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Tabe's issues are resolved, but in the topic of larger tablets, amazon finally announced a refresh of the 10" Fire. Bumped the specs considerably, moved the screen resolution to Blu-ray quality, all for $150.

Of curse, Android is still crippled on it.

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10 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

Gabe's issues are resolved, but in the topic of larger tablets, amazon finally announced a refresh of the 10" Fire. Bumped the specs considerably, moved the screen resolution to Blu-ray quality, all for $150.

Of curse, Android is still crippled on it.

Can't you just root it and install stock Android?

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  • 4 weeks later...

Microsoft announced a few days ago that outside of software and security updates, they're ending support of the Windows Phone. Sad, because it  is a good platform, just didn't have the app support that Android and iOS has.  Which is my one complaint as companies come out with their apps for Android and iOS, made me jealous I couldn't get then and take advantage of say their rewards program.

My Lumia 950 XL has been great for me and I'll going to stick with it  as long as possible, extremely fast charging and stable system, but I'll have to start looking at replacement soon too. More than likely going Android, iPhone just too expensive for my tastes.

Off topic, anyone got any good recommendations for a pico projector?

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Ugh, I dropped my Nexus 6 a few days ago and now it's being slow, freezing up, and not always charging.  Dammit, I really liked this phone and don't want to replace it.

I'd like to get a Pixel 2 but can't really justify dropping all that money on myself right before Christmas, so I'll probably get an S8 or Note 8 through AT&T and pay it off over time.

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20 hours ago, Zimbra said:

Ugh, I dropped my Nexus 6 a few days ago and now it's being slow, freezing up, and not always charging.  Dammit, I really liked this phone and don't want to replace it.

I'd like to get a Pixel 2 but can't really justify dropping all that money on myself right before Christmas, so I'll probably get an S8 or Note 8 through AT&T and pay it off over time.

I really love the idea of Pixel 2, the idea of a back-to-basics-but-make-it-great kind of phone sounds appealing.  But considering I've been with Samsung for so long it's hard to pass on the S8.  I'm looking to get it today and paying off through the Verizon bill.  On top of that we get a $300 Target gift card since we're getting it from there.  I'll feel a little guilty as my S6 has held up quite nicely and I really don't need a new phone.  But I figure if I go every second phone (had the S4 before the S6) there's enough of an upgrade to make it worthwhile.

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48 minutes ago, NikoBaltimore said:

I really love the idea of Pixel 2, the idea of a back-to-basics-but-make-it-great kind of phone sounds appealing.  But considering I've been with Samsung for so long it's hard to pass on the S8.  I'm looking to get it today and paying off through the Verizon bill.  On top of that we get a $300 Target gift card since we're getting it from there.  I'll feel a little guilty as my S6 has held up quite nicely and I really don't need a new phone.  But I figure if I go every second phone (had the S4 before the S6) there's enough of an upgrade to make it worthwhile.

I had the Nexii 5 & 6 and really liked both of them.  But part of the appeal was that they were an affordable flagship phone and the Pixel phones dropped the affordable part.

I ended up getting the Note 8.  AT&T had a deal where you got $300 credit if you traded in a phone, and my Nexus managed to behave itself through the inspection, so it ended up being cheaper than the S8.  I like it so far; the narrower screen means it fits better in my hand than the N6 did.  But because of the weird aspect ratio there's a fair bit of wasted space on the screen when you're actually using it.  The stylus is neat but not something I can see using a ton.  And TouchWiz is actually good now?  I was not prepared for that.  

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11 minutes ago, Zimbra said:

I had the Nexii 5 & 6 and really liked both of them.  But part of the appeal was that they were an affordable flagship phone and the Pixel phones dropped the affordable part.

I ended up getting the Note 8.  AT&T had a deal where you got $300 credit if you traded in a phone, and my Nexus managed to behave itself through the inspection, so it ended up being cheaper than the S8.  I like it so far; the narrower screen means it fits better in my hand than the N6 did.  But because of the weird aspect ratio there's a fair bit of wasted space on the screen when you're actually using it.  The stylus is neat but not something I can see using a ton.  And TouchWiz is actually good now?  I was not prepared for that.  

I was considering the Note 8 but I know I'll never bother much with the stylus.  And if it's going to be cheaper to get S8 then I might as well get that and not pay more for something I won't use.  The only thing that made me question that was the 6GB RAM the Note 8 has.  But from what I read that doesn't factor into much and 4GB is more than enough for most apps.  Have you tried out any memory-intensive apps and if so did that make a difference?

As for TouchWiz it's a ton better than it used to be.  I would do custom launchers for a long time and once it went to Android N I didn't feel much of a need to go back to custom.  As for the wasted space you might wanna check display options.  I think they have a setting for that that should fix it.

