Post #417,600
4/4/17 10:36:47 AM
4/4/17 10:36:47 AM
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So long, Apple. It's been fun.
Well, I dunno about you, but I'm kinda attached to the 3.5mm headphone jack socket.
I do a lot of train travel; the ambient noise level is high (it's a train) and I'm travelling for work, so I like to do what I can to block it out whilst reading, sleeping, working, etc. To this end, I have a pair of Monster Inspiration noise-cancelling over-ear headphones. They're pretty sweet. The noise cancellation is active and so there are a couple of AAA batteries in the right earpiece, but when they run out, you just flick the switch and you've got regular headphones - which still block out a decent, sanity-preserving amount of noise.
It's a nice deal, especially as they have interchangeable cables, one of which provides a handsfree headset so you can answer calls and then seamlessly resume listening to wicked tunes.
I do all this with my phone also plugged into a 20,000 mAh powerbank, so when I arrive at my destination, I've had three or four hours of bitchin' beats and my phone is fully charged, ready for the rigours of the day.
Apple, with the iPhone 7, basically said "fuck that shit and fuck you too" when it (a) took away the 3.5mm socket and (b) didn't bother including wireless charging.
So when the end of my 2 year contract hove into view (it's a couple or three months away, but whatever) I took an interest in alternatives. HTC have followed Apple's lead in doing away with the 3.5mm, so fuck them. I don't need a 4K phone, and it's old technology now, so fuck Sony. The Google Pixel is technologically great, but the design is ass, and fuck Google because they lose interest in things faster than a goldfish. I'm definitely not interested in piping all my grot (by which of course I do mean serious art browsing) to Beijing, so those crazy Xaomi or Huawei or whatever phones are out, plus they don't support all the 3G/4G bands in the UK.
So it's the Samsung S8. Specifically, the S8+ - a 6.2" display in a chassis the same size as my current iPhone 6S+. The best screen and mobile camera in the business. And although it's Android (and therefore ass), Samsung has, by all accounts, significantly toned down the lunacy that characterised previous incarnations of the Galaxy software loadout. There's removable storage. There's IP68 water resistance. For the first time, Samsung might have actually hired an industrial designer with eyes and talent. And of course, being a Samsung flagship phone, it'll have more features than the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, even if the fingerprint reader has ended up on the back.
I've pre-ordered one through my carrier (Three in the UK). It arrives on the 20th.
I'll let you know if it's shit.
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Post #417,601
4/4/17 11:04:14 AM
4/4/17 11:04:14 AM
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Enjoy it.
I've got a LG V10 on T-Mobile that I like so far.
But I don't like that it still doesn't have N, and there's no definitive word on when it is coming (though supposedly it is coming). I wonder if something about the ticker display (a very handy feature) is delaying it. (Though it's probably something about T-Mobile rather than LG.) I tried for weeks to get a Pixel XL 128 but it never was in stock (and realistically the price was too high for me to pull the trigger). Going to Verizon was never something I was willing to consider to get it.
I got spoiled by updates on my LG Nexus 4. :-(
I refuse to spend more than $500 on a phone (my V10 was $330 new, on sale, at B&H). But I want updates.
:-(
I'll probably let my cheapness continue to win out over my desire for updates.
I'm wondering what the V30 will be like (assuming there is one). Otherwise, the LG G6 (or something later) is at the top of my "next phone" list.
Samsung makes great hardware, but for some reason it's slow in the US (and seems to get slower over time). I don't want an "Edge" phone (every phone I have goes in a case), so the S8 really doesn't appeal to me.
Good luck with it. Looking forward to your report.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who wonders if he'll have N before the V30 is announced...)
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Post #417,604
4/4/17 12:18:43 PM
4/4/17 12:18:43 PM
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Edge does not preclude case.
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Post #417,605
4/4/17 12:36:07 PM
4/4/17 12:36:07 PM
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No glass screen protector, though... :-(
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Post #417,609
4/4/17 1:20:56 PM
4/4/17 1:20:56 PM
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Boom! Verizon (!) to the rescue!
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Post #417,612
4/4/17 3:54:29 PM
4/4/17 3:54:29 PM
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Interesting. Thanks.
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Post #417,835
4/21/17 10:34:36 PM
4/21/17 10:34:36 PM
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OTOH...
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Post #417,836
4/22/17 4:02:17 AM
4/22/17 4:02:17 AM
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Fairy snuff.
Coincidentally, I read that article and was mildly amazed at how such a shonky product (which shonkiness I did not determine when I first suggested it) could even pass the laugh test.
Personally, I've never bothered with screen protectors, preferring instead to use the always-available, free-of-charge product known as "taking care of your £800 phone" and, on the rare occasions that that doesn't work, "phone insurance". Modern phones, with Gorilla Glass 4/5 and whatever weird-ass stuff Apple uses, seem to shrug things off well enough.
