The Vergecast - Pixel 5 with Android Central and Android Police

Episode Date: October 20, 2020

Every Tuesday this month, Vergecast co-host Dieter Bohn hosts a series of discussions diving deep into tech review season, each focusing on a specific product. This week, Dieter talks with managing editor of Android Central Daniel Bader and Android Police editor-in-chief David Ruddock about the Google’s Pixel 5. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Build me a revenue dashboard on our Salesforce data. And Retool actually builds it on your company's data, in your cloud with enterprise security built in. Go to retool.com slash Verchcast. We all need to retool how we build software. What's up, y'all. I'm Skylar Diggins, seven-time WMBA All-Star, Olympic gold medalist, and mom. And I'm Cassidy Hubbard, host and reporter for nearly 20 years,

covering the biggest names and stories in sports and mom. And this is Am Mom, a community for athletes, game changers, and moms of all kinds. dropping May 14th. Tap in with us. Greetings Mobile Accomplishers. I am Deeter Bone. Welcome back to the Vergecast.

We are continuing our run of doing looks at our reviews of major hardware that has been released in this very packed season of new phones and other gadgets. This week we are looking at our reviews of the Pixel 5 Google's brand new pixel phone. And I'm very excited to say that we have Daniel Bader, who is a managing editor of Android Central, and David Ruddock, who is the editor-in-chief of Android Police. And I wanted to bring on these two because they are writing for Android sites. They cover Android. They cover Google.

They have a very specific context and a very specific audience and a deep level of expertise about these topics that is incredibly important for when you're looking at something like the Pixel. And actually, there's a little bit of nostalgia here because you may know that I founded Android Central. So talking to somebody who is running it now was a lot of fun. Anyway, we get into it on the Pixel 5. we actually argue a little bit about whether or not it's a good value for the money and if it's any good. So it's a really fun conversation and I think you're going to like it. Daniel and David, thank you so much for joining the Vergecast. How are you holding up after these reviews of the Pixel 5?

It's been a week. Glad it's almost over. A great burden has been lifted. Our review just went live this morning, so I feel much better. Yeah. So real quick, for the first minute or two, we're all three white dudes with very similar voices. So while we're talking, maybe the first time you say, you start talking to say your name, just so people can start to put names to voices.

One of the weird hassles with the Pixel 5 was that it was announced months ago because Google, when they announced the Pixel 4A, we're like, oh, and by the way, we're going to have some phones later and they're going to be fine. I don't know. David, what did you think of that moment? They were they like, hey, also there's more phones coming and we'll just tell you a little bit about them later. I mean, there were so many ways they could have taken the way they really decided to do the announcement. It's hard to hold it against them knowing that the supply chain challenges they've been experiencing are, they're bad. I mean, there's no other way to put it. But I think that the way they ended up doing it, I was definitely in the camp that said you should have just announced all three of them at the same time, pushed out the 4A a little longer.

But I think the way they did it is they were under so much pressure. sure to get the foray out at that point. And they've already established this track record of being willing to, once something has been leaked endlessly, which is with any Google product is going to be the case, you know, willing to be going on the record and say, yes, it exists, which I think is a good thing to do. I'm generally for that. It kind of eases the tension. And it does stop the rumor mill a little bit, which is obviously their goal.

Yeah. I mean, I do think that there was, they released the bare minimum. amount of information to tantalize everybody. You know, you could tell that there were two phones. We knew the names of the phones. Other than that, it was all still based on the leaks that were pretty heavy during those, you know, late summer months and right up until the actual event. And I just think that, you know, Google has this group of, you know, team pixel people who

are always on the lookout for new information, right? That's their bread and butter, getting those pixel people excited about the new phones. And this one in particular was hard because there just wasn't that much interesting about these phones. And they needed to really grasp onto anything. And I think that photo, the one that showed the little bit of metallic texture to the pixel 5, kept people talking about it far more than they would have if it had been announced. And then October came and it just got released. Yeah.

No, for sure. I completely agree. To me, the pre-announcement was also, when the Pixel 4A came out, the context was, everybody has to have 5G or carriers won't care about you at all. And so I think that they maybe also had their hand forced by the industry where they had to be like, yeah, this phone exists, but we're not dummies. We know 5G matters, and we're going to have to make a 5G phone because otherwise, you know, carriers won't give us a time of day.

