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My iPhone 5 is falling apart and I'd like to go back to Windows phone for a bit -- I really miss my old HTC Titan and also had an 8X for a while. Love the interface and don't care much about apps, do want a decent camera. The Lumia 640 looks pretty good; I like the specs on the 640 XL but it might be too big. It isn't clear yet when either will be available in the US. The UK pre-order price for the 640 converts to about $250 USD. At the same time, I can get an unlocked Lumia 830 on Amazon right now for around $300. I know the chipset is dated but overall the specs appear adequate. The design also seems like a step up. Would I be better off waiting for the 640 to drop, or buying the 830 now? Or something else?
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Mar 19, 2015 18:03
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| # ? May 14, 2024 08:55 |
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Don't get a windows phone.
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Mar 19, 2015 18:53
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With regards to the potential for supported roms... don't get your hopes up. Lets wait until theres actually a fully working WP rom on a recent shipping android phone before we get all excited about it.
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Mar 19, 2015 19:07
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New Lumia phone! http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/19/8256167/microsoft-lumia-430-features-specifications
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Mar 19, 2015 20:26
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"Cheapest yet"!
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Mar 19, 2015 20:38
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I feel like the phrase "cheapest Windows Phone yet" has been included in multiple Verge headlines already
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Mar 19, 2015 20:51
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gloom posted:My iPhone 5 is falling apart and I'd like to go back to Windows phone for a bit -- I really miss my old HTC Titan and also had an 8X for a while. Love the interface and don't care much about apps, do want a decent camera. The Lumia 640 looks pretty good; I like the specs on the 640 XL but it might be too big. It isn't clear yet when either will be available in the US. The UK pre-order price for the 640 converts to about $250 USD. At the same time, I can get an unlocked Lumia 830 on Amazon right now for around $300. I know the chipset is dated but overall the specs appear adequate. The design also seems like a step up. I'd either get a 830 or look into a 930 which are available for not that much more than 830s these days.
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Mar 19, 2015 21:32
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Uthor posted:New Lumia phone! Next up: Microsoft pays you to take a Windows Phone! I get it. Crank out dollar store devices to conquer India, US, everywhere!!1, but the strategy is getting tired. Just seems like a desperate market share lunge, not that they don't need exactly that...
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Mar 20, 2015 03:45
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http://www.windowscentral.com/unannounced-zte-nubia-z9-shown-running-windows-10-winhec-2015windowscentral posted:It has a 5.2-inch full HD display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, a 16MP rear camera with object image stabilization, and even an 8MP front-facing camera.
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Mar 20, 2015 08:30
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Well, if that ends being true, let's see if anyone doesn't call that a flagship phone, at least by specs.
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Mar 20, 2015 12:22
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Looks like the Audible beta works great, everyone get a Windows Phone Until something I need no longer works, then nobody get a Windows Phone I wish I was being sarcastic
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Mar 20, 2015 13:51
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ElGroucho posted:Looks like the Audible beta works great, everyone get a Windows Phone Does it have variable reading speeds? Apparently not having that is an instant purchase-killer for certain heavy audiobook users
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Mar 20, 2015 13:52
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For anyone who still gives a poo poo about VLC for Windows Phone, a new update was pushed that adds "Partial Hardware Acceleration", meaning that your videos should actually run at full speed now. This is because they are using MediaElement now for actually playing the videos (The same as you would use in any video WinRT app), instead of VLC itself. So basically if you're using VLC, you just get a kinda nice gui and that's about it.
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Mar 20, 2015 14:20
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Is that for compatibility over multiple versions or what? I thought WP8+ had Direct3D and DXVA APIs available?!
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Mar 20, 2015 15:01
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Combat Pretzel posted:Is that for compatibility over multiple versions or what? I thought WP8+ had Direct3D and DXVA APIs available?! It's because of ARM. Right now LibVLC does not support hardware acceleration for ARM systems. While they work on it, they wanted a simple solution to stop people bitching at them for having "slow videos" on their Lumia 520s. So at some point it will be removed, and everything will go back through LibVLC, but for now the entire stack for audio and video playback is through Microsoft's framework. Unless they don't support it, in which case it goes back to LibVLC. But the user won't know when that happens. Ninja Edit: Note that I did tell them it was stupid doing this (As in, the VLC app is VLC in name only). But they didn't care  .
