I know it sounds like marketing spin, but your brain is really good at ignoring visual noise. I don’t even notice the notch anymore.
The notch is perfectly fine as long as you keep the phone in portrait orientation. It’s frickin’ ridiculous in landscape, but I basically never use my phone that way.
~2006: O2 XDA Exec. Windows Mobile 5.0 with touchscreen and integrated stylus. People were genuinely amazed by it when they saw me with it in the wild.
September 2010: HTC Desire
May 2012: HTC One X - returned due to manufacturing fault
September 2012: Samsung Galaxy Note 2
January 2013: LG Nexus 4 - purchased to have a smaller phone, but didn’t like it and gave it to my girlfriend
October 2013: LG Nexus 5 - battery life was so bad that I sold it after 3 days
November 2013: LG G2 - favourite phone I’ve had. Only changed because the screen smashed and it was too expensive to fix.
May 2015: Asus Zenfone 2 - buggy software, one of the worst screens i’ve ever used on a phone, and battery life was poor
May 2015: LG G4 - crap battery life, but would have kept it except it had a manufacturing defect. I dodged a bullet it seems, with the whole bootloop issue. Only phone I’ve ever had get so hot in normal use that it shut itself down.
June 2015: Samsung Galaxy S5 - cheap, boring and safe option. Was bored of trying to find a mid-range phone that wasn’t crap.
April 2017: Moto Z - so far have had to return it to the manufacturer twice for repair.
The hunt for an android phone that isn’t built like shit continues!
Wow, I’ve never had a manufacturing problem with an iPhone, ever. They work great until I replace them, every single time. That’s a dismaying list.
I did have an iPhone 5 with a bloated overheating battery, but it was 5 years old when that happened. Was using it as an ipod touch.
I’ve already decided my next phone will be an iPhone. Probably a 7 Plus. I’m not particularly wealthy, but I’m wealthy enough to pay a premium just to have guaranteed customer service and a very high likelihood of having a phone that works and will continue to work.
Last time I sent my Motorola away for repair it took 8 weeks to get it returned, and they made me feel like I was being unreasonable in chasing them up after 5 weeks had passed with no contact.
If you want to stick with Android I think you’d be fine with a Samsung flagship as well, aside from the Note 7 (obviously) they are very well made.
I don’t like aesthetic they’ve gone with for the S8, when a friend in work handed me it I thought it both looked and felt cheap. I also still really dislike touchwiz!
Alrighty. Very subjective thing.
I have been a dedicated Samsung guy but the s8 is gross.
Motorola Razr
No idea what I used in between…
Nexus G1
Nexus S
Nexus 4
Nexus 5
Nexus 5X
Nexus 6P
Pixel
One or two of these I did not drop and break. I have had good practice replacing screens. I hate doing it.
Eh, you could argue that Apple should have cut the bezels on their mainstream (and still expensive!) models a bit with the 8, but for the 7 it wasn’t that weird at the time. I kinda suspect the iPhone X manufacturing process was so onerous that they didn’t have time to update anything else. I’m fairly confident the iPhone 9, all models, will have vastly reduced bezels. That’s already the rumor based on the (weirdo fancy LED) displays they’ve ordered.
The 7 was a bit long in the tooth, being the 6ss, but the 8 (6sss) is just ridiculous.
Pretty sure they wanted to, but the X took up all their efforts for that cycle. I will be deeply shocked if any 9 model has Big Bezel when October 2018 rolls around.
I don’t think many people consider bezels a true deal breaker at this point. It is slightly behind the times, yes, but not a deal breaker. And there’s always the premium X if you Just Gotta Have It.
My OnePlus One has started acting really weird. Since I got my Nexus 6p, I’ve used my OnePlus One as a mp3 player, audiobook player, book reader type of device. I realize I can use the Nexus 6p that way, but the OnePlus One has a bigger hard drive, and it’s more convenient sometimes to have two different devices for different uses. Plus I put less stress on the 6p, and maybe it lasts longer as a phone, you know?
