Official Phone Thread

[quote=Janitsu]because we (mostly Searz) talks a lot about phones and everyone wants some advice every now and then etc etc And I'll start: has anyone tried CyanogenMod? Is it worth it to lose the warranty of your phone?[/quote]

[quote=Searz][quote=Janitsu]And I'll start: has anyone tried CyanogenMod? Is it worth it to lose the warranty of your phone?[/quote] First off, no, it likely does not void your warranty. Read: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1894668 CM is pretty sweet. I've used it a while on my Nexus S and Nexus 7. I really like the forced full-screen functionality for apps that don't support immersive mode. Camera bugged out like crazy, but otherwise mostly free of issues. I did clean flashes btw. Dirty flashes can get very buggy (which is why I waited until now with my Android 5.0 flashes). I might create a thread about Android 5.0. It's pretty awesome, the new visual design and animations are amazing, but I'm sad they aren't done with the camera functionality yet, and the battery life hasn't improved, which is weird considering that their 'project volta' was supposed to launch with Android 5.0 and was supposed to improve battery life significantly.[/quote]

[quote=sirell]Fuck Apple. Okay, not exactly a phone thing, but I know iPhone users also have this problem. Syncing shit to your iPad is just one big fucking pain in the ass. Then occasionally, my music will randomly delete itself from the iPad for no reason. When you try to re-sync it, the bloody device never syncs properly, by which I mean, not at all. I just spent 3 hours deleting my entire library so I could re-sync all my songs on again. Argh. The only reason I have an iPad Mini 2 is because it was a Christmas present. -___________- So yeah, a tip to all potential Apple product users. Avoid. This has been a persistent problem since 2012 and they still haven't fixed it.[/quote]

[quote=Electro522]I just recently bought a MotoG by Motorola. Not even a couple hours after I got it, I got an odd notification about some spotlight video that used a hat that looked like it belong to Pherrel (right?) Williams as the icon. I figured it was just some advertising for something that Google Play wanted to sell, and opted to ignore it. But, the night after I got it, that same hat ended up [i]wandering[/i] around my screen (no notification or anything), and landed in the bottom left hand corner of my screen. This certainly caught my attention, so, I tapped the hat. What followed was an interactive video where you controlled the camera. The phone's accellerometer (dont know how to spell that correctly) is sensitive enough to where it can tell if your turning around, or looking up and down with the phone. This video was just a simple cartoon of a mouse in a forest trying his hardest to hold onto this hat because it's windy as ever. He eventually ends up chasing the hat all around the forest, and even gets sucked into a tornado, where, amazingly, he grabs the hat, and is able to put it on. Unfortunately, he gets knocked out by what seemed to be a train, and falls back down to Earth. Once he lands, he actually tries to get rid of the hat due to the recent trouble it has brought him, but, he can't get rid of it. The video then ends with him getting chased by the hat. From what I have read, this is apparently something of a downgrade to that of the Occulus Rift headset, allowing you to make a game a virtual reality. Only this time, it's on your phone, and your just watching a video. It actually exceeded my expectations by a mile, and I found out that there were two other videos just like it! One of them was similar to the mouse video (it was set in the same forest setting, and the same art) where you actually had to find little bugs with a flash light that would eventually get eaten by a frog. The other video is an artistic masterpiece, and is even being nominated for an Oscar award. It follows the life of a little girl AND boy [b]at the same time[/b]. You can choose to follow whichever you prefer. The girl loves to dance, whereas the boy, accompanied by his excited puppy, is somewhat of a wilderness explorer. The girl eventually grows up, and ends up on stage. The boy is pulled around by his dog, and eventually (supposedly) beats a life ling goal of climbing a waterfall. However, throughout the video, the girl and boy keep running into each other. The video starts with the two of them, they meet up an additional 3 times before finally getting together, and fading into black (bet you didn't see that coming!) All in all these videos are absolutely fascinating, and I never expected a phone to be sensitive enough to track your every movement! I'm actually very excited to see what else is in store for these videos. [b][size=6]TL;DR[/size][/b] I apologize for the wall of text, but honestly, you should read the entire post.[/quote]

[quote=Searz][quote=Sirell] Fuck Apple. Okay, not exactly a phone thing, but I know iPhone users also have this problem. Syncing shit to your iPad is just one big fucking pain in the ass. Then occasionally, my music will randomly delete itself from the iPad for no reason. When you try to re-sync it, the bloody device never syncs properly, by which I mean, not at all.[/quote] Well, not only that, but they also force the use of their own proprietary music program, which is just wrong on so many levels.. Apple also has no fucking clue of how to properly implement things like widgets (Android is just on a whole different level). And makes plenty of very silly design decisions. But to their credit they have a very battery-optimized system and a very seamless backup and restore system. Both of which Android does not. Android is clearly inferior when it comes to handling things effectively in terms of battery usage; Apple can get away with 1800mah batteries in their phones while Android phones with similar battery life have about 2500mah. I have to go use third party backup programs whenever I want to flash a new operating system on Android, and it's not exactly a seamless experience. It'd be so fucking nice if Google's servers could automatically save app data so that you wouldn't have to fiddle with backups. The experience has gotten better with Android 5.0; now you can choose to restore apps from previous devices and choose which apps you want, but that's still only the apps themselves, not the data, like savefiles for the games. Some games support cloud saves for Google Play Games, yes, but that's not the norm :( Yes, I'm a bit bitter that I had to sit and fiddle like an hour, backing shit up and then restoring it when I was installing a new instance of the OS. But at least Android makes up for it in other areas, like native support for tons of shit Apple users could only dream of, along with better design in general.[/quote]

