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Android |OT2| - Patent pending
- Thread starter kinggroin
- Start date
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-Pyromaniac-
Member
there's a find phone feature but I don't know what it does since you need to register to use it and I'm too lazy.
The Faceless Master
Member
how come i am just finding out that Emily Chu had an alt account that got banned almost 2 months ago?
Okay so I've been deciding on a new phone for like forever but my temporary laptop died (my old netbook broke last year so my dad gave me his old Windows 2000 era laptop). I was originally going to get a GS4 because I needed a phone, but due to price these are my two legitimately interesting options if I'm going to get a phone and a laptop/tablet...
1. Nexus 4 and Chromebook (I love the idea of a Chrome book especially for the price).
2. Lumia 520 (low end but still really snappy since it's WP8) and Surface RT (my dad owns one and it looks awesome) or a $500 Windows 8 laptop
I'm leaning more towards #2 at the moment since I don't need much on my phone beyond communication, web browsing (GAF mainly), podcasts, twitter, and music. Also I'd rather use have the Surface/laptop because it's more versatile. But at the same time the android ecosystem is so much better and I love the experience of using Google's products. So I come to GAF, which of these two options would you recommend?
Oh and sorry for any typos I wrote this on my phone which has a half broken capacitive screen (left side doesn't respond most of the time). Took me like 30 min to type.
1. Nexus 4 and Chromebook (I love the idea of a Chrome book especially for the price).
2. Lumia 520 (low end but still really snappy since it's WP8) and Surface RT (my dad owns one and it looks awesome) or a $500 Windows 8 laptop
I'm leaning more towards #2 at the moment since I don't need much on my phone beyond communication, web browsing (GAF mainly), podcasts, twitter, and music. Also I'd rather use have the Surface/laptop because it's more versatile. But at the same time the android ecosystem is so much better and I love the experience of using Google's products. So I come to GAF, which of these two options would you recommend?
Oh and sorry for any typos I wrote this on my phone which has a half broken capacitive screen (left side doesn't respond most of the time). Took me like 30 min to type.
VanMardigan
has calmed down a bit.
They picked someone with big hands to minimize how ridiculously huge that tablet phone is, and it still looks ridiculously huge.
Rookie mistake. They actually needed someone with a ginormous head.
The Faceless Master
Member
Looks like Google updated the Google Play Developer Rules...
Thanks Facebook!
There's a few apps that push APK's to the users device without warning (one of which being Facebook...), so this is probably a good idea.
OriginalThinking
Member
This can't be right can it? UK S4.
Samsung copying Apple again
This can't be right can it? UK S4.
Samsung copying Apple again
There's no way, else every reviewer in town would've blown their shit.
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Fuck Yeah!!!!!!!!!
Girlfriend just got her results. All negative!!
So not only does she not have anything she can stop with the meds they gave her which were wreaking havoc on her body!
PS: We both agree hats off to HIV patients that can stand to take that stuff everyday to live. My girlfriend said she didn't know if she could stand it. Meds made her feel like death so she was like might as well just die as sad as that sounds!
Girlfriend just got her results. All negative!!
So not only does she not have anything she can stop with the meds they gave her which were wreaking havoc on her body!
PS: We both agree hats off to HIV patients that can stand to take that stuff everyday to live. My girlfriend said she didn't know if she could stand it. Meds made her feel like death so she was like might as well just die as sad as that sounds!
-Pyromaniac-
Member
Congrats. You guys should
to celebrate.
x phone
Thank God, man.
OriginalThinking
Member
Hmmmm, look what we've got here...
-Pyromaniac-
Member
it's two galaxy S4s, says right on the box.
This can't be right can it? UK S4.
Samsung copying Apple again
It kind of is true just through using it now.
It charges on any micro-USB cable, but when I browse the internet with it on, the battery actually goes down. Using the supplied USB charger on the mains, it has quick charge and it does actually charge pretty damn quick. It's my first big-screen flagship Android, so I'm not sure if this is common or it's just exclusive to this.
OriginalThinking
Member
50gb drop box allowance on each S4. Screen is awesome, though it's on full brightness out of the box (retail demo unit). The first thing you'll want to do is switch off the godawful touch interaction tones.
Oh my gooood I want them 50GBs so bad. Is it possible to get that on an S2 as well?
Mine came out of the box in auto-brightness mode set at 0 with a +/- 5 brightness slider either way. That 50GB is sweet though.
EDIT: Now I've signed up for the 50GB, it's gone down to 48GB. What a scandal!!!11!
EDIT2: Oh, you get 2GB anyway... Please continue.
No more water drops?
BLOOP BLOOP?
OriginalThinking
Member
Oh no, that's what I'm talking about. Horrendous. Bloop, bloop.
