Their recent addition to support wearOS made me consider a subscription (wearOS version requires subscription). Until youtube music recently added support for podcasts, so I didn’t bother although I can’t say the podcast feature in youtube music is all that good so far but it will let episodes get downloaded to my watch.
Personally, re. google podcasts, it lacks a lot of useful features that other podcasts apps have.
I’ve found pocket casts to have the better set of features and functionality (for the unpaid version) compared to other podcasts apps. I don’t use spotify, but it’s definitely better than the recent and awful implementation of podcasts in youtube music. I tried a couple other podcast apps, most recently podcast republic, and I found podcast republic to be buggy, certain settings don’t stick or work as expected.
Did you already try restarting the phone?
I’ve gotten every generation of pixel phones. I was very excited for the 7 pro given the shortcomings I had with the 6 pro (very horrible cellular, disappointing battery life, prone to thermal protection scenarios)
I also go between google and samsung phones, most recently used an S23 ultra.
I had mostly stuck with pixels because of the camera, but to be honest, I feel like google has regressed still camera results since about the pixel 4/5 timeframe.
What I’ve noticed about my 7 pro, and I’m also disappointed with it, but different from the video, I did not keep using it in spite of the issues:
Battery life has been really bad. From 100% charge at 7:45am and using it for very basic usage on wifi during a working day without taxing apps like games or video chats, I will use it for up to 2.5h SOT and it will be down to 35% battery left after 12h. Wifi almost all the time, and I have cellular set to prefer LTE (no 5g). I use it incidentally throughout the day for MS Teams text chats, some outlook (limited), some text chats on discord, checking gmail, and (in the past) some reddit usage, and maybe 45 minutes of bluetooth audio streaming. That’s it, and only 2.5h SOT with 35% battery left is awful.
I disagree with him re. screen brightness outdoors. Screen does not stay bright when outdoors for a significant amount of time. I was glad that google started using brighter displays, but for me it feels like after 30 seconds the screen brightness drops to the point of being difficult to read outdoors.
Cellular–while better than the 6 series, it’s still not great. I’m not talking the difference between 500mbps and 900mbps, which is insignificant in terms of overall normal usage. I’m talking the difference between a stable and reliable cellular connection with no drops or lag in usage. Between my 7 pro and S23 ultra in the same location along a local ‘main drag’ area, and in many places my 7 pro will have an unstable cellular data experience and the S23 ultra has no issues. When my 7 pro disconnects from cellular, like in a parking structure, it takes quite some time to re-establish connection to cellular. My S23 ultra reconnects almost instantly.
Charging speed–I’m not asking for more than 25w charging, or even 65w or 100w like other phones (for example). But the throughout-battery-range charge speeds are too conservative and slow, especially when, in my experience with the 7 pro, it drains battery very fast and needs intermittent top-ups at times. Even on 18w USB-PD charging, my 7 pro charges much more slowly from the 40-100% range compared to my S23 ultra; to the point where it takes twice as long. This is frustrating and I wish google would at least make it an option to charge faster.
Front facing camera is bad. That’s the best way to put it. So disappointing that google didn’t maintain the auto-focus camera system on the pixel 3; the best front camera experience I’ve had on a phone.
I had a recent weekend trip for an outdoor wedding and was using my 7 pro at that time. Battery life was bad. I had to charge up from a battery pack in the middle of the day and it was frustrating. Also, being outdoors, I was taking reasonable shots and videos of the wedding and it was almost impossible to see the viewfinder because the screen brightness dropped due to temperatures. It wasn’t hot outside; it was 68f and sunny with a bit of overcast/light clouds on occasion.
I have been using the S23 ultra since early May. I was pushed mostly because battery life on my 7 pro for a regular day was basically unusable without necessary interruptions to charge. Battery life is crazy better on the S23 ultra–with the same usage that takes my 7 pro down to 35% on a normal, basic, untaxing day, my S23 ultra is never below 70% battery for the same time/usage. Cellular performance is so much better as well. I also like many of samsung’s software additions including but not limited to things like Modes & Routines, attention to sound settings (individual app volume settings, ability to route simultaneous sounds to different outputs), attention to video settings. Better video recording and audio recording quality. Samsung software experience is a polarizing topic, especially among pixel users, but overall it’s never bothered me.
I continue to prefer the still camera results from google camera on a pixel, but the differences are much smaller now than in the past between google and samsung cameras. I also noticed that subject motion blur–something that I was always disappointed with samsung cameras–is better on the S23 ultra to the point where it doesn’t really bother me in the context of whether to use a google or samsung phone.
