Post pictures of your latest purchase

[MSFTisMIA]

Stepping out of my comfort zone a little. The price was just too good to pass up. I seriously doubt this will supplant my Fitbit Ionic but I will give it an honest tryout. View attachment 141847View attachment 141848

As a Falster OG owner and someone who admired the Falster 2, nice work. If Google hadn't been so lackadaisical with the OS, it still would be on my wrist.

Let us know what you think.

 

[fatclue_98]

Let us know what you think.

This is a family-friendly site. Let's just say I've never seen a battery level sink like a rock before, and I've owned plenty of BlackBerrys to know what falling battery look like.

 

[fatclue_98]

As a Falster OG owner and someone who admired the Falster 2, nice work. If Google hadn't been so lackadaisical with the OS, it still would be on my wrist.

Let us know what you think.

It's a beaut no doubt. I've read online it takes a few days for the OS to settle due to pending updates and such. That is just sooooo Google. Besides the looks, the only other good thing I can say about it is the bluetooth radio has talons on it. My bedroom is a good 60' away from my living room and it's getting notifications from my phone which is charging in there.

I couldn't go wrong for $70 even if it's used as a dress watch only.

 

[Laura Knotek]

Stepping out of my comfort zone a little. The price was just too good to pass up. I seriously doubt this will supplant my Fitbit Ionic but I will give it an honest tryout. View attachment 141847View attachment 141848

That looks really nice! I hope it works well for you. Please share your thoughts once you've used it a bit.

 

[MSFTisMIA]

It's a beaut no doubt. I've read online it takes a few days for the OS to settle due to pending updates and such. That is just sooooo Google. Besides the looks, the only other good thing I can say about it is the bluetooth radio has talons on it. My bedroom is a good 60' away from my living room and it's getting notifications from my phone which is charging in there.

I couldn't go wrong for $70 even if it's used as a dress watch only.

That's a great price. I was thinking of getting this one too, as while I liked the OG Falster, the Fossil Q Explorist Gen 3 I had was fun to use for dress up (battery life was terrible but it turned heads). Then I just got tired of Google's shenanigans as a long time Android Wear user and put everything in the box (still own a Huawei watch classic, Huawei watch 2 sport and OG Falster). I use a S3 classic (silver) now for dress up, but I may get one of these eventually as it's nice to have a gold watch.

 

[MSFTisMIA]

So the laptop is done. This is the last addition: black leather skin from Mighty Skins. I'm disappointed where I had to go MacGyver and add the cutout for the Windows hello key myself (yeah, I know). But it keeps the finger oils away and looks nice enough to compliment the keyboard cover.

 

[fatclue_98]

Ok so here's a quick update of the Falster 2 after a couple of days. The various forum posts were accurate as the watch has settled greatly and battery life has improved dramatically. It's still ****-poor when compared to my Ionic, Apple Watch or even my departed Gear S3. Google Fit (as a fitness tracking system) is also ****-poor compared to Fitbit, even Apple Health is better and that's really saying something. The pluses are notifications, Google Pay and the Assistant but sadly, that's it. No way this replaces my Ionic for daily use so I'll have a real good looking dress watch.

 

[MSFTisMIA]

Ok so here's a quick update of the Falster 2 after a couple of days. The various forum posts were accurate as the watch has settled greatly and battery life has improved dramatically. It's still ****-poor when compared to my Ionic, Apple Watch or even my departed Gear S3. Google Fit (as a fitness tracking system) is also ****-poor compared to Fitbit, even Apple Health is better and that's really saying something. The pluses are notifications, Google Pay and the Assistant but sadly, that's it. No way this replaces my Ionic for daily use so I'll have a real good looking dress watch.

Not surprised. Now you see why I parked Wear OS. The chip is the problem. It needs to be on the 10nm process of less to be better. It's still on 14nm.

 

[Laura Knotek]

Ok so here's a quick update of the Falster 2 after a couple of days. The various forum posts were accurate as the watch has settled greatly and battery life has improved dramatically. It's still ****-poor when compared to my Ionic, Apple Watch or even my departed Gear S3. Google Fit (as a fitness tracking system) is also ****-poor compared to Fitbit, even Apple Health is better and that's really saying something. The pluses are notifications, Google Pay and the Assistant but sadly, that's it. No way this replaces my Ionic for daily use so I'll have a real good looking dress watch.

Thanks for your review. I'm glad you got a nice dress watch at a good price, since it won't be something you'll use every day. I really do like the design of it. That's too bad its features leave much to be desired.

