Whenever LG gets around to "normalizing" 5G, I'm pretty confident they will still have 3.5mm jacks and best-in-class onboard DAC, as Jazz noted above.
Whenever that normalizing happens in general is a mystery though. Even then, I'm a T-Mobile customer, so it's dubious where it's available in my area outside Atlanta. Which would be more upsetting if that wasn't true about the less half-assed cell phone companies also.
5G is also really a mess because there are two different "kinds" of 5G. The really fast 5G runs at 6GHz, which is mmWave stuff. that can get speeds of up to 1gbps, assuming you're standing beside the transmitter and the wind is blowing in the correct direction and there isn't like, a leaf between your phone and the transmitter.
This is the "exciting" version of 5G, but the least practical currently because it's damn near impossible to actually deploy. Verizon can say they have it, but if you literally stand behind a tree in a 5G area, you revert back to LTE, so it's kind of useless at this point.
The other kind of 5G is what they call "sub 6". which is basically any kind of 5G operating at less than 6GHz, currently that's somehwere in the 2.5GHz range, which is similar to some frequencies used for LTE. under a best case scenario, it's maybe 20% faster than LTE, but that's mostly because LTE is generally more congested, so you're not seeing the full speed potential of LTE anyway. It's a "better" technology than LTE, but in practical terms it won't be that much faster.
For me personally if I'm in my house and I run a speedtest on LTE I can pull over 200 down on a good day, and downtown in my city it's usually around 100 down or so. So sub 6 5G does not really interest me at all, and mmwave is nothing more than a proof of concept at this time.
Also, Samsung is even muddying the waters by making the regular S20 only support sub 6, not mmWave, they're leaving mmWave support to the S20+ and Ultra.
That's probably because of battery concerns, to be fair/honest, but still, it shows how messy this is going to be.
Also, Samsung is even muddying the waters by making the regular S20 only support sub 6, not mmWave, they're leaving mmWave support to the S20+ and Ultra.
That's probably because of battery concerns, to be fair/honest, but still, it shows how messy this is going to be.
At&t muddies the water further with their bullshit 5Ge thing.
I read somewhere that the band they are using for 5g here in states is not being allowed in Europe because it interferes with Doppler radar for weather forecasting and detection. Not sure how true that is but if so it means you will also need to double check that your phone can even do that band if you travel abroad.
Well I just looked it up and it turns out that the entire world is fucked as the recommendation by the governing weather monitoring body for the world was completely ignored by the telecommunications companies. Fucking shocker.
I read somewhere that the band they are using for 5g here in states is not being allowed in Europe because it interferes with Doppler radar for weather forecasting and detection. Not sure how true that is but if so it means you will also need to double check that your phone can even do that band if you travel abroad.
Well I just looked it up and it turns out that the entire world is fucked as the recommendation by the governing weather monitoring body for the world was completely ignored by the telecommunications companies. Fucking shocker.
There's a dark voice in my head that says it was on purpose to mess with radar systems that can show evidence of climate change, but the conspiracy thread is in another forum...
Also apparently the TMo-Sprint merger may be back on (????)
So someone like @Synthesis may have better luck outside major metros. I'm not sure what kind of software/firmware update could make things play nicer after the merger happens
I read somewhere that the band they are using for 5g here in states is not being allowed in Europe because it interferes with Doppler radar for weather forecasting and detection. Not sure how true that is but if so it means you will also need to double check that your phone can even do that band if you travel abroad.
Well I just looked it up and it turns out that the entire world is fucked as the recommendation by the governing weather monitoring body for the world was completely ignored by the telecommunications companies. Fucking shocker.
There's a dark voice in my head that says it was on purpose to mess with radar systems that can show evidence of climate change, but the conspiracy thread is in another forum...
I don't think you need to worry - there's evidence of climate change, but the people who can enact mass change still aren't doing anything, and segments of the population still don't believe it, so going through the effort to cover that stuff up would be a massive amount of wasted effort.
Also apparently the TMo-Sprint merger may be back on (????)
So someone like @Synthesis may have better luck outside major metros. I'm not sure what kind of software/firmware update could make things play nicer after the merger happens
the US Department of Justice has approved it, which means that it is likely it will go through. This doesn't mean that one day your phone will get a software update and magically start working with both sprint and tmobile. This is a process that will literally take years to combine, and anyone with a tmobile or sprint phone today will almost certainly be on their next phone, or their next next phone, by the time everything is fully integrated.
My advice for a 5G phone is to make sure there is an option to turn off the 5G to just have it running 2-4G for daily use and 5G when you are in an area that has a strong signal/need the speeds.
