Smartphone advice

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Ambrose Burnside
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by Ambrose Burnside »

So what's the best smartphone currently out there for an absolute maximum of $600? Which I guess is midrange territory with the top of the range phones up over $1k.

My LG G3 is starting to do a lot of weird stuff, random resets and so on.

Ideally I'd like a phone with an SD card slot, but that's not 100% critical.

Funnily enough the Lumia 950 XL ticks a lot of boxes. Currently $500 :run: But what's out there in Android land? There doesn't seem to be much at that <$600 point that would be a decent upgrade on the G3. I paid $580 for the G3 two years ago and from what I can tell, phones around that price still tend to offer pretty much the same performance as the G3 (or worse!) which is ridiculous. Phones like the Nexus 5X fall into this category. Am I missing something?

http://www.ubergizmo.com/products/lang/ ... ,nexus-5x/
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Ambrose Burnside
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by Ambrose Burnside »

Settled on the Moto X Style/Pure. Satisfied my criteria (less than $600, SD card support, a worthwhile upgrade on the LG G3) with the added bonus of pretty much stock Android.

Looking forward to its arrival :)
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by Rorschach »

Just picked up an unlocked Samsung S8, impressions to follow
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by Ambrose Burnside »

Give me a Surface Phone damn it!

Yeah, I'm delusional.
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Ambrose Burnside
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by Ambrose Burnside »

It looks like Nougat is finally rolling out for my phone (Moto X Style). Brazil and India have it, not sure when it'll roll out here but at least it's on its way.

I reckon this will be my last outright phone, I think I'll go back to plans and a Pixel 2 or 3 or whatever is current by then after this. Tired of the piss-poor rollout of updates, even for a supposedly "pure" Android phone like mine.
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by Rorschach »

You're not going to like Telcos much better. I went outright to get off shitty carrier firmware
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by Ambrose Burnside »

Are phones still debrandable? That's what I did when I was last on a plan (with Optus).
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by Rorschach »

Not Telstra, at least not from memory.
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by t0mby »

Everything can be debranded its just not as popular on this side of the world. In the UK little dairys and some street vendors would unlock and debrand your phone while you wait (less than 10mins) for £5.
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by F for Fake »

Does anyone even care about updates anymore? I used to hangout for updates and read the changes back when I had an S2 hd, now with an s7 I keep getting them and dont even know what they do (of course they dont even bother telling you the list of changes in the updatebinfo)
They don't seem to be adding any new features these days. Nor any major bugs to fix.
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by Rorschach »

I think since Kit Kat and the introduction of Material Design Android has been pretty much perfect, just refinements since then. I was on Android Lollipop for nearly 3 years and didn't see the need to upgrade at all.
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by t0mby »

Was is Lollipop or Marshmallow that they enabled transferring of apps and shit to a SD Card? I have KitKat on my car stereo, the internal memory is so arse that I can't install or update anything without deleting something and I can't transfer anything to the SD card.
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by Deef »

Ambrose Burnside wrote:Are phones still debrandable? That's what I did when I was last on a plan (with Optus).
Yeah they are. I was about to get a spare iPhone unlocked the other day. You can google it but it does involve a call to Telstra/etc, and a payment.

Alternatively I also just walked up to the first cheap phone cover/doo-dads store I saw and asked them. $25.
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by itch »

Dropped and smashed my Nexus 6p beyond repair and replaced it with a Galaxy S7.

Who knew Samsungs fingerprint scanners were so terrible!
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by flipswitch »

In what way? Currently on iOS, but if I go back to Android I'd be looking at the Pixel 2. My previous phones were HTC/Samsung.
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by itch »

Well the Nexus 6p (and the pixel) fingerprint scanner is circular and it isn't a button. What's good about that is, your whole print fits in the scanner, and secondly it senses as soon as you touch with out a 'physical button press'.

The 6p scanner was fast. It's also placed on the back (which adds to the speed of use IMO).

By contrast, the Galaxy s7 scanner is a flat, oval shaped button which really only catches a 'slice' of your finger or thumb print. Also, it's a button and you have to press it before it takes your print!

I probably wouldn't bother to complain about that if this was the only one I'd used, but after using the 6p it seems quite shit. I've gotten a bit more used to it, but I get WAY more rejections than I got with the 6p. I think the iPhone scanner is circular too isn't it? Pixel would be better if you expect that then.
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by Ambrose Burnside »

F for Fake wrote:Does anyone even care about updates anymore? I used to hangout for updates and read the changes back when I had an S2 hd, now with an s7 I keep getting them and dont even know what they do (of course they dont even bother telling you the list of changes in the updatebinfo)
They don't seem to be adding any new features these days. Nor any major bugs to fix.
I like having the latest updates for everything.