This seems to have served me well since I transitioned from feature phones to smartphones with the iPhone 3G, back in '08.
The only time I've needed to exercise the second option, a screen protector wouldn't have saved the phone. They only preserve against minor cosmetic damage, not the four-foot drop I inflicted on my Lumia 1020.
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Post #417,837
4/22/17 6:54:23 AM
4/22/17 6:54:23 AM
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I use the same brand
I once wore the same pair of glasses for 15 years or so. I've been through ... 6 maybe? ... phones since I started carrying one in the early noughts and never had screen damage.
The charger port connection got flaky on my Galaxy S3, but other than that I've gotten everything through the entire contract.
The last two - the Galaxy and the current Nexus 6P - had cases because the "ergonomic hand feel" is slippery as shit.
* Occasionally someone would convince me to go get my eyes checked because "your prescription always changes over time." I've never understood why people with 20/20 vision expect it to stay that way, but those of us who need glasses expect it to keep changing.
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Post #417,838
4/22/17 7:36:44 AM
4/22/17 7:36:44 AM
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Six? Amateur
This list starts in early 2000:
Comments are from an old post on another forum, and (especially for the older phones) need to be read as applying at the time I had the phone in question. In retrospect, most of these phones are awful.
Motorola L7089: Didn't know jack about phones at the time, I just liked the reflective display. This phone did sterling service with my mum for about 8 years after this.
Nokia 3310: It worked, but for some reason I thought it was a bit girly.
Siemens C35i: Annoying adverts. Weird little phone. Incredibly robust.
Sagem MyX-5: colour! It had TEH INTERNET! French.
Orange SPV E100: Oh dear. An early Windows phone. This was never going to be all that good. It wasn't.
Sony Ericsson K700i: Very, very good at the time. Brilliant display and the smartest-looking interface I'd ever seen.
Sony Ericsson P910: Excellent smartphone. Miss this, although I don't miss the fact that it was roughly the size and weight of Sedna.
Nokia 6710: Interesting design, brilliant big keypad. Oddly unsatisfying to use.
Samsung D500: Unfeasibly bright screen. Idiosyncratic interface, but usable. Very good slider mechanism. Rubber strip across the bottom of the screen meant avoiding the "thumbprint on the screen" problem that most sliders have.
Orange SPV M600: I don't appear to be a fast learner. Windows remains the only mobile operating system to have crashed on me during a call.
Sony Ericsson T610i: Beautiful little phone; I bought this off eBay, simply because of what it looked like. Sadly, the low screen resolution meant that I couldn't live with it.
Nokia 6310i: Off eBay, rockin' it old school. Brilliant, brilliant phone. Naturally, I sold it. )facepalm(
Nokia 6300: Bloody ace. The thing that lets it down is the battery life, which is, frankly, pish. But hey. It's a great phone.
Sony Ericsson W910i: Great phone, good screen, excellent software (on the phone, not on the PC: S-E's PC stuff was, is and remains a stinking pile of fetid dingo's kidneys) but the build quality meant that within a couple of months, the phone looked a couple of years old. Slider not up to Samsung standards, either.
Apple iPhone 3G: Build quality beyond reproach, screen vast and bright. Some niggles around the call list (it's primitive compared to the lists on Nokia and S-E phones) and the speed of the interface, though. Mobile web browsing finally usable for me. Oh, and Bejeweled 2. Timethief.
Nokia 6310i: Bought another one, because I periodically go all nostalgic.
BlackBerry Storm2: Inexplicable choice. Terrible. Returned to Vodafone in exchange for a...
BlackBerry Bold 9700: Probably the best BlackBerry ever made. Would be horrific now.
Google Nexus One: The driftiest clock that ever drifted. My first encounter with Android, and my first encounter with a pentile AMOLED screen.
HTC 7 Mozart: The start of my excursion into Windows Phone. Nice handset, tbh.
Nokia Lumia 800: Blue. Good screen. Excellent build quality and design.
Nokia Lumia 920: Getting bigger now. Yellow. better screen.
Nokia Lumia 1020: 41 megapixel camera. Shoots RAW. Weird design, good screen. Unfortunately, Windows Phone started to hit the skids as a consumer platform here.
iPhone 6S+: Great phone. Slippy design. Camera promised more than it delivered.
Samsung Galaxy S8+: Astonishing screen. Better than the iPhone in every way that matters. Astonishing screen.
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Post #417,839
4/22/17 8:47:29 AM
4/22/17 8:47:29 AM
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Geez, now I want to try to remember mine
First device I carried was a two-way text pager. God only knows the brand. Work issued.
Next was a Nokia candybar, something like the 6510 (though I don't think that was quite it).
Next was a little flip, likely the Motorola V551.
Then the first one I'm pretty sure of the model was the Blackberry 8310. Still love the physical keyboard on that one, and the trackball was surprisingly effective.
