Smartphones

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ronne

ronne

Nǐ hǎo, yǒu jīn zi ma?
8,368
8,038
Tmobil all the way. 30$ prepaid for unlimited everything (who talks on the phone anymore?). Do check your coverage though, as outside bigger cities it can be spotty.
 
opiate82

opiate82

Bronze Squire
3,078
5
Yeah, I won't deny that my Verizon coverage was better than my T-Mobile coverage, but $45 a month (per line) better? No, not at all.

Hopefully Google will come through with their plans to become a service provider. I am thinking when that starts to happen it will be a game changer.
 
gogusrl

gogusrl

Molten Core Raider
1,365
108
With my cat like reflexes I managed to drop my S3 and also step on it. Fortunately everything still works ok but the glass is fucked. I checked around here and they're asking for 200-250$ to replace the lcd+digitizer+glass. Looking on xda/youtube you can replace just the glass but it looks pretty complicated (heating up the phone to liquefy the glue, etc). Anyone here did something like this before ?
 
LiquidDeath

LiquidDeath

Magnus Deadlift the Fucktiger
5,096
12,205
Annnnd Google/Motorola done fucked up. Moto X release at $199 on contract for AT&T. Was really hoping for a $299/$350 unsubsidized price given the mid-tier specs. Now it is just another in a long line of good but not great and way overpriced phones.
 
P

Pinch_sl

shitlord
232
0
I thought with Chromecast and Nexus 7 Google realized that winning the pricing battle with competitive specs will get you the customers. Now we have an average phone at an average price and the only thing that differentiates it is voice control that maybe 5% of customers will actually use any more than standard voice control that's built in to all smartphones these days. I can't think of a good reason to care about the Moto X more than the upcoming Note 3 or really any other high end smartphone. Even if they want to control the mid tier customers, the price tag doesn't reflect that.
 
opiate82

opiate82

Bronze Squire
3,078
5
Weren't most of the top end phones priced at $299 (w/ contract) when they initially came out? Seems like the MotoX is priced just right compared to that. There is also rumors of a high-end Motorola release due out this fall.

I will concede that between the 'assembled in US' and the customization options, it does seem like the MotoX is geared more towards people who treat their phone like an accessory more than a piece of hardware.
 
T

The Ancient_sl

shitlord
7,386
16
gogusrl_sl said:
With my cat like reflexes I managed to drop my S3 and also step on it. Fortunately everything still works ok but the glass is fucked. I checked around here and they're asking for 200-250$ to replace the lcd+digitizer+glass. Looking on xda/youtube you can replace just the glass but it looks pretty complicated (heating up the phone to liquefy the glue, etc). Anyone here did something like this before ?
Click to expand...
I've done this with a lumia 920. Liquifying the glue and removing the screen is abitch. The site I looked at suggested using a suction cup to remove the glass after you've gotten the glue hot enough, but a screen with cracks in it won't allow a suction cup to stick to it. You need something very sticky to pull it off and that sticky is going to be affected by the heat you are applying to soften the glue. It took quite a bit of effort to get the digitizer separated from the LCD screen, but after I finally accomplished the task and reassembled the phone, the LCD screen had some damage in the corners were the colors don't come out right either due to heat damage or pressure damage. I'd probably leave it to the professionals.
 
jooka

jooka

marco esquandolas
<Bronze Donator>
15,245
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LiquidDeath_sl said:
Annnnd Google/Motorola done fucked up. Moto X release at $199 on contract for AT&T. Was really hoping for a $299/$350 unsubsidized price given the mid-tier specs. Now it is just another in a long line of good but not great and way overpriced phones.
Click to expand...
Article I read said

Availability and Pricing
The Moto X will be available at the end of this month or at the beginning of September, through AT&T, T-Mobile Verizon, Sprint, US Cellular and Best Buy. The 16GB model will cost $199 and the 32GB version $249. The company says it might eventually offer a version directly through the Google Play Store.
Click to expand...
 
D

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
10,034
3
The Ancient_sl said:
I've done this with a lumia 920. Liquifying the glue and removing the screen is abitch. The site I looked at suggested using a suction cup to remove the glass after you've gotten the glue hot enough, but a screen with cracks in it won't allow a suction cup to stick to it. You need something very sticky to pull it off and that sticky is going to be affected by the heat you are applying to soften the glue. It took quite a bit of effort to get the digitizer separated from the LCD screen, but after I finally accomplished the task and reassembled the phone, the LCD screen had some damage in the corners were the colors don't come out right either due to heat damage or pressure damage. I'd probably leave it to the professionals.
Click to expand...
If you want something sticky for that, go to Home Depot and buy insect sticky paper.
 