[quote=Latest Legend]I ignored the update notification on my Nexus 4 twice and it hasn't popped up again, neither does the update function detect an update -_- And I'm too lazy to back everything up, download the image and flash it myself of course ^^[/quote]

[quote=sirell][quote=Searz] Well, not only that, but they also force the use of their own proprietary music program, which is just wrong on so many levels..[/quote] Quite irritating, yes. Even more so when it doesn't work properly. In fairness, it works properly 90% of the time, but really, there's no reason whatsoever for it to stop working the other 9% of the time. The other 1% is because it's run out of battery. [quote=Searz]Apple also has no fucking clue of how to properly implement things like widgets (Android is just on a whole different level). And makes plenty of very silly design decisions.[/quote] I suppose that's why people jailbreak their stuff. [quote=Searz] But to their credit they have a very battery-optimized system and a very seamless backup and restore system. Both of which Android does not. Android is clearly inferior when it comes to handling things effectively in terms of battery usage; Apple can get away with 1800mah batteries in their phones while Android phones with similar battery life have about 2500mah.[/quote] Yeah, but a battery life is workable with external chargers which I always carry around anyway, but when stuff randomly starts disappearing, there's no workabout rather than to just reset in some manner. Although I do wish that I only needed one product instead of two just to keep the first one alive. [quote=Searz] I have to go use third party backup programs whenever I want to flash a new operating system on Android, and it's not exactly a seamless experience. It'd be so fucking nice if Google's servers could automatically save app data so that you wouldn't have to fiddle with backups. The experience has gotten better with Android 5.0; now you can choose to restore apps from previous devices and choose which apps you want, but that's still only the apps themselves, not the data, like savefiles for the games. Some games support cloud saves for Google Play Games, yes, but that's not the norm :([/quote] You'd think if they worked together with Apple, they'd come up with a good compromise of a product. [quote=Searz] Yes, I'm a bit bitter that I had to sit and fiddle like an hour, backing shit up and then restoring it when I was installing a new instance of the OS. But at least Android makes up for it in other areas, like native support for tons of shit Apple users could only dream of, along with better design in general.[/quote] Guess we just have to accept our lot in life. As I said, it was a present, so social norm dictates that I can't really just sell it without a good reason. And it does work properly 90% of the time, so...[/quote]

[quote=Latest Legend][quote=Searz]I have to go use third party backup programs whenever I want to flash a new operating system on Android, and it's not exactly a seamless experience. It'd be so fucking nice if Google's servers could automatically save app data so that you wouldn't have to fiddle with backups.[/quote]Can't you just use adb backup? Or doesn't that save everything?[/quote]

[quote=Searz][quote=Latest Legend]I ignored the update notification on my Nexus 4 twice and it hasn't popped up again, neither does the update function detect an update -_- And I'm too lazy to back everything up, download the image and flash it myself of course ^^[/quote] Hahaha, unlucky :P I got the option literally the same day I decided to manually update, but skipped it because I wanted to do a clean flash of Android 5.0. I don't like dirty flashes/updates when there are big version changes. I know eventual problems are almost always solved by a simple cleanup of the cache and/or dalvik cache, but I dunno..[quote=sirell]I suppose that's why people jailbreak their stuff.[/quote] Nah, people Jailbreak for customization and extra functionality. Widgets and general design are still as dodgy as always even with Jailbreak. [quote]Yeah, but a battery life is workable with external chargers which I always carry around anyway, but when stuff randomly starts disappearing, there's no workabout rather than to just reset in some manner. Although I do wish that I only needed one product instead of two just to keep the first one alive.[/quote] Yeah, it'd be pretty sweet. Apple devices also rarely have significantly better battery life than competing products, it's just that they have similar battery life with smaller batteries, which often results in smaller and lighter devices, because of reduced battery size. [quote]Guess we just have to accept our lot in life. As I said, it was a present, so social norm dictates that I can't really just sell it without a good reason. And it does work properly 90% of the time, so...[/quote] Yeah, that's the reason I think surprise presents are a bad idea. If you want to give a person something then just freaking ask them what they want. Problem solved..[/quote]

[quote=The_Nameless_Bard]Just to add my two cents, I am really disappointed with the Pantech Jest I have currently. I'm going to replace it soon (thank god) as it is perhaps the worst phone I have ever owned. The worst being that it occasionally decides to stop detecting its battery and will only stay on if it's plugged in until it starts detecting the battery again. It actually did so for nearly a week at one point and I was told by my mobile phone provider that there was nothing to do about it as it's a common problem with this phone (and other pantech phones, from what I could tell) that replacing the battery doesn't usually fix. They maybe should have mentioned that when I got it. ugh.[/quote]