All Things Android - Apps, Phones, Tablets - Discussion

Fair enough. I think I would be only able to use that thing on speaker phone though lol. No way of be holding it up to my face

I hope that what looks like a soft touch coating on the Nexus 5 isn't a fingerprint magnet!

 

Oh that's lame the Nexus 5 is soft touch?


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Why's that lame? I really like soft touch materials, but it needs to be done well to avoid being a dust/fingerprint magnet, and will also need to be durable. Helps to prevent a phone from sliding on a smooth surface, and also feels nicer and more secure in the hand.

 

It should be okay as long as it uses the same soft touch material from the current Nexus 7, I've never had issues with oily fingerprints or smudges on it.

 

While soft touch isn't my favorite, I agree that there is a right way to do it. The soft touch on my Latitude is near perfect and doesn't pick up prints. The soft touch on the Lenovo gets a smudge if you look at it the wrong way.

 

I prefer how the Nexus 4 and iPhones are done, glass on both sides.

 

My soft-touch Kindle Fire (first-gen) is no more of a fingerprint magnet than my glossy Galaxy S3, and feels a hell of a lot better in the hand, and is also less prone to inadvertent drops. If you're going to make a plastic case, I'm 100% in favor of soft-touch or at minimum a satin finish.

 

You, sir, are crazy.

I will never have another phone with a glass back. The Nexus 4 was my last. They're just way to fragile.

 

Don't forget about your iPhone which lept to it's death (or at least it looked that way in the photo you posted).

Glass & cell phones are about as awkward a pair as crushers and computers.

 

My wife just got a Moto X and I got to play around with it while setting it up for her. Initial thoughts:

The phone is eerily small for a 4.7" screen. It feels a full size smaller than my GS3. While thicker, you don't notice it due to the curved back. Anyone who says 4.7" phones are too big should try this phone. It honestly doesn't feel any bigger than an iPhone in the hand. Remarkably good ergonomics.

Build quality is a step up from my GS3 (not hard to do). The plastics don't look luxurious, but they feel solid and aren't slippery, and the physical buttons lack the looseness of the GS3's buttons.

The screen quality is excellent--significantly nicer than my GS3. Colors are richer, whites are whiter, and there's no "screen door" effect despite being the same size and same resolution.

I really, really miss the quick-toggle settings in the notification shade, as well as the brightness slider in the notification shade. The GS3 is definitely nicer (though more confusing and less "sleek") in this respect.

The camera takes pretty good pictures (I had a significant update to download as soon as we got it, so I think we have the updated camera app). But I can't figure out how to change the aspect ratio, and it's taking what appear to be 16:9 photos instead of a more normal photo ratio. This is another area where utility was sacrificed for sleek-and-simple interface.

The stock launcher locks you in at five screens; no way to reduce it without changing the launcher. Why? That's bizarre. My wife only needs one homescreen. I installed Nova Launcher so we wouldn't be in a situation with four empty homescreens.

Voice call quality is excellent. Really, really good.

 

After having my Nexus 4 for 8 months, and my iPhone for a couple months, if you aren't careful with an 800 dollar piece of electronics, then that is all on you, sorry. Even after letting a few kids playing with my iPhone, it hasn't broken, so saying a phone with a glass back is too fragile is bs. There is no way, manufacturers would intentionally have a phone that would [break], so thus the glass back argument is kinda dumb, they would have a class action lawsuit on them. Is it possible it has a higher probability of breaking as a whole vs a plastic back, sure, but that is statistics are play. Glass will break if dropped, and the more electronics sold, more chances for glass to break. But just because the fact it is glass, you shouldn't avoid it.

 

Well, yeah, of course. The more clumsy the person, the more likely they are to drop their phone. But in that one instance where it slips out of my hand when taking it out of my pocket and drops 3 ft to the ground, I'd like it to survive without any shattering. Obviously a glass backed iPhone won't. As cheap as plastics are, they're on mobile phones cause they're lighter than metal and more durable than glass.

Using an iPhone without some sort of protective boot or case is just an invitation to disaster...like not having a bumper on your car. Doesn't matter how careful you are, in the end, Murphy will catch up and cause you grief.

