Technology catch-all thread

[RockRaines]

Really the only "investment" she has in Amazon is a few books. She doesnt have much of an investment in Google/Play (I think all of her apps are free). But, if she does buy an app, it's nice to know it'll go across both of her devices.

Then Nexus is probably better.

 

The Fire IMO is good for "older folks" and parents who want their kids to have a limited browsing experience. The rest of us most likely need more.

[chw42]

Then Nexus is probably better.

 

The Fire IMO is good for "older folks" and parents who want their kids to have a limited browsing experience. The rest of us most likely need more.

 

I bought the Fire for my 10 year old brother last year solely based on the feature that limited what kids could do on the device and how long they could use it so that my parents wouldn't have to stress over controlling him over his tablet use. Turns out it only works for apps installed from Amazon and not side-loaded ones.

 

If done right, that feature alone would sell a ton of Kindle Fires and I guess for most people, it does the job fine.

[Y2HH]

I bought the Fire for my 10 year old brother last year solely based on the feature that limited what kids could do on the device and how long they could use it so that my parents wouldn't have to stress over controlling him over his tablet use. Turns out it only works for apps installed from Amazon and not side-loaded ones.

 

If done right, that feature alone would sell a ton of Kindle Fires and I guess for most people, it does the job fine.

 

I'm sure you'll be able to do stuff like that on Android/iOS soon, too. Until it works on the fire across the board, it's kind of a half assed implementation.

 

I'd recommend the Nexus...why use a fork of Android when you can use the real thing? I see nothing the Fire offers over the Nexus, other than a broken experience. You can still use Kindle on the Nexus, so I see no compelling reason to use a Fire...ever.

[chw42]

I'm sure you'll be able to do stuff like that on Android/iOS soon, too. Until it works on the fire across the board, it's kind of a half assed implementation.

 

I'd recommend the Nexus...why use a fork of Android when you can use the real thing? I see nothing the Fire offers over the Nexus, other than a broken experience. You can still use Kindle on the Nexus, so I see no compelling reason to use a Fire...ever.

 

Only reasons I'd see are Amazon Instant Video and simplicity of the Fire UI. Other than that, it really doesn't have any advantages.

Edited November 5, 2013 by chw42

[Jenksismyhero]

The biggest draw to the new version of the Fire is the ability to download an Amazon Prime show for on-the-go watching. That's the only company that I know of that is offering that option.

[Steve9347]

My wife wants a Kindle Fire for Christmas.

 

I can get the Fire HD for 169.00. Or, the Fire HDX for 229. But, for $229 I could get a Nexus 7.

 

Thoughts? My wife has an Android phone, so i think it might make sense to go with the Nexus (unless I go cheap and get the Fire HD)

Go for the Nexus 7. My wife has a Fire, because she fell for the marketing and it looks fun and blah blah. In the end it's just a low-end Android device that you can't do a ton with other than whatever Amazon allows. You can side-load apps, but they look like s***.

[chw42]

Go for the Nexus 7. My wife has a Fire, because she fell for the marketing and it looks fun and blah blah. In the end it's just a low-end Android device that you can't do a ton with other than whatever Amazon allows. You can side-load apps, but they look like s***.

 

The HDX is actually on par with the Nexus 7, if not more so. I think it's got a better processor.

[Jake]

First gen Nexus 7 was going for 139.99 at Staples yesterday. If she doesn't need the latest and greatest, you should be able to find that on the cheap and it'll be just fine for almost all uses.

[Jake]

Also, I replaced my Macbook Pro about 18 months ago. My MBP's charger fried its battery and the very expensive AppleCare I bought didn't cover it...they said it was my fault. To some extent, the fact that my laptop had cosmetic issues (it was dirty and had a noticeable dent on one corner) probably biased the technician against me. On the other, it has dissuaded me from buying Apple products. I still love that OS, but I can't really afford even the low-end stuff and I can no longer justify making a reach like that by telling myself that they'll take care of me if something goes wrong.

