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[thespot84]

no.

the special conditions of the 'C Block' license (remember how Google bid just enough to enable the open access condition? yeah, check.) prohibit them from blocking devices on that spectrum, and that's the spectrum they use for LTE.

I was under the impression that verizon got around this by requiring authentication via their CDMA network before provisioning any service to any device.

Similarly, c-block is backwards, and building a single radio to span more than a few blocks including c would be difficult.

I don't think the business case exists right now to build an LTE, c-block only device on verizon without verizon's support/blessing, as the risk of a) being sued b) being blocked access through some cdma bullshit or c) not meeting your sales targets, since risk can't be spread across multiple carriers, is just too much to overcome.

In a similar case, verizon used their cdma network to justify blocking tethering, which went specifically against the other provision that come with the c-block license to open applications and services.

verizon gonna do what they gonna do.

 

[Psychotext]

My missus (being the fussy type) doesn't want anything with a screen bigger than 4.3" (Phone dimensions of ~128mm x 68mm). Ideally the camera needs to be as good as possible, and it should have dual core.

Problem is, it seems most of the phones in this range are a bit shit as everyone is after massive handsets filled with techy goodness. The only ones I've found which seem to fit the bill are:

HTC One SV
Samsung Galaxy S3 mini
Sony Xperia L

...and reading reviews on them seems to indicate that they've all got glaring flaws, especially with the cameras. Anyone have any other suggestions? Or are those not as bad as the reviews are making out?

 

[Liquidus]

IPhone 4S or 5?

 

[Vic]

My missus (being the fussy type) doesn't want anything with a screen bigger than 4.3" (Phone dimensions of ~128mm x 68mm). Ideally the camera needs to be as good as possible, and it should have dual core.

Problem is, it seems most of the phones in this range are a bit shit as everyone is after massive handsets filled with techy goodness. The only ones I've found which seem to fit the bill are:

HTC One SV
Samsung Galaxy S3 mini
Sony Xperia L

...and reading reviews on them seems to indicate that they've all got glaring flaws, especially with the cameras. Anyone have any other suggestions? Or are those not as bad as the reviews are making out?

XFON

 

[Psychotext]

IPhone 4S or 5?

She's not a fan. Wants android.

XFON

There are a couple of unreleased phones that fit the bill. Problem with unreleased phones is that you never know how long you'll be waiting.

 

[Liquidus]

She's not a fan. Wants android.




There are a couple of unreleased phones that fit the bill. Problem with unreleased phones is that you never know how long you'll be waiting.

Have you checked out "Blu" phones on Amazon. They seem decent and with the various models I'm sure there is a fit for her.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s_?ie=UTF8&k=blu&i=aps

It's either that, waiting for the MotoX or the HTC One Mini. Get a Nexus 4

 

[-Pyromaniac-]

Those are all pretty shitty phones. That's the problem with Android, the smaller the screen the shittier the phone because DURRR SMALLER = LOW END. iPhone is the only place you'll get a truly premium phone that is also small in size. But you said she doesn't want that so just tell her the glaring flaws of each of those phones and tell her to pick her poison.

Or just wait for Moto X and see if it's any good. Knowing motorola the camera will suck though unless they somehow figured out how to make good ones.

 

[kinggroin]

What about razr mini? Still too big?

 

[Talon]

The RAZR M is a good size. Just that display.

 

[-Pyromaniac-]

The RAZR M is a good size. Just that display.

and camera is mediocre

 

[kinggroin]

Still....best of a crap situation?

 

[Liquidus]

Those are all pretty shitty phones. That's the problem with Android, the smaller the screen the shittier the phone because DURRR SMALLER = LOW END. iPhone is the only place you'll get a truly premium phone that is also small in size. But you said she doesn't want that so just tell her the glaring flaws of each of those phones and tell her to pick her poison.

Or just wait for Moto X and see if it's any good. Knowing motorola the camera will suck though unless they somehow figured out how to make good ones.

I don't know what else to suggest. You're right. Unless they are flagships the lesser models get shafted into the low tier.

BTW has the Ms' tried iOS7. They're really trying to mimic Android at least.

Sometimes I wish Android could be ran on an iPhone just duebto hardware build quality.

 

[Mercury Fred]

Those are all pretty shitty phones. That's the problem with Android, the smaller the screen the shittier the phone because DURRR SMALLER = LOW END. iPhone is the only place you'll get a truly premium phone that is also small in size. But you said she doesn't want that so just tell her the glaring flaws of each of those phones and tell her to pick her poison.

Or just wait for Moto X and see if it's any good. Knowing motorola the camera will suck though unless they somehow figured out how to make good ones.

