Android Phones

[deanb]

That's because google is always watching, always listening. Your omniscient friend.

[Mal]

Maybe it's time to switch carriers and phones. I'm looking at Google Fi with those two phones they have.

Edited October 11, 2016 by MummyH

[Thursday Next]

Google Pixel: How much!? £800+ for the top spec model... Jeeeeebus.

[madbassman39]

I'm on Google Fi and its hands down the best service I've had. Of course I've only experienced AT&T and T-Mobile but Fi just covers almost anywhere. Not to mention when I was in Costa Rica there were 0 added charges to using my phone abroad. It was freeing.

 

I'll be getting my Pixel XL in a week so I'll see how that works out.

[madbassman39]

I've been using my Pixel XL for a week and it is hands down the best phone I've ever used. I have a iPhone 6 for work which I always enjoyed using (iPhones are just so easy) and a Nexus 5X for personal. Honestly the 5X was too underpowered for me. I had lots of issues where I had to restart the phone regularly.

 

The Pixel is faster than my girlfriends iPhone 6S Plus by a long shot, and it seems to respond better to apps opening and keeping apps open.

 

Its a great phone, it feels good, the fingerprint sensor is the best I've ever used and the phone just feels good in my hands.

[danielpholt]

I've been using my Pixel XL for a week and it is hands down the best phone I've ever used. I have a iPhone 6 for work which I always enjoyed using (iPhones are just so easy) and a Nexus 5X for personal. Honestly the 5X was too underpowered for me. I had lots of issues where I had to restart the phone regularly.

 

The Pixel is faster than my girlfriends iPhone 6S Plus by a long shot, and it seems to respond better to apps opening and keeping apps open.

 

Its a great phone, it feels good, the fingerprint sensor is the best I've ever used and the phone just feels good in my hands.

I'd expect nothing less for what they're asking for it.

 

At this point, seeing as I mainly use my phone to browse Reddit, Twitter and read some RSS, I think my next phone will be a mid-range Moto device. Its just not worth it for me to spend £500+.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[deanb]

https://www.cnet.com/news/razer-phone/?ftag=COS-05-10aaa0b&linkId=44206620

 

Razer Phone is pretty insane. Ugly as fuck, that's not exactly breaking from Razers usual shtick, but with some pretty beefy specs inside. Cheaper than the high end phones out now too.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

It will be interesting to see how it holds its price. Could be a bargain in a years time.

[TheMightyEthan]

Why do they insist on making phones so big?  What good is it if it won't fit in your pocket?  Even the 5" phones are pushing it.

[deanb]

I'd guess primarily batteries, since usually the big thing with the bigger phones is the higher mah battery.

 

Also market forces. They wouldn't do bigger phones as flagships, including Apple finally getting on board, if people weren't buying them. When the Note 1 came out the Galaxy S2 was the flagship and only 4.3", but hey Note was popular and more folks got on board and more people bought them. They do do stuff like the S Minis n other smaller phones for the folks that want them.

 

S2 was 4.3", Note was 5.3" and the Note 8 is 6.3"

https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=3621&idPhone2=4135&idPhone3=8505

 

[MetalCaveman]

Anyone have any recommendations for Android tablets? Mainly looking for something to read books/comics/manga on, though if it could also do some light gaming (Azur Lane, FGO) that'd be cool too.  

 

Haven't kept up with the tablet space and most of the ones I've seen in stores are super small or just like "Avengers tablet for kids!" and whatnot.  

[Mister Jack]

I use a Galaxy S2 I'm pretty happy with. I got a refurbished one on ebay for less than 200 bucks and it was indistinguishable from a brand new one. The screen is 8 inches and it has expandable memory. The only real downside is that the shape of the screen is closer to a square than a rectangle which means you'll get letterboxes if you watch movies, but if that doesn't bother you then it's pretty solid.

[deanb]

Yeah Samsung probably best bet for tablets these days. I'm on a Galaxy Tab A at the moment n previously had a Tab Pro. Bigger at 10.1", was about £150 in a sale, does me great for comic/manga reading due to the screen size being 16:10 which is pretty close to comic page size. As covered in the film thread I'm fine with watching TV shows on it (since old ones are 4:3 and newer ones are 16:9, but for films you'll get letterbox). Like a lot of Samsung stuff has microSD support to expand space(double check on the device before buying cos..it's "alot of samsung" not "all samsung" unfortunately). Really my only major beef with it is it came out just as USB-C was kicking off and so it's micro-USB still. Also downward/sideward firing speakers (depending on orientation) so while there's two in 'stereo' you're not quite gonna get that effect, but for youtube/TV it's fine. Oh n game wise I've played all the Room games on here pretty fine.

https://www.samsung.com/uk/business/tablets/galaxy-tab-a-10-1-t580/sm-t580nzkebtu/

 

Getting an older device tablet wise from Samsung is pretty savvy option as they're pretty great for years on. My TabPro was still a beast when it finally died, otherwise I'd still be rocking it fine. So don't worry in dabbling into 'older' stuff from a few years ago, and tend to have support for LineageOS too if you're wanting to upgrade Android version and fine with a bit of tech dabbling. Oh avoid Amazon Kindle stuff.

