Technology Android

Pittsey

Knock, Knock...
Staff member
I think when the tech becomes cheaper to adopt and easier to use, it'll be something worth looking into.

But your example seems oddly specific. Unless I'm ordering something $100+ to be delivered, it'll be fine on my doorstep. Or I should say, I'd be comfortable letting it sit on my door step for like an hour or two before picking it up.

Controlling lights is nice but from my weak understanding of home automation, a lot of companies have proprietary items and hubs. Maybe they're compatible with Android, Amazon, and Apple home automation, but I'm not too sure. WiFi LEDs are like $20 a pop. I imagine if you buy a Samsung bulb you'd need the Samsung hub which is nearly $100. Each subsequent bulb you want to control is another $100. Nest is another popular thing that can be tied to a hub. That's a $200+ device. I can't imagine controlling curtains. You're looking at nearly $1000 for a hub, Nest, and supported devices like lightbulbs and curtains.

It's cool if you're trying to be an early adopter but I'd rather hitch my wagon to this tech, or any tech, once it's become more popular. For price and compatibility reasons, both.

I agree. I don't have any of this kit, because it isn't at the stage it should be.

My example was specific, I have more examples of times where it comes in useful. It would be worth doing when the future is clearer.
 

Pittsey

Knock, Knock...
Staff member
What system do you have for the curtains and lights? I've been after something that does this for quite some time now. Any useful info you can provide would be appreciated. Cheers.

I don't have anything yet, I don't think an open system exists that is worth adopting. Smart Things was closest, but then Samsung snapped it up.
 

masta247

Well-Known Member
Staff member
The problem with the Xiaomi Mi Mix was the software. I nearly got one, but couldn't get something with that much customisation on.
Yeah that's another problem. Rumors are that 2017 will be the year of more "bezel-less" phones, I certainly hope so as they're way overdue. LG makes freaking Bezelless PC monitors, Dell makes laptops with tiny bezels and now out of all smartphone giants it was Xiaomi that made the first step. Even Lenovo are launching their budget half assed response to it with the ZUK Edge.
Samsung will look stupid if they don't outdo the Mi Mix with the S8, especially if they just slap another regular Edge display on another S6 clone.
So I'm reasonably hoping it won't be the case.
 

dilla

Trumpfan17 aka Coonie aka Dilla aka Tennis Dog
There are rumors Samsung will use LG batteries in the S8. And that the S8 won't have a headphone jack.

What is Samsung doing?
 

masta247

Well-Known Member
Staff member
There are rumors Samsung will use LG batteries in the S8. And that the S8 won't have a headphone jack.

What is Samsung doing?
LG makes decent batteries. And yeah I don't think Samsung would be stupid to remove the headphone jack, especially after the Apple backlash and how little space it occupies. I think between that and the Note 7 fail they'll try to please everyone.

Also, bought my girlfriend an S7 for Christmas, have to exchange it due to camera being messed up out of the box. It might be weird but back in Poland throughout the years and my tech hobbies I have never bought a product that would be faulty or break. In Canada, it feels like I'm constantly exchanging, replacing or returning something because it doesn't work the way it's supposed to, and its super frustrating. I bough myself a 4K monitor, I found a perfect one and had to return it 3 freaking times until I got one without backlight bleed. It's nightmare. I feel like they're dumping shittier quality devices here because there are less penalties for shipping a defective or imperfect product -in worst case someone will return it and because its legal to repackage it and sell it again there are no consequences and I have to keep on exchanging shit.

Out of all the electronics that I bough in Canada:
A new Logitech keyboard had a stuck space bar
A Surface keyboard stopped registering keystrokes after 2 months
A fancy LG 4K monitor had to be returned 3 times until I got one with no backlight bleed
A Samsung Galaxy S7 camera AF would not work thus rendered camera unusable
A Sony power bank that stopped working when not plugged in a charger (lol).
And that all I bought here, everything was fucked up, and that's over the course of 6 months!