 

Reminds me of when Apple came out with the first ipod nano. It had a real fragile screen. So fragile in fact if it was in your back pocket it would crack the screen when you sat on it. I believe apple redesigned it after recognizing this fault and replaced a lot of screens.

Also just a week ago one of my soldiers was laying on a bench 3 feet up and his iPhone slipped off the bench and cracked the screen. His fault, but now I'll be replacing his screen when the replacement arrives.

This is the reason every phone, tablet, ipod I have, has an Otterbox Defender or Speck case and Zagg Invisible Shield on it. I'll take the bulk for the protection. Thus a phones finish is pretty irrelevant to me. Same for my wife. She wanted a case for her GS3, so I got her an Otterbox Commuter case and Invisible Shield. Let's face it, accidents happen. I'm one for protecting an investment.

Only electronic I have without a case is a ipod nano which now has a cracked screen from falling off my bunk. LOL. But that's my running and workout iPod that I've accidentally sent through the washer so the cracked screen doesn't bother me.

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@TearTaker: The GT-I9506 is making its way to Europe. With a bit of luck, you'll see it stateside too. It might not be as appealing as the Galaxy J that you were after but at least they both have a 2.3 GHz S800 processor. Still, I can't seem to shake the feeling that the J would have been a lot easier to sell even if it only has a new name, a new housing and an additional gigabyte of RAM over the GT-I9506. If it wasn't for marketing, the G2 should have been dominating the 5-inch Android space pretty hard by now.

Samsung Galaxy S4 with Snapdragon 800 and LTE-A now taking on Europe

 

You have an iPhone 5. You have an aluminum back. I'm talking about the 4/4S. They were heavy, and they have a full pane glass back. When they fell, they fell with force, and you know what? The front or back broke almost every single time.

The 5 is MUCH more impact resistant than the 4S. So, saying you let kids play with your 5 and it's not broken yet only reinforces my point. I wouldn't let a kid within 4ft of an uncased iPhone 4/4S.

So, while I agree if you drop it, it's your fault... everyone is going to drop their phone at one point or another, from some degree of height.\

 

Thank you very much, Convel. I saw that on another sight I frequent. I have an upgrade on the 30th. Still have no idea what I want. It's pretty much between the Note 3 and Nexus 5 right now.

 

Having used both, go with the Nexus.

The Note 3 is just more of the same stuff... unless you need the S-Pen. I still don't understand why Samsung has chosen not to modernize TouchWiz.

 

I hope the N5 shows up tomorrow after the Play Store event. Wouldn't surprise me if they waited until the 31st, but I don't have to be anywhere tomorrow so I can spam the Buy Now button

 

Yeah. If past experiences are anything to go on, then I won't be touching the pen. Never did with the Note 2. But I am mainly worried about the camera and battery life of the nexus 5. I know both will be great on the Note 3, not sure about the N5.

 

Oh NO, $100 battery`s

Samsung may kill off unlicensed third-party accessories with ID chip | News | TechRadar

 

Structurally not really. Cosmetically, back-wise, sure.

 

No you shouldn't. You should avoid it because it's an Apple product with a glass back.

I managed to shatter the back of my 4 just by putting it down on a table, literally. The Z is fine with some mild - but not Nokia-grade - abuse, no product revisions required.

On topic, the everyday 'Software Update' prodding for the One begins. I have an alternative launcher but if I can now disable Brokefeed aka (A Very) Poor Man's Windows Phone homescreen, I might go back to stock.

 

With that logic, every glass back iPhone 4/4S should crack, and I know for a fact that is false. Again glass has its inherent risks, yes it cracks, but I feel it is much nicer looking then some crappy plastic back or soft touch material.

 

Structurally? Yes, really. Like the HTC One, sure a drop will make a dent, and probably not make edges and components line up just-right, but it's actually kind of hard to break an iPhone 5/C/S screen.

Of the people I know with iPhone 4/4S models that don't have at least otterbox level protection, ~80% of them have a cracked or busted glass panel... or at least half the time it's cracked so bad it's literally missing pieces of glass. Had a friend use food coloring on the back of her spider-webbed glass back 4S.

Glass looks better, of course! But it's not worth the risk.