So they're coming to don't freak out. I don't know, whoever might freak out about Google. hardware. So the point you made about it being like not that interesting of a phone, it's like the central thing about the pixel five to me. It's like a lot of the reviews I've seen both yours mine. It's like, this thing is pretty good, but it's boring and like it's fine, but it's not like amazing. But I kind of like it anyway is like kind of the zone. And like you either like tilt that zone to this is pretty good and I'm like relatively happy with it or this isn't quite good enough. I'm not super happy with it. But it's like it's right in that.

mid-range. We did the podcast with Marquez Brownlee last week. We were trying to come up with a name for this new mid-range of Android phones. Premium Nice, I think, is where we're landing, which is terrible. What do you guys think about the fact that, like, the most, I don't know, interesting phones, or at least the phones that are hardest to decide which one to buy are in this, I don't know, $6 to $800 range, whereas, you know, the top-of-line stuff, you just buy the best one and you're done. I mean, I think that what we're seeing is, you know, the commoditization of the higher-end phones start to play out now. And I think that was inevitable. You know, we saw it with laptops over the years, too. And now that the market's mature, manufacturers are starting to figure out which

corners to cut. And I feel like that's what we're seeing with the Galaxy S20FE, what we're seeing at the 1 Plus AT. You know, with some of the stuff, Motos had come out recently, too, phones like the LG Velvet. And I think that there's going to be some back and forth as they figure out what consumers are willing to give up and what they actually really want. And, you know, I obviously came down on the side of, I think Google cut too hard, you know, cut too deep with the Pixel 5. And, you know, with phones like the Galaxy S20FE, I see a more compelling argument in this price range where you're giving up less.

Granted, you know, Samsung phones come with their own various, you know, faults and foibles. But Google, I understand the, I understand the kind of thesis they're working with here. They want to build, you know, it's a glass and metal slab and it does the same things every other glass and metal slab does, right? And they want to give you the things that make that glass and metal slab nice and convenient to own. And rather than focusing on, you know, pushing big marketing bullet points, like, you know, it has six cameras and, you know, like support for, you know, this crazy fast charging that nobody actually really needs. But on the other hand, I think in the U.S. in particular, their price point was just very ill-advised. I think that they're going to have to walk it back,

and I think there's going to be a sale next month on Black Friday. I will not be surprised to see that because it happens every year. But this year in particular, I feel like they're going, the other thing they're going against in the U.S. is aggressive carrier promotions right now for phones that are frankly better. And that's a real problem. I think they're going to encounter because I don't think Google has the volume and the scale to basically give phones away the way a Samsung or an Apple can. What do you think about this mid-range thing for Google in particular?

It seems like they chose not to compete at the high end, which to me makes a ton of sense because they tried it last year with the pixel 4, 4xel and didn't do so well with it. Do you think that this is just where Google thinks it lives now, or is it just, I know, Rick Osterloh had a hardware. Google's like, well, we don't think anybody needs a $1,000 phone this year, which is like, nice, nice explanation. But is this the zone that Google actually should be putting the pixel in, this sort of premium, nice mid-range area? I mean, I like it for the 4A and 4A 5G. But getting up to where the pixel 5 sits, the value Google adds there seems very limited to me comparatively. And that's kind of where I struggle. We really like the 4A 5G and really like the pixel 4A.

Like those are both really good phones because you are saving money in a very real way. And it's very obvious what you're losing. But the value equation leans so much harder like in a favorable like direction. So I think that, you know, you look at the, literally the pixel 4A costs half of what Pixel 5 does. And you would be nuts to say it's half the phone. It's 80% of the phone. And when you look at it that way, that's when it kind of, that was the comparison I kept making in my head when I was reviewing the phone. I'm like, how much better is this than what you get on the pixel 4?A?

And the answer is continuously, well, not actually that much better. You know, it's interesting, David. Like, I was looking at the good and not so good points of your review, not the. actual review, which was great, but the points of the phone, you know what I'm saying? And what I found interesting was that you didn't highlight the experience of using a pixel, which is something nebulous and not quite quantifiable, but it's something that I know, Deeter, you obviously agree with, because you write about this often when you use a pixel. I feel like that part of it is this, this close to inexplicable part of using a phone is worth something. And I don't know what it's worth.

Is it worth $200 over the pixel 4A5G? Probably not. But the whole package is there for me, the fact that it has wireless charging, it has waterproofing or resistance. It has the things that I want in a phone. You say a Snapdragon 765 doesn't belong in a $700 phone, but it's just like it belongs in this phone, in my opinion, because it makes sense in this phone at this price point. But I can't argue with your cons, right?

The cons that you point out are, there are. There are noticeable regressions, right? The slower camera processing, the lack of face unlock, the removal of the telephoto, right? All of those things are legitimate beefs that I can bring up as well, but somehow they don't bother me as much as they do you, which I find really interesting. Probably most bothersome of all to me is the situation with the haptics on pixel 5, which are just like very, you go, I've been using the 4xl and 5 side by side. And the haptic situation is just like, oh, Google, you took the one thing. The one thing that actually kind of made me happy to use your phones. And I know for a fact that they actually used a different chip partner this year for the haptics.

