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What are the must-do changes that you've made to your Pixel? (lemmy.world)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Physical changes are also welcome, so things like skins, cases, screen protections etc... are fine to discuss.

For me, in this order:

Wi-Fi calling: it was very surprising that this was not on by default, and enabling it helped a bit with the battery life on my Pixel 7a;
Try custom launchers: I was happy with the phone but the very first annoying thing is the damn Google search bar and how there was no way to just hide it like any other widget. So I ended up installing KISS Launcher (it's FOSS and still maintained);
Bite the bullet and install GrapheneOS: you get more security, sandboxed Play Services, a more fine-grained permissions system and you can still install the default Pixel apps from the Play Store while cutting off their internet access, and most importantly you get rid of the Google bar (also enabled Wi-Fi calling as previously done).

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I haven't experienced drops in call quality but that's a good thing to know!

You seem to like it for battery life - does it make that much of a difference?

I'd obviously have to measure over multiple days with AccuBattery for reliable figures, but I did notice an improvement and I'm charging less often now after I enabled Wi-Fi calling. The best I got was two whole days without plugging the phone (because I just forgot) with battery saver disabled. But it will probably also depend on where you live since Wi-Fi calling probably won't make a difference if the signal strength from the cell towers is very good. (EDIT for another data point: after 1 day 2 hours the battery went from 58% to 21%)

I wish they moved to TSMC chips instead of playing around with Exynos-based ones though, this would have eased the Pixel battery anxiety somewhat.