Looking at the Nougat release notes, the main things I'm looking forward to are:

Improved Doze functionality, which aims to prolong battery life
New JIT Compiler, making for 75 percent faster app installations and a 50 percent reduction in compiled code size
Just in Time (JIT) compiler with code profiling to ART, which lets it constantly improve the performance of Android apps as they run

It seems (in Android Land anyway), the only way to get timely updates is with a Pixel. I can't justify the outright cost of one, so in a year or two, I'll look at what plans are available to see if they offer decent value for a Pixel 2 or 3.

Or there might be a Surface Phone by then :redface: :cry:
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Re: Smartphone advice

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This is well after its time but I just got a Note Edge ... basically a Note 4 with a curvy panel thing.

After my Note 3 this could be mistaken for a downgrade. For some reason performance is sometimes bonkers bad. I get massive slowdown in some games that never had issues on the Note 3. Random slowdown, across the whole game/phone.

Then the battery life is simply worse, annoying at times. And the charging takes ages. That one is a legitimate downgrade... They went back to USB 2 after the Note 3 had USB 3 and the difference in charging speed is significant. I never needed wall charging before. Now I basically can't expect laptop charging to finish it in under 5 hours.

A simple example of all that is if I'm on 2% and plugged into the wall, I basically have no phone. It can't charge fast enough for even non-game usage.

The edge panel could have been good but its implementation is weak. I can't add even a 2nd panel for favorites, but of course I can add junky Yahoo or Samsung panels. While edge apps look like a land grab... edge widgets as basic as volume control costing money.

More whining, the ROM scene isn't so good for it. Mostly due to Samsung making things harder to stop early importers, but also due to little community presence for the Note Edge. And that's a shame, because I'm wondering how much of its cruddy performance is related to the firmware or came with.




Needed to rant.
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by flipswitch »

This seems to be the right thread.

Every time I use Face ID to unlock my iPhone X the screen cracks. I’ve been to the same kiosk 7 times to get it replaced, and the guy won’t help me anymore.

Apple told me just to use the passcode instead.
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by Cletus »

Deef wrote:This is well after its time but I just got a Note Edge ... basically a Note 4 with a curvy panel thing.

After my Note 3 this could be mistaken for a downgrade. For some reason performance is sometimes bonkers bad. I get massive slowdown in some games that never had issues on the Note 3. Random slowdown, across the whole game/phone.

Then the battery life is simply worse, annoying at times. And the charging takes ages. That one is a legitimate downgrade... They went back to USB 2 after the Note 3 had USB 3 and the difference in charging speed is significant. I never needed wall charging before. Now I basically can't expect laptop charging to finish it in under 5 hours.

A simple example of all that is if I'm on 2% and plugged into the wall, I basically have no phone. It can't charge fast enough for even non-game usage.

The edge panel could have been good but its implementation is weak. I can't add even a 2nd panel for favorites, but of course I can add junky Yahoo or Samsung panels. While edge apps look like a land grab... edge widgets as basic as volume control costing money.

More whining, the ROM scene isn't so good for it. Mostly due to Samsung making things harder to stop early importers, but also due to little community presence for the Note Edge. And that's a shame, because I'm wondering how much of its cruddy performance is related to the firmware or came with.




Needed to rant.
I'm still reluctant to get another phone. I like the Note 3. Being able to buy a new battery from eBay on the cheap doesn't help me let it go either.
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by Madmya »

Dammit Cletus.
flipswitch wrote:This seems to be the right thread.

Every time I use Face ID to unlock my iPhone X the screen cracks. I’ve been to the same kiosk 7 times to get it replaced, and the guy won’t help me anymore.

Apple told me just to use the passcode instead.
:lol:

Have you tried this place?

https://www.pureaesthetics.com.au/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Smartphone advice

Post by Deef »

Cletus wrote:I'm still reluctant to get another phone. I like the Note 3. Being able to buy a new battery from eBay on the cheap doesn't help me let it go either.
Yeah I'd happily still be using the Note 3 (in fact I'd rather have it than this Note 4 Edge). It's just that it survived one complete 20+ minute submersion... but not another.
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