 

So, with some advice from folks on here, I bought a barely used laptop via eBay. It's an HP Pavilion dv6 and it has been mostly good to me. Buying used (the unit had no signs of wear, I spoke to seller on the phone and he said that he decided he needed a lighter, smaller laptop for travel after his return period ended) saved me a lot of money, paying about $600 for a laptop that would have cost about $850 from HP. It still had factory warranty, as is now standard with many PCs; the warranty is tied to the unit, not the buyer. It has 6GB DDR3 RAM, i5 2520 @ 2.5 GHz (Sandy Bridge), Radeon HD 7690M XT GPU, a 625GB HDD, Blu-Ray player, and the 15" 1920x1080 HD display.

 

Over time, I've started to fall out of love with it. First of all, one of the first things I loved about it was how cool it ran. It had this HP CoolSense app that seemed to do a great job of regulating the fans and processor to keep it running really coolly. It now gets very warm and the fans run constantly. I think the fans are probably dirty, but I can't dismantle it to get to them. I actually think the CoolSense is still throttling the processor to try to reduce the heat, but is now just dragging down performance. The battery has also gone completely to s***. It was never rated to perform very well by current standards, I think their optimistic guess was going to be 3 hours. I was happy with the battery at first, but it now needs to be constantly plugged in. The battery from HP costs 130 bucks and I have personally experienced aftermarket batteries f***ing up a laptop. So...I had to think about whether I'd rather put that 130 towards another device. This means whenever I go somewhere other than my place to study or work for any amount of time I also have to lug around its charger. It is generally getting a big sluggish and I'm needing to do the trusty 'ol "restart it because it works and I don't know why" every day or so. Beyond that, I'm not sure if this is really the size I want. It's big and relatively heavy compared to the 13" MBP I moved from. With that said, it's been a good machine and I'm going to use it for some other things - mainly, to stream sports, movies, and things like that to my TV. The monitor quality is something I'll miss. It has a matte finish, looks beautiful, and has excellent viewing angles.

 

So I didn't want to spend much money on this replacement at all since I have a very small budget and this is, to some extent, a convenience buy. I could certainly make it with this HP. I actually thought very hard about getting the HP Chromebook 14. It is cheap (300), portable, works fast, great battery life, etc. I think I can do almost every single thing I normally do on a Chromebook except for one. I do academic writing and use Zotero as a citation manager. While I can record citations on a Chromebook via the Zotero webapp, the greatest use of Zotero for me is its Microsoft Word/LibreOffice plug-in. I can just hit a keyboard shortcut which pulls up a dialogue where I can search for my source, find it, press enter, and it renders my citations. Beyond creating a bibliography and saving me some typing and thinking, this also allows me to reformat my documents to a different citation style with just a click. That's something I must have on my primary computer. Beyond that, I basically only use Chrome and Chrome Apps at this point. I use Outlook, but I could easily use Outlook Web App for emailing. Anyway, no Chromebook for me.

 

I focused on 13" Ultrabooks and hoped to find another used deal. I was about to pull the trigger on a 14" Asus Vivobook Touch that had great reviews, but I realized at the last minute that this wonderful $399 price was getting me a version with a Pentium processor. No thanks. Not sure why they thought it would be a good idea to release a legit series of budget-oriented Ultrabooks and release one with a sub-standard processor under the same name. Anyway, I settled on a Lenovo Ideapad U310 Touch. I bought it on eBay for 300 bucks from a seller who seems to have hardly used it. I got the feeling from talking to him/her that they just didn't like Windows 8, lol. I'll deal.

 

I'll be reverting to the screen quality of my old MBP, which is the main drawback of this thing. It has a 3rd gen i5, 4GB RAM, 10-point touchscreen, their typically excellent keyboard and trackpad. No dedicated GPU and a little less RAM along with the screen are the sacrifices I make here. It weighs less than half of this HP, has a metal body, and has 4-5 hours of battery life with regular use according to reviews. Some folks have had issues with WiFi, for some reason, but Lenovo has released a driver update which seems to have fixed it for the vast majority of people. That's my main fear at this point. Here's hoping it arrives in one piece and gets WiFi reception because I'm really fond of the working version of this thing!

[chw42]

Also, I replaced my Macbook Pro about 18 months ago. My MBP's charger fried its battery and the very expensive AppleCare I bought didn't cover it...they said it was my fault. To some extent, the fact that my laptop had cosmetic issues (it was dirty and had a noticeable dent on one corner) probably biased the technician against me. On the other, it has dissuaded me from buying Apple products. I still love that OS, but I can't really afford even the low-end stuff and I can no longer justify making a reach like that by telling myself that they'll take care of me if something goes wrong.

