I decided to switch to the Pixel 6 Pro a long time ago, because the Pixel 4 XL was just too slow. But this phone somehow sold way better than expected. Normally you’d get a Nexus/Pixel within the first week, but this one was out of stock forever. In the end, a guy who runs a proxy-buying service, “Watermelon Daigou,” generously helped me out, barely charging me any fee, and I got the Pixel 6 Pro 256GB white version at retail price. It’s been a while since I got it, so let me talk about how it feels. I’ll skip the generic stuff and get straight to the real points.

The iPhone 12 is out. Sure, plenty of people are grumbling about the lack of a high refresh rate and the smaller battery, but given that the design went back to the sharp-edged look of the iPhone 4s era, it’s still worth a look. I picked up the iPhone 12 in green, 128G, and traded in an iPhone 8 64G for cash. When the iPhone 12 first launched you actually couldn’t reserve one — aside from the first batch of online orders, if you wanted a physical unit from a brick-and-mortar store you had to keep waiting. I went to the Apple Store at Zhengzhou MixC and found nothing but iPhone 11s inside. I asked the sales girl — one who looked like Inori Minase — and she said there were no units in store right now, and she couldn’t say when stock would arrive.

On September 30, 2020, Google announced this year’s new phone, the Pixel 5. But a month before that event, I picked up Google’s previous-year flagship, a Pixel 4 XL 128GB. There was a reason for that: the Pixel 5 is just that bad. Hole-punch screen, downgraded processor, squeeze sensor gone, IR gone, radar gone — by any measure it’s a piece of junk at the level of a thousand-yuan phone, the kind that competes with Xiaomi’s Redmi over here. Google’s explanation is that this time they used a bigger battery and a 5G-capable chip, so the overall experience hasn’t been downgraded. Oh my god, don’t you know Redmi has supported 5G for ages? Big battery, you say? Hell, which domestic thousand-yuan phone has a smaller battery than yours? Google proudly announced a price of $699. Bear in mind that buying a domestic phone (one that can be bootloader-unlocked) only costs me around 2000 RMB. Only an idiot would buy your Pixel 5. It’s not a flagship at all.

The Redmi Note 3 my parents have been using is almost two years old now, and I’ve had it repaired a bunch of times to keep it breathing, but recently I found out my dad smashed the screen again. So I couldn’t be bothered to keep it on life support. The Redmi Note 7 is out, so let’s just switch to that.

Honestly, I’ve been using the Google Pixel 3 XL for almost a month now, and I’m really happy with this phone. Except that not long after I bought it, Google started dropping the price all over the place… Anyway, this phone is actually pretty expensive, so of course you still want a screen protector and a case after buying it. Since it’s the flagship this time, the accessory ecosystem is pretty complete, and I found suitable products quickly. Way better than stupid Sony. So let me keep it brief, hopefully it helps anyone thinking of buying one.

My daily driver already supports wireless charging, but my old backup phone, the OnePlus 5, still charges the old-fashioned way. In other words, it doesn’t support wireless charging, which just feels wrong. By chance I spotted this thing on eBay:

My previous phone was a Sony Xperia Z Premium. I used it for over a year, close to two years, and Sony recently said it would push out Google’s Android Pie OTA update to that phone too—every version except the Hong Kong one got it. But in the end I decided to replace it, with Google’s flagship phone released this year, the Google Pixel 3 XL. Plenty of people aren’t optimistic about Google’s new flagship—its specs are behind, it looks ugly, and it isn’t exactly cheap either. After using it for a while since it arrived, it really does have quite a few problems, but I’m still fairly satisfied, so I’ll briefly go over my first impressions.

I wanted a phone to play games on. Originally I wanted a tablet, but it turns out tablets aren’t really an option anymore — Google went and released the Pixel Slate, so a big-screen phone was the only choice left. What I wanted from a gaming phone: Enough performance Strong battery life A large screen Decent feel in the hand No touch dropouts or connection drops As cheap as possible Xiaomi phones all seem to have that tradition of the touchscreen failing when it gets hot, Meizu phones all have connection drop issues, the Smartisan Pro 2’s build quality is a joke and the screen even lets water in, and there are plenty of MediaTek phones, but their performance is absolute garbage. Then I saw 360 phones were on special on JD. Took a look — the 360 N7, originally discounted by one yuan to 999 yuan, and paying with Baitiao knocked another yuan off, two yuan off total, so I got it for 998 yuan.

I was thinking about buying a phone to play games on lately. I’d been using a Xiaomi Mi Pad 4, and it’s not like it can’t run games, but that screen aspect ratio cuts off part of my view. When I play a turret-type mid-lane mage I just can’t keep track of everything, so I figured maybe I should just get a phone. At first I had my sights set on the Xiaomi Mi Max (first gen), since its specs are good enough, the screen is big enough, and the battery is ridiculous—it’s basically a handheld console. The second and third generations don’t even bear mentioning; the performance actually went backwards, even with bigger batteries and better build quality. But the Mi Max is obviously not something you can buy new. I found only eBay had them, so I went looking, and after digging around I couldn’t find a single one I was happy with. Ones in good condition were priced absurdly, and the reasonably priced ones were all crippled units. Then I thought I’d check out LeEco phones or Gree phones—hah, Gree phones are even more expensive, and LeEco phones are complete garbage… While I was hesitating, my good buddy, the Guo Degang of the medical world, a.k.a. Duan Ye, answered my prayers: “Master Li, there’s a Smartisan Nut Pro here that Luo Yonghao sold to idiots. Wanna take a look?” “If it’s sold to idiots, then how do you have one, Duan Ye? Don’t tell me…” “Cut the crap. Do you want it or not?” “Yes yes yes…” So I took the Nut Pro off Duan Ye’s hands and began my testing journey.

Hi everyone, I dropped my phone again. And the protector I’d put on it shattered too, so my obsessive self is back to applying a new one. Both phones I have use curved screens, which makes protectors a pain to apply — not impossible, though. You need white edge liquid.