I can't remember the next, but I'm pretty sure I had another flip between the BB and my first smartphone, which was ...
Samsung Galaxy S3. Brilliant screen, even though you couldn't see it in sunlight. And the camera is surprisingly good. Battery can't make it a full day though. When the charger port became to flaky to live with, I switched to the current ...
Nexus 6P. Another good screen, and even better camera. The camera app is a significant improvement. And I can go a whole day without charging again.
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Post #417,885
4/25/17 6:35:29 AM
4/25/17 6:35:29 AM
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Now you've tempted me...
My first mobile phone was an Ericsson GH388. Very good for its day. Also surprisingly tough.
I think my second was the phone addon widget to the Handspring Visor. Great idea, but a little ahead of its time and it showed.
Next was a Sony Ericsson T300 or maybe a T310. Came with a plugin camera which was a little bit shit. My first experience with Sony's "feature phone" OS which I quite liked, but the hardware was quite low in the range. Never bought something so low-end again. Also the only phone I bought a ringtone for - the Danger Mouse themetune.
Then I got a SE K610. Now that was a good phone! Outstanding Bluetooth stack, for one thing. I used to use the Bluetooth "modem" interface from my work laptop (running Linux!) to get onto the Internet. Also used to use it transfer files to and from it which was much more flexible than the cable.
I used the K610 until it wore out. My next was a G900, which took some searching for as I didn't realize it had gone out of production until long after I bought it. Not as good as the K610. By the time it had started developing a hardware fault, the first Android phones were on sale.
My first Android phone was a HTC Hero running Android 1.5. Not a bad little phone - the major thing I was annoyed with was the shockingly immature Bluetooth stack. Oh and the camera lens would not stay clean. But it was the first phone I had with a decent file interface over the cable.
Next were two more HTC Android phones that were obviously not memorable at all.
Other than I know there were two of them. I started getting tired of HTC's skinning of Android.
Lastly, my current phone: Sony Xperia Z. Superb. 4 or 5 years old and still going fairly strong - I think the battery is starting to show its age. Best camera so far. Also largest I've ever owned. Sony have pushed out two major Android versions to it, but scuttlebutt is that there won't be anymore for such an old platform.
Wade.
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Post #417,840
4/22/17 8:56:09 AM
4/22/17 8:56:09 AM
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Look how I thought the iPhone 3G's screen was "vast and bright" :D
iPhone 3G:
480x320, 3.5"
Current phone:
2960x1440, 6.2"
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Post #417,854
4/23/17 3:24:13 AM
4/23/17 3:24:13 AM
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I've a somewhat lengthier view of er, Bitchin resolution (but with similar retrospectives.)
Possibly the (incipient..?) geezers amongst us can verify the Gold Standard for our fledgling intro to what is now called--all digitally-enhanced--high rez stuff, now on scales of n-giga-pixels and related cha. cha. (not quite the last cha.)
Kodachrome! that dye-based er, pixel-less magick base for all those 'slides' (now residing in ..boxen of all sizes, in attics?) I have some of the Grand Euro tour in Leitz-Pradovit carriers.
(One of those shows moi playing one of those Euro rotary-valve trumpets: handed me! from a window on a basement room (by a trusting soul) where I had heard Sounds, this in Salzburg aka Mozartiana.)
(My) Story: Recall the first Trinitron boob-tubes. All dsiplays, natch, had to be watched at a decent distance such that the little [__] blocks faded into inconsequence, but then these subjectively seemed a better comparo with a projected K. color-positive-slide. When a new 5-INCH-tiny model arrived, (capable also-too of running on IIRC 18V DC?) well you can see the possibilities. I snared one at wholesale but still ~$300 when that was real-money. 'Twas a More-better K-chrome approximation. (Bartered off, earlier ... about ten years back I snagged another pristine one for a ridiculous price (~$25) at a local computer store. [Such a Deal]
Now, of course, the phones with high pixel-count eclipse most everything, although I know not of any measured comparos with some K-slides exposed/developed by qualified Photographers, as might demonstrate the true-limits
as each of us Looks. Subjectively. with our own eyeballs.
Anyway, that's my take on subjective-resolution and I'm sticking with it.
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Post #417,855
4/23/17 4:50:18 AM
4/23/17 4:50:18 AM
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S8+ display is 529dpi. Good film is ~5000dpi.
But remember that those 5000 dots per inch are all you've got - they've got to provide all the detail, whether you print at A4 or A00.
This equates to ~20MP - so, my full-frame Canon 6D is very (very) roughly equivalent to film, although it's better or worse or the same, depending on the film and the ISO and other stuff too.
Now, there are DSLRs with 35mm sensors that have 30 and even 50 MP resolutions - these are pointless for regular printing and viewing, but they're ideal for product photography (where noise is simply not allowed), for printing really, REALLY big, or simply for giving the photographer the freedom to crop, thus potentially turning a modest (and therefore practical) zoom lens into a cheap and cheerful version of a much longer lens.
