1587

Buy an Amazon branded phone, they are very inexpensive.

1588

These BLU android phones that support MicroSD expandable storage are 50 bucks apiece, unlocked.

1589

Because I threw my just bought iPhone down the toilet yesterday (litterally), I am back using some antiquated Android toy. It’s an Xperia T3, and something bugs me: there is no notifications on the lock screen. I tried looking around, to no avail. I got suggestions to download some apps, that sure as hell do absolutely nothing to the lock screen.
So is the lock screen locked into its unusefulness?
It’s running Android 4.4, and can’t be upgraded, as far as I can tell.

1590

Drop that phone down the toilet also. :)

1591

Lock Screen notifications were added in 5.0 so yea, you’re stuck.

1592

Dang. Thank you very much for the info.

1593

Every time I hear about someone dropping their phone in the toilet, I can’t help thinking, “How on Earth?” Is it because it was bare and thus slippery what with the glass back and all that (I don’t “get” glass backs for just that reason)?

1594

No, it was merely gravity: I woke up, put on my canadian jacket, the phone happened to be in the top right pocket from the previous evening (I put it there when I want to listen to podcast, headphone-less). I dragged my coffee-deprived self to the toilet, did what clueless males do and peed standing, then bent over for the flush. Drame ensues.

This will go on as a spinoff to a famous @RichVR topic starring @stusser, but I used to take the habits, when living with my wife, to sit on the toilets no matter what, as to help with the splatter and before it is more comfortable anyway — and because I had already lost an iPod to the male body positionning before. Now getting an old fashioned, upper flush could have helped in both case too.

Ironically, I had taken off a cover a few weeks before, because it made it difficult for me to pull the phone out of any of my pockets. Duh.

1595

Iphones have been water resistant for several years, going back to the 6s. Unless you have a truly ancient one, it should be fine after being dropped in the crapper.

So you used to sit down to pee? So inconvenient! You did that in public washrooms too?

1596

Can you link me one? I tried searching Amazon for an Amazon branded phone and all I found were the Prime exclusive phones that started around $130.

Thanks. It’s a good price for an unlocked phone, but according to the page it’s running Android 4.4, which is almost 5 years old? That seems an odd choice, especially given that they’ve got other phones with more recent builds.

I think at the moment I’m leaning towards prepaid. There’s several phones at about $40 that have 16GB internal storage, 1.1GHz processor, 2GB, and newer versions of Android. Some of them are running Android Go, which I hadn’t heard of, but seems to be a slimmed down version with lighter apps. Sounds like a good thing?

1597

Yeah, they start around $100 now. Used to be a bit cheaper. Difference is they are all actual usable phones, not toys.

1598

Yesterday the phone was having big issues, today it booted. I reinitiated it, as it was panicking all the time, and it turns out the touch ID has been fried. Now that I disabled it, it’s working nicely again.

1599

Ah, sorry didn’t look too closely at the age of that model.

The BLU Advance 5.2 HD is 59 bucks unlocked and has Android Oreo. Since the latest Android P was only released in the last several weeks, it’s quite current.

You’d want a microsd card since it only has 8gb internal storage, but I’d imagine it should have longevity as a music player.

I haven’t checked out prepaid’s, but if there’s a decent model for $40, sounds like a plan.

1600
1601

Ahhhhh fuck.

1602

Don’t sweat it, BR. Our PH-1s will be near flagship spec for another year at least. Have you seen the new Pixel? I’d still choose the PH-1 over it…

1603

I agree, totally, just sad it didn’t get the love it deserves.

1604

The new Discover that replaced Google Now is awful. Consistently showing articles from months ago. If it’s a subject I’m interested in I’ve already heard whatever news they’re talking about and if it isn’t Google shouldn’t be showing it anyway.

Oh, I did find a “close enough” replacement for the weather portion of News and Weather. weawow has nice customizable widgets in a bunch of sizes including the 4x1 multi day forecast I was missing.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.weawow&hl=en_US

1605

Google news has a dark mode now and you can turn on mini boxes in the settings. I don’t notice much of a difference between it and the old one.

1606

Yep, I went back and found that dark mode is there now. Now my only ‘big’ gripe is that I can’t override the in-app ‘browser’ - Ads drive me insane. I tend to use just news.google.com now from whatever browser I choose that had all the ad-blocking built in. But then I lose dark mode again. Hah!