Samsung is just reminding you to empty your bladder.
Every time my dad unlocks his S2. Every. Fucking. Time.
If you root & flash some Touchwiz ROMs, they have an option to enable 50gb on Dropbox (I know jelly beans does this).
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
needed.
Kill Your Masters
Member
Like a Boss. Fuck those Facebook in-app updates.
Thank god. I hate not having control over what's updating.
Not sure if it's available for the S2 but I flashed Jelly Beans on my S3 last night and it prompted me to install Dropbox w/ 50gb during the ROM flash.
-Pyromaniac-
Member
but butbutbut I thought they were all fanboys of _______
Alright, I'll be giving it a try. Thanks mate.
SirMossyBloke
Member
So that's what happened. This popped up yesterday and worried me as it wasn't through the app store.
Hey yall. I'm a noob to android, so bare with me. I just got a Galaxy Nexus (VZN) handed down to me because my iPhone 5 shattered. I'm a little dissapointed by the speed of this guy. What can I do to speed it up? Must I use a custom rom? If so, what's the easiest/best/noobiest rom and guide to do so?
-Pyromaniac-
Member
my condolences man.
Help me please!
zomgbbqftw
Banned
For all of you 1080p phone toting guys out there, especially Z/ZL users, I made an upgraded version of the stock Z/ZL wallpaper without the grey:
Here's the original from Sony for a comparison:
Here's the original from Sony for a comparison:
OriginalThinking
Member
So now that I've had a little more time with the S4.
+ Screen really is awesome. Beautiful and bright. I didn't try the natural color mode as I have no issue with the slightly over saturated pop an Amoled gives you.
+ Speaker is reasonably loud and clear. I mean not HTC One loud, but fine for most folks.
+ Very little bezel. Almost all of the front of the phone is taken up by the screen
+ Very comfortable to hold
+ 50GB Dropbox storage. Nice touch.
+ Camera quality seems great. Some of the modes (like action shot) are pretty fun.
Neutral: Build quality. It's Samsung. It's plastic. It won't break easily. It's reasonably solid. But it's also no better than a Galaxy Ace 2 or other mid range Samsung handset. Aesthetically it's not up to either the Nexus 4, HTC One or iPhone 5. Some people don't mind plastic. I just think that for a £500+ high end device to expect better. The materials and build quality on high end Samsung Ultrabooks are really nice. Clearly designed to square off against the build of a Macbook. I have no idea why Samsung don't make any effort to do this in the mobile space. Either way I'm neither here nor there about it. I don't get excited by the build quality, neither do I hate it. It's just average.
- Honestly most of the things like smart pause, etc are gimmicks. Well intentioned perhaps, but not well thought out and not well executed. Smart scroll is particularly bad. Smart pause doesn't really take into account that sometimes you might want to glance away from the screen without the content pausing, because well it can't. Sure you can switch it off, but it's not something you can do on the fly really quickly (unless there's an option to do that in the myriad of toggles in notifications, I forgot to check). You need to jump to settings, then select the right tab, select the eye tracking options and then disable it. Once you have it's unlikely you'll switch it back on. Using your hand to scroll through photos without touching the screen might seem like a cool idea but the execution is still fiddly from time to time and it ruins the experience eventually. It's cool for about 5 minutes, then you realise it's also just not as fast, responsive or better than using your finger. On one of the set up screens when you first boot the phone Samsung asks you if you want to switch all these features on and if you want explanations of what they do. For most people this is just going to be information overload.
- And going on from that theme...feature creep. Now it might sound crazy me criticizing Samsung giving people more options. But when the options don't work brilliantly or get in the way of your enjoyment of the phone (I'm looking at you smart scroll) it diminishes their value massively. Instead you end up potentially confusing your customers. Even the camera app is a bit overwhelming (even if some of the modes are fun the UI is confusing). There's a reason why we have an app store. Sometimes you think Samsung are trying to cover every base but by doing so it all becomes a little too much. I'd rather they did a few things amazingly well (like really nailed the hover gestures to work throughout the phone and had them work amazingly well) rather than a lot of things where the execution is lacking.
- Software and UI. In places it's fine - for example the home screen and app drawer. Then you get to the horror that is the settings menu, the notification bar, dialogue pickers. I can understand not going with stock and trying to create your own brand image. But at least make that image better or equal to stock. Instead you get a horrible mish mash of gingerbread blacks and greens. the on/off switches are an assault on your eyeballs. And yes there is micro lag and stutters from time to time. It's not often, but coming from a Nexus 4, a less powerful device, the S4 is not as smooth. Which is surprising. Don't get me wrong the lag is only very occasional but also very noticeable when it does happen to the trained eye.
