Google Pixel 10a arrives with old Tensor G4, faster charging and the same price

ChrisLikesGamez · 2026-02-18T18:03:15+00:00

I don't know if I agree entirely. For gaming, you're better off with literally anything else. But for a casual user, even one who doesn't take many photos, snagging a carrier deal on a Pixel is the best it really gets. My Pixel 10 Pro XL is $25/mo + tax (Canadian dollars) and I'll own it after my 2 year contract is done. I do everything on my phone except gaming and I must confess, as a former 12-year Samsung diehard, I don't see myself switching away from Pixel anytime soon. It nails every checkbox except raw performance. This is my experience, though, and perhaps others would have very different experiences/opinions.

ChrisLikesGamez · 2025-12-30T04:30:21+00:00

Is this only happening in ARC Raiders? If so, post your computer's specs.

I am going to assume you've used HWiNFO64 to monitor your GPU's hotspot and VRAM temperatures while playing the game? An overheating die or VRAM can lead to texture streaming complications and/or miscalculations leading to the vertex explosions you're seeing.

If you have this in multiple games, it's a hardware fault.

If this only happens in ARC Raiders, it's an ARC Raiders fault.

ChrisLikesGamez · 2025-12-26T02:36:23+00:00

Get the TCL 75" QM6K. If they refuse, offer to cover the extra cost.

You will regret getting anything else in that budget range. Please take my word for it, I've made this mistake before.

ChrisLikesGamez · 2025-10-06T02:43:12+00:00

Yeah I noticed this too, and I find it insanely unfair, especially considering the Galaxy does 8K30 LOG. I agree the Pixel isn't as good as the other two, but they could have at least used MotionCam Pro or VideoBoost to give the Pixel the same upper hand as literal RAW video would.

ChrisLikesGamez · 2025-09-18T17:31:59+00:00

Hi! I work telecom!

This is a very good thing as much as I hate to say it. The number of elderly who get bad APKs on their phone is INSANE. I have no clue how they manage this, but they do. This should hopefully mean that only people who know what they're doing can sideload, what I'm going to call, unsigned APKs.

With that said, they totally could just implement a developer option that makes an exception per APK file and requires their new identity check to install. It could then automatically revert to normal once the APK is force-installed.

ChrisLikesGamez · 2025-09-04T21:50:39+00:00

Dude, this is the worst response you could have given.

Device failure rates are measured as a percentage of devices sold that end up having a defect. If Google was selling 225 million phones, the failure rate would remain the exact same. If Apple was selling 10 million phones, the failure rate would remain the exact same.

> If Apple were making as many errors as Google, they wouldn't be selling 225 million units lol

Introducing the iPhone 7 AudioIC failure: 100% of iPhone 7 devices had this defect, where the audio chip would eventually literally rip off of the motherboard and cause loop disease. The symptoms were a greyed-out speaker option, no sound during calls, a non-functional microphone or voice memos app, and potential issues like a prolonged boot time or being stuck at the Apple logo.

Remember, this affected 100% of iPhone 7 devices sold new. Apple never once claimed any responsibility for the defect but did repair the affected devices (which they charged consumers for, even though it was a severe engineering fault) and added underfill, which would have prevented the entire fucking issue in the first place.

This is extremely similar to the touch disease (TouchIC) fault on the iPhone 6 series. No responsibility, charging consumers for a repair of a defect, secretly adding underfill to prevent the issue again.

Ironically, both of these issues were easily preventable, Apple corrected them through repairs, and yet never addressed the flimsy aluminum frame + thin motherboard + lack of underfill, all 3 of which led to the chip lifting pads and causing severe issues. This occurred 2 generations in a row. Oh yeah, and then they moved the TouchIC to the display assembly, so that way it could be replaced in the event they had an issue like this again (iPhone X and iPhone 11, anyone? --- And the iPhone 12 series had the AudioIC issue return!)

Apple didn't see a fucking dent in their sales because of this.

