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64bit_Dophins posted:Does it bother anyone else that you can finance a cell phone now? 64bit_Dophins posted:Do they make money on interest or are these super super small loans generally zero APR? 64bit_Dophins posted:Does T-Mobile or whatever carrier have to do a credit check before you can get approved for a $9/month phone financing? 64bit_Dophins posted:Is anyone here financing their phone? 64bit_Dophins posted:
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Aug 3, 2018 20:23
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64bit_Dophins posted:Does it bother anyone else that you can finance a cell phone now? I think my first cell phone in 1999 was financed. It was called "free phone with two year contract". Now it's just a separate line item.
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Aug 3, 2018 20:25
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Uthor posted:I think my first cell phone in 1999 was financed. It was called "free phone with two year contract". Now it's just a separate line item.
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Aug 3, 2018 20:27
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I'm seriously going to see if there's a way to finance a Pixel 3 purchase through T-Mobile because my work pays my personal cell phone bill so if I can get my phone on there, they will be paying for the hardware.
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Aug 3, 2018 20:31
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necrotic posted:You are generally locked into a 2 year contract with financed phones. I don't know if they're repo your phone (they may try at least) but like any credit failing to follow the terms gets you a derogatory mark which hurts future credit attempts. Yeah I really guess it hasn't changed that much they are just more transparent about the price you're paying for the phone over the course of the contract. Maker Of Shoes posted:no I was mostly joking because I think the idea of someone stalking delinquent users and snatching their unpaid phone while they aren't looking is hilarious. I've been considering switching carriers and Fi seems like a pretty good option. Anyone have any experience with it? I remember when it first came out the service was kind of spotty (from what I heard online). Has it gotten any better? Should I just stay on ATT?
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Aug 3, 2018 20:34
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Maker Of Shoes posted:lol this. people have been financing cellular service and hardware since the 90's How much did a cellphone/service cost back then? That was before my time, but I remember it was a big deal to have a cell phone back then so I imagine it wasn't cheap.
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Aug 3, 2018 20:36
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64bit_Dophins posted:It has to just be a scam to get ppl who don't know any better to spend $900 on a cellphone they have no business spending that amount of money on. I spent about a year working for T Mobile between 3 different stores and this describes 9/10 people that walk through the door. The vast majority of people coming in have no business buying an expensive phone. Doesn't matter what kind of car people pull up in or how nice they dress, people are generally poo poo with their personal finances.
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Aug 3, 2018 20:42
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64bit_Dophins posted:How much did a cellphone/service cost back then? That was before my time, but I remember it was a big deal to have a cell phone back then so I imagine it wasn't cheap. i had a first gen startac through qwest back in the day when that was hot poo poo and let me tell you i was a retarded teenager with no other bills and it would have been cheaper to buy a new cheap honda or something like that. but hey man, i can still look cool walking to work with my mother fuckin' STARTAC, right?
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Aug 3, 2018 20:42
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64bit_Dophins posted:I've been considering switching carriers and Fi seems like a pretty good option. Anyone have any experience with it? I remember when it first came out the service was kind of spotty (from what I heard online). Has it gotten any better? Should I just stay on ATT?
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Aug 3, 2018 20:46
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64bit_Dophins posted:Does it bother anyone else that you can finance a cell phone now? You can seriously finance anything these days. It's so strange to me honestly.Do they make money on interest or are these super super small loans generally zero APR? Does T-Mobile or whatever carrier have to do a credit check before you can get approved for a $9/month phone financing? It has to just be a scam to get ppl who don't know any better to spend $900 on a cellphone they have no business spending that amount of money on. The financing is 0%. Basically carriers realized that as phone prices went up and early termination fees were regulated, subsidizing your phone in exchange for a 2 year contract was no longer the sweet deal for them it used to be. Now they effectively lock you into a 2 year contract, charge you full price for the phone with effectively, and should the customer cancel service the remaining balance is due immediately, providing a much bigger deterrent to cancellation than prorated ETF's while protecting their bottom line when it comes to hardware costs. The customer paying $350 for a subsidized $900.00 phone with a $100.00 early termination fee after a year vs having that same customer pay the full price of the phone over 24/36 months with $550.00 due should they decide to cancel early is a much better deal for them.
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Aug 3, 2018 20:57
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64bit_Dophins posted:I've been considering switching carriers and Fi seems like a pretty good option. Anyone have any experience with it? I remember when it first came out the service was kind of spotty (from what I heard online). Has it gotten any better? Should I just stay on ATT? There's a thread around here somewhere. Service was good for me, especially after adding US Cellular for out in the boonies, but at the time I was spending too much time janitoring the phone (so it wouldn't switch automatically to a worse network) and metering my usage because data is expensive.
