Cell phones survey
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@quixoticjeremy said in Cell phones survey:
@scottalanmiller said in Cell phones survey:
@tim_g said in Cell phones survey:
My next phone will most likely be Android because I want an Asus phone and want to get off o lf Win10 mobile before it crashes. If it doesn't then maybe ill come back in a few years.
I'm thinking about a ZenFone 4 for my next one. I've been burned by Androids (not Android itself, but every phone I've tried) but Asus has been so good to me, I feel good about testing one of their newer phones. I like the look and the features and the vendor. I want to get away from iPhone, but so far, have found no viable alternative. but I'm hopeful.
I'm not traveling heavily right now, so have an opportunity to test an Android again without the dangers of being stranded like I've been in the past when I foolishly tried that before.
It still amazes me that travel is so terrible with androids. I believe you 100%, it's just amazing that they could be that much worse.
It's not that travel with androids is terrible - it's that Scott's experience with Androids is so unreliable that he's not willing to risk traveling with one.
I traveled with my Nexus 6P this past June to England, Belgium and France. I bought a T-Mobile plan (which I quickly canceled when I got home since it didn't work in Nebraska almost at all) that worked reasonably well in Europe. The only place I had an issue was downtown Brussels - I had near zero cell reception and no internet access - that was very odd.
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Wow.... this thread exploded/derailed fast.
As expected, this is a mixed bag. Thanks for the opinions and suggestions on new phones. I didn't know about a couple of those Android models.I'm going to attempt to limp along until the next phone models come out next month and then make a final decision.
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I've heard good things about Cortana, and that was one of the major points why people liked their Windows phones. I just had the chance to use Cortana to set up new PC at work, and it's just dumb. I asked her to change time zone to EST, nope, she tried to open settings panel for me to change it, which froze. I asked her to uninstall McAfee, nope, she tried to search for something. Finally I told her to get lost, she went quiet after that, she got that part right. It's a safe bet to assume she's just as dumb on phone. Even NYPD is replacing their Windows phones with iPhones right now.
I can't say much about droid phones, but every single user at work had issues with IMAP email setup, droids would lose settings randomly, or would simply refuse to work claiming password was incorrect - I'm looking at you Samsung. Besides almost every droid phone has so much crapware, just like every brand name PC. Before that phone ends up in your hands, it goes through 3 or 4 different vendors, hardware manufacturer makes the hardware, Google makes the OS, then you get 3rd party crapware, and finally cellular operator loads their own crapware. And then you cannot even get updates for it. How do you assure quality product in the end? There are exceptions of course, like Google Pixel, but that's small fraction of droid phones.
Iphones just work. You deal with Apple only, from hardware to software, even 3rd party apps are controlled by them.
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@scottalanmiller said in Cell phones survey:
@tim_g said in Cell phones survey:
My next phone will most likely be Android because I want an Asus phone and want to get off o lf Win10 mobile before it crashes. If it doesn't then maybe ill come back in a few years.
I'm thinking about a ZenFone 4 for my next one. I've been burned by Androids (not Android itself, but every phone I've tried) but Asus has been so good to me, I feel good about testing one of their newer phones. I like the look and the features and the vendor. I want to get away from iPhone, but so far, have found no viable alternative. but I'm hopeful.
I'm not traveling heavily right now, so have an opportunity to test an Android again without the dangers of being stranded like I've been in the past when I foolishly tried that before.
I was considering the ZenFone 4 Pro: https://www.asus.com/us/Phone/ZenFone-4-Pro-ZS551KL/
That thing is a beast. It would be a huge hardware upgrade to my Lumia 950XL. There's some bonuses to using Android that I like, such as a decent smartwatch link I've been eyeballing for a while, among a few other apps I don't need, but could like to have.
I'd still prefer Windows 10 Mobile on that Asus hardware, because I just enjoy the interface and experience so much more compared to Android, and the Windows 10 Mobile store is actually quite pleasant now. The Windows Store prior to Win10 (8 and 8.1) does not at all reflect on how it is now, regardless of how you feel about it. I've been using it hard since November of 2015. (almost 2 years now)
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@dashrender said in Cell phones survey:
@quixoticjeremy said in Cell phones survey:
@scottalanmiller said in Cell phones survey:
@tim_g said in Cell phones survey:
My next phone will most likely be Android because I want an Asus phone and want to get off o lf Win10 mobile before it crashes. If it doesn't then maybe ill come back in a few years.