[MetalCaveman]

Thanks for the advice! \m/ \m/ The A looks like a solid choice, and from what I've seen, not that expensive, screen size looks pretty good too, will look around and compare a bit, but so far, that one's on the lead. Thanks!  

[Mister Jack]

So iTunes is a piece of shit and it fucked up the artwork and song order on my ENTIRE music collection so now I'm sick of it and want to try transferring all my iPod music onto my phone, despite my apprehension about battery use. Those of you who listen to music on your android devices, what's the best music player app you've used?

[MetalCaveman]

I use the VLC app and Spotify.  

 

VLC has some issues though, sometimes new files won't show up in your library and you may need to uninstall and reinstall the app for it to work again, however, this isn't that bad unless you're constantly adding/removing files.   

[Mister Jack]

Well I'm trying to add over 3000 songs sooo

[MetalCaveman]

Then it might be a better idea to move all your songs and then install VLC.  

[Mister Jack]

Well son of a bitch. As it turns out some of my music is so old it's from the days of back when Apple was using DRM and I, like a fool, believed in paying for music so these songs won't play on anything but an Apple device. Even VLC doesn't work. I called them up and asked them how to get versions of my older songs that aren't fucked with DRM and they said the only way to update them was to subscribe to a service for 25 dollars a year.

 

Uh, no. Fuck that. I have other ways. I may never pay for music again after this debacle. I'm being punished now because I didn't pirate back in 2007 like everyone else.

Edited November 8, 2019 by Mister Jack

[MetalCaveman]

My father was interested in the Galaxy Flip because he hates big phones, I don't think he'll like that price though.  

 

On that note, what are some recent phones that are on the smaller side but with decent specs?  

[Mister Jack]

I just hope it brings down the price of the S10. I want a new phone but only suckers pay for the latest model.

[Mal]

9 hours ago, Mister Jack said:

I want a new phone but only suckers pay for the latest model.

Tell that to my family. 

I tend to run whatever phones I get into the ground so the latest is how I would like to roll (I do similar with PC hardware). Used to wouldn't be an issue if I could repair it or replace a battery on my own. Now though... eh. Between how un-repairable phones are and planned obsolescence, it's pretty shitty.  My previous phone (Huawei Mate 10 Pro) battery sort of exploded/expanded a few weeks ago so I'm on an older phone now. Time to live my dream of using older phones though I think I want to move back up to something a bit more modern. I'm missing a ton of software features that I like (picture-in-picture for say Youtube, etc). Probably aim for a Note 9 or something that generation. If I'm feeling fancy, a Note 10. 

 

I also want to jump from Cricket (AT&T network) to some other carrier, preferably with hotspot included. Google Fi looks okay but I hear that for data usage, it's quite sub-par. "Free" hotspot is nice though and I want to see how well the three networks (T-mobile/Sprint [they might merge soon] and US Cellular) work out. Or I may go directly with AT&T. I have a feeling some of my issues with Cricket is that their network usage is un-prioritized. I see 4G but I am not getting 4G. I really got to review my data usage before I decide on a carrier. I might be able to swing Google Fi and maybe get a Pixel which I could finance. It'd be unlocked and able to be used with AT&T too if I get tired of Google Fi (but, if Pixel 3, at slightly reduced functionality aka one less LTE band I can use. Pixel 4 is fine).

 

Researching all this (carrier plus phones) is so annoying. 

 

Edit: Regarding phones to pick up... the newest phones aren't necessarily the best phones to get since features are rather lacking. Thanks new phones every year.

Edited February 12, 2020 by Mal

[TheMightyEthan]

I'm a firm believer in buying last year's model of phone. It's already lost most of the "ooh shiny" price inflation, but you still get most of the usable life out of it. Same as how you wouldn't buy a brand new current-year car.

[CorgiShinobi]

I got my S6 when the S7 was getting hyped up, so all that hype helped discount the S6 a little. Not a whole lot mind you, but I fully agree on getting the model behind the brand new one. The only downside I have for staying on an S9 is the OS version updates come after the more recent models.

[MetalCaveman]

Thing is, phones don't really go down in price here, older models just sort of vanish from the stores. This also means that used phones tend to be fairly overpriced, and those that are cheaper come with some issues that may or may not be a deal breaker depending on your needs/wants/whatever. For me personally, I don't upgrade my phone that frequently, and usually only when it breaks beyond repair/gets stolen/lost, so the amount of time it'd take to find a decent used one, or track down an older model, compared to what I would save is just not worth it.

 

Granted, a lot of it is due to where I live, I assume you'll have better luck looking around CDMX, Puebla, Guadalajara or Monterrey, but fuck if I'm going through Mordor just to get a slightly cheaper phone.

 

Online is not much better, you can find some decent phones, but these are usually imports, and factoring shipping and import taxes makes it not worth it.

 

So yeah, call me dumb, but I do go for the newest flagship when it's time to upgrade.  For now though, my S8 is doing just fine.  

 

My father is just looking for something that fits in his pockets, and that isn't slow as hell, he's currently using an old Alcatel Idol Mini.  

 

For those than can make use of it though, Samsung did announce a pride drop for their older models.  

 

Edited February 13, 2020 by MetalCaveman