I have been testing out 5G signals in an area of the UK for a couple of networks for the past 9 months. Just in the area I was travelling around the strength and speeds of 5G were so wildly different (like a difference of a gig within 3-4 meters of what was supposed to be a strong area. I think it will take at least another 2 years of updates to the infrastructure before we start seeing stable consistent signal.
I hadn't realised 5G was quite this much of a shambolic boondoggle.
Somehow seems fitting for our post-2016 dystopia.
If it makes you feel better, for many of us 4G is still a sham, and it was for everyone during its initial introduction years ago. You know, like how "Advanced 4G" doesn't actually meet the criteria for 4G.
So, really, you were living in a foreverwar dystopia all along. :biggrin:
I read somewhere that the band they are using for 5g here in states is not being allowed in Europe because it interferes with Doppler radar for weather forecasting and detection. Not sure how true that is but if so it means you will also need to double check that your phone can even do that band if you travel abroad.
Well I just looked it up and it turns out that the entire world is fucked as the recommendation by the governing weather monitoring body for the world was completely ignored by the telecommunications companies. Fucking shocker.
There's a dark voice in my head that says it was on purpose to mess with radar systems that can show evidence of climate change, but the conspiracy thread is in another forum...
You may or may not have missed the news burst a few months ago about how "Russian secret interests are impeding the 4G roll-out with fake news about 'interference with weather radar standards'." That's right, man, it's conspiracies all the way down.
T-Mobile did the same thing with 4G that AT&T is doing with 5G. This is why we call it "LTE" instead of 4G. T-Mobile didn't have the spectrum or money to build out LTE early, so as Sprint was rolling out WiMax (remember that?) and AT&T and Verizon were rolling out LTE, T-Mobile started to call HSPA+, which had a theoretical max speed of 42Mbps (comparable to LTE at the time) "4G."
So Sprint just started calling their 4G network WiMax, and Verizon and AT&T started marketing theirs at 4G LTE, which eventually got shortened to just LTE. And here we are today.
AT&T is doing almost the exact same thing. they are marketing LTE Advanced, which does have a theoretical maximum speed comparable to Sub 6 5G at this time, as "5Ge" for evolution. It is literally the exact same thing T-Mobile did a decade ago because time is a flat circle.
I have a question: Both of my kid's Lenovo Tab 4 8 tablets have stopped logging into the kids account, meaning they both lost access to all of their games and pictures they took.
An update was pushed out early January that basically hosed everything up for the kids account. Anyone know if there's a way to rollback updates specifically from a manufacturer? Obviously Lenovo doesn't give a SHIT about the problem since their forums are basically full of empty replies.
I'm probably going to be upgrading my phone when the new Galaxies come out, but I'm having trouble finding a method to transfer app data from my existing phone (Galaxy S8). The old phone is unrooted, and the new one will also be unrooted (payment and banking apps don't like rooted phones).
Does anyone have a recommendation? I know Helium used to be the way to go, but the app page is full of comments from the last year complaining about how it's out of date and doesn't work with a lot of newer apps and devices.
Galaxy has the Smart Switch app you can use that seems pretty effective
This.
Though the last few times I've switched phones I've just signed into my Google account and downloaded the apps I know I'm going to use. Nice opportunity for a fresh start.
Galaxy has the Smart Switch app you can use that seems pretty effective
This.
Though the last few times I've switched phones I've just signed into my Google account and downloaded the apps I know I'm going to use. Nice opportunity for a fresh start.
Yeah, I use that too for transferring settings and media, and it works great for that. I'm talking specifically about app data, though: things like settings/saved games/profiles/etc that are saved locally on the device. Smart Switch doesn't transfer any of that because it's protected or encrypted or something. Helium used to do that, but I guess data formats changed or something and it hasn't been getting updated.
I'll give that Huawei app a look, though. Thanks for the replies, folks!
edit: apparently Huawei's phone clone also doesn't transfer app data, which is unfortunate.
Galaxy has the Smart Switch app you can use that seems pretty effective
This.
Though the last few times I've switched phones I've just signed into my Google account and downloaded the apps I know I'm going to use. Nice opportunity for a fresh start.
Yeah, I use that too for transferring settings and media, and it works great for that. I'm talking specifically about app data, though: things like settings/saved games/profiles/etc that are saved locally on the device. Smart Switch doesn't transfer any of that because it's protected or encrypted or something. Helium used to do that, but I guess data formats changed or something and it hasn't been getting updated.
