The Android thread

I wouldn't put it past you to listen to what everyone around you suggests and go in the opposite direction.
 
I wouldn't put it past you to listen to what everyone around you suggests and go in the opposite direction.

I may be contrarian but when it comes to phones I'm not that contrarian. :)
 

Well it IS a 3 year old model, with 2 GB RAM, it's what would nowadays be called mid-low end, like my 1st Gen Moto G. Getting these phones to keep running smoothly with that kinda hardware requires a damn lot of micromanaging.
 
So.. I got one of them Pixels. Actually, I got it a while back. Just forgot to update here.

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(The orange peel on the back and the rough edges are due to slightly unsucessful clear wrap application.)


Let's start with why I bought this phone. It's down to my self-imposed conditions. The phone must be somewhere around 5" and it should run stock Android. That pretty much leaves me with two choices. The Nexus 5x and the Pixel. I owned the 5x for a brief'ish period and it's not a bad phone or anything, but I really didn't like it that much either. So instead of buying a 5x again, I pulled the trigger on a Pixel and damn glad I did.


Hands down the best phone I ever used. Everything is blazing fast and smooth. More apps stay in memory than the N5 and the 5x (It was pretty bad on the 5x for some reason) The phone feels great in the hand albeit somewhat slippery hence the wrap (+ protection against scratches)
The camera experience is awesome. Fast to open and even faster to take pictures in the HDR+ Auto mode. The photos it captures is definitely more pleasing to the eye than being true to life. Which I thought I might not like, but it seems to balance it quite well.

Googles own additions are not that bad either. The Google assistant is pretty much the Google now voice actions + some entertainment value. It does have the odd feature that can come in handy. Like "Remember that my number is 123" Useful for noting down small things that you can't be bothered to type in. Then you recall whatever you told it to memorise by asking it. Double tap to wake and Lift to activate the screen was added to Moves (Google's gestures) recently and works really well.

Lots of positives but there are some things that do bother me about this phone. The bottom firing speaker is one. After using the 5x I definitely appreciate a front facing speaker. I don't care about stereo, but not having to cup the phone to make it louder would have been handy. Other negative being the Vol button and the power button being on the same side. Prefer them on either side so that it's easier to differentiate them.



TL;DR Very good phone. Minor nitpicks. Do recommend. 10/10.
 
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Restarting this phone every other day is getting on my nerves. It took me 15 minutes to write a post earlier because it started getting laggy and letting the screen timeout before I could unlock it again because of the lag.

Now, without a restart, it's fine...I think because it crashed the lockscreen while I waited for the screen to wake up and turn on.

Edit: I rebooted and it was stuck on no sim card...I unlock the screen to see a "process system is not responding" message.

*Sigh*

Eventually the card was detected again...I guess I'll have to wipe this piece of shit.
 
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Rick you have a Nexus 5 correct? My almost-3-year-old Nexus 5 doesn't exhibit any of that. Instead of wiping I suggest you go full hog and flash a fresh system image. I can walk you through the process if you want.
 
Rick you have a Nexus 5 correct? My almost-3-year-old Nexus 5 doesn't exhibit any of that. Instead of wiping I suggest you go full hog and flash a fresh system image. I can walk you through the process if you want.

It's weird because the lag comes only after a few days then the phone will crash to the lock screen and it'll be slightly better for a while until i restart the phone. I suspect something has a memory leak.

Thanks for the offer. :) I know how to flash a image so I may try that.

What apps are you running? That's not normal behaviour on any device.

When it locked up before I was in Tapatalk but it can happen in any app. I think i'm also running up against the limits of my storage and that's not helping. Phone says I've used 12.01 out of 12.55 GB of space.

Apps on my phone that I use daily:

Spotify, DoggCatcher, Tapatalk, Reddit Is Fun, Alarm Clock Xtreme Free, LastPass, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Hangouts, Kik, MobilMail, Facebook Messenger, Cricket Visual Voicemail, Ambio, Telegram, Textra, Carmax, Chrome, Google Photos, Tinder, Tumblr

I have other apps too but I don't use those as frequently.

I never force close apps besides Tapatalk (because after an update it's been glitchy...)

I'm backing up my text messages now and will try flashing a system image.
 
Could be that it's close to full, but it should let you know, not just lock up.

None of those apps seem iffy to me, except the alarm clock one.
 
Could be that it's close to full, but it should let you know, not just lock up.