I literally did not buy anything that worked fine. Believe it or not, until I came here out of all the electronics I had in my life I had to fix only one phone because a speck of dust entered the camera and a display started detaching due to old age (it was hitting the last month of the 24month standard warranty in Europe). I feel like something's very wrong with the shit I buy here. And its so fucked up that when I return something they dont even wanna know what was wrong with it! I usually spend a good deal of time trying to figure out why something doesn't work before I return it and they don't even want to know what's wrong with a product they're selling. It feels like they're going to make no attempts at fixing it, and what are they going to do with it, sell to some one else until they get someone who can live with it or can't be bothered to exchange? Insane.
 

masta247

Well-Known Member
Staff member
So, even the OnePlus 3T is technically a better phone than the Pixel Xl, at half the price:
http://www.gsmarena.com/oneplus_3t_vs_google_pixel_xl-review-1539p4.php

"The 3T can certainly stand up to the Pixel XL in all key areas, and is actually superior in some. It's the more attractive design and has a bit longer battery life and it definitely has an edge in performance. It's not quite on par with the Pixel in the audio department, but the Google phablet isn't exactly a reference in the field. As for cameras, neither phone will disappoint and whatever differences there are, they aren't as significant as to be decisive."

While GSM arena concluded that the Pixel XL might be a more complete package (mostly due to software and screen resolution, even though the regular Pixel has the same res as the OnePlus) the Pixel XL actually lost in most categories. It's especially interesting to see how much faster the OnePlus 3 is despite having the same processor. The Pixel just has a messed up hardware design. I still can't believe how Google would put such price tag on it.
 

dilla

Trumpfan17 aka Coonie aka Dilla aka Tennis Dog
LG makes decent batteries. And yeah I don't think Samsung would be stupid to remove the headphone jack, especially after the Apple backlash and how little space it occupies. I think between that and the Note 7 fail they'll try to please everyone.

Also, bought my girlfriend an S7 for Christmas, have to exchange it due to camera being messed up out of the box. It might be weird but back in Poland throughout the years and my tech hobbies I have never bought a product that would be faulty or break. In Canada, it feels like I'm constantly exchanging, replacing or returning something because it doesn't work the way it's supposed to, and its super frustrating. I bough myself a 4K monitor, I found a perfect one and had to return it 3 freaking times until I got one without backlight bleed. It's nightmare. I feel like they're dumping shittier quality devices here because there are less penalties for shipping a defective or imperfect product -in worst case someone will return it and because its legal to repackage it and sell it again there are no consequences and I have to keep on exchanging shit.

Out of all the electronics that I bough in Canada:
A new Logitech keyboard had a stuck space bar
A Surface keyboard stopped registering keystrokes after 2 months
A fancy LG 4K monitor had to be returned 3 times until I got one with no backlight bleed
A Samsung Galaxy S7 camera AF would not work thus rendered camera unusable
A Sony power bank that stopped working when not plugged in a charger (lol).
And that all I bought here, everything was fucked up, and that's over the course of 6 months!


I literally did not buy anything that worked fine. Believe it or not, until I came here out of all the electronics I had in my life I had to fix only one phone because a speck of dust entered the camera and a display started detaching due to old age (it was hitting the last month of the 24month standard warranty in Europe). I feel like something's very wrong with the shit I buy here. And its so fucked up that when I return something they dont even wanna know what was wrong with it! I usually spend a good deal of time trying to figure out why something doesn't work before I return it and they don't even want to know what's wrong with a product they're selling. It feels like they're going to make no attempts at fixing it, and what are they going to do with it, sell to some one else until they get someone who can live with it or can't be bothered to exchange? Insane.

Could it be the store you're buying from?

Seems like my family has had a lifetime of luck in buying devices. They all last a long ass time, including my stuff. Can't remember the last electronic we had to return or exchange. But then my parents also buy electronics from Sam's/Costco and Best Buy and Fry's Electronics. Even our phones are from Best Buy, but that shouldn't make much of a difference.

You're in Vancouver, right? Maybe start making trips into Washington state and see if the quality improves.
 

masta247

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Could it be the store you're buying from?



Seems like my family has had a lifetime of luck in buying devices. They all last a long ass time, including my stuff. Can't remember the last electronic we had to return or exchange. But then my parents also buy electronics from Sam's/Costco and Best Buy and Fry's Electronics. Even our phones are from Best Buy, but that shouldn't make much of a difference.



