question Mobile Phones

[Mercutio]

I had to do a factory reset on my Evo. An update got pushed out and because I was in a low-service area when I happened to install it, the phone got stuck in a state where it couldn't finish installing.

I'm on Android 2.3.3 and there do not appear to be any more updates available.

Since I reset it, I notice that I only have about half as much free RAM as I used to. I'm not sure why. I loaded back the same set of apps and my screen config is the same. The only widgets I use on-screen are the 802.11 toggle and the WinAmp widget. I'm using a stock wallpaper. Right now my phone has 115MB RAM free. Before the update and reset I was seeing ~190 - 210MB with nothing running.

It's not like I'm running out of RAM but where the fuck did my memory go?

 

[Will Rickards]

Does wireless N still work for you? People are reporting various issue with this update. Most well known is netflix app is borked for video playback. Supposedly another update is being pushed out to fix issue with the last update but it may only fix netflix.

 

[Mercutio]

Oh, and Netflix does not show in Android market, either.
Looks like I'm connecting to 802.11 at 54Mbps.

So there are clearly issues.

 

[Mercutio]

Also today's Amazon free app is Peggle, which is spiffy if you like Popcap games.

 

[Will Rickards]

I got the subsequent update 4.24.651.1.
Netflix works now.

 

[Mercutio]

My phone says there are no newer updates. Maybe I should just load a custom firmware on it and be done.

 

[LunarMist]

My Russian is a little rusty, but what I think is that you should go back to spamming elsewhere.

 

[Mercutio]

Как вы думаете где лучшее будущего полиграфии

Babelfish says "As you think where better future of polygraphy"

So, yeah. OK. So I guess he's asking about lie detectors?

 

[LunarMist]

Polygraphics was printing once upon a time.

 

[Mercutio]

I like the lie detectors interpretation. It's more random.

 

[LunarMist]

Administering the polygraph was a pain. I trained a few times back in the day and decided that was not for me.

 

[time]

I'd like to give some insight into the sort of financial rape that phone companies in Australia like to do.

My base plan includes 200-300MB of data (too many plans, can't remember which one). If I exceed that I get charged 15c per megabyte. This is actually extremely good - when compared to some plans that may only include 10MB and charge 0.2c/kB. Think about that.

I'm currently in New Zealand, so I'm roaming, but as soon as I got off the plane I disabled 3G. Why? Because I'd heard horror stories about my telco's charges for data roaming.

Last night, I got around to looking it up: 20c for 10kB.

Yes, you read it correctly, that's a 'k', not a 'M'. So that's $20 per megabyte. Even compared to my extortionate normal rates, that's a 133,233 % markup.

 

[Chewy509]

time, I don't know who you are with, but as a comparison here is the Telstra IR rates page.

http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile/internat_roaming/

A $29 data pack for IR gets you a huge 10MB, and anything over the 10MB will incur a rate of $15.00 per 1MB (charged per KB). A 50c flag fall is paid per data session.

 

[MaxBurn]

I'm on a ATT gophone prepay smartphone plan and the biggest data plan for that is 500MB for $25. The data expires in 30 days but if you add more data before it expires you can roll over unused data up until you reach 1.5GB. Or if you use it up too fast you can add more as quickly as you want. For a light user I think that is a deal here in the US as the voice portion of the plan is either $2 a day only charged on days you use voice or a flat $.10 a minute.

I use maybe 200MB a month or less so at the moment I am building up a data usage rollover on the bigger plan and when I hit the 1.5GB cap I will switch down to the 200MB $15 plan, just to get the rollover and new expiration date. Over a year I predict my bills will come out to $30~35 a month.

This plan is pretty much the only reason ATT has my business, coverage is far worse than my work blackberry on verizon. I am not aware that verizon has a plan like this you can get an iphone on. In the US smartphone contract plans seem to run around $50~90 depending on minutes and features.

 

[Mercutio]

In the US smartphone contract plans seem to run around $50~90 depending on minutes and features.

The no-kidding best deals going for Smartphones and Data Plans in the US, unless you're on some kind of sweetheart deal like mine, are with pay as you go carriers like Cricket (Sprint) and Virgin (Verizon, I think). They even undercut T-mobile by a fairly substantial margin.

I have no idea how they handle handsets. Major carriers subsidize handsets to the point that we never pay more than a couple hundred bucks for anything (except maybe iThings) if we take a contract. I can only imagine that the a la carte carriers expect you to have a compatible phone already or make you pay retail for whatever you have to have.

I've also heard that Walmart is reselling somebody's 3G service at shockingly competitive rates in some markets. I don't know if that's true or not, but it wouldn't really surprise me.

