Google Android catch-all

Benticore you might look at the Moto G5 plus. It's got everything except USB c and the home button, and it's pretty cheap. It's not out yet but should be this month.

DSGamer wrote:

Double-clicking an iPhone 7 home button is awful. I had to return that phone.

I adapted to it pretty quickly, especially after turning down the force required to a minimum. It's almost a soft button that doesn't rob you of screen real estate at that point.

Kurrelgyre wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

Double-clicking an iPhone 7 home button is awful. I had to return that phone.

I adapted to it pretty quickly, especially after turning down the force required to a minimum. It's almost a soft button that doesn't rob you of screen real estate at that point.

Seems like a big button forces the screen to be smaller than it could be. The mock ups of the Iphone without the button look nice, but I doubt it will be that bezeless.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

Benticore you might look at the Moto G5 plus. It's got everything except USB c and the home button, and it's pretty cheap. It's not out yet but should be this month.

I have been waiting on the Pixel for about a month now but still no stock for the unlocked version. Maybe I should just get something like that to hold me over for a year or so. It says it's a "mid range" phone and it shows that in the price but what are the downsides? Is it just an older processor?

EvilDead wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:

Benticore you might look at the Moto G5 plus. It's got everything except USB c and the home button, and it's pretty cheap. It's not out yet but should be this month.

I have been waiting on the Pixel for about a month now but still no stock for the unlocked version. Maybe I should just get something like that to hold me over for a year or so. It says it's a "mid range" phone and it shows that in the price but what are the downsides? Is it just an older processor?

Lower speed processor (if it's like my G4 Plus - that translates into great battery longevity), 1080p screen (not 4K), no NFC, and a nice but not spectacular camera are the places where it takes a hit. Honestly I didn't miss any of those, which made the G4 Plus a hell of a deal that made me question $700+ phones. I expect the G5 Plus will be an even better one.

Benticore wrote:

So Im thinking I need a new phone to replace my trusty but aging S4.

I can't really make heads or tails of the phones out now but I'm pretty sure I DONT want an S8 (Way too expensive and too tall to use one handed). I'd like to avoid a phone with a glass back as well. Really I'm looking for a phone that has:

  • 64gigs + Internal Memory
  • USB-C
  • Micro SD Card Slot
  • Solid Battery Life
  • An actual home button (not just a fingerprint scanner)
  • Not locked down like Fort Knox
  • Not filled to the brim with unremoveable bloatware
  • Available on ATT or Tmobile (I'd switch if it made sense)
  • Not more than $600 if possible

I've been creeping around various tech sites looking at various phones and what not and thought maybe the 6P or the OnePlus3T or maybe the MotoZ but they all are missing this or that. You all seem to be a LOT more knowledgeable about these infernal devices so I come, hat in hand, for your wise and sage advice.

If you have some recommendations, I'd love that. But maybe even just a place to look at some of these devices. I'm not too concerned about an older model phone (Still rocking that S4, Baby) as long as it works and is relatively tough enough for me to drop it (I always drop these damn things) without it shattering into a million pieces in slow motion as tragic music plays...

Thanks in Advance!

I would take a closer look at the Moto Z Play. From your list there is not a true home button and it only has 32 gb of internal memory. What it does have is excellent battery life, comes unlocked for ATT/TMobile, no bloatware, micro SD slot, front fingerprint button, excellent battery life (it's worth mentioning twice), and a price of $450. I got one for my wife and one for my son and I really like the phone. If I had to turn in my GS7 for it the only thing I think I'd really miss is the camera. The Z's is good but not great like the S7. Well, that and the size. It's a pretty big phone. My wife loves it.

I'd be a little cautious about recommending the Moto phones - I liked the Motorola-built ones, but the newer Lenovo-built ones are significantly less good (just had to send the wife's G4 Plus back for a warranty repair).

I have a general question, although I'm not sure this is the right thread. How is it legal for search engines (and now AI assistants like Alexa and Siri and Google Home) to directly provide answers without giving reference to their source? I know journalists would get in trouble for using someone else's research in their own stories. I'm especially curious how Alexa and Siri get their information to answer your questions, since neither of those companies own their own search engine...

Benticore: Some of the down-model Samsung products might be to your liking. Not the ones with glass construction. A7? A5? They're cheap. Well, not cheap. Cheaper than flagships. I'm throwing in with the OnePlus3T, though. I think that's your best bet.

Samsung Gear S3:

I got myself one of these after waiting for the early adopters to get a handle on it and release reviews. I've looked at previous smartwatches before, but this is the one that finally makes it usable for my purposes.

These are the essentials that I required:

1. Must last more than 1 day. The S3 lasts 2. Four, if you're really stingy with the battery.

2. Must have acceptable call quality. To me, this is the smartwatch's killer app. I need it to be a handsfree device. The S3 isn't completely handsfree (you need to turn the bezel to answer), but it's otherwise good enough to be workable. I don't have to talk to my wrist when I'm using the wristphone. I can keep doing what I'm doing and still make the call. Sometimes, that's driving (yeah, I know). Sometimes, that's cycling. Sometimes, that's lying down in bed and the phone is way over there and I'm too tired to get up.

