Technology Android

[Tha_Wood]

Yeah I thought it was a good price. Back in my dark days I'd swap like my old s5 or s3 for like $100 of drugs

 

[dilla]

I still use the S6 and I still feel like I wouldn't be getting my money's worth when upgrading. I was always the first one to get excited about the newest phones, but the newest phones of today just don't feel like new, exciting technology, if that makes sense. Now it feels more like getting a new model of a refrigerator while already having a modern one that works perfectly fine. I never thought I'd feel like this about a phone upgrade, and I have never used a single phone for even remotely as long as I do now.
They do exactly the same things that several generation old phones did, and not even much better, but they are much more expensive. The software updates are completely skippable, as they don't bring anything important.

Android Pie brings improved adaptive brightness as its headline, which is neat, but 5 years ago it wouldn't even be worth mentioning on a release note for a full version upgrade. Not to even mention that Pie doesn't do anything worthwhile under the hood, it actually seems to decrease the performance by a tiny bit and the battery life comes out as even with Oreo:
https://www.gsmarena.com/android_9_pie-review-1802p3.php

To put it into perspective, even if you're on a now 3-year-old Android release (Marshmallow), there were still no performance improvements and no major features that you would be missing out on, and now we know that they won't be there for at least another year. Heck, I bet that an everyday user likely wouldn't tell a difference between Marshmallow and Pie.

I miss the days when replacing your phone after 2 or 3 years felt like a whole new world, exciting new technology. The first Galaxy S was a groundbreaking phone at its time, but jumping from it to the S3 was absolutely insane in all possible regards, and that was merely a 2-year upgrade. Now I feel like replacing my phone only after it stops working, and I hope it doesn't happen anytime soon, because it'd feel like spending money without getting the improvement I should be getting after replacing a now 3-year-old phone. Again, it would feel just like replacing a modern refrigerator that stopped working - a burden rather than excitement, and I never felt that way before.




I would say it's a fair "buddy-price". You could get more if you tried if it's in great condition, but I'd sell it for a similar price or maybe even a bit lower to a friend. You didn't lose any money on the deal.

I feel a like-new condition S7 would fetch 280ish, so yeah, Woody gave a Buddy Discount of about $100 which was nice.

And you're right about the comparison of phones from 2-3 years ago. The S7 is 2.5 years old now, too, and it feels just fine. But in 2009-2013, or so, each successor to the previous phone was a sizable jump in performance and features. Screens were getting bigger and standard RAM was increasing by 1/4 GB at a time, every six months or so. Now we have the S9 which has 4 or 6 GB of RAM, right? Or maybe the Note 9? 6 GB of RAM. That's more than many basic notebooks sold today. To run a mobile OS.

One feature I read was in Pie was the ability to change the phone's DNS without root. I don't know if it's true, but that is one feature I would love to have. I use the AdGuard VPN on my phone at all times and it has an option to change the DNS but I'm not sure if it works without root. It doesn't give me an error message denying me the ability to do it but I also don't know if there's a way to check to make sure it's doing it.

 

[dilla]

looool Moto is a fool for this https://www.cultofmac.com/570057/motorola-shameful-iphone-x-clone/

 

[masta247]

I saw Jim Keller and Raja Kuduri yesterday as part of the Siggraph conference here in Vancouver. That was quite a nice experience. Jim is the guy who designed most of the greatest processors over the last 20 years, including Apple's mobile chips and AMD Ryzen, amongst others. Raja was head of AMD's GPU group until earlier this year. Both of those guys lead their own divisions at Intel now, and yesterday Intel announced that it's making its own gaming graphics card, which is a rather big deal:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1029792940648878080

I also saw the CEO of Nvidia announce their new GPU architecture and a lot of other less high-profile tech announcements (new Unreal Engine etc.).

Was nice to finally see such things happen live.

looool Moto is a fool for this https://www.cultofmac.com/570057/motorola-shameful-iphone-x-clone/

OMG! I've never seen a once legit company go THAT low. It's actually possibly the shittiest thing I've ever seen from a big brand, no matter how fallen. They clearly don't care about anyone but China's lower class with it. They clearly don't care about intellectual property rights as well, or clients with dignity
It's quite sad to see that from Motorola though. It was once a very proud mobile device brand, with really great history. This is just the largest indicator that they have nothing in common with their former selves anymore.

 

[ARon]

Intel is going to make a gpu?! Holy shit that's crazy.

 

[masta247]

Intel is going to make a gpu?! Holy shit that's crazy.

I'm hyped about it too. With AMD somewhat behind on the high-end in terms of gaming GPUs at the moment, a new competitor in that space is welcome, and there's no better company to deliver it than Intel. If they manage to successfully challenge Nvidia on performance and efficiency, that'll prevent Nvidia from being a slouch. We already had the longest gap between major product releases on their camp, as AMD couldn't compete successfully this generation with Vega, so Nvidia could take their time, which they did. I've also been afraid that they held back with Turing, as they don't have to come up with their absolute best due to little competition at the moment, and their last gen 1080Ti still being the fastest mainstream GPU.

