Smartphones

so 6p or 5x those reviews still left me like uhhh wtf.

Unless you are averse to big phones the 6p all the way.

Kedwyn_sl said:

Unless you are averse to big phones the 6p all the way.

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like how big 6 plus big?

Visual Phone Size Comparison

Size it up after you calibrate your screen. Useful tool.

ok, so my OnePlus 2 came.... the panda is not happy. I am starting to regret switching from iPhone to Android as much as I fucking hate apple.

I did try googling some of this shit but I'm taken to like 20 different sites and some contradict themselves...here is a bit of a review and a request for help if someone can point me in the right direction.

-I love the hardware of OnePlus 2, the fingerprint thing works and it feels decent. I'm not a huge camera buff but I guess it takes great photos...at least now my dick pics will be HD? Anyway over all no complaints so far about the hardware. I'm still getting used to the different size, the fact the home button is not really a button and the different size/shape of the keyboard and letters making me fat key a little. This is mostly corrected well with the built-in spell checker crap though so minor issue.

-There is some kind of bug and it is legit if you look it up online that the OnePlus2 may have a grounding problem. If you hold the phone with 2 hands and try to use the home button it doesn't always work. Sometimes it does though, must have to do with where/how you hold it. It doesn't regularly affect me(yet) plus my otterbox case(love those cases) should be here today and that may eliminate the problem anyway

-The side trigger on the left goes from "Normal", "Priority" and "Silent" basically referring to notifications. It's a pretty handy little feature.

-The widget feature is nice and I was able to drag some basic spotify/weather/work related widgets on screen to display basic info quickly and easily


Ok, so keep in mind I am new to android and I only understand basic tech stuff. Like when people say "root" about Android I kind of understand the principle/concept but not the practice. I will try to keep this objective as I know any major OS change like this would have differences, but some of this I just don't fucking get....

Issue #1
-Basic mail app was not connecting to exchange. On my old apple iPhone I was able to connect all 3 email addresses(gmail, gmail, exchange) just by typing them in. I got my two gmail accounts hooked up perfectly but no exchange. When I look in to the issue online it apparently it some known bug and there is a way around it by downloading exchange services, but first I must change my phone security settings to download it on my PC and copy it over and have my phone trust the app or something. Ok whatever, a fucking hassle but whatever. I go to download this exchange services app and there are about 8 versions. I cannot tell which one I need. I tried 2-3 and none worked so I gave up. So then I say fuck the built in mail app and download BlueMail, which apparently got good reviews....no exchange there either.
-Does anyone have a recommend mail app that just works with exchange/gmail and that is decent OR does anyone have clear instructions(link) on how exactly to get exchange working? This whole thing just left an immediately sour fucking taste in my mouth not being able to even link my work email without jumping through fucking hoops. I'm sure the android lovers will have some defense of why this is the case(no doubt a microsoft security thing) and that's all well and good but it just fucking worked on apple and this thing is not fucking user friendly so far

Issue #2
-None of my fucking apps from original text/mail app to the ones I downloaded in an attempt to get better operation(BlueMail/Textra) show how many unread messages I have. The iphone had that little red circle with a number in it. Does that not fucking exist out of the box with android? Are you fucking kidding me? Is it just the phone I have or all android that lacks this feature? It may seem small but I find it insanely fucking annoying. I didn't realize how important I found that feature until it was gone. Ok whatever, android is like Linux right? I can find a fix? So I research a bit and find info online for something called Nova Launcher(5.00$) that will apparently do this. Again, whatever and fuck it. I'll pay 5.00$ for this feature. This is after I tried some free ones like "Notifyer", which by the way don't just work, they make you drag a widget in place of the app icon, which the widget is then supposed to display the red number thing, I couldn't get that working. So now I have this 5.00$ Nova Launcher thing, which if I understand correctly is basically a GUI layer over the UI that replaces home screens and some other basic shit. Well, I still can't get the unread count to work. Additional research says I don't just need NOVA Launcher, I need a Telsa Add-on. Get that too and still doesn't fucking work.
-Is the feature I am looking for even possible on an android? Does anyone have specific instructions that will turn this on? I don't care about paying for it, whatever it takes. I would like to avoid "rooting" my device since I don't really know what I am doing and don't want to break anything

Issue #3
-That handy little trigger thing on the side that switches notifications from "All", "priority" and "silent".....yea it doesn't just change the ALERT for the notification. It actually fucking blocks it at the OS level/event firing level, at least so far it seems. I can move the slider up to "silent" and send an e-mail/text to myself and NOTHING. Obviously I want no vibrate/sound but on apple it used to at least either show on the screen OR to the point of Issue #2 show me the unread thread count so when I got out of the meeting/movie/whatever I could see fuck, I have 5 messages. Let's check those. I want it to silent the fucking vibrate/ring/sound, not block the fucking notification all together. I think this one is hardware level so I may be fucked.

Issue #4
-This one is more minor but I hate the fucking icons for battery/wifi/cellular. The battery one doesn't even show a %. So yet again I am forced to download some battery app thing from the store which WILL add a %/new icon for the battery BUT it's in ADDITION to the one on there and now it's on the left side of the status bar thing. So now I have two fucking battery icons just so I can see a % number. Admittedly small but fucking christ man.

