Technology Android

[dilla]

I don't think so. Why don't you consider going GSM though? Much more convenient, popular, more versatile and you're getting more potential phones, the true global versions, not some minor-market variants which don't even get tested as well with more niche radios. The world is doing GSM and smartphones are designed as GSM devices. CDMA is an abomination.

You can also replace your phone any time and just swap the sim card. Change networks at any time even with the same phone, and get global versions of phones straight from any store, without branded software with super-late updates.

That is true, but I am on Sprint. So only T-Mobile is the cheaper, as far as the big carriers go, and Sprint has unlimited data. I guess I only use less than 2 GB a month, and I have thought about switching when my contract is up in September. But GSM leaves me with shitty AT&T, who I don't think is that cheap, and T-Mobile who has notoriously spotty coverage pretty much everywhere. I guess I haven't verified real-life situations with people that have t-Mobile in my area, but nothing pisses me off more than not having coverage of any kind in a simple place like a banquet hall or in a clinic or just about any other public place where I would use my phone.

In that case, Verizon was the best because I don't think I was ever without reception, even in my five story university library or in the basement of some random building on campus. Thing is, that quality comes at a price and a data cap...and CDMA. And my parents just want a phone for talking; they use less than 15MB of data a month, and that's just trivial shit like GMail sync and maybe a weather app.

I'm not sure what to do, actually. VZW and ATT are always neck-and-neck with coverage and speed and all that. Both are expensive, but maybe ATT is the way to go?

 

[Casey]

I'd do some tests regarding T-Mobile. I've heard nothing but good things about some of the stuff they've been doing in the US recently.

 

[masta247]

I'd do some tests regarding T-Mobile. I've heard nothing but good things about some of the stuff they've been doing in the US recently.

Yes, I used T-mobile twice in the US and was very happy. They had very fast HSDPA as well, the best 3G/3.5G network in general and most reliable from when I researched. Their prices and packages were also the most fair and logical. I'd stick to them if I was there.
Coverage depends on the area you're in though. I don't think there are networks which are "better" or "worse" with spotty coverage as long as they are big networks like T-mobile as long as you live in an urban area, or even any fairly populated area. They all design their infrastructure in a pretty similar way in the US to cover all household if they decide to cover said city/town. T-mobile covers just slightly less cities than At&T, for instance, but the difference comes from the fact At&t covers slightly more rural areas that are barely profitable, if at all. That's where the single few negatives about T-mobile came from ,since there are areas in the US that at&t covers and t-mobile does not. It's not a case in 99% of places you'd like to travel to.
Obviously there are cases in which you live for instance close to an At&T base station and not a t-mobile one. But that is purely coincidental and in general on average the coverage country-wise will be fairly similar, and if your area is covered, it's not like you'll encounter more blind spots with T-mobile compared to any other network. Their infrastructure design is good.

 

[dilla]

Yes, I used T-mobile twice in the US and was very happy. They had very fast HSDPA as well, the best 3G/3.5G network in general and most reliable from when I researched. Their prices and packages were also the most fair and logical. I'd stick to them if I was there.
Coverage depends on the area you're in though. I don't think there are networks which are "better" or "worse" with spotty coverage as long as they are big networks like T-mobile as long as you live in an urban area, or even any fairly populated area. They all design their infrastructure in a pretty similar way in the US to cover all household if they decide to cover said city/town. T-mobile covers just slightly less cities than At&T, for instance, but the difference comes from the fact At&t covers slightly more rural areas that are barely profitable, if at all. That's where the single few negatives about T-mobile came from ,since there are areas in the US that at&t covers and t-mobile does not. It's not a case in 99% of places you'd like to travel to.
Obviously there are cases in which you live for instance close to an At&T base station and not a t-mobile one. But that is purely coincidental and in general on average the coverage country-wise will be fairly similar, and if your area is covered, it's not like you'll encounter more blind spots with T-mobile compared to any other network. Their infrastructure design is good.

Yeah, your last paragraph rings true and kind of puts me in a shitty situation overall. I am not sure how far away I am from the nearest tower, but over the past five years, I have been on two different carriers and my parents had another one before Sprint, and we all had poor data in the house. Voice was fine. But because of the wooded area in our backyard that extends almost half a mile until where I think the cell tower might be, I think I might be screwed either way.

I'll have to look for a site that tells me the locations of cell towers, maybe.

 

[Casey]

Yeah, your last paragraph rings true and kind of puts me in a shitty situation overall. I am not sure how far away I am from the nearest tower, but over the past five years, I have been on two different carriers and my parents had another one before Sprint, and we all had poor data in the house. Voice was fine. But because of the wooded area in our backyard that extends almost half a mile until where I think the cell tower might be, I think I might be screwed either way.

I'll have to look for a site that tells me the locations of cell towers, maybe.

http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage.html

 

[dilla]

Yeah, I know about coverage maps, but that's not as important as knowing the location of the tower itself.

I actually ended up finding a site for it and it seems like ATT, Sprint, and TMO have towers near each other but about half a mile away, like I guessed.

Otherwise, Sprint's coverage map says I get signal in my area as well. But my 3G is pretty slow, and I rarely get 4G in my house. Even if WiFi is a better option at home, you still want the option of using data if need be.

