A Google Pixel 4/4XL Retrospective: The Forgotten Frontier of Hardware and Software Prowess
2025.01.18 06:50 rip-droptire A Google Pixel 4/4XL Retrospective: The Forgotten Frontier of Hardware and Software Prowess
Introduction As I sit here, writing this piece, I am listening to some of my favorite music... on my brand new Pixel 4 XL. I'd just began using it two days ago, after the unfortunate and rather sudden death of my previous phone, a standard Pixel 4 which had treated me well for nearly four years. Every so often, a song comes on that I'm not in the mood for - and I vaguely gesture at my phone, sending my playlist one song forward. And on occasion, I change playlists entirely, or perhaps to an album instead (currently on Tonic's Lemon Parade, if you haven't listened you absolutely should). In doing so, I pick up the 4 XL off the desk next to me. Its face unlock sensors fire up in this split second, knowing I'm about to try and unlock my phone. By the time I move it into position, it's already unlocked. From here I swipe around a bit on the superb (even by today's standards) 90Hz display until I find what I am looking for. If I had to describe this process in one word, it would be "cutting-edge". Nothing else I've tried matches the level of seamlessness I've experienced with these phones, and that's why I will continue to buy them at bargain basement prices for as long as they're available whenever I need one.
At Release: A beautifully flawed piece of hardware not quite fused perfectly with its software As expected from the device to win the dubious honor of MKBHD's "Disappointment of the Year" award, the Pixel 4 series was far from perfect at launch. It had several glaring issues, detailed below:
- The battery life. This was a dealbreaker for many in tech circles who looked at the phone in early days. The 4 XL struggled to get through a day under heavy use, and the standard Pixel 4? It essentially had to be a corded phone at times because of how poor its battery was. The battery life is also one of the aspects of these devices that's shown the most dramatic improvement over several years of optimization, but I'm getting ahead of myself a bit...
- Face Unlock being a completely new thing for Google. Nothing screamed "frontier" any more than Google's fusion of radar motion sensing with an Apple-esque 3D face unlock system - but as one might expect, the feature needed a bit of time to marinate before it could really get good. Two significant problems presented themselves here, the primary issue being app compatibility with and development for Face Unlock. The second was not requiring open eyes to unlock the phone, which presented a potential serious privacy concern.
- Some features felt pretty half-baked. I won't list them all, but the most significant question marks were as follows:
- Motion Sense lacked consistency and was pretty inefficient contributing to the previously mentioned battery problems.
- 90Hz sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. Long story short it would throttle down at the most random times and also NEVER worked under 75% battery initially.
- No 4K/60fps video for some reason. "Half-baked" in the sense many felt it should have shown up on a phone with cameras this good.
- Low storage options and expensive upgrades. It cost $100 to upgrade from 64GB of storage to 128GB of storage for both Pixel models, and to make matters worse, that 128GB was the cap. Felt pretty bad to have on a phone meant to be a camera beast.
Current Thoughts: Google fixed it! Also, why did they remove so many of these amazing features from newer phones?! As you can probably tell from the intro, I absolutely love the P4 experience. Face Unlock's problems were solved, I have not come across a mainstream app without support for it and there's a toggle to "require attention" now for security purposes. Further, Motion Sense is improved, both in consistency and functionality, and 90Hz works properly: you can even force it in Developer Options. But that pales in comparison to the largest improvement by far, which is the battery life. Google's constantly been upgrading their software battery management since the 4 series launched through the latest supported version of Android 13. These include Adaptive Battery which learns the user's patterns and improves power consumption over time, and more general optimizations. My 4 XL now seldom ends the day at less than 20% charge with my average of 4.5 hours of SOT, compared to at launch where it was struggling to make it at all. Serious improvement here and it shows that the 4 series, more than anything, just wasn't ready for prime time at release.
The Pixel 4 series was also the last phone Google released with many features/traits that have yet to make an appearance since:
- Motion Sense/Soli
- Face Unlock that doesn't well, suck
- Active Edge
- A phone model that's actually small and pocketable
- An unimpeded display (some would consider this a negative, but I REALLY do not like punch holes or notches)
The first of which is tech media and its modern standard review format. Review a product at launch, provide a verdict, then almost never come back to it. The 4's ultimately sold poorly because of bad launch reviews even when it just kept getting better with each update. This is a systemic problem in the industry that to this day has not really been addressed.