 

So, with some advice from folks on here, I bought a barely used laptop via eBay. It's an HP Pavilion dv6 and it has been mostly good to me. Buying used (the unit had no signs of wear, I spoke to seller on the phone and he said that he decided he needed a lighter, smaller laptop for travel after his return period ended) saved me a lot of money, paying about $600 for a laptop that would have cost about $850 from HP. It still had factory warranty, as is now standard with many PCs; the warranty is tied to the unit, not the buyer. It has 6GB DDR3 RAM, i5 2520 @ 2.5 GHz (Sandy Bridge), Radeon HD 7690M XT GPU, a 625GB HDD, Blu-Ray player, and the 15" 1920x1080 HD display.

 

Over time, I've started to fall out of love with it. First of all, one of the first things I loved about it was how cool it ran. It had this HP CoolSense app that seemed to do a great job of regulating the fans and processor to keep it running really coolly. It now gets very warm and the fans run constantly. I think the fans are probably dirty, but I can't dismantle it to get to them. I actually think the CoolSense is still throttling the processor to try to reduce the heat, but is now just dragging down performance. The battery has also gone completely to s***. It was never rated to perform very well by current standards, I think their optimistic guess was going to be 3 hours. I was happy with the battery at first, but it now needs to be constantly plugged in. The battery from HP costs 130 bucks and I have personally experienced aftermarket batteries f***ing up a laptop. So...I had to think about whether I'd rather put that 130 towards another device. This means whenever I go somewhere other than my place to study or work for any amount of time I also have to lug around its charger. It is generally getting a big sluggish and I'm needing to do the trusty 'ol "restart it because it works and I don't know why" every day or so. Beyond that, I'm not sure if this is really the size I want. It's big and relatively heavy compared to the 13" MBP I moved from. With that said, it's been a good machine and I'm going to use it for some other things - mainly, to stream sports, movies, and things like that to my TV. The monitor quality is something I'll miss. It has a matte finish, looks beautiful, and has excellent viewing angles.

 

So I didn't want to spend much money on this replacement at all since I have a very small budget and this is, to some extent, a convenience buy. I could certainly make it with this HP. I actually thought very hard about getting the HP Chromebook 14. It is cheap (300), portable, works fast, great battery life, etc. I think I can do almost every single thing I normally do on a Chromebook except for one. I do academic writing and use Zotero as a citation manager. While I can record citations on a Chromebook via the Zotero webapp, the greatest use of Zotero for me is its Microsoft Word/LibreOffice plug-in. I can just hit a keyboard shortcut which pulls up a dialogue where I can search for my source, find it, press enter, and it renders my citations. Beyond creating a bibliography and saving me some typing and thinking, this also allows me to reformat my documents to a different citation style with just a click. That's something I must have on my primary computer. Beyond that, I basically only use Chrome and Chrome Apps at this point. I use Outlook, but I could easily use Outlook Web App for emailing. Anyway, no Chromebook for me.

 

I focused on 13" Ultrabooks and hoped to find another used deal. I was about to pull the trigger on a 14" Asus Vivobook Touch that had great reviews, but I realized at the last minute that this wonderful $399 price was getting me a version with a Pentium processor. No thanks. Not sure why they thought it would be a good idea to release a legit series of budget-oriented Ultrabooks and release one with a sub-standard processor under the same name. Anyway, I settled on a Lenovo Ideapad U310 Touch. I bought it on eBay for 300 bucks from a seller who seems to have hardly used it. I got the feeling from talking to him/her that they just didn't like Windows 8, lol. I'll deal.

 

I'll be reverting to the screen quality of my old MBP, which is the main drawback of this thing. It has a 3rd gen i5, 4GB RAM, 10-point touchscreen, their typically excellent keyboard and trackpad. No dedicated GPU and a little less RAM along with the screen are the sacrifices I make here. It weighs less than half of this HP, has a metal body, and has 4-5 hours of battery life with regular use according to reviews. Some folks have had issues with WiFi, for some reason, but Lenovo has released a driver update which seems to have fixed it for the vast majority of people. That's my main fear at this point. Here's hoping it arrives in one piece and gets WiFi reception because I'm really fond of the working version of this thing!