 

I think you might be confusing 'deform the handset slightly and break the screen' with 'make a dent'. It's an iPhone 5, not the Black Knight... just checking we're on the same page.

 

Not sure what you're saying here.

Like I said, it's aluminum... not ceramic. It absorbs impact, making a dent.

Are you dropping it, or throwing it. I need to know. For reasons.

 

I think I'm set putting a custom ROM on my Samsung S3 LTE (I9305) as I feel like a change. Pretty interested putting the Avatar ROM on mine but I'm new to this flashing and customising business using Android so any quick pointers or recommendations before proceeding?

 

Just make a backup before you do anything so that you can always revert back if you decide to do so.

 

I highly prefer Clockwerk Mod, helps you to flash custom roms and root. Cyanogenmod is close to stock Android if you despise bloated UI. If you do brick your phone's firmware, you can redownload the stock firmware at sammobile. Also I highly recommend Odin, it's factory restore software made by Samsung, I think it got leaked out by mistake.

 

OK for the kids.

Carphone Warehouse slashes Avoca Android tablet to £49 - PC Advisor

 

I can guarantee you that every one they sell this Christmas, they'll have to return in January.

 

I'm not sure if this has been posted, but I came across this pretty cool free app that turns your phone into a car dash cam with dvr type functionality.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dailyroads.v

I'm going to wipe and setup my old HTC Evo to do this since it records in 720p.
Seems like something cool to do with an old cell phone.

 

For some people, a 50 dollar tablet is all they need to satisfy their kids. My workplace sold a 70 dollar no name Android ICS tablet, we sold out by the 3rd day with very few returns.

 

#betterthanthenote3

 

#stillanhtcproductgg

 

Aside from camera quality, screen, processing power, build quality, features and basically every other objective measure.

 

TBH I do find the metal finish on the HTC a lot more appealing than the plastics of the Samsung phones. Is the build quality that bad?

Oh and thanks for the tips earlier, I'm now running Cyanogenmod and it does feel snappier than before. I did have problems trying to install the Recovery thing but my friend helped out and installed PhilZ-CWM on instead. Though the camera interface is a bit bare compared to stock and had some audio quality issues on the ROM, had to fiddle with the Sound scripts but then I'm not sure if its just down to the tinny loudspeaker on the phone.

 

I hate stock Samsung images, so much crappy Samsung software, it drives me up the wall. I flashed on a custom rom onto my gf's GS3, helped alot til she lost her phone. Stock Android camera app is kinda stock, adunno if you can find the stock Samsung camera app and sideload it as an apk. CM 10.1 is pretty close to stock Android you find on Nexus devices, and for me its hard to tell the difference.

 

Yeah, I think the greatest drawback I've seen in using CM10.1 on my GS3 is the camera app. Samsung's app had many more features, and the panorama mode was a lot more reliable. I don't think it's possible to sideload the stock Samsung app onto CM though, since Samsung's apps all have TouchWiz dependencies.

 

Build quality =/= build materials.

The HTC looks premium, but it's got panel tolerance issues and seams that don't line up right.

 

Aside from camera and processor, how is the Note 3 superior? The screen and build quality should be similar, and bloats are =\= features.

I'm not considering either for various reasons.

 

The One Max's casing design is based off the Mini's as well, the panel gaps that plagued the original One wouldn't be an issue.

 

But then with that said, you're dealing with plastic instead of metal. The only part of the One Max that's metal are the outermost panels.

 

Yes, but it's the nice matte polycarbonate plastic, not the plastic covered in 2 centimeters of gloss coat.

 

Ahh, well that's not too bad then. I hate the Mini's glossy plastic.

 

Look into ProCapture. It's a few dollars on the Play store, but it's an EXCELLENT camera app that takes good pictures in stock settings and has a TON of settings to play with.

 

Have an upgrade the 30th guys. G2 or Note 3?

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Both have beastly specs, but both also have really overdone software. I guess it depends on whether you'd prefer the more compact form factor of the G2 or the stylus support of the Note 3.

 

Yeah. True. I played with them. I didn't really like the way the G2 felt compared to the Note 3. But the Note maybe seems too big, so I don't know. Kinda unusual, there isn't a phone out where I think I must have it. Not really too excited about my options.

 

Nexus 5? *tenchar*