I'm thinking about a ZenFone 4 for my next one. I've been burned by Androids (not Android itself, but every phone I've tried) but Asus has been so good to me, I feel good about testing one of their newer phones. I like the look and the features and the vendor. I want to get away from iPhone, but so far, have found no viable alternative. but I'm hopeful.
I'm not traveling heavily right now, so have an opportunity to test an Android again without the dangers of being stranded like I've been in the past when I foolishly tried that before.
It still amazes me that travel is so terrible with androids. I believe you 100%, it's just amazing that they could be that much worse.
It's not that travel with androids is terrible - it's that Scott's experience with Androids is so unreliable that he's not willing to risk traveling with one.
I traveled with my Nexus 6P this past June to England, Belgium and France. I bought a T-Mobile plan (which I quickly canceled when I got home since it didn't work in Nebraska almost at all) that worked reasonably well in Europe. The only place I had an issue was downtown Brussels - I had near zero cell reception and no internet access - that was very odd.
I don't get how traveling with Android is bad. My wife uses Android and we were in Sweden for 3 months.. it was just fine. The hardware sucks because it's so old (Note 3 and all the issues that come with that) and there's never any free space, but Android and the apps gave no issues at all.
Does he drop Androids on the ground more often or something? What's traveling do?
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@scottalanmiller said in Cell phones survey:
The entire store was designed around delivering fake products (malware) to me. It was a platform designed for malware, and nothing BUT malware.
You say things like this - I just shake my head. I want to argue - but it's fruitless. I'm sure you have a reason that you believe that the store is designed around delivering fake products that I simply don't understand.
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@marcinozga said in Cell phones survey:
I've heard good things about Cortana, and that was one of the major points why people liked their Windows phones. I just had the chance to use Cortana to set up new PC at work, and it's just dumb. I asked her to change time zone to EST, nope, she tried to open settings panel for me to change it, which froze. I asked her to uninstall McAfee, nope, she tried to search for something. Finally I told her to get lost, she went quiet after that, she got that part right. It's a safe bet to assume she's just as dumb on phone. Even NYPD is replacing their Windows phones with iPhones right now.
Wow - while asking Cortana to do those things (change timezone, uninstall an app) are definitely cool ideas - I don't believe any personal assistant does those things right now.
At least Cortana tried to get you to the setting page, not sure why it froze.
Does Siri do any of these things?
I think your ask is currently unrealistic (primarily on the uninstall an app front). Will we get it some day, sure.
Did you try the other things that Cortana can do? send a SMS message? start a phone call? add a calendar entry? create a reminder? -
I like LG Android phones. They are not bloated with software and is pretty close to vanilla android, far better than Samsung in my opinion. Also, you can get a good smartphone at a low cost from LG. The LG Stylo 3 Plus is really cheap on T-Mobile but has good specs.
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@dashrender said in Cell phones survey:
@marcinozga said in Cell phones survey:
I've heard good things about Cortana, and that was one of the major points why people liked their Windows phones. I just had the chance to use Cortana to set up new PC at work, and it's just dumb. I asked her to change time zone to EST, nope, she tried to open settings panel for me to change it, which froze. I asked her to uninstall McAfee, nope, she tried to search for something. Finally I told her to get lost, she went quiet after that, she got that part right. It's a safe bet to assume she's just as dumb on phone. Even NYPD is replacing their Windows phones with iPhones right now.
Wow - while asking Cortana to do those things (change timezone, uninstall an app) are definitely cool ideas - I don't believe any personal assistant does those things right now.
At least Cortana tried to get you to the setting page, not sure why it froze.
Does Siri do any of these things?
I think your ask is currently unrealistic (primarily on the uninstall an app front). Will we get it some day, sure.
Did you try the other things that Cortana can do? send a SMS message? start a phone call? add a calendar entry? create a reminder?Why unrealistic? Most software can be uninstalled silently through wmic, so why wouldn't Cortana do it? I don't know about Siri as I hardly ever use it, but I use Alexa a lot, she can order pizza for example, which is a lot more complex task than uninstalling software. Changing time zone should be dead simple too, I will test it with both Alexa and Siri when I get home.