None of those apps seem iffy to me, except the alarm clock one.
I need the alarm clock because it makes me solve math problems to wake up, disables snooze, etc.

I've reflashed the phone and installed fewer apps and things are much better.
 
I've been using alarm clock xtreme for over a year, even the math isn't always enough anymore.
 
Fuck me, my buddy went for a piss so I went into EE to look at the Pixel XL... Google Maria was there waiting for me. So she asked if I know the specs (which are written next to it) and all I wanted to do was compare sizes, anyways she gives me the unit in her hand and I compare to my 6 and the xl is small.

She says daydream is free and whilst doing this, she takes the Pixel of hers that I had been using and was constantly chatting to me whilst rubbing it on her sleeve to take my fingerprints off it.


Thanks Google Maria
 
Fuck me, my buddy went for a piss so I went into EE to look at the Pixel XL... Google Maria was there waiting for me. So she asked if I know the specs (which are written next to it) and all I wanted to do was compare sizes, anyways she gives me the unit in her hand and I compare to my 6 and the xl is small.

She says daydream is free and whilst doing this, she takes the Pixel of hers that I had been using and was constantly chatting to me whilst rubbing it on her sleeve to take my fingerprints off it.


Thanks Google Maria
Did you get her number...
 
I recieved my OnePlus 3T today. I got the 128gb version in Gunmetal Black. The software seems nice and the phone itself seems nice too. Kinda funny how it feels small in my hand compared to the OnePlus One its replacing. Still have to get a new SIM card for it since the new phone needs a Nano sized SIM and the OPO uses the mini sized one (just a bit bigger). ATT is dumb and couldn't give me a new one today because I'm on a family plan and my name wasn't "Authorized" to change things and I couldn't get my dad to do it before they closed.

I felt like with the few tweaks they did to it, it was worth getting now. I'm liking the new bigger battery and having a bit more processor power and the larger storage capacity (still would rather it had a MicroSD slot though) and the sapphire glass on the camera that it was worth it. I liked the sound of the "Dash" charger too since I work long days sometimes and am also a heavy user so despite the bigger battery might mean I'll need to charge.

Seems like they will keep supporting it for a while too. The only thing I wish it had was an IP68 rating so i could use it for my latest prefered activity of multi-day whitewater rafting trips. I guess I'll just have to get a GoPro and keep using my waterproof case.
 
My Note 4 is giving me major problems. Started a month or so ago when I unplugged the charge cord and laid it over the lamp next to my bed. The wife turned on the lamp that evening and left the cord in it. Of course the cord melted and I had to use another cord we had laying around. Took forever to charge the three days I used it (until a replacement could arrive) and the phone would reboot at ~15% battery. A couple weeks later the phone would act laggy or randomly reboot no matter the charge on the battery. Thinking it was a bad battery I got a new one about a week ago. Phone was fine up until Monday where it went back to lagging, rebooting and just making for a miserable time. I tried taking the SD card out, I tried clearing the cache, etc. No effect.

It started acting up again today so I did a factory reset. Was doing great until this evening when it downloaded Marshmallow. Somehow in the middle of the update it did one of it's famous reboots and now the phone is stuck in a bootloop. I am unable to get into recovery mode, it just tries to install Marshmallow, shows update failed, then tries to reboot normally. Fails at a regular reboot and starts the whole process once again.

I can put the phone into download mode, but doesn't do me much good since I only have a Mac at home. I plan to go into the trophy shop tomorrow (where I have a PC with Windows 8) and give Odin a shot at loading a stock ROM on the phone.

Beyond that, I guess I could just put the stock battery in it, take it to AT&T and just play dumb. I mean really, I haven't done anything wrong and I'm still paying on this damned brick...
 
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Took the phone to AT&T today. Younger guy helped me, I could tell he had no interest in actually fixing this for me, so I have now reset it to 5.1.1 using Odin and now have taken on the tedious task of updating it to Marshmallow myself manually using recovery mode.

I hope that the random reboots will stop. Did I mention I checked the CPU temp after one of these reboots to find that it was 80c?! I think it's time for a new phone in a couple months.
 
At least it will keep your hands warm...
 
That it will.

Not going so well on the Marshmallow front. I'm stuck on the boot screen...

Edit: Marshmallow is now installed. Nearly got it back to the shape I like. Next will be choosing wallpaper and arranging the furniture. :lol:
 
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That is a fairly reasonable description. Just make the drapes match the carpet... That's not right somehow.
 
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