The Android Thread - He;pl - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > The Android Thread - He;pl

Guillermus: Dec 28, 2009

WhyteRyce posted:

Technerds blame it on M9 being a big meh over the M8, but I'd imagine they'd be in trouble even if they decided to fix up the things wrong with the M8

I think it's their whole pricing policy at least in Europe. My wife (i mentioned it already) has a Desire 816 and while is a nice phone it was drat priced for its specs (around 310�) for a Snapdragon 400, 1.5gb RAM and 8gb of storage (around 3gb free

). My wife could have chosen a Moto X, a Huawei Ascend G7 or any other being cheaper on my carrier but the drat boom sound got her and I couldn't fight with that. HTC does not exist at all if you don't see a flagship, I barely see any M7, M8 (and never a M9 either) but I can see shitloads of G2/G3, Galaxy S5, S6, iPhones and if you start stepping below flagship level, you can still see the major manufacturers and lots of others like Huawei, Motorola (Moto G in Spain is a loving bestseller) and so. HTC talk and act like they're the Apple of android but they're far from that and their lack of attention to the other segments is killing them.

# ? Aug 10, 2015 19:35

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# ? May 10, 2024 11:56

cage-free egghead: Mar 8, 2004

So to continue the silly trainwreck that is OnePlus, the OP2 is delayed 2 to 3 weeks for US and EU. They've also received over 2 million reservations so... good luck getting a phone new from them anytime in the next year.

# ? Aug 10, 2015 19:48

CLAM DOWN: Feb 13, 2007

Lblitzer posted:

So to continue the silly trainwreck that is OnePlus, the OP2 is delayed 2 to 3 weeks for US and EU. They've also received over 2 million reservations so... good luck getting a phone new from them anytime in the next year.

Why do people give them money

# ? Aug 10, 2015 20:04

pretend to care: Dec 11, 2005; Good men must not obey the laws too well

Weird quirk with my N6 - updating the radio to the M preview, but the baseband version in About Phone isn't changing from the stock number. Flashing seems to have worked, though. Did it via command line fastboot and Wugs. What's the deal?

# ? Aug 10, 2015 21:34

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

CLAM DOWN posted:

Why do people give them money

~specs~

# ? Aug 10, 2015 21:35

pun pundit: Nov 11, 2008; I feel the same way about the company bearing the same name.

From what I've read Sony's downsized their mobile phone section. Should I be worried about lack of support for Sony devices in future?

# ? Aug 10, 2015 21:55

Syrinxx: Mar 28, 2002; Death is whimsical today

Huawei is having a promo where you get $25 off a phone, a free bluetooth speaker, and a month of Net10. In case for some reason you want a P8 instead of a Moto G like every other goon in the thread :china:

http://www.gethuawei.com/offers-promotions/

# ? Aug 10, 2015 22:04

dont skimp on the shrimp: Apr 23, 2008

pun pundit posted:

From what I've read Sony's downsized their mobile phone section. Should I be worried about lack of support for Sony devices in future?

No idea, but they said they'd be bringing 5.1 to a lot of devices, going as far back as the 2013 z flagship. They're taking their sweet time though.

Also they've started some kind of program for 500 swedish z3 owners where they can try a more aosp-like version of lollipop. It's less than a month old though, so I haven't heard any news about it since.

# ? Aug 10, 2015 22:47

WhyteRyce: Dec 30, 2001

Lblitzer posted:

So to continue the silly trainwreck that is OnePlus, the OP2 is delayed 2 to 3 weeks for US and EU. They've also received over 2 million reservations so... good luck getting a phone new from them anytime in the next year.

Are those are just "I'm interested in the phone here is my email" numbers? Because if so, it is a ton of people who either
1) Were mildly interested in the phone and just put their name down in case since it's impossible without an invite
2) Plan on selling the invite for :10bux:

3) Plan on selling the phone for a mark-up on Ebay or Swappa

As far as I can tell #2 and #3 are where a good number of the invites went for the 1+1

# ? Aug 10, 2015 22:57

LionYeti: Oct 12, 2008

I currently have an iphone that I could trade in and pay off however much I owe on it. I've been thinking to switch to the GS6 because I love the screen and camera. Would it be good to pull the trigger before the 6s comes out and tanks prices or wait for android M?

