Smartphones

ThunderCougarFalconBird_sl said:

Hows the build quality on your Nexus 4's? I'm very leery about LG quality and how they can price it at $299 without cutting corners. That said, I'm still considering it for my next phone.

Click to expand...

I think the build quality is amazing. It feels solid and well built. I haven't noticed any issues.

ThunderCougarFalconBird_sl said:

Hows the build quality on your Nexus 4's? I'm very leery about LG quality and how they can price it at $299 without cutting corners. That said, I'm still considering it for my next phone.

Click to expand...

It seems most people on XDA are giving it good reviews. You get a few people there who obviously aren't telling the truth when they "set down the phone" and broke the back glass. I'm pretty sure the back isn't Gorilla Glass 2, but I'm hoping that it'll stand up over time. Mine is still on order from the 28th, though I just had another line item show up in my Play Store account, as well as having a pending charge for another phone. It seems they've added another this morning (with the correct shipping information from my first device) and modified my order from the 28th and it now shows Dec 4th as the "order date."

Hopefully I'll get one of them soon. Hell, even if they end up charging me for two and sending a pair, I'll still be able to sell it on ebay or CL for a slight profit. It seems some of the people who ordered on Dec 6th have already had devices shipped out this morning, so I'm tentatively hopeful that this second charge will just mean I get a device sooner instead of 6 weeks out.

I managed to drop my HTC One S into water... the phone starts up again, receives emails and messages, but the touchscreen is completely non-responsible. The incident happened about two weeks ago and I tried putting it in rice.

Is there anything else I should try that might fix it? Is it possible to resell it for parts?

I have a Nexus 4 coming, but I was hoping I wouldn't have to throw away the old phone.

Gaige_sl said:

Ya, I love my Nexus 4. I got that S-Line too, just until the official bumper comes back in stock. If you're looking for a full body protector this one:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o04_s00_i00

Has been getting great reviews.

Click to expand...

Funny you should mention it because I ordered that exact full body protector from Amazon and put it on my phone last night. I'm an idiot, though, and didn't do it in a place with enough light so I ended up with 2 bubbles on my screen. Looks like I'll be cashing in on the lifetime warranty much sooner than expected. I have to say, putting this thing on seemed to be more difficult than putting on a Zagg screen. Also, it seems to me that the curved edges of the Nexus 4 don't want to play well with the protector at all.

ThunderCougarFalconBird_sl said:

Hows the build quality on your Nexus 4's? I'm very leery about LG quality and how they can price it at $299 without cutting corners. That said, I'm still considering it for my next phone.

Click to expand...

Feels as solid as an iPhone or a Lumia. It's a really well built phone that feels great in the hand.

Most of these high end phones cost about $200-250 to build, ya know. The iPhone 5 is an incredibly well built phone and isuppli pegs it at $200 BOM.

It seems Google is selling the Nexus 4 at cost which is why it is so cheap.

Besides - LG haven't had too many problems with hardware in the past. It's generally been the software that's been shit. Thankfully, since Google are taking care of that, the Nexus 4 shouldn't have any problems there.

Thanks for all the input on the Nexus 4's! I had to ask because I've had some LG products in the past (including a refrigerator) and they all either gave me problems or felt cheap and plasticy as shit. Since I can't go to Best Buy and handle one myself to be sure but then buy it online (/evilgrin) I thought I'd get you guys opinions.

Not sure if I read this on morenutz the other day or not...

Bend it like Samsung: New Galaxy Phone May Have Unbreakable Screen - Reuters

Just to chime in, Nexus 4 isn't built cheaply, Google is just subsidizing the phones themselves.

Pretty nice automatic backups WP8 does. I got a new 920, signed into my MS account during startup, and it restored my previous phone completely, except for photos which were on skydrive. Pretty nice to have your phone back up and running in 5 minutes.

Mageling_sl said:

It seems most people on XDA are giving it good reviews. You get a few people there who obviously aren't telling the truth when they "set down the phone" and broke the back glass. I'm pretty sure the back isn't Gorilla Glass 2, but I'm hoping that it'll stand up over time.

Click to expand...

The whole phone is Gorilla Glass, you can tell because Gorilla Glass is slicker than regular glass due to the way the process adds ions to the surface of the glass. And boy is the Nexus 4 extremely slippery. The case does feel really well-built, more so than any other phone I've handled including the iphone. The glass definitely provides a superior build quality relative to your typical plastic-backed Samsung phone. That said, I'd say the bumper or some other case is a necessity because otherwise this phone slides off even surfaces that appear flat, but aren't quite.

