Google Android catch-all

I'm still a fan of my 10" Lenovo Tab 2 A10. LaptopMag's site still has it as their "best under $200" tablet.

*Legion* wrote:

I'm still a fan of my 10" Lenovo Tab 2 A10.

How has Lenovo been for providing it with O.S. updates? Or does the literature saying it comes with Android 4.4 still remain true?

I have a $10 credit I need to use. Anybody tried any paid Daydream VR games that are worth it?

I've just dabbled with the free stuff so far but I could get one of those $5 or $8 games for free now too.

EDIT: I see Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is on there. Heard good things about it on PC too.

I was going to suggest that. The premise is great. 2 person game for VR headset! You can also play with the Google Assistant as your alternative player. Taht seems to be pretty amusing.
http://www.daydreamdistrict.com/keep...

That site, by the way, reviews pretty much every app for the daydream.

edit: i think this is the video where he plays with teh assistant

Yeah that might be worth the whole $10. I'll take any other suggestions today, but I'm going to pull the trigger on something tonight and have to play with family and friends this weekend.

Kurrelgyre wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

I'm still a fan of my 10" Lenovo Tab 2 A10.

How has Lenovo been for providing it with O.S. updates? Or does the literature saying it comes with Android 4.4 still remain true?

It comes with 4.4, but the updates bring it to 5.0.1, which unfortunately appears to be as far as it's going to go.

Still, since hardly anyone seems to want to make 10" Android tablets, and many of the ones that do honestly think 1366x768 or 1280x800 is an acceptable display resolution for a 10" screen, there's not a whole lot of other options. And at least they sell it for a sub-$200 price.

I dug in to the keyboard settings, and put back symbols on long press, but there's no way to put the emoji button back on long press of enter. I'm left handed so having it where spacebar space used to be on the left is arse. Arrrgh!

Stele wrote:

Yeah that might be worth the whole $10. I'll take any other suggestions today, but I'm going to pull the trigger on something tonight and have to play with family and friends this weekend.

Holy crap it was so amazing defusing bombs with friends and parents tonight. Amazing!

Great that it was free but I would have got $10 worth out of it just for a few hours tonight. Looking forward to playing more on the future.

My iPhone 5S (service through AT&T) is developing hardware problems, and I am thinking about replacing it with an Android. I am bewildered by the number of manufacturers and models out there. What phones should I look at?

My main arbitrary constraint is that I'd like something close in size to my current phone (about 2.5" by 5"), and bigger screens seem to be in vogue.

Development will continue as LineageOS, as they disentangle from Cyanogen Inc, before anyone panics before reading the story.

misplacedbravado wrote:

My iPhone 5S (service through AT&T) is developing hardware problems, and I am thinking about replacing it with an Android. I am bewildered by the number of manufacturers and models out there. What phones should I look at?

My main arbitrary constraint is that I'd like something close in size to my current phone (about 2.5" by 5"), and bigger screens seem to be in vogue.

Yeah, that's tough, as even Apple has abandoned that size in their primary phone lines, relegating it to the "iPhone SE" line.

Here's a "best mini/compact phone" list.

*Legion* wrote:

Development will continue as LineageOS, as they disentangle from Cyanogen Inc, before anyone panics before reading the story. :)

I have a hard time believing that manufactures like OnePlus are going to start using a community mod. Would it not be possible for them to switch to stock android?

*Legion* wrote:

Yeah, that's tough, as even Apple has abandoned that size in their primary phone lines, relegating it to the "iPhone SE" line.

Here's a "best mini/compact phone" list.

Wow -- most of the "compact" phones are already bigger than I'm looking for!

I suppose I'll have to go to a physical store and play with demo models, to get a feel for what might work for me.

misplacedbravado wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

Yeah, that's tough, as even Apple has abandoned that size in their primary phone lines, relegating it to the "iPhone SE" line.

Here's a "best mini/compact phone" list.

Wow -- most of the "compact" phones are already bigger than I'm looking for!

I suppose I'll have to go to a physical store and play with demo models, to get a feel for what might work for me.

I think 5" screens have become the new "compact". I can remember when I got my Evo thinking that might be crazy big (4.3" screen), but now that phone screen feels tiny. Part of that is the bezels have shrank, but it's really what you get used to. Now I'm carrying a 5.5" screen, which again I thought would be too big, but I got used to it. I may go smaller next time, depends on what's out there when I upgrade.

I'd suggest looking at a Pixel 5" to see if you can deal with it.

Going to a 5" screen definitely makes the phone more usable. You won't believe how much until you try to go back I bet.

I went back to a sub-5" screen in the iPhone 6S. I much prefer the smaller phone at this point. Not sure if I could go back to something like the 5S (or SE now) at this point.

I use Chrome occasionally on my phone, but every time I open it it starts by opening the page that was opened last, is there any way to stop it from doing that? I toured all the settings I could find and couldn't see a relevant option.

Not letting it store any history would achieve that, I guess, but that's more extreme than what I want.

Chrome for Android remembers the tabs that were open unless you explicitly go into the tab switcher and then use the overflow menu to close all of them. Of course, signing out of your Google account in Chrome might make it work the way you want, and there are other browsers out there for Android, like Firefox.

Kurrelgyre wrote:

and there are other browsers out there for Android, like Firefox.

