The Pixel 7 requires a heat gun to get to the battery because it’s glued down, and step 31 in the process goes over what to do if your battery is stuck even after applying heat. It’s impressive that you were able to replace the battery without many problems, but companies shouldn’t be adding unnecessary complications like gluing down the battery in the first place.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Google+Pixel+7+Battery+Replacement/154680

I’m cautiously optimistic for that but need to see the specs and disassembly. Either way, it’s an important step forward for the phone industry.

Personally, every modern phone I’ve owned post-Blackberry has battery problems within the first year. I’d like to be able to swap out the battery when that instead of getting a new phone or dealing with bad battery life.

Which model do you have? A lot of them have low scores of ifixit.

Can’t stay on Android because Google is anti-privacy. Can’t get a GrapheneOS phone because they’re only compatible with non-repairable devices. Can’t get a FairPhone or Jolla because I live in America. Can’t get an HMD because the bootloader is locked.

Even e/os and LineageOS have security problems.

There is no good phone on the market, to my knowledge. You can’t have privacy, repairability, and security all at the same time.

That’s interesting. I was definitely a Linux noob in 2015, so that might have been a me problem. Like I know Lutris was a thing even back then.

There’s what Die4Ever said, but there’s also Windows 11 incompatibility with games that otherwise just work with Proton. Around when I got my Steam Deck, I also had a Windows PC that was, to my initial surprise, way more of a hassle for games, so I pretty quickly switched to Linux Mint, and later Fedora.

I used Ubuntu way back when on secondary PCs mostly for fun, but Linux has only outpaced Windows imo in the past five years.

I have friends who says “I still run Windows because I don’t want to do any tinkering,” but don’t realize they’d do less tinkering if they switched haha. It’s not 2015 anymore.

Are all good points. The exclusive thing is unfortunate because Sony used to port most of its exclusives to PC for a few years there. It makes me wonder if they only stopped in anticipation of discontinuing disc sales.

I don’t understand why anyone would choose to buy a console after this. The only draws of consoles was the turnkey hardware, which you can generally get with Proton now, and access to physical games, which won’t be a thing soon. Now it’s just a locked-down PC with a DRM storefront that makes you pay a subscription to pay online games and which may or may not have backwards compatibility from system to system.

Maybe that’s just the PC gamer in me talking. Are there any advantages to console anymore? Like, a single benefit?