Technology catch-all thread

[TaylorStSox]

I'm debating whether to surprise my wife with a laptop this year for christmas. I like the HP Envy series and Sams Club has a pretty good cyber week deal - 15.6 inch touchscreen, backlit keyboard, 4th gen i7 processor, 8gb of ram, 750 gb hard drive for $699. It's the cheapest 4th gen i7 touchscreen with more than 4gbs of ram by $150-200.

 

I like everything about it and the price except for the "HD" screen. It's not true HD, it's only 1366 x 768. Not sure if it's worth spending so much extra money for true HD resolution for an "around the house" (web surfing, photo/video viewing/minimal editing, word processing, email, etc) laptop.

I've seen that same Envy for $599 on non holiday sales. It's a powerful computer, but that screen is terrible. Take a look at Slick Deals and see what you can find.

[RockRaines]

Pretty uneducated on this stuff, so I'm seeking some advice, on a 46" LED TV how crucial is the 60Hz/120Hz difference, particularly with sports/Blu-Ray/gaming?

Most LED's if not all are edge-lit and can have some serious lag for gaming, check the gaming settings as it helps some of the delay.

[Chisoxfn]

Got an S4 over the weekend. Will let you know my thoughts in a bit (moving from an iphone).

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

Got an S4 over the weekend. Will let you know my thoughts in a bit (moving from an iphone).

 

My uncle is trying to decide right now between the S4 and the G2. I have a feeling he will go with the S4 because he's seen more advertisements for it. He asked someone at Sprint to help him decide, and the salesperson said "Well, they all do the same things anyway". lol, what an unhelpful person.

[Jake]

That processor is kinda weak.

 

Yeah, it's not great. For the price, I'm pretty pleased with it as it is the only real "compromise" -- though it isn't for the $700 I paid. I mainly multi-task by surfing the net, word processing, and sometimes streaming music which should be quite doable for a middle of the road processor and non-insane amounts of memory.

 

My previous laptop had an i5 dual core Sandy Bridge with 6GB RAM and 1GB GPU and it was always plenty responsive

[Chisoxfn]

My uncle is trying to decide right now between the S4 and the G2. I have a feeling he will go with the S4 because he's seen more advertisements for it. He asked someone at Sprint to help him decide, and the salesperson said "Well, they all do the same things anyway". lol, what an unhelpful person.

I was deciding between the S4 and Nexus 5. I can't argue free and the resale value better on the S4. I already hate all the bloatware on these f***ing android phones (or at least this android phone). I know the IOS had some stuff but jesus, this thing seems to have way more. And no, I don't want to f***ing root it.

[Y2HH]

Got an S4 over the weekend. Will let you know my thoughts in a bit (moving from an iphone).

 

The screens are undeniably awesome on the modern larger Android phones, but I dislike the Android experience immensely. If you're into customization, it's a nice albeit largely unnecessary addition, but the apps/settings is just a sub-par experience IMO. After jailbreaking my iPhone back on iOS6, the customization stuff was fun for about a week before I stopped caring again.

 

I HATE working on Android phones for people at work for this reason. Every one of them is different, looks different, works different, and the apps, even apps that are the same on both just don't work or respond as well, and most of them have multiple apps that accomplish the same tasks, and depending on which one the person decided to use, you have to start troubleshooting with that one. I hate it.

 

I wish Google would outlaw carrier tweaking/skins on Android and close source it.

Edited December 3, 2013 by Y2HH

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

The screens are undeniably awesome on the modern larger Android phones, but I dislike the Android experience immensely. If you're into customization, it's a nice albeit largely unnecessary addition, but the apps/settings is just a sub-par experience IMO. After jailbreaking my iPhone back on iOS6, the customization stuff was fun for about a week before I stopped caring again.

 

I HATE working on Android phones for people at work for this reason. Every one of them is different, looks different, works different, and the apps, even apps that are the same on both just don't work or respond as well, and most of them have multiple apps that accomplish the same tasks, and depending on which one the person decided to use, you have to start troubleshooting with that one. I hate it.

 

I wish Google would outlaw carrier tweaking/skins on Android and close source it.

 

That would go against why most people love Android phones, because we all don't have the exact same cookie cutter phones that Apple resells every year. It's the customization and open source that a lot of, not all, people love about them.

[Big Hurtin]

Pretty uneducated on this stuff, so I'm seeking some advice, on a 46" LED TV how crucial is the 60Hz/120Hz difference, particularly with sports/Blu-Ray/gaming?

 

For Blu-Ray the native speed is 24fps (the speed of film). The 120 hz divides by 24 evenly, so the frames are repeated evenly (no judder).

[Y2HH]

That would go against why most people love Android phones, because we all don't have the exact same cookie cutter phones that Apple resells every year. It's the customization and open source that a lot of, not all, people love about them.

 

Aside from the core of Android, there is almost nothing open about it. Almost no Google applications are open, such as maps, g+, docs, etc. All owned and completely controlled by Google. You know, everything you use that actually makes android good.

 

Customization is fine, so long as it's controlled by Google settings, but brand skinning, adding sub par apps that replicate things built into the OS I can't remove and adding carrier bloat sucks, and I wish it wasn't allowed. If they were optional downloads that's fine, but sense and touch wiz aren't optional.

