I’m excited to see pixel grow but why are we accepting this storage bullshit? 128GB in 2023? Why do we tolerate this storage extortion. Hard drive space costs almost nothing yet they give this unacceptable starting model to sell more cloud bullshit. Apple is even worse at this. Disgusting stuff.
You don’t have to accept it, just buy something else. That’s the beauty of Android. I’m using an Xperia 1 IV and really like it. The Mark V is better with heat and a few other things but not enough to switch right away. 512 GB internal, SD card slot, headphone jack… basically everything phone buyers complain about getting removed are all available in one package.
Extra 60$ and thats exactly the problem with discussing this as people defend it by straight up lying. It’s always a little bit like oh it’s just a few extra dollars or it’s like 5 when it’s 10 and it creates this delusion that just enforces this dark pattern.
Overall not too bad, but using the camera, and especially recording video, will cause it to overheat and ask you to take a break much quicker than it really should. Honestly that’s not a minor issue I guess when one of the main features forces you to stop using it after a relatively brief time. I think the 5 series is better at managing that though.
Fine, I used a synonym instead of the exact word you used “tolerate”. The point is, the power to tolerate this or not is still in your/our hands. If we only talk and complain, but don’t actually reward with our business the companies who do what we say we want, then the future will absolutely be no on board storage, cloud connected, personal-data-harvesting everything.
So it kind of does have something to do with accepting (or not) these things.
I’m not arguing against your point at all because that seems like a personal matter. However, I am interested in knowing how the typical person uses more than 128GB of storage space. Aside from people with interests that require more space (eg a photographer or traveler), what do people have on their phones that take up more than 128GB of storage space?
I personally like to go camping, offroading, sometimes hiking. The camping can be for days at a time in places with marginal cellular signal. So I personally like having GBs and GBs of mp3s loaded onto my device to listen to.
Probably not a typical use case, but 64+ GB of music isn’t out of the question at all for me
I dont know how, but i have currently 68gb of App data on my phone. Im a photographer and traveler and i already try to push photos to cloud. But sometimes its not possible. So im happy about 256gb, so i dont need to care.
I want to switch to a Pixel 8 Pro, but im considered with that price tag and i need to pay 70€ for additional 128gb of storage…
I mean they promoted it with more MP cameras and better video, that will all take up storage.
I think its fair to call it BS not starting with 256gb as a basis.
Pixel 7 pro 256gb model checking in. I don’t take a bunch of pictures and videos but I also hardly ever delete anything and I take pictures and videos in the highest possible quality I can. My phone has 100gb of storage left between apps and media.
Photos (I like to shoot RAW+JPEG), videos and music. Pixels don’t come with micro SD card slots, and other manufacturers have been getting rid of it as well.
RAW files contain the raw, unprocessed information from the camera’s sensor, whereas the JPEGs have the device manufacturer’s processing on them. RAW images provide a lot of flexibility when editing in applications like Adobe Lightroom. You can recover a lot of detail you otherwise might lose in JPEGs. After processing them you export them as JPEGs.
Here’s a good example I found online:
They take up a lot of space. A picture of my housemate’s cat was 3.2 MB in JPEG and 16.6 MB in RAW.
My point being is that the production cost between 256gb and 128gb driver is almost identical and the phone manufacturers purposefully gimp the product to upsell some random bullshit.
Literally billions of people. Like people forget smart phone games are so far ahead by user count that a single game often has more players than ALL gaming consoles COMBINED. I’m not saying it’s great, I’m just saying it’s wildly popular.
Ya, because it’s full of children. The games you are talking about are games like Minecraft, where their parents won’t buy them a computer or console, but they will run it at 20fps on their random tablet.
Two of the reasons why I chose a Motorola Moto G Stylus 5G (2022) over a Pixel 6a with much better other specs was that it has 256GB internal storage and that it has a MicroSDXC slot vs 128GB and no slot. This stuff matters to me.
Are they going to bring the manual camera controls (shutter speed, iso, etc) to the Pixel 7 Pro?
Thats the one thing the camera app needs. 3rd party manual cameras can’t seem to access the two other lenses. At least the ones I’ve tried. And they also don’t have the nice AI processing.