And of course, it tells us a great deal about Google itself - most notably its aggression in terms of axing features, products or concepts that aren't providing the return they're looking for. You can see it in the list I provided above on things that were either unique to or eliminated after the 4 series. If Google had a phone with modern hardware and software support in a Pixel 4 XL chassis, with Pixel 4 XL features, and five years of improvements, I would be all over it like you can't believe. Nothing to be done about it, since it is ultimately Google's decision, but it's a bit sad to think about.
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2025.01.18 06:50 RRRRRRRRRRRRRed Help a dad
Hey cool people. I recently discovered this mod and showed it to my 6-year-old autistic son who LOVES pokemon.
He was super into it so i went ahead and got us both set up with microsoft accounts and minecraft on a couple laptops. I then used curseforge to get the latest cobblemon realms modpack and got us both started in a local lan server (he’s a bit young to expose to an online server).
But it was there that i realized something…I don’t know anything about how to play this game.
My boy and i spawned in this massive thick forest, picked our starter pokemon and then just kinda… didn’t know what to do. My son accidentally whacked my mudkip til it fainted and i don’t know how to find a place to heal them, and we’re out of pokeballs.
Is there a good guide or video series we should check out? I need a bit of hand-holding, but want my boy to have a good time.
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2025.01.18 06:50 JarredandVexed Had to make a meme 😂
 | submitted by JarredandVexed to 90dayfianceuncensored [link] [comments] |
2025.01.18 06:50 arthuremrys Count Orlok the Korbat
 | https://preview.redd.it/19j6cwmx8pde1.png?width=1980&format=png&auto=webp&s=ca9af2213b5c3e01a2b9cd790690c15dfe8ec1a3 I watched the Nosferatu (2024) movie recently and I was inspired! I'll save up for a [Batboy and Fleaf] or [Mutant Psimouse and Fleaf] combo to complete the custom (Rat and flea the carriers of the black plague, ya feel me??). Do you guys think there's a better p2p4 combo? Also show me your pet lookup pages!!! submitted by arthuremrys to neopets [link] [comments] |
2025.01.18 06:50 LifeExpConnoisseur How do you think your culture/society would react if it became undeniable that people in a different country were living happier healthier lives?
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2025.01.18 06:50 Marvelous_Breadfish1 How time consuming are aemt classes?
I’m currently working as an emt b part time, a full time student and I’m registered for an aemt class starting next month. The classes are only 4 hours twice a week at night and occasional weekends, but I’m worried that I might not have a lot of time to study and prepare outside of class.
How difficult are aemt classes, mostly repeat content from basic classes or is there a lot of new content to study? Also, how much time did you dedicate outside of class? Thanks!
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2025.01.18 06:50 ortofon88 René Magritte - The invisible world (Le monde invisible) (1954)
 | submitted by ortofon88 to favArt [link] [comments] |
2025.01.18 06:50 TRENCHMRE_Sounds How do I make my AMD GPU run games on parallels
There is no particular way to use dedicated gpu in parallels, it just shows it’s using system memory for graphics and shows parallels display adapter in task manager. Is there a way to make it run on dedicated gpu only?
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2025.01.18 06:50 Specialist-Box-1079 Is this site legit?
tractiondevice.in
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2025.01.18 06:50 bertwitt Gympass is hiring a Staff Product Manager | Explore UX in Remote
https://weloveproduct.co/jobs/staff-product-manager-or-explore-ux-gympass-yq7e4q?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=bot
submitted by bertwitt to productdesignjobs [link] [comments]
2025.01.18 06:49 Glittering_Bus_163 Ive been holding in a lot, so I'm just going to lay it all out..
(M30) I guess I can start where it started, from a young age I messed around with my sister, we touch each other and show each other our body parts and It eventually progressed into a full on sexual encounter. That developed into an incest fetish which I still have and desires I can't fulfill.
After all of those experiences happened i decided to try a male encounter at the end of middle beginning of high school over the summer break, he sucked my cock I sucked his that was it, but I tried it a few more times getting closer until one day the guy that was blowing me flipped me over and fucked me till he busted a nut inside.