As for other things, no, I was setting up a PC, so none of the above tasks are relevant, but both Alexa and Siri can do those too. -
@marcinozga said in Cell phones survey:
@dashrender said in Cell phones survey:
@marcinozga said in Cell phones survey:
I've heard good things about Cortana, and that was one of the major points why people liked their Windows phones. I just had the chance to use Cortana to set up new PC at work, and it's just dumb. I asked her to change time zone to EST, nope, she tried to open settings panel for me to change it, which froze. I asked her to uninstall McAfee, nope, she tried to search for something. Finally I told her to get lost, she went quiet after that, she got that part right. It's a safe bet to assume she's just as dumb on phone. Even NYPD is replacing their Windows phones with iPhones right now.
Wow - while asking Cortana to do those things (change timezone, uninstall an app) are definitely cool ideas - I don't believe any personal assistant does those things right now.
At least Cortana tried to get you to the setting page, not sure why it froze.
Does Siri do any of these things?
I think your ask is currently unrealistic (primarily on the uninstall an app front). Will we get it some day, sure.
Did you try the other things that Cortana can do? send a SMS message? start a phone call? add a calendar entry? create a reminder?Why unrealistic? Most software can be uninstalled silently through wmic, so why wouldn't Cortana do it? I don't know about Siri as I hardly ever use it, but I use Alexa a lot, she can order pizza for example, which is a lot more complex task than uninstalling software. Changing time zone should be dead simple too, I will test it with both Alexa and Siri when I get home.
As for other things, no, I was setting up a PC, so none of the above tasks are relevant, but both Alexa and Siri can do those too.Unrealistic because they just aren't things that have been made available yet. You couldn't order pizza on the day that Alexa was released, hell, not for years after it was released, but they added that feature and today you can.
So as I already mentioned - in the future I fully expect you to be able to do that. And assuming MS can ever actually get a decent Windows Store - you should be able to install software that way too.
Cortana is a personal assistant, more attune to secretary, at this point. I don't expect more secretaries to be able to install/uninstall software on my computer.
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@dashrender said in Cell phones survey:
@marcinozga said in Cell phones survey:
@dashrender said in Cell phones survey:
@marcinozga said in Cell phones survey:
I've heard good things about Cortana, and that was one of the major points why people liked their Windows phones. I just had the chance to use Cortana to set up new PC at work, and it's just dumb. I asked her to change time zone to EST, nope, she tried to open settings panel for me to change it, which froze. I asked her to uninstall McAfee, nope, she tried to search for something. Finally I told her to get lost, she went quiet after that, she got that part right. It's a safe bet to assume she's just as dumb on phone. Even NYPD is replacing their Windows phones with iPhones right now.
Wow - while asking Cortana to do those things (change timezone, uninstall an app) are definitely cool ideas - I don't believe any personal assistant does those things right now.
At least Cortana tried to get you to the setting page, not sure why it froze.
Does Siri do any of these things?
I think your ask is currently unrealistic (primarily on the uninstall an app front). Will we get it some day, sure.
Did you try the other things that Cortana can do? send a SMS message? start a phone call? add a calendar entry? create a reminder?Why unrealistic? Most software can be uninstalled silently through wmic, so why wouldn't Cortana do it? I don't know about Siri as I hardly ever use it, but I use Alexa a lot, she can order pizza for example, which is a lot more complex task than uninstalling software. Changing time zone should be dead simple too, I will test it with both Alexa and Siri when I get home.
As for other things, no, I was setting up a PC, so none of the above tasks are relevant, but both Alexa and Siri can do those too.Unrealistic because they just aren't things that have been made available yet. You couldn't order pizza on the day that Alexa was released, hell, not for years after it was released, but they added that feature and today you can.
So as I already mentioned - in the future I fully expect you to be able to do that. And assuming MS can ever actually get a decent Windows Store - you should be able to install software that way too.
Cortana is a personal assistant, more attune to secretary, at this point. I don't expect more secretaries to be able to install/uninstall software on my computer.
Not years, months. Echo has been publicly available since June 2015, pizza ordering became available in February 2016, perhaps even earlier than that.
Cortana was released even before Echo was available to prime invitees.