 

Yeah, that U310 has WiFi issues. My friend has one of those, he said the WiFi issues were pretty awful.

 

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

The biggest draw to the new version of the Fire is the ability to download an Amazon Prime show for on-the-go watching. That's the only company that I know of that is offering that option.

 

Comcast's Xfinity app allows you to download shows and movies for on-the-go. It's based on the network though, so I think SHOtime shows allow for it while HBO shows do not.

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

Just found out that an Android 4.4 update will be coming to my G2 very soon. Very nice.

 

A buddy of mine has it and is suggesting his friends to root their phones just to get it a couple weeks or months earlier than their manufacturer will release it. He is raving about it.

Edited November 6, 2013 by Chilihead90

[Jake]

Yeah, that U310 has WiFi issues. My friend has one of those, he said the WiFi issues were pretty awful.

 

We'll see. In the worst case, I'll just get a USB adapter methinks

 

There are a few suggested fixes out there: driver update, turning off the card's power saver settings, reinstallation of Windows (this actually works for some reason), and it seems there is one that has worked for everyone who has claimed to have tried it...something with adjusting some foil within the laptop. I haven't looked into that one too much.

Edited November 6, 2013 by Jake

[chw42]

Just found out that an Android 4.4 update will be coming to my G2 very soon. Very nice.

 

A buddy of mine has it and is suggesting his friends to root their phones just to get it a couple weeks or months earlier than their manufacturer will release it. He is raving about it.

 

He has 4.4 on his G2?

[Jake]

He has 4.4 on his G2?

 

I'm dubious

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

He has 4.4 on his G2?

 

He has 4.4 on whatever phone he has.

 

EDIT: He has a Galaxy Nexus.

Edited November 6, 2013 by Chilihead90

[chw42]

He has 4.4 on whatever phone he has.

 

EDIT: He has a Galaxy Nexus.

 

Those are unstable ROMs ATM. Not everything works. I flashed a build for my Nexus 7 this weekend to see how it was and the camera didn't work. Google hasn't released the binaries for those devices yet (and they probably never will for the Galaxy Nexus, since they claim it is no longer supported).

 

And Android 4.4, as nice it is (currently using on my Nexus 5), isn't different enough from 4.3 or 4.2 to rush things.

Edited November 6, 2013 by chw42

[chw42]

The Nexus 5's back feels like a soft touch plastic version of the HTC One. It feels nice in the hand.

[IlliniKrush]

Help Soxtalk. I'm considering getting a smart phone (or normal phone as it is now) and getting rid of my dumb flip phone. Besides the obvious iphone, which everyone knows about and my wife has, I don't know the first thing about different phones available. I don't need the fanciest one out there. I'd be using it for texting, checking sports scores (and twitter for sports), maybe watching games?, some email. I'm sure there are apps I don't know about that I could take advantage of, but I'll be more or less pretty basic with the phone, just having internet capability etc.

 

I'm open to any opinions on which direction I should look to go here, ones to avoid, etc. I know I can do research on this as well, but getting first-hand knowledge instead of reading specs on a website is a lot easier.

 

TIA.

 

Edit: Not looking for this to bring out the iphone vs other pissing match...just want honest opinions/reviews. I only know some about the iphone from my wife, and know nothing about other ones. I have zero brand loyalty, so it doesn't matter to me either way. If it matters any to this, I'll likely still be using ATT for service.

Edited November 6, 2013 by IlliniKrush

[chw42]

Help Soxtalk. I'm considering getting a smart phone (or normal phone as it is now) and getting rid of my dumb flip phone. Besides the obvious iphone, which everyone knows about and my wife has, I don't know the first thing about different phones available. I don't need the fanciest one out there. I'd be using it for texting, checking sports scores (and twitter for sports), maybe watching games?, some email. I'm sure there are apps I don't know about that I could take advantage of, but I'll be more or less pretty basic with the phone, just having internet capability etc.

 

I'm open to any opinions on which direction I should look to go here, ones to avoid, etc. I know I can do research on this as well, but getting first-hand knowledge instead of reading specs on a website is a lot easier.