That's it. If the negatives are actually things that don't bother you, or in fact may be positives to you.... get the S4, you won't be disappointed. If they do bother you, then look at either the Nexus 4 or HTC One. I'm sorry but the Xperia Z doesn't cut it either unless waterproof is a big thing for you.
The end.
+ Screen really is awesome. Beautiful and bright. I didn't try the natural color mode as I have no issue with the slightly over saturated pop an Amoled gives you.
+ Speaker is reasonably loud and clear. I mean not HTC One loud, but fine for most folks.
+ Very little bezel. Almost all of the front of the phone is taken up by the screen
+ Very comfortable to hold
+ 50GB Dropbox storage. Nice touch.
+ Camera quality seems great. Some of the modes (like action shot) are pretty fun.
Neutral: Build quality. It's Samsung. It's plastic. It won't break easily. It's reasonably solid. But it's also no better than a Galaxy Ace 2 or other mid range Samsung handset. Aesthetically it's not up to either the Nexus 4, HTC One or iPhone 5. Some people don't mind plastic. I just think that for a £500+ high end device to expect better. The materials and build quality on high end Samsung Ultrabooks are really nice. Clearly designed to square off against the build of a Macbook. I have no idea why Samsung don't make any effort to do this in the mobile space. Either way I'm neither here nor there about it. I don't get excited by the build quality, neither do I hate it. It's just average.
- Honestly most of the things like smart pause, etc are gimmicks. Well intentioned perhaps, but not well thought out and not well executed. Smart scroll is particularly bad. Smart pause doesn't really take into account that sometimes you might want to glance away from the screen without the content pausing, because well it can't. Sure you can switch it off, but it's not something you can do on the fly really quickly (unless there's an option to do that in the myriad of toggles in notifications, I forgot to check). You need to jump to settings, then select the right tab, select the eye tracking options and then disable it. Once you have it's unlikely you'll switch it back on. Using your hand to scroll through photos without touching the screen might seem like a cool idea but the execution is still fiddly from time to time and it ruins the experience eventually. It's cool for about 5 minutes, then you realise it's also just not as fast, responsive or better than using your finger. On one of the set up screens when you first boot the phone Samsung asks you if you want to switch all these features on and if you want explanations of what they do. For most people this is just going to be information overload.
- And going on from that theme...feature creep. Now it might sound crazy me criticizing Samsung giving people more options. But when the options don't work brilliantly or get in the way of your enjoyment of the phone (I'm looking at you smart scroll) it diminishes their value massively. Instead you end up potentially confusing your customers. Even the camera app is a bit overwhelming (even if some of the modes are fun the UI is confusing). There's a reason why we have an app store. Sometimes you think Samsung are trying to cover every base but by doing so it all becomes a little too much. I'd rather they did a few things amazingly well (like really nailed the hover gestures to work throughout the phone and had them work amazingly well) rather than a lot of things where the execution is lacking.
- Software and UI. In places it's fine - for example the home screen and app drawer. Then you get to the horror that is the settings menu, the notification bar, dialogue pickers. I can understand not going with stock and trying to create your own brand image. But at least make that image better or equal to stock. Instead you get a horrible mish mash of gingerbread blacks and greens. the on/off switches are an assault on your eyeballs. And yes there is micro lag and stutters from time to time. It's not often, but coming from a Nexus 4, a less powerful device, the S4 is not as smooth. Which is surprising. Don't get me wrong the lag is only very occasional but also very noticeable when it does happen to the trained eye.
That's it. If the negatives are actually things that don't bother you, or in fact may be positives to you.... get the S4, you won't be disappointed. If they do bother you, then look at either the Nexus 4 or HTC One. I'm sorry but the Xperia Z doesn't cut it either unless waterproof is a big thing for you.
The end.
AMOLED'd™
Great write-up man. Sounds pretty much like what I expected from it. You think it would still be a good upgrade for someone like my dad, who's used an S2 for two years now?
OriginalThinking
Member
From an S2 this thing will be like mana from heaven. From an S3, not really.
Funny thing, he just told me he might pick it up tomorrow. Guess that's settled, then.
-Pyromaniac-
Member
that phone is out of my jurisdiction, no clue man
what, in particular, is slow?
Its not really going to get any faster than it is. Its a 2011 phone in 2013. It may or may not be running the latest version of the OS because Verizon cockblocks updates to it (and because of this they will likely never get another nexus device again).
Outside of making sure it had a decent amount of on board drive space left (supposedly this helps with the speed of the device) and uninstalling apps you dont need, nothing is going to make it blazing fast.
iPhone5 back to a old VZW GNexus is going to be a step back in speed and screen quality both, not to mention battery life. Its just.... an old and discontinued phone mate.
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