You're in Vancouver, right? Maybe start making trips into Washington state and see if the quality improves.

Yeah I'm in Vancouver.
The orders were from Best Buy, Samsung Experience Store, Microsoft Store, Dell online store (shipped from the US) and Ebay (also from the US), so I don't think it had much to do with store.
We are returning the second Galaxy S7 now, it has a nasty internal reflection in the camera lens, so lights at night are doubled. The first one also had a camera issue - the focusing mechanism would not work out of the box so photos were just a bunch of blurs.
The only good in this is that we got a Gear Fit 2 for free (since if I bought the S7 now there's a deal where you get it for free) and a brand new replacement within 5 minutes of entering the store, so I can't say a bad word about the Samsung stores.

We're getting our stuff from physical stores now since at least the return process is "easy" but it's such a pain in the butt.
I was thinking it's some kind of a weird, terrible coincidence but damn, I'm scared to buy any electronic devices now, especially as the warranty here is just 12 months and is not international.

I know you have the S7, right? We got the Exynos version here in Canada, basically the phone is like my Galaxy S6 with SD card and waterproofing, it also makes slightly nicer looking videos. Back in the days if such phone came out they'd call it the S6+ or something. I'm not blaming Samsung though since there's not much more they could have packed in at that time considering the stagnating mobile components growth speed this year, but I hope the S8 is really a bigger upgrade.
 

dilla

Trumpfan17 aka Coonie aka Dilla aka Tennis Dog
I do have the S7. I love it despite the Exynos variants being superior, at least in battery life. Maybe performance.

Canada just might be shitty. I've heard of people getting bad apples here and there. Not several devices in one city within the span of a few months. I dunno what's going on there.

My dad and sister have had iPhones. 4S, 6, and now they just ordered their 7 Pluses for their 2 year upgrade. It'll be interesting to see how this works out for them. She knows it has no headphone jack. I can't wait to see how she handles that.
 

Casey

Well-Known Member
Staff member
I have my Google Home and I love it. Set it up at a family gathering over New Years and everyone fell in love with it. Half my family are trying to work out who can ship them one the fastest from the US lol.
 

masta247

Well-Known Member
Staff member
I do have the S7. I love it despite the Exynos variants being superior, at least in battery life. Maybe performance.

Canada just might be shitty. I've heard of people getting bad apples here and there. Not several devices in one city within the span of a few months. I dunno what's going on there.

My dad and sister have had iPhones. 4S, 6, and now they just ordered their 7 Pluses for their 2 year upgrade. It'll be interesting to see how this works out for them. She knows it has no headphone jack. I can't wait to see how she handles that.
Haha, beats me why would anyone get the 7. I feel like the iPhone 6 was and still is the best iPhone somehow. You get all the features, enough performance for iOS and a slimmer and lighter phone with a headphone jack, which was removed in the 7 apparently to save space, yet resulted in a heftier phone that imho looks worse too, as the antennas and colors made the 6 look interesting.

I seriously doubt anyone would see a performance difference too.
 

dilla

Trumpfan17 aka Coonie aka Dilla aka Tennis Dog
Haha, beats me why would anyone get the 7. I feel like the iPhone 6 was and still is the best iPhone somehow. You get all the features, enough performance for iOS and a slimmer and lighter phone with a headphone jack, which was removed in the 7 apparently to save space, yet resulted in a heftier phone that imho looks worse too, as the antennas and colors made the 6 look interesting.

I seriously doubt anyone would see a performance difference too.
Yeah, but since we pay for our phones through our 2 year contract, we just upgrade when it's time to avoid paying even more for an older phone.

She uses Facetime and social media a lot so the bump in camera has been noticeable for her, especially the front-facing camera. And the battery life was an issue late in to her 6's life. Sprint has upgraded radios in the 7, too. Carrier Aggregation, I think it's called? So she gets solid LTE speeds in our house, and on the go.