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@marcinozga said in Cell phones survey:
@dashrender said in Cell phones survey:
@marcinozga said in Cell phones survey:
@dashrender said in Cell phones survey:
@marcinozga said in Cell phones survey:
I've heard good things about Cortana, and that was one of the major points why people liked their Windows phones. I just had the chance to use Cortana to set up new PC at work, and it's just dumb. I asked her to change time zone to EST, nope, she tried to open settings panel for me to change it, which froze. I asked her to uninstall McAfee, nope, she tried to search for something. Finally I told her to get lost, she went quiet after that, she got that part right. It's a safe bet to assume she's just as dumb on phone. Even NYPD is replacing their Windows phones with iPhones right now.
Wow - while asking Cortana to do those things (change timezone, uninstall an app) are definitely cool ideas - I don't believe any personal assistant does those things right now.
At least Cortana tried to get you to the setting page, not sure why it froze.
Does Siri do any of these things?
I think your ask is currently unrealistic (primarily on the uninstall an app front). Will we get it some day, sure.
Did you try the other things that Cortana can do? send a SMS message? start a phone call? add a calendar entry? create a reminder?Why unrealistic? Most software can be uninstalled silently through wmic, so why wouldn't Cortana do it? I don't know about Siri as I hardly ever use it, but I use Alexa a lot, she can order pizza for example, which is a lot more complex task than uninstalling software. Changing time zone should be dead simple too, I will test it with both Alexa and Siri when I get home.
As for other things, no, I was setting up a PC, so none of the above tasks are relevant, but both Alexa and Siri can do those too.Unrealistic because they just aren't things that have been made available yet. You couldn't order pizza on the day that Alexa was released, hell, not for years after it was released, but they added that feature and today you can.
So as I already mentioned - in the future I fully expect you to be able to do that. And assuming MS can ever actually get a decent Windows Store - you should be able to install software that way too.
Cortana is a personal assistant, more attune to secretary, at this point. I don't expect more secretaries to be able to install/uninstall software on my computer.
Not years, months. Echo was publicly available since June 2015, pizza ordering became available in February 2016, perhaps even earlier than that.
Cortana was released even before Echo was available to prime invitees.
And your point? Just because they aren't making Cortana do uninstalls doesn't mean it's not useful.
And besides, Amazon didn't make the app for ordering pizza, the Pizza vendor did via the APIs for the alexa. So two different groups working to give you want you want.
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@tim_g said in Cell phones survey:
https://www.cnet.com/news/google-removes-android-malware-downloaded-up-to-5-9m-times/
Almost forgot about this thread. I think it's time to upgrade now! Although the 8 and X don't really impress me. Maybe I'll go for the 7 plus.
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Looks like Google will annouce the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL on Oct 4th.
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@coliver said in Cell phones survey:
Looks like Google will annouce the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL on Oct 4th.
I am not holding my breath for sd card capability.
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The iPhone X seems decent. I think this is the very first iPhone I wouldn't mind having. It took them what, like 17 or 18 tries to finally make something decent.
But the cost of it... paying over $1300 for a phone is just plain stupid. Maybe for rich CEOs and Execs that like to flaunt their worth, and poor people who like to spend all their money on crap like that... but you get my point.
I'm still drawn to the Asus Zenfone 4 Pro. It's better than half the price, and better hardware imho. Not as many little features, but IT'S $600 or less vs $1300+!!
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@tim_g said in Cell phones survey:
The iPhone X seems decent. I think this is the very first iPhone I wouldn't mind having. It took them what, like 17 or 18 tries to finally make something decent.
But the cost of it... paying over $1300 for a phone is just plain stupid. Maybe for rich CEOs and Execs that like to flaunt their worth, and poor people who like to spend all their money on crap like that... but you get my point.
I'm still drawn to the Asus Zenfone 4 Pro. It's better than half the price, and better hardware imho. Not as many little features, but IT'S $600 or less vs $1300+!!
True story! No way am I paying that for a cell phone. You can get a great laptop for that price.
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If you're already a consumer of Amazon's services, you can get a Moto 5 Plus for a pretty reasonable price. It isn't a flagship phone, but it does everything I need it to, and at a price I can afford to replace (if it gets broken). I really like what Moto is doing with their software on the main button on the phone. It is a fingerprint reader like so many others, but if you set it up you can use it as a home button, a la iPhone. If you swipe left it goes back, if you swipe right it opens your app switcher, and if you do a long press it locks your phone. They've also used the gyro scope to give you easy access to things like the flashlight (two chopping motions), camera (twist your wrist while holding the phone), etc.
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