For that matter, it looks like the 8 Pro can do 1-for-1 pixel raw files instead of pixel binning down to 25 MP like on the 7 Pro. That’s just software, too. They need to bring that to the 7 Pro.
I can get $420 (maybe) as a trade-in credit, and get free Pixel Buds Pro which Ive been thinking of buying anyway. But thats still $380 for some better software.
At least it doesn’t appear to have this crappy curved glass! Why google thought that was ever a good idea is beyond me.
I’m disappointed that the Pixel 8 is 6.2" instead of 6". I really wanted to support the smaller form factor, but since it’s not as small as I wanted, I may end up going for the 8 Pro.
P6P is a solid phone and I’ve had great luck with it. I haven’t maxed anything out so wondering why I should get a faster chip with more memory so I can take photos of my dog and message my friends. Google Fi is doing just $400 off a 8P which I may take because I don’t want their watch or buds. I’m not sure what I’ll do.
Phones in general flatlined. There’s hardly any real life improvement, and the improvements in spec numbers are eaten up by unjustifiably resource hungry apps.
I have a Nexus 4 in my drawer. Roughly 10 years old, but did everything just fine back then, almost the same apps I use today. But even just starting a reasonably recent Android version on that phone results in 5 fps.
I’m in the same boat and remember seeing reports that the chipset is not expected to run much cooler which is my main reason for wanting to ditch the P6P.
I don’t recall them mentioning anything about efficiency or battery life improvements in the presentation, and you know they know they would’ve made a big deal about it if they had any progress to show :(
There should be improvements in the idle battery life department along with the camera. Probably not earth shattering. Pixel 6 Pro is still a completely competent device and likely will be till the end of its update lifespan and beyond.
I also have a Pixel 6 Pro, and agree with your arguments. The specs look almost the same. However, the differences that do stick out to me are that the 8 comes with a Pixel Watch 2, better camera software, and 7 years of OS updates. With the trade-in, it seems like it might be worth the upgrade for me.
Ok, I didn’t see the offer for the watch. Interesting!
The update issue seems artificial, but I could be wrong. There are different hardware components (requires different kernel drivers) and also a big CPU update, so that could be part of maintaining updates for an older Pixel phone. (Game performance is a non-issue for me since I don’t game on my phone at all.)
While I get that it is problematic for manufacturers to stop updating old hardware, it doesn’t make sense to me why they would stop in this case. (Oct 2024/Oct 2026 for the Pixel 6 Pro)
(Just a little questioning/rant, s’all. Please excuse it.)
I traded my pixel 6 for a pixel 7 for $20 in last year’s black Friday sale. If they do that again, I’ll upgrade. If not, I’ll stick with what I got and see if next year’s is any better.
Thinking about trading in my P4a for a P8, was offered $200 off if I did. Should I pull the trigger or do you all think Black Friday will have a better deal?
Then I thought of a crazy scheme: trade in my 4a so the P8 is $500 instead of $700, then accept the free Pixel Buds Pro offer and resell them so it’s ~$300 instead.
Pre-ordered a Pixel 8 Pro with the watch. I’ve had this OnePlus 7 Pro since it launched and I want the new features and a really fucking good camera. I’d also like to get away from OnePlus’ bullshit, but all in all it’s been a fantastic phone. Still very fast.
Yeah, that’s fair. I put DivestOS on my 5T, runs perfectly. Hopefully I’ll get the Android 14 flavour, otherwise I’ll have to start looking for something else too
You can’t turn off their multi-press screenshot thing, and they install their apps and un-disable them, trying to figure out which messages or contacts app is the right one is annoying.
Don’t get me wrong, the phone is still impressively fast, but some of the newer tech, specifically camera, 5g, wireless charging, and the call screening style stuff is what I’m after.
It depends on how well it holds up, but I like having the option to keep it longer and better support usually means higher resale value if I do decide to upgrade in two years
I think Google is a great company. They make very high quality products that I use daily.
IMHO one of the hardest negative aspects of the company to argue against is their pattern of killing products and features with little to no notice regardless of previous statements. To their credit, my experience with the Stadia shutdown felt fair and reasonable, so it’s not necessarily the end of the world when they do.
Probably something to keep in mind when reading about multi year support statements.