 

TIA.

 

Edit: Not looking for this to bring out the iphone vs other pissing match...just want honest opinions/reviews. I only know some about the iphone from my wife, and know nothing about other ones. I have zero brand loyalty, so it doesn't matter to me either way. If it matters any to this, I'll likely still be using ATT for service.

 

Name your budget.

 

Also, are you going to be getting the phone from the carrier?

[IlliniKrush]

Name your budget.

 

Also, are you going to be getting the phone from the carrier?

I'll pay to get something quality, I just don't think I need the most expensive, best phone "just because." I can spend hundreds of dollars if need be. Hell, I don't even know the range of what's out there.

 

Second question - not sure. Right now I'm on verizon but wife is on ATT. So I think having it on one plan could save/help. That's why I mentioned it'd likely be ATT.

[chw42]

I'll pay to get something quality, I just don't think I need the most expensive, best phone "just because." I can spend hundreds of dollars if need be. Hell, I don't even know the range of what's out there.

 

Second question - not sure. Right now I'm on verizon but wife is on ATT. So I think having it on one plan could save/help. That's why I mentioned it'd likely be ATT.

 

Well if you're going on contract, you might as well get the phone from the carrier.

 

The most you'll pay for a phone is like $300 then.

 

It all depends on what you like/think is intuitive. I suggest you go to your AT&T store and just play with the phones there. Once you have an idea of what you liked/didn't like, we can probably help you narrow it down a bit more.

[BigSqwert]

Get the Moto X from AT&T. It's a nice phone and you can customize the appearance and internal storage size.

[chw42]

Get the Moto X from AT&T. It's a nice phone and you can customize the appearance and internal storage size.

 

MotoMaker is opening up for all carriers now.

 

Nonetheless, the Moto X would be a good first smartphone. It's not too big (slightly bigger than the iPhone, but with a 4.7 inch screen though), it's not so full of bloat like a lot of other Android phones are, and it's a very good performer (adequate specs, great battery life).

 

And as Sqwert said, you don't have to live with the mundane black/white options. You can customize pretty much everything on it and end up with one of thousands of configurations.

 

You can play around with the configurations here: https://www.motorola.com/us/motomaker?pid=F...erior/backplate

Edited November 6, 2013 by chw42

[Jake]

Help Soxtalk. I'm considering getting a smart phone (or normal phone as it is now) and getting rid of my dumb flip phone. Besides the obvious iphone, which everyone knows about and my wife has, I don't know the first thing about different phones available. I don't need the fanciest one out there. I'd be using it for texting, checking sports scores (and twitter for sports), maybe watching games?, some email. I'm sure there are apps I don't know about that I could take advantage of, but I'll be more or less pretty basic with the phone, just having internet capability etc.

 

I'm open to any opinions on which direction I should look to go here, ones to avoid, etc. I know I can do research on this as well, but getting first-hand knowledge instead of reading specs on a website is a lot easier.

 

TIA.

 

Edit: Not looking for this to bring out the iphone vs other pissing match...just want honest opinions/reviews. I only know some about the iphone from my wife, and know nothing about other ones. I have zero brand loyalty, so it doesn't matter to me either way. If it matters any to this, I'll likely still be using ATT for service.

 

Here are some questions to answer that will probably lead us towards consensus:

 

Budget: If you're willing to buy on contract, your willingness to spend "hundreds" will do fine. All the major carriers now have plans that give you the chance to upgrade on a yearly basis as well, though each one has different specifics.

 

And now...your priorities.

 

iOS vs Android vs other: You may or may not have an opinion on this, we can hash out some pros and cons, but if you do have an opinion that will obviously be helpful. Perhaps some of the other priorities will lead you back to this one.

 

Screen size: Is this a big deal? If so, do you have a preference for smaller or larger screens? Must they be in the middle somewhere? I'd suggest heading to Best Buy or the ATT store to physically handle some of the phones. My experience tells me that phones that have bigger screens than you have ever used before will invariably feel really big at first. The trick is figuring out which ones will always feel big or always feel small.