# ? Aug 11, 2015 00:42

hooah: Feb 6, 2006; WTF?

Coincident with my phone disconnecting from wifi, I've also noticed that when it is connected, the connection is a lot slower than it should be. I'm not completely sure, but I think I pulled down at least 20 mbps through the Speedtest app previously, but now it isn't going above 5. I haven't had time to test with my laptop, but I tried rebooting my router to no avail.

# ? Aug 11, 2015 02:29

Super Dude: Jan 23, 2005; Do the Jew

LionYeti posted:

I currently have an iphone that I could trade in and pay off however much I owe on it. I've been thinking to switch to the GS6 because I love the screen and camera. Would it be good to pull the trigger before the 6s comes out and tanks prices or wait for android M?

Sell your current iphone while it's worth more, use a cheap backup in the meantime, then put your money towards the S6 if the 6s causes the price to go down. You might want to reconsider going with the S6, there are some other good phones coming out.

# ? Aug 11, 2015 02:29

LionYeti: Oct 12, 2008

Super Dude posted:

Sell your current iphone while it's worth more, use a cheap backup in the meantime, then put your money towards the S6 if the 6s causes the price to go down. You might want to reconsider going with the S6, there are some other good phones coming out.

hows the one touch idol 3 by the way?

# ? Aug 11, 2015 03:33

Super Dude: Jan 23, 2005; Do the Jew

LionYeti posted:

hows the one touch idol 3 by the way?

I have no idea, I've never used one. :confused:

# ? Aug 11, 2015 04:10

Argyle: Jun 7, 2001

Farchanter posted:

I'm thinking about getting a wood back for the Moto X, but I'm a little skeptical of having a wooden back on my phone. All of the phones I've ever owned have gotten pretty hot towards the end of their lives when running certain tasks like GPS navigation. I'm sure I'm just being paranoid and the wood is perfectly safe, but I'd be happier if the Something Awful Android hivemind told me there was no real chance of my phone combusting. Am I being ridiculous?

I got a wood back on my 2014 X and I regretted it. It looks fantastic, but it is slippery as hell.

It has not yet combusted, if that's what you're worried about.

# ? Aug 11, 2015 04:17

Web Jew.0: May 13, 2009

beedeebee posted:

I have a stupid problem, I can't seem to find my music I downloaded some albums through the Play Music app, and when I want to use one of those songs as my alarm signal (using Alarm Clock Plus), I can't find the music. It's not in the downloads folder or anything. Suggestions on how I can find it back?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sapien.android.musicmate

# ? Aug 11, 2015 04:26

kitten smoothie: Dec 29, 2001

Anyone having flakiness with the new Hangouts?

I am periodically getting notifications for messages that I read 12+ hours ago. There aren't any unread messages in my conversation list, but every now and then my phone just buzzes with every message I've received all day long.

Tried clearing data for Hangouts thinking the upgrade was screwy, but no dice.

# ? Aug 11, 2015 04:29

ThermoPhysical: Dec 26, 2007

Google is now owned by Alphabet, a parent company created by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

https://abc.xyz

The new CEO of Google is now Sundar Pichai. Google will now be more streamlined as well.

# ? Aug 11, 2015 05:58

Kreeblah: May 17, 2004; INSERT QUACK TO CONTINUE; Taco Defender

ThermoPhysical posted:

Google is now owned by Alphabet, a parent company created by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

https://abc.xyz

The new CEO of Google is now Sundar Pichai. Google will now be more streamlined as well.

Click the period in "Alphabet will also include our X lab, which incubates new efforts like Wing, our drone delivery effort."

# ? Aug 11, 2015 08:11

CLAM DOWN: Feb 13, 2007

Kreeblah posted:

Click the period in "Alphabet will also include our X lab, which incubates new efforts like Wing, our drone delivery effort."

