The Cell Phone / Mobile Phone Thread

I got a wireless charge adapter and wireless charge car stand for my phone. The charging worked wonderfully, but it exposed a problem with two decisions Samsung made.

I never really minded that their phones beep when they connect to a charger, and having to turn the screen back off when connecting was so minor an annoyance I never really noticed it. I even like it for my desktop dock, because I like to have Daydream going there, and it's a third-party dock so the phone just sees it as another USB charger.

Unfortunately, some bonehead at Samsung thought it was a good idea that when the battery is nearly full and it's connected to a wireless charger, it should disconnect and reconnect several times a minute. This means the phone kept chirping and waking up, interrupting my podcasts and forcing me to turn the screen back off. Spent a few days unplugging the charger whenever this started happening, which is the exact opposite of the point of having a wireless charger. Then I finally found a mod to disable the chirp and wake behavior that was simple enough for me to use it.

I kind of miss the chirp when connecting to other chargers, and I have to wake it myself when I put it on the desktop dock now, but it's better than the alternative.

I fell in and out of love with Samsung's hardware en générale after having owned an HTC One X between a first-gen Galaxy S (renamed the Samsung Captivate on my carrier, AT&T) and an S4.

While dumping TouchWiz (Samsung's modified version of Android) vastly improved the user experience on both phones, it's growing increasingly more difficult to do so because of how much AT&T locks its hardware down these days; given the choice, I'd rather have a phone with a UI that I actually like from the outset rather than having to risk bricking it to achieve the same goal.

also I'm 90% sure my S4 was more likely to have been stolen because it was a Samsung phone, so there's that too

edited 20th Jan '15 11:35:55 AM by Tre

My Nokia Lumia 520 got an update to Denim, aka Windows Phone 8.1 today. It is quite an old phone now, and some of the features that the latest models have aren't supported, but I'm happy with the update nonetheless.

Here's an article on the subject from pocketlint

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/132417-lumia-denim-updates-devices-and-everything-you-need-to-know

I'm running Denim on my 830. Annoyingly, it's not actual Denim, so I'll have to wait until Microsoft roll out the updated Denim to my phone so I can get Lumia Camera v5.

re: Lumia 520: see last page

They still haven't rolled it for my 630 yet.

My last phone was a Samsung Stratosphere, and I really didn't want to get another Samsung and lock myself into Touchwiz again. I would have preferred to get a Nexus 4 or a Moto X, but in the last few weeks before I bought it, I got obsessed with finding a way to get iOS's "tap to top" function (tap the top of the screen and the scroll position jumps back to the top of the page) on Android, and I got the mistaken impression that was what Touchwiz's Air Jump was, so I went with the GS 4 even though I wanted to get away from the physical home button and softkeys.

At least the other thing I wanted out of this cycle is on track. I splurged on what was then the current generation (though they started advertising the S5 a few months later, as I expected) because I wanted hardware that could keep up with the software for an extra year or two after the contract expired, so I could take it to a pay as you go service.

I really dislike digital navigation keys. I always accidentally hit Home when I meant the space bar.

I don't get the same problem as much when I tried out a Windows Phone with digital navigation keys, but I still kept doing it.

Still, the Windows 10 for Mobile beta should be out fairly soon, so that will be interesting. I'll run that on my 920 instead of my 830.

We must be opposites on that front, then— I've come to prefer onscreen navigation keys because I feel like having the buttons appear only when possibly necessary makes more sense than making them omnipresent.

Of course, I don't dislike physical buttons, but I guess having a modded Kindle Fire hath spoiled me.

Here's some unexpected news on the next Windows Phone OS -

http://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10-be-free-upgrade-first-year-windows-7-81-windows-phone-81-users

Free. Upgrade.

And not just for phone OS users, for desktop users as well. This is going to be massive.

And then by the time a build comes out that my phone works with it'll be outside the window.

Not on Windows Phones - they tend to be upgraded quite quickly.

Yep. If you have a Windows Phone 8.1 device, and most will have pretty soon, you will be able to get Windows 10. No ifs, buts, or maybes.

http://www.windowscentral.com/all-windows-phones-get-windows-10-flagship-summer

Microsoft wants you onboard, happy with the OS, and most importantly, buying stuff from their Store. Rolling the OS out as widely as possible is the best way to do that.

I am very glad for this. I like the new OS changes, but I am concerned and wary that everything will be hamburger menus. This isn't Android.

perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if it were more Android-y

On the whole, though, I'm excited to see how Windows 10 pans out. I hope the stuff Cortana learned about me in my six months with her carries over to my desktop.

hamburger menus?

So the question is which comes out for it first? Denim or Threshold?

edited 22nd Jan '15 7:54:34 AM by Deadbeatloser22

I'm already running Denim on my 520. Threshold may be next, I dunno. I signed up for email updates from the Windows 10 team so I will have to see what happens from now.

Well, I am annoyed that I don't have full Denim on my 830. Hopefully, I'll get that.

Additionally, you two should install the Insider app, which will replace the Preview for Developers app when Windows 10 Mobile or whatever gets pushed out as a beta.

It's annoying because some EU markets already have Denim on the 630.

I think what is even more annoying is that unlocked, non-network phones get the updates after the network-locked phones. How does that make sense? The whole barrier to updates are the networks. But for some reason, Microsoft seem to give the unlocked phones the updates last.

Yeah, I'm not sure if I should be looking at the EE listing on the availability page, or the "country variant" listing.

Go to Settings —> Extras + Info —> Mobile Operator. If it says 000-GB/000-GBIE, then your phone is CV. If it has a number, then you should be looking at the EE listing.

It's probably CV because it was a SIM-free handset when I brought it.

EDIT: 000-GB. So yeah.

edited 22nd Jan '15 3:21:47 PM by Deadbeatloser22

I dislike the Microsoft Lumia update page. I preferred the Nokia one, where it showed the status of your update. The Microsoft one involves a bit of guesswork, like, what your updated firmware number should be.

Edit: What the fuck, Microsoft? No listing for the Lumia 830 CV, but for Vodafone?

edited 22nd Jan '15 3:27:47 PM by Inhopelessguy