 

[LunarMist]

I think Sprint owns the Virginsmobile.

 

[Mercutio]

Meh. Either way. They're the cheap ones.

 

[LunarMist]

I should probably take a look at something cheap. In the past couple months of travel the lack of mobile access to e-mail or the web has been killing me, but I'm not willing to spend $1000/year for it.

 

[BingBangBop]

When traveling - Libraries are your friend. Many ISP's supply web-based E-mail sites that are accessible by any machine with the right username/password. Even when libraries are not convenient, use a hotel Wi-Fi, or a public hot-spot such as a Starbuck's or even a Borders with a notebook. But then maybe Australia is different that the US/Can

 

[LunarMist]

Well, I have the notebook, but it is not accessible most of the time. On most vacations I have almost no free time (barely enough to eat and sleep) and often there are no cell signals either. There is no time for visiting public places or hot spots. I'm thinking that it would be nice to check a few things on the web or check e-mail when passing through a town when getting gas or making a pit stop. Obviously it could be used for more sedate purposes as well.

 

[time]

This blog compares telco roaming rape in this part of the world with Verizon in the US: $5000 for 69MB. ale:

 

[timwhit]

Well, I have the notebook, but it is not accessible most of the time. On most vacations I have almost no free time (barely enough to eat and sleep) and often there are no cell signals either. There is no time for visiting public places or hot spots. I'm thinking that it would be nice to check a few things on the web or check e-mail when passing through a town when getting gas or making a pit stop. Obviously it could be used for more sedate purposes as well.

Your vacations sound very relaxing.

 

[LunarMist]

Your vacations sound very relaxing.

The May/June vacations in the US are very strenuous and exhausting for me and it gets worse with age. After the second one this spring I was mentally and physically numb and practically all worn out.

 

[MaxBurn]

Damn:

“@jonathan_may: RT @csoghoian: Vodafone India charges $2 US for 4GB of prepaid data per month.”

 

[MaxBurn]

Actually if you want to go get good and pissed off at the cost of data here go look at #ppaiddata on twitter.

 

[Chewy509]

AMOLED Screens

Hi,
Just like to find out if any others had had warping issues with AMOLED touchscreens on their phones?
Just noticed on my wife's Samsung phone that the screen has warped, resulting in v.poor touch responsiveness. My only thought is heat from the charging process, and poor structural support for the screen being the culprit. But a quick google search does show that it's not an uncommon problem with some phones.
Yet my 4yr old iRiver Clix MP3 player (which also has an AMOLED screen) doesn't suffer this issue?

 

[time]

After going to the trouble of creating a thread to complain about your Samsung phones, you ended up getting another one anyway? :scratch:

 

[Howell]

The devil you know....?

 

[Chewy509]

After going to the trouble of creating a thread to complain about your Samsung phones, you ended up getting another one anyway? :scratch:

No, we got the HTCs. Just an observation on the old Samsungs we had.

 

[Sol]

I have a Galaxy S as do 3 or 4 people at work, a couple have the HTC desires with the Samsung AMOLED screens, there are also a couple of Galaxy S2s and a few Nexus Ses (Nexi S?). None of them have had issues with the screen warping. (Although the Nexus S starts out with a deliberately warped screen)

If the old phone was a pre Galaxy S Samsung then I'd be pretty unsurprised though, their previous touch screen phones appear to have been terrible in almost every way.

 

[Clocker]

I'm looking forward to replacing my Palm Pre with an HP Pre3. WebOS is just so intuitive that I don't mind there aren't 2,000,000 apps for it. Android is clunky to use in comparison and Apple is just not my cup of tea. All I want is an XM/Sirius app to add to my collection and I will be 100% happy.

 

[Chewy509]

If the old phone was a pre Galaxy S Samsung then I'd be pretty unsurprised though, their previous touch screen phones appear to have been terrible in almost every way.

Yep, they predate the Galaxy S by at least 12mths. Wish I had known that at the time, and would've saved having to get alternates phones later on.
BTW, my wife loves the HTC Wildfire. (Couldn't afford the Desire).

The problem we had, was availablity of models here in Australia. I found a few phones on GSMArena that would've suited us, but couldn't get them here in Australia, or if we could, they didn't support the right frequencies.

 

[Chewy509]

Does anyone know of a free Tetris game for Android that does not suck? I've tried the paid EA version, and a few others I've downloaded, but they all suck in some manner?

Also does anyone know of a Puzzle Bobble like game as well?

 

[Will Rickards]

I thought the EA one wasn't bad. But having only a touchscreen interface for tetris is problematic I think.

