SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Phones can only last so long and my admittedly ancient BlackBerry Curve took one-too-many tumbles and now needs to be replaced. Thanks to recent changes in the cell-phone market, I'm looking to purchase a phone, outright, and get a month-to-month plan for it.
I am very privacy conscious and have, so far, avoided Apple (walled garden - blegh) or Android (tell Google everything). I suspect there are fellow Soylentils who hold a similar perspective. (My current cell provider is US Cellular. I'm open to change, but would like to avoid AT&T and Verizon --- have heard too many horror stories.)
Background: I've been programming computers since the 1970s. I've tried using Apple products, but it seems they are user-friendly to the extent that you want to do what they have already decided is okay. They seem to expose a bare minimum of controls to allow customization. That would frustrate me to no end.
So, that leaves me with Android as the other major alternative. I am leery about giving any more info to Google than necessary -- given a choice, I regularly choose an alternative over a Google product (i.e. DuckDuckGo for search, openstreetmap, etc.)
My thoughts, at the moment, are to get a phone and load cyanogenmod on it. I've read good things about the privacy capabilities it provides; especially fine-grained allow/deny access permissions. Added bonus is ability to apply updates more frequently than a telco-branded phone would provide. I have no experience with rooting/flashing a phone, so I need this process to be as idiot-proof as possible. Also, I'm leery of getting a phone only to see support for it dropped shortly thereafter.
[Continues...]
Must-have: SOLID cellular reception (my apartment seems to have plaster walls - the BB still got great reception), removable battery, removable storage (micro-SD card), WiFi, LTE (USA), good camera, and fine-grained permissions control.
Nice-to-have: hardware keyboard, tethering (i.e. use my phone to get an internet connection that I'd share with my laptop), FM Radio.
REALLY nice to have: Ability to bring up a terminal window and have full CLI ability (e.g. bash) where I could edit/run custom scripts/programs.
Size/specs: I do not want or need a phablet or the latest/greatest processors. I'm reminded of the adage to buy last-year's top-of-the-line model. For some degree of future-proofing, would like to be able to view 1080p content on it.
Other: What did I forget? What things do you wish you knew that you only found out after you got your phone?
My main system runs Win 7 Pro but I could also run a live CD with some Linux distro.
What have your experiences been? Both positive and negative? Please save me from making a mistake that you have already learned from!
I'm looking to replace my phone within the next day or so. I've been impressed with the shared knowledge of this community -- please help!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by iamjacksusername on Wednesday April 20 2016, @03:04PM
I started using a Z3 Compact a few months ago. The Z5 Compact / Z5 / Z5 Premium are the current models. They also make a dual-SIM variant. It is a basically a Nexus but with a SDCard slot, amazing battery life and a good camera. The Compact series is the only Android phone on the market with a smaller formfactor (4.6") but the same parts as the 5"+ size phones which is the reason I went with it - it is the perfect size for me and doesn't have budget parts.
As far as ROMs, you can officially run AOSP as Sony provides binaries for that (6.0 is the latest); there are many other ROMS as well via XDA so you can use the fine-grained permission manager.
http://developer.sonymobile.com/knowledge-base/open-source/open-devices/ [sonymobile.com]
Out-of-the-box, it does tethering and FM Radio.
The battery is non-removable but, for this phone, I do not think it is not an issue. I say this as someone who had the 7000Mah battery for the Samsung Galaxy S3. The battery life is legitimately all day and I sometimes do not charge it for two days. I recently spent a few months on the road traveling by motorcycle using OsmAnd+ for offline navigation on it and the GPS worked really well (even in my pocket). I never ran the battery down and was using the GPS with cellular signal going in and out (lots of dead spots in SEAsia)... still had 60%+ after 8 hours on the road running navigation (with the screen mostly off).
I have not had any major issues with it. The camera takes good enough pictures (I am not a serious photographer so YMMV), never had reception issues or any problems with voice clarity. The speaker is a bit weak but that really only comes up if I am trying to show someone a YouTube video. WiFi is great and the phone has stayed speedy even with Fb messenger running. Also, it supports Miracast really well... which I did not care about until I had it. Now, I cannot imagine not having it. At someone's house and want to see your own netflix queue? Miracast. Want to show everyone that weird video clip on LiveLeak or YouTube? Miracast. Need to run a Powerpoint off your phone? Miracast.
My $.02