I have wireless bluetooth earpieces. I don't use them because they get caught in my clothes when I change for OR procedures, and I do that a lot. They also make cycling kind of risky, IMO.

3. Must be weatherproof. I don't want to have to shield the thing from rain. It gets really rainy where I live.

4. Must have hassle-free charging. I don't want to have to plug one more thing. The fact that the watch charges on a wireless cradle that takes zero effort to position right is a major thing.

5. Must have core apps. The Tizen store is a barren wasteland compare to the Apple and Android stores for smart watches, but the batteries on these things aren't really robust enough for you to play games on it and what not. We're not there yet. So I get Spotify. I get a map app. I get my schedule. Timer. Stopwatch. News. Calculator. MyFitnessPal. Yeah. I'm covered. Anything above that is gravy.

6. Last but not the least, I must not want to throw the watch at the wall because I have to swipe at a tiny screen to get at something important. The bezel navigation is genius.

Bonus thing I like about the S3: It's not essential but it was the bonus thing that made me finally pull the trigger on the purchase. The screen is gorgeous. The battery life is horrible compared to Pebbles, but that screen! I can take two days of battery life for that. It's not like I'm plugging it in anyway.

I just got a Pixel XL (32GB because I couldn't wait for the 128GB to restock) through Project Fi and honestly I kinda love it. I also got my wife the Nexus 5X because she wants to take better baby pictures than her older HTC Desire could offer.

Few things I've noticed so far:

- The XL is not nearly as big as I was expecting. IN spite of reading the dimensions, I just had it in my head that it'd be the size of a Galaxy Note or something. In reality, it's barely bigger than the HTC one M8 that it replaced.

- The Nexus 5X is light! My wife is worried she's going to lose or break it. I've already ordered protective cases for both of us.

- Project Fi is kinda weird, but it's saving us $30 a month over the $97/mo Cricket Wireless bills we were paying. My parents called me last night and since I was on my wifi network the regular phone call came in through Google Hangouts, which I wasn't prepared for. We thought they were calling through Skype to see the baby at first, since all my computers lit up with a notification.

That'll take a little getting used to, but the savings! These phones will practically pay for themselves within a couple years.

OK, so I have decided I'm going to get the Pixel or Moto G5 Plus. Whatever becomes available first. They both appear to work on Verizon.

Does anyone know if it is simple as just moving over my SIM card or do I have to call them and pay BS activation fees? Secondly, I'm planning on giving my iPhone to a family member that is on our non contract family plan. I assume that will work with a simple sim card swap?

EvilDead wrote:

OK, so I have decided I'm going to get the Pixel or Moto G5 Plus. Whatever becomes available first. They both appear to work on Verizon.

Does anyone know if it is simple as just moving over my SIM card or do I have to call them and pay BS activation fees? Secondly, I'm planning on giving my iPhone to a family member that is on our non contract family plan. I assume that will work with a simple sim card swap?

On Verizon it's as simple as moving over a SIM card. Wish it were that way on all carriers.

Awesome! Thanks.

WipEout wrote:

- Project Fi is kinda weird, but it's saving us $30 a month over the $97/mo Cricket Wireless bills we were paying. My parents called me last night and since I was on my wifi network the regular phone call came in through Google Hangouts, which I wasn't prepared for. We thought they were calling through Skype to see the baby at first, since all my computers lit up with a notification.

That'll take a little getting used to, but the savings! These phones will practically pay for themselves within a couple years.

Yeah I love it. Although I don't think I use the hangouts calling. But my bills have all been $26-28 the last 4 months. It's awesome.

Yeah, I'm not sure if the hangouts call was due to being on wifi, because the phone itself answered through the regular phone app.... thing. But the computers in both the living room and office popped up with hangouts notifications, which was a first for me (it's also the first call I've received since I got this thing).

I don't use Project Fi (it isn't available for Google Apps accounts yet, damn you Google), but I have been using Google voice since it launched and when they integrated it with Google Hangouts it does the same thing. I take 90% of my phone calls from my computer.

kazar wrote:

I don't use Project Fi (it isn't available for Google Apps accounts yet, damn you Google), but I have been using Google voice since it launched and when they integrated it with Google Hangouts it does the same thing. I take 90% of my phone calls from my computer.

Just curious, even with a Google Apps account, couldn't you just set up a regular gmail account for the primary on the phone, then still add the Apps account? Then just don't have anything sync on the gmail, and set the Apps account as primary for everything.

kazar wrote:

I don't use Project Fi (it isn't available for Google Apps accounts yet, damn you Google), but I have been using Google voice since it launched and when they integrated it with Google Hangouts it does the same thing. I take 90% of my phone calls from my computer.