Phone and some laptop (i.e. the high-DPI/Retina) displays are now able to resolve detail better than most printers, which tend to top out at a practical limit of 600DPI for monochrome and a lot less than that for colour.
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Post #417,856
4/23/17 7:13:54 AM
4/23/17 7:13:54 AM
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Thanks much, all good points
(and with numbers used exactly where they matter.) Point taken too, where huge enlargements will be wanted, though I always have trouble intermingling aims of AD-bizness -vs- Art
Sweet and undefinable
Like the pineapple
--line from a Piet Hein Grook, that.
I retain still a box of K-slides I took of **Ansel Adams, while doing his work: much of the set-up and other details handled by an able assistant.) But considering (say) a Venn diagram where the physics details have an overlay and then: the several published versions of Ansel's meticulous use of a spot-photometer (not to mention his enlarger/dodging in production of actual B&W prints, one at a time.. I daresay that the entire ingredients of a finished Art-work by cohorts of this calibre, just can't possible be reduced to ... that (drat!) algorithm idea.
Impressive as the new techno is (and its numbers, where they count) I'm betting that his iconic photos (moon over El Capitan for ex.) might or might not be amenable to 'improvement'--even were he still around--had he the option. (But that is a w.a.g. from me; I recognize enough of the qualities of an able Photographer to recognize what I lack,) confessing that a very few 'shots' of them all: might qualify as real Photographs, via the luck of the conditions and maybe having pressed the shutter at the right Instant.
(When you can do that-all with regularity ... you're a better man than I, Gunga Din.)
** I still haven't figured out the best thing to do with these slides; clearly they should end up with an absolute AA-focussed collector out there: one who might glean something from the work-while-in-progress, quite more than "via my camera angles" while necessarily staying out of the way (Nikon prior to the F2.)
No worries though; as Mr. Micawber was wont to say, >Something will turn up..
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Post #417,857
4/23/17 10:02:02 AM
4/23/17 10:02:02 AM
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Re: pressing the shutter at the right instant
http://m.imgur.com/gallery/FOogBAs for your collection, if you found a method to scan a representative half-dozen I'll bet Peter could put those up on a few special-interest sites that would get you plenty of interest in taking them off your hands.
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Post #417,868
4/24/17 2:33:03 AM
4/24/17 2:33:03 AM
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Good thoughts, thanks.
Would have to find a decent quality slide copying device to borrow/rent, of the sort whose color temp, etc. are malleable but also calibrated (to something.) It's possible.
As to 720,000 pix to get to That spectacular bird shot11 well.. it sounds more like obsession than ..dedication. Can't spare the heart beats!
Apropos I think: a recent factoid claimed (heard en passant)
That the fewer number of heartbeats/min of a critter (incl. US) ... the longer the life.
Cited was an elephant and a few others: best guesstimate was: ya gets about 1.5 billion heartbeats!
Fascinating enough theory that I hope it receives further close attention.
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Post #417,869
4/24/17 2:38:38 AM
4/24/17 2:38:38 AM
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I've heard the heartbeat theory ... Don't like it
Reminds me of the scene in Amadeus where he's told that the ear can only hear so many notes in an evening, and his Opera had too many.
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Post #417,870
4/24/17 3:38:27 AM
4/24/17 3:39:48 AM
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Don't contemplate doing it yourself
Negative/slide scanning is a surprisingly tricksy business, and it's remarkable what can be achieved with a professional-grade drum scanner by a skilled operator.
Conversely, it's remarkable what a pile of bullshit can be achieved - even with expensive gear - by someone who's not.
tl;dr: pay someone to do it for you.
Edited by pwhysall
April 24, 2017, 03:39:48 AM EDT
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Post #417,906
4/25/17 7:52:18 PM
4/25/17 7:52:18 PM
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Thou sayest and, shall seek such a One via the magick of (hell, Google or Other)
You're quite right; I may comprehend the basics re the Numbers but as you remind, none of that much matters where the Lore is indispensable to ... Doin it Rihgt.
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Post #417,841
4/22/17 11:02:16 AM
4/22/17 11:02:16 AM
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5
A something-something who knows been too damn long feature phone A Sony Ericsson W600i swivel phone (the first with a Walkman built in):  A Blackberry something-or-other (still upstairs in a drawer for when one of the kids breaks their phone again) An iPhone 4S An iPhone 6S I had to replace the screen on the 6S once because I had a shitty case on it and dropped it corner-first on some tile, oops. Regards,
-scott
Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
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Post #417,865
4/23/17 11:20:30 PM
4/23/17 11:20:30 PM
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Wow, that list will delay your retirement! :)
Alex
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
-- Isaac Asimov
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Post #417,866
4/24/17 12:35:07 AM
4/24/17 12:35:07 AM
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What you guys get to spend on healthcare, I get to spend on gadgets
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Post #417,872
4/24/17 11:18:52 AM
4/24/17 11:18:52 AM
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My V10 would have been very unhappy without the glass screen protector.