 

[fatclue_98]

Thanks for your review. I'm glad you got a nice dress watch at a good price, since it won't be something you'll use every day. I really do like the design of it. That's too bad its features leave much to be desired.

So here's a swift kick in nuggets for y'all. I paired it to my iPhone XR just for gits and shiggles and the damned thing works better than on Android. And I can use Google Pay to boot! Fitbit Pay works on iOS too so it's not a reason to ditch the Ionic, oh hell to the no!!

 

[MSFTisMIA]

So here's a swift kick in nuggets for y'all. I paired it to my iPhone XR just for gits and shiggles and the damned thing works better than on Android. And I can use Google Pay to boot! Fitbit Pay works on iOS too so it's not a reason to ditch the Ionic, oh hell to the no!!

Not really surprised there. There has been a lot of work to make wear OS more appealing to Apple users. Lots of them don't like the Apple watch. At one point 1/3 of wear OS owners had an iPhone.

 

[MSFTisMIA]

Let's have fun with this one.

 

[fatclue_98]

Let's have fun with this one. View attachment 141870

Besides the FPS and slow camera, how is this rig with normal tasks? Is the SD845 not up to snuff?

 

[MSFTisMIA]

Besides the FPS and slow camera, how is this rig with normal tasks? Is the SD845 not up to snuff?

It flies about as fast as the lies from a politician's mouth. Coupled with Android One, it feels very smooth.

 

[fatclue_98]

Aw sh*t, the devil made me do it. I’ll repent after I do a mini review.

 

[worldspy99]

Aw sh*t, the devil made me do it. I’ll repent after I do a mini review.

View attachment 141871

Lol I got one too

 

[Laura Knotek]

Aw sh*t, the devil made me do it. I’ll repent after I do a mini review.

View attachment 141871

Lol I got one too

I'm looking forward to both of your mini reviews.

Enjoy your new Pixel 4XL's.

 

[fatclue_98]

A couple of hours into the Pixel 4 XL experiment reveals a few notable items. As you would expect, a device with a SD855 and 6GB of RAM will surely fly and this one is no different. There's nothing I can say about the camera that hasn't been said before so we'll skip that. There is one serious thorn in my side that isn't a deal-breaker but I'll have to see over time. Face Unlock is the only biometric method available and while it's quick and all, many apps don't recognize it as a bio and force you to type a PIN or password. My passwords are lengthy so that might get old in a hurry. I don't visit my bank app every single day so it might not **** me off too much. Another niggling issue that can be resolved rather easily is that there is no option available to merge duplicate contacts. Maybe it's an Android 10 thing, I've rarely come across it. A quick trip to the BlackBerry Manager and install BB Contacts will cure that ailment pronto.

All the usual flagship qualities are there, I'm not breaking any new ground. Finally I was able to get the Your Phone app to work properly from the get go - that's a major achievement anyone here can attest to if they've tried it. More news at 11.

 

[MSFTisMIA]

A couple of hours into the Pixel 4 XL experiment reveals a few notable items. As you would expect, a device with a SD855 and 6GB of RAM will surely fly and this one is no different. There's nothing I can say about the camera that hasn't been said before so we'll skip that. There is one serious thorn in my side that isn't a deal-breaker but I'll have to see over time. Face Unlock is the only biometric method available and while it's quick and all, many apps don't recognize it as a bio and force you to type a PIN or password. My passwords are lengthy so that might get old in a hurry. I don't visit my bank app every single day so it might not **** me off too much. Another niggling issue that can be resolved rather easily is that there is no option available to merge duplicate contacts. Maybe it's an Android 10 thing, I've rarely come across it. A quick trip to the BlackBerry Manager and install BB Contacts will cure that ailment pronto.

All the usual flagship qualities are there, I'm not breaking any new ground. Finally I was able to get the Your Phone app to work properly from the get go - that's a major achievement anyone here can attest to if they've tried it. More news at 11.

The Face Unlock only on Google's Android iPhone was the biggest turnoff for me. It's one thing to use old-school methods if the biometrics is funny, but I didn't like they took away the option.

 

[fatclue_98]

The Face Unlock only on Google's Android iPhone was the biggest turnoff for me. It's one thing to use old-school methods if the biometrics is funny, but I didn't like they took away the option.

I can't say I wouldn't have pulled the trigger on the Pixel had I known about this. From my viewpoint, the phone is future-proof for the next few years and I'm sure Google will probably push this feature like a tired old mule. Given that, I'd like to think devs will get with the program and start incorporating FaceID, I'm sorry, Face Unlock into the mainstream.