And then there’s other aspects–Samsung pays more attention to having an integrated ecosystem experience. What I mean by this–take the example of the video where he mentions nice features on the 7 pro like reverse wireless charging, and he sets the pixel buds on the back of the phone. He also has a pixel watch in many shots of the video, but google did not build in the proprietary charging protocol to reverse wireless charging on the 7 pro, so you can’t use it to charge the pixel watch. With samsung they have built in support of charging galaxy watches with their battery share feature, so if you are going on a trip or something like that, you don’t need to even worry about or think of bringing your watch charger. It’s that sort of attention to the ecosystem that I think Samsung does a better job with than where google currently is. Google’s devices don’t feel very integrated outside of the industrial design and color schemes they chose.
Overall I’m disappointed with the 7 pro. Mostly because of the battery life. Google does need to re-invigorate the camera experience. They have challenges with their SOC and cellular modem choices and I’m disappointed that their first ‘non-qualcomm’ approach has been disappointing. When even samsung doesn’t use their own SOC design and SOC manufacturing and opts for their competitor then you know there must be a reason, and plowing ahead despite that is a pretty poor decision.
Compared to the 6a the 7a has: Wireless charging (but only 5w), up to 90hz screen refresh rate, and an updated SOC that is slightly more efficient, updated cellular modem that is less prone to cellular issues. A different main rear camera sensor (but practically speaking I haven’t seen much difference in photos in comparisons).
My wife has the 7a, coming from a 5, and the battery life is awful. She has issues with the fingerprint sensor (I have a7 pro and don’t have issues with the fingerprint sensor). But the 6a would have these same challenges.
I don’t understand this author’s idea that the galaxy watch should have a fitbit interface, and the idea doesn’t make any sense.
I have used fitbit, garmin, and android wear/WearOS trackers including samsung watches before and after the move to WearOS.
I do care about activity tracking, and the extent to which samsung health/my galaxy watch 5 pro accomplishes tracking is more than adequate. I used a Garmin Venu 2 Plus and its sleep tracking was worse than the galaxy watch (which is saying something). Fitness and GPS tracking, I’ve found as samsung health has improved since the galaxy watch 4, are as close as make no difference. With the garmin you get better battery life but at the expense of not having as many smart features. Same is true for fitbit watches. But I really can’t point to a specific thing I think fitbit does better other than sleep tracking. Fitness tracking are as similar as makes no difference, and subjectively I don’t particularly like fitbit’s general UI experience.
We got a base S23 via our carrier for no additional charge. I have a 7 pro and used the S23 for a few days and for my usage, the battery life was significantly better.
Most recently I’ve owned and used an S21 ultra (had it since launch and kept for a bit over 2 years), a Pixel 7 pro, and an S23 ultra.
I’m very disappointed with the pixel 7 series. I came from a 6 pro and the cellular modem was the reason why, and the pixel 7 pro cellular, while improved, was still unreliable and slower than qualcomm-based ones in the S21 and S23 series. I’m not talking in the context of “the S23 gets 900mbps down while my 7 pro only gets 450mbps”–there are real cases and situations where my S23 ultra has no intteruptions in cellular while my 7 pro struggles, has intermittent cutouts, and is very frustrating. In the same locations and same times.
The biggest issue with my 7 pro is battery life. It’s pretty terrible. For my usage, I take it off the charger at 100% at 7:45 in the morning, use it mostly indoors on wifi most of the day, no 5g, no taxing use, no games, and after 2.5h of screen on time over the period of 12h, it’s easily down to 35% battery max. There’s basically no battery longevity. My wife recently got a pixel 7a from a pixel 5 and her battery is equally awful. Google’s tensor SOC is just very inefficient. We took a short overnight trip for an outdoor wedding, and the day of the wedding when I took a reasonable amount of photos and videos–nothing extreme–I had to charge up my 7 pro in the middle of the day. Plus the thing was COOKING when i was taking photos and videos during the wedding. The display brightness dimmed down to the point of being unusable. Other than the 6 pro, I’ve never had any phone behave like this under similar situations.
Like I mentioned I went from my 7 pro to an S23 ultra, primarily motivated by battery life, and the experience has been amazing. With the same usage on my phone as I outlined above, my S23 ultra is rarely below 70% battery over the same period of time. It doesn’t get warm–at all. Cellular reliability is great.
I go between google and samsung phones a lot. I like aspects of both softwares a lot. I find I miss many of samsung’s software additions in lots of ways because they are sometimes-niche things that make general use better/easier. That may be one thing you should also consider beyond just performance, battery life, and specs.
If you are deciding between the S23 and S22 series, I would say that while most things are generally similar between them–even on the ultra with the changes to the camera the actual results aren’t really significant–the big thing is battery life and thermals. The 8 gen 1 in the S22 was not very efficient. the 8+ gen 2 in the S23 is a significant jump in efficiency, and that is reflected by battery life. As far as performance goes, you’re very unlikely to notice an experience difference in virtually everything that one does with a phone.
So I would recommend the S23 series.
I built a gaming PC for the first time since ~20 years ago. Decided to dump 64gb into it for no good reason other than ram is cheap and I figured I might as well.
8gb…jeebus.