It fell out of my shirt pocket when I was moving some cinderblocks and the screen hit the edge of one. A couple of dings in the screen protector, but no other issues.
Pants pockets usually aren't an option for me (I'm sitting and bending and so forth too much).
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #417,873
4/24/17 11:55:20 AM
4/24/17 11:55:20 AM
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Shirt pockets.
I haven't purchased a polo shirt without a shirt pocket in about 15 years. I keep my geezer goggles and phone in it. My ancient Nexus 4 has never had a screen protector and I've used it daily since it first became available and I have no issues at all with the screen. Of course, I'm not what you'd call a typical user. This site is the only "social media" I've ever engaged in. ;0) bcnu,
Mikem
It's mourning in America again.
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Post #417,884
4/25/17 2:09:45 AM
4/25/17 2:11:33 AM
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Re: Shirt pockets.
I haven't purchased a polo shirt Right there with ya. I don't put anything in my shirt pockets. Maybe a pen, temporarily, at work - and then only if I'm not suited and booted, which I'm mostly not. (dress shirts in the UK are different to those in the US. We tend to opt for a spread collar (never ever button-down) and no pockets, whereas US shirts seem to have pointy collars, often button-down, and pockets. We think you look weird and adorably dorky, especially with that super-long-tie thing y'all have going on - with Trump as your SLT king. You of course think we all look and sound like James Bond, which we obviously do.) Many moons ago, when phones were considerably daintier than they are these days, I had a shirt pocket/toilet phone transfer instantiation incident. I stopped putting my phone in my shirt pocket that day.
*We have a "dress for your day" dress code. No customer/client/big boss meetings, like today? Plaid shirt, jeans and skate shoes**. **Skate shoes are my most recent revelation. I never have and never will own a skateboard, but skate shoes are just les tits. Durable (think of what they're designed to do), comfy and generally understated. And they come in big sizes, too. I take a UK 13. What the fuck are skate shoes?
Edited by pwhysall
April 25, 2017, 02:11:33 AM EDT
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Post #417,887
4/25/17 9:58:00 AM
4/25/17 9:58:00 AM
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When you get old enough to require reading glasses I think the pocket will return.
bcnu,
Mikem
It's mourning in America again.
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Post #417,890
4/25/17 10:44:09 AM
4/25/17 10:44:09 AM
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I'm already there
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Post #417,897
4/25/17 2:20:03 PM
4/25/17 2:20:03 PM
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Nope. Progressive bifocals FTW.
Regards,
-scott
Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
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Post #417,900
4/25/17 2:35:38 PM
4/25/17 2:35:38 PM
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+1 True
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Post #417,888
4/25/17 10:09:47 AM
4/25/17 10:09:47 AM
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Well, I learned something about skate shoes!
A pair is on the way from Amazon. Alex
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
-- Isaac Asimov
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Post #417,893
4/25/17 12:37:30 PM
4/25/17 12:37:30 PM
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That I'd like to see
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Post #417,894
4/25/17 1:25:56 PM
4/25/17 1:25:56 PM
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That'd be awesome
But inexplicably (I know, right?) they don't do them in my size.
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Post #417,898
4/25/17 2:22:23 PM
4/25/17 2:22:23 PM
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Here we wear the plaid shirt/jeans/skate shoes even on client/board/etc. days.
Start-up culture and all that. Although I'm wearing some Doc Martens right now because it's going to rain. Regards,
-scott
Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
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Post #417,876
4/24/17 12:22:58 PM
4/24/17 12:22:58 PM
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Last time I put a phone in a shirt pocket ...
I went into the bathroom and bent over to lift the lid. Watched in slow motion as the phone slipped out ... tumbled through the air ... hit the rim ... and bounced off to the side. /whew
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Post #417,877
4/24/17 1:52:05 PM
4/24/17 1:52:05 PM
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Shirt pockets are deadly.
I don't want my glasses in the toilet either. Regards,
-scott
Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
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Post #417,878
4/24/17 2:30:38 PM
4/24/17 2:30:38 PM
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I don't either, that's why I put my hand over my pocket when I bend over. ;0)
Although at 57, I'm less bendy than I once was. bcnu,
Mikem
It's mourning in America again.
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Post #417,907
4/25/17 8:01:20 PM
4/25/17 8:01:20 PM
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Me too! .... bend over next? hand-over-pocket is now robotically inculcated :-)
(Just happened to scan down, seeing "pocket" as re bloody slippery cel-fones, their vicissitudes I am forced to learn from scratch..)
..and from the Wise words of you previously-Infected by tiny-$$things-in-pockets. to lose, break or drown.
