked, it is spotty as is on Verizon, and half the time I was still clinging to the work VZW hotspot. At times it feels like I have signal in there, though… The other issue was losing my Google Voice capability. It’s forwarding to my work phone (which is VOIP software anyway). I used that number for work and I definitely can’t lose it, and I also can’t lose my personal number that I use for everything else.

The upside to Fi was it’s a lot cheaper, and it has high speed data overseas included. It’s a major savings, as I pay 4500JPY for 7gb in Japan for 30 days (including voice and text). That’s a big fat zero on my next trip, now that I’ve paid the cost to verify my JP number (which means I still have to activate it once a year).

Swappa gave me about $410 in actual cash after the sale of the Pixel 2 (didn’t even took 24 hours to sell). The fees were 15 from Swappa, 15 for shipping (and insurance), and 13 from Paypal. This is nuts. The Pixel 3 128GB is 955 or so after tax. So I’m still on the hook for 145, or 15% of the cost. Maybe I should have held out for a better deal.

Onto the phone. Oh, just to detail the activation process, I followed first the invite email from my sister to set up the porting info. Then when it’s time to load the phone, I followed the on-screen prompts. It would let stuff run in the background while the rest of the phone is being set.

Basically after I got to the home screen, there was a notification waiting for me telling me there was an issue porting. Going to the notif takes me to th Fi app, and tells me what was wrong. Seems like invalid pin? I was suppose to put in my last 4 digits of social for Verizon porting, but I just set a pin on the Verizon account anyways and used that, and it worked minutes later.

In short, the phone is a refined Pixel 2, or what Pixel 2 really should have been. You can say that the Pixel line is a bit behind the release cadence. OnePlus for example, do 2 phones a year (6T looks good!). The next gen Galaxy phone is due in a few months. iPhone news comes out in September or early October. I would say the overall package of the Pixel 3 matches what is really, a better than-iPhone X.

That is great really, except we live in a world with the iPhone XS/Max. So on paper the Pixel 3 is not leading in any category besides its still class-leading camera powers, and other things that people who live inside Google’s ecosystem would enjoy. Thankfully that describes me to a tee.

I say with no irony that this is the most iPhone-y experience I’ve had yet on Android. It’s not a knock as a copycat, but it provides finally that fit and finish matching post-iPhone 8 hardware, with a visual presentation to match. I didn’t know how much of that edge-to-edge look added to this phone. I had it side by side with the Pixel 2, and despite similar displays, the Pixel 3 knocks things out of the park just because the angle my eyes see the edges of the screen, making it “float” towards the top like an iPhone X does.

As for features, it’s similar to the Pixel 2 on Pie. The only quirk is the tall screen makes pulling down the notification shade harder than the 2, and the wider aspect makes my full screen games look slightly different.

Besides the screen, there are major improvement in the speakers–they have a lot more depth and reverb and makes it sound way more solid than the Pixel 2’s. The buttons feel much better with better flex and feedback, where as the Pixel 2’s feels like they could get stuck. The haptic engine is improved, but I normally don’t use it anyway. These 3 points are in the order of decreasing importance, if you didn’t notice.

Wireless charging is something I can actually live without, but I splurged for a Pixel Stand. I can use one for my desk, and I still haven’t messed around it enough to give a proper review. So far it’s mainly just to fast charge, show the time and notification, and do the sunrise alarm thing. I think I am staying clear of a wireless charging pad on the Tesla Model 3, but I can see the appeal if the wiring situation is squared away (long story). Maybe in the future when they’re cheaper (the cheapest one I would buy is $50).

Not much to say otherwise. There are some integration in the Pixel 3 that makes sense which hasn’t rolled out to the Pixel 2 yet. Putting a photo scan link in the photo app makes sense, but I think this might be in Pixel 2 already. New nav for camera makes more sense than before, and it’s easier to use. I sideloaded the night mode beta and it is definitely as jaw-dropping as they say. Sample photos here and here.

In conclusion? This is the phone the Pixel 2 should have been. I don’t want to mention the XL line here because the 2 XL is a much closer presentation to the 3 XL than 2 was to 3. In a way, the Pixel 3 is actually the non-notched answer to our burning need for a modern, iPhone X-y device. LOL. Too bad the iPhone X is going to be a year old in December.

As for the rest of the competition… if you are looking at this phone and not, say, a 1+ 6T or Galaxy Note 9 or Huawei Mate 20 Pro, then nothing more needs to be said. Software superiority is something real. Integration matters. This is still the heart of the Pixel experience, where you get real-time chat and support over the web, your phone (as in not voice, but app), as well as traditional telephone service. It still has a long ways to go to catch Apple in terms of physical stores supporting users, but it’s slowly getting there. At least it needs to solve my Pixel 2 camera problem with less lead time than 48 hours!

I think I see clearly where Google is trying to catch up, and it’s a lot of stuff difficult to market. It doesn’t show up on a spec sheet. But for Americans it matters… So I think I will continue to use a Pixel phone in the future, and let Google take care of my personal info in exchange for services it provides.