Oh my god that loving rules

# ? Aug 11, 2015 08:13

mcbexx: Jul 4, 2004; British dentistry is
not on trial here!

I received google play services related system update on my Nexus 4 yesterday.

So far, I had 7 sleep of deaths since installing it, up from 1-2 two in a week.
It almost feels like they are now pushing forced obsolescence through software updates, which makes me way more angry than it should.

Sure, a 3rd gen Moto G is "only" ~250 and probably even slightly superior to the N4, but the N4 is a perfectly fine and capable phone and could easily last another 1-2 years with proper software care and I hate the thought of tossing it out just because it's deemed obsolete.
I threw a Diztronic case on it in March 2013 when I got it and it still looks brand new, not a single scratch on it. When it's running, it handles everything I throw at it.

Christ, the Sleep of Death bug is known since the advent of 5.0 in November 2014 and it's still categorized as a "small priority defect". Back then I was even still in my warranty period and should have returned it, but silly me thought that a serious issue like random freezes in a $350 phone would be fixed in a timely manner by one of the biggest companies in the world.

Gaahh, so pissed right now.

# ? Aug 11, 2015 09:32

ThermoPhysical: Dec 26, 2007

mcbexx posted:

I received google play services related system update on my Nexus 4 yesterday.

So far, I had 7 sleep of deaths since installing it, up from 1-2 two in a week.
It almost feels like they are now pushing forced obsolescence through software updates, which makes me way more angry than it should.

Sure, a 3rd gen Moto G is "only" ~250 and probably even slightly superior to the N4, but the N4 is a perfectly fine and capable phone and could easily last another 1-2 years with proper software care and I hate the thought of tossing it out just because it's deemed obsolete.
I threw a Diztronic case on it in March 2013 when I got it and it still looks brand new, not a single scratch on it. When it's running, it handles everything I throw at it.

Christ, the Sleep of Death bug is known since the advent of 5.0 in November 2014 and it's still categorized as a "small priority defect". Back then I was even still in my warranty period and should have returned it, but silly me thought that a serious issue like random freezes in a $350 phone would be fixed in a timely manner by one of the biggest companies in the world.

Gaahh, so pissed right now.

This is one of the reasons I'm upgrading my Nexus 4 to something else (hopefully a Nexus 6). I can't have a device that randomly just dies in my pocket and there's no fix in sight.

# ? Aug 11, 2015 10:07

Guillermus: Dec 28, 2009

Have you considered flashing an older android version or even a custom rom? It's a nexus afterall and easy to mess with.

# ? Aug 11, 2015 10:09

ThermoPhysical: Dec 26, 2007

Kreeblah posted:

Click the period in "Alphabet will also include our X lab, which incubates new efforts like Wing, our drone delivery effort."

Holy poo poo. Nice find!

Guillermus posted:

Have you considered flashing an older android version or even a custom rom? It's a nexus afterall and easy to mess with.

Well I need to update my phone anyway since the battery is hosed, it gets pretty drat hot, and the USB port is somewhere between dying and dead but I might do that after I upgrade it.

# ? Aug 11, 2015 10:24

hooah: Feb 6, 2006; WTF?

Kreeblah posted:

Click the period in "Alphabet will also include our X lab, which incubates new efforts like Wing, our drone delivery effort."

What am I not getting? It seems to be some sort of viral thing for an HBO show, but which, and why is it linked from that letter?

# ? Aug 11, 2015 12:25

mcbexx: Jul 4, 2004; British dentistry is
not on trial here!

ThermoPhysical posted:

This is one of the reasons I'm upgrading my Nexus 4 to something else (hopefully a Nexus 6). I can't have a device that randomly just dies in my pocket and there's no fix in sight.

The fact that even though I enjoyed using my Nexus products for the first couple of months - I own a Nexus 4 and a Nexus 7 (2012) -, the fact that both turned out to have some showstopping issues has kind of soured my Nexus experience.

I guess the shoddy NAND in the first gen Nexus 7 is not something that can be fixed by software engineering (which does not make it excusable, even for a mid-range tablet), but the Nexus 4 issue is, at least to the layman's eye, pure lazyness, lack of care and effort for the customer base. "gently caress it, it's 24+ months old, buy something new".

