IMO they peaked with the Nexus 6 - camera has gotten worse and they make up with it in software or try to. You could and can see this at night or stacked shots in N6 vs pixel 4,5,6.
They bought the best phone hardware and software companies (Motorola and Android) and gutted them both.
They purchased Motorola Mobility for the patent portfolio as essentially a nuclear deterrent against Apple and then sold it to Lenovo. They're doing quite well internationally but haven't been a big brand in the US for a while. Their flagship phones are going to have GrapheneOS as a selling point soon and we'll hopefully be able to expand beyond the high end over the next couple years.
> They purchased Motorola Mobility for the patent portfolio as essentially a nuclear deterrent against Apple
By Apple, you mean Microsoft.
The early Android device makers had to pay a per device patent licensing fee to Microsoft.
Google sued Microsoft for massive amounts of money using video standards essential patents they purchased from Motorola, but it didn't work out well for them in court.
...have you tried any of the cameras from the last 5 years or just the pixel 6? My 11 pro's cameras are by far the best cameras I've ever used on a smartphone, my previous iPhone included.
Have you seen the raw images you get out of those cameras? They're still the same grainy low res webcam sensors they were 10 years ago (if not worse), most of the improvement is just AI hallucinating details.
IMO they peaked with the Nexus 6 - camera has gotten worse and they make up with it in software or try to. You could and can see this at night or stacked shots in N6 vs pixel 4,5,6.
They bought the best phone hardware and software companies (Motorola and Android) and gutted them both.
Google also bought the HTC hardware folks for the Pixel phones - see https://www.engadget.com/2017-09-20-google-buys-htc-pixel-te...
Nexus 4-6 were manufactured by LG IIRC.
They purchased Motorola Mobility for the patent portfolio as essentially a nuclear deterrent against Apple and then sold it to Lenovo. They're doing quite well internationally but haven't been a big brand in the US for a while. Their flagship phones are going to have GrapheneOS as a selling point soon and we'll hopefully be able to expand beyond the high end over the next couple years.
> They purchased Motorola Mobility for the patent portfolio as essentially a nuclear deterrent against Apple
By Apple, you mean Microsoft.
The early Android device makers had to pay a per device patent licensing fee to Microsoft.
Google sued Microsoft for massive amounts of money using video standards essential patents they purchased from Motorola, but it didn't work out well for them in court.
https://www.ft.com/content/46d36fce-15c6-11e3-950a-00144feab...
2 replies →
There is really no "they", all Nexus phones weren't made by Google. Hence why, the 5X aside, everyone has nice memories of them.
The nexus 4 was also really mediocre. Only partial 4g and poor battery life iirc.
The nexus 5 also by LG was bulls eye though. Except for the ceramic letters constantly falling off.
...have you tried any of the cameras from the last 5 years or just the pixel 6? My 11 pro's cameras are by far the best cameras I've ever used on a smartphone, my previous iPhone included.
Have you seen the raw images you get out of those cameras? They're still the same grainy low res webcam sensors they were 10 years ago (if not worse), most of the improvement is just AI hallucinating details.