Technology Android

[masta247]

The Essential phone doesn't seem to be a good phone. Personally I saw a glimpse, read a quick summary and stopped even reading about it more as to me it's in the same category as Blu and other no-name brands trying to make a "flagship", no matter if an ex-googler tried to cash in on it.

As far as Android O, the 21st in an interesting day. The eclipse in the Americas, the Android O and Intel's "most anticipated went most hated" architecture premiere so far (Coffee Lake) all in one day. Most hated, because it's a yet another Skylake refresh, a response to Ryzen with two extra cores "glued on" (as the geeky guys call them), that is said to have artificially added software incompatibility with existing motherboards/chipsets, despite being a Skylake core and using the same socket. That's beyond asshole, even for intel, as that leaves system builders who JUST THIS YEAR bought the newest flagship Intel motherboards, only to be artificially discontinued months later from running the new chips. They are releasing a new motherboard series that are literally just renames of the previous series, the difference being they will not be blocked from running Coffee Lake. The partners are pushing Intel to not lose their goddamn minds completely, but Asrock even broke their NDAs and tweeted about it.
To sum it up, for the first time it's a second refresh of the same architecture, it came at the shortest interval since the last release (Kaby Lake was released just this year along with new motherboards that also worked with Skylake) and will also not support existing hardware that came out just this year with Kaby Lake, forcing people to build new rigs altogether using boards which are the exact same thing, just without a software block. I wonder whether Intel shows remorse and for the first time changes its mind about something, or if they completely lost it.

I can't wait.

 

[dilla]

Came here to post about O as well as the new Intel unveiling.

So is it truly Coffee Lake or is it a modified Kaby? People seem to be saying it's both but I haven't read anyone say, as yet, what you said about artificial boosts and software blocks and all that.

I don't care too much unless it was a true refresh that would make me regret hopping on the Kaby Lake MBP I just got. Which wasn't too big of a boost from the Skylake before it but was still newer. It is bothersome that Intel is pulling the shit it has been for the last few generations but I also don't know if Apple will put these in their MacBooks. To do so in a timely fashion, I believe that would make it three refreshes in a year, give or take a month. It depends when Intel starts selling Coffee Lake and when Apple decides to adopt it, if ever.

I did hear that the Mac desktops would still get Coffee. Someone said this could mean quad cores for the 13" MBPs and 6 cores for the non-Pro iMacs. I would have loved a quad core 13" and would have considered it but I believe it still wouldn't have a dGPU. Not that I need one but it still would have set the bar higher for the 15" that had them. I'm not too keen on an eGPU as a dGPU is still more than what my needs dictate.

Still DDRL3 RAM, though. People were hoping to finally get 32GB in their MBPs with DDRL4 but that's completely irrelevant to me. Sometimes.I leave all my apps open just to fill up the 16GB mark on Activity Monitor because I still use about 10GB with a browser and Spotify and Mail open.16 is more than plenty for me.

I haven't looked too much in to the Oreo announcement. The video linked on Reddit had been taken down and I haven't been to wowed by Android features recently. Maybe I still appreciate them unknowingly, like improvements in efficiency or whatever, but I'm still not a power user that would need all the features from a desktop OS or something due to the way I use my phone. Some professional users really do a lot more with their phones.

I wonder if they'll do a promo with Oreo cookies like they did with KitKat and KitKat bars. I remember I bought about 5 Kit Kats that month and got lucky with $15-20 worth of those $5 Play credits. I still have $30 to this day including the ones I got from surveys despite buying all the paid apps I used all the time. TiBU, Tweetings, GSam, Greenify, Amplify, etc.

 

[dilla]

I looked through the list of features for O.....WTF am I supposed to be excited about? I don't understand half the technical terms nor do I use them.

 

[dilla]

Reviews are bagging on the camera so far.

Camera is a big thing since now a lot of bloggers use their phone cameras for most of their shots.

https://gizmodo.com/the-essential-phone-is-too-expensive-to-have-a-camera-t-1798408448

Could be a deal-breaker for some but this is just the first iteration. Most other big OEMs tools years to get it right and still haven't perfected it. If Rubin is serious about rocking the boat a bit, he'll make sure that the next refresh really brings something new to the table. If it can blow other phones one the water in one significant aspect (battery life, screen, etc.) it'll be good. But that's also the motto of every other OEM. I may just be blinded by the founder/starter of Essential being Rubin and have tons more faith in him than I do other big names at other companies.