And it's a inferior part. And the haptics are just mushyer. They're not as good. Google was really clearly aspiring to get to, you know, like the Taptic engine level of feedback. They're still not even close. But they were trying with the pixel four. And to see them go back on that for the same. sake of probably saving like five bucks, that to me was just kind of, it underscored everything else

where I'm just like, okay, I can see what they're doing. And Dieter, like you pointed out in your review, the loss of ambient EQ, you know, not a word about it. It's just gone because money. Well, so the loss of ambient EQ specifically doesn't bother me because I think that the ambient EQ was not that impressive on the pixel four. I also think that in general, Google's attempt to like tune the screen for night when they like, you know, put the yellow on it in the dark. just like, whoa, slow down. This is really an elegant. But I actually, I want to stick with this point that the idea that a pixel is a nicer

experience to use, especially from a software perspective, like, what is the value of that? What is how much money is that worth paying extra for or is it not worth paying extra for? It's just Google's got its version of Android that does relatively, you know, simple things with a couple little Google extra perks and you get the software updates. Is that something that Google has a right to charge more money? money for? Yes. Yeah, right? I absolutely think so. I don't. And it's one of those things where if you haven't used it and you don't have the experience of it, I understand why people push back on that,

especially when the idea of an Android skin, as we used to call it, is still very much part of our lexicon. We think of, say, OneUI as a separate Android skin or Oxygen OS. And it's, I don't think it's, it's true anymore. There are modifications to what Google really puts forth as this platonic ideal of what Android is. But somehow, year after year, I cannot explain why I love the experience of the pixel, but I do. And it hasn't changed with the Pixel 5 even though there are regressions. I mean, I agree that there is that fundamental niceness. And I think that's largely because Google has really, you know, this is a common narrative, but I believe it's true. Google has chased Apple much harder than it has Android OEMs. Google has looked at what Apple does with its U.S. and try to

adopt the best bits of that. And you look at things like gesture navigation. So it's really obvious sometimes when they're getting inspired. But I think that overall things like scrolling inertia, which unfortunately I think they kind of ruined on the pixel 5 and 4A, but, you know, they look at things like that. And I think Google tends to look at UX in a much more cognitive way than probably most Android OEMs do. I think Google is the kind of company that would commission a white paper about like, you know, how it affects your brain, you know, when you, the speed of the like notification shade coming down. Like, what does that do to you? How does it make you feel? When a notification pops up, you know, what kind of colors and what kinds of fonts, you know,

what makes you respond, you know, maybe in a positive way or a negative way. And I think that there are those kinds of crazy considerations at Google. And some of them are probably very silly and don't actually have an impact on end users in any kind of material way. But the ones that do work, which I think are kind of, you know, the cleanliness of the UI. Google clearly loves white space. They love something, you know, stark, minimalist, which is very attractive to us, you know, techy people, because it portrays this idea of this very clean and well-managed digital lifestyle. And I'm totally there with you guys on that. And it makes the pixel, to me, the most enjoyable Android software experience to use every day. I definitely agree with you on that.

I just think that, you know, yes, Google can charge a premium for it, but they also charge $350 for it, too. So it comes on all the phones, which makes it a struggle at $700. One really pragmatic example of Google thinking cognitively about the software. That's a really good way to put it, is they took the beauty mode out of the selfie camera because they were citing studies that said it could have a self-image impact, a negative self-image impact on people because what they see out of their selfie camera doesn't match what they see in the mirror. So it's still there, but they've turned it off by default. And it's like, it's stuff like that that it feels really, and I, you know, I write about this a bunch. but I always, when I'm doing it, feel like people must just be like, oh, Dieter, there you go again, saying, isn't this elegant?

Who cares, right? Because you look at the S20FE, it's got better hardware, more cameras, it's faster, and it has some elegance to it. One UI, when Samsung first launched it, was like pretty good. And then they Samsung did, right? They started tossing features. They started tossing ads. So one of the things I think you're paying for with the pixel is

a relatively high bar for when a thing that looks or feels like an advertisement is going to pop up in a core app, because that happens all the time on Samsung, and it basically doesn't happen on a pixel. I would play devil's advocate on this, and I agree with you on it for what it's worth. Devil's advocate is that Google is so good at advertising you don't know you're being advertised to. That's a problem. You literally type in a search. You are being advertised to by Google. You got me. That's great.

That's true. So it's much more elegantly baked in. Like, it is elegant. It's a much more elegant way to do this. You open Gmail and you've got your ads and your various inbox tabs. You know, that's all there. Google Maps is rife with advertising. But it's all subtle because this is Google's business.

Google understands how to advertise to you in a way that is fundamentally not annoying. So I think there's that for sure. Google would never send you a notification about the fact that there's a new pixel phone. They would think that was barbaric. Like that's something, you know, Samsung would do. So I think there's definitely that. But on the other hand, you know, Google is an ad business. and they're still profiting on you

when you use all these core services that are so nice and wonderful to use. Right. So sticking with this idea of niceness, the Pixel 5, the things you're paying for, so you're not necessarily paying for software experience. You're paying for, let's see if I can get them all, 90-hertz screen,

you're paying for an aluminum enclosure that is water-resistant, you're paying for wireless charging, you're paying for a wacky panel speaker. I don't know if that's worth the money. and maybe a slightly smaller size. And I think critically, you are paying for a millimeter wave 5G built into every single one of the phones instead of only being $100 bucks extra on the 4A5G

and the Verizon phone. Daniel, did I miss anything there? Do you think that that is $200 worth of stuff? Like, I think it is, but I think it is in like a really personal choice. Like, if it's worth $200 to you, then like more power to you go forth. But I don't know that I'd necessarily say, that's absolutely worth $200, you should definitely upgrade. Yeah, I mean, you were talking about that.

