Daily Authority: Pixel 5a 🤔

Finally, Google launched the Pixel 5a, its mid-year launch ahead of the much hotter-anticipated Pixel 6 series that will be out in a month or two.

It’s a somewhat amazing device:

• Google essentially perfected the Pixel 4a 5G with the release of the 5a. It’s the 4a 5G Plus. 4a 5GS.
• The Pixel 5a has the exact same chipset, memory, camera setup, and 18W wired charging. But it rearranged the build and other components as follows: a metal unibody design, a slightly larger display (6.34 inches versus a 6.2 inch screen), a much, much larger battery, and an IP67 Protection class for dust and water resistance – a first for the A series.
• Google cut the price by $ 50 and now starts at $ 449.
• Good luck if you are not in the US or Japan, the only two starting countries.
• And this release availability makes even less sense than ever! Google is not using a new chipset from Qualcomm, which may have resulted in delivery bottlenecks. It uses the same one from last year! Google, Google, Google, why is this phone no longer available?

$ for?:

• Perhaps Google will admit that this phone is uniquely competitive in the US market.
• A $ 450 Android phone with a 60Hz display, an older chipset, and a camera setup that hasn’t changed in years would be a bit of a stinker for those looking for the best in many parts of the world Specifications live. You pay a heavy price for features you don’t get.
• But competition is stifled in the land of the free. The $ 400 to $ 500 price range includes Samsung’s A52 (or the just-launched A52s) and Apple’s iPhone SE. Apple can get away with this because of iOS; The Samsung A52 has a few nicer options and is regularly offered for less.
• If you look at the UK, Europe, India, and of course China, for $ 450 at least, you get: a better display, better SoC, faster wired charging, maybe even wireless charging, and some sort of telephoto lens.
• The Poco F3, for example, costs around $ 400 and includes a Snapdragon 870 chipset, a 120Hz OLED screen, and a 33W charge.
• Even brand new phones under $ 200 have 90 Hz displays that allow smoother, faster scrolling. It’s not a big deal, but it’s the future.

The experience:

• However, software experience is crucial. Google’s aging camera comes off because it’s optimized so that it often beats our fancier hardware, even though the lack of zoom gets very tired.
• Google is bringing its Pixel software to Android, promising updates and nice Google add-ons like the Google Recorder app, call screening for spam calls and more.
• And where Chinese OEMs are crushing the Pixel in terms of specs and value, they don’t always deliver when it comes to a better Android experience, which Google mostly gets right.
• The other bonuses from Google are Android updates, beta testing of the next Android editions, and tighter integrations with Assistant.
• Our Pixel 5a review says, “No, it’s not the most exciting phone you’ll see in 2021, but it works and that’s exactly what it’s supposed to do […] it just works. “
• That is enough for a large part of the market. Other headlines were “boring but better than ever” and “it ain’t broke so Google didn’t fix it”.

🔋 We tested Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 5 against the fastest smartphone charging standards: temperature-conscious charging (Android authority).

🎧 New leakage specifications, Design of the upcoming Bose QuietComfort 45 flagship headphones (Android authority).

👉 Samsung’s new one Galaxy A52s 5G increases the performance of the A52 and adds a new color (Android authority).

🍩 Google sweetens YouTube Premium with 3 free months of Stadia Pro (Android authority).

🍎 Report: Apple, Amazon, and Google supply chain plans to move production from China to Vietnam “on hold” due to COVID disruptionswhich means the AirPods 3 and some Macs / iPads are made in China, as is the Pixel 6, despite plans to have a Vietnam-based manufacturing facility (Nikkei Asia).

👮‍♀️ Twitter is Experiment with the ability for users to report “potentially misleading content”. with users in the US, South Korea, and Australia in court first (The guard).

🤖 Boston Dynamics robots the latest feature is parkour (Engage).

🎧 NuraNow: You can get earbuds for a subscription of $ 5 / montheven though you never actually own it (Gizmodo).

🚗 It turns out that Waymo has to hand-build its “self-driving” Chrysler vans, which leads motorists to wonder: If Waymo can’t do self-driving cars, can anyone?? (Jalopnik).

💳 “Mastercard will put magnetic stripes on its cards from 2024“Is the headline, but the real story is that it will be around until 2033. 2033! (The edge).

🤖 This AI helps identify health problems in wildlife Real time (Wired).

🍻 German chemists identified over 7,700 different chemical formulas in beers. Bottom up! (Ars-Technica).

🐕 I’m happy that there was a dog like mine returned to its owners after it was allegedly stolen – what a sweetie it is! (Tweet).

🌽 “We are NASA scientists who study Earth systems, how they change and how they affect our favorite foods. Ask us anything about agriculture, drought and food security!“(R / askscience).