Smartphones

joeboo_sl said:

Don't forget about the Samsung Note phones. I personally like them better than any other offering out there, including Samsungs normal S-line of phones. If you're considering the Nexus 6 and One Plus One, then you're obviously not averse to "large" phones. Consider the Note 4, it's incredible.

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We'll see Note 5 announcement soon, won't we? Coming out this year?

Note is on the table, but I really don't like Samsung's OS. Like, at all. I'm sure I could figure out rooting it and installing a clean Android rom but that's extra hassle too.

BrutulTM_sl said:

I don't know how you guys keep phones for more than 2 years. I can't seem to get over a year before the connectors (usb or headphones or both) start going bad. I don't really think I'm subjecting my phones to anything extreme but I have had terrible luck with them for the last 3 or 4 years.

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I dunno man, I had an iphone 4 for 2 years and by the end I was ready to toss it into a lake

Amzin_sl said:

Is there a general consensus on the S6 vs. OPO vs. Nexus vs. whatever, even though the Nexus is just hitting?

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OPO is a year old while the Nexus 6 came out in November and the S6 just came out, so it's going to be a bit behind them. There's still no release date on the OnePlus Two, will be some time 3rd quarter apparently. And will be using the invite system again.

The OPO is havingsales for $50 off for the rest of the week, until the 7th. So the 64gb Sandstone model will be $300 in those windows. That's still a lot of unlocked phone for the money.

fwiw the s6 edge is the best phone i have ever used. it's so fast it's ridiculous. everything is instant. the photos it takes are gorgeous. it remembers all my open tabs and apps even when it dies when i power it back up. it switches seamlessley between wifi/4g and has never asked me to log in to anything - this is from restoring from an s5 backup. every time i used my s5 offline nothing would be current and i would get all these annoying messages. now when i'm offline, everything is current (ny times, emails) and readable. not sure if that's lollipop or the samsung software or what but it's a thing of beauty. the curved screen is fine but not a plus. i don't get the edge stuff - who leaves their phone facedown anyway? seems dumb.

BrutulTM_sl said:

The battery life on my Moto X is going to shit lately too and it's only like 8 months old. When it was new it lasted until 9PM at least, usually until 11. Now I'm lucky if it gets to 6PM. Maybe I have some app fucking me over.

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Mine usually lasts from 6am until 12am on a good day with normal use, including spotify for 2 or more hours per day. Must be something fucking you. You can see in the battery icon what apps are using what.

G4 incoming Monday. Just in time, my Motorola is just about shitting it's battery. It's like 4200 mah but now I just went from 20% to 5% in 30 minutes on standby with nothing running. I think there's some dead cells or something? I dunno.

Nexus 6 arrived last night and started dinking around with it. The Project Fi activation was simple and painless, didn't have to talk to anyone, which was great. They sent a 'Welcome Kit' for being an early adopted that had a case, external battery, and headphones. The phone is smaller than I expected probably due to the fact that it is kind of thin and hand feel. It is still the largest phone I have ever owned and it is definitely walking the line. Single hand operation is going to be tough, but that could just be being new to using the device.

Should be interesting moving forward, they bill at the start of service rather than end. Initial bill was $43 for 2GB Data w/ Talk and Text. Since I generally use around 1GB of data I will most likely have a $10 credit every month. $33/mo seems pretty nice to me.

EDIT: First issue with the service. If you have multiple Google Voice numbers, you cannot forward a Google Voice number to a Project Fi number right now. This is pretty annoying in the short term, but long term it will probably be fine. I had ported two of my other numbers into Google Voice so i wouldn't have to pay T-Mobile for multiple lines. They are effectively dead numbers now. Will just need a voicemail greeting that directs folks to the number I just ported if they are still using them.

Amzin_sl said:

Note is on the table, but I really don't like Samsung's OS. Like, at all. I'm sure I could figure out rooting it and installing a clean Android rom but that's extra hassle too.

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Just install a different launcher than Touchwiz, no need to root. Nova Prime is pretty good imo, Apex too.

I think I'm going with the Nexus 6. The Galaxy Edge is just not much bigger than my old phone and that's too small for how I use it. The Note Edge is neat but right handed so nope. The Note 4 seems fine but I would prefer just getting the straight-up Android experience I feel like. With the sale price on the Nexus 6 there's just not enough reason not to grab it

Izo_sl said:

My friend keeps rubbing this in my face. Huawei junk, sure, but it takes a photo in 1.2sec from standby, double clicking on volume down. Pretty handy when you have kids and they do something hilarious. My pis old SG4 recently got Lollipop, and all I get is a shortcut for the camera app on the swipe login screen. Still takes up to 5-10 secs to have the app open and take a picture.

Anyone know if this is possible on iPhone/other android?

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Is this suppose to be fast? My Z2 can do this way faster.

Got my G4. Pretty slick so far, nothing really stands out as a 'wow' feature, but since I've been using Android for years I guess that should be expected. Screen is nice, sound is good. It's extremely responsive. Battery life is a noticeable decrease from my Razr MAXX in its heyday but since it's removable and larger than the S6, not sure how that would have gone!

Overall so far so good. Only questionable thing is 'back buttons'. Will see how I like it after using it a bit.

EDIT: weird... so I had it sitting there charging, it actually DISCHARGED 2% attached to my 1A generic wall USB adapter. I plugged it into the factory charger (1.8A) and it has charged 7% in like 8 minutes. Seems odd... doesn't spell good things for battery life though and this is after I uninstalled everything I could on it and used ATK.

G4 is starting to grow on me. The screen is very good, I didn't really notice it at first because it's just clean.

Battery life is respectable, down to 32% in one day with moderate use at 40% screen brightness and all 4G antenna. Definitely glad I'm getting the free battery/charger/sd promo from LG for being early adopter.

The speakers are just miles better than my last phone. Still suffer from pointing out the back but good sound quality. Bloatware is also lighter for sure and the G4 certainly isn't getting bogged down.

Overall about as decent as I expected, but the back buttons are still dumb to use.