Galaxy Fold review units are failing

#187

(you changed your name and avatar again?)

Ditto but I’m just experimenting.

I am not thinking one device but different devices for different contexts and just playing to find what works. I did a test trial yesterday and didn’t work too well as the phablet (8.4" screen) was being powered off my sitting down (power button getting pressed). Works well enough at home.

So far I have a total of 5 “phones”:

  • a Moto G4 play, I love it for its 5" size, good battery life, replaceable battery so this is a joy when need a full phone and as light as possible. Cost me $89 about 2-3 years ago. 1GB RAM, 8GB (I think) and I can put a 128GB SD card in. I really enjoy using this phone for “what you can do for $100” sanity check of technology. I have ebay’d replacement battery and its unlocked and XDA community means it runs the current latest Android. A good grounding of you really don’t need to spend much money to have a smartphone.
  • a LG Watch Urbane 2, this has LTE capability. I like this for more minimalist than the Moto G4 Play. Cost me $168 about 18 months back. It’s awful to use as your primary device, truly bad concept. Good as your secondary device. Battery life awful, if you use as a smartwatch I got as little as 2 hours from it, if you use it as a dumb watch (i.e. tell the time) it lasts about 24 hours.
  • OnePlus6. My most expensive device. 6" screen, 8GB RAM, 256GB storage. I paid $629 for it May last year. To be honest, this is my current go-to as it does everything and fits in my pocket.
  • Huawei Mediapad 8.4 LTE. $299, 4GB RAM, 32GB storage, put a 200GB SD in it. Got this last week, playing with it still, not sure yet what it is good for.
  • Huawei Mediapad 10.8" LTE, with keyboard, $556 paid in January, 4GB RAM, 64GB storage, takes upto 256GB SD. I done two long trips, total 3 weeks living off this and my OnePlus. I’m far from convinced about this concept, I think Chromebooks still have the edge as ChromeOS is better on large screens. Tablets+keyboards less reliable than Chromebooks with keyboards.

From this I do observe:

  • actually the most expensive item is a high-end hand-held pocketable phone. This is telling me that either people are willing to pay for a high-spec phone, or these are fundamentally expensive to make. The form-factor of keeping within a pocket, making it fast and good battery life is the challenge and apparently many are prepared to pay for it. The $1000 iphone and the $2000 Samsung folding phone seems to confirm this. I am not convinced this is the future, as a slower handheld (the $89 Moto) is quite useable, and the non-handheld phablets like the Huawei 8.4" $299 is perfectly fast and enjoyable apart from its questionable pocketability.
  • you can practically make anything for less cost with more stuff within, you can put a bigger screen, bigger battery, so long as you do not have to shrink it to a phone size, its just cheaper to make.
  • smartwatches are even more challenging than phones, given you have a lot less storage, memory, slow cpu, tiny screen, they are crap value, at current pace of improvement, I fear a decade more is required.
  • a low-end phone is still overall the best value for money, you can get a quite workable phone for $100.

I have 4 SIMs:

  • USA ATT (work pays)
  • USA T-Mobile (I pay, I got family plan for everyone’s phones, cheapest way overall)
  • USA Truphone. This goes in the smartwatch, it is free to receive incoming calls otherwise 10c/min and 10c/MB, I keep the SIM turned off apart from when I’m making this my only device on my person. I put $15 credit on it over a year ago and there’s still about $4 left so proving a cheap way to keep rarely-used SIM
  • UK Giffgaff when visit UK. These shame USA’s mobile networks as bad value, I can put 5 UKP on it every few months and gives me free calls / texts in the network. The OnePlus is dual-SIM so I can be in two countries at once.

I use Google Voice / Hangouts for my virtual USA number, and in UK Sipgate as my virtual UK number, so as far as everyone is concerned I have one UK and one USA phone number and none know physically where I am.

My Anker interest is if you’re carrying basically a crap battery life smartwatch, a phone between 5" - 10.8" screen size, and spending sometimes as much as week outdoors not connecting to anything physically, the need for power becomes critical, I use a mix of the Powercore 10000 (still, my go-to best overall), the Slim 5000, and sometimes a Powercore 26800. I tried solar off-grid for a week and its simply not worth it.

Go on, someone out-geek me :slight_smile:

1 Like
#188

Just the avatar a beleive :grin:

#189

Nope, just avatar

…
the phablet (8.4" screen)

A phablet, is a smartphone between 6 n 7 inches. After 7 it’s a tablet, or a 3/4g tablet.

…
Out geek you … Hmmm go back about 10 years, I’d have easily out geeked you, not with items (never had enough spare for multiple… It’s buy one sell one (I buy the new one by selling the current one)).