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Aug 3, 2018 21:01
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Desk Lamp posted:The financing is 0%. Basically carriers realized that as phone prices went up and early termination fees were regulated, subsidizing your phone in exchange for a 2 year contract was no longer the sweet deal for them it used to be. Now they effectively lock you into a 2 year contract, charge you full price for the phone with effectively, and should the customer cancel service the remaining balance is due immediately, providing a much bigger deterrent to cancellation than prorated ETF's while protecting their bottom line when it comes to hardware costs. Also, at least with Verizon, any deals they have on phones (eg I got my Pixel XL half price for some holiday sale) must be spread out in equal payments. What they actually do is have you pay full price (spread across 2 years of payments), then give you a bill credit each month to functionally reduce it to the sale price. That way, if you leave early, you pay the balance, which is the full price of the phone (because bill credits were reducing it, rather than reduce the actual phone price tag). It's a sneaky way to accomplish the same thing. On the other hand, I knew I'd be staying with Verizon, so a half price (then) new phone was fine by me. I would have paid all up front if they let me, but they won't on deals like that.
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Aug 3, 2018 21:05
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On Terra Firma posted:I spent about a year working for T Mobile between 3 different stores and this describes 9/10 people that walk through the door. The vast majority of people coming in have no business buying an expensive phone. Doesn't matter what kind of car people pull up in or how nice they dress, people are generally poo poo with their personal finances. People with nice clothes and cars are generally pretty poo poo with their finances more often than not tbh.
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Aug 3, 2018 21:23
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Watching Apple fans say they don't think [new phone] offers much, but they "might as well get it" as they're on the upgrade program anyway makes me sad. People are really poo poo at working out they're actually spending money if you spread it out.
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Aug 3, 2018 21:47
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Speaking of Amber Alerts, my new Pixel 2 does not seem to get them.
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Aug 3, 2018 22:01
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Taffer posted:This is a stupid take. There will always be lot of things to complain about, but to say you're not sure it's better? The hardware is light years better, unquestionably better in quality and performance, and the reliability, usefulness, and performance of software is not even comparable. The hardware is newer but I wouldn't call it better. Sure, standards improve and things speed up, but I wasn't complaining before. We still routinely have models where simple manufacturing problems reveal certain models to just be timebombs. How is it better that the original Pixel is guaranteed to have a mic failure eventually compared to the Galaxy S models shipping with bad eMMC guaranteed to fail? How do either differ from LGs simply dying? It would seem to me it's all relative and the problems we faced in 2012 are still here in 2018, even if there are fewer examples. In terms of updates, the situation is still the same. You still wait for updates which either never come or have about a 50/50 shot at making your device worse. They are still delayed indefinitely by the carrier and ended by the chipset manufacturer, ensuring that if the hardware failures mentioned above doesn't kill your phone, a lack of support will. The reliability of the software is about the same in my experience. My Pixel XL has been extremely reliable but so was my Nexus One. Apps crash at about the same rate (i.e. close to never) but maybe I don't run the worst apps. There have been improvements in what the software does but I'd expect that over ten years. For all that waiting I think it's important to look at what hasn't been done, like solving messaging or having a reliable method for backing up and restoring between phones. Most damning of all, compared to its only competition over that timeframe, Apple hardware is much better and the gap widens every year. For all the specsheet sperging done in this thread, it's weird how no one mentions that next year's Qualcomm SoC won't outperform a three year old Apple SoC. In terms of software iOS ain't what it used to be but security and privacy are certainly better on the other side. You don't have to worry about whether Google will let the feds into your confiscated Pixel because it's trivial to break into all of them. Of course Android is still cargo culting any and all innovations from Apple. Why do we have notches now? Apple's are technologically necessary, ours are ornamental and without function. In a vacuum, yes, things have improved but it's a lot like comparing the economic conditions of the working class today to those of the 1930s. There are some material improvements but by every metric that matters we're as bad or worse off today than then and the material improvements that have occurred are of the "rising tides raise all boats" variety which means in a relative sense we're sitting still or falling further behind.
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Aug 3, 2018 22:14
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How do you manually delete poo poo from an Android phone? I wanted to backup/delete my texts with my wife to speed up the messages app, but there are 50,000 of them and apparently my Pixel 2 can't handle deleting that much stuff without crashing or giving up. Is there a way to like, plug it into my PC and manually wipe just one SMS thread?
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Aug 3, 2018 22:17
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smoobles posted:How do you manually delete poo poo from an Android phone? I wanted to backup/delete my texts with my wife to speed up the messages app, but there are 50,000 of them and apparently my Pixel 2 can't handle deleting that much stuff without crashing or giving up. They got rid of the trim thread option in Messages but I'm sure a third party SMS app will have the option.