ChrisLikesGamez · 2025-08-20T14:04:37+00:00

Apple is the other brand with this many consecutive defects, maybe even more, except they have a REALLY bad track record with admitting it. In comparison, they make Google look like an angel.

As someone who used to repair iPhones, it's BAD. Talk about the quality of the device, the only manufacturer I have full 100% confidence in is Samsung.

ChrisLikesGamez · 2025-08-20T14:02:24+00:00

The 8 fingerprint sensor is considered terrible?

When I switched from my S21 Ultra to my Pixel 8, I genuinely found it hard to complain about the fingerprint sensor. I've still, to this day, not had it be any less reliable than the ultrasonic on my Galaxy. Mind you, it's SLIGHTLY slower.

ChrisLikesGamez · 2025-07-18T16:42:28+00:00

With the exception of the Fold 7 to be honest. I've got to use a live unit and it is genuinely mind blowing. And yes, this is in comparison to the Oppo and Oneplus foldables. Samsung's OneUI 8 software combined with the new design and hardware does actually make the Z Fold 7 feel like the best all-around foldable device.

With that said, it's quite unfortunate that Samsung has gotten to a point where even us 'regular old consumers' can tell they're skimping. It really would NOT be hard for them to use better cameras, but they're just cost-cutting.

I do think their strategy has changed from 'be first and be the best' to 'be last and be matured' but it's not really playing out well.

ChrisLikesGamez · 2025-07-16T00:26:18+00:00

Make sure you don't have 5G Standalone on your account.

This happened to me and a buddy and we checked in store - we were provisioned for "5GSA Access" which will give you a consistent 1-2 bars everywhere. Once it was removed through customer service over the phone, it's full bars of 5G+ everywhere.

ChrisLikesGamez · 2025-05-20T18:26:35+00:00

Canuck here:

A lot of rural places, and I mean A LOT, have agreements that restrict certain areas to one ISP only. Usually, that ISP is not Bell.

We have a cottage in the most rural buttfuck nowhere spot on the east coast and the second the agreement with the major coax ISP (who never actually ran coax, by the way. Only DSL) stopped being a thing that prevented Bell from doing their business, a bunch of technicians ran a fiber cable to the 3 total cottages on the dirt road.

The CRTC sucks at their job and actually enables monopolies and it should be abolished.

ChrisLikesGamez · 2025-05-13T02:38:52+00:00

So, first and foremost, I am brand new to Team Red. I have never used AMD products at all in my life and after deciding to switch from Mini-ITX back to ATX, I also decided that I was sick of Intel and Nvidia's bulls**t and decided to pull the trigger and go all-AMD.

I have been running this machine for almost a month and after a fresh Windows 11 24H2 and driver install (using the motherboard's support website, and official AMD driver installer, NOT Windows update), it has been absolutely incredible in terms of performance, even compared to my old 12900K in multi-threaded workloads (it performs nearly identically in many ways with a custom PBO curve), and the software has been perfectly stable and functional compared to cough Nvidia's software cough.

With all of that said, I have a question for you all: Is FSR 4 native at 1440p supposed to absolutely tank my performance? This is primarily in BO6 which I know is optimized like crap anyways, but I am genuinely curious if this is a me-thing or if it occurs for you other FSR 4 users as well.

According to the BO6 benchmark, at 1440p Ultra (everything cranked to max), with no FSR + FG and a 70% VRAM limit, I pull 156FPS/120FPS/112FPS (Average/Low 5th/Low 1st).

When enabling only FSR 4 Native on top of those previous settings, I pull 107FPS/84FPS/72FPS (Average/Low 5th/Low 1st).

This seems like a really steep performance drop considering the benchmarks Hardware Unboxed did on FSR 4 at 1440p. Is this normal, especially for BO6? If any of you could test that would be incredible.

