206. Pixel 6 – My new phone

I had gone for the 1^st Pixel phone that was launched some six years back.  Used it for about 5.5 years and have great memories of the photos that I took with it.  A couple of months back, when Jayesh (my son) complained that his Realme phone was not working well, I gave the Pixel to him and shifted to his Realme phone.  I had heard that Pixel 6 was coming soon and wanted to buy that.  But that was still a few months away at that time.  The Realme phone was not that great.  In the meanwhile, my daughter too wanted a phone of her own, so I purchased Redmi Note 10 Pro during a sale.  Since it had a dual sim, both my daughter and me were using the same phone between us😊.  When Flipkart Diwali sale came, I saw Pixel 4a at a reduced price of Rs 25K.  With the exchange of the old Pixel phone and some credit card offers, it was available at around Rs 22K!  With that, Flipkart was also offering a Google Nest Mini (a mini-Alexa) for Rs 1 (instead of the usual Rs 2K+) with Rs 40 as courier charges😊!  I went for that deal and got Jayesh the Pixel 4a.

When Pixel 6 was launched, it was available only in 5 countries, and India was not one of them.  I had heard that in US there was a mad scramble for the phone and even in Google Stores, the deliveries were delayed and were supposed to be fulfilled only in end-December/January.  The price in US was about Rs 45,000.  I saw an ad in Germany where they were offering the phone at about Rs 56,000 and were also giving a Bose noise-cancellation headset free with it.  I called my cousin, who is studying in France, to get me the same from Germany.  He researched and said the same deal was being offered in France too.  Even though, the price was about Rs 10,000 more than what was available in the US, the headset offer made it interesting.  I saw in Amazon that the headset was priced at Rs 35,000 in India😊.  I asked my cousin to buy the phone.  One of his friends was coming to Mumbai from there and she brought the phone along with her to India and later couriered it to me.  The headset was delivered quite some days after the phone was delivered.

I asked my cousin to see if someone could buy the headset there. He said most of his friends are students and they will not be able to afford it.  I also asked one of my college friends in US if he was interested in buying it for Rs 10,000 as that was the amount that I paid extra.  He agreed to it.  Later on, my daughter saw the headset ad and wanted it for her.  So, I told my friend that I am keeping the headset with me as my daughter wanted it for her.  When I purchased a Bluetooth Boat airpods later, my daughter wanted it and started using it.  Later, my cousin called me and asked me that one of his friends was willing to buy the headset at Rs 27,000😊!  Now that my daughter was out of the loop, I told my cousin to sell it at that price.  So, in effect, my Pixel cost me just Rs 29,000😊!!

Now coming to the Pixel 6 phone, I will give just a sample of what can be done.  There is an option of “Magic Eraser” that will remove unwanted stuff from your photos😊!!  Look at the 2 images below.  Both are the same picture.  While the one on the left is the original one, the one on the right is of removing “unwanted” stuff from the picture😊!!  At some places, it might not restore the background properly, but at most of the places, the background is automatically filled!!  Now you can remove “unwanted” relatives from your old family photos😊😊!!

This feature is, as of today, available only in Pixel 6 phones!!  Another feature, that you can also have on your phone is the translation of the “text” portion in the photo.  See the images below.  The left one is in Malayalam (original photo) while the right one is the translation in English😊!!

For getting this feature in your phone, just Update your “Photos” app from Google Play Store.  Using the lens feature, you can also have this translation facility in your phone!

In case you are in a hurry to take a photograph, no more opening the locked phone, looking for the camera app and then clicking it to get ready to take a picture.  In Pixel 6, just tap the “on” button twice and the camera app opens😊, even if the phone is locked!!

Want to shift from normal mode to selfie mode, just shuffle your wrist carrying the phone twice, the mode changes to selfie mode and vice versa😊

The phone is supposed to also have AI that understands your usage over a period of time and gets accustomed to your needs!

There is one more feature which is available in UK/US as of now.  When a call comes from an unknown number, you can push a button which sends a message to the caller phone to identify themselves.  Based on the reply (textual), you can then decide if you want to take the call or not😊!!  However, I could not find such a functionality in India as the operator needs to conform to this.   But what I found was that the phone was not ringing for many junk calls!  If an unknown number is coming, the phone itself identifies it as a junk number and does not ring.  So, I don’t know that any calls have come.  When I later go through the call logs, I can see several numbers marked as junk and marked as incoming, but the phone did not ring for those numbers😊.  Maybe it was the same numbers that were calling me when I had picked the phone earlier and disconnected.  Based on the time spent during my earlier call with that number, the phone decided that it was junk and did not ring😊!! Normally, for such junk calls, I just say “thank you and not interested” and cut the call.  This might be the AI portion working😊!!

Cheers till next time!

Daffy Definition 

Bachelor – A man who never Mrs anyone😊!