Resolution isn’t everything. It’s a brighter better quality screen. I guarantee it will look better than the 6 pro side by side. The few less pixels will not be missed
Peak and average brightness are two different things. Either way, I have never had issues seeing what’s going on the screen unless you shone a bright light directly on it or something.
Typically brightness isn’t what I’d consider as a factor for a quality display, rather instead color accuracy. As long as you can see the display enough to distinguish colors in most environments, that’s what matters.
I’m hoping Samsung would be pushed to top this when they’re releasing the S24 series and some of the older devices will also get upgraded to a longer software upgrade period. I just upgraded to a Fold5 after using Asus ROG Phone II for four years and messing with custom ROMs (the ROG Phone II just have one year of OS updates) just to stay up to date in regards to security and software updates is not as fun as it was a dozen years ago.
Smartphones have reached a point where it’s more like a PC, where the limiting factor for the phones to get a software update is pretty much arbitrary based on the manufacturer’s decision. If the ROG Phone II is still supported today, I’ll be definitely still using that phone.
This 7 year update promise makes me think that Google are planning to do further modularization of Android to make it similar to desktop OS where the driver is not as tightly coupled to the OS build installed. As one of the main issues when you’re trying to update an Android phone OS is the SoC manufacturer not providing any updates for it so you’re SOL if you want to update your Android smartphone OS.
Apple enjoys a vertical integration for their devices to help them keep updating their devices for 5 or more years.
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I’m excited to see pixel grow but why are we accepting this storage bullshit? 128GB in 2023? Why do we tolerate this storage extortion. Hard drive space costs almost nothing yet they give this unacceptable starting model to sell more cloud bullshit. Apple is even worse at this. Disgusting stuff.
You don’t have to accept it, just buy something else. That’s the beauty of Android. I’m using an Xperia 1 IV and really like it. The Mark V is better with heat and a few other things but not enough to switch right away. 512 GB internal, SD card slot, headphone jack… basically everything phone buyers complain about getting removed are all available in one package.
They could also spend an extra $50 for the 256GB one.
Extra 60$ and thats exactly the problem with discussing this as people defend it by straight up lying. It’s always a little bit like oh it’s just a few extra dollars or it’s like 5 when it’s 10 and it creates this delusion that just enforces this dark pattern.
And what happens when that runs out?
Also a viable option…
How’s the heat with your phone? Was looking at a 5 IV but the potential heating issues has me worried.
And apparently the 5 V isn’t coming to the US.
Overall not too bad, but using the camera, and especially recording video, will cause it to overheat and ask you to take a break much quicker than it really should. Honestly that’s not a minor issue I guess when one of the main features forces you to stop using it after a relatively brief time. I think the 5 series is better at managing that though.
It’s a dark pattern and a trend. It has nothing to do with “accepting it”
Fine, I used a synonym instead of the exact word you used “tolerate”. The point is, the power to tolerate this or not is still in your/our hands. If we only talk and complain, but don’t actually reward with our business the companies who do what we say we want, then the future will absolutely be no on board storage, cloud connected, personal-data-harvesting everything.
So it kind of does have something to do with accepting (or not) these things.
Nah I don’t see any reason to tolerate shitty, greedy practice. I’m calling them out not discussing about practical viability.
I’m not arguing against your point at all because that seems like a personal matter. However, I am interested in knowing how the typical person uses more than 128GB of storage space. Aside from people with interests that require more space (eg a photographer or traveler), what do people have on their phones that take up more than 128GB of storage space?
I personally like to go camping, offroading, sometimes hiking. The camping can be for days at a time in places with marginal cellular signal. So I personally like having GBs and GBs of mp3s loaded onto my device to listen to.
Probably not a typical use case, but 64+ GB of music isn’t out of the question at all for me
I dont know how, but i have currently 68gb of App data on my phone. Im a photographer and traveler and i already try to push photos to cloud. But sometimes its not possible. So im happy about 256gb, so i dont need to care.
I want to switch to a Pixel 8 Pro, but im considered with that price tag and i need to pay 70€ for additional 128gb of storage…
I mean they promoted it with more MP cameras and better video, that will all take up storage.
I think its fair to call it BS not starting with 256gb as a basis.
Pixel 7 pro 256gb model checking in. I don’t take a bunch of pictures and videos but I also hardly ever delete anything and I take pictures and videos in the highest possible quality I can. My phone has 100gb of storage left between apps and media.