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Mar 20, 2015 15:07
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The hardware that Windows Phone will support is expanding. http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/03/windows-10-phones-to-get-bigger-smaller-faster-and-maybe-even-x86ier/
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Mar 20, 2015 16:07
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Uthor posted:The hardware that Windows Phone will support is expanding. I hope it's true as the processors and resolutions is really encouraging. There could be some really incredible Hero phones at BUILD. Stick100 fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Mar 20, 2015 |
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Mar 20, 2015 16:21
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My nexus 5 wore out after less than a year, so I picked up a Lumia 530 for cheap. I grabbed the baconit and awful forums reader apps, but they both load up the forums MUCH slower than just going to the sites in IE. Is this normal? Also, the awful forums app looks really really bad. Ps: Any suggestions on a good music player?
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Mar 20, 2015 19:27
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The Awful forums app runs fine for me, but then I have a different phone (925). As a good music player I normally use Quickplay Pro (free version just doesn't play from folders), Folderplay is a quick and dirty player and goon made Harmony streams music from your OneDrive Account. I'd go with Quickplay and native Xbox Music. Oh, if you plan on browsing the forums through IE, consider using UC Browser wich is present on Android aswell, is a great browser with more features than IE at the moment.
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Mar 20, 2015 20:40
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radiatinglines posted:My nexus 5 wore out after less than a year, so I picked up a Lumia 530 for cheap. I grabbed the baconit and awful forums reader apps, but they both load up the forums MUCH slower than just going to the sites in IE. Is this normal? Also, the awful forums app looks really really bad. Use Readit for reddit. I prefer that to baconit. Works great for me.
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Mar 20, 2015 20:46
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radiatinglines posted:I grabbed the baconit and awful forums reader apps, but they both load up the forums MUCH slower than just going to the sites in IE. There was some performance issues when switching from the threads list to a thread. It's fixed in the beta, and eventually I'll push that out to the store. It runs fine on my development Lumia 520.
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Mar 20, 2015 21:01
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Thanks guys. I got readit and it is actually pretty badass so far. I tried the other SA app that is just called "Awful." and it loads a lot faster and looks good, but throws up errors like "out of memory at line 1," which mean nothing to me. I also got quickplay pro, and it looks pretty slick, but sadly you can't use swipe gestures. I like to be able to take my phone off hold, swipe the next song, and put it back on hold while driving without having to look down at all. Also, there's no quick option to shuffle all of my songs. I don't like having to go to "songs," pick one, and turn on the random switch. The shuffle button on the homepage and "go to album / go to artist" option in now playing in the google music app can't be beat. It's really frustrating to get apps without these QoL features that I have come to see as basic poo poo from apps at this point. I feel like I've stepped backward in time loving around with these things. hawowanlawow fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Mar 21, 2015 |
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Mar 21, 2015 01:44
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Inspect Your Gadgets > Windows Phone - I feel like I've stepped backwards in time
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Mar 21, 2015 02:02
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radiatinglines posted:I tried the other SA app that is just called "Awful." and it loads a lot faster and looks good, but throws up errors like "out of memory at line 1," which mean nothing to me. You might want to abandon ship with Awful. It was being graciously developed by bootleg robot  but I don't think it's been updated in over a year. Stick with the Awful Forums Reader, graciously under development by Drastic Actions. If you have any issues with it, he's a darling for addressing them.
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Mar 21, 2015 02:28
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WattsvilleBlues posted:You might want to abandon ship with Awful. It was being graciously developed by bootleg robot Speaking of, Awful Forums Reader (v.4.9.8.15) has been crashing on my Icon sporadically for the past few weeks. I'll be reading a thread and all of a sudden get an unprovoked crash back to the Start screen. Sorry Drastic Actions: I know you mentioned a dedicated thread or something similar before, but I couldn't find it. If you could drop a link to wherever you want me to submit bugs or problems to, I'll do that from now on.