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Yeah, Touchwiz is fine now. I'll still mess with other launchers, but I'll typically go back to the stock experience just as a refresher.

As for S8 vs Note, as someone who has loved the Note series, I skipped the Note 8 for the S8+. I actually used the stylus a lot unlike many people and that's the biggest thing I miss. Other than that, it's cheaper, performs as well, and is easier to hold. I miss the stylus more and more and so I may switch to the Note next year. For now, I'm good with the S8+.

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33 minutes ago, Zimbra said:

I had the Nexii 5 & 6 and really liked both of them.  But part of the appeal was that they were an affordable flagship phone and the Pixel phones dropped the affordable part.

I ended up getting the Note 8.  AT&T had a deal where you got $300 credit if you traded in a phone, and my Nexus managed to behave itself through the inspection, so it ended up being cheaper than the S8.  I like it so far; the narrower screen means it fits better in my hand than the N6 did.  But because of the weird aspect ratio there's a fair bit of wasted space on the screen when you're actually using it.  The stylus is neat but not something I can see using a ton.  And TouchWiz is actually good now?  I was not prepared for that.  

Verizon is offering $300 in credit on the Pixel now, so I grabbed one yesterday after my G4 slowly bricked itself over the past few months. Digging it so far.

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  • 4 weeks later...

my 2012 iPad Retina died on Christmas Eve.  When my dad wanted to put on college football I retreated to the guest room to watch anime and a nap, and when I got up managed to knock it off the bed in a way that it struck the wrought iron headboard at the worst possible spot and got a splintery crack in the screen where the headphone jack is.  Couldn't justify a new iPad or Mini when my phone's been on Android since 2013, so I settled on a Galaxy Tab A 8 (2017 refresh with better screen, RAM and CPU but the same shell as 2015 including the bigger bezel and bottom buttons) and man, it's taking a lot more getting used to than I expected as a Galaxy phone owner since 2014.  It's definitely a good device for the $160 I paid for it in Best Buy's Xmas-week special, but it's a much bigger adjustment than I had expected between the aspect ratio,  the switch from iPad "home button is the only button" to an older Android spec with one hard button and 2 soft, and that 1.6 inches on the diagonal affecting non-guided-view comics way more than I had anticipated.

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  • 3 months later...

I know some people here are fans of the OnePlus phones. The new one is set to be announced in May, here's what Engadget had to say about it.

 

Quote

As with many other 2018 flagships, the OnePlus 6 is expected to center around a virtually-all-screen design -- in this case, a 6.3-inch 2,280 x 1,080 display with the seemingly obligatorynotch. It won't represent a radical break from the 5T on the inside, although the Snapdragon 845 chip and doubled maximum storage (up to 256GB) will help. And to no one's surprise, leaks have the OnePlus carrying dual cameras (16MP and 20MP) on the back.

 

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I get why the iPhone X and the Essential Phone have notches. I don't understand why certain companies decide to add a "notch" just to copy Apple and not because it's required by tech they're using. Now maybe the OP6's notch will be to house sensors and the like but if it's just because some people think Apple started a trend... that's dumb.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...

I didn't want to start a whole new thread for this and thought there was a tech help thread but couldn't find it... So I hope it's okay to post this question here.

I recently got a OnePlus 6 and I've noticed that Chrome isn't resizing images on the board. As a result, navigating the photos thread is a chore and a half. It shrinks down social media posts just fine but regular old photos load up resized for a flash and then expand to their full sizes. I've googled and looked through settings to no avail. Any ideas? Another funky issue with the board is that sometimes when clicking on next page, it'll load to the bottom of the page rather than the top. Had no such issues on my old S6. 

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  • 1 month later...

Anybody know of (free) PC software for creating animated text?  Like text that drops in from the top of the screen?  All I've come across are things that created animated GIFs of sparkly letters or templates that create dancing text but nothing that lets me just type in a word and tell it to drop into the screen.  

Any suggestions?

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  • 2 months later...

Hey guys,

Just got a Roku Streaming Stick and I'm looking for a remote I can use that will control both the Roku and my Vizio SB-200 soundbar.  Preferably without having to buy a hub or something that all the devices have to plug into.  

Any suggestions?

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  • 3 months later...

Taking a long hard look at the Dell Inspiron Chromebook after our most recent weather scare (TLDR: we both need laptop access in the event our offices are closed and they want us to telecommute). Anyone have one? Yea or nay? 

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20 minutes ago, Pete said:

Taking a long hard look at the Dell Inspiron Chromebook after our most recent weather scare (TLDR: we both need laptop access in the event our offices are closed and they want us to telecommute). Anyone have one? Yea or nay? 

I don't have the Dell one but have the Acer Chromebook from a year and a half ago.  It works pretty darn well and have had no complaints using it.  I mainly use it for work from home so if that's what it's mostly going to be used for then that should work.

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