Now I have a girlfriend who ive done some wild stuff, topless in the car flashing guys fucked one of my friends and now all I want to do is post her massive tits to hopefully fine someone who recognizes her massive tits, it's happened a few times and it's always exciting.
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2025.01.18 06:49 Aggressive_Bird3214 Opinion: The Decline of SC2 and what the Balance Council should do to (try to) reverse it.
Starcraft 2 needs a hail mary:
Like most of you, I'm a bit saddened by watching pro's retire from what was once one of the most exciting eSports on planet earth as the game is being likely removed for good from GSL, ESL, and other once common esports circuits. Fingers crossed for EWC, however that is only one event and overall interest in SC2 will likely continue to decline.
The good news is that the game will really never die, kinda like Brood War. To be honest, as an active player myself this has been one of my favorite patches in a long time - and as long as blizzard keeps the servers up there will be community events and the like, so there will always be that to look forward to.
Regardless, seeing it die a slow death in the mainstream eSports scene is sad and if there is any chance of reviving the game on some level then an effort should be made to try and do so. As a result, I believe Starcraft 2 needs a hail mary from the balance council.
I'll get straight to the point. Starcraft 2 content on Youtube still gets tens and tens of thousands of views, far more than what the active players online would leave you to believe. (SC2 Pulse shows an average of about 15000 monthly players across regions) If there are only 15000 people playing the game actively, why can Lowko / Winter casts still get upwards of 100K views on videos about new exciting patches and tournament grand finals? I think it's clear that there is still a lot of interest in Starcraft, just not as much in playing it. Why is that? Likely because the game hasn't gotten any super new content within the past 2-3 years, and the game itself is stressful enough that there isn't enough of a pull to entice older players to come try it out again.
This is my main point and suggestion: Starcraft 2 needs a hail mary patch to regarner the interest of people who STOPPED playing and simply watch YouTube content, rather than switching up balance for people who still play the game. Adding energy overcharge or making the queen cost 25 minerals more is interesting, but not in a way that will really make people text their old buddies on discord and say "hey dude, did you see that Lowko vid about the new starcarft balance patch? The new units look insane! Let's download it and run some 4 v 4 games on the new patch."
I think, if there is any effort to be made to reverse the slow decline of competitive Starcraft 2, game balance needs to be thrown to the wind and giant changes need to be made. Let's bring back the reaver and dark archon with the mind control ability. Let's bring back irradiate and infested terrans that blow up. Let's add the ultralisk ability from the campaign that lets it burrow underground and do rush surprise attacks. Let's add some campaign units and buildings and add new static defense structures and upgrades. Let's give battlecruisers and thors new abilities and new zerg units... and do it all on one patch. These are all just suggestions, and the main point is that this is the type of content and action that I think is needed to make the game feel fun, new, and enticing for people who stopped playing a while ago, and convince them to come try it out again. This is the type of patch that would give content creators something to work with and make people interested in the game again, because to be honest they are the ones helping keep this game alive... uThermal can only do so many "X" challenges to grandmaster before it eventually runs out of steam. The game needs a large flush of refreshing content to stay alive.
Worth a shot? Hopium? Wouldn't do anything? Just wanted to share anyways. At the very least I hope this somehow reaches the ears of someone on the balance council so I know the option was at least thought about even for a moment. Regardless of what happens I'll probably still be grinding some ladder every once in a while as long as it exists, and I hope to see you guys there too ❤️
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2025.01.18 06:49 AtticusBlaqk Host of Ascension Tuning (Purestrain and Aberrant replacements)
tldr; I've had about five games with the Host of Ascension list below. It feels that the two Abominant/Aberrant and the third Purestrain units are just not what I should be doing in the list. What would you put into the list instead of these two units?
Patterns:
The Primus lead Neophyte and Biophagus lead Metamorph bombs have proven to be really great at removing threats from the board. Lone Ops either infiltrate to threaten an early lead on primaries or are held in reserves to play secondaries. Acolytes ride up in the truck to threaten the midboard. Purestrains and Abberants harrass the opponent or act as a counter charge.
10-man Neophytes screen my backfield and toe in on the objective to bring back models with the banner.
