The Steam Deck is what got me to finally try modern KDE and eventually switch to it. I recently moved my gaming PC to Fedora 39, and considered trying Gnome again for variety’s sake until I remembered that it currently does not natively support VRR, so this is good news.

I think I prefer Plasma at this point, and I’m excited with Plasma 6 around the corner, but my desktop PC is basically a gaming appliance, so I think the relative simplicity of Gnome might be nice to run on there eventually as these features catch up. I like to have variety in what I’m running anyways. I appreciate that it gives me a wider perspective on my preferences.

Teams is truly awful. The fact that I have seen it maintain the same general clunkiness for years at this point is crazy. When it was newer, I could overlook it somewhat and assumed that the wrinkles would get smoothed out over time, but it still feels very janky and duct-taped together. It’s functional enough for what I need it to do, but it may be my least favorite piece of software that I need to use regularly. I used Slack a few jobs ago and I miss it. It has been Teams ever since that job.

The other big issue I have with Discord is that information isn’t really indexable or able to be archived easily. Reddit developed its own issues, but at least it was great to use alongside a search engine. Discord just feels like a black hole of information in comparison. It feels like a ticking time bomb in terms of inevitable enshittification.

You are correct that it isn’t really an essential feature, but it gives a nice boost in fluidity that I really enjoy, and directly ties into latency, which you mentioned as being important, which I agree with. Color accuracy still seems to be very good on modern flagships regardless of HZ, according to those who test those things.

The battery impact isn’t as bad as you probably expect actually, most newer high hz phone displays are LTPO, which allows them to scale down to I believe as low as 10hz, such as when you are reading or the AOD is on. I believe it will also scale down to match the frame rate of a full screen video too, which can also help.

As far as cost, I’m sure it’s not “free”, but now that OEMs like Apple, Samsung, and Google are all ordering them in bulk, I imagine it’s kind of just built into the category of display spec that they are ordering. For what it’s worth, the $300 Galaxy A23 features a 120hz display. Of course, Samsung makes the display, but that cost still has to be accounted for somewhere, especially as their profits are currently down 95%.

But yeah, overall I just enjoy a high refresh rate. My monitor, TV, iPad, and phone all support it, so I enjoy the consistency. I recommend trying a high HZ phone in person sometime if you haven’t. I find that it adds a lot to the fluidity of the UI both visually, and in terms of feel, as it feels like it follows my finger more closely when scrolling, for example. Of course, you can always turn it off and cap it at 60hz as well.

I love Pixels, they’re easily my favorite option. I’m currently on a Pixel Fold (yes I’m an idiot, but that’s beside the point), and I also enjoy my Pixel Watch and Buds Pro and A series.

I carried an iPhone for work for 3 years and just don’t care for iOS in a personal daily carry capacity. It’s fine for a work phone though, but I also enjoy the way that Android handles work profiles. I do own an iPad though, and that’s fine. I would consider replacing it with a Pixel tablet someday when it’s time though, especially if there’s a 120hz display option by then.

I’m not a big fan of Samsung’s design choices or bloatware tendencies. The kitchen sink approach isn’t for me when the majority of it is stuff that I won’t use, and it feels sloppy to me switching between apps and one uses Samsung’s design language, and then the other uses Material You. I like the consistency you get on a Pixel.

I use my camera a ton, so Pixel is an obvious choice there. Software features like call screening are indispensable for me too. I have been seeing daily spam calls again recently, and watching my phone silently discard them is always enjoyable. I also enjoy getting updates as soon as they are released, which is something that always bothered me with other manufacturers. I have made quite a few people happy by recommending the A-series to them. Wonderful budget-midrange value options.

Where would I go if Pixel went away? Tough question. The Nothing phone seems alright, I could see that working. The Zenphone 10 looks nice as well. I think I would explore one of those options before considering Samsung or Apple again.

Not if they use Pixel Binning, which Google, Apple, and Samsung all do, and I’m sure others do too. This results in my Pixel’s 48 megapixel camera generating 12 Megapixel photos, which reduces the file size.

It is not a separate app, but it can be opened by tapping on the weather widget or searching weather in the Google app, tapping the 3 dot menu next to “Weather / Today” and then tap on add to homescreen. It is more like a full app UI vs searching for weather.

Here’s what the new Fold/Tablet design looks like.

I liked Appy Weather for a while. Nice clean design, and had access to the Dark Sky API and now the Apple Weather API after Dark Sky was shut down.

The precipitation notifications became nonsense for me though. We were on week 2 of a drought recently and I would get notifications saying things like “heavy rain continues for 8 hours” with no precipitation in sight. Not sure if that was the app’s fault (developer hasn’t updated in a while) or the API’s, but yeah. Inaccurate notifications.

I am on a Pixel Fold now, so I’m currently using the redesigned Google Weather app. I really like the redesign. I just noticed that I had notifications disabled due to previously using that other app though, so I’m curious to see if it has live precipitation notifications now that they have the ML-Powered Dark Sky-like Nowcast thing.

Fantastic news! Sync was my main client of choice. I will be more than happy to toss the dev a few more bucks.