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Mar 21, 2015 02:36
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radiatinglines posted:Thanks guys. I just turned on the mobile theme in the forum settings. It works pretty good. Unfortunately it's desktop first, so you gotta watch it be desktop view, then pop to mobile. quote:Also, there's no quick option to shuffle all of my songs. I don't like having to go to "songs," pick one, and turn on the random switch. The shuffle button on the homepage and "go to album / go to artist" option in now playing in the google music app can't be beat. That button is on the bottom of the "Collection" section. I'd say "so there!" but it's 2 swipes in either direction so it's not dry useful. The button used to be right on the first screen, but it was lost in the great music reaping of 8.1
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Mar 21, 2015 02:37
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Charles Martel posted:Speaking of, Awful Forums Reader (v.4.9.8.15) has been crashing on my Icon sporadically for the past few weeks. I'll be reading a thread and all of a sudden get an unprovoked crash back to the Start screen. It's in project.log, in the cavern of Cobal. What I'll tell you is wait until Build for a new release. I have plans to do a (more or less) rewrite for it.
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Mar 21, 2015 03:07
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Drastic Actions posted:It's in project.log, in the cavern of Cobal. Gotcha. I found it this time and bookmarked it. 
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Mar 21, 2015 03:50
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http://www.windowscentral.com/metropcs-launch-microsoft-lumia-640-mid-late-may-priced-99 Article claims a $99 pricetag for an off-contract MetroPCS-branded Lumia 640, but delayed til May. That's less than half of the price of the UK versions of the phone, apparently available on preorder now? Dunno how that works. It also suggests the 640XL is only temporarily exclusive to AT&T. I hope that's the case. I think it's important to get that official hi-end flagship out (to set the proverbial bar, as MS do with their Surface), but my frugal self really likes the value from the lo-end phones.
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Mar 21, 2015 09:34
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Drastic Actions posted:It's because of ARM. Right now LibVLC does not support hardware acceleration for ARM systems.
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Mar 21, 2015 13:09
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Combat Pretzel posted:I don't get it? VLC can do hardware acceleration via DXVA on desktop Windows. I thought DXVA is available on WP8? This isn't an ARM thing. Either I'm wrong about API availability, or the graphics drivers on the WP devices don't support DXVA. I think it's an API issue with WP in general, but I don't have the details. All I know is that it's possible, and work is being done to do it. It's just not there right this now. The only thing I know for sure is that they read the tumblr post I wrote about it and now they hate me.
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Mar 21, 2015 13:24
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Factor Mystic posted:Correct. Harmony Music also streams your personal collection from OneDrive. However, it's also no region locked, and there's optional IAP for last.fm scrobbling, both of which which Xbox Music lacks. I also believe that my UI is less glitchy but ymmv. Xbox Music integration also claims a 50k track cap. Harmony Music has no track cap, but I'm not sure what would happen with 1MM+ songs... might get slow. I launched the metro Music app and it didn't show anything from my OneDrive. I had to swipe open settings, then close them, and then it started looking up OneDrive. I have 11,523 songs (86GB) on my OneDrive. It took the music app about an hour of "adding your music" before it finished. This is on a Surface Pro 1 with average UK residential broadband. In the Music app, it takes 30-40 seconds after click on "Collection>Albums" or "Collection>Artists" before it displays anything. The "Songs" tab displays in 3 seconds but is of course useless with this many songs. So I have to use Search functionality, which works fast. The main problem, as always, is that with 10k+ tracks (including many audio-books and recordings from radio) the "album / artist / song" way of browsing music is inadequate. I need Folders. So I'm still using "AV Cloud" for OneDrive music, on WP8 and Windows8.1. It works well enough, but it's a pain that every bloody time you launch the app you have to renavigate to the "Music" folder. Also it never caches anything. Oh well.