Here’s one example: An Insta 360 camera for a single 10 minute video can produce upwards of 10gb of data.
Those video files can only really be transferred to your phone for editing and sharing.
That’s ONE example that doesn’t include gaming (a highly mainstream community) that also requires gigabytes of storage.
Photos (I like to shoot RAW+JPEG), videos and music. Pixels don’t come with micro SD card slots, and other manufacturers have been getting rid of it as well.
Even apps these days are at least 100-200 MB.
That still doesn’t answer the question though. I have photos and music on my phone and I still have 60+ GB of free storage
I just happen to have more photos, videos, music and apps than you.
How long have you had your phone for? I’ve had my Pixel 6a for just over a year now.
Interesting! How do phones typically encode their files, and what are the benefits of shooting RAW+JPEG?
RAW files contain the raw, unprocessed information from the camera’s sensor, whereas the JPEGs have the device manufacturer’s processing on them. RAW images provide a lot of flexibility when editing in applications like Adobe Lightroom. You can recover a lot of detail you otherwise might lose in JPEGs. After processing them you export them as JPEGs.
Here’s a good example I found online:
They take up a lot of space. A picture of my housemate’s cat was 3.2 MB in JPEG and 16.6 MB in RAW.
woah, that’s super cool! thanks for sharing and providing an example 🙂
Loads of FLAC music, track / map storage for offline camping / offroad, offline music downloads from Deezer (Hi-Res) for playback without network.
Dude android games these days are 10gb+
My point being is that the production cost between 256gb and 128gb driver is almost identical and the phone manufacturers purposefully gimp the product to upsell some random bullshit.
And how many people play these games? I don’t know a single person that does. For all these people, that much storage would be a waste.
Literally billions of people. Like people forget smart phone games are so far ahead by user count that a single game often has more players than ALL gaming consoles COMBINED. I’m not saying it’s great, I’m just saying it’s wildly popular.
Ya, because it’s full of children. The games you are talking about are games like Minecraft, where their parents won’t buy them a computer or console, but they will run it at 20fps on their random tablet.
genshin impact has left the chat.
Eh, gatekeeping is so 2020
I have almost 40 GB of music alone.
That’s like 5 Tidal albums 🫣
Those flac files get big fast
Wowww! That’s a lot of music. How did you find so much music you like??
I’m pretty old, and like a lot of different stuff, so it adds up.
I mainly agree with you, i have enough of 128gb. But i know a lot of people that take a ton of pictures and struggle with storage space
I wouldn’t be opposed to 128GB if the price made sense for it. I’m only using 64GB on my current phone, and it also had 128GB.
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Would seriously consider an iPhone if they offered the 1tb on the non pro model and didn’t skyrocket the price.
Two of the reasons why I chose a Motorola Moto G Stylus 5G (2022) over a Pixel 6a with much better other specs was that it has 256GB internal storage and that it has a MicroSDXC slot vs 128GB and no slot. This stuff matters to me.
SD warriors be like
I guess I’m the only one who uses phone storage like slow motion swap.
Stuff gets migrated off my phone to my own backup a few times a month
Google wants you to use cloud storage.
Obviously yeah. Apple even has a monopoly on their cloud solution so it’s even a more extreme example.
I love Google Photos but it makes me feel dirty when they do me like that.
Are they going to bring the manual camera controls (shutter speed, iso, etc) to the Pixel 7 Pro?
Thats the one thing the camera app needs. 3rd party manual cameras can’t seem to access the two other lenses. At least the ones I’ve tried. And they also don’t have the nice AI processing.
For that matter, it looks like the 8 Pro can do 1-for-1 pixel raw files instead of pixel binning down to 25 MP like on the 7 Pro. That’s just software, too. They need to bring that to the 7 Pro.
I can get $420 (maybe) as a trade-in credit, and get free Pixel Buds Pro which Ive been thinking of buying anyway. But thats still $380 for some better software.
At least it doesn’t appear to have this crappy curved glass! Why google thought that was ever a good idea is beyond me.
The specs on the 8 look solid, but I wonder if they’ve improved cell radio performance and the fingerprint sensor over the previous models.