And as you were tallying those specs, I was like, nope, nope, not worth an extra X dollars. But yeah, but yeah, overall, it's $100 too much. You know, that's, I think, what everybody kind of fell on as like, if this was a $600 phone, it would be the right price. And here in Canada, where it's $799 Canadian, if you do the exchange rate, it is $599 US, almost to the penny. So, and we don't have, we don't have millimeter wave on our version. So if you, if you extrapolate that and you, and you do the same math in every other region where sub six is the primary version of 5G, then yeah, they are charging a pixel, or a millimeter wave tax. But I also think that to some extent there is just a pixel tax on this phone. The pixel five needs to be more expensive because it's the best pixel that they're offering this year. The fact that they really hit it out. of the park with a $350 4A makes this a much more difficult sell at $700.

If the 4A had been $399 or $450, this would have seemed a little bit more fair, given the competition is all pushing much, much higher prices. So, but I mean, I want to, I want to know what you think about the S20 FE and the 1 Plus AT because those are the real competitors at this particular price point. So this gets into the next thing. So I haven't reviewed the 1 plus 8. A T yet, but I did look at the S20FE. I really, really like it.

Like, the fact that it's plastic on the back, I give zero cares. Can I swear on this pot? It's my podcast. I give zero fucks about the fact that it doesn't have an aluminum back. I do think that the thing that, for me, gives the pixel a slight edge over the S20FE is the camera. And not necessarily just camera quality, but camera predictability. I know what a pixel is going to do when I hit the shutter button, and I know that I can trust it for the most part. I know that when I hit the shutter button to record a video, it's not going to be as good as the Samsung.

But I know that when I take a photo, it is going to do precisely what I expect it to. And Samsung has different tuning, but I also feel like it has way more inconsistent tuning to the way its photos come out. I'd agree with that assessment. And actually, when we reviewed the S20FE, that was one of our top complaints, was inconsistent camera performance. When it worked well, it worked well, but when it didn't, oh boy, a lot of radioactive grass if you go photographing anything green around a Samsung phone. Well, what do we think about the camera? The camera's always been the pixel's main selling point. But this year, it's like, yep, still great, but it's also still the same sensor.

But I guess that's fine. But the video is improved, but it's not the best. And everybody else in the planet has been upping their game to, like, get to the pixels level for the past two years. and very many of them are either there or just so close that they may as well be. I think you're right about that. I think that the thing that still separates Google, like you said, is the consistency of the imaging performance. It's hard to take a bad photo with the main camera on the pixel 5. But same true of the 4A and 4A 5G because it's all the same camera.

I think that the areas where Google is starting to struggle a little bit, A, the processing times, now that they've switched to this lower chip are just, it takes quite a while with processing image. That is admittedly a convenience complaint. It is not something that actually affects the end quality of what you're getting out of the camera. I just want to interrupt you there for a a sec, because what is inconvenient about that? I've always wondered when people complain about processing time. Like, are you pulling up your photo immediately after to view it? Or yes? Oh, yeah. Absolutely, yes. Of course. Because I'm not. I take so many photos and then I put the phone away. I just, I find it interesting how people take photos and how it relates to their experience with the pixels slower processing.

It's a niceness issue actually, like to flip it around. You take the photo, you want to see if it's good to see if you should take another photo or not. You know, we're just saying you can trust it and that's true. But the feeling that you get while you're waiting for that little circle to finish its process and for the image to pop into the way it's actually going to look is actually really a bummer. And when you're with a group of people or, you know, a pet or whomever, and you're like, all right, take a picture. All right, let's see if it's good. Stay there.

Hang on. Smile. Don't just don't go anywhere. No, dad, stay. Dad. No, we're taking a family photo. Wait, hang on. And then it's like, oh, no, it's good.

Okay, well, I guess it's okay that he left because we're done here. Like, that's the problem. Yeah. But that process in your mind took like 20 seconds to get your dad to stop leaving. But it doesn't take 20 seconds. It takes a beat longer than it did on the four. So I get it. I just feel like it doesn't have that much impact in real-world use.

Well, the question is, is it an acceptable delay for a, you know, $600, $700 phone? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think the other issue that Google's kind of run into with the camera, it is starting to hit the ceiling of what this sensor can do. I saw Michael Fisher posted a pretty compelling example of portraits taken at night with the Note 20 Ultra and with Pixel 5. And the No20 Ultra clearly won. It was not even close. And it's just down to the light gathering ability of the sensor.

Google does amazing things with night sight and with Astro mode. But the fact is this is a smaller, older sensor, and Google really could be upgrading to a much bigger sensor. They're available. They have been available for quite a while now. I think the thing for Google is, this comes down again to cost because what happens when you use a new sensor? Well, A, the sensor costs more. B, a camera team has to retune. And that's a huge time investment.