T

The Ancient_sl

shitlord
7,386
16
Draegan_sl said:
If you want something sticky for that, go to Home Depot and buy insect sticky paper.
Click to expand...
It needs to be something you can create a perfectly smooth surface with for the suction to stick or something that can be pulled on to provide more force against the broken glass than the heated 2-sided tape being used on to attach the digitizer to the LCD. Insect paper might be a solution for this, but it's still a messy process.
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
17,064
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joeboo_sl said:
Pretty cool:

http://www.theguardian.com/environme...a-mobile-phone

Nokia developing phone that charges without electricity by harvesting radio waves. Right now they can pull enough power to idle in standby without losing any power, you can standby indefinitely, but are hoping to improve the tech to slowly recharge while on standby
Click to expand...
The antenna and the receiver circuit are designed to pick up a wide range of frequencies - from 500 megahertz to 10 gigahertz - and convert the electromagnetic waves into an electrical current, while the second circuit is designed to feed this current to the battery to recharge it.
Click to expand...
I'm curious if setting the frequency band so wide hurts the efficiency of power reclamation. Why not tune it really tight, like, say, 2.4GHz?
 
jeffvader

jeffvader

it's only castles burning
402
33
anyone getting total crap reception on an s4? upgraded last week and regretting it - thinking of either trying a new s4 for shits and giggles or just going htc one. nyc proper.
 
L

Luthair

Lord Nagafen Raider
1,247
85
gogusrl_sl said:
With my cat like reflexes I managed to drop my S3 and also step on it. Fortunately everything still works ok but the glass is fucked. I checked around here and they're asking for 200-250$ to replace the lcd+digitizer+glass. Looking on xda/youtube you can replace just the glass but it looks pretty complicated (heating up the phone to liquefy the glue, etc). Anyone here did something like this before ?
Click to expand...
http://twit.tv/show/know-how/54

joeboo_sl said:
Pretty cool:

http://www.theguardian.com/environme...a-mobile-phone

Nokia developing phone that charges without electricity by harvesting radio waves. Right now they can pull enough power to idle in standby without losing any power, you can standby indefinitely, but are hoping to improve the tech to slowly recharge while on standby
Click to expand...
This seems like snake oil to me. The tiny surface of receiving antenna vs the surface area of the signal that far away from the source would collect such an infinitesimally small portion of the original broadcasting power. I'm not an EE but even coating your house to gather power seems like it would be a pretty minor amount (and render your a house a dead zone.)

Wasn't there some sort of device at CES claiming to charge batteries off this which was universally panned? (iirc they had licensed the rights to market it with the RCA brand or another defunct electronics brand)
 
BrutulTM

BrutulTM

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
<Silver Donator>
14,897
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Deathwing_sl said:
I'm curious if setting the frequency band so wide hurts the efficiency of power reclamation. Why not tune it really tight, like, say, 2.4GHz?
Click to expand...
There's radio waves of all frequencies flying around. No reason not to use all of them. If you only use one frequency you greatly reduce the number of signals and thus the amount of power available to you.
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
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Yes, but I was thinking the majority of it would be at 2.4GHz. Frequency saturation is the whole reason 5GHz was added 802.11n, even if it's a worse frequency band than 2.4GHz.
 
BrutulTM

BrutulTM

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
<Silver Donator>
14,897
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Cell phones and little gadgets at 2.4 GhZ are some of the weakest transmitters around. You don't get shit from them compared to say, an FM radio or TV station tower broadcasting at 100,000 watts. Even police car radios and walkie talkies are broadcasting at an order of magnitude greater power than a cell phone or your cordless phone.
 
N

Neph_sl

shitlord
1,635
0
joeboo_sl said:
Pretty cool:

http://www.theguardian.com/environme...a-mobile-phone

Nokia developing phone that charges without electricity by harvesting radio waves. Right now they can pull enough power to idle in standby without losing any power, you can standby indefinitely, but are hoping to improve the tech to slowly recharge while on standby
Click to expand...
It sounds cool, but then I looked at the article date: 2009.

Also, I'd imagine that shrinking a circuit so wideband (0.5 to 10 GHz) into something that can fit in the modern smartphone is a pretty difficult task.
 
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