1567

huh weird. I went to double check and yeah, at least the US model does not have NFC: https://www.motorola.in/products/moto-g-gen-6#promo-vendor

1568

Depending on your carrier you could import an international model and stick a US SIM in it. Probably still cheaper than an X4.

1569

Doing a follow-up, about my new Xiaomi Mi 8, I have a few nitpicks:

-As other Xiaomi smartphones, their DRM level isn’t high enough, so some paid video apps (ie. Netflix) won’t play video in HD. I don’t care about Netflix, but surprisingly I found it also affected HDR videos in youtube (it’s like it doesn’t use the correct colors), which is a pity because this phone has a nice hdr10 amoled display. And yes, it’s a drm thing, I could download sample hdr videos and watch them with mx player, and the colors are then accurate.

-The speaker isn’t stereo. Again I don’t care because I won’t watch anything longer than a 7 minute youtube video, and for music I will use headphones, but it’s puzzling because physically the phone looks like it has dual speakers. It doesn’t.

-Google voice (the voice match, ie. saying ‘ok google’ to activate it) doesn’t work. Now, from what I read this is a bug that comes from the google side of things which is already 3 months old, and affects several brands.

And then we reach the notifications issues:

  • The notification led is only white, it isn’t rgb for multiple color notifications.
  • There are no notification icons in the notification bar. It sounds stupid, i know. I guess they didn’t have space with the notch. You of course still has notifications if you expand the bar, and emergent notifications, and notif in the lock screen, and notification bubbles in the app icons, so it isn’t like you can’t see them.
  • Some notifications apps like Gmail didn’t have the ‘quick actions’ to reply, or delete the email. That sucks.

-The native home app laucher is eww, it dosn’t have a proper app drawer. Thanks god it can be fixed so easily (nova launcher, evie, action launcher, so many more).

All together sounds like not the best smartphone to buy, but literally I’m doing a list of all the bad parts I found. In reality the phone is pretty good thanks to the cheap price for the hardware you are buying (420€ including shipping for top of the line specs, good display, good camera, 3400mh battery, nfc, quick charge 4.0, dual gps, dual sim, good metal + glass build, 3d face unlock)

1570

For anyone who doesn’t follow all of Google’s app tweaking (ie: me), News and Weather was shut down yesterday in favor of Google News. This is strictly worse for my use, since News is a 5x2 widget and doesn’t have a 4 day forecast. Any recommendations on a good Weather widget?

1571

I use a couple. Fancy Widgets for my main homepage, which combines a clock and weather-at-a-glance — mainly because it has one similar to what I used to have on my HTC phone when I first switched to Android. Then on another homepage the BBC Weather widget which gives me more granular weather data including a week view on the widget itself and an hour-by-hour view if I click through.

Incidentally, Google has also killed the very useful Google Now widget, or whatever it was most recently called, and replaced it with a completely rubbish thing that doesn’t show any cards at all.

1572

Isn’t that the goal? Replace the open source versions with Google version, making manufacturers more and more reliant on Google and making open source Android a worse option?

1573

I don’t think any of them were open source. They’ve just taken their existing proprietary widgets and made them shittier.

1574

The Google Now widget is kind of redundant now that you have a whole page that’s easily accessible all the time that shows that info. Long Press on the center button at the bottom and it opens up all the google now stuff.

1575

Mail and a few other app we’re part of the original Android Open Source project but have been deprecated. I thought this might be part of the same push to privatize the best of Android.

1576

1weather is my jam.

1577

That’s only true if you’re using the Google launcher. And the whole point of wdigets is that you don’t have to press any buttons to see the info.

1578

So, Pixel 3.

$799 credit to Project Fi if you buy two and one of those is for someone new to your plan.

Need to figure out how to game this. I will absolutely buy two Pixel 3s for $400 apiece.

1579

Hmmmm. Yeah, how would I do this?

Can I use the two phones for me and my wife and add my son who is a toddler, and then turn off the account after the required minimum months?

1580

Right? Idk. But I want, so obviously I should be given.

1581

I find it funny that it is the weather portion you wish to replace. The new Google News is horrible after the format of the previous. No dark mode, stupid huge boxes - get off my lawn!

1582

Oh, no – to be clear I never used the news portion of it at all. I used (the also now replaced) Google Now so… crap. Google needs to keep their tinkering to the stuff I don’t care about!

1583

Does anyone have any recommendations for an inexpensive android device that’s the size of a phone but doesn’t need to be a phone? My kids listen to podcasts and Google Play Music, and I’ve been giving them my old (inactive from a cell plan standpoint) phones. After one phone that got the screen cracked badly and another that is no longer holding a charge, I’m out of old phones.

I’m looking for really inexpensive because both kids lost their devices (one was found after 2.5 months, another after 1 month) and odds are high that if I get them something new it will be lost or broken again. It would need Google Play support for the GPM playback and podcast app, but not a lot else.

1584

Maybe a Fire Tablet?

1585

The kids actually have Fire tablets (one of my best purchases ever), but I was hoping for a phone-size device because they use them a lot when we’re walking or working around the house and tablets don’t really fit in your pocket.

1586

I’d just keep an eye out for deals on prepaid phones that you just don’t bother to activate. Sometimes you’ll see the lower end Motorola phones on sale in the $40 range.