And time is money if you're an engineer. So, you know, if you're having to retune this camera and, well, what if the tune doesn't come out right? What if you have to keep working on it post-release and keep fixing it, keep updating to get it where you want? And I know when Mark Levoie was there, he did talk about that, how they were so happy with the tune on that sensor, that's why they kept it. So I do think that it's time? You know, I had a reader ask me, do you think it's time for Google to finally switch? And I think I said, yeah, it is, it's time. The next one needs a newer piece of sensor hardware.

I will agree with that. And I think that last year was the year they should have upgraded. the sensor. This year, if they were, I mean, hindsight is obviously 20-20, but if they had the foresight to go ahead and play down some of the solely stuff and motion sense and make that less a part of the sales message and more about here's a much better camera, the actual physical sensor being larger, I think that would have been far more compelling and it would have offset some of the battery concerns. This year, they couldn't have upgraded the sensor and still kept the cost down. But, you know, I come back to it as I'm a father.

I take photos of my daughter all day every day. And I prefer the photos that come out of this phone over any other phone except the iPhone. So in the Android ecosystem, that means that this is the one that I will turn to time and time again because I prefer the way she looks straight out of the camera. So reviewing pixel phones is a little bit different than reviewing a Samsung phone or or One Plus or even an iPhone because there's Google gets, I don't know, the benefit and the burden of a different. kind of set of expectations because they make Android their Google, they're, you know, massive company that theoretically should be able to execute on this stuff. And yet the phones that

they put out are pretty consistently like premium nice midrange, even when they're going for the flagship. And so, you know, when I review a Samsung phone, I do it in a Samsung context. And there's also a larger Android ecosystem context. But what do you guys think of the context of the work of reviewing a pixel phone, the expectations out of Google and the expectations out of, Daniel, you call them pixel people, right? Do you approach a pixel phone any differently than you do any other phone? I mean, I can say I do for sure. Just because of our readership, you know, pixel people are our readers.

Aside from every model of iPhone combined, pixels are the top devices at Android Police every single month without fail. And so they are coming to us with an eye toward a review that is going to talk to them personally. And so that's how I review the phone. you know, whether that lens Google help or harm really depends. Sometimes, you know, like with the 4A and 4A5G, those are like two of the highest scores we've ever given to phones because we felt we could so full-throatedly recommend them.

With the Pixel 5, it hurt them because there were expectations in place versus the prior generation of phones. We have Pixel 4 people. You know, there are still people who upgrade their phone every year. They're weird, but they're out there. And so when I come to Pixel 4 people, I'm like, listen, this phone is a regression over what you have in your hand right now in a lot of ways. it improves in some notable ones that may be interesting to you.

But if you don't care about these things and you care about losing certain other ones, this is like a very weird situation. So in reviewing the phone in this case, like I had to really like, I had to harp pretty hard on Google for what it lost year over year. So yeah, I definitely review them differently than I would other phones. And it's also just comes down,

comes down to the fact that I know our readers want to know like what Google is adding, you know, in the Google ecosystem, which, you know, I am as well. So I care about that stuff a lot. You know, Google's, you know, unique features like call hold, which will come to other pixel phones, but for now is pixel 2020 exclusive, you know, a lot of that extra stuff that they kind of bake in, the all new Google Assistant, or should say Next Gen Google Assistant, which is still Pixel exclusive, even though it's not supposed to be, but it apparently still is, you know, we have to look at that stuff and that generally does give them a more favorable view in our eyes. Like, I love the NextGen

Google Assistant because it's so fast. It makes the old assistant feel like the Stone Age. So I definitely, you know, we give Google way more benefit of the doubt on software because we know they're going to, when they add features, they usually execute pretty well. Granted, there's also the other side of it where Google phones are notorious for having issues down the road and we constantly have to asterisk everything with as long as it doesn't break, as long as it keeps working the way it should. You know, we, I had to put in our Pixel 4A review. I'm like, listen, for all of you who are wondering, Is there going to be yet another class action lawsuit against Google over hardware problems with the pixel? I don't know. And I can say with zero certainty, you know, whether that's likely to happen again. But they're a company with the history of issues. So there are a lot of things that make us treat them differently. Yeah. Dan, how about you?

I have to break the audience into two groups in my head before. It's the people who are looking at this review, sort of hate reading it, thinking I will never use a pixel. and you know, fuck you for even mentioning it. You swear it so I'm going to. And there are people who I assume are already using a pixel two or a pixel three and are legitimately looking to upgrade.

And I really do speak to them more in my review because I feel like they're taking it seriously. And it goes back to that first thing I said about if you've never used a pixel, you can't really quantify, I can't get you all the way there. You really have to come with me on that journey and just trust that I'm not lying to you about it being a coherent and cohesive experience

in a way that very few other products in the Android ecosystem are. And I will give Samsung a lot of credit. They've done a lot of catching up in that regard and have surpassed Google in some ways. But I still want people to take it from me as, if you've used a pixel, here is what it's like if you're upgrading every two or three years. And for me this year, even though I understand. understand the regressions, I think it's a legit upgrade over the pixel two or three. Yeah, pixel two or three for sure. This is actually a really good place to take a break and

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Get started by posting your job for free at LinkedIn.com slash track. Terms and conditions apply. Okay, we're back. So the reason I wanted both of you on is you both write for, do you call them Android blogs, Android sites? This is actually a point in contention. So, Daniel, you're over at Android Central. David, you're at Android Police. And I write for a generalist site.