I hope Intel manages to compete on all fronts, and they certainly have the resources to do so. I also hope AMD will still manage to compete with both, as I'd hate to see them being pushed to the sidelines in the GPU space.

 

[dilla]

I'm hyped about it too. With AMD somewhat behind on the high-end in terms of gaming GPUs at the moment, a new competitor in that space is welcome, and there's no better company to deliver it than Intel. If they manage to successfully challenge Nvidia on performance and efficiency, that'll prevent Nvidia from being a slouch. We already had the longest gap between major product releases on their camp, as AMD couldn't compete successfully this generation with Vega, so Nvidia could take their time, which they did. I've also been afraid that they held back with Turing, as they don't have to come up with their absolute best due to little competition at the moment, and their last gen 1080Ti still being the fastest mainstream GPU.

I hope Intel manages to compete on all fronts, and they certainly have the resources to do so. I also hope AMD will still manage to compete with both, as I'd hate to see them being pushed to the sidelines in the GPU space.

Is the Vega series not on par with Intel's offerings?

 

[masta247]

Is the Vega series not on par with Intel's offerings?

AMD Vega is much better than anything Intel has at the moment in all possible regards, from power to efficiency to compatibility and drivers. You can actually say they are orders of magnitude ahead of Intel's current offerings.
The whole talk is about the discrete graphics cards for desktops though, which Intel doesn't have yet, but now they've announced one on a brand new architecture for 2020. Having pouched two of the greatest guys from AMD, including their long-time leader of the GPU division, and considering the high profile announcement and the insane cost of entering such market, it seems like they are confident that they can deliver something at least competitive, which is exciting.

Currently, the discrete Vega graphics in the mid-range are on par with Nvidia's mid-range graphics cards, except less energy efficient and tailored to compute as well as gaming, while Nvidia cards specialize in pure gaming performance. Which is also why AMD cards are more popular in data centers and cryptocurrency mining while Nvidia has the majority of the gaming market. Due to the fact that Nvidia actually has the best high-end gaming GPUs and AMD has hardly anything to compete with there this generation, they are the market leader. Nvidia's architectures are currently the most efficient as well, and AMD can't really compete because the last two generations of Nvidia architectures were excellent and brought gigantic performance and efficiency improvements.

The fact that Intel is targeting specifically gaming GPUs is super exciting, as they're turning Nvidia from a close partner (they used to advertise the Intel CPU + Nvidia GPU combo) to a competitor for the very first time. They also think they can go against a company that specializes in GPU, has most of the market to itself and a lot of resources, and is at its prime. It's super exciting.

 

[dilla]

AMD Vega is much better than anything Intel has at the moment in all possible regards, from power to efficiency to compatibility and drivers. You can actually say they are orders of magnitude ahead of Intel's current offerings.
The whole talk is about the discrete graphics cards for desktops though, which Intel doesn't have yet, but now they've announced one on a brand new architecture for 2020. Having pouched two of the greatest guys from AMD, including their long-time leader of the GPU division, and considering the high profile announcement and the insane cost of entering such market, it seems like they are confident that they can deliver something at least competitive, which is exciting.

Currently, the discrete Vega graphics in the mid-range are on par with Nvidia's mid-range graphics cards, except less energy efficient and tailored to compute as well as gaming, while Nvidia cards specialize in pure gaming performance. Which is also why AMD cards are more popular in data centers and cryptocurrency mining while Nvidia has the majority of the gaming market. Due to the fact that Nvidia actually has the best high-end gaming GPUs and AMD has hardly anything to compete with there this generation, they are the market leader. Nvidia's architectures are currently the most efficient as well, and AMD can't really compete because the last two generations of Nvidia architectures were excellent and brought gigantic performance and efficiency improvements.

The fact that Intel is targeting specifically gaming GPUs is super exciting, as they're turning Nvidia from a close partner (they used to advertise the Intel CPU + Nvidia GPU combo) to a competitor for the very first time. They also think they can go against a company that specializes in GPU, has most of the market to itself and a lot of resources, and is at its prime. It's super exciting.

I see. I was looking at an eGPU and I think the Vega 64 is the highest the MBPs support right now. But my internal GPUs are Intel for integrated and AMD for dedicated, which is kind of an odd pairing.

While the Vega I really expensive and I do nothing to warrant use of that kind of power, it just sounded and looked cool.

I think GPU prices are starting to come back down now that the crypto shit has cooled down a ton. I don't think I'll spend more than $200 on a GPU and case and I don't see current GPU set ups getting close to that price. So that might help me wait until something proper comes out and warrants spending some serious cash on it.

 

[dilla]

So I didn't know the 512GB Note 9 came with 8 GB of RAM.

And I heard some countries were discounting it to 128GB pricing if you pre-order it.

I always wondered who would ever need 512 GB, let alone 128GB, but looks like the extra RAM is reason enough, to me.

