Google partners with uBreakiFix to offer same day repairs for the Pixel

Google Pixel owners in Canada and the US will have less of a downtime if and when their device’s screen, charging port, or battery breaks/fails. Google has partnered with uBreakiFix to deal with potential damages the Pixel or Pixel XL finds itself having. uBreakiFix specializes in walk-in screen repairs within one business day and has 250 retail locations in Canada and the US. uBreakiFix will charge $129 to repair the Pixel’s screen, $149 to fix the Pixel XL’s display, and $79 to repair either the charging port or the battery. You can opt to mail your devices to the company if there isn’t a retail location near where you are.

Source: 9to5Google

Google gets rid of fingerprint gestures and Night Mode for non-Pixel Nexus devices

Looks like Google is really trying to push Pixel as a special device. The older Nexus devices are losing some key features, including fingerprint sensor gesture support, Night Light Mode/Night Mode. It’s understandable that Google will want to elevate Pixel and features like fingerprint gestures isn’t exactly supported by older Nexus devices. But dropping Night Light Mode/Night Mode is a bit off to us. This feature works like Night Shift on iOS, where it turns down the blue light the screens emit as the sun goes down. Night Mode was introduced to Android 7.0 Nougat, while Night Light is exclusive to Pixel on Android 7.1

According to Googler Ian Lake, Night Light does the color tinting through hardware that isn’t seen on the Nexus. But we can’t think of why they’d get rid of Night Mode since it’s a software solution. And according to SlashGear, it seems Night Mode has even been removed in Android 7.1, too. This leaves even the Nexus 5X and 6P without this feature. We hope Google rethinks this strategy. 

See photos taken by the Google Pixel

Google's Pixel smarphone has been received with glowing reviews for its hardware as well as the new Assistant feature and what's now considered as one of the best smartphone cameras in the market. The Pixel still loses points for being pricey, lacking water resistance and storage expansion. The Pixel does shine in the camera department and while I find it adds some post-processing fairy dust to saturate photos a bit more, the results are quite amazing. Check out some recent unedited photos taken by the Pixel XL's 12.3 megapixel camera.

Note: Click on the Blue Camera with a Gear icon to get a full-screen slideshow.

Video: Hands on with the Google Pixel

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Here's a quick look at the Google Pixel smartphone released earlier today plus an intro to many of the personal assitant and camera features that this new flagship device will showcase. Google Pixel is available for preorder now and will come to Canada in 2-3 weeks. It will also be available from Rogers, Bell and TELUS as well as other carriers on various plans. 

Specs include a 5 or 5.5-inch AMOLED display, a SnapDragon 821  Quad-Core processor running 2.15 GHz + 1.6 GHz, 4GB of RAM, turbo-charging capability giving 7 hours on a 15 minute charge, 32GB and 128GB storage capacities, a 12 megapixel rear camera, an 8 megapixel front-facing camera and a rear fingerprint sensor which doubles as a trackpad for navigation.