 

[dilla]

Also, anyone tried the Google Opinion Rewards? About to give the app a try and see. I only heard about it today, despite it being out for over six months now.

 

[Pittsey]

So...

Should I get the G3? Depending on when it gets released as my N4 is getting rather tired.

 

[masta247]

So...

Should I get the G3? Depending on when it gets released as my N4 is getting rather tired.

You might want to wait, it should be announced by the end of May and out in June. I'm curious to see how the QHD screen affects the performance and battery life if it really runs Snapdragon 801 - in such case it might not be worth it. If it comes with 805 it should be an entirely different story.


This is an interesting conclusion from Anand of Anandtech, and I agree, although bare in mind Anand is a little biased towards the One. I don't think it's the closest competitor.

Despite these issues, the Galaxy S5 remains a solid choice. The closest competitor, the HTC One (M8), is equally imperfect, although addressing this is best left to another article. In general, it seems that this year, the major Android flagships will all be flawed in their own ways, for better or worse. It certainly doesn't make sense to upgrade this year if you already have a flagship that launched in 2013, although other OEMs may surprise us at some point further down the road.

Personally I think the G3 and this: http://anandtech.com/show/7959/oneplus-launches-the-oneplus-one are the most interesting upcoming phones.

 

[Pittsey]

G3 is supposed to have a removable battery though. That goes a long way with me if the battery performance is sucked a little.

My friend has the M8. It's a very nice phone.

The OnePlus with the 5MP selfie, is pretty good.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Yea had the Opinion Rewards app for some time now but it only became functional in England within the past couple of weeks. So far, I've earned like 78p - which is nice.

 

[Pittsey]

Fuck that. My time is worth more than that.

 

[dilla]

Fuck that. My time is worth more than that.

It's usually like 3 questions anyway. I just made a dollar yesterday. That's on top of the 3 $5 Kit Kat vouchers I got and added to my account. $16 to buy apps. 4.5 years of Android and I've yet to buy an app. This isn't really going to motivate me either.

Might do TiBu, though.

Also, RAM >>>> CPU

http://www.knowyourmobile.com/samsu...axy-s3-android-44-kitkat-update-not-happening

 

[masta247]

Also, RAM >>>> CPU
http://www.knowyourmobile.com/samsu...axy-s3-android-44-kitkat-update-not-happening

It's bullshit reason though. It easily runs smoothly on other devices with 1gig of ram, even 512mb of ram. It uses slightly less resources than Jelly Bean on average.
It's kind of like not running a game on your PC because it's slightly below "recommended" specs, even though it's miles ahead of "minimum requirements" which is 512mb of Ram in KitKat's case.

I'm extremely surprised by Samsung's decision of not upgrading the global version and updating the US version but I believe it has more to do with politics than technical capabilities. Maybe that's because people outside of the US need a little bit more push to upgrade to the latest and greatest (S5) and in the US there's the regular upgrade cycle where you can choose any phone anyway.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Went with my friend to buy the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 yesterday - picked it up for £139.

Any tips or tricks?

1. Can she hide the Samsung bloatware apps (like ChatOn and the Samsung App Store) in the app launcher?
2. Can these also be disabled if not uninstalled?

Say if a Nexus/Vanilla Android style ROM was flashed on it, would it lose the capability to use the MicroSD card slot? Just wondering as I might get one for my brother.

 

[masta247]

^ it's possible to uninstall carrier bloat, disable Samsung bloat and group those that are necessary but not used in a folder - I have a "useless" folder where I put such things and also unnecessary Google stuff such as Google Settings. Samsung's UI is very user-friendly and flexible.

 

[dilla]

Debating whether I should give the Sprint S3 TouchWiz KitKat Stock ROM a try. I always regret it. I can never quite disable the right stuff from the stock ROM to make the ROM usable, but for some reason I always give it a try once every few months. The promise of better camera quality and being able to use some neat Samsung apps (even if they're a gimmick at times) keeps my attention.

 

[Pittsey]

Debating whether I should give the Sprint S3 TouchWiz KitKat Stock ROM a try. I always regret it. I can never quite disable the right stuff from the stock ROM to make the ROM usable, but for some reason I always give it a try once every few months. The promise of better camera quality and being able to use some neat Samsung apps (even if they're a gimmick at times) keeps my attention.

But then you see sense and remove it.

The Samsung customised OS is like a fat bird. Every now and then you end up getting hold of one. But most of the time you prefer the slim, attractive women. Masta is basically admitting to have a thing for the Samsung fat bird.

 

[masta247]

^ I like Touchwiz, but not the newest tablet edition. I think Touchwiz went a long way and except of some bloaty apps, it's very user friendly and convenient to use, as you get everything most people need included in it.

This is likely to be the most interesting phone this year so far. It basically looks like best of GS5 and HTC One + OIS camera and QHD screen (and possibly Snapdragon 805).

 

[Casey]

I've been saying for at least a year that LG are on top of the game and poised for huge growth. When I first got the Nexus 4 in 2012 I was truly blown away by it. N5 and the G2 both very impressive too. G3 is looking like it's really gonna be something special. Hopefully Google and LG continue their relationship for an N6.