 

[dilla]

I wonder if Samsung is going to give us S7 users a taste of Oreo with another beta like they did for Nougat.

Doubt it, but I bet the S8 gets it.

 

[dilla]

I wonder if the S9 sees this: http://www.gsmarena.com/snapdragon_670_rumored_chipset-news-27013.php

 

[THEV1LL4N]

• Lenovo have made some announcements regarding laptops and VR. I think they may make some more in the coming days.
• Xiaomi will officially announce the Mi Mix 2 on 11th September along with other products such as Mi 5X, Redmi and I think the Redmi Note series.

 

[dilla]

So the Pixel doesn't get the latest and greatest and instead a version that already existed?

https://www.xda-developers.com/exclusive-no-qualcomm-snapdragon-836/

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Xiaomi Mi A1 - the new Android One phone will be released in 40 markets. It is supposed to be quite good.

 

[Casey]

So the Pixel doesn't get the latest and greatest and instead a version that already existed?

https://www.xda-developers.com/exclusive-no-qualcomm-snapdragon-836/

The 835 is still the flagship. Google have always released late in the processor cycle, so nothing new there.

Rumor has it Samsung have already bought up all the stock of the next Qualcomm processor for the S9. They've got that kind of buying power I guess.

 

[dilla]

So Android O is going to be more strict with background apps and services and putting them in to hibernation when not in use.

That's great, except it will mess with push updates for apps that sync in the background, like Twitter and Instagram and other social media apps. And it will be one step closer to how iOS functions and what gives iOS its great battery life.

 

[masta247]

Came here to post about O as well as the new Intel unveiling.

So is it truly Coffee Lake or is it a modified Kaby? People seem to be saying it's both but I haven't read anyone say, as yet, what you said about artificial boosts and software blocks and all that.

Intel made it super confusing this time around. They did not release Coffee Lake, but they just released the Kaby Lake refresh processors. "Kaby Lake refresh" and Coffee Lake are pretty much the same thing, except Coffee Lake for now refers to the new desktop line, and Kaby Lake refresh to the laptop line. In reality they are still Skylake cores, just more of them, especially laptops getting 4 cores in the low voltage processors is neat, while the desktop parts are getting +2 cores soldered in for a total of 6 in the i5s and i7s. AMD clearly left their mark with Ryzen, and Intel managed to outrush them to 4 core mobile parts (which AMD was scheduled to release by the end of the year).

The confusion I mentioned and Intel software locking existing customers out of 8th Gen refers to the desktop parts, where guys who just built computers on Kaby Lake parts can't upgrade to Coffee Lake despite them being the same processors (with additional 2 cores), the chipsets being the same thing and the sockets being identical, which means that to make them incompatible Intel has to put work into actually making them so and blocking compatibility on a software/BIOS level. So if you just bought a Kaby Lake computer with their newest chipsets, a Coffee Lake processor would fit and work, except Intel purposefully made it not work, so you will have to build a new computer that is otherwise the same just for a new processor. It's a total asshole move. Too bad such dramatic fuckeries are mostly affecting the DYI enthusiasts. I'm sure the guys at Intel are like "most people won't care, so we can do this to make some extra moneys on chipsets and other parts that people will have to buy brand new just to install our new processors".
http://www.crn.com/news/components-...re-incompatible-with-current-motherboards.htm
http://wccftech.com/intel-coffee-lake-cpu-not-compatible-200-series-motherboards/

I wonder if the S9 sees this: http://www.gsmarena.com/snapdragon_670_rumored_chipset-news-27013.php

This is a mid-range chip, so no. Qualcomm calls everything a "Kryo" core now, despite it not being a thing anymore - they just call any core they release, even the low-voltage, power saving, generic ARM ones "Kryo". The 670 will likely target the upper end of the mid-range coming out next year. The "a level below the flagship" devices. The Chinese makers like Lenovo like these chips in their top of the range phones though.
The Snapdragon 6-series have been around since 2013 so I'm not sure why GSMArena compared it to the 835 (the flagship 8 series).

