The Cell Phone / Mobile Phone Thread

Looking to buy my first smartphone soon (to replace my Alcatel featurephone with something that can take pictures and run Maps.me).

My priorities are:

• low cost
• good camera resolution (for vacation photos and cam-scanning)

The Moto line is the most attractive to me so far (probably the G+ or E+); am I barking up a right-enough tree?

(Footnote: Maps.me is great, I ran it on my tablet before it died. It lets you download the maps over wifi so you can navigate without mobile data.)

I had a Moto X a few years back and I loved it enough that I actually didn't intend to switch it with another phone; the only reason I did was because I couldn't bring it with me when we jumped from AT&T to Sprint.

Still, I convinced my best friend to get one and they stuck with theirs even longer than I did. I can say with confidence that they're a solid choice, even if you go for one of the lower-end models.

If you want low cost and good performance, get yourself a pre-owned Samsung Galaxy S4. It's not latest Android compatible, but that applies to the vast majority of both phones and tablets. And there's usually tonnes of good ones on both Ebay and Gumtree.

edited 26th Jun '17 6:48:15 AM by TamH70

Finally made a needed upgrade from an old Nokia to Galaxy S8. Pretty happy with it so far.

Is that the old indestructible Nokia, or a smartphone era Nokia running Windows Mobile?

Got my own Samsung Galaxy S4, and I quite like it - not enough to make it my main phone as yet, but I like it.

It's got more memory than my Lumia 640, but it doesn't have the app that would make it more difficult to choose between it and the Lumia, and I don't have a screen protector for it yet either.

The latter. After a few years, Windows started constantly crashing and restarting the phone - I was going to try to see if it could be fixed when I wandered into a Target one day and was tempted by new phones.

edited 10th Jul '17 9:08:53 PM by MikeK

Ultimately settled on a base-model Moto G4, but I've been very satisfied with it. The camera is a bit grainy in low light, but overall suits my needs well, especially for $180.

My S4 seems dead. If it's not plugged in when it's booting, it gets as far as the Verizon logo and then decides to go back out and come in again (reboot before finishing the boot), in an endless loop. If it is plugged in, it loops the Verizon pulse forever.

It has done that in the past, but it used to be that leaving the battery out of it for a day or swapping for my other battery would fix it, but not anymore. I'm not sure if it's worth buying another new battery to see if that works, but the thing is that in the meantime, I've got my Fire tablet swapped in as my beside device, and I want something of a more usable size in there.

I'm considering buying a cheap pocket tablet (nobody has come up with a good name for the niche the itouch exemplifies). Only nobody really makes Android those things of great quality, let alone any I can get used at a good price. It seems the best quality/price balance is the Samsung Play. Except I don't like the way Samsung tries to dress up Android as something more easily mistaken for Apple products, and I'm not sure I want to buy anything that I can't easily upgrade to at least Lollipop.

The other contender is the Android-based Walkman, but that's not anything like the price I want to pay.

I'd say get a pre-owned/refurbished Nexus 9. Good overall specs with a clean Android experience. Plus, if you're willing to get your hands dirty with the nitty-gritty of custom RO Ms, I'm positive there's a ROM - like Lineage OS, for example - that will take you up to Nougat (7.1.2).

edited 18th Aug '17 4:40:57 AM by DarkDestruction

Thanks to Microsoft my phone's no longer getting support for its current OS.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/11/15952654/microsoft-windows-phone-end-of-support

Phone still works and there's a possible OS update out there but I'm not happy. I prefer Lumias to the ones from the Cult of the Orchard or Android.

Nexus 9 is going in the opposite direction in terms of form factor. I do want one, but my 7-inch Fire is already too big for using in bed.

In that case, I believe a "phablet" will serve you well. Personally, I recommend Xiaomi's Mi Max offerings, if you want budget devices with superb build quality and hardware. The OnePlus 3T and Huawei Mate 9 are pricier, but the former offers a nice pseudo-stock experience with Oxygen OS while the latter has a big 4000 mAh battery and some spiffy dual cameras. If money's not an object, then go for the Nexus 6P or even the Google Pixel - flagship specs, clean Android with plenty of aftermarket ROM support if you're willing to tinker around, and definitely a guaranteed upgrade to Android O.

I'm about a year into my Fi 5X as my daily phone, actually. Maybe a refurbished Nexus 4 if I go the route of getting a new to me phone instead of a non-cellular pocket smart device for the bedside.

Android 8.0 Oreo is here! As usual, Nexus and Pixel owners will have the luxury of getting it first effective today, followed by pending updates from other device manufacturers. For those dabbling with custom ROMs, I'm positive major devs like Lineage OS and Paranoid Android will have an Oreo update ready within the next few weeks.

So it turns out there is no problem with the iPhone's battery life. Anyone who thinks there is is using it wrong.

I'm pretty sure Lenovo among others have doubled battery life solely for this reason, and haven't tried to go TOO thin simply because there's a line where too thin means too little battery life, and most appreciate not having to buy a new phone every year because their phones are having to be charged up every hour.

My Fire tablet has very limited internal storage, but I've got a 16 GB SD card in it. However, perhaps because I sideloaded the Play Store onto it and get most of my apps from that, it says that almost none of my apps are compatible with being installed on the SD card, so I'm running at almost 100% of internal storage used while I have over ten GB sitting empty on the card.

My first smartphone was my dad's old Galaxy S4. I upgraded to the Galaxy S8 Active last August because it's got a larger battery (4,000 mAh) and more onboard storage (64 GB), which I expanded with a microSD card.

Man, that was scary. I picked up my phone and put my finger on the sensor to unlock it, but while it played the unlock sound and pulsed the vibe, but the screen was frozen on the ambient lockscreen for a few seconds before it went into a bootloop. After about five minutes, it finally got past the Google logo to the boot throbber and booted like normal.

Edit: Okay, guess it's not over yet. It suddenly went into another bootloop sitting on my lap.

Further update: Service provider's troubleshooting led me through cache clearing, and it seems stable now, but I'm wary.

Edited by TParadox on Jun 27th 2018 at 7:15:36 AM

I bought a $30 ZTE Z Five for the duration. It's okay.

So, my Meizu M3 Note seems to be having problems playing music from the micro SD Card. It starts out well enough, with high quality sound, but after a couple of weeks the songs start stuttering, the "scratchy record" sound appears, regardless if I'm using headphones or speakers, and seemingly at the same points of the songs. Running the SD Card through windows disk check and h2testw shows the card is in perfect condition. Formatting the card seems to solve the problem, but only temporarily, after a few weeks songs start stuttering again. I'm using poweramp player on my phone.

Did anyone encounter such a problem? Any ideas how to fix this?

Edited by Millership on Jul 2nd 2018 at 7:21:59 PM

Dangit, a month ago, I would've been able to get $75 to trade in my phone even though it wouldn't turn on (bootloop), but since I couldn't confirm a factory reset, I waited until I could get the manufacturer to try to fix it (I finally have everything I need to ship it to them today), and now even if it could turn on, my carrier isn't offering much more than $50.

OK, so it's been about a week since I upgraded to a Samsung J6. Aside from the fact that Fate/Grand Order actually runs properly now and my Fitbit will sync with it again, I've not really noticed a whole lot of difference from the G3. Although at the very least I shouldn't have to deal with it spontaneously corrupting the SD card at random inopportune moments.

Edited by Deadbeatloser22 on Aug 7th 2018 at 12:52:10 PM

Has anyone who updated to iOS 12 noticed this problem?