Critiques:
The purestrains are my most common candidate for resurgence points (making a virtual 3-5 units). I feel that the first two units are great but that the third is a bit unnecessary.
Similar to the Purestrains, I feel that the Abominant and Aberrant units are inefficient. It's nice to have something tough to remove at T6, Psuedo-Transhuman, and 5+ FNP. I would like to keep something that acts as a bit of a melee tarpit but maybe a 10-man with a Biophagus would be better.
Genestealer Cult Host of Ascension Strike Force (1995/2000 Points)
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2025.01.18 06:49 Alarmed-Professor154 Deal?
 | Saw this today but because it's consignment the gun store doesn't know anything about it. Is 3000 for this a deal? They only know it’s a DD4. Thanks! submitted by Alarmed-Professor154 to CAguns [link] [comments] |
2025.01.18 06:49 Key_Lead3784 Saved everyone (maybe) in my first man of medan playthrough but still have so many questions
Sorry it's going to be long. I saved everyone on charge in the end but conard ? Idk what happened to him. I made conard to escape in the speedboat dodging the bullets and in the end he came to the shop only to find out that everyone escaped cause they got the distributor cap back and left. 1.So what really happened to conard ? Did I save everyone or not ? 2. Is it easy to save everyone in this game ? I felt the game was short and was easy to save everyone (excluding conard) 3. I know it's because of the gas they're hallucinating but who made the gas ? Us or china ? Was it made by us and transported or china made them and gave it to us ? 4. How a ship could've been there in the same place for more than 70 years ? Idk but atleast someone would've noticed the ship and bought back to the shore right ? Cause in real life no one will leave a ship in the same place of the ocean for 70 years 5. Would've it been possible to escape with everyone without killing the pirates ? 6. I forgot the initial part when they took them as hostage. Why did the pirates take them as hostage ? Did they think manchurian gold was actually gold ? Even that's the case why would they take them hostage when they know where can they find the manchurian gold
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2025.01.18 06:49 verycoolcrow My solution to the time zone problem
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2025.01.18 06:49 Bulky-Breakfast-5090 Help exporting in Final Cut Pro
 | Hi, I'm trying to export a 17 minute video within Final Cut Pro. However it stops around 20-65% of the way into the export with these warnings: https://preview.redd.it/om3mb1es8pde1.png?width=1170&format=png&auto=webp&s=0254663a47eaf34206ca073b4c057c1949ca5c88 Export settings are: Format: Computer Codec: H.264 Resolution: 3840 x 2160 Color Space: Rec. 709 Action: Save only I'm exporting to my 2TB hard drive with 202GB left on it. I've also tried exporting to desktop. My Mac has 371GB available on the disk. All the project files are located on my Samsung T7 2TB hard drive. *IMPORTANT I went to the time stamps and fixed what should be the issue. Now I juts get a message saying the project title cannot be encoded. It doesnt specify where. I just says the whole thing. What can I do? This time I also got these files in my harddrive. however it says I cannot open them with my Mac submitted by Bulky-Breakfast-5090 to finalcutpro [link] [comments] |
2025.01.18 06:49 TikoyTaho Tried something different T^T
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2025.01.18 06:49 Top_Climate_4464 Legend assures us that there's no intra-gladiator rivalry
 | submitted by Top_Climate_4464 to gladiatorsuk [link] [comments] |
2025.01.18 06:49 Y0u-Ne-Zz Why You Should Stop Blaming Your Jungler
 | Your jungler isn’t a miracle worker, and it’s time to understand their role better so you stop blaming them for things that aren’t their fault. Here’s the truth: Junglers Have Priorities They can’t babysit your lane every single time something goes wrong. They’re managing their camps, objectives, keeping track of enemy movements, and sometimes even trying to make plays in other lanes. If they skip your lane, it’s likely because other things need attention or the risk just isn’t worth it. It’s Not Always Personal Yes, the enemy jungler might be focusing more on your lane, but that’s not an excuse to expect your jungler to always mirror that. You can’t demand constant help if you’re pushing too far "without vision". A good jungler will make decisions based on what’s happening across the map, not just in your lane. Communicate Instead of flaming, ping politely when you need help. Spamming “jg diff” won’t magically change anything. If you want assistance, ask calmly, and understand that sometimes your jungler’s plan might not align with your needs in that moment. Stop Overextending If you push up too