I’m disappointed that the Pixel 8 is 6.2" instead of 6". I really wanted to support the smaller form factor, but since it’s not as small as I wanted, I may end up going for the 8 Pro.
on the other side, they’re reducing 0.1 inches every year
6-6.4" 7-6.3" 8-6.2"
But I always ask myself, do I really need all these features? Am I really going to use them?
After this introspection, I realized that one-handed use is much more important to me than many futures companies suggest.
At these prices, you’re better off buying an iPhone. Check Google’s trade-in price, it’s a goddamn insult.
You mean a phone with a 60 hz screen like its 2019?
Except an iPhone doesn’t allow me to do any of the stuff Android does…
I’m tempted by the iPhone 15 Pro. I’m not sure I can deal with iOS though after not using it since the iPhone 4S.
It’s only when I start to look around that there are actually a number of features the Pixel/Android has that I’d really miss.
Call screen Now playing Using a different browser Google Assistant Proper widgets
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I have a Pixel 6 Pro and looking at the raw specs, there is no justification for an upgrade.
The prices differences are weird as well. For my upgrade, it would be $549 for the Pixel 7 Pro and $599 for the Pixel 8 Pro?
Aside from some camera differences, these phones have flat-lined.
P6P is a solid phone and I’ve had great luck with it. I haven’t maxed anything out so wondering why I should get a faster chip with more memory so I can take photos of my dog and message my friends. Google Fi is doing just $400 off a 8P which I may take because I don’t want their watch or buds. I’m not sure what I’ll do.
I jumped on that deal. Will see how it works out.
Thinking of doing the new fi user monthly credits for the P8
Phones in general flatlined. There’s hardly any real life improvement, and the improvements in spec numbers are eaten up by unjustifiably resource hungry apps.
I have a Nexus 4 in my drawer. Roughly 10 years old, but did everything just fine back then, almost the same apps I use today. But even just starting a reasonably recent Android version on that phone results in 5 fps.
I’m in the same boat and remember seeing reports that the chipset is not expected to run much cooler which is my main reason for wanting to ditch the P6P.
I don’t recall them mentioning anything about efficiency or battery life improvements in the presentation, and you know they know they would’ve made a big deal about it if they had any progress to show :(
There should be improvements in the idle battery life department along with the camera. Probably not earth shattering. Pixel 6 Pro is still a completely competent device and likely will be till the end of its update lifespan and beyond.
I also have a Pixel 6 Pro, and agree with your arguments. The specs look almost the same. However, the differences that do stick out to me are that the 8 comes with a Pixel Watch 2, better camera software, and 7 years of OS updates. With the trade-in, it seems like it might be worth the upgrade for me.
Ok, I didn’t see the offer for the watch. Interesting!
The update issue seems artificial, but I could be wrong. There are different hardware components (requires different kernel drivers) and also a big CPU update, so that could be part of maintaining updates for an older Pixel phone. (Game performance is a non-issue for me since I don’t game on my phone at all.)
While I get that it is problematic for manufacturers to stop updating old hardware, it doesn’t make sense to me why they would stop in this case. (Oct 2024/Oct 2026 for the Pixel 6 Pro)
(Just a little questioning/rant, s’all. Please excuse it.)
I’d look at these just to take advantage of pKVM.
I traded my pixel 6 for a pixel 7 for $20 in last year’s black Friday sale. If they do that again, I’ll upgrade. If not, I’ll stick with what I got and see if next year’s is any better.
Thinking about trading in my P4a for a P8, was offered $200 off if I did. Should I pull the trigger or do you all think Black Friday will have a better deal?
Then I thought of a crazy scheme: trade in my 4a so the P8 is $500 instead of $700, then accept the free Pixel Buds Pro offer and resell them so it’s ~$300 instead.
You might have a hard time selling the buds at or near MSRP cos I suspect a lot of people will be doing the same
Pre-ordered a Pixel 8 Pro with the watch. I’ve had this OnePlus 7 Pro since it launched and I want the new features and a really fucking good camera. I’d also like to get away from OnePlus’ bullshit, but all in all it’s been a fantastic phone. Still very fast.
What do you don’t like about OnePlus? It’s been a while since I’ve used their original Android flavour on mine
Their built in apps, the red cable stuff, the multi-press screenshot gesture that I can’t disable.
The phone is still crazy fast for it’s age, but I wanted a no-compromise camera, and 5g, wireless charging, the call screening stuff.