 

Build: There are a few different things to think about here, but to some extent it comes down to how you want the phone to feel. You have phones with a plastic body, like Samsung phones. You have Apple, which have a nice feel with glass front and back in the 4s, plastic on the 5c, and a metal-ish backing on the 5s. The HTC One is the main phone with an aluminum design. There are other things that might factor in here, like weight or shape. Thickness, for instance. Or, a few phones have a giant camera lens on them like an actual camera.

 

Camera: Does camera quality matter? How do you anticipate using your camera? You have megapixel monsters like the Nokia Lumia. You have solid all-around cameras like the Nexus 5, Samsung Galaxy, iPhone 5s. You have ones whose best features are in their software or other non-hardware aspects, like the One and it's Zoe feature and great low-light performance at the expense of distance shooting. For me, I tend to think a lot about the camera when buying and think little about it when owning.

 

Battery: At this point, there isn't a ton of variation in terms of battery life. They all require a daily charge, for the most part. There aren't any obvious duds. The Moto RAZR MAXX (only available on Verizon, I think) might get you over 24 hours and is pretty much the sole exception. There are a couple of phones still out there that have removable batteries, if that feature matters to you.

 

Screen tech: You're pretty much looking at LCD vs AMOLED and whether you care that much about resolution. LCD performs better in daylight but generally has poorer contrast and uses less battery. AMOLED typically looks best in low lighting and performs poorly in sunlight. The higher the PPI, the better - but it reaches dubious value at a certain point and all of the high end phones are pretty similar in general in this regard.

 

The processors on all of these phones are all so high end that I don't feel like it is worth distinguishing. Of the high end phones (the ones that cost 100-200 w/ contract right now), the performance differences will be based on software rather than processing power.

 

Other hardware features...

 

NFC: Near Field Communication is a technology that does "stuff" when your phone gets near it. This will lead to widespread payment by Google Wallet with cell phones and has some other capabilities as well. For instance, you can buy a little thing to put on your desk at work and it will automatically switch your (Android) phone into "work mode," whatever that is for you. Might just be a volume adjustment.

 

Fingerprint reader: This was the new innovation for the iPhone 5s and seems to be well-implemented. I know the HTC One Max has this as well, but I don't know of any other Androids or others that do.

 

Bluetooth 4.0: This is the Bluetooth you know and love, but uses a lot less battery and pairs up with more devices.

 

Sound: Different phones perform much differently in this regard. It is one of the selling points of the HTC One, that it has loud and clear speakers. Some phones have crap for speakers, but many more people don't care.

 

SD Card Reader: This allows you to cheaply expand storage if you need. It is becoming an anachronism as well, as it apparently makes the phone harder to design and wasn't oft-utilized. Be warned that sometimes it doesn't work as smoothly as it looks.

 

There's a bunch of software features to look out for too, especially when it comes to different flavors of Android. Generally speaking, each OEM has a different take on Android. Samsung has a really feature-rich version, but some find it frustrating and slow. Others are more hands off. HTC has a distinctive graphical difference, but fewer feature interventions other than the Blinkfeed feature, which can now be turned off. The new Moto X is pretty bare bones, with a few potentially neat features. LG is incredibly bloated. The Nexus phones will have the speediest software with the least asinine or cumbersome features, but also fewer features in general.

 

iOS is uniform across the phones and its key features are less notable. With that said, iOS is not so much about features as it is about stability, speed, and ease of use so this doesn't have to be a bad thing. I might be leaving something really good out since I haven't used iOS7.

 

Windows and Blackberry have a bunch of features of dubious and varied value. The live tiles of Windows Phone certainly have some potential.

 

There's much more to be said about software, of course, but I'll leave that for another post. I'll leave you with some resources to evaluate the market.

 

http://www.t3.com/features/best-android-phones

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/the-iphon...ite-smartphone/

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/the-best-...hone-fall-2013/

http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/29/engadge...de-summer-2013/

http://gizmodo.com/iphone-5s-review-its-an...d-fu-1405289089

http://gizmodo.com/at-t-next-or-t-mobile-j...uld-y-800949834

http://www.theverge.com/reviews/categories...hones/3/1/score

http://www.androidcentral.com/best-android...buy-august-2013

 

A few different kinds of info there, about Androids, about iPhones, about carriers. Tried to give a range of opinions