Why does more storage space come with more RAM? What's the connection between the two?

 

[k69atie]

The Note 9 is like over £1000 here - which is ridiculous

 

[masta247]

So I didn't know the 512GB Note 9 came with 8 GB of RAM.

And I heard some countries were discounting it to 128GB pricing if you pre-order it.

I always wondered who would ever need 512 GB, let alone 128GB, but looks like the extra RAM is reason enough, to me.

Why does more storage space come with more RAM? What's the connection between the two?

Firstly, it's most likely in the same module. Secondly, it is easier to justify a much higher price by adding both, which makes it seem like a super high-end, premium option with OP amount of storage and RAM.

The Chinese makers have done the same for several years now.

Personally, I find such storage options completely unnecessary in a device that also accepts SD cards. Otherwise, it's useful for storing VR videos/movies, recorded 4K videos and files in Samsung's Dex mode. Business users of Dex will actually likely appreciate the setup the most.

 

[dilla]

The Note 9 is like over £1000 here - which is ridiculous

Well, it's over $1000 here too and that seems to be the norm, now for most flagship phones.

Firstly, it's most likely in the same module. Secondly, it is easier to justify a much higher price by adding both, which makes it seem like a super high-end, premium option with OP amount of storage and RAM.

The Chinese makers have done the same for several years now.

Personally, I find such storage options completely unnecessary in a device that also accepts SD cards. Otherwise, it's useful for storing VR videos/movies, recorded 4K videos and files in Samsung's Dex mode. Business users of Dex will actually likely appreciate the setup the most.

It still sounds like something a hoarder would appreciate and no one else. Someone who would put all their music on the phone but never listen to more than 100 songs on it, ever, just because they could.

 

[k69atie]

Well, it's over $1000 here too and that seems to be the norm, now for most flagship phones.


Yeah wank isn't it

 

[masta247]

It still sounds like something a hoarder would appreciate and no one else. Someone who would put all their music on the phone but never listen to more than 100 songs on it, ever, just because they could.

A hoarder aka a business user as well. I think the Note series are tailored towards businesses and many of them like such all-out options. Especially if Samsung also tries to sell them on the Dex ecosystem, this phone would be an easier sell as a "computer replacement". Samsung can say "we have 512GB of storage like a fancy SSD, we have 8GB of ram like a decent laptop, you can totally use this phone in desktop mode as well and have an all in one for your employees!". The cheaper ones might actually get this as opposed to a phone AND a computer.

 

[dilla]

A hoarder aka a business user as well. I think the Note series are tailored towards businesses and many of them like such all-out options. Especially if Samsung also tries to sell them on the Dex ecosystem, this phone would be an easier sell as a "computer replacement". Samsung can say "we have 512GB of storage like a fancy SSD, we have 8GB of ram like a decent laptop, you can totally use this phone in desktop mode as well and have an all in one for your employees!". The cheaper ones might actually get this as opposed to a phone AND a computer.

I'm not too familiar with Dex despite having heard the name so much but it sounds like some kind of dock to make it kind of like a netbook/notebook, sort of what the Moto Atrix was 7 years ago? I can't believe that's still a thing. Has the reception to this style of computing been received well?

 

[masta247]

I'm not too familiar with Dex despite having heard the name so much but it sounds like some kind of dock to make it kind of like a netbook/notebook, sort of what the Moto Atrix was 7 years ago? I can't believe that's still a thing. Has the reception to this style of computing been received well?

Not really, but Samsung has some of its business customers using it, to the point that they are continuously developing the platform and still trying to sell it. In reality, I find it completely pointless, but there are SOME actual business users who went for it. Dex has its own Desktop UI and some apps have desktop versions that enable you to "seamlessly" switch between working on your phone and on your monitor with a mouse and keyboard through the dock. The Microsoft Office suite is one of them, and it's probably the only reason why some businesses actually went for it. To some extent, you are getting the full desktop MS Office experience when you dock you phone, while storing all the files on your phone, and being able to edit them on the go.

 

[dilla]

I think I read that the Pixel 3 XL notch will be the ditch of two notification bars lol

 

[dilla]

I think I might be misinformed on eGPUs and how GPUs are sold. I see something like the Vega 56/64 being sold as a card and from my understanding, you buy a card and an enclosure and that's it. A lot like ten years ago when you bought a hard drive and then an enclosure and then you just used it.

Why am I seeing companies like MSI putting their names in addition to the "Vega 64" model name when selling the card? And is that important when buying both a GPU and an enclosure to put it in? This also seems to change the price of the card, so a Vega 64 is different prices based on what company is attached to the GPU description.

 

[dilla]

For example, this by MSI: https://slickdeals.net/f/11973803-m...-card-amd-game-bundle-200ar-newegg-175-w-mpco

And then this on Amazon, no MSI: https://www.amazon.com/Radeon-RX-580-Express-Graphics/dp/B075G3279T

MSI is cheaper in this case, by nearly 50%