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my first impressions of the pixel 3 xl were excellent the above average haptics

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really make it stand out among other Android devices

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then things immediately took a turn for the worse when i missed a handful of

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critical google hangouts messages a fresh format without using the

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transfer cable did get that resolved and so i spent my last couple of weeks

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mostly enjoying my time with google's latest and greatest flagship

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that is until today when i ran into a new deal breaker software bug which is

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not being able to log into my gmail account no matter how many times i enter

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the password and the authentication code

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so i guess we'll just get the review done so i can switch back to my other phone whether you're migrating 500

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computers to Windows 10 managing remote devices or repairing a single pc smart

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deploy has flexible deployment options so head over to smartdeploy.com Linus

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for a special offer

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the most obvious change to google's stock Android experience is the

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on-screen navigation buttons and they're kind of the worst of both worlds unlike

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apple's gestures they take up valuable screen real estate along the bottom of

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the phone and unlike other Android software buttons they are not

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reconfigurable with the back button stuck way over on the left out of sheer

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pigheadedness as far as i can tell they have their strengths

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as long as you don't need to go too far back into your recents the slide is

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super fast and intuitive and if you don't like that feature you can slide up

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once for a more traditional recents and some suggested apps it's really cool

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that this works from anywhere now not just the home screen but there's room

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for improvement here too as it is it requires a second swipe to reach the app

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tray how about just one really hard swipe and then it could carry through

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with momentum i would like that a lot the other big change that bothered me

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more than i expected is the inability to execute google assistant functions that

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used to work while the phone was locked like bringing up your shopping list or

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reminders things you can only do now if you have google's special pixel stand

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wireless charger i get that there are privacy concerns around voice print

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authentication especially for people like me but this limitation negated a

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lot of the usefulness of squeezing to bring up the google assistant i mean if

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i have to shift my grip on the phone to touch the rear fingerprint sensor anyway

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then why wouldn't i just do that in the first place i used the squeeze a fair

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bit on the pixel 2 xl and then on this one i basically just used it as a

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flashlight toggle and here come the rest of my gripes

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about google assistant i ran into this bizarre bug a handful of times with it

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not registering my internet connection when i clearly had one google continues

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to advertise natural interaction with the assistant as a selling point when my

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experience is still that you basically have to read the correct syntax manual

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to get anything useful done it's still

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somehow doesn't convert my to you when

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it creates tasks and the handling of reminder notifications is

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awful if you have more than one set up your

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phone just buzzes and the card doesn't

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move to the top or break out the most recent one or do anything useful to draw

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your attention and it's pretty easy to have more than one when you're a

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complete scatter brain like me and sometimes i'll even have recurring ones

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like taking out the garbage cluttering up the list now it's mostly fine as a

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voice dictation program my issue here is the branding if i had a real life

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assistant and they were this inconsistent they would be fired it is not a time

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saver if i have to issue the command twice and then look at my screen to

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double check that my reminder actually says something coherent

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what was it

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i guess i'll never know so i guess it just baffles me that google is building

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ai robots to make calls for me and reschedule my appointments when they

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still can't figure out the basics i asked my assistant to remind me to do

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something tomorrow when i get to work and it set a reminder for 8 am the next

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day well before i even arrive at work without prompting me if i want to make

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any changes now that behavior has been fixed that

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was right at the beginning when i got it but it still doesn't work the way i'd

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expect it asks me what time then when i say

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when i get to work ya dunce it navigates me there

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who would want that so you've probably noticed by this point that i haven't

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talked much about the hardware that's for good reason aside from the pixel 3

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being very compact for a 2018 flagship neither it nor its excel sized cousin

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really tries to differentiate based on the hardware there are a couple of

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standout features like ip68 water resistance 100 dc ip3 color space

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coverage and stereo front facing speakers but there's no micro sd slot no

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full screen notchless design no massive battery no headphone jack no weird

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holographic display or stylus that doubles as a remote control or 10 gigs

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of RAM option or whatever and that's

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okay it just means that the software

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experience needs to be amazing not

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fine i guess why is oneplus overall system

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responsiveness better than google's own why are google's software engineers busy

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keeping track of health and wellness screen time crap instead of building

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core functionality like screen recording

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why now that facial unlocking has been removed is there no way to unlock this

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device without either picking it up off my wireless charger or poking a pin code

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into it like some kind of caveman and how is it that google's own apps look

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ridiculous with like cut off text with their gargantuan notch and that's even

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ignoring the stuff that they seem to be consciously screwing up display profiles

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have stupid names like adaptive boosted

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and natural instead of just listing the white point and color space and the

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audio controls are significantly worse

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than oreo so there's this clever little gesture

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where you can press your volume up and your lock button in order to