 

[Chewy509]

Don't worry, I won't believe it until I see it with my own eyes.

If we do end up with the Wildfire, and only get 1 day before a recharge, then that's something expected (as with any smartphone). But if we get more, then that's a bonus!

Just to follow on from this older post. On the Wildfire with the HTC Android 2.2 image, my wife and I are getting 4-5 days before a recharge with our normal usage. Initially it was every 2-3 days, but that had to do more with use constantly playing with the phones and working out how to do things on it.

Having being using the Wildfire for close to a month, it certainly a very good platform. My only complaint, is the lower res on the screen which limits some apps from being used. But other than that, am very happy with the phone.

 

[Chewy509]

I thought the EA one wasn't bad. But having only a touchscreen interface for tetris is problematic I think.

Having the touchscreen only becomes a problem once you get into the higher levels when the bricks are falling faster. You occasionally hit the wrong button.

We eneded up settling for this version of Tetris: http://www.topandroidgames.net/detail?package=com.mybo.tetris

 

[time]

We've been looking at new Android phones. Purchase plans here are usually $0 up front and then $x per month for 2 years. The number of minutes and texts are just examples. The shortlist came down to 3 in different price brackets:

• Google/Samsung Nexus S: 53 mins + 450 texts + 400GB for $25pm
• HTC Incredible S: 75 mins + 700 texts + 500GB for $35pm
• Samsung Galaxy S II: unlimited mins & texts + 500GB for $45pm

The Nexus is the LCD version, not the AMOLED. It's quite a lot faster out of the box than the original Galaxy S, comes with 512MB RAM, 16GB internal flash and lacks a microSD slot. We've had one for a couple of days; it's great for the price, but the slippery case means you never really feel comfortable holding it. Also, it appears to have a defective battery, lasting 13 hours with a bit over an hour actual use. It would be ideal for my kids if the plan had more texts.

The Incredible increases camera resolution to 8MP. RAM goes up to 768MB and a 16GB microSD card is included. It's much nicer to hold and comes with HTC's refinement, particularly their proprietary software.

The Galaxy S II has a bigger screen (4.3") and it's Super AMOLED+. RAM is 1024MB and it comes with a 16GB microSD card. Performance-wise, it blows the others into the weeds. It includes a feature that Merc had to root his phones to achieve - inbuilt web server so you can manage phone files from a PC across a WiFi network.

We're thinking that at that price, the Galaxy S II is pretty hard to go past, although the data quota is a bit light on. Does anyone here have one or had a chance to play with one? Or why they bought something else instead?

 

[MaxBurn]

I think you mean MB on that data. If not I need to know who that is.

 

[Mercutio]

Doesn't the AMOLED screen just wreck batteries? Battery life is definitely a weak point on high performance Android devices. That's something to consider as well.

 

[Sol]

In our office we have a lot of high end smart phones (great when you're looking 'cause someone always has what you're considering) and we're probably nearly 50/50 LCD/AMOLED. Battery life is much the same for everyone, no one can safely get more than a day from their phone and at that point it doesn't much matter how much charge is left when you plug it in every night.

I'm not a fan of HTCs Sense UI. I know a lot of good things have been said for it but I think most of them were said when Android was less mature and Sense helped make up for some short comings. The only people I know who still use the Sense launcher do so because they like the widgets and they can't use them in another launcher. Other than the launcher I don't know what sense really does. Based on it's performance impact it's doing quite a bit, but no one has been able to tell me what.

The Galaxy S II seems like a really nice phone, the incredible performance suggests that Samsung learned a thing or two after the original Galaxy S software and Samsungs TouchWiz UI never seemed to as invasive as Sense is so you can just replace the home screen app with something like Zeam and the only reason to bother with a custom ROM is if you need some extra feature or root (Installing custom roms on a Samsung Galaxy phone is so simple it's actually the easiest way to root the phone). The 4 or 5 people at work who have them are all very happy with them.

Does the S II you're looking at actually have a 16GB card or is that referring to the internal memory? The S II, like the S, takes a micro SD on top of the 16GB. (In the original S the card is removable while the phone is on so it can be used as removable storage quite conveniently, I suspect this is true of the S II as well but isn't generally the case in most Android phones I've seen).

The screen on the SII is nicer than the one on my Galaxy and that's saying something. I'm always showing people photos on my phone, the quality of the AMOLED screens is really good and the viewing angles blow anything else away (Which is kind of obvious but really handy for showing people holiday snaps or (grand)child brag shots).

And text-messages be damned 400MB (Or GB for that matter) is a lot of IMs. (Unless your kids spend all their time texting friends who don't have smart phones, in which case they need to apply more peer pressure)