Blub--blub---Blub
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Post #417,614
4/4/17 4:20:27 PM
4/4/17 4:20:27 PM
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On LG
Man, do I ever dislike their Android skin. I had to fettle a family phone (an awful LG K8 - utterly hateful little thing) and LG have done a fine job of making stock Android even uglier.
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Post #417,619
4/4/17 8:13:33 PM
4/4/17 8:13:33 PM
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Not HMS QE's deck I hope >:-)
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Post #417,623
4/5/17 8:04:11 AM
4/5/17 8:04:11 AM
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I'd be waiting a while, if so!
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Post #417,677
4/10/17 5:20:20 PM
4/10/17 5:20:20 PM
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*chucks and runs*
Regards,
-scott
Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
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Post #417,681
4/11/17 1:53:57 AM
4/11/17 1:53:57 AM
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bgr.com?
Ugh, I strongly dislike that site. And it's not the dongle that's the issue - it's that you get to listen or you get to charge but you don't get to do both. And going single-port with Lightning? Didn't Apple just tell us, via the medium of the bracingly pricy new laptops, that the only port you need is USB-C?
One thing I didn't mention, though, is the camera. Apple has been seriously dragging its feet in this respect for quite some time. Even though the funky dual-lens feature of the iPhone 7 intrigued me, the camera as a package is still comprehensively outclassed by at least the Pixel, the S7 and now the S8.
I'm sure the iPhone 8 will have an improved camera - and it will be interesting to see if Apple has committed to the dual-lens idea - but whether it will be significantly better than phones other than the iPhone 7 remains to be seen.
Speed is an interesting thing in phones. All that really matters is that it's fast enough . My 6S+ has never given me cause to complain in this regard, and all I've read on the subject would indicate that Apple's very real speed advantage in storage is a significant contributor here.
But you know what? Fucking LastPass. Great app, great system, absolute pain in the arse on iOS. Android has a thing where LastPass can fill in passwords for apps, that being the whole point. iOS? Fuck you, swap between apps and manually copy and paste that motherfucker!
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Post #417,687
4/11/17 9:47:59 AM
4/11/17 9:47:59 AM
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Why do you think I ran? :-)
Regards,
-scott
Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
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Post #417,690
4/11/17 10:27:57 AM
4/11/17 10:27:57 AM
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Re: The Belkin one
I was about to point out the major problem then noticed they have a picture of it right there. Hang that thing from your phone in a car and it's going to keep dropping out every time you hit a bump. Maybe in California the roads don't cause that problem, but here in the midwest this would last about a week before the port was trashed.
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Post #417,691
4/11/17 10:29:35 AM
4/11/17 10:29:35 AM
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£35. Bloody hell.
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Post #417,694
4/11/17 11:44:24 AM
4/11/17 11:44:24 AM
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Speed will be interesting
I will have the 6S+ and S8+ side-by-side.
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Post #417,683
4/11/17 3:06:40 AM
4/11/17 3:06:40 AM
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Re: *chucks and runs*
I was amused, though, that the iPhone 7 is good at rendering 4K video. What with its 1080p screen, and all. Also, you know how you never read the comments? That goes double - no, triple - for bgr.com.
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Post #417,688
4/11/17 9:48:41 AM
4/11/17 9:48:41 AM
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It was a drive-by.
Why would I read the comments, I barely read the article... ;-) Regards,
-scott
Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
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Post #417,692
4/11/17 11:18:15 AM
4/11/17 11:18:15 AM
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Yeah, that 4K rendering stuff was kinda meaningless.
I'm sure speed comparisons between phones mean a lot to people who change between current generation phones all the time (tech reviewers), but I assume most people don't change phones more than every other year (if that). It's hard for the next phone not to be faster in that case.
I'm still not sold on Samsung. Them slowing down over time on the same phone seems to be a real problem.
Competition is good. I just hope a price war comes with it sometime soon. $700-1k for a phone is nuts.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #417,693
4/11/17 11:43:29 AM
4/11/17 11:43:29 AM
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There is a price war going on, right now
It's in the mid-range. If you don't want a top-tier screen and don't mind giving way on build quality and design, there's bargains to be had at the £200-£300 price range.
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Post #417,795
4/20/17 2:43:23 PM
4/20/17 2:43:23 PM
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It's here.
Y'all know the salient facts. Amazing display, misplaced fingerprint sensor, the frisson of danger that comes from wondering whether it'll explode, Bixby thinger, weird split of SnapDragon 835 for the US, Exynos something-or-other for the RoW.
Well, it's certainly exceeded my expectations. My current work phone is a Samsung Galaxy A3, running Android 6. It's ooooookay. To be fair, it does wifi calling and HD voice and runs Outlook, and that's 90% of my use case, right there. It's small and a bit clunky but it's a cheeky chappie that mostly gets the job done. It's the Norman Wisdom of the work phone world.
The Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus is not like this. The S8+ is tall and elegant and impeccably turned out.