So when I'm writing at The Verge, I need to think about the fact that I've got a different kind of audience than maybe you do. also, like, I have a different job, whereas y'all are focused, you know, primarily on Android. What is it just at a really high level for Android Central? I mean, I've got a history there because I started the site. But how do you see Android Central and writing for an Android-specific site in the broader ecosystem? Well, I think we have to bias ourselves towards thinking about how Google makes decisions as a company. And that really comes down to, you know, is the pixel a Google hardware product or is it a Google search company product? And, you know, that informs how I, I think about our approach to coverage of everything the company does. We're not champions

of Google the way that we used to be, right? Like when we started Android Central as a blog, when you started it and was, we're writing about it in the early 2000s or when did you leave, 2010? 2010, 2011, yeah. So, you know, back then it was, we were just, we were just happy to be at the party, right? Like, it was just something. We were so excited that everybody was making cool stuff. And now it's just a completely different market. Google is being, you know, they're being investigated for antitrust. And it's just a very different world that we live in with Google and with all these big tech companies.

That said, we've expanded our scope over the years. And I know Android police has as well. We review iPhones. We review everything. It's not an Android blog. And I hate to bring up the DQ thing because the burgers at DQ are not very good. But if you're, you know, if you still think of DQ as primarily an ice cream restaurant, then, you know, I don't know if that's, if that's correct anymore. Not that I would ever buy a, I don't know if that actually buried my argument because the burgers at DQ are very good.

You know, DQ does make some pretty good, like, like they got like a basket with some bread and some chicken fingers that I really like. But I'll bring up the fact that we cover PlayStation on Android Central and people give us crap about it all the time. How dare you write about a console on Android Central? And I think, well, it's, it's, you know, we are good at it. We have people who love it. And as long as you continue having people who love what they write about, the content's going to be good. So why not?

Yeah, when we started Android Central, it was, like, back then, like, forums mattered way more. And so it wasn't so much boosting Google as it was boosting the idea of there being lots of competition and lots of different kinds of phones in the world. There was Windows Mobile, there was Android. there. It was like Symbian still was relevant somehow. And so like that was the idea. Like there's there's this new ecosystem of phones that are coming and like we need to be dedicated to it. The thing you said about we're not, we're not here to boost Google.

That's actually the thing that bothers me the most when I see other mainstream outlets referring to Android sites. I've seen them referred to as like Android enthusiast sites. And that is the most infuriating shit ever because you all break so much news and like do real reporting and it drives me nuts to like see it pigeonholed as an enthusiast site. Yeah, I mean, we constantly get jokes. I mean, I make the joke that, you know, we're really Googlepolice.com at this point and Google and Associated Police, you know, by the way we've branched out over the years. And, you know, I think you absolutely right, Daniel.

Like, you know, and I think, you know, you're right as well, Deeter, this started out much more tribal, which is, you know, what made people so engaged, you know, back at the early days. and we've leaned hard away against that because it's just, it's, it's unproductive, it encourages these very toxic kind of attitudes. And now we're really just more like, you know, our readers are, you know, a little different than Android Central's. You know, our readers are highly engaged with Google very specifically, too. They want to know what's going on with the products, good and bad. And Google often gets quite upset at us for the last part there. But, you know, that's become like, that is kind of our responsibility in our role. There are other good sites like,

9 to 5 Google that also have really taken up this mantle here. And Google is such a huge company and has so many products now that it really is a full-time job just covering them and what they're doing. Yeah. And then the lens of like reviewing their products, you know, I would say like, I said about reviewing the phone, Google does get, you know, potentially a better shake than other companies, but that's only because our readers are so engaged with their products. And we, we definitely have kept that approach over the years. But covering them as a company, I mean, people accuse us of dragging Google all the time. It's kind of hilarious. I literally every year when I write a pixel review, there is one comment that says either I'm a Google chill. I'm a fan boy. I'm paid, which obviously everybody gets on an iPhone reviews too. But if I review a pixel product negatively, the opposite is true. I've always hated Google. I've always had it out for them. Big bias against Google. So, you know, those are our readers. They love Google or they love to hate Google. But, they're all deeply embedded in that world of Google stuff.

Yeah, I mean, no matter what phone I review, I get accused of bias one way or the other. And since I'm trying to review lots of different phones and lots of different platforms, it's like, it's just constant. Same thing with laptops, same thing with everything else. But it's okay because I know that I'm not actually paid by any company. I'm paid by my company. The thing that's really interesting to me is like people will often think of Android sites as like being a trade pub, but that's like a really old way of thinking. They're much more generalists now. No one is annoyed that there's a beat reporter that reports on Google at like the New York Times or something.

