Right Time to Buy The Pixel

If you were intending to buy the Google Pixel earlier but were unable to because of the price then this is the right time to buy.

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The festive season is just around the corner and stores like Flipkart and Amazon are offering great discounts on the Pixel and the Pixel XL.

Pixel & Pixel XL were launched last year by Google to replace the Nexus series and the main selling point was the Camera. Also, you get lifetime unlimited full resolution Google Photos storage with these phones, not to mention the headphone jack 😉.

Google also stressed on the Google Assistant, which was exclusive for these phones at the time of launch but is now available for other phones like the Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+ and the OnePlus 5 and it also turned out to be the best smartphone assistant

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Obviously, these phones are the first ones to receive the latest Android versions and I'm sure that as soon as you turn on your new phone, you will get an OTA update for Andriod Oreo.

Both the phones support single sim and come with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor which is quad-core along with 4GB RAM. 32GB and 128GB are the two storage options and are not expandable(No SD card support). Apart from this, both these phones support fast charging and come with USB type C and a fingerprint sensor to unlock it and to perform some gestures.

The best part of these phones is the Camera. With a DXOmark score of 90, this still is one of the best cameras in a smartphone and with the current price tag, it becomes more value for money. The camera on the Pixel smartphones was one of the features that justified the original price tag.

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• A 12MP CMOS Sensor with 1.55 µm pixels
• f/2.0 aperture
• Laser autofocus with phase detection
• Dual tone LED flash
• Electronic Image Stabilization with the help of the gyroscope.
• 4K video recording @30fps
• 8MP front camera with 1080p video recording
• Google's HDR+ mode (which is the best part of the camera)

The difference

• AMOLED display but with different resolutions. The Pixel has a 5inch Full HD (1920x1080) display and the Pixel XL has a 5.5inch 2K(2560x1440) display.
• A long-lasting battery (lasts one day on a single charge with a SOT of 4 hrs). The Pixel with a 2,770mAh and the Pixel XL with a 3,450mAh.
• And of course the price, as of now, 

Flipkart

• The 32GB variant of both the phones are available for Rs. 44,000/- 
• The Pixel 128GB is available for Rs. 52,000/- and the Pixel XL 128 is available for Rs. 63,000/-

Amazon

• The Pixel, 32GB and 128GB, Very Silver are available for Rs. 41,000/- 
• The Pixel XL 32GB is available for Rs. 44,000/- and the 128GB variant is available for Rs. 50,000/-

Buy from Flipkart

• Pixel 32GB Very Silver
• Pixel XL 32GB Very Silver
• Pixel XL 32GB Quite Black
• Pixel XL 128GB Very Silver

Buy from Amazon

Upgrading to Airtel V-Fiber. A Big Mistake

Airtel launches VDSL broadband in Chandigarh which supports speeds up to 40Mbps. After seeing a flyer on the road outside my house, I decided to immediately upgrade my current 8Mbps stable broadband connection to Airtel V-Fiber as I was an extremely satisfied Airtel broadband customer.

Airtel charges Rs. 500 (Rs 100/Month) for a new VDSL modem and the basic plan remains the same.

After upgrading to V-Fiber, I was excited to test the new connection but, all my excitement died as I ran a speed test. Speeds were awful, pathetic, and extremely slow. A 40Mbps connection getting speed of 4Mbps was extremely disappointing. I asked their engineer about this and he said that this is temporary and the connection will work normally after a couple of hours but it didn't.

The Same day, I raised a complaint about slow speed and the next day a confused engineer paid a visit to my home and said, "According to me everything is fine." This happened for the next two days, complaints were made and confused airtel engineers visited my home but it didn't resolve my problem.

At this point, I realised that the connection was not only slow but was extremely unstable with frequent disconnections. I felt as if I'm using a BSNL or a Reliance broadband connection which sometimes works better than this connection.

So, after multiple complaints and visits, I was given an option to downgrade my plan to 16Mbps, just to test if the line and the modem are working fine. This connection was also the same.

Now, my plan was upgraded again to 40Mbps and the complete wiring of the connection was changed, which was also worthless.

Finally, I decided to reach the appellate authority and asked them to resolve this issue or disconnect the connection so that I could switch to a different service provider. To my surprise, the appellate executive was ready to disconnect my connection without giving any solution but I asked her to give me a solution and again she sent someone to my house and the cycle repeated.

After doing some research on the internet I found out that V-Fiber is problematic all over India and customers are facing the exact issue.

If you are planning to upgrade to V-Fiber then don't, better to stay with the ADSL connection or best to switch to some other service provider.