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mute your phone neat but then there's no toggle functionality

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when you hit it again also whose genius idea i would genuinely like

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to talk to this person was it to change the default volume rocker behavior

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to media instead of ringtone volume when you're not doing anything and finally

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this is by far my favorite one they've bungled up one of my favorite features

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the ability to quickly adjust any volume slider without stopping what you're

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doing and opening the settings app like you're on a freaking iphone

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why also i know i mentioned this already but

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we're really getting to the point where it's not funny or endearing anymore that

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google by default doesn't allow you to move the back button to the right side

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like this is getting ridiculous you don't even have another button there

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anymore now for all i know this next one is

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lastpass's problem not google's but lastpass integration has gotten

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continually worse on Android over the last couple of years with the most

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irritating issue for me being that it used to work when you were signing into

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google accounts and now it doesn't google now has their own service for

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this coincidence perhaps or maybe they're pushing

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competitors out either way shockingly

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apple finally allows third-party password managers with face id now

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apple's implementation isn't perfect but it is so much better i don't want to use

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first party utilities for this kind of functionality i want something that

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works on my Android phone on my iphone and on my desktop for that matter

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and before we get into good stuff i'm gonna close this segment out with one

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petty gripe i hate that it's an extra click from the

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notification pull down now to access my settings

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i haven't had to have a settings icon on my home screen on Android for a long

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time but i guess that's just still more iphone crap that we get to go back to

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now maybe i'm just a freak but i don't like desktop clutter everything here has

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a purpose and i access the settings menu a fair bit

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that last thing though is more than offset by my first good feature actually

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this is awesome the ability to review and delete voicemails without dialing

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into your voicemail i hate voicemail i actually plan to turn mine off at some

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point but i just haven't gotten around to it because it's managed through the company and blah blah blah so on my

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other phones i always have this stupid notification that can't be dismissed

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this is much better i also absolutely love that i can interact with

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notifications on the always-on display that was a great feature on the droid

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turbo and one that i've been missing ever since i got rid of that phone so a

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text message comes in and i can just poop mark as read without ever waking

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the screen it's absolutely beautiful now google just needs to wake up to the need

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for mark as read on everything only then

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can i achieve true notification bliss also for lawless i kept google's g board

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instead of immediately installing swiftkey like i normally do and with

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some fine tuning ah that's really good i had no idea that you can slide across

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the spacebar to reposition the cursor that is awesome

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but as someone who uses voice dictation a fair bit it was still a relief to go

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back to swiftkey so i usually find that when dictation screws up a word it

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usually ends up getting a couple wrong because one mistake can change the

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meaning of a whole sentence when you click to fix an error in swiftkey you'll

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end up with suggestions that fix the rest of the sentence as well and it's

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really awesome i also really liked the way that when you switch to landscape

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mode the gesture controls stay on the same edge as in portrait mode this is a

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lot better than the way that the home swipe up moves on the iphone to the

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bottom of the screen requiring you to shift your hand in order to access it

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making matters worse for the iphone is that some apps don't auto hide that bar

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even while they're playing full screen video and it's probably not apple's

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fault but the youtube creator studio is one such app and i use it very regularly

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so it was super annoying and yet another neat little feature it's

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small but this one actually made me really really happy when you don't have

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your auto rotate on and you go and open up a photo that was taken in landscape

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mode it actually prompts you to click a little button and it'll switch to

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landscape and this is really nice for people like my wife who don't like auto

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rotate but might want to show me a picture without me absolutely losing my

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mind over the wasted black space all over the screen

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which i guess leads us pretty well into the camera it's good

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in fact it's great there are cases where the iphone 10s

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tools it but there are other cases where the pixel 3's camera makes the iphones

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look like it was designed by the same folks who calibrated all the tvs at your

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local best buy i think calling this anything but a toss-up is probably not

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being fair to the strengths of either one at least as far as the rear camera is

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concerned but when it comes to the front camera google has done a fantastic job

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here and i'm glad that someone is finally tired of the entire industry

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sandbagging front-facing cameras even if

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it does cost us this hideous notch as for its nearest Android competitor

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the note 9 it is definitely showing its age a

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little bit already so maybe we can follow this up with a full roundup once

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samsung releases their next generation for now though i can say with confidence

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that as long as you're okay with the slow initial shutter response time that

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i got sometimes look at that that you will be very happy with the

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pixel 3 xl i was actually blown away by these

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videos that i got of my kids on halloween night like there's a lot of

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noise in the image of course but remember that this is with horrendous

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street lamp lighting this thing's got a great camera so pixel 3 then

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on the one hand it's priced like other flagship phones with only really the

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camera to set it apart but on the other hand

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it has the most overlooked feature

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a built-in fidget spinner give yourself the gift of listening and

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