 

If I was in my 20s I'd have loved it. Now that I'm in my 30s and have to deal with it professionally, not so much.

 

I'd prefer it be left to the user to download any extra apps, skins or otherwise on their own.

[BigSqwert]

Aside from the core of Android, there is almost nothing open about it.

 

As in they offer developer edition devices and nexus phones where you can load completely customized versions of the OS? Yeah, not very open.

[Jake]

I was deciding between the S4 and Nexus 5. I can't argue free and the resale value better on the S4. I already hate all the bloatware on these f***ing android phones (or at least this android phone). I know the IOS had some stuff but jesus, this thing seems to have way more. And no, I don't want to f***ing root it.

 

Samsung is the king of bloatware. I've been actively avoiding their stuff because their UI is slow and the design is yucky. Nexus 5 is literally zero bloatware and can have nice resale value, especially when they randomly go out of stock in the Play Store. S4 has some really cool features though and is in general a top-notch device, not trying to say you screwed up

[Jake]

And yeah, I love that I can make my phone work exactly the way I want it to. Change for the sake of change is okay, but the beauty of it is that it actually functions for me. My workflow is all about the customizations I've made on my Android devices.

 

Also, it is really immature at this point, but Windows is taking notes from Apple and really unifying their OS across devices. I really like the direction they are going -- at this point, they are just in dire need of app development over anything else. They have their stuff on some really great hardware, their UI is unique, attractive, and functional, and the company has been acting like they really want to do things differently. I sent in a "complaint" about a bug in an app and they emailed me back telling me that their developers were part of the way done in patching it and that they appreciated the input

[Y2HH]

As in they offer developer edition devices and nexus phones where you can load completely customized versions of the OS? Yeah, not very open.

 

Not at all in context to my original post. I'd guess that 95%+ of the people that use Android don't care that the core OS is open, and most of those 95% don't even know what open means.

 

As for what you said, yes, you can load a vanilla OS that does almost nothing by using the "open" parts. Now, if you remove all the closed portions of Google from Android, you are left with a largely useless and much less attractive OS.

 

Maps

G+

Music

YouTube

Play

Docs

Gmail

Now

Etc.

 

ALL closed. And without those apps your custom "open" Nexus device is nothing more than a feature phone with a large useless screen.

 

Back to my original point, I don't mind the ability to customize, I'm not saying Google should take that away from the USER, I'm saying they need to take it away from the manufacturers and the carriers.

Edited December 3, 2013 by Y2HH

[RockRaines]

There is definitely a subset of users that love that customization offered by android, and it can be really awesome if you know what you are doing.

 

Of course there is also quite a chunk of the android user population that use it because it was cheaper than buying an iphone.

 

On the VZW site there are 2 iphones under $100 for new customers vs 18 android devices (some of these are actually "free)

[justBLAZE]

So I gave in the weekend shopping crazy and got this bad boy on Saturday.

 

http://www.samsung.com/us/video/tvs/UN46F5500AFXZA

 

It's going to take a while to unleash its full potential that's for sure.

[Jake]

I had a change of heart on my computer, based in part on the fact that my shipping was delayed indefinitely, so I suspect they may be out of stock.

 

So now...for $1400 I get the next year's model, the A730

 

i7-4700MQ processor 2.40 GHz 6MB cache

8 GB DDR3 1600 MHz RAM

NVIDIA GeForce GT745M 2GB GPU

27" AIO QHD Multi-Touch 2560x1440 monitor

1TB 5400 RPM HDD

Blu-Ray drive

 

The HDD is the only thing holding it back from being a "perfect" computer IMO

[RockRaines]

So I gave in the weekend shopping crazy and got this bad boy on Saturday.

 

http://www.samsung.com/us/video/tvs/UN46F5500AFXZA

 

It's going to take a while to unleash its full potential that's for sure.

Nice I have a similar one. Make sure you surf the internet for the config specs. I had to make a lot of tweaks before I got it the way I wanted.

[Jake]

Isn't there some cool stuff you can do with Samsung Smart TVs and Android phones?

[Buehrle>Wood]

Isn't there some cool stuff you can do with Samsung Smart TVs and Android phones?

My S4 acts as a remote for any TV, smart or not.

[Jake]

My S4 acts as a remote for any TV, smart or not.

 

Yeah, my One does that -- Google Now always notifies me when I'm at my parents' place because they have a Samsung TV. Asks if I'm watching, but I've never fiddled with it

[RockRaines]

Dammit, I knew I should have pulled the trigger on a TV yesterday, price increased almost 200 on the one I wanted for my other bedroom.

[Buehrle>Wood]

Dammit, I knew I should have pulled the trigger on a TV yesterday, price increased almost 200 on the one I wanted for my other bedroom.

Which one? I got 7 TVs between Friday and yesterday.

[RockRaines]

Which one? I got 7 TVs between Friday and yesterday.

There was a backlit LCD from samsung, 50 in for about 500 bucks, its up to 700 now.

[BigSqwert]

I got 7 TVs between Friday and yesterday.

 

That sounds crazy to me.