I don't use Fi either. It still isn't cheaper then Ting.com for our use case but we have been using Voice since it was GrandCentral and love it. We have changed cell carriers 3 times in the last 9ish years since we started using it and just change Voice to the new cell numbers in the background. We also have a Ooma at the house that rings for either mine or my wife's Voice numbers. I do all of my work calls at my pc over hangouts and have for years.

MannishBoy wrote:
kazar wrote:

I don't use Project Fi (it isn't available for Google Apps accounts yet, damn you Google), but I have been using Google voice since it launched and when they integrated it with Google Hangouts it does the same thing. I take 90% of my phone calls from my computer.

Just curious, even with a Google Apps account, couldn't you just set up a regular gmail account for the primary on the phone, then still add the Apps account? Then just don't have anything sync on the gmail, and set the Apps account as primary for everything.

I could but then I would get SMS on a different hangout account as my main hangout accounts and have to deal with jumping back and forth. It is possible, but not clean. I would also have to move my phone number to the new account since you can't have to google voice accounts pointing to the same number.

dewalist wrote:

I have a general question, although I'm not sure this is the right thread. How is it legal for search engines (and now AI assistants like Alexa and Siri and Google Home) to directly provide answers without giving reference to their source? I know journalists would get in trouble for using someone else's research in their own stories.

Plagiarism and not mentioning what your source was are both bad, but not illegal.

If the text is straight up copied, the author could make a copyright claim.

MikeSands wrote:
dewalist wrote:

I have a general question, although I'm not sure this is the right thread. How is it legal for search engines (and now AI assistants like Alexa and Siri and Google Home) to directly provide answers without giving reference to their source? I know journalists would get in trouble for using someone else's research in their own stories.

Plagiarism and not mentioning what your source was are both bad, but not illegal.

If the text is straight up copied, the author could make a copyright claim.

Interesting. The problem is that if assistants become the main form of interaction with the web, how are all of those sites going to survive on ad revenue without hits? Google will index their page once but serve up the answer millions of times. There should be some kind of referral program that pays sites when assistants use their content.

I think the calls through hangouts thing is something you have to configure. I've been on Fi almost a year, and my wifi calls ring through like a normal phone call. It's actually great, because the cell service at our house is poor, even from Verizon, so calling over WiFi has vastly improved call quality at home.

IMAGE(http://www.results.org.uk/sites/default/files/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/DSC_0011.jpg)

^ That's a big if.

dewalist wrote:

The problem is that if assistants become the main form of interaction with the web

^ That's a bigger one.

You know if you have more than one google device and say Ok Google all of them go off. To bad I can't give them different triggers. Had to turn them all off except for the one that will rule them all.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

You know if you have more than one google device and say Ok Google all of them go off. To bad I can't give them different triggers. Had to turn them all off except for the one that will rule them all.

That happens to me but only one actually responds.

So I've started having the damnedest problem on my S7 Edge in the last few days.
I don't seem to be able to get internet on some apps or at least very slow.
Chrome, Bacon Reader, Facebook are no problem.
But Marvel PQ and the Economist apps don't seem to work and Google Play and Gmail seem to have partial loading issues.
I am stumped on where to start debugging this.
I haven't done any major updates since then that I can remember.
Any thoughts?

This may be a dumb question, but does the degraded internet performance happen on both WiFi and your mobile network?

My Galaxy S5 has these issues intermittently, but we've isolated the problem to our home router. Turning off the WiFi and forcing it to mobile data resolves the issue at home, and it doesn't occur on my office network or in transit.

My Pixel seems to have been hit with the microphone issue

Was making calls this weekend and no one could hear me. Other times phone was not playing sounds for ringing or notification. Rebooting into safe mode and regular mode sometimes fixed and sometimes didn't.

Replacement device shipped today.

It's been a rough 3 days not being able ​to use my phone as an actual phone.

Yay early adoption.

Polliwog wrote:

This may be a dumb question, but does the degraded internet performance happen on both WiFi and your mobile network?

My Galaxy S5 has these issues intermittently, but we've isolated the problem to our home router. Turning off the WiFi and forcing it to mobile data resolves the issue at home, and it doesn't occur on my office network or in transit.

Do you mean due to hitting the download caps? Then no. WiFi speed is not effected by that at all.

Stele wrote:

My Pixel seems to have been hit with the microphone issue

Was making calls this weekend and no one could hear me. Other times phone was not playing sounds for ringing or notification. Rebooting into safe mode and regular mode sometimes fixed and sometimes didn't.

Replacement device shipped today.

It's been a rough 3 days not being able ​to use my phone as an actual phone.

Yay early adoption. ;)

Yup, my Pixel fell victim to the same issue! Just put in for my replacement yesterday. Kinda of sucks finding out the video you took of one of your kids birthday party has no sounds.