# ? Aug 11, 2015 12:40

sourdough: Apr 30, 2012

mcbexx posted:

The fact that even though I enjoyed using my Nexus products for the first couple of months - I own a Nexus 4 and a Nexus 7 (2012) -, the fact that both turned out to have some showstopping issues has kind of soured my Nexus experience.

I guess the shoddy NAND in the first gen Nexus 7 is not something that can be fixed by software engineering (which does not make it excusable, even for a mid-range tablet), but the Nexus 4 issue is, at least to the layman's eye, pure lazyness, lack of care and effort for the customer base. "gently caress it, it's 24+ months old, buy something new".

Pretty sure "sleep of death" has been a bug on the Nexus 4 since it was released, it has nothing to do with your planned obsolescence complaint. If you never had this issue before now, great, but don't think you're only getting it because of the newest update. Factory reset your phone or do a full flash of 5.1.x and it could help. If you're using the stock launcher, I also vaguely remember turning "OK Google" detection to not be from any screen helped the issue on a Nexus 5.

# ? Aug 11, 2015 12:48

ClassActionFursuit: Mar 15, 2006

RVProfootballer is right, the Nexus 4 always had this problem even when it launched. It also had a lot of general chipset weirdness that never was fully resolved. If you want to lay the blame anywhere it's probably best to lay it at the feet of Qualcomm who released a shitload of patches both for the chipset itself and radios that all seemed to be a case of fix one thing, break something else.

Obviously that doesn't really do anything to help you or change your experience. If anything I'd say the Nexus line has been subject to the same things that any other Android flagship product lines have had. I mean just look at their history:

The Nexus One was solid as gently caress.
The Nexus S was actually delayed due to problems with the Galaxy S platform, specifically the GPS not working at all and even after "fixing" it, it never did work well. The device itself also never really worked. It would panic and reboot constantly on Gingerbread and wasn't even stable until a year into its lifecycle when Ice Cream Sandwich came out. While it didn't have the defective NAND of some Galaxy S variants, that's really the best thing you could say about it.
The Galaxy Nexus was a shitshow. It had an OMAP SoC that was abandoned by Texas Instruments almost immediately upon launch. The Verizon variant had a separate LTE radio that could drain the battery in like two hours. Then support for it was dropped abruptly at two years.
The Nexus 4 was also never stable. It would lock up and it had the then-famous LG battery drivers that would just report nonsense. It shipped with an LTE radio but lacked certification so it was disabled in software which caused all kinds of weirdness when they tied the radio to the bootloader version. Also the radio had the tendency to drop wifi on certain software versions. The hardware was pretty substandard too, what with the extremely fragile glass back and the USB daughterboard being almost guaranteed to fail at some point.
The Nexus 5 shipped with a camera daemon issue that causes the camera to become inaccessible to the software until you reboot. This persists to the current software and effectively disables the camera unless you disable Trusted Face. Another issue is that the wifi can get stuck in "turning on" when the wpa_supplicant.conf file gets corrupted which cannot be fixed without root or a unlocked bootloader.
The Nexus 6 seems to also be solid. I've not read of anything like the above on the Nexus 6.

I'd go through the tablets but there's no need, only the 2013 Nexus 7 is acceptable and even then it doesn't have the best reliability. The others are pretty much total shitshows from the Xoom to the Nexus 9 (except maybe the 10 which you could just call cheaply built and underpowered).

The best thing you can say about the Nexus line is that at least you can flash software (even old software) at will if you want to fix it. You'll note though that all of these have a hardware component responsible for the problems and fresh software can't really solve that.

The takeaway is that this isn't planned obsolescence or anything like that. These OEMs aren't that skillful. This is a case of commodity parts being engineered to a pricepoint and the natural consequences of that. Combine that with the typical two year lifecycle for a device and that's where you are, lucky to have gotten your two years.

# ? Aug 11, 2015 13:18

ThermoPhysical: Dec 26, 2007

LastInLine posted:

Nexus defects.