The QHD+ screen is just glorious. I get a 6.2" display in a footprint that's narrower and only a shade taller than the iPhone 6S+. It's crisp and bright and vivid and the blacks are just so damn black (none more blacker!). DisplayMate have rated this as the best mobile display they've ever tested, and you can see why.
The build quality is (whisper it) as good as Apple's. Only with a notification LED and a front-facing IR camera that can scan your irises, and a heart-rate monitor, and no bezels to speak of, and Bluetooth 5, and a faster camera, and fast charging, and all the other things that are probably coming to the iPhone 8. The industrial design is clearly better than the iPhone 6 family; all the symmetry in the world on the bottom edge can't make up for the fact that OH EM GEE DEM BEZELS IZ YUGE. Anyhoo.
It's fast and easy and you can twiddle everything, and Samsung's apps (Health, Calendar in particular) are actually pretty good. Touchwiz looks pretty nice these days, especially compared to Norman.
Samsung provide a thing called Smart Switch, which lets your Galaxy plug into your iPhone and suck its brains out. It seamlessly transferred all my call history, message logs, pictures, music, files and so on. Easy as pie.
One thing that is interesting - the gulf in functionality between the iOS version of the Samsung Gear app and the Android version. Wow. How much of that is for technical reasons and how much is for political/marketing, I dunno. But iOS Gear can't do shit compared to Android Gear.
Android still puts a boatload of shit into the status bar (location, BT, wifi, 4G, alarm, battery, clock, uncle Tom Cobbely and all) and I'm pretty sure the notifications are made of witchcraft. Also (and in common with Apple), every single ringtone and alarm sound that comes with the phone is 100% twee bullshit.
Overall it seems like a pretty awesome phone. I got the orchid grey one, but that's kind of academic. I've only used it in the nude (the handset, not me) for long enough to go "woah, this is going in a case" and it's now in an orange UAG case. And all the S8 colours have a black front, presumably to help conceal the fleet of sensors and cameras.
Any questions?
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Post #417,796
4/20/17 2:44:31 PM
4/20/17 2:44:31 PM
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Oh, one more thing
Turns out that the fingerprint sensor is not at all in a dumb place if you're left-handed.
Fuck you, righties!
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Post #417,799
4/20/17 4:34:12 PM
4/20/17 4:34:12 PM
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That's sinister! :)
All of us righties can move on. Alex
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
-- Isaac Asimov
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Post #417,891
4/25/17 11:35:58 AM
4/25/17 11:35:58 AM
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Galaxy S8 and and S8 Plus drop test
"Pictures are better then words because some words are big and hard to understand"
Peter Griffin (Family Guy)
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Post #418,161
5/15/17 4:40:12 PM
5/15/17 4:40:12 PM
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Three weeks in.
The screen is still awesome. I picked up some LG HDR 10bit demo videos. Stunning stuff. Biometrics: iris scanner is eerily good (unlocking my phone by looking at my bleary 2AM eyes in total darkness in about 1 second flat). Fingerprint scanner is very accurate and fast - on par with the iPhone 6S+ which was so fast people whined about it. It's actually a little better than the iPhone's scanner at dealing with your fingerprint at jaunty angles. Face scanner? Dunno, don't use it. Smart lock is the shiz. This is a feature where you can set the phone to stay unlocked in a particular location, or in proximity to a specific device, or both. I keep my phone unlocked when it's near my watch (Gear S3), or at home. Always-on is nifty; no more unlocking your phone to see what the time is at night, assuming you're a post-clock person. You can flip the phone over to snooze an alarm. You can flip the phone to effectively put it into do not disturb mode. Fast charging is les tits. Surprisingly, the Samsung apps are actually very good, and in most cases are better than the Holy Stock Apps Of St. Google. The internet browser is faster, lighter, and fuller-featured than Chrome, and supports adblockers. The mail program looks and works great and has a nifty ability to "snooze" an unread email. It's long been known that S Planner is a better calendar than Google Calendar. The phone dialler has built-in spam call detection. Samsung Health is the mother of all health dashboards; I get to understand what a lazy shit I am in excruciating detail, all handily presented for at-a-glance viewing. This is also better than Apple Health, btw, and not just because it doesn't have those fuck-awful, un-disable-able tutorial videos front-and-centre. One notable exception to this trend is the keyboard. Gboard is better. Not in a slam-dunk way, but definitely better. Most of the time, the S8+ is better than my iPhone S6+ - not just in the hardware (which is basically front-to-back better and objectively so, but then it is two years newer) but in the software, too. Tracking autofocus in the camera. Fast HDR that actually makes a difference. Tuning the output of the sound system to match your exact ears. LastPass integration in apps, so no dicking around with the shitty iOS multitasking to copy and paste passwords. Split screen multitasking. Driving your phone from your PC via SideSync. No, I dunno either, but it's cool. Any MP3 as any notification sound. Driving two separate Bluetooth devices from two