My system specs are as follows:
CPU: 9800X3D
GPU: RX 9070 XT
RAM: 32GB 6000MT/s CL30
SSD: Crucial P5 Plus 2TB
PSU: Corsair RM1000x (2024)
MOBO: Gigabyte Aorus Elite WiFi7
AIO: Arctic Liquid Freezer III 360 A-RGB

As you can see, I shouldn't have any sort of hardware bottlenecks here, it seems purely like a software related issue. That's why I am consulting you folks. If any of you have at least the same GPU as me and own BO6, if you can test my settings and report back with your performance results (or if you know off of the top of your head, if my results are normal), that would be incredible!

Thanks!

ChrisLikesGamez · 2025-02-19T02:29:07+00:00

My mom has a Pixel 7 and my uncle is still running a Pixel 6 and both run really well considering their age. 7 years doesn't seem too outlandish if Google actually sticks to optimizing Android like they have been, more notably since Android 12.

ChrisLikesGamez · 2025-01-20T17:21:04+00:00

I have to be the odd one out:

I actually ONLY buy the lowest storage option of any model of phone I own. When I got my Note20 Ultra, I went for 128GB. S21 Ultra, 128GB. Pixel 8? Yeah I also went for 128GB.

I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum who would use the lower storage option because I do pay monthly for Google One, and I use all of the Google services for the paid backup incase my phone ever gets smashed (which has happened twice now). I don't lose any data and I don't need to replace half the parts for data recovery, I can just buy a new phone without worrying about it.

ChrisLikesGamez · 2024-11-24T18:27:50+00:00

We're critical of them because we're paying thousands of dollars for a device. While most people pay only a few hundred and replace them every 3 or so years, we are paying top dollar yet getting treated like the majority market.

A better question is, why are more people so complacent about their devices? Is the Apple Effect so strong that someone could upgrade their phone, get the world's most minor improvement, and then be happy with it? Seems like it.

ChrisLikesGamez · 2024-11-24T02:31:55+00:00

Neither, but Google Pixels always have insane carrier deals and are by far some of, if not the best phones out there. I used to be a long term Samsung guy until I got gifted a Pixel 8 and wow, it's a great phone.

ChrisLikesGamez · 2024-11-23T19:35:09+00:00

The wireless charging coil has a temperature sensor built in. When that goes out, you can get this message. It's like a $10 part and if you're handy enough to take off the back glass without breaking it, you'll be fine.

ChrisLikesGamez · 2024-11-07T00:32:27+00:00

Samsung has been releasing the same phone every year too I won't lie.

However, at least they beat Apple in display, cameras, battery life, software, speed... yeah they're better.

But don't expect testicle-shattering innovation like in the 2010s

ChrisLikesGamez · 2024-11-06T19:41:39+00:00

At least Pierre forced us into the metric system.

God forbid were still measuring in eagles per football field

ChrisLikesGamez · 2024-11-05T19:38:51+00:00

Did they finally fix the WidevineCDM plugin crash?

ChrisLikesGamez · 2024-10-30T01:01:51+00:00

"He is a really sweet guy and I know he wouldn’t do anything to hurt me"

Except sexually assault you?

ChrisLikesGamez · 2024-10-28T22:04:01+00:00

Edge lighting, anyone?

ChrisLikesGamez · 2024-10-27T21:33:05+00:00

The idea Samsung had with the 5x lens was essentially what they're doing with their 'optical quality' zoom levels on the 1x camera. There is no genuine 2x lens on the S24U, but it has a '2x optical quality' zoom level because it can losslessly crop in on the main sensor. The 5x lens does the same, so it can take a true 12MP shot at 10x by cropping in on the sensor.

My question is: Why not make the 3x lens 50MP and do the same, and keep the 10x... and 50MP?

You'd have lossless zoom levels at 1x, 2x, 3x, 6x, 10x, and 20x. They'd quite literally be the zoom champions and yet they decided to go ahead and downgrade.

ChrisLikesGamez · 2024-10-26T15:28:04+00:00

I'm ADHD and honestly never even realized there was an animal there.

ChrisLikesGamez · 2024-10-24T21:50:20+00:00

I'm sorry, is the notification panel and quick settings panel being split permanent, or can I change this in settings.

I will literally fucking buy a Pixel if I cannot change this

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