Anyway, the 1+1 has suddenly started using batteries in a really severe way. It starts suddenly draining the battery really fast until it dies. According to the phone’s software, what’s using that power is “Cell Standby”. So if I put it in Airplane mode, it doesn’t do it. But of course, in airplane mode I can’t use Wifi. That’s fine for most usecases, but I do also use the device to catch up on news when I’m at home. It’s just strange that it started doing this all of a sudden. Obviously I’ve been on the same last Cyanogenmod OS since they went out of business and stopped doing updates. I have been doing other updates for apps and stuff though. Maybe somethere there triggered this somehow.
I am really sorry to hear that, @Rock8man. Old phones have a weird habit of going sideways around their planned obsolescence timeline, in my experience. I’m a little impressed that your 1+1 was still ticking!
That said, you should be able to manually turn Wifi back on after turning on airplane mode, which will leave the cell radios off (and not draining). Give it a shot and see if it works!
For my part, I’ve just spent far too much goddamned money on new chargers and cables to welcome my new USB C 3.0 phone into the world, and to prep for my gf’s own upcoming phone acquisition. Ugh. Now I’ve got all these damned Micro USB cables laying around. . .
Yea, I do this when I go abroad. After tapping the Airplane icon to turn on general Airplane mode (turns off cellular radio, WiFi and Bluetooth), you can then tap the individual WiFi or Bluetooth icons to turn them back on. I’m pretty sure I’ve done this since like, Lollipop at least or something, so it’s not like you have to have the latest version of Android.
Thank you for this you guys. I didn’t know I could turn the Wifi on in airplane mode. It works! And my battery issue hasn’t returned since, so fingers crossed. I hope I can get a couple of more years out of the 1+1 as my mobile media device. Unlike my 6p, I also have no cover on it, and it feels so nice and light in my hand, and I love the feel of the rough surface on the back.
My Nexus 5X was collected by the grim thermal stress reaper earlier this week. The good news it’s still under warranty. Bad news is that the problem is seems to be unfixable, so any replacement will just break the same way. The warranty will just get me a paperweight. (Though I should probably get it repaired just as a fuck you to LG, whose handling of this has been awful).
Anyway, that meant I had to get a new phone now-now-now rather than after doing weeks of research. I ended up with the Nokia 7 plus:
- It’s part of the Android One program, which means pure vanilla Android and with prompt and regular updates.
- Huge battery (3800mAh), 64 GB Flash, a Snapdragon 660, a slot for either a dual-sim or microSD card.
- The black + copper design looks great. It has almost this Art Deco look to it. Feels pretty good too (unibody aluminum with some kind of ceramic coating).
The main alternative I was considering was the Pixel 1 which was on sale for the same price, but I just couldn’t see the point of the Pixel in the end. Worse specs overall, and the Pixel security updates are only guaranteed for another 18 months vs. 3 years for the Nokia.
Happy with it so far, except the Wifi seems to be a bit wonky. My current theory is that it’s to do with switching between 2.4/5GHz networks with the same SSID, but that needs more testing.
Insert sad face emoji here.
Snapdragon 845 or bust, my friend.
Am not a “power user” so please don’t mock me for my slow phones. Past Snapdragon 6xx series, I can’t discern much difference for the uses I have.
1st—2009. Don’t remember the type. Not really “smart,” but had a keyboard and I could post to facebook via text. Replaced as it was dumb.
2nd—2012. Got a Droid 4. LOVED THAT KEYBOARD.
3rd—2014. Droid 4 after first crapped out. Still had to have the keyboard.
4th—2015. Battery died on the 2nd D4. Got a Droid Turbo for the battery life. Basically haven’t responded to texts since losing the physical keyboard. Would TOTALLY buy a Note 8 with keyboard even if it weighed 16 oz.
5th—2016. Droid Turbo quit working. Verizon replaced it UW.
6th—2017. Turbo started acting janky. Got a Moto Z Play. Loved the battery life. Recommended by QT3. $143 brand new at Best Buy.
7th—2018. Z Play crapped out after 6 months for no discernible reason. Upgraded (for cheap) to a brand-new Note 8. Like it enough that I may stick with Samsung from here on out.