separate sound sources, simultaneously. No, I dunno either, but it's cool. Being able to change the system font to a serif font made a huge difference in readability to me. A BlackBerry-style notification LED (although I would like more configurability for this one feature). Themes, if that's your thing. I downloaded a bunch and then reverted to the default (although I do have this as my wallpaper). Whitelisting apps so they don't get put to sleep by the system when it's saving battery. A compass that doesn't want to be recalibrated every five fucking minutes. The "game launcher" thinger that scoops up all your games together into a folder where you can manage performance attributes so five minutes of Creature Quest doesn't eat 25% of your battery. Or it does, if many frames per second is what you like. OH HALLEFUCKINGLUJAH YOU CAN JUST TYPE A TIME INTO A TIME FIELD WITHOUT HAVING TO TWAT ABOUT WITH THE SPINNY THINGS. Notifications are still much better on Android. The Gallery app is a million times less confusing than iOS Photos. Or Moments. Or whatever the fuck it does or is called. There is also a bunch of stuff I miss. Swipe left to go back in just about everything. The iOS emoji are the best. Safari is a shitty browser from a webdev's POV (but eh, who cares?), but it handles video just about the best of any mobile browser. The mute switch is presumably patented out the wazoo, because this particular stroke of utter genius isn't present on any other phone I can think of. Being able to quickly swap aspect ratios in the camera. (sounds nerdy, but it's basically changing from "Instagram" to "normal" and back). But honestly, that's about it. This part of the post would be a lot longer if I was balls-deep in the Apple ecosystem, but I'm not, so it isn't. There's stuff that's a wash. Apple Pay and Android Pay are basically the same app with the same dumbass system for looking at your previous transactions. Both OSes have a giant pile of settings that need a search function. Since Android 7, permissions are no longer a slamdunk for iOS. (My old Nexus 7 tablet finished up with Android 6, and its permissions stuff is dogshit). Both phones shipped with a pile of tones and sounds that are all crap. Apple's stock wallpapers look better in the demo context, but Samsung's wallpapers work better day-to-day. Both phones look totally badass and are pretty much invincible when I slap an Urban Armor Gear Pathfinder case on them. So, no regrets.
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Post #418,163
5/15/17 5:15:50 PM
5/15/17 5:15:50 PM
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Couple more things I miss.
FaceTime. The nearest you can do is FB video chat, which isn't as good. iMessage is also excellent. FB Messenger works, but seamless handoff to and from SMS is what makes iMessage cool. You can swap the compass into being a spirit level.
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Post #418,171
5/15/17 9:07:17 PM
5/15/17 9:07:17 PM
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Re: Facetime
...Google Hangouts?
I'm pretty much your definition of an Apple Fanboi at this point, and I don't much care. But the rest of my family lives on the Google Phone ecosystem, so if I want to video call them, I use Google Hangouts. None of them are tech-savvy enough to even know how to spell Skype, I wot, so that's right out. -Mike
@MikeVitale42
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 Historical Review of Pennsylvania
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Post #418,172
5/15/17 9:52:16 PM
5/15/17 9:52:16 PM
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Re: Facetime
Heh, no. Never getting chained to any Google product that isn't search, maps or mail. That goes double for messaging. They're all on Facebook anyway.
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Post #418,180
5/16/17 7:07:25 AM
5/16/17 7:07:25 AM
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Why that distinction? No Hangouts, but yes Mail
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Post #418,185
5/16/17 12:44:21 PM
5/16/17 12:45:50 PM
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Google burns everything that everyone loves
Edited by pwhysall
May 16, 2017, 12:45:50 PM EDT
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Post #418,187
5/16/17 1:43:42 PM
5/16/17 1:43:42 PM
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I liked Reader
Plenty of other people spun up replacements, and I'm happy with what I've got now, but that one seemed stupid. Why would they not want to know what people are reading?
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Post #418,207
5/17/17 4:18:27 PM
5/17/17 4:18:27 PM
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Pity that your Main Hat is (in the betting parlour?)
because that's just the bestest al-punte Review I've seen in donkeys' years :-) Someone would PAY you just for them l33t communication skillz. [prolly not enough, though {{sigh}}]
I mean, the shit be all ranked in importance, nary a phrase on some niggly-inconsequentiality (is that even a word yet?) and.. it a l m o s t . . makes me want to play in the same sandbox of, finding the Max-[+]s / a min of [-]s in one of these gadgets. But nope; I have yet-to ...watch the bloody 1.5 hr. How-to video of all the stuff in the 6S+, though I Can see that I'd use more of the featurz-Sets/sets/and outsourced, were I to force the little grey cells into that genre.
I just Don't want to HAVE-to have this sucker at arms length! 24/7-next ... and forever.
Y'Know??
(obv.: when it makes one's own Job lots easier/or even possible, in some instances ... well, that's a hearse of another colour.)
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