October '22 Tech Recap + Small Update
It has been a while. I didn't want to have nothing to post this month, and there was indeed a lot to discuss, but I was simply too busy. I'm enrolled at two higher education locations at once during this semester and both insist on mandating long, tedious and unfulfilling assignments to its students. I've accomplished more last semester by having two semesters' worth of classes, thankfully because they weren't dousing us in menial tasks in these classes. I thus didn't have much time or energy to achieve anything, not even treading colourful, hilly trails this autumn.
Except that I did keep working on something very important: my smartphone comparison. I really, really hope to release it by Black Friday. Hopefully I'll have enough time to work on it this week, because I'm quite close to completing it. I won't have time to have much in terms of infographics, though.
So, what did I miss this month?
| Express comments - Pixels
Ah yes, the Pixel launch event. Awful, literally so. The Pixel 7/Pro's new design is no longer worth lauding because, though it strikes a staggering ressemblance to the Pixel 6/Pro's. I'm not fond of the glossy, reflective metal as it looks pointlessly tacky. These bear further ressemblance to the Pixel 6 line when considering their innards, which are identical. The GPU uses a new architecture, meaning graphical compute should improve. The CPU is identical. The Pro model has a greater zoom (5x versus 4x) but that's it. In one word: negligible. It's not even worth calling this refresh "iterative".
The Pixel Watch was a long-rumoured device that finally released with revolutionary specs... for 2018 when it was first rumoured to launch with the Pixel 3 line. This thing has an Exynos 9110, introduced in 2018 on the first Galaxy Watch. 4 years later, I'm tempted to yearn for something more... contemporary. The components themselves are quite bad, using Gorilla Glass 5 for its completely exposed and unprotected front glass panel. It doesn't have proper support for wireless charging standards so you're stuck with the stock charger forever. OS updates will stop before Samsung stops supporting their Android WearOS watches. You have to link your Google Account to one too. This thing is super expensive too, at an insane 450$ MSRP. It's simply a bad choice, no matter how you look at it.
| Express comments - OneUI and others
If there was anything else announced at Google's event, I didn't catch it. It was probably something forgettable. Otherwise in technology, there was that new Moto Razr 2022 but that's just a foldable, and my experience with the Z Flip4 was far from revolutionary.
OneUI 5 has begun its global rollout, but I can't identify a single major enhancement. Shuffling of options, yes, but nothing else. Ironically, OneUI 4.1.1 was more notable, bringing Android 12L improvements on tablets and foldables. Perhaps the most notable change is the option to disable the swap file (falsely called "RAM Plus"), though, sadly, I know for a fact some people will draw some excitement from the new emoji options. For the full changelog, click here. I'm warning you, it's long and boring.
A pair of "cloud-centric" Android gaming devices were released. The Logitech G Cloud is a cheap, SD720G-based model that really cannot provide anyone with a satisfactory local experience outside of 2D games. The Razer Edge is a consumer version of the Qualcomm Snapdragon G3x Gen 1 development device, though the SoC's actual specs remain shrouded in mystery. I prefer to play full, actually fun games locally rather than wasting still-expensive mobile data allotments on streaming games or paying, er, playing pay-2-win games. These are definitely niche products that I doubt would exist had the Nintendo Switch included a user-accessible web browser... and a capable wireless card.
Nothing else has caught my attention on the mobile space, while technology in general was quite interesting but I will refrain from commenting on that for this time.