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I know you have your eyes on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro , but trust me, you just might be better off buying the Pixel 5a 5G now. We are all attracted to the latest and the greatest of anything. It is human nature. But that does not mean that getting the latest is the best buying decision you can make.
Firstly, let me put it straight to you: the Pixel 6 duo are without doubt the best Pixel smartphones in the market in 2021. You won’t get a 50MP camera or 120Hz refresh rate display or Tensor chip on any other Pixel phone right now. That puts them in a class that is untouchable by their siblings.
If you are able and willing to spend $600 and above on a smartphone right now, there is no reason why you should not buy either the Pixel 6 or 6 Pro. If, like most people, you are on a budget and have to count the cost before you make that purchase, I put it to you that your best alternative to the Pixel 6 phones is the Pixel 5a 5G. And I will tell you why.
Pixel 5a 5G is a 2021 smartphone
Pixel 5a 5G is a 2021 smartphone. Besides the Pixel 6 devices, it is the only other 2021 Pixel phone in existence. It hit the market in August, just two months before the Pixel 6 line-up. This makes it a bang up-to-date smartphone. But that isn’t all.
Pixel 5a 5G has better battery life
If battery life means a lot to you, there are not a lot of Pixel phones that make the cut. The Pixel 5a 5G has the best battery life of the 2021 set of Pixel phones – better than the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, despite the Pro’s 4680 mAh battery. The 5a 5G outguns the batteries of the Pixel 6, 6 Pro, Pixel 5, and Pixel 3a XL, and all the others that crawl behind them in terms of battery capacity and endurance.
Pixel 5a 5G is future-proof
5th generation mobile networks (or 5G, as we know it) are rolling out around the world and everyone is looking to get on it. The good news is that the Pixel 5a 5G is compliant. Owning one means that you will not be looking for a 5G-compliant smartphone in another 365 days.
Pixel 5a 5G is dust and water-resistant
Google’s “a” models tend to go without ingress protection, but not this rebel. the 5a 5G packs an IP67 dust/water-resistant body, so you don’t panic if caught in a rain shower or if it gets splashed by water.
Pixel 5a 5G costs a fraction the price of Pixel 6
Of course, if you are on a budget, this is the best part: you can get the 5a 5G for a fraction of the price of the Pixel 6. You will be spending about 40% less if you opt for the Pixel 5a 5G. And for $449, you will be getting a 5G smartphone with a 6.3″ OLED display with Gorilla Glass 3 protection, a solid aluminum and resin unibody (which is not typical with Pixel “a” models), really good cameras, an upper mid-range Snapdragon 765G processor, 6 GB of RAM, 128 GB built-in storage, stereo speakers, a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, a beefy battery, and 18W quick charge.
The Pixel 5a 5G is such a steal and serious value for money that you should be thinking of grabbing one right away. It is one of the best smartphones to buy as 2021 races to an end.
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Author:Mister Mobility
Digital Skills and Communication Coach | Mobile Phone Connoisseur since 2001 | Tech Blogging since 2004
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In a surprise move, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has announced that it is shutting down the automatic facial recognition system on Facebook, and what is even more surprising is that the reasons given stem from a concern about what is right and wrong.
Miracles still happen. Because that has never been a concern for Facebook, which has spearheaded the concept of pushing the boundaries of what is possible without a concern for whether it should be done at all.
Facebook has had to fight some big legal battles over its face recognition technology and user privacy concerns. This is likely a key factor behind this decision.
What does this shutdown involve? Here are key points from Facebooks’s press release [1]:
We’re shutting down the Face Recognition system on Facebook. People who’ve opted in will no longer be automatically recognized in photos and videos and we will delete more than a billion people’s individual facial recognition templates.
This change will also impact Automatic Alt Text (AAT), which creates image descriptions for blind and visually-impaired people. After this change, AAT descriptions will no longer include the names of people recognized in photos but will function normally otherwise.
We need to weigh the positive use cases for facial recognition against growing societal concerns, especially as regulators have yet to provide clear rules.
Meta says that more than one third of Facebook’s daily active users have automatic Facial Recognition setting enabled. The shutdown of this system means that the data associated with more than a billion users will be deleted.
How does this impact those users? In the following ways:
- Facebook’s technology will no longer automatically recognize if people’s faces appear in Memories, photos or videos.
- People will no longer be able to turn on face recognition for suggested tagging or see a suggested tag with their name in photos and videos they may appear in. Facebook will still encourage people to tag posts manually, to help them and their friends know who is in a photo or video.
- This change will also impact Automatic Alt Text (AAT), a technology used to create image descriptions for people who are blind or visually impaired. AAT currently identifies people in about 4% of photos. After the change, AAT will still be able to recognize how many people are in a photo, but will no longer attempt to identify who each person is using facial recognition. Otherwise, AAT will continue to function normally.
- If you have opted into Facebook’s automatic Facial Recognition setting, the template used to identify you will be deleted in the coming weeks. If you have the face recognition setting turned off, there is no template to delete and there will be no change.
All of these changes will happen in the next few weeks, says Meta. The company says that the long-term role of automatic facial recognition systems “in society needs to be debated in the open, and among those who will be most impacted by it”.
This sentiment is a welcome one. The bigger question is, Is this the beginning of a new, more open company than we have seen in the last decade? Will this attitude reflect across the company’s products going forward?
It was just five days ago that the umbrella company changed its name from Facebook to Meta. If you have been wondering about the the renaming, the company is now called Meta, while apps, Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp continue to bear their respective names.
References
- Source
Author:Mister Mobility
Digital Skills and Communication Coach | Mobile Phone Connoisseur since 2001 | Tech Blogging since 2004