Let’s put it this way, 12 years ago, I went for a job as a supervisor at a phone shop, and I out geeked the instore techman (no, not you Andrew), by telling him he had specs wrong, and he was dl something the long way round.

Mobile phones n tech were a real hobby of mine, I knew almost everything about the latest 40 handsets at the time, and would “support” everyone in.work with any issue they had with their phone.

Now… It’s 2019, and my memory is shit due to too many years of taking multiple morphine a day, and several other strong pills. I sleep for shit due to pain and extreme sleep apnea (over 350 episodes a night on average). I’m constantly tired and in pain, and slightly high at the same time. It’s a wonder some days how I function leave alone come online and make sense (well I try to) as that’s what helps keep alert (so to speak)

3 Likes
#190

Not even trying…

I use magicjack for about $40/year (ported my ATT number to keep my number), I can use it as a landline at home and use it with APP to call unlimited US/Canada
Kept my Google voice number for last 9 years so I can use it when needed.
Use an international calling service (Raza) to call almost 80 countries (I only call 1 country tho :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:) $10 gives me 1000 minutes it renews when gets to less than 200 min
Got my local Canadian number for regular usage.

Occassionally use my Ipad Air 2, and laptop, most things are done on my iphone 6S

Forgot about another thing, use WhatsApp to call almost anybody outside of country

3 Likes
#191

Lol Whatsapp is a godsend. A lot of people outside the US use it

2 Likes
#192

I am now 13 years into running this VOIP router

avm-fritzbox-fon-ata-1020-soho66.jpg453×640 54.7 KB

What this has given me 13 years of having a USA and UK phone numbers which are local and appear to the caller as real phone numbers, and I am physically wherever I want to be.

Modern alternatives now exist but younger people are mostly not really having phone numbers, its apps.

My biggest beef is with the network carriers - they are penalizing “data” lines, tablets, over “phone” lines, and also killing wearables which consume little. So the carriers are forcing phones to exist when many people do not want a phone number.

3 Likes
#193

That’s actually quite cool :thumbsup:

#194

Wow dude that’s really a work around .

2 Likes
#195

A Fritz Box is perfect.
I have one too, with fixed telephone.

A lot of features.
BUT you need some skills to program it. :grin:

#196

I didn’t know about a VOIP “router” do they still exist?

#197

Nice work. I like it :thumbsup:

#198

Yes they do.
And working fine! :joy:
What kind of router are you using?

1 Like
#199

Yes

https://en.avm.de/products/fritzbox/

There is much less need now than a decade ago, as mobile phones got more common and unlimited / sufficient calls came in, with text messages and apps, the idea of a fixed wired landline fell away.

In UK the cost of phoning a mobile phone was significantly more than phoning a landline number ( 07x mobile, 01x landline) so you’d prefer to phone a landline number, but then the mobile networks began to up the call minutes and the concern to phone a landline fell away.

In USA the cost to call a cellphone was the same as to call a landline but the callee paid for receiving the call, so you’d find people would prefer to call landlines. That fell away as the cellular carriers move to unlimited / sufficient minutes of calling.

So now in both UK and USA, the need for landlines is much reduced, so the need for VOIP routers is much reduced. When I bought my Fritzboz VOIP router I had a free USA phone number which my router would login to and so USA people could phone me even when I was physically in UK. Now I keep the same router and I have a UK phone number and a few people are on UK PAYG pre-pay pay-per-minute mobiles who prefer to pick up their UK landline and call a UK landline number, e.g. BT make those calls free at weekends. That means someone without any gadgetry in UK can phone someone for free who is not physically in the UK.

As most community members here are of the younger end its irrelevant.

1 Like
#200

Some years ago there was the change from ISDN to VOIP here.
Got a a free router from telekom as exchange, which was rubbish after 1/2 year.

As it was free, they refused to replace it under warranty. :angry:
I should buy or rent one! :grimacing:

But as you never should change a running system, I kept that … provider and
got a FritzBox.
All fine after!
But those stories are “histories” for our you fellows here, you mentioned that.

#201

Been using Cisco ATA, with CallCentric numbers for US, and Google voice forwarded, for last 8 years, works like charm!

Are there options to get UK VoIP numbers like Google Voice?

#202

Whatsapp and Google Duo have helped me cut on International call charges by a huge huge numbers :smile:

1 Like
#203

I have used these guys since I started > 10 years ago. I put about 10 quid into the account every few years. It’s very low cost for me.

1 Like
#204

Thanks, Callcentric does the same in US what Sipgate does in UK. Will check on SiPGate

#205

I’ve been trying to get people on Duo but nobody wants to install it. And Whatsapp has a video chat feature so it’s even harder for me to get people to switch to it

1 Like
#206

I just recently heard about Google Duo. Cool app but never used it,WhatsApp rules as of now.

2 Likes