Basically it’s just time for an upgrade.
Yeah, that’s fair. I put DivestOS on my 5T, runs perfectly. Hopefully I’ll get the Android 14 flavour, otherwise I’ll have to start looking for something else too
What OnePlus bullshit?
You can’t turn off their multi-press screenshot thing, and they install their apps and un-disable them, trying to figure out which messages or contacts app is the right one is annoying.
Don’t get me wrong, the phone is still impressively fast, but some of the newer tech, specifically camera, 5g, wireless charging, and the call screening style stuff is what I’m after.
I’m coming from a 6 Pro and getting the 8 Pro. I’m pretty happy with what I’ve seen:
Do you think that you’ll use the pixel 8 longer than 2 years?
It depends on how well it holds up, but I like having the option to keep it longer and better support usually means higher resale value if I do decide to upgrade in two years
128GB? Really?
I bought my OnePlus 8T 256GB 3 or 4 years ago! Who seriously sets a flagship phone in 2023 to go with 128GB? That’s nonsense. Hard pass.
They sell Pixel 8s with more storage space.
It’s not nonsense, many people simply don’t need that much storage on a phone. I’m currently at 53% of my 128gb, most of that is Spotify cache.
Why would I want to dump tons of data on my phone?
Because it’s a 1000 flagship phone? If I have to pay crazy money, I want crazy specs, not last decade specs.
That, and not everybody wants to store their stuff on Google services so that they can sniff though all your stuff
Though you have an option to buy a version with more memory, don’t you? IOW you have an option to go either way, what’s wrong with that!
Whats wrong with it is that a flagship phone even offers specs that were available 5 years ago
Can’t sell Google Drive storage subscriptions if everyone has tons of storage on their device
It’s time for me to renew my Pixel 4 XL for a Pixel 8 pro. 7 years for software update, it’s just unbelievable! 🥳
I think Google is a great company. They make very high quality products that I use daily.
IMHO one of the hardest negative aspects of the company to argue against is their pattern of killing products and features with little to no notice regardless of previous statements. To their credit, my experience with the Stadia shutdown felt fair and reasonable, so it’s not necessarily the end of the world when they do.
Probably something to keep in mind when reading about multi year support statements.
The 8 pro is a fair upgrade from a 6 pro but the display is worse than the previous two generations. I’ll be keeping my 6 pro
How’s the display worse?
Lower resolution and PPI
Resolution isn’t everything. It’s a brighter better quality screen. I guarantee it will look better than the 6 pro side by side. The few less pixels will not be missed
True, but the pixel 6 pro display is HDR10+ while the 8 pro is standard HDR, same display type.
The display is also 2400 nits peak brightness. I will take a brighter screen over HDR10+ literally any fucking day of the week.
Peak and average brightness are two different things. Either way, I have never had issues seeing what’s going on the screen unless you shone a bright light directly on it or something.
Typically brightness isn’t what I’d consider as a factor for a quality display, rather instead color accuracy. As long as you can see the display enough to distinguish colors in most environments, that’s what matters.
7 years of updates is incredible. A good step towards actual, meaningful sustainability.
The best thing is that it’ll push other Manufacturers to do 7 years as well.
I’m hoping Samsung would be pushed to top this when they’re releasing the S24 series and some of the older devices will also get upgraded to a longer software upgrade period. I just upgraded to a Fold5 after using Asus ROG Phone II for four years and messing with custom ROMs (the ROG Phone II just have one year of OS updates) just to stay up to date in regards to security and software updates is not as fun as it was a dozen years ago.
At a certain point, there is no reason to extend support for the handful of devices that will still be active in 2030.
Smartphones have reached a point where it’s more like a PC, where the limiting factor for the phones to get a software update is pretty much arbitrary based on the manufacturer’s decision. If the ROG Phone II is still supported today, I’ll be definitely still using that phone.
This 7 year update promise makes me think that Google are planning to do further modularization of Android to make it similar to desktop OS where the driver is not as tightly coupled to the OS build installed. As one of the main issues when you’re trying to update an Android phone OS is the SoC manufacturer not providing any updates for it so you’re SOL if you want to update your Android smartphone OS.
Apple enjoys a vertical integration for their devices to help them keep updating their devices for 5 or more years.