far without vision, you’re basically asking for a gank. If that gank doesn’t come in time, it’s your fault for not respecting the enemy jungler or watching the map. Make sure you’re not just setting yourself up to fail, because that’s not on your jungler. For example when I see that my bot lane is losing and they die once, then twice, and they keep dying over and over again, instead of playing under the tower safely and just farming, they keep trying to fight. When they lose or get ganked, they blame the jungler, while they could've played it safe. Even though the ADC will be 0/1/0 that’s better than being 0/5/0 in the first 5 minutes of the game. Help with Objectives Dragons, Rift Herald, and Barons aren’t solo missions these are team effort and the Jungler's job is to secure it with smite or "try" to steal it. If you’re not rotating for them or helping out, don’t expect your jungler to be the one fighting for them alone. If you leave them to solo everything, don’t complain when the enemy team is ahead and has all objectives. Play Around the Jungler’s Position If your jungler is on the opposite side of the map, don’t take a risky play or overextend expecting them to bail you out. Don’t put them in a position where they have to 1v2 or 1v3 because you pushed too far. Stop Forcing Bad Fights Don’t start fights or dive towers when you’re behind, then expect your jungler to magically fix your mistakes. Don’t expect your jungler to cover for every bad play you make. Defend Your Jungle If the enemy jungler invades and you’re not there to help, don’t turn around and blame your jungler. It’s on you to protect your own lane and jungle. If the jungler is getting invaded while they’re on the other side of the map, that’s on you to notice and react. Ignoring the enemy jungler's invasion makes him comfortable to do whatever he wants. Showing up can make him think twice, sending a message that you're aware of the map. You don't need to kill him, just annoying him can disrupt his plans. Even if he takes something, he won't do it easily and might lose more than he gains. Just showing up can be a game changer. Remember enemies are humans, and this tactic can influence their decisions. Ward and Ping Enemy Jungler If you see the enemy jungler on the map, ping it and keep your lane safe. Proper vision can make all the difference. Jungle Isn’t Just About Your Lane Sometimes your jungler will prioritize objectives, counter jungling, or other lanes. If you’re not getting ganks, it’s because they have bigger things to focus on. A good jungler knows when to help their team, and when to focus on their own pathing. Just because the enemy jungler is in your lane more doesn’t mean that’s the correct play for your team. The best junglers are thinking beyond just your lane. And yes, there are bad junglers out there just like there are bad players in every role. But don’t let that make you lose sight of the bigger picture. Sometimes junglers make mistakes too, but that doesn’t mean it’s always their fault when things go wrong in your lane. The reality is League is a team game and all roles need to work together. If you keep blaming your jungler for every mistake you’re not helping the situation at all.. Remember, junglers play a much more complex role than just "gank this lane" They are constantly balancing farming, objectives, tracking enemy movements, and sometimes even making risky plays. It’s a lot of responsibility, and expecting them to carry you through every lane and situation just isn’t realistic. Instead of complaining, start thinking about how you can better work with your jungler to get things done. Help with vision, rotate for objectives, and stop overextending or making bad plays. The better you play your role, the better your jungler can help you, and the smoother the game will go for everyone. submitted by Y0u-Ne-Zz to wildrift [link] [comments] |
2025.01.18 06:49 shankmaster8000 Burger King customer KNOCKED OUT by employee
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2025.01.18 06:49 Fit-Cryptographer589 1970 Otara
https://vt.tiktok.com/ZS6VLmYtc/
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2025.01.18 06:49 joe4942 Alberta premier to spend five days in Washington, D.C., for Trump inauguration
 | submitted by joe4942 to canada [link] [comments] |
2025.01.18 06:49 Stacyzao-winters Simple you help me I’ll help you 💛❤️💛❤️
Can't do it without You! Just a click to accept my invitation! Your Friend Are Grabbing a Free Gift - You Both Deserve Too! Don't Miss Out, Click to Get Your Freebie https://onelink.shein.com/7/4co5gb3in9ya
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2025.01.18 06:49 Cold_Job6155 These cards were just ahead of their time
 | I just started digging through my old binders of assorted sports cards and found some good stuff submitted by Cold_Job6155 to hockeycards [link] [comments] |