So the Pixel doesn't get the latest and greatest and instead a version that already existed?
https://www.xda-developers.com/exclusive-no-qualcomm-snapdragon-836/

The 821 was just an overclocked 820. Qualcomm gave manufacturers freedom to clock the 835 anything they want, including way out of its perf/power curve, which they of course did, apart from Samsung and some others. Thus an even higher clocked 836 based on the 835 would not make sense. I don't know why there were rumors that it would. The next Snapdragon flagship is likely to be a 84x chip or whatever they decide to call it based on an improved architecture already.

Besides, the Pixel is too low-key of a brand to get a new architecture processor first. I feel like people talk about it because it's marketed by Google, but to put it in perspective, Huaweii sells twice as many phones per week than all Pixels sold from release until now, and Huaweii are merely a distant second after Samsung in terms of smartphone units sold. The new architecture processors will surely be grabbed by Samsung as soon as they come out.

 

[dilla]

I didn't realize Huaweii was so big until the last week or so. I saw they eclipsed Apple as the biggest vendor and trail only Samsung, like you just said.

I wish it was easier to get their phones here in the US. Aside from the 6P, I don't think they've released another phone here. Unless the 5X was Huaweii too?

We just need better options from our carriers. I just read tech support posts on Sprint's subreddit and see how people have issues bringing their phones over to Sprint when they buy them elsewhere. Like the Pixel and some other nice phones that Sprint didn't sell themselves but were still compatible with their bands. Either Sprint gives them shit trying to activate it on their network or customers end up waiting ages for a compatible SIM card. That makes me wary of buying an unfamiliar brand like Xiaomi or Huaweii phone and bring it to Sprint and get off the contract plans.

 

[masta247]

I'm currently in Thailand, where Huaweii and Oppo are the biggest brands, where Pixel is unavailable and unheard of. Nobody cringes at how similar Oppo phones are to the iPhone because there are no iPhones around so people don't even connect the dots. The phone everyone wants is a "flagship" Oppo that costs around 250$.

It's funny how different some local markets are from each other. I was equally surprised about the US market being so full of phones representing poor value for money, expensive, regardless if good or bad, where brands like Sony or Huaweii are barely present. Sony is one of the most popular brands in Europe and parts of Asia. Heck, I've heard the new Nokia phones are not easily available in the US. Then I found out Nokia was never the biggest phone company in the US, while outside of it at some point 80% of all phones sold were Nokias, they were that huge. When I was in middle school during their peak popularity, I wouldn't see a single phone by any brand other than Nokia, ignorant to the fact that far away in the US they were using some different phones. Nokia was such a huge part of our teenage lives in Europe - customizing covers, exchanging ringtones and texts with those Nokia only graphics. imagining it wasn't a thing everywhere makes me feel like those people must have been robbed off their childhoods, lol.

 

[dilla]

I'm currently in Thailand, where Huaweii and Oppo are the biggest brands, where Pixel is unavailable and unheard of. Nobody cringes at how similar Oppo phones are to the iPhone because there are no iPhones around so people don't even connect the dots. The phone everyone wants is a "flagship" Oppo that costs around 250$.

It's funny how different some local markets are from each other. I was equally surprised about the US market being so full of phones representing poor value for money, expensive, regardless if good or bad, where brands like Sony or Huaweii are barely present. Sony is one of the most popular brands in Europe and parts of Asia. Heck, I've heard the new Nokia phones are not easily available in the US. Then I found out Nokia was never the biggest phone company in the US, while outside of it at some point 80% of all phones sold were Nokias, they were that huge. When I was in middle school during their peak popularity, I wouldn't see a single phone by any brand other than Nokia, ignorant to the fact that far away in the US they were using some different phones. Nokia was such a huge part of our teenage lives in Europe - customizing covers, exchanging ringtones and texts with those Nokia only graphics. imagining it wasn't a thing everywhere makes me feel like those people must have been robbed off their childhoods, lol.

I think it's a combination of Americans being influenced more by marketing and also carriers pulling the strings on what phones are available to their customers, or at least in-store.

People still idolize Apple products, even if their uses don't require the use of those features or software. I'm guilty of this. But people will still camp out for the newest iPhone while the next most popular non-iOS device might get a ton of preorders, but most people will wait until their contract is up before looking at a new phone. I guess iPhones having good resale value helps iPhone users break out of leases and contracts and upgrade quickly with minimal value lost.