Honestly, I wish there were a reliable way to have an iPhone 4s or 5 running Android. That would be my ideal. I love my Nexus 4 but it's still just a little big for me. Why can't we have a Nexus Mini?

 

[The Faceless Master]

NFC is cool, but it has a limited range. Like….half a foot. Not sure why one would prefer that limitation.

And S Beam requires devices that support NFC and Wifi Direct.

even my sister's prepaid Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE supports S Beam

 

[Unknown Soldier]

The whole point of S-Beam that makes it above and beyond regular Android Beam is that S-Beam phone bump is only used to establish a WiFi Direct connection, after that all data transfer is done over WiFi which is much much faster than NFC and has a longer range. The reason you bump the phones is that's the simplest way of having 2 devices automatically detect and authenticate each other, instead of opening some app and looking for the other device and hoping it's set to Discoverable (this is the major aggravation of Bluetooth) and then connecting to it and waiting for the guy holding the other device to accept the connection. With S-Beam you just bump uglies phones and it just works.

 

[-Pyromaniac-]

Google should copy airdrop for android. Would be sick.

 

[Qvoth]

anybody tried out google keyboard yet?
just saw it from androidpolice, what languages do they have? i'm only interested in english, chinese, japanese and indonesian

 

[catmincer]

My missus (being the fussy type) doesn't want anything with a screen bigger than 4.3" (Phone dimensions of ~128mm x 68mm). Ideally the camera needs to be as good as possible, and it should have dual core.

Problem is, it seems most of the phones in this range are a bit shit as everyone is after massive handsets filled with techy goodness. The only ones I've found which seem to fit the bill are:

HTC One SV
Samsung Galaxy S3 mini
Sony Xperia L

...and reading reviews on them seems to indicate that they've all got glaring flaws, especially with the cameras. Anyone have any other suggestions? Or are those not as bad as the reviews are making out?

I'd probably go for the One SV myself, the S3 mini would be a second. I wouldn't buy another Xperia.

 

[wsoxfan1214]

anybody tried out google keyboard yet?
just saw it from androidpolice, what languages do they have? i'm only interested in english, chinese, japanese and indonesian

Yes. Love it. They have a ton of languages iirc.

 

[Randy Lanzarote]

My missus (being the fussy type) doesn't want anything with a screen bigger than 4.3" (Phone dimensions of ~128mm x 68mm). Ideally the camera needs to be as good as possible, and it should have dual core.

Problem is, it seems most of the phones in this range are a bit shit as everyone is after massive handsets filled with techy goodness. The only ones I've found which seem to fit the bill are:

HTC One SV
Samsung Galaxy S3 mini
Sony Xperia L

...and reading reviews on them seems to indicate that they've all got glaring flaws, especially with the cameras. Anyone have any other suggestions? Or are those not as bad as the reviews are making out?

You could try selling her on the Xperia T. It's 4.5" but has footprint almost the same as 4.3" devices (it's within 1mm of the HxW dimensions of the One SV) Dual core krait, 1gb ram, 13mp camera, 16gb storage with micro sd. My Mrs has got one, she came from an HTC Sensation and hasn't complained about the size.

Edit : or the Motorola RAZR i? I've seen that being offered for silly money recently as providers shift stocks.

 

[Qvoth]

Yes. Love it. They have a ton of languages iirc.

stupid thing is, i think it's not available in my country, i couldn't find this on my galaxy s2's google play
oh well there's always apk

 

[zomgbbqftw]

My missus (being the fussy type) doesn't want anything with a screen bigger than 4.3" (Phone dimensions of ~128mm x 68mm). Ideally the camera needs to be as good as possible, and it should have dual core.

Problem is, it seems most of the phones in this range are a bit shit as everyone is after massive handsets filled with techy goodness. The only ones I've found which seem to fit the bill are:

HTC One SV
Samsung Galaxy S3 mini
Sony Xperia L

...and reading reviews on them seems to indicate that they've all got glaring flaws, especially with the cameras. Anyone have any other suggestions? Or are those not as bad as the reviews are making out?

GS4 mini, or Xperia L. Don't get the One SV.

 

[Groof]

anybody tried out google keyboard yet?
just saw it from androidpolice, what languages do they have? i'm only interested in english, chinese, japanese and indonesian

While Indonesian is supported in the stock Google Keyboard, Chinese and Japanese have separate keyboards (which have been up for a long time) on the Play Store: Google Pinyin Input & Google Japanese Input.
Can't speak much for the Pinyin keyboard as I don't know Chinese, but the Japanese keyboard works pretty well. It has occasional lag when using the flick style, but it's mostly negligible imho.