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Aug 3, 2018 22:23
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I agree with you Lastinline with one huge exception: budget and midrange devices. The Android options have gotten very compelling in the last few years and now I am fully happy and comfortable buying the best of whatever Nokia/Huawei/Xiaomi/Nokia is the strongest offering at the time. $250-$350 goes quite far in 2018 and is the main reason I am sticking with Android. Apple completely ignores the mid and low end, and when you look at the state of the U.S. economy it's obvious that a lot of people shouldn't be buying flagship phones at all. This obviously applies to most of the world as well.
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Aug 3, 2018 23:07
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Endless Mike posted:It's combination of T-Mobile, Sprint, and USCellular, so whatever the coverage of those are in your area is what the coverage is. It's also only worth it if you don't actually use any data in a month or you travel internationally a lot. Once you hit a couple GB of data usage, there's cheaper options. What cheaper options are there for, say, $40? Everyone is on unlimited only with varying amounts of throttle or prepaid that follow the same $ per GB that Fi has. Unless I'm wrong here
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Aug 3, 2018 23:45
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FistEnergy posted:I agree with you Lastinline with one huge exception: budget and midrange devices. The Android options have gotten very compelling in the last few years and now I am fully happy and comfortable buying the best of whatever Nokia/Huawei/Xiaomi/Nokia is the strongest offering at the time. $250-$350 goes quite far in 2018 and is the main reason I am sticking with Android. How is the midrange any different except in its disposability? I won't deny that at half the price you can upgrade twice as often and therefore mitigate every downside (assuming the next disposable device has somewhat modern software), but that's a feature of commoditization, not of any progress the Android ecosystem has made. In fact, it's further evidence of a race to the bottom that there isn't a substantial difference between a $300 handset and a $1000 one. Apple doesn't pursue the low end because they're primarily concerned with profits and Google does because they're primarily concerned with marketshare so yes, I won't deny that it's good that cheaper devices have made their way into the market but it was bound to happen eventually simply because it had to happen one way or the other. In other words you're right and I agree with you, I just don't know that it's evidence that Android itself is better but rather that the market has matured.
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Aug 4, 2018 00:25
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Doctor Butts posted:Speaking of Amber Alerts, my new Pixel 2 does not seem to get them. There is a setting for this under Emergency Alerts you might have ticked off. I personally have because I am a horrible human and because gently caress you alert at 3am for a town I am physically hours away from. Give me an option to make that an advisory alert and I'll turn it back on Google. No screeching, just a popup.
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Aug 4, 2018 00:45
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FunOne posted:There is a setting for this under Emergency Alerts you might have ticked off. Hah, searched settings and Amber Alert was set to off by default.
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Aug 4, 2018 00:59
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Endymion FRS MK1 posted:What cheaper options are there for, say, $40? Everyone is on unlimited only with varying amounts of throttle or prepaid that follow the same $ per GB that Fi has. Unless I'm wrong here 45 dollars (assuming you bind a credit card to the account for automatic monthly payments, otherwise it's fifty) per month gets you unlimited data on Simple Mobile, a T-Mobile mvno. Forty dollars (37.50 binding credit card) gets you 6GB of data. https://ww2.simplemobile.com/serviceplan?session=reset elmer chud fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Aug 4, 2018 |
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Aug 4, 2018 01:04
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FunOne posted:There is a setting for this under Emergency Alerts you might have ticked off. There is a selection for just that actually! 
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Aug 4, 2018 01:12
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elmer chud posted:45 dollars (assuming you bind a credit card to the account for automatic monthly payments, otherwise it's fifty) per month gets you unlimited data on Simple Mobile, a T-Mobile mvno. Forty dollars (37.50 binding credit card) gets you 6GB of data. Huh, interesting, I stand corrected
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Aug 4, 2018 01:16
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Endymion FRS MK1 posted:What cheaper options are there for, say, $40? Everyone is on unlimited only with varying amounts of throttle or prepaid that follow the same $ per GB that Fi has. Unless I'm wrong here
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Aug 4, 2018 01:58
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Doctor Butts posted:Speaking of Amber Alerts, my new Pixel 2 does not seem to get them. Maybe your settings carried over from a previous phone?
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Aug 4, 2018 02:13
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I recall emergency alerts being carrier dependent as well.
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Aug 4, 2018 02:14
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Also the Note 9 is gonna have a 512gb model, potentially 1tb too lmao
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Aug 4, 2018 02:16
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CLAM DOWN posted:Also the Note 9 is gonna have a 512gb model, potentially 1tb too lmao For a second, I thought you meant RAM, but then I realized you're talking about Samsung, not OnePlus.
