I initially hoped it would have a hub specific interface that looks similar to the Nest Hub. Instead though, the dock basically puts it into screensaver mode and the home icon pulls up the basic Google Home like if you were to tap the quick settings icon.
As a tablet, it’s decent but I wouldn’t get it if you’re mostly planning to use it with Google Home as I think the current experience is disappointing.
I think it’d be nice if they offered an option without the base for $400 especially since the hub experience on it as it is currently isn’t very good. All hub mode does currently is turn it into a glorified digital picture frame with the home controls button in the bottom corner and the Google Home experience isn’t as good as a Nest Hub.
As it is right now, I wouldn’t consider the Pixel Tablet as a replacement for the Nest Hub.
I have a Pixel Tablet and I really only used the speaker to charge it, but I’m probably going to stop because the base is becoming very flakey with my experience. The speaker randomly loses power and I’ll have to unplug and plug it back in about a dozen times before it’ll start getting power again and this problem started a week after getting it. The charger is not damaged in any way which leads me to think it’s probably defective.
I haven’t been rooted for a while since my last rooted device was an HTC 10 back in 2018, but at least back then I didn’t have issues with my banking apps. For that though, your milage may vary depending on if your bank’s app uses the safetynet API.
For Google Pay, I gave up on that while rooted because even with Magisk Hide I couldn’t get it to work reliably and that’s unlikely to change since the Magisk dev went to work for Google and stopped working on Magisk Hide due to it being a conflict of interest.
Other than that, apps that use Widevine DRM may not work properly on rooted devices. For example, Netflix incorporates both safetynet and Widevine so you have to sideload it since it won’t allow you to install directly from the Play Store and once you do have it installed, the Widevine issue keeps video playback at 480p regardless of network quality.
As much as I am for supporting rooted devices since you should be able to do what you want on a device that you own, unfortunately it isn’t really viable to run on a device that you daily. Companies want full control rather than giving you control and many of the restrictions that rooting causes has more drawbacks than pros IMO. I’d probably still root if I’m rooting a secondary device, but I wouldn’t root my main phone anymore.
I’m still not sold on the durability and the last thing I want is the screen to become a wear item. Even with most of them pretty much all switching from plastic to ultra thin glass, bending glass like that is asking for it to eventually break and replacement internal screens aren’t cheap.
Secondly, a lot of foldables sacrifice battery capacity as the Flip 5 has a 3700 MAh battery and the Fold 5 has a 4400 MAh and powering a 2nd, larger screen is going to consume more battery. A normal smartphone you can typically find with at least 5000 MAh batteries in them.
The tech is cool and all, but it just seems more like an engineering flex rather than something that’s practical.
I don’t have a current one as I have a Moto 360 2020 that’s stuck on Wear OS 2. I’m thinking about replacing it with the 2nd gen Pixel Watch since it’s rumored to be a big improvement to the 1st gen.
From what I heard though, Wear OS 3 and 3.5 is a step in the right direction and gives OEMs more control of the UI, which is I believe why Samsung is using it now over Tizen. Really the only regression I can think of between Wear OS 2 and 3 is that Google Assistant is only available on Samsung and the Pixel Watch. If you go with any other watch, its not going to have it.
Before I deleted my account, I did give it a try and it’s truly terrible and it’s a shame they expect you to use that when basically every 3rd party app is better in every way. It’s buggy, riddled with ads and doesn’t have proper tablet support while both Sync and Boost did.
I know Revanced will fix some of the issues, but I’m done with Reddit out of principle of them throwing 3rd party devs to the curb when it’s been fine for them to develop apps for years.
I left and deleted my account after Elon changed the algorithm to show nothing but his posts. With this decision and the many other bad decisions he’s made since buying Twitter, I’m glad I left and I frankly don’t miss it.
This will absolutely be abused and people will be harassed, but I feel this is intentional as he continues turning Twitter into a far-right echo chamber.