One of the key selling points of Google’s Pixel smartphone (and Nexus phones before them) is that, unlike most Android devices, they come with a guarantee of two years of major operating system updates and three years of monthly security updates. Sometimes you get lucky and Google keeps supporting them for a little longer than […]
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Camera NX brings Pixel 2 portrait mode to other phones
The Google Pixel 2 has one of the best smartphone cameras on the market, and one of the niftiest features is its support for portrait-style photos that blur the background. While that’s not an unusual feature for top-tier smartphones, most other phones that have a portrait mode use dual cameras to achieve it. Google’s Pixel […]
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It looks like LG is building the Google Pixel XL2
Google’s next big-screen smartphone is reportedly codenamed “taimen,” and now it’s starting to look like it’s being built by LG. The folks at 9to5Google spotted a bug report from a Google employee that makes it pretty clear that Taimen is a device from LG Electronics. What’s not yet clear is how much that actually matters. […]
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Report: Google goes back to drawing board for next-gen Pixel XL
Google hasn’t made any public announcements about it’s next-gen Pixel smartphones. But rumor has it that we can expect updates to both the Pixel and Pixel XL. According to Android Police though, Google has scrapped the phone that had been codenamed “muskie.” That was the phone that was going to replace the Pixel XL… but […]
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TWRP alpha released for Google Pixel phones (but you might not want to use it yet)
It’s been nearly a month since Google’s Pixel and Pixel XL phones have hit the streets. They’re the first phones to ship with Android 7.1 Nougat software with support for file-based encryption and seamless updates, thanks to a new partitioning scheme. But hackers who have been rooting smartphones and flashing custom ROMs for years have […]
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Now you can root a Google Pixel or Pixel XL smartphone
Google’s Pixel and Pixel XL are the first smartphones to ship with Android 7.1, but they’re also the first to feature a new disk partition scheme and file-based encryption (instead of full-disk encryption) which makes updating the operating system faster and safer… but which means hackers have had to find new ways to unlock the […]
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Google Pixel phones can be rooted
Google’s Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones are the first to ship with a new set of disk partitions designed to make it possible to download and install system updates in the background (and safely roll back an update if there are problems installing it). But the new partition layout, along with some other changes in […]
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T-Mobile offers $325 credit to Pixel owners (with a lot of caveats)
Verizon may be the only carrier selling Google’s new Pixel phones directly to consumers, but if you buy a Pixel or Pixel XL from the Google Store, you can use it with any US wireless carrier. Now T-Mobile is trying to attract Pixel owners with a promotion: bring a Pixel to T-Mobile and get up […]
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Hackers unlock bootloader on a Google Pixel from Verizon
Buy a Google Pixel or Pixel XL smartphone from the Google Store and all you need to do to unlock the bootloader is allow OEM unlocking in the Developer Options settings, connect to a computer with a USB cable, and run a command… or use a toolkit that automates some of the steps. But if you […]
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Google Pixel XL gets the iFixit teardown treatment
Google’s Pixel smartphones are now shipping, and this week I published more than 6 thousand words and a bunch of videos and pictures about the phone’s design, software, and performance. But sometimes it’s what’s inside that counts, right? So the folks at iFixit tore open the phone to see exactly what is on the inside… and […]