I'd say we care more about the brand of the phone more than phones in general, if that makes sense. The Apple Keynote is tomorrow yet only people that read tech blogs know about it. But in 24 hours, everyone will know about it and people will be scrambling to place their orders. I don't think we'd see that with the next Samsung phone, let alone smaller OEMs like Moto or LG or HTC.

But carriers are to blame too since people think that only phone sold by Sprint at the Sprint store are the phones they can get if they want to remain with Sprint, which isn't true. Same with GSM carriers like ATT and T-Mobile. Not many know they can get phones from OEMs like Xiaomi and Huaweii or even OPPO to use, so long as they pay full price and go through the set up process. I feel like carriers in the US make it easy to get a smartphone with their payment plans, which is kind of unheard of in Europe and Asia. People just shell out $200-400 for whatever phone they have and then keep it for 3+ years, at least. That's not the case with the US where every 18-24 months, you're eligible to upgrade and most people do. Pair that with being suckers for advertisers, we're upgrade two or three times before people in other countries are thinking about moving on.

 

[masta247]

...

^ Personally, I don't understand the concept of getting a phone before the tests are out. No matter how much of a fan of a given product I am, there is no logic in that. If a Galaxy S9 is suddenly out, I can't imagine shelling out almost a grand to get it just like that, straight away, without knowing it's strengths and potential faults, or how it compares to other phones. What always boggled me about the American market, be it smartphones or the computer/electronics markets in general, is that outside of the few enthusiasts, people don't seem to do much research or comparing products before buying them, and then they are very opinionated about them after purchasing them, while still ignorant about the market their product belongs to.

In Poland the telecom market is very mature compared to I think any other country I've been to, more so than Hong Kong or South Korea. I've had 300mbit/s fiber at my home there for ~15$/month for almost 4 years now, with an option to get 600mbit/s for 25$ a month - the services available for the same price in any large city. The national speed stats don't fully show that, as it's also a market of great variety - you can get a government subsidized 3G sim card with ~1mbit/s internet completely for free, forever, aimed at boosting e-education and e-commerce growth in rural areas, but anyone can get it.
While as far as mobile services go you can get 50gb of LTE data for a month for like 5$. Telecom still makes a lot of money, with almost 100% of the country being covered by 4G LTE networks and all large cities having fiber to the building connections.

The strength is in regulations and anti-monopoly measures such as inter-carrier infrastructure sharing being mandatory for pre-regulated fees, which makes it pointless for several operators to have infrastructure in the same place when they can just lease/share it. Telecom infrastructure is constructed in such a way that running parallel operations by different operators are costly but completely redundant and logically pointless.
As far as regulations go, surprisingly other European countries have historically followed, which might sound funny to some. Poland was the key instigator of dropping of EU roaming charges, and now other EU countries are blaming it for not being able to overcharge unreasonable fees for basic services (aka you can get a Polish SIM and use it anywhere in Europe for much cheaper than the local operators' plans).

Starting this year, the operators in Poland are obliged to separate the price of the service plan from the monthly phone installment, and forced to enable buying one without the other. It completely twisted the phone market, and made people move to auction sites and phone manufacturers to buy their phone bloatware free, for slightly less money and pay the carriers just for the service. As it turns out, the "reveal" of the phone installment fee was outrageous to the people and now an average unlimited plan in Poland ranges between 5$ and 10$ a month, and that includes between 2 and 50 gb of data per month. Carriers are still making their money, just less margins from phone sales and less incentive to install carrier-exclusive software, which makes people happy and updates faster. Also, there are more new virtual operators dropping the service prices even further while the telecom service business is blooming. I think it's a great exercise for any market.
Why I am mentioning this is that traditionally the North American market (and God, especially the ancient Canadian one) are trailing the European markets with technology (late to 3G, very late to LTE) and even more so with regulations towards what a carrier can't do or has to do, or customer rights. In Europe, we consider the separation of phone fee and service fee as inevitable. I am curious how that would end up in the US.

 

[dilla]

That new iPhone X, though

 

[masta247]

That new iPhone X, though

What about it? It's pretty much as rumored for a long time, except no fingerprint scanner and VR. Otherwise it's a "almost caught up" product from Apple - has a "bezel-less" AMOLED screen, wireless charging and fast charging finally. While those are very important features that make Apple less behind, not much else is new on the inside, not even camera. On the outside, It looks like a blend of the Essential Phone and the LG G6, though.