Gorilla Glass isn't any kind of magical shatter-resistant glass, it's primarily intended to make phones scratch proof. It won't survive impact on a hard surface to a small point on the back or front, as any number of broken iphone screen videos and images should tell you. It's definitely not as durable as plastic. I have dropped my Nexus 4 from 3 feet onto hard wood though, and it was fine, 'setting the phone down' is definitely not going to break your phone... but it likely will not survive drops from chest height onto pavement without a case or at least the bumper, that's for sure.

side note: DON'T buy the Nokia wireless charging pads/stands, as they don't quite work properly with the Nexus 4. If you have a case and are willing to fiddle, then they can be made to work, but if the phone isn't the correct distance from the charging pad it will cycle constantly in a really annoying way. In order to work properly, the charging plate needs to be about 1/4 inch further away from the stand than a naked phone would be lying flat against it. No idea why this is the case, obviously Qi standard equipment has some QA or compatibility issues. People say the LG WCP-700 mat works well, though.

Galaxy S3 here. Save for a few minor quips (*cough* low-light quality of camera *cough*), I love it

Even though there are technically better displays out there, the pentile still looks great. TouchWiz is a nice UI, but I would have liked the option of using stock Android. Ideally, I'd like to see all Android smartphones (and all smartphones period for that matter) be unlocked with the choice of stock Android or the manufacturer's customer interface. And ffs, please bring back a robust fully-functional Swype (or Swype alternative). I'm tired of having to download Swift Key and Swype beta .apks to get the functionality I want.

But I digress.

The Galaxy S3 is an ideal phone for me. Yes, there are features that could be interpreted as "gimmicky," but at least they have potential to evolve into something greater. Mid-2014 is when I can upgrade devices at contract cost, so I may eye a Note 2.

Mageling_sl said:

It seems some of the people who ordered on Dec 6th have already had devices shipped out this morning, so I'm tentatively hopeful that this second charge will just mean I get a device sooner instead of 6 weeks out.

Click to expand...

That sucks... I ordered mine on the 27th and nothing yet.

Sparko_sl said:

I had the first RAZR and the fucker was dead by noon. Thought about getting the Maxx but went with the Galaxy S3 instead. Best phone I have ever owned.

Click to expand...

Maxx HD is pretty great. I get 36 hours of battery with heavy usage. And I like the Moto UI much better than Samsung's.

Any of you boys with a Lumia 920 have this proximity sensor issue? I'm about to hurl mine out the window.

LiquidDeath_sl said:

Funny you should mention it because I ordered that exact full body protector from Amazon and put it on my phone last night. I'm an idiot, though, and didn't do it in a place with enough light so I ended up with 2 bubbles on my screen. Looks like I'll be cashing in on the lifetime warranty much sooner than expected. I have to say, putting this thing on seemed to be more difficult than putting on a Zagg screen. Also, it seems to me that the curved edges of the Nexus 4 don't want to play well with the protector at all.

Click to expand...

Update on the Skinomi skin for the Nexus 4. After 2 days of "curing" the protector has no bubbles at all. They all went away. I even had a tiny hair in the middle of my screen so I used the solution and pulled up the protector until I could get it out, reapplied the protector, and now it looks fantastic. I'm really impressed with the protector.

If you but the front and back, plan to put them on in separate sessions. It is a pain in the ass putting them both on at the same time and trying to remove all the bubbles. My back protector has a couple bubbles, but I don't care since it will be in a TPU s-line case.

Ghidorah_sl said:

Any of you boys with a Lumia 920 have this proximity sensor issue? I'm about to hurl mine out the window.

Click to expand...

I haven't had a problem, but then again I managed to get a hardware bug that I couldn't find anywhere else on the net. Everything worked fine until one day the touch screen stopped working completely. Haven't had any issues on the new one.

I decided to just say "fuck it" to the Play Store and picked up a Nexus 4 locally. Paid $50 more than I would through Google, but it's better than waiting to see if I get one by Jan sometime.

I'm still getting it set up, but I'm really digging the feel of the device so far. Any suggestions on ROMs? I'm considering PA since it's now being built off of AOSP source, but I'm not sure I'd really use the per-app DPI settings.