Issue #5
-Am I backed up? I turned on the backup to google drive, but I have no idea if it is working. I'd rather backup on my computer, I know I'm fucking strange and old fashioned, but I can't figure that out either. Some website told me just to copy the entire phone contents like it were an SD card into whatever directory I want on my PC. Except when I select all and copy some shit doesnt copy for some reason. No fucking idea why. No error messages or "file in use shit"(Windows PC), just literally it seems to skip some directories. Is this because I am not "rooted"? Again fucking whatever and I download(and pay for) some Helium app which apparently links to my PC and the cloud to backup. Still not sure how to restore or if it is working but It says it is. It looks like it is just backing up apps though. I can't even tell if its backing up my settings and "home screens" layout of apps and widgets.
-How hard is it to just have some fucking android app on the pc so when your phone is plugged in you hit backup and it does it, like itunes/iphone?

So yea, I get it. Android is the base framework and people love it because like WoW's original UI you can customize the fuck out of it. But the base package is NOT user friendly or fucking easy. I'm sure once you have your phone all setup the way you like it switching phones is no big deal, just copy it over. But starting off I'm completely fucking lost and the sad part is I am not a power user. I want like 2-3 basic fucking features. Ones that I would argue should be there.

Aanyway, rant and long story short:

-Can anyone provide me with a link or detailed instructions on how to setup exchange? I am willing to buy/use any decent mail app. I have no app loyalty yet
-Can anyone provide me with a link or detailed instructions on how to get the unread bubble count on my most basic apps(mail/text/whatsapp/skype)?
-Is it possible to change the battery/wifi/cell icons without some intense rooting thing?
-Am I fucked with the trigger thing that silent literally means "block" notifications, not just silence the vibrate/noise? Is there any type of "vibrate only" thing like the iphone switch?
-Is there some sort of generic but educational "how to use android" thing I can get either online or in person? please don't like android for dummies.

If I have to root to do any of the above are there any windows apps out there that help manage that process and make it slightly more idiot proof? Like CPAN for downloading perl libraries and their dependencies. I'm just so annoyed that to achieve basic phone functionality I have to go through all this shit. So seriously, what am I doing wrong? Anyone else with a OnePlus2 or other newer android phone able to chime in? I really want to like android more than apple and I can't stand apple so the pieces are there, but I feel like I am just so lost and nothing is simple.

Harfle_sl said:

like how big 6 plus big?

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Yeah. That thing is waaaaay too big for me. I don't know how people put those in their pockets. The 5X is even bigger than I'd like, but I can cope.

Chanur_sl said:

Also on my Android phones turning the volumne down sets it to vibrate. There should also be app settings for vibrate only and the like.

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I did find the settings for individual apps but that's a pain in the balls to configure for each and every app. I did go through the major ones like text and email and set the notifications to vibrate/silent as I saw fit. I can't stand when people have a device that sounds like 20 fucking songs playing at once as they get emails, texts, and calls.

I'm mostly just sad the notification slider thing literally blocks them, not just silences them. I suppose it makes sense as in when I flick it I really am in 100% private mode. This is mostly a hardware thing with the OnePlus 2 I imagine and I'd be ok with it if WHEN I got back to phone I had the unread message counts!

Chanur_sl said:

Is there a setting for the slider? That's a Oneplus specific function.

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No But again I do kind of like the feature. The problem is that when I get back to my phone or finish whatever made me put it in silent mode not a single app has unread counter. So unless I open everything manually and look I have no idea if I missed anything or what I missed.

Chanur_sl said:

Were you able to get your exchange set up working with Touchdown?

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I finally found an app called "Cloud Mail" which was able to handle my 2 gmails and my exchange work account! So one problem solved!

Now if I could just get unread text/email message counts I think I would deal with the rest

Flipmode_sl said:

Visual Phone Size Comparison

Size it up after you calibrate your screen. Useful tool.

Click to expand...

Very useful tool and it's nice to see side-by-side spec comparisons. At this point, I'm pretty torn between the 6P and Note 5. It seems like the 6P has a shitload more bands available to it, so would that mean that ittheoreticallygets better reception? Or are the Note's just not listed? Also, has TouchWiz improved at all? If it's still shitty, I don't want to have to root my phone to get rid of it.

Chanur_sl said:

I feel like the battery life is the only part of the phone I don't enjoy. It does seem better than the Nexus 5 I had, but it was several years old so I don't think it's a fair comparison. I did like slapping a 64 gig SD card in it for 20 bucks and saving a fuck load of money though.

Took some solid panoramas at Palo Duro Canyon last week with the phone.

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The Moto X(2014) had shitty battery life also, but it had a pretty small battery for its size and date of release. The Pure has the same size battery as the Note 5, so I'm not sure why it's performing so poorly.

Ameraves_sl said:

I had been wavering back and forth about ordering the 6p, and then on a whim today decided to order it. Got the receipt and it says it is supposed to arrive sometime between December 3-7. I had no idea they were that far back ordered now, so I am actually considering cancelling it.

It is odd that they say I won't be charged until it ships, yet I got an alert from my Credit card that I was already charged.

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The pre auth will fall off the card in a few days and you won't get charged until it ships.

Rangoth_sl said:

I finally found an app called "Cloud Mail" which was able to handle my 2 gmails and my exchange work account! So one problem solved!

Now if I could just get unread text/email message counts I think I would deal with the rest

Click to expand...

I'm not sure about the oneplus but on my nexus 6, the gmail app handles 2 gmail accounts and an exchange for me without any issue. In the actual gmail app there are unread counts on the different accounts but not outside of the app