I remember that there was once something called the Nexus, and indeed there once was. Nexus phones were made by a variety of makers with loose control by Google. Pixel phones are designed by Google. Some older pixels were made by HTC, but the current crop seems to be made by Foxconn (Hon Hai).
The Pixel 5a is made by Hon Hai (Foxconn) and sells for $449.
The Pixel 6 sells for $599 and there is talk and rumors about a Pixel 7.
The Pixel 7 doesn't exist. Maybe by October 2022.
There is a Pixel 6 "pro", for $899. The big deal seems to be the telephoto camera. It has a 6.7 inch display with a 120Hz refresh rate (compared to a 6.4 inch display with a 90 Hz refresh). It has 12 G of ram (compared to 8 G of ram). A slightly bigger battery (but with a tad less battery life due to the bigger display most likely). None of this persuades me to spend the extra $300.
Samsung S4 Pixel 5a Pixel 6 Pixel 6 pro iPhone 13 --- --- --- - --- --- $450 $600 $900 $730 unlocked Released March 2013 August 2021 October 2021 October 2020 September, 2021 Android 5 (Lollipop) Android 11/12 Android 12 Android 12 IOS 15 5.0 inch display 6.34 inch display 6.4 inch display 6.7 inch display 6.1 inch 1080 x 1920 pixels (441 ppi) 1080 x 2400 (415ppi) 60 Hz 1080x2400 (411 ppi) 90 Hz 1440x3120 (512ppi) 120 Hz 1170 x 2532 (460 ppi) Exynos 5410 chipset (8 core) Qualcomm SM7250 snapdragon Google Tensor Google Tensor Apple A15 Bionic 4 1.6 Ghz A15 and 4 1.2 Ghz A7 2.4 Ghz, 2.2 Ghz, 6 1.8 Ghz 2*2.8 Ghz, 2*2.25, 4*1.8 2*2.8 Ghz, 2*2.24, 4*1.8 2*3.23, 4*1.82 16G internal flash 128G flash 128, 256G flash 128, 256, 512G flash 128G (256, 512) flash 2G ram 6G ram 8G ram 12G ram 4G ram SD card slot no card slot no card slot no card slot no card slot 13 mpixel main camera 12.2 and 16 mpixel cameras 50 mp, 12mp 50, 12, 48 mp 12 mp, 12 mp 1080p video at 30 fps 1080p up to 240 fps 4k back (to 60Hz) 4K front and back 4K at 60 fps GPS and GLONASS GPS, GLONASS, Galileo GPS, GLONASS, Galileo GPS, GLONASS, Galileo GPS, GLONASS, Galileo 2600 mAh battery, 17 hour talk time 4680 mAh battery 4614 mAh battery 5003 mAh battery 3240 mAh battery 4G/LTE 5G 5G 5G
The higher refresh rate on the Pixel 6 display gives it poorer battery life than the Pixel 5a. I am not sure I care about the 90 Hz refresh rate (is this for games?) Also I am not sure about a 50 megapixel camera just in terms of giant image files.
What about the Pixel 6 "pro". For an extra $300 you get a telephoto camera, more ram, and above all, a nicer screen. Both displays are OLED, as are all phones these days except true dogs. The telephoto is described as a 4x optical zoom. So, are you willing to pay an extra $300 for a bigger nicer screen and the telephoto. No AMOLED, but even the apple phones are not AMOLED and only a few are, it isn't clear that is a big win for phones.
The Pixel 6 will probably receive updates through Andoid 15, while the 5a is only guaranteed to get Android 14.
The word on Pixel 6 battery life is that it is great and will get you through a full day even with 5 hours of screen time looking at videos. Replacing the battery is $80 at various online services, or a challenging do it yourself chore. The battery itself will cost about $20.
What is of much more interest to me is the ability to unlock the bootloader, "root" my phone, and install whatever custom Android I might want to install. This seems to go hand in hand with buying an unlocked phone, but this bears some careful study.
The upshot of this (up front) is that looking at the S22 makes the Pixel 6 look like a great bargain.