But the fact that there's an entire site with a full staff dedicated to this sort of topic actually reveals a deep level of expertise that's really useful. And it doesn't just appeal to a really thin sliver of an audience that only is interested in Google. Like people might be interested in a trade publication. You actually do speak to a broader audience. You just do it from a particular context and a particular place of expertise that is very difficult for anybody else to get because usually there's like one or two people at a media company that's focused on that thing instead of your entire staff. There's also the fact that Android is not what Google is focused on most of the time. It's a vehicle for so much of their other software. And Assistant is a good way of kind of centering the conversation, right?

Assistant is in everything. It's in WareOS, which is compatible with the iPhone. phone, it's on Android TV slash Google TV slash WTF mate. Like, it's on everything. It's just, you know, Google stuff touches. And the fact is that if I had my druthers and I had a full-time reporter covering Google services on iPhone, I actually think that would be a really big deal on Android Central because Google's services on iOS products are good and sometimes better than they are on Android.

and that is something that I have tried to put on the site, and we do get a bit of pushback on that, but it is absolutely true that we are no longer an Android site, and we haven't been for half a decade. So speaking of things that Google doesn't seem to pay a lot of attention to, we should probably come back to the pixel. Ha-ha. What is going on?

We're on the five, I think it's, if you include the 4A and the 3A and the 4A-5G, that's eight pixels, does that count right? And then there's some X-Ls that you can throw in there. So 10 or so pixels they've made now. They haven't broken through. And for a while, I was like, oh, it's because Google, this massive company isn't devoting the resources that it needs to to make this thing successful. But I don't know. I don't know what it is that's keeping the pixel from breaking through.

Is it just that they were too close to Verizon for a while? Is it just that they're not throwing Samsung money at it? What do you guys think it is that always keeps that pixel in its, like, ridiculously thin sliver of market share that it's always been at? I mean, competitive momentum is such an important. possible thing to break through. And in the U.S. in particular, that has played out in exactly the way every critic said it would. Google is not willing to invest enough. Google is not willing to fight hard enough to work to get on Samsung and Apple's level in terms of marketing, in terms of carrier cooperation, in terms of retail cooperation. They've come a long way. Don't get me wrong.

Like, we were from the original pixel, you know, we've definitely seen strides. But the sales numbers just don't seem to be materializing. You know, maybe with lower cost phones this year, we'll see that incremental uptick again. I think 4A and 4A5G have a potential to do quite well. But at the premium tier, I think that the reason, that was the reason for the strategy switch, that he could not break in at the premium tier, because every time you come out with, you know, every time Google comes out with this premium phone, guess what? Carriers start slashing prices, you know, in the lead up to the holiday season on Samsung,

on Apple, and all these other brands. and they're just getting, they're getting all of the attention. They're getting all of the marketing money. Unseating those incumbents in a meaningful way is so difficult in this country. And if you can't do it in the U.S., then it's hard to expand that strategy globally because the U.S. is, you know, the crown jewel of the premium smartphone market. This is where the most money is made on premium smartphones. So I think that, you know, big part of his carriers, and they're happy with Samsung and Apple.

You know, they generally want more choices because they want to fill out that port portfolio with items with better margins because Samsung and Apple have a lot of leverage. But the fact is, Samsung and Apple phones sell well. Apple and Samsung do a good job making sure they sell well. And for a company like Google to come in and try to disrupt that, I mean, I don't have an MBA, but it sounds pretty hard. So my hot take has always been, what if they had just stuck with the Nexus program but then said that they were taking it in-house and reset everybody's expectations for what

the sales numbers for the pixel would be? And they actually try it again to really hit the point of, we are the flagship for Android and everyone else do what we do on the Nexus. This is the direction Android should go. But we know we're not going to sell a lot. You know we're not going to sell a lot. But we're going to keep making it because it's important for us to do this in-house. Is that nuts?

Because I'm tired of saying, well, when is Google going to actually try harder? Because at this point, I don't know how much harder they want to try, and I don't know how much harder them trying would actually do it. So it seems like this move to the mid-range is maybe the first. first step in recontextualizing the pixel is something that doesn't have the expectation that they're going to take on Samsung and the iPhone head to head. Yeah, I think that is what, that's how I reviewed the phone. That's the context with which I've, I've continued to use the phone. And I think that's accurate. It goes back to this takeaway I had from, you know, this Gimlet podcast startup,

back, you know, in its second or third season. There was this dating startup, dating ring and, They were trying to raise a bunch of money and they were doing a lot of cool stuff and they were talking to investors and they were talking about being a unicorn and how you could get to that threshold. And once you're past it, like you can have an amazing exit and everything's great. And the end of the season, spoiler alert, kind of settling on just being a lifestyle startup, a small boutique startup that does one thing really, really well. And that stuck with me because it really feels like Google is acquiescing to that reality, that it is. is finally understanding where the pixel needs to be in the market. It needs to have a pixel because it needs to be the best representation of Google service is possible. And it's Google.

