My shiny thing arrived on Friday. The new iPhone 12 Pro was delivered really early in the morning, and within minutes started to fill me with the feelings that I knew it would. It feels pretty much the same as the last one, and also the one before that, bringing such tiny updates that if they hadn’t changed the edges to flat ones you’d be hard pushed to tell the difference.
I write to you at the end of a horrible two weeks. Even in this position of privilege I have, my eyes have been opened simply by the fact I am not allowed to leave my house. In fact, if you read this on the day it is published, it is my last day inside, and I am just a few hours away from being able to leave the walls of my home — and what a privilege that will feel like.
It’s been three years since I used a Pixel device. Not since the first version was I even motivated to pick one up and try it out. They all excelled in specific areas, but always suffered from some frankly jaw-dropping issues or hardware omissions — and when they somewhat sorted it all out with the Pixel 4 they wanted to charge premium prices and not deliver on the premium part.
After using as many phones as I have over the last 12 months you begin to see things a little differently to just swopping your sim out once a year. While it’s easy to get complacent and just move to the next phone, I simply can’t do that and have to give each phone at least a couple of weeks try whatever my initial feelings are. Some I love and then fall away from quickly like the Galaxy Fold 2, some I love all the way through like the Note 20 Ultra, and some leave me perplexed from the very start.
One of the proximal causes of the COVID-19 issues here in the UK has been a dramatic reduction in my podcast listening. I no longer have any commute to speak of, and even though I have tried to listen in my home office I just can’t get into it.
The few I am listening to are, as Andy would put it, ones that spark joy in me, or that are too interesting to not listen to.
Matt Birchler wrote:
the iPhone 11 Pro has had by far the best camera I’ve ever used in a phone, and yes I do include the Pixel in that statement.
I whole heartedly agree with that statement. Android Cameras sometimes get very close (The Note 20 Ultra being the best) but for some reason the iPhone gets better shots that are much easier to achieve. It’s not faultless but it’s just so easy to use that you want to take photos with it.
I have only written very briefly about my rapid adoption of Roam Research to dump all of my stuff into. In depth words are hard for me to sum up, I struggle to even bring together an outline of how I use it, simply because it is so flexible and powerful. I use it for everything from meeting notes to journalling, I put almost everything that I think about in here to form my second brain.
As for what phone I intend to buy, the differences between the Pro and Pro Max are substantial enough to for me to make the leap to the Max
I worry the size will be too big for me
These are the two statements that encompass my feeling around the new iPhones. I have a great camera (A7iii) but I don’t always carry it around with me. I am really interested in taking shots in proRAW on my iPhone and editing them later.
When I sit down and think about doing a review, I want to answer the questions I would have about using a device. I think about the unique things that make this phone worth while, and the things I need answering in order to buy one. When it comes to the Galaxy Note line of handsets it is becoming harder and harder to differentiate them past a stylus – but there’s actually a lot to look at in my Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra review.