She really just cared about the battery life and camera part. Also, her 6 was a 16 GB model, so now that Apple has a base 32 GB model, it meant she wasn't constantly deleting apps and reinstalling them to clear her cache. That's still such a huge flaw in iOS, that that information isn't easily accessed by user and able to be cleared.
 

masta247

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Yeah, but since we pay for our phones through our 2 year contract, we just upgrade when it's time to avoid paying even more for an older phone.



She uses Facetime and social media a lot so the bump in camera has been noticeable for her, especially the front-facing camera. And the battery life was an issue late in to her 6's life. Sprint has upgraded radios in the 7, too. Carrier Aggregation, I think it's called? So she gets solid LTE speeds in our house, and on the go.



She really just cared about the battery life and camera part. Also, her 6 was a 16 GB model, so now that Apple has a base 32 GB model, it meant she wasn't constantly deleting apps and reinstalling them to clear her cache. That's still such a huge flaw in iOS, that that information isn't easily accessed by user and able to be cleared.

Yeah, I have the iPad Air (which I also think was the best iPad) and I have just 3 or 4 apps installed on it since I use it just for web browsing, and over the years its available storage shrunk to 2gb. I will have to do factory reset soon just to fix that. I suspect one of the reasons is garbage the current apps generate and keep, and the other issue is not being able to clear after uninstalled apps. On Android I can just completely delete old app's folder. There were so many cases where a game would download additional data and uninstalling it would just remove the app, but not additional data. I know for sure I had that when I tried Mortal Kombat X back in the days on the iPad, it would download like 2gb or so additional data and I haven't seen it back since I uninstalled it maybe a year ago.

Also it's funny how people these days upgrade their phones because of such minor changes. Everything you mentioned would be fixed by a new battery (the old one surely wore out after 2 years) and getting a new SD card for like 20$ to have even more storage. It's ridiculous how things changed to the point that people find it fine that Apple is preventing such DIY upgrades and forces you to buy a completely new phone instead.
It sucks it's also starting to affect Android manufacturers too. Glad Samsung reverted from no SD in the S6 to S7 with SD support - Got a 128gb card for like 40$ and it's all set. But still, almost everyone seals batteries these days, and those batteries simply don't last and after 2 years you're forced to trash your old phone, which is super shitty, as in the past I would always sell or give away mine that could still work and make someone else happy. Now it becomes polluting garbage, even though the most critical parts of it are completely fine and would be for a very long time. Sealing a battery basically makes your phone go from a device with potential to last years to a disposable one with a 2 year life span for the whole device generation.
Kind of like with cameras - people can still use a 80s or 90s camera, you just throw in a new battery and embrace nostalgia overload. People upgraded because new generations added value for real, and it wasn't every year or two, while the markets on electronics were doing fine and there was more progress.
It's sad that technology moved the way it did, and that all of today's devices die without a chance of ever being used in the future more distant than 2 or 3 years. We upgrade because we have to, to devices capable of doing the same as the previous ones that we were pressured to upgrade from.

The amount of processing power and functional technology we trash due to serviceable parts wearing off these days is sad.
It's kind of like trashing your car and getting a new one because it ran out of gas and there's a new model with a full tank and new rims, and you can't refill the tank.
 

dilla

Trumpfan17 aka Coonie aka Dilla aka Tennis Dog
Yeah, I have the iPad Air (which I also think was the best iPad) and I have just 3 or 4 apps installed on it since I use it just for web browsing, and over the years its available storage shrunk to 2gb. I will have to do factory reset soon just to fix that. I suspect one of the reasons is garbage the current apps generate and keep, and the other issue is not being able to clear after uninstalled apps. On Android I can just completely delete old app's folder. There were so many cases where a game would download additional data and uninstalling it would just remove the app, but not additional data. I know for sure I had that when I tried Mortal Kombat X back in the days on the iPad, it would download like 2gb or so additional data and I haven't seen it back since I uninstalled it maybe a year ago.