I'll give that Huawei app a look, though. Thanks for the replies, folks!
edit: apparently Huawei's phone clone also doesn't transfer app data, which is unfortunate.
I agree, transferring app data would be nice. I had to relogin to all my apps, which was annoying. More annoying was that I'd used the google service that suggests secure passwords a few times, but couldn't figure out how to retrieve those on the new phone.
Galaxy has the Smart Switch app you can use that seems pretty effective
This.
Though the last few times I've switched phones I've just signed into my Google account and downloaded the apps I know I'm going to use. Nice opportunity for a fresh start.
Yeah, I use that too for transferring settings and media, and it works great for that. I'm talking specifically about app data, though: things like settings/saved games/profiles/etc that are saved locally on the device. Smart Switch doesn't transfer any of that because it's protected or encrypted or something. Helium used to do that, but I guess data formats changed or something and it hasn't been getting updated.
I'll give that Huawei app a look, though. Thanks for the replies, folks!
edit: apparently Huawei's phone clone also doesn't transfer app data, which is unfortunate.
I agree, transferring app data would be nice. I had to relogin to all my apps, which was annoying. More annoying was that I'd used the google service that suggests secure passwords a few times, but couldn't figure out how to retrieve those on the new phone.
It's essential for a lot of games and other offline apps that store everything locally; those files are just stuck there forever unless there's a non-root way to move them to a new device.
Doesn't Sony's software support kinda suck? It's why I've stayed away from the Xperia phones even though I'd love a giant phone for my meat paws.
Historically, yes, it was one of the failings of the Xperia phones (also price point)--as I recall, they made LG look good by comparison. But that might not be the issue still.
Doesn't Sony's software support kinda suck? It's why I've stayed away from the Xperia phones even though I'd love a giant phone for my meat paws.
Historically, yes, it was one of the failings of the Xperia phones (also price point)--as I recall, they made LG look good by comparison. But that might not be the issue still.
Issue with Sony's phones is, well, Sony. Sony's own software and apps have a range of 'strange' to 'broken'. They have the general issue of most non leading phone brands of trying something new but never having true support for its ideas.
Sony have been known to have the leading class of camera sensors and imaging components for the past 10 years and yet the software Sony uses for its own phones compresses the image quality and video bit rate so low they look shit compared to a lot of mid range phones using Sony older sensor tech. So it's using tech in this years cameras that matches its alpha range (eye tracking AF is a Godsend) but unless the software improves its end image then it all means jack shit.
I will say though last years Xperia 1 was a really solid flagship that did a lot right.
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NEO|PhyteThey follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered Userregular
Encountering strangeness with someone's Pixel (unsure of exact model, it's at least a 2). It doesn't want to connect to the house's wireless. Based on it being able to see other networks in the area, I am reasonably sure it's not the wireless antenna in the phone going bad, but even when right next to the router and manually told to connect, it says not in range.
Wireless is set to not broadcast its SSID, but that doesn't seem to cause problems for any of the other pixels in the house. Router has been rebooted a few times, and also given the ole factory reset because I couldn't remember the login information I'd set. Phone has been rebooted, had airplane mode toggled, and had the network removed and re-entered.
It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
My wife is starting a side gig where she is printing shirts, cups, mousepads, etc for some coworkers for some extra cash. Nothing major or anything but right now she owns a Galaxy S7 because she's super cheap (her words). I'd like to get her a new phone with a better camera (so she can take pictures of her creations and put it up on a website) but I also don't want to break the bank. Obviously she doesn't need a Pixel 4 or whatever but do you guys have any suggestions on a cheap phone with a better camera than the S7? She's on Verizon right now if that matters.
eh, honestly it's still 2-3 months away from being released at least, and it sounds like this person kind of needs a phone now to support a new business.
get the 3a XL, it's a good phone with a phenomenal camrea for a decent price, and will feel faster than an S7 anyway.
My wife is starting a side gig where she is printing shirts, cups, mousepads, etc for some coworkers for some extra cash. Nothing major or anything but right now she owns a Galaxy S7 because she's super cheap (her words). I'd like to get her a new phone with a better camera (so she can take pictures of her creations and put it up on a website) but I also don't want to break the bank. Obviously she doesn't need a Pixel 4 or whatever but do you guys have any suggestions on a cheap phone with a better camera than the S7? She's on Verizon right now if that matters.
Can you add it via MAC? Can you see it in the router's logs?
Is it worth broadcasting the SSID until you get the phone connected; assuming that's the issue?
So phone testing time. For past 2 weeks been 5G testing a bunch of new Samsung handsets for UK signals.