My inclination already is to move away from Samsung, mostly because of all the bloatware that was on my S4. That seemed to be a cooperative effort by both Samsung and Verizon, but I still hated it.
Somewhere along the line, Samsung decided to use the last digits of the year for their model number. Perhaps this means they intend to crank out new models every year, regardless of whether they really offer anything new. Just like the car manufacturers. There are a lot of parallels between the marketing of cars and phones actually.
There aare a multitude of S22 models to further confuse things. Here is a table like the above.
Samsung S4 Pixel 6 Samsung S22 S22+ S22 ultra --- --- --- --- --- --- $600 $800 $1000 $1200 Released March 2013 October 2021 February 2022 - - Android 5 (Lollipop) Android 12 Android 12 Android 12 Android 12 5.0 inch display 6.4 inch display 6.1 inch display 6.6 inch 6.8 inch 1080 x 1920 pixels (441 ppi) 1080x2400 (411 ppi) 90 Hz 1080x2340 (425ppi) 1080x2340 1440x3088 Exynos 5410 chipset (8 core) Google Tensor Snapdragon SM8450 (8 core) SM8450 SM8450 4 1.6 Ghz A15 and 4 1.2 Ghz A7 2*2.8 Ghz, 2*2.25, 4*1.8 1*2.8, 3*2.5, 4*1.8 16G internal flash 128, 256G flash 128, 256 flash 128, 256 128, 256, 512, 1T 2G ram 8G ram 8G ram 8G ram 8 or 12G ram SD card slot no card slot no card slot no slot no slot 13 mpixel main camera 50 mp, 12mp 50, 12, 10 (3x tele) 50, 12, 10 108, 12, 10, 10 1080p video at 30 fps 4k back (to 60Hz) 8k, 4k ... GPS and GLONASS GPS, GLONASS, Galileo GPS, GLONASS, Galileo 2600 mAh battery, 17 hour talk time 4614 mAh battery 3700 mAh 4500 mAh 5000 mAh 4G/LTE 5G 5GThe Achilles heel of the plain S22 is the small battery, but you have to kick in an extra $200 to do better (or kick in $200 less to do better with the Pixel 6). Battery size is only half of the story -- the real question is how long it lasts under certain use patterns, but I am certain that the S22 battery is going to come up short.
If you compare the above table, you will notice that what the S22+ offers over the S22 is a bigger display (but no more pixels) and a bigger battery. In short, "bigger". To get more features, you need to go with the ultra. Frankly if I was jumping from the S22 to the S22+, I would keep jumping to the ultra. What I will actually do though is go with the Pixel 6 which looks more and more like an incredible bargain the more I look at the Samsung offerings.
The S22 has a telephoto (70mm), which is the major difference I see, but you pay $200 more than the Pixel 6. If I was going that route, I would consider an extra $300 and getting the Pixel 6 Pro. I have already decide that a telephoto is my least used lens and not worth extra money.
There is more to displays than pixel count and size, in particular brightness, which is now measured in "Nits". The Samsung displays are brighter (but are they more power hungry?). The S22 display is 1300 nits max brightness while the Pixel 6 is only 500 nits.
The Ultra offers the "S pen", which is something I have never felt an itch for.
Software updates are a big issue. Samsung used to suck big time, but they have now addressed that and offer updates for 4 years (through Android 16). The old situation was 2 years. And they offer 5 years of security updates This honestly makes Google look pretty bad, given they only offer updates for 3 years on the Pixel 6. The Google policy is 3 years of major Android updates and 3 years of security updates. Their is a fair bit of clamor about this online and perhaps Google will decide to do better.
There are other models of the S22 (the S22+ and the S22 ultra). Based on the table above, you are paying a lot for somewhat bigger displays (and phones) and perhaps better cameras. It doesn't knock me over for a lot of extra money.
Depending on where you live you get either the Snapdragon chipset or an Exynos 2200. In the US you get the Snapdragon, in the EU you get the Exynos. Don't ask me why.
Tom's Cell Phones / tom@mmto.org