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Aug 4, 2018 02:23
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LastInLine posted:In other words you're right and I agree with you, I just don't know that it's evidence that Android itself is better but rather that the market has matured. In the far gone world of 2010-2012 phones, a similar cost saving on SoC hardware would leave with you with time to roll your eyes in frustration 5 times, leading to a much degraded experience. Honestly how good a ~$250 smartphone is in 2017+ is almost a hidden secret. Tech blogs scramble around writing articles like "Are we suffering from flagship fatigue?" No, we're 'suffering' from average users realising average phones now meet their needs.
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Aug 4, 2018 02:31
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CLAM DOWN posted:Also the Note 9 is gonna have a 512gb model, potentially 1tb too lmao My dad has almost maxed out a 256 sd card on his s8 plus he has owned less than a year. All pictures of grandkids or whatsapp memes.
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Aug 4, 2018 03:20
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Endless Mike posted:Cricket offers 2 GB for $30, 5 GB for $40, and unlimited for $55. On Fi this would be $40, $70, and $80 respectively (though you do only pay for what you actually use). Google Fi changed its plan so once you hit $60 in a month it's considered unlimited and you don't pay above that: https://fi.google.com/about/plan/
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Aug 4, 2018 03:40
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DangerZoneDelux posted:My dad has almost maxed out a 256 sd card on his s8 plus he has owned less than a year. All pictures of grandkids or whatsapp memes. How is this possible with Google Photos being a thing that exists? I hope those pictures are backed up some other way at least.
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Aug 4, 2018 03:48
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DangerZoneDelux posted:My dad has almost maxed out a 256 sd card on his s8 plus he has owned less than a year. All pictures of grandkids or whatsapp memes. Uhhh that would equate to like a billion memes. What the gently caress.
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Aug 4, 2018 03:53
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Truly a Grandmeme Master
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Aug 4, 2018 04:25
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Internet Explorer posted:How is this possible with Google Photos being a thing that exists? I hope those pictures are backed up some other way at least. Yeah Google Photos backs up everything. CLAM DOWN posted:Uhhh that would equate to like a billion memes. What the gently caress. Whatsapp saves everything that is sent and forwarded from his friends. I was blown away he filled the phone up sans sd card after a month. Dude takes pictures and videos non stop. He retired at 50 so I guess he had to fill his time some way. He sends me a Google photos movie at least weekly and it's pretty much like having a family paparazzi. It's less annoying now that it's a good memoir as my kids grow up.
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Aug 4, 2018 04:41
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Fi is super awesome if you don't use a lot of data. I'm on wifi pretty much all the time except when I'm driving, and then I mostly listen to audio books (predownloaded) or music (often cached). I rarely do anything on data except read the forums, which is not a data heavy activity. As a result, my Fi bill averages $25/mo. But if you use a lot of data it's not the best choice.
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Aug 4, 2018 04:49
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Khablam posted:Because reality doesn't exist in a vacuum. Whilst I'm sure Apple will show some single-threaded performance benchmarks up on screen and scoff about how far ahead they are, the real-world use of that performance is almost completely absent. A low end Nokia running android one on a low power chip doesn't feel much slower than any other phone when you're doing basic tasks. Both tend to load apps up from memory within the animation timeframe, making the fact it's loading it in 0.05s or 0.09s a moot point over the 0.15s animation. Maybe I'm drawing a distinction where there isn't one, but I don't see how that's anything other than chips being newer. Everything you're mentioning is just Moore's Law in action, not improvements to the platform itself. Of course it was going to be easier for cheap SoCs to meet the minimum requirements for running the OS smoothly, how could it go any other way? You're comparing a mature market to a nascent one, of course the problems of low cost commodity hardware would be addressed. That wasn't what the original assertion was though. I was saying that I'm not sure things are better for Android than they were in the wild west days of the Galaxy Nexus and I'd still say that. Things are more certain (which I'll admit is a kind of better) in that there are fewer OEMs, fewer chipset manufacturers, more standardized components, commoditized setups that touch each point in the market. There are fewer external competitors. All of this definitely contributes to more stability in the market but hasn't exactly led to better products themselves which is exactly what the question was. I'd say that if anything Android has worked itself into the enviable position of not having to care too much about anything at all, It mostly works, the hardware's pretty much all the same, there's only one OEM worth keeping happy, and all the users have pretty much decided if they're going to stay or go. They've become GM in the 70s, unwilling and probably unable to make great cars, but their users don't have options and what they're putting out there is good enough so why bother? Nothing wrong with that until someone comes and eats their lunch but hardly inspiring.
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Aug 4, 2018 05:59
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