So first up the S20+; Solid phone, 5G works well. doesn't feel too much an upgrade on the S10 + 5G or the Note 10 + though. Battery life is pretty good.
Next the Z Flip (Not a 5G device, I know but was handed it anyway for 2 weeks). Love the idea of a flip phone again, this nearly gets it right but fails mainly in getting its software right for the aspect ratio. Scrolling is a fucking nightmare at times and using it in vertical position makes it difficult for even my giant hands. Battery isn't fantastic and specs put this as a fashion item. The hinge though is dreamy.
Finally the S20 Ultra: This phone is a bit of a mess, the specs blow me away but the practical uses as a daily phone just don't work. The battery is poor when using any exclusive features, 5G modem isn't as strong as the S20+ for some strange reason, image quality is good but nothing wow for all the tech on show. Id love to see what using Pixel imaging tech or even Apples imaging software on this hardware would do though.
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The_SpaniardIt's never lupinesIrvine, CaliforniaRegistered Userregular
Welp, due to deals I went and ordered an S20 Ultra. Got $500 trade-in on my current device, 200 in Samsung store credit for accessories, and my work is going to pay for up to $100 bucks of my combined monthly phone plan and device cost. My total monthly bill is going to be about $133 per month of which I'll only need to cover 33 bucks.
Can anyone help me figure out how to search for artists on Google Play Music? For example I search "Four Tet" and the only thing that shows up is "Four Tet radio" and I can't actually see the album list.... Does that mean they don't have any of their albums (this doesn't make sense because it seems like every artist does this in Google Music).
Posts
Whenever that normalizing happens in general is a mystery though. Even then, I'm a T-Mobile customer, so it's dubious where it's available in my area outside Atlanta. Which would be more upsetting if that wasn't true about the less half-assed cell phone companies also.
This is the "exciting" version of 5G, but the least practical currently because it's damn near impossible to actually deploy. Verizon can say they have it, but if you literally stand behind a tree in a 5G area, you revert back to LTE, so it's kind of useless at this point.
The other kind of 5G is what they call "sub 6". which is basically any kind of 5G operating at less than 6GHz, currently that's somehwere in the 2.5GHz range, which is similar to some frequencies used for LTE. under a best case scenario, it's maybe 20% faster than LTE, but that's mostly because LTE is generally more congested, so you're not seeing the full speed potential of LTE anyway. It's a "better" technology than LTE, but in practical terms it won't be that much faster.
For me personally if I'm in my house and I run a speedtest on LTE I can pull over 200 down on a good day, and downtown in my city it's usually around 100 down or so. So sub 6 5G does not really interest me at all, and mmwave is nothing more than a proof of concept at this time.
That's probably because of battery concerns, to be fair/honest, but still, it shows how messy this is going to be.
Still, I do think i want to move away from the iPhone (XS currently).
Maybe an S10+ or a Note 10...
I would at the very least wait for S20 reviews. they did put massive batteries in these phones, so hopefully battery life is ok.
At&t muddies the water further with their bullshit 5Ge thing.
Well I just looked it up and it turns out that the entire world is fucked as the recommendation by the governing weather monitoring body for the world was completely ignored by the telecommunications companies. Fucking shocker.
PSN:Furlion
Somehow seems fitting for our post-2016 dystopia.
Steam | XBL
There's a dark voice in my head that says it was on purpose to mess with radar systems that can show evidence of climate change, but the conspiracy thread is in another forum...
So someone like @Synthesis may have better luck outside major metros. I'm not sure what kind of software/firmware update could make things play nicer after the merger happens
the US Department of Justice has approved it, which means that it is likely it will go through. This doesn't mean that one day your phone will get a software update and magically start working with both sprint and tmobile. This is a process that will literally take years to combine, and anyone with a tmobile or sprint phone today will almost certainly be on their next phone, or their next next phone, by the time everything is fully integrated.
I have been testing out 5G signals in an area of the UK for a couple of networks for the past 9 months. Just in the area I was travelling around the strength and speeds of 5G were so wildly different (like a difference of a gig within 3-4 meters of what was supposed to be a strong area. I think it will take at least another 2 years of updates to the infrastructure before we start seeing stable consistent signal.
If it makes you feel better, for many of us 4G is still a sham, and it was for everyone during its initial introduction years ago. You know, like how "Advanced 4G" doesn't actually meet the criteria for 4G.
So, really, you were living in a foreverwar dystopia all along. :biggrin:
You may or may not have missed the news burst a few months ago about how "Russian secret interests are impeding the 4G roll-out with fake news about 'interference with weather radar standards'." That's right, man, it's conspiracies all the way down.