 

[brotkasten]

Best part of WWDC was the joke about Touchwiz Android Beam. Having to physically touch phones is such a dumb idea. Who thought that would be a good idea when you could do something like AirDrop?

 

[Psychotext]

I don't think the UK has many of the RAZR phones. I've searched around and can't seem to find any available that aren't on import.

RAZR I seems to be available, I see one poster here suggesting that one. Xperia T also seems to just about fit the bill in size terms. Seems these two at least look better on paper.

 

[zomgbbqftw]

I don't think the UK has many of the RAZR phones. I've searched around and can't seem to find any available that aren't on import.

RAZR I seems to be available, I see one poster here suggesting that one. Xperia T also seems to just about fit the bill in size terms. Seems these two at least look better on paper.

Xperia T is pretty cheap as well. ~£280 new and unlocked.

 

[The Faceless Master]

Google should copy airdrop for android. Would be sick.

i don't get it man... S Beam just works with any device that supports it!

no need to have or manage 'friends' or anything like that

no need to go thru any sort of menus

why go thru extra steps?

you want to share the pic you're looking at... bump phones, tap to send... DONE!

it literally "just works" and some people somehow want more steps?

 

[1871]

Do people keep NFC on at all times?

 

[The Faceless Master]

Do people keep NFC on at all times?

why not? it's not even active if the screen is off.

 

[brotkasten]

i don't get it man... S Beam just works with any device that supports it!

no need to have or manage 'friends' or anything like that

no need to go thru any sort of menus

why go thru extra steps?

you want to share the pic you're looking at... bump phones, tap to send... DONE!

it literally "just works" and some people somehow want more steps?

Is it compatible with Android Beam?

 

[Nicktendo86]

i don't get it man... S Beam just works with any device that supports it!

no need to have or manage 'friends' or anything like that

no need to go thru any sort of menus

why go thru extra steps?

you want to share the pic you're looking at... bump phones, tap to send... DONE!

it literally "just works" and some people somehow want more steps?

Yep, as great as I'm sure AirDrop is if you meet a friend and want to share a file, just touching phones together is such a simple, clean, elegant way to do it. It just makes sense, plus with Android if you want to share a file over a longer distance you can do so easily as apps can work with each other, the whole way Android handles file share is so many light years ahead of iOS I was a it shocked that they chose to single that out as something to ridicule.

 

[The Faceless Master]

Is it compatible with Android Beam?

yeah if you have a device without S Beam, it will fall back to that... but in those cases nowadays i use SuperBeam instead.

Yep, as great as I'm sure AirDrop is if you meet a friend and want to share a file, just touching phones together is such a simple, clean, elegant way to do it. It just makes sense, plus with Android if you want to share a file over a longer distance you can do so easily as apps can work with each other, the whole way Android handles file share is so many light years ahead of iOS I was a it shocked that they chose to single that out as something to ridicule.

indeed. from the ground up it's just a much better system for handling ... everything!

 

[Qvoth]

While Indonesian is supported in the stock Google Keyboard, Chinese and Japanese have separate keyboards (which have been up for a long time) on the Play Store: Google Pinyin Input & Google Japanese Input.
Can't speak much for the Pinyin keyboard as I don't know Chinese, but the Japanese keyboard works pretty well. It has occasional lag when using the flick style, but it's mostly negligible imho.

yeah already have the google jp input
problem is changing keyboard input from settings everytime i wanna change language is such a bother...
i'm using go keyboard currently since it has all the 4 languages i want in 1 keyboard so changing languages is easy but their swype thing is terrible... you need to be perfectly accurate with swiping your finger or else you'll get mostly wrong results

 

[THRILLH0]

GS4 mini, or Xperia L. Don't get the One SV.

Heh not to complicate things but my wife has a One SV and I think it's great.

 

[Dizzan]

Was looking to buy a sonos system for the house as I have android and the wife is on iOS. Really disappointed that play music is not compatible. Are there any alternatives out there?

 

[Groof]

yeah already have the google jp input
problem is changing keyboard input from settings everytime i wanna change language is such a bother...
i'm using go keyboard currently since it has all the 4 languages i want in 1 keyboard so changing languages is easy but their swype thing is terrible... you need to be perfectly accurate with swiping your finger or else you'll get mostly wrong results

Yeah I absolutely know what you mean. I switch a lot between Japanese, Korean, English and Swedish and without a quick way to change it becomes a hassle. But it's something I'm willing to put up with because I'd rather have a quality keyboard. Hopefully they'll add the language switch key to all of their keyboards soon enough, and not only the stock one.

 

[brotkasten]

PS: For Spotify people out there...

