Pixel 5...?! When did that happen?

[chrisk]

And maybe I'm getting soft in the head, but $799 CAD seems better than previous gens for the specs? Still a lot, but compared to other pricing.

Went with a mid-range 765G CPU. Good enough for most, but the GPU is not that powerful in this chip.

They also removed the Pixel Neural Core that processed images, and no Soli radar. No squeeze for Assistant either, so money saved on those.

Says "Flexible OLED"... not sure what that means in the context of this phone?

Might be one of the LG OLEDs that Google invested in. The flex allows the screen to have small bezels, maybe some impact resistance, etc. I think it allows them to combine the screen with the glass as well.

And it seems like the Pixel 5 should feel a bit more premium too with its aluminum body and Gorilla Glass 6.

There seems to be some kind of plastic in the area of the rear where the wireless charging coils are. Early reports are that it feels like plastic.

...which would be roughly the correct conversion of $699USD. I've seen some say that the Canadian model is cheaper as it doesn't have mmWave 5G, but as far as I know, none of the Canadian carriers are using that, or at least not yet. I believe that's the one that conspiracy theorists believe give you cancer and whatever else.

There's still those that believe it will go on sale for even less on Black Friday, like the Pixel 3 and 4 did? I don't know if I'd agree with that since it seems COVID has limited manufacturing and supply, so I'm not sure they'll have much "overstock" after the initial set of pre-orders.

Yeah, Pixels are notorious for going on sale about a month after release. Been burned a few times, but expected it going in. Google has reduced orders this year so maybe supply will not be that high. I actually think this phone will be a hit, as long as the early reviews are positive and there are no hardware issues. The price will be good on this, but might not drop like other years because of the supply issues you mentioned.

I have the 4XL and am thinking of this one, TBH. I love my 4XL, but much prefer a fingerprint scanner, and the battery is not good. If not for covid keeping me home and near a charger, I might have pre-ordered. For now, I'll wait until December to see how the reviews look, battery holds up, how fast the camera is without the Neural Core, and to see if the screen holds up.

 

[JD]

They also removed the Pixel Neural Core that processed images

Neural Core was around 3 trillion operations per second and was really just a secondary ARM processor, the 765G seems to have a built-in tensor accelerator that is capable of 5.4 trillion operations per second. Pixel 3a/4a have also done really well without it, so I'm not overly concerned about the exclusion.

However, I ended up buying a Canon EOS RP too, and since it's a lot lighter/smaller than my EOS 80D, I actually have started taking my camera out again. I forgot how much better photos can look with a proper camera, though my Pixel is still great for quick shots and it's HDR works wonders.

 

[Lysrin]

You know one of the biggest things that makes me second guess a new phone these days? The hassle of having to transfer over all the two-factor authentication stuff to the new phone!!

Thanks for that detailed post @chrisk ! Interesting changes there.

 

[chrisk]

Neural Core was around 3 trillion operations per second and was really just a secondary ARM processor, the 765G seems to have a built-in tensor accelerator that is capable of 5.4 trillion operations per second. Pixel 3a/4a have also done really well without it, so I'm not overly concerned about the exclusion.

Yeah the reviews will be important to see how the 765G can get the processing done. It's just another thing that impacts the performance overall though, but for me I think it will be ok.

 

[Sagath]

You know one of the biggest things that makes me second guess a new phone these days? The hassle of having to transfer over all the two-factor authentication stuff to the new phone!!

Thanks for that detailed post @chrisk ! Interesting changes there.

One word: Authy

 

[Lysrin]

One word: Authy

Yes, good word. You use that one?

 

[JD]

On the flipside, do you really want your tokens stored in the cloud? Sure it's easier to use, but I wouldn't say it's as secure at that point. I'd probably aim for more of a hybrid approach, keep your email and password manager tokens strictly "offline" as they should be the most secure accounts you have, then used a cloud-backup token service for the rest.

But I still feel like Google Authenticator should be able to be migrated over when you are transferring phones, even if it was just exclusive to Pixel-to-Pixel migrations.

 

[Lysrin]

Perhaps as long as they are encrypted in the cloud, that mitigates the risk some? I do like the Authy option (yes reading more about it...) of deactivating a device if it's lost.

Security is a pita! lol

From this site: https://authy.com/blog/authy-vs-google-authenticator/

"Google Authenticator falls short when it comes to cloud sync options. With Google, if you lose your phone you lose your access. Get a new phone and prepare to manually transfer your accounts, all of them, one at a time. This scenario alone seems to be the biggest reason people switch from GA to Authy."

They do admit on the page that they're biased

More about their backups: https://authy.com/blog/how-the-authy-two-factor-backups-work/

 

[Sagath]

Authy is by far the easiest, most secure way to do 2FA, as Lyrsin linked they're salted/hashed, and probably more secure than modern online banking methods. We've all read about recent (in the last 5 years) banking 'hacks', and the more recent CRA thefts. I'll take the risk of Authy for my 2FA, considering TD is still sending me (what they call) Two Factor (its not, its two STEP) SMS codes...which is well known to be easily exploitable, and continues to be exploited every day.

Also, Im a big fan of 1password for passwords. The great part of that is that you can set your backup location for your salted/hashed account to keep it 'offline'.

 

[JD]

Security is a pita! lol

haha it sure is, and at the end of the day, if somebody wants your data, they're still going to get it. All you're really ever doing is slowing them down or making yourself a more difficult target so that they might skip over you.