So Sprint just started calling their 4G network WiMax, and Verizon and AT&T started marketing theirs at 4G LTE, which eventually got shortened to just LTE. And here we are today.
AT&T is doing almost the exact same thing. they are marketing LTE Advanced, which does have a theoretical maximum speed comparable to Sub 6 5G at this time, as "5Ge" for evolution. It is literally the exact same thing T-Mobile did a decade ago because time is a flat circle.
According to: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-Android-based-Tablets-and/Tab-4-quot-lenovo-Kid-s-Account-keeps-stopping-quot/td-p/4343877
An update was pushed out early January that basically hosed everything up for the kids account. Anyone know if there's a way to rollback updates specifically from a manufacturer? Obviously Lenovo doesn't give a SHIT about the problem since their forums are basically full of empty replies.
Does anyone have a recommendation? I know Helium used to be the way to go, but the app page is full of comments from the last year complaining about how it's out of date and doesn't work with a lot of newer apps and devices.
This.
Though the last few times I've switched phones I've just signed into my Google account and downloaded the apps I know I'm going to use. Nice opportunity for a fresh start.
Yeah, I use that too for transferring settings and media, and it works great for that. I'm talking specifically about app data, though: things like settings/saved games/profiles/etc that are saved locally on the device. Smart Switch doesn't transfer any of that because it's protected or encrypted or something. Helium used to do that, but I guess data formats changed or something and it hasn't been getting updated.
I'll give that Huawei app a look, though. Thanks for the replies, folks!
edit: apparently Huawei's phone clone also doesn't transfer app data, which is unfortunate.
I agree, transferring app data would be nice. I had to relogin to all my apps, which was annoying. More annoying was that I'd used the google service that suggests secure passwords a few times, but couldn't figure out how to retrieve those on the new phone.
It's essential for a lot of games and other offline apps that store everything locally; those files are just stuck there forever unless there's a non-root way to move them to a new device.
The Xperia 1 II (love the name).
The good news is that it has a 3.5 mm jack...
Steam | XBL
I applaud Sony for the bravery of keeping the headphone jack, but good lord, that is a terrible name.
Historically, yes, it was one of the failings of the Xperia phones (also price point)--as I recall, they made LG look good by comparison. But that might not be the issue still.
Issue with Sony's phones is, well, Sony. Sony's own software and apps have a range of 'strange' to 'broken'. They have the general issue of most non leading phone brands of trying something new but never having true support for its ideas.
Sony have been known to have the leading class of camera sensors and imaging components for the past 10 years and yet the software Sony uses for its own phones compresses the image quality and video bit rate so low they look shit compared to a lot of mid range phones using Sony older sensor tech. So it's using tech in this years cameras that matches its alpha range (eye tracking AF is a Godsend) but unless the software improves its end image then it all means jack shit.
I will say though last years Xperia 1 was a really solid flagship that did a lot right.
Wireless is set to not broadcast its SSID, but that doesn't seem to cause problems for any of the other pixels in the house. Router has been rebooted a few times, and also given the ole factory reset because I couldn't remember the login information I'd set. Phone has been rebooted, had airplane mode toggled, and had the network removed and re-entered.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Or wait a bit for the pixel 4a..
eh, honestly it's still 2-3 months away from being released at least, and it sounds like this person kind of needs a phone now to support a new business.
get the 3a XL, it's a good phone with a phenomenal camrea for a decent price, and will feel faster than an S7 anyway.
Can you add it via MAC? Can you see it in the router's logs?
Is it worth broadcasting the SSID until you get the phone connected; assuming that's the issue?
Plus it was under $300 since I had Amazon credit!
So first up the S20+; Solid phone, 5G works well. doesn't feel too much an upgrade on the S10 + 5G or the Note 10 + though. Battery life is pretty good.
Next the Z Flip (Not a 5G device, I know but was handed it anyway for 2 weeks). Love the idea of a flip phone again, this nearly gets it right but fails mainly in getting its software right for the aspect ratio. Scrolling is a fucking nightmare at times and using it in vertical position makes it difficult for even my giant hands. Battery isn't fantastic and specs put this as a fashion item. The hinge though is dreamy.
Finally the S20 Ultra: This phone is a bit of a mess, the specs blow me away but the practical uses as a daily phone just don't work. The battery is poor when using any exclusive features, 5G modem isn't as strong as the S20+ for some strange reason, image quality is good but nothing wow for all the tech on show. Id love to see what using Pixel imaging tech or even Apples imaging software on this hardware would do though.