The only problems I've heard on the Nexus 6 are the quick burn-in and the weird camera pulsing.

# ? Aug 11, 2015 15:21

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

hooah posted:

What am I not getting? It seems to be some sort of viral thing for an HBO show, but which, and why is it linked from that letter?

Seems like maybe they are implying that they are jumping on board the ridiculous startup culture of "get lots of money by telling stupid VC types you will make pizza drones" and the link is a wink-nod that they know how stupid this all is.

# ? Aug 11, 2015 15:23

WhyteRyce: Dec 30, 2001

In OnePlus supply issue news

quote:

Dear OnePlus fans,

We never stop looking for new ways to bring the OnePlus 2 to as many of you as possible. So, we�re trying something we�ve never done before: for a very limited time, fans can come to colette Paris to purchase the OnePlus 2!
...
We�ll be there from 11:00 am until the OnePlus 2 is sold out. It�s a very limited stock sale, so be sure to come early!

quote:

So today, there were more than 200 hundred persons waiting to get theire OPT, and finaly, only 20 units to sell....

# ? Aug 11, 2015 15:28

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

Why do people want this garbage for idiots

EDIT: Answered my own question there

# ? Aug 11, 2015 15:34

cage-free egghead: Mar 8, 2004

WhyteRyce posted:

In OnePlus supply issue news

It just keeps getting funnier and funnier.

# ? Aug 11, 2015 15:37

Mogomra: Nov 5, 2005; simply having a wonderful time

Why do people keep throwing money at this company? It's just dick move after dick move. Android users are so god damned stupid, it's embarrassing.

# ? Aug 11, 2015 15:40

Endless Mike: Aug 13, 2003

Mogomra posted:

Why do people keep throwing money at this company? It's just dick move after dick move. Android users are so god damned stupid, it's embarrassing.

But the specs:cost ratio! It's sky-high!

# ? Aug 11, 2015 15:40

Tunga: May 7, 2004; Grimey Drawer

LastInLine posted:

The Galaxy Nexus was a shitshow.

No, I won't have this. The GSM GNex was actually a pretty great device.

# ? Aug 11, 2015 15:44

Internet Explorer: Jun 1, 2005

That's some seriously revisionist history on the Nexus line. Yes, some phones had problems but let's be honest here the days of the Nexus S were basically the wild west for smartphones.

I had a Nexus S, Galaxy Nexus, and a Nexus 5. All great phones.

# ? Aug 11, 2015 15:59

MannStooka: Sep 18, 2003

I don't follow this thread closely enough to know for sure, so I wanted to ask before I posted - but I'm curious if it's ok to ask about a problem I'm having with Picasso and my photos app?

# ? Aug 11, 2015 16:12

baka kaba: Jul 19, 2003; PLEASE ASK ME, THE SELF-PROFESSED NO #1 PAUL CATTERMOLE FAN IN THE SOMETHING AWFUL S-CLUB 7 MEGATHREAD, TO NAME A SINGLE SONG BY HIS EXCELLENT NU-METAL SIDE PROJECT, SKUA, AND IF I CAN'T PLEASE TELL ME TO
EAT SHIT

Seditious Jerk posted:

I don't follow this thread closely enough to know for sure, so I wanted to ask before I posted - but I'm curious if it's ok to ask about a problem I'm having with Picasso and my photos app?

Picasso the Square library? You'll be wanting the Android Dev Thread

e- unless you mean Picasa or something. If you're just trying to use your phone and get your pics on it then ask away!

baka kaba fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Aug 11, 2015

# ? Aug 11, 2015 16:17

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# ? May 10, 2024 11:56

ClassActionFursuit: Mar 15, 2006

Tunga posted:

No, I won't have this. The GSM GNex was actually a pretty great device.

I had a GSM Galaxy Nexus and it was serviceable but let's not get crazy. It wasn't the Nexus S but it wasn't great. And it was definitely a shitshow with its million variants (with yakju and takju being the "real" ones).

# ? Aug 11, 2015 16:41

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