I can't believe how annoying Spotify on Android is. It's not terrible, but really annoying. Lots of little bugs and why the fuck haven't they implemented notification controls yet? It's been over a year since that feature was made available and you'd think a company like Spotify would have interest in that. Even on iOS I don't have to switch back to the app to change skip to the next song. What the fuck.

 

[The Faceless Master]

so it's official!

Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, today unveiled the HUAWEI Ascend P6, the world’s slimmest smartphone measuring 6.18mm. The smartphone features a 1.5GHz quad-core processor and a sleek metallic body. With its 4.7-inch high definition in-cell display, industry-leading 5MP front-facing camera, and outstanding software, the HUAWEI Ascend P6 is the embodiment of elegance with an edge.

http://www.huawei.com/en/about-huawei/newsroom/press-release/hw-266717-huaweiascendp6-smartphone.htm

 

[newdayrocks]

I can't believe how annoying Spotify on Android is. It's not terrible, but really annoying. Lots of little bugs and why the fuck haven't they implemented notification controls yet? It's been over a year since that feature was made available and you'd think a company like Spotify would have interest in that. Even on iOS I don't have to switch back to the app to change skip to the next song. What the fuck.

Check out Rdio with its free trial. Their app is infinitely superior to Spotify's.

 

[phoenixyz]

The whole point of S-Beam that makes it above and beyond regular Android Beam is that S-Beam phone bump is only used to establish a WiFi Direct connection, after that all data transfer is done over WiFi which is much much faster than NFC and has a longer range.

Android Beam does not use NFC for data transfer. As in S-Beam it uses NFC to set up the session. The data is then transfered via bluetooth.

 

[this_guy]

My missus (being the fussy type) doesn't want anything with a screen bigger than 4.3" (Phone dimensions of ~128mm x 68mm). Ideally the camera needs to be as good as possible, and it should have dual core.

Problem is, it seems most of the phones in this range are a bit shit as everyone is after massive handsets filled with techy goodness. The only ones I've found which seem to fit the bill are:

HTC One SV
Samsung Galaxy S3 mini
Sony Xperia L

...and reading reviews on them seems to indicate that they've all got glaring flaws, especially with the cameras. Anyone have any other suggestions? Or are those not as bad as the reviews are making out?

HTC First (the Facebook phone). The phone was a sales flop, but if you turn off the Facebook Home feature you basically have a stock Android experience. The hardware is pretty solid, 4.3 inch screen with 720p resolution.

 

[Jexemad]

Android Beam does not use NFC for data transfer. As in S-Beam it uses NFC to set up the session. The data is then transfered via bluetooth.

So Bluetooth must be already on for it to work?

 

[Psychotext]

HTC First (the Facebook phone).

Doesn't seem to be available in the UK. Thanks though.

 

[zomgbbqftw]

http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_desire_200_is_officially_announced_35_display_and_1ghz_cpu-news-6231.php

HTC channelling that Wildfire legacy. D:

Possibly the worst phone to come out this year.

 

[The Faceless Master]

So Bluetooth must be already on for it to work?

no, Bluetooth will be turned on if it's off.

 

[The Faceless Master]

http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_desire_200_is_officially_announced_35_display_and_1ghz_cpu-news-6231.php

HTC channelling that Wildfire legacy. D:

Possibly the worst phone to come out this year.

lol @ the 'free in cereal' comments!

seriously tho, you can get a better spec ZTE phone for like $50

 

[zomgbbqftw]

Only 4 months late!

https://explore.t-mobile.com/sony-xperia-z?cm_mmc_o=VqCjCzczywEwllCjCr5wybzUCjC5ywllywkwzlw

 

[The Faceless Master]

Only 4 months late!

https://explore.t-mobile.com/sony-xperia-z?cm_mmc_o=VqCjCzczywEwllCjCr5wybzUCjC5ywllywkwzlw

hahahahahahahahah these motherfuckers!

The world's sharpest 5" smartphone display1

1. Verified by Strategy Analytics 2/04/2013; for more information on Strategy Analytics results, go to www.sonymobile.com/testresults/.

yeah, that's just so wrong on so many levels. they're just going to pretend that the 468 ppi HTC One doesn't exist and use an outdated result?

 

[Blackhead]

Minuum beta for Android available today for supporters

Minuum Keyboard Hands-on Preview - MobileSyrup.com

Did anyone get it?

 

[Pctx]

Only 4 months late!

https://explore.t-mobile.com/sony-xperia-z?cm_mmc_o=VqCjCzczywEwllCjCr5wybzUCjC5ywllywkwzlw

I blame Sony on this one.