What pissed me off is the pricing. By releasing the regular iPhone 8 next to it, which is now beyond old potato, they even found a way to charge a huge premium over those already overpriced iPhones, which is ridiculous. I expected the "X" would be just the new iPhone 8. Releasing the same old-school potato another year in a row these days is a joke, and it was clearly done just to hike up the price of the legit successor by making it appear more premium next to it. Even the Galaxy S8 is significantly cheaper now, while still being the better phone, despite the S9 being just months away from release.

 

[dilla]

Yup, pricing is an issue but it sounds like both the 8 and X are going to be packing some serious power inside. That camera and those pictures taken were incredible. The Animoji sounds silly until you saw the demo and I think you can do some really hilarious stuff with it when you add your voice to it.

I'm pretty excited for it and I'll be considering the X when my contract is up in March. I think I'm deeper in to Apple's system now than I am in to Google's that there's no strong cause keeping me on Android anymore. I'm too old to be modding my phone with custom ROMs and dealing with Android's quirks. Maybe it's Samsung, I don't know, but Samsung Pay is useful when it works. When it doesn't work, it's not because a vendor doesn't have the MST tech or something; it's the Pay app that doesn't like to be opened, then have the screen turn off, and then screen turned back on when it's time to pay. It happened for the umpteenth time yesterday at Walgreen's and if I didn't have my wallet with me, I'd have looked like an ass running back to my car to get it.

And seems like every Android phone has some inexplicable battery drain due to Google Services or something else that Google never fixes. While my phone isn't too bad in that regard, every week on the S7 subreddit, there are posts of apps draining battery or services running rogue and doing the same.

I'm fairly convinced that Google does something first and Apple perfects it. FaceID is a prime example, something that was taken out of Android after ICS, I believe. I expect Google to bring it back next year, whether it's as secure as FaceID or not. Sort of like TouchID despite the Moto Atrix having it before the iPhone 5S, yet no one giving a damn until Apple did it. Properly.

A good thing for all phone users is that since Apple now supports wireless charging, we should see companies finally address that part of the market and start making proper accessories for the iPhone 8 and X, which means they'll pay more attention to Android's ability to wireless charge.

 

[masta247]

^ ^ Face detection was perfected on Microsoft's Surface devices, and for phones on the Galaxy S8. Apple has the exact same thing. It's a very easy way to unlock your phone, on par with the retina scanner, except the retina scanner is much more secure. Apple absolutely did not improve on the technology.

As far as wireless charging goes, there have been great accessories for a long time now. I've had a wireless charger in every room for over 3 years now, including a wireless charging power bank, and I can't imagine going back to cable charging. I even have 4 spare 15$ Ikea wireless chargers in my drawer in case I'd like to install one in a new place.
Heck, Ikea sells freaking furniture with wireless chargers built in and my favorite cafes all have wireless chargers built in the tables (and so does Starbucks). It's been a huge thing since at least the Galaxy S6, just many people didn't experience it yet because their phones didn't have it (like iPhones until this year).
Apple being Apple, however, apparently had to do something weird and bank just on Qi (one of the two major wireless charging standards) which means their iPhones won't charge with PMA chargers. PMA is used by Starbucks, amongst others, as well as almost half of all wireless chargers available on the market today, that the iPhones won't work with. It's creating a shitload of confusion, as it's the only mobile device that supports only one standard, and wireless charger manufacturers frequently didn't even include information regarding which standard the device uses, assuming their charger will be used with a device that supports both standards anyway. Samsung phones have always been compatible with both, Qi and PMA, for instance.

App battery drain happens but I find it extremely rare these days, and I don't think there's a big technical difference between Android and iOS in that regard these days, as far as crashes go they are equally rare on my Galaxy and on my iPad. Battery life is pretty much the same between iOS and Android. I think those OSes have never been more alike, except iOS is still more limited in its capabilities. I also think the iPhones are not as appealing as they used to be, being more behind the Android crowd than ever, apart from the iPhone X which costs significantly more than a superior Android counterpart, and the Galaxy S9 is around the corner.

You mentioned the iPhone 8 camera, but I don't think any samples are out yet? The camera sensors are apparently just slightly larger compared to the iPhone 7, so I'd expect it to be on par with the Note 8, which regressed in terms of camera quality compared to the S7/S8 due to a dual sensor setup very similar to the one Apple used on the iPhone 8.