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Mar 23, 2015 12:53
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ljw1004 posted:The main problem, as always, is that with 10k+ tracks (including many audio-books and recordings from radio) the "album / artist / song" way of browsing music is inadequate. I need Folders. So I'm still using "AV Cloud" for OneDrive music, on WP8 and Windows8.1. It works well enough, but it's a pain that every bloody time you launch the app you have to renavigate to the "Music" folder. Also it never caches anything. Oh well. As a disruptive hipster nerd, my first thought is: is it really Folders you need... or a saved query?and possibly a way to custom tag your music with a "folder name"
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Mar 24, 2015 00:57
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What sort of crazy data allowances do American phone companies offer that you guys can just stream music from OneDrive?
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Mar 24, 2015 04:05
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The Lord Bude posted:What sort of crazy data allowances do American phone companies offer that you guys can just stream music from OneDrive? I think we call it "WiFi" but I could be wrong.
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Mar 24, 2015 04:13
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The Lord Bude posted:What sort of crazy data allowances do American phone companies offer that you guys can just stream music from OneDrive? I mean, aren't mp3s ~1-2mB per minute at a reasonable bitrate? So assuming that's correct logic that's over 16 1/2 hours per gig at 1 meg a minute and over 8 hours per gig at 2. That's assuming your music collection is in FLAC, you never have Wi-Fi available, or that you have no free storage space to keep some favorites on your device.
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Mar 24, 2015 04:51
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The Lord Bude posted:What sort of crazy data allowances do American phone companies offer that you guys can just stream music from OneDrive? T-Mobile made a lot of music streaming services not count towards your data cap. Makes the whole discussion about how to play your local music a little quaint and behind the times, though that fits the Windows Phone thread just perfectly
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Mar 24, 2015 04:53
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RVProfootballer posted:T-Mobile made a lot of music streaming services not count towards your data cap. Makes the whole discussion about how to play your local music a little quaint and behind the times, though that fits the Windows Phone thread just perfectly All of these don't count against your data other than album art and ads on T-Mobile. Usually I end up just using Pandora anyway. Pandora, iHeartRadio, iTunes Radio, Rhapsody, Spotify, Slacker, Milk Music, Black Planet, Songza, Rdio, AccuRadio, SoundCloud, Saavn, Digitally Imported, JAZZRADIO.com, ROCKRADIO.com, RadioTunes, radioPup, radio.com, Mad Genius Radio, Xbox Music, Live365, Fresca Radio, Google Music, Fit Radio, SiriusXM, Tidal Music, MixRadio, BandCamp
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Mar 24, 2015 04:57
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The Lord Bude posted:What sort of crazy data allowances do American phone companies offer that you guys can just stream music from OneDrive? The T-Mobile free streaming that was mentioned is great. Then you have idiots like me with a 23% monthly service discount who ended up changing to the 15 (with free 15, so 30) gig data plan with AT&T. And it has rollover data. I have three lines with me, my wife and mother in-law. They use like 500mb combined/month. That leaves me with like 56 gigs a month. I am streaming Netflix in my hotel via my Amazon Fire Stick tethered to my phone. Still won't hit the max. Just months ago we had like 10 gigs. Now I'm putting it to use! Content: ended up offloading my 1520 and using my Note 4 all the time. Did pick up a 635 during the Amazon $29 deal last week to play around with. WP just got too frustrating for me. I still like the platform but the 635 is mostly a Win10/wifi/backup toy at this point. That's what happens when you use Google services for literally everything I guess. I'm rooting for the platform but just can't warm up to it for full time use, even after starting with the Samsung FOCUS many moons ago. hotsauce fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Mar 24, 2015 |
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Mar 24, 2015 05:10
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That's a pretty good deal - having more than maybe 5 gigs a month is unheard of in Australia - I get 1.5 gigs for $75 a month - we certainly don't get data free streaming services either. I'd love to use pandora more often but I can't justify the data usage outside my own home wifi network.
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Mar 24, 2015 05:31
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