Excited to see 2 blog posts in less than a week? Welcome to the rainy off season where there isn't much to do outside. Yes there is the tulip festival. But that is already being covered by every photographer in a 100 mile radius. I'm not much for big crowds. Why I like to go up high in mountains. Less spiders and less people.

So we are here to talk about my new stuff. Most of you might have heard over and over and over again I got the Google Pixel. Not just any Pixel. I got the most expensive Pixel of them all. XL 128GB. For $899. Yes, I could have got a full frame camera for the price I paid for a phone. Let's talk about how happy I am with that purchase.

Just to be clear the phone I am comparing the Pixel to is a Samsung Galaxy S5 - a three year old phone. Let's start!

So why the Pixel? I loved my Galaxy. Clearly. I had it for a very very long time. It was nearing 90 in cell phone years. That phone outlasted marriages. I watched Rich upgrade from an iPhone to a newer Galaxy which was fun. I got to play with it before my upgrade. Then we noticed it could potentially burn the house down and I didn't want to add to the risk by bringing a second one into the home.

Why not an iPhone? I am a stubborn brat. That is all you need to know.

On Monday, March 20th of 2017 of phone arrived.

The phone gave a very good first impression when I turned it on and it had a 50% charge and 10 minutes later it wasn't dead. I started to realize the phone might stay charged for longer than an hour. Not only was I excited to not have to carry around 2 portable chargers, I was sure my Pokemon Go team would be very happy I could play for more than 20 minutes at a time. Since then I have gone full days without needing a charge with hours of Pokemon Go fun! I finally got the Ditto.

The second thing I noticed is that the charger is different. Why? We had something that worked just fine. Why change it? So I have to buy a new car charger, portable charger, charger for work, jerks.

The fingerprint access is pretty awesome. I have to keep my phone locked up since it has to have access to hospital email with sensitive data. The fingerprint location makes it easy to pick up and get to phoning...is that a verb?

The next thing I noticed was that my phone didn't immediately tell me how disappointed it is in me for not meeting some step goal it decided to set for me without my input. I am an outdoor goddess. I do enough walking. Most steps are just done in places phones don't work or need to go. Just because YOU, phone, didn't know I was walking doesn't mean I wasn't. Also you are a phone! I mean I use you for everything but actually making calls...shut up phone.

So, the next thing I was excited to do was get some extra apps. No more uninstalling 2 apps every time Pokemon Go required an update. I could now have all the Instagram extras, Lightroom, and now VSCO with the 100 filters to help me impress all the hipsters.

The coolest thing about the Pixel is that I can now take photos in RAW format! I haven't figured out how to yet. I just know I can do it and should be excited about it because other photographers told me to.

With the Galaxy S5 the photos were actually...pretty terrible. I used the camera only when I saw something I HAD to have a photo of (usually the dog). But I knew when I reached for the phone the photo wasn't going to be good. If it was something I HAD to share (usually the dog) I would crank the exposure and just tell people it was an Instragram filter.

She was sleeping under a bright window in the middle of the day. Why so grainy, phone?! Although doesn't look much different if I took this with a good camera and ran it through instagram. — She was sleeping under a bright window in the middle of the day. Why so grainy, phone?! Although doesn't look much different if I took this with a good camera and ran it through instagram.

Now I can easily take low light photos! Dark hallway and the dog is being cute? Boom!

Might look the same but this was taken in a totally dark hallway! Kalani might be getting tired of the phone. Which is why she was hiding in the dark hallway where I previously couldn't follow her.

But then the phone started to become self aware. It occasionally went through my photos and edited them for me. Turning them into nightmares. And I felt myself missing the phone that would yell at me for not walking enough after a 15 miles scramble.

And then it decided to make cool videos of my dog...and add in my impression of Charlize Theron. AI for a phone has room for improvement.

The very best part? The unlimited photo storage. Which I am pretty sure as of Monday, March 20th, 2017 Google is regretting this idea very much. No - not because of the dog. Well, the dog is about 90% of the photos. But there is something else going on. If you look at my Bio Page you will notice I don't have exactly great equipment. Know how I deal with that? I take A LOT of photos of the same thing. By a lot I mean I have 60 photos of Echo on the Seattle Waterfront. It is the best "good photographer crappy equipment" trick of all time - It's in the list of future blog ideas so I can make Google hate us all. So I have decided to take that habit to my phone that is no longer giving me daily alerts that my storage has run out. So when that feature goes away you can come at me for ruining it for everyone.

Then the phone started making fun of my "take a billion photos at once" habit. Probably an effort to get me to stop.

Overall - the phone takes great photos. Especially since the definition of phone doesn't include anything about pictures.

So am I happy with the Google Pixel? When you compare it to the hospice patient that was my Samsung Galaxy S5 - Yes. At this moment it is the best camera I have. Which is sad and probably a good reason to finally upgrade my equipment. But I just made my big yearly purchase so I might need to be a little patient. Or use a credit card.

Oh, and texting works great!