Also it's funny how people these days upgrade their phones because of such minor changes. Everything you mentioned would be fixed by a new battery (the old one surely wore out after 2 years) and getting a new SD card for like 20$ to have even more storage. It's ridiculous how things changed to the point that people find it fine that Apple is preventing such DIY upgrades and forces you to buy a completely new phone instead.
It sucks it's also starting to affect Android manufacturers too. Glad Samsung reverted from no SD in the S6 to S7 with SD support - Got a 128gb card for like 40$ and it's all set. But still, almost everyone seals batteries these days, and those batteries simply don't last and after 2 years you're forced to trash your old phone, which is super shitty, as in the past I would always sell or give away mine that could still work and make someone else happy. Now it becomes polluting garbage, even though the most critical parts of it are completely fine and would be for a very long time. Sealing a battery basically makes your phone go from a device with potential to last years to a disposable one with a 2 year life span for the whole device generation.
Kind of like with cameras - people can still use a 80s or 90s camera, you just throw in a new battery and embrace nostalgia overload. People upgraded because new generations added value for real, and it wasn't every year or two, while the markets on electronics were doing fine and there was more progress.
It's sad that technology moved the way it did, and that all of today's devices die without a chance of ever being used in the future more distant than 2 or 3 years. We upgrade because we have to, to devices capable of doing the same as the previous ones that we were pressured to upgrade from.

The amount of processing power and functional technology we trash due to serviceable parts wearing off these days is sad.
It's kind of like trashing your car and getting a new one because it ran out of gas and there's a new model with a full tank and new rims, and you can't refill the tank.

Yeah, I agree. I'm sure most buyers have thought about it and realized it but just accepted that was the future of electronics.

If there was a way to replace the battery on sealed batteries by ourselves, that would be huge. The problem, though, becomes people buying shitty third party batteries which die quickly or just straight up explode. But I bought a replacement battery for my S3 because it was removable and that got me another 1.5 years of use from it.

On another note, LG ditched the modular thing for the next G. G6, is it?
 

masta247

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Yeah, I agree. I'm sure most buyers have thought about it and realized it but just accepted that was the future of electronics.



If there was a way to replace the battery on sealed batteries by ourselves, that would be huge

I had high hopes for EU and their "green" regulations. It would be easy to make one just for the sake of recycling if not for anything else (to return/discard the battery separately) and as a side effect the world would be a little better because people could also use their devices for much longer or keep them for the future.

I am not sure why they didn't do it, especially considering their "one charger for all" regulation which surprisingly had amazing results and thanks to that we have all phones using micro usb (except Apple who are forced to include a dongle with each phone sold in Europe). Before that campaign, it was just a dream, with each manufacturer using their own plug. It's crazy to think that some obvious things have to be regulated like that to make them happen and yes, that we have this to thank for having a charging standard across all manufacturers:
The MoU committed the industry to provide charger compatibility on the basis of the micro-USB connector.
http://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/electrical-engineering/rtte-directive/common-charger_en

And regarding the G6 and modular design, well, LG G5 wasn't much of a modular phone, just had a few insertable accessories that didn't sell apparently and made the phone feel like it's about to fall apart. I don't think they'd continue that, but then again, LG is kind of delusional with their phones these days, thinking that their phones don't sell because the Galaxy S comes earlier in the year, so to fix that they are apparently rushing the G6 to come out a month before the S8 does, thinking it will result in more sales. Making a better phone would result in more sales, LG has been moving backwards since the G2 and G3 which were their last really good phones for their times in my opinion.
 

masta247

Well-Known Member
Staff member
So, apparently Samsung already provided the S8 dimensions to the case makers, and their renders based on those appear to shape the S8 as quite amazing. It's been mostly confirmed by patents and recent part announcements that the fingerprint sensor will be in the OLED display itself and there will be on-screen but pressure sensitive buttons due to removal of the bottom bezel. I guess this is the most legit case maker out of the recent leaks and their so far most realistic render makes the S8 look super promising:



It's based on this plain schematic that Samsung apparently sent to the case makers along with yet unleaked dimensions:

 

dilla

Trumpfan17 aka Coonie aka Dilla aka Tennis Dog
It looks nice but it doesn't look to different from the S7, sans the fingerprint reader/Home button.

And they're forcing the Edge screen on all models now? I didn't think watching videos on a curved screen would be best, that's why I didn't get one. Why force it?
 

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