Which I highly recommend using. Firefox is Android's killer app IMO, since it's the only mobile browser with real honest to god extensions support.

Can't decide between a Pixel or a Nexus 6P. I'm in a slightly weirder position financially than I've ever been in with a baby coming in a couple weeks and the wife having been laid off, but my current phone is beginning to act strange. I was planning on upgrading to a Pixel but then the wife got laid off and that threw a bit of a wrench in things, obviously.

Looks like there's a wait to get a Pixel XL which is what I'd prefer to have, but it also comes with a hefty price tag anyway. Ideally I'd like to have the phone ASAP so I can get settled in before the baby comes (Jan. 24th). Having an XL delivered on the 20th would be cutting it close.

The 6P is older, but is still beefy and has a pretty good camera. The larger screen from the standard Pixel is awesome. They're getting close to sold out but can get one for $450 still.

The regular Pixel is smaller than I'd like, but I'd make it work because the sticker shock on the XL is just so damn high.

So I'm stuck thinking I'll go 6P and pay out of pocket the $450 or do the ~$30/month installment plan on the Pixel.

Is the Pixel really worth $200 than the 6P?

garion333 wrote:

Is the Pixel really worth $200 than the 6P?

Can't say 100% as I've never seen the 6P. But I do love my pixel.

Camera is fantastic. Fingerprint scanner is lightning quick and I love having it on the back for quick index finger access. Can use either phone with Fi, so that's a tie.

Daydream VR has been pretty cool so far too, but I got that free with pre-order. Not sure another $80 on top of phone justifies it.

edit: nevermind, I'm trying to figure out what's going on with CyanogenMod. Rumor claimed they shut down instantly when Lineage was announced, but they look partway up at the moment.... but I'm not able to actually download images. So I dunno.

I'm now interested in either a Google Home or an Amazon Echo. I'm leaning towards the Home. The Echo has the API out there for add-in skills, but I just don't think you can beat Google's natural language AI. I also use the Chromecast which will tie into Google. Unfortunately I buy my music from Amazon, but I'm guessing pretty much everything is accessible from YouTube anyway.

Has anyone else done research/tested out both to come to some conclusions?

I kind of hate having my stuff split up between ecosystems that aren't compatible.

Nevin73 wrote:

I'm now interested in either a Google Home or an Amazon Echo. I'm leaning towards the Home. The Echo has the API out there for add-in skills, but I just don't think you can beat Google's natural language AI. I also use the Chromecast which will tie into Google. Unfortunately I buy my music from Amazon, but I'm guessing pretty much everything is accessible from YouTube anyway.

Has anyone else done research/tested out both to come to some conclusions?

I kind of hate having my stuff split up between ecosystems that aren't compatible.

I just got the Google Home. My biggest complaint is that it only works with one account which is silly since most households have more then one person. The IFTTT support opens up some doors.

I buy my music from Amazon too, but thankfully they are DRM free. I run a Plex server but there isn't Plex support on Home yet.

What's your use case for it / what are you looking to do with it?

I have an Echo and the only thing Google-related that I really do with it is that I have it hooked up to my Google Calendar so that I can ask it what I've got on my schedule for the day, and it works fine for that.

Don't have a Chromecast so I couldn't tell you what kind of integration (if any) is on offer there.

Does anyone happen to have a Samsung Gear Fit 2 and could opine on it? I'm looking at it as a replacement for my Pebble.

Double post.

Having a use case for new technology is the exact thing I ask anyone wanting something new, so good point there.

I guess I'm most excited about a verbal AI helper. The phone-based Google Assistant is only usable when my phone is unlocked so an always available AI would be useful, especially since I work from home. Also, since I utilize Google for contacts, calendar, and notes (Keep), the integration with should be more seamless. I don't care about buying stuff through Alexa since I prefer to read reviews and whatnot prior to my buying decisions.

Nevin73 wrote:

Having a use case for new technology is the exact thing I ask anyone wanting something new, so good point there.

I guess I'm most excited about a verbal AI helper. The phone-based Google Assistant is only usable when my phone is unlocked so an always available AI would be useful, especially since I work from home. Also, since I utilize Google for contacts, calendar, and notes (Keep), the integration with should be more seamless. I don't care about buying stuff through Alexa since I prefer to read reviews and whatnot prior to my buying decisions.

I will say that one thing I wish the Echo could do that it doesn't is add reminders to my Google Calendar. It reads events that are already there just fine, but if I try to tell it "remind me to do X at Y o'clock" the way I could to my phone, it will just try to set a timer or alarm for Y o'clock, which is less than helpful.

So it's certainly possible that the Google Home might be better for stuff like that, but not owning one myself, I couldn't say for sure.

Taharka wrote:

Does anyone happen to have a Samsung Gear Fit 2 and could opine on it? I'm looking at it as a replacement for my Pebble.

I don't know anything about the Gear Fit, but I bought a TicWatch 2 for my daughter for Christmas. I am thinking about getting myself one now to replace my Pebble Time. I don't know what you are looking for, but it does all that I need. It's um... a watch, minor health tracking, battery that can last more than a work day, it's not Android wear, not over $200, etc.

Since it is my daughter's, I haven't spent too much time playing with it, but it seems like the only thing that can fill Pebbles shoes.