It's going to be able to subsidize any losses it has in the hardware division. Plus, there's Nest that probably makes a lot of money. If Google would disclose that, that would be great. Yeah. But, you know, that's where I settle with it, right? This is a pixel. It's a really good phone for some people, and most people will never use it. You know, the boutique thing is interesting because I definitely had this thought, too. The problem is Google as a company is all about scale. That has been their M.O. from day one. And for them to switch to a strategy that says, no, no, actually, we're okay being little is so bizarre and it's so not Google. You know, they're all about, Sundarpa Chai's whole thing has been the next billion. The next billion is everything. And you can have that messaging for search and your other products, but to then say, well, actually, we're doing a small little boutique in-house phone business now.

that could make literally millions of dollars a year. It's just so bizarre. And I think that that is also, you know, and I understand the comments about subsidizing it and everything, but Google has made it clear, like at an executive level, that that's not the goal. The goal is not to subsidize the hardware division. The goal is for the hardware division to make money because it's a way to upsell services. If you can't scale that hardware business to sell those services at scale, what are you doing? You know, the argument falls apart.

So I think, yeah, Google can, of course, afford to keep making a boutique smartphone for as long as Google is around. Of course, they can afford to do it. But what's the goal? What are you trying to accomplish? And that is the thing that I'm having a difficult time understanding with strategy shift. What are you trying to do, Google? What is this advancing in your business? And that is hard to see.

So there's another way to tell this story, which is they aimed high. They didn't get there. And then they're like, well, okay, let's buy HTC. Let's really knuckle down. And we're going to make the amazing phone. But we can't do it yet. This is actually, like, Sundabar Chai literally says this. It's like, it hardware takes time.

It's like, well, you've had five years, brother, what's going on? But the other way to tell the story is that the pixel five is Google admitting that the pixels to this point were basically boutique nexus phones. But that it's going to take a big swing. It's going to maybe try and release its phones, not in October in the middle of everybody else, but move it to a different part of the year. And the thing that might enable them to do that is switching to their own silicone because there's this rumor that they've been working on this chip called Whitechapel. Ina Frito Rod Axios had this story.

And it seems like one possible way that this is going to go is the pixel 5 was mid-range because they just wanted to get something out the door with 5G to hold the spot on the shelf so that Verizon would let them sell the next phone. And what they're really doing is working on the savior phone that will truly change everything and have the huge camera. sensor and have an incredible custom Google processor and unicorns will spring out of the screen as soon as you turn it on. I'll believe it when I see it. Good luck with that. Yeah. I mean, it still does not do anything to push aside Samsung and Apple, right? They can release the best, you know, most bespoke

silicon phone in the world and it could be objectively better. It does not mean that carriers are going to flock to them because the carriers are, they're set in their ways for a reason. The Pixel 5 is on Verizon's homepage for about five minutes before the iPhone 12 launched. And that happens every year. So, you know, I see why they would just put something out in 2020 to get it out of the way and that, you know, they're in a difficult position because of Qualcomm charging more money for the Snapchat 865 than I think Google and other OEMs wanted to acknowledge. But it still doesn't fix the problem if they have their own silicon. Yeah, I think the in-house silicon thing is is one of those projects, you know, we know Google is doing it. I mean, they had hiring

listings up for like a mobile SOC like lead. You know, obviously it's something they're exploring. But Google explores a lot of things and a lot of things that Google's notorious for killing things. It is, it's part of the brand at this point. You know, that's like the thing. I never want to get hopeful about that because building a mobile SSC is incredibly hard. We've watched companies like Samsung, like Huawei, try, and they still, they cannot do Qualcomm, let alone outdo Apple. And that just shows how much the expertise and momentum that, you know, companies have to build in that space to be competitive. It's so, so hard. Now, that's not to say Google doesn't have experience with Silicon, but they have experience with very different

silicon. You know, yeah, tensor is like incredible. You know, these TPs that Google builds in house are crazy. But they're also operating at like wattage, like several, you know, orders of magnitude higher than a smartphone. It's a totally different kind of electrical engineering. So, you know, everybody always wants to wrap this package and wrap this bow around and say, well, Google has the expertise in these areas and so they can bring it into mobile. And it's just not that simple. We watch Nvidia utterly faceplant on trying its own mobile silicon. And they're a company that understands Silicon way better than Google probably ever will. Well, I think that's a dark place to wrap it up, but we're going to draft it up there.

David, would people want to find your work? Where can they locate you? I'm on AndroidP Police.com and my Twitter handle is RDRV3.3. There it is. And Daniel? I am on Android Central, and you can find me on Twitter at Journey Dan. Cool. Thanks so much, guys, for coming on. Really a fun conversation. Yeah, thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. All right, my thanks to Daniel and David for coming on The Vergecast to talk about the Pixel 5.

And we're going to keep the show going just a little bit longer. There is more than enough new gadgets to review to talk about. So keep an eye out for that next Tuesday. Of course, we'll back this Friday with the chat show. The Vergecast is produced by Andrew Marino and Sophie Erickson. and thanks so much for listening.