Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

How long have you had your current mobile phone?

Displaying poll results.
0-6 months
  13% 39 votes
6-12 months
  7% 20 votes
1-2 years
  24% 69 votes
2-4 years
  25% 71 votes
4+ years
  13% 39 votes
My phone belongs in a technology museum.
  6% 19 votes
I don't have a mobile phone you insensitive clod!
  9% 26 votes
283 total votes.
[ Voting Booth | Other Polls | Back Home ]
  • Don't complain about lack of options. You've got to pick a few when you do multiple choice. Those are the breaks.
  • Feel free to suggest poll ideas if you're feeling creative. I'd strongly suggest reading the past polls first.
  • This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 20 2016, @03:51PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 20 2016, @03:51PM (#320795)

    I currently have a ZTE Prelude2 stripped down to basics, owned it for about a year, the battery lasts for about a week. Before that I had a Samsung R100 Stunt for about 5 years. Before that I had the very first model of the Qualcomm Sprint PCS cellphone since about 1995, it was about the size of a walkie-talkie, heavy, but had the best audio quality of all of them.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by archfeld on Sunday March 20 2016, @05:40PM

    by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Sunday March 20 2016, @05:40PM (#320823) Journal

    I still carry as my personal device a flip phone that would classify as a dumb phone, a Samsung Gusto2. I have on occasion carried other devices for business reasons, but I don't text, and I have an portable in car GPS/net connected system for maps and such.

    --
    For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday March 20 2016, @06:02PM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Sunday March 20 2016, @06:02PM (#320826) Journal

    My current phone is less than 6 months old. That would give the impression that I frequently change my phone, but the truth is, I had my previous phone for more than ten years (indeed, when I bought it, all phones were dumb phones), and I would still use it had I not lost it.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 1) by Osamabobama on Tuesday March 22 2016, @06:08PM

      by Osamabobama (5842) on Tuesday March 22 2016, @06:08PM (#321758)

      That's a good reminder not to infer too much from data that was not collected to support a specific use. On its face, the question should allow us to estimate the age profile of the population of cell phones in use among Soylent News readers, but nothing more. One is tempted, though, (especially one who enjoys data analysis) to draw conclusions from the data at hand, even if those conclusions aren't exactly supported by the data.
      Even aggregating data to infer how often we change phones implicitly assumes that each decision to change phones is independent. That may well be true in the case of replacement due to loss or breakage, but not true at all when the new iPhone comes out and the hordes queue up for an upgrade. The first step must be to decide what we want to know, then design to poll to truly answer that question. Preferably, we get more than one data point per respondent...

      --
      Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @05:54AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @05:54AM (#322796)

      consider yourself statistically insignificant

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Subsentient on Sunday March 20 2016, @06:48PM

    by Subsentient (1111) on Sunday March 20 2016, @06:48PM (#320835) Homepage Journal

    It's underpowered, not very well built, and the screen is small for an Android, but it gets the job done. I rooted it, and it runs Fedora on an ext4 partition on the SD card via chroot beside Android. I use X11 XSDL app for getting XFCE going.

    --
    "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by iamjacksusername on Sunday March 20 2016, @08:04PM

    by iamjacksusername (1479) on Sunday March 20 2016, @08:04PM (#320860)

    Is this the thread where we compare low UID's, er, old phones?

    Original Motorola Razr V3. With the Cingular startup splash screen. I got it new in 2004 or so? $300 on contract haha. I use it for my personal cell... I have had to carry a succession of smartphones for work over the years so I never needed 3G on it. I do get looks nowadays when people seem me pull it out though. The screen has dust / dirt bits embedded below it but not enough to bother me. It's been like that since about 6 months after I got it anyway. It's on its 3rd or 4th battery I think.

    On another, somewhat related, point: what's with people letting their jobs put their work email on the personal phone? It's ridiculous. I told my last W-2 job that, if they wanted me to check email or take calls after hours, they needed to provide me a smartphone for that purpose. Which they did after sending me email after-hours for two months and not getting a response until the next business day. However, a lot of the younger staff just put the company email on their PDAs and let the company call their cell. I told them they were crazy. But, I was a bit older than most of the tech staff too.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @09:25AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @09:25AM (#321033)

      You write that you changed the battery in your Razr V3 several times. Was it saying "unable to charge" when the batteries failed? Do you use a Motorola charger or a third-party charger? As you might guess I've gotten a Razr V3 that says "unable to charge." TIA

      http://www.fixya.com/support/t128458-phone_displays_unable_charge_or_no [fixya.com]

      • (Score: 2) by iamjacksusername on Monday March 21 2016, @04:24PM

        by iamjacksusername (1479) on Monday March 21 2016, @04:24PM (#321142)

        Sorry no errors... the batteries just did not hold a good charge after a few years so I ordered replacements. Bit of a crapshoot but the battery I have now is ok. I got it from Batteries4less.com which seems to have gone out of business in 2014 hah

        Your error sounds like something with the USB port. Like the link above, my first thoughts would be either check the pins or check the seating of the connection onto the board. Those mini-USBs ports were notorious for getting loose and detaching from the board... they were not properly designed for the (ab)use of constant attaching and re-attaching. Mine is super loose and takes a minute of fiddling to find the sweet spot so it can charge. It's been like that since 2008ish but I only have to do it once a day so it has not bothered me too much. I would see if you can open up the case, reseat the port or clean the contacts? You may have a corroded contact if the port housing came off the board and something got in underneath of it.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 20 2016, @09:31PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 20 2016, @09:31PM (#320892)

    I've had my phone about 2 years, which I got from a friend.
    It's an iPhone 3G though, so it's at least 6 years old..

  • (Score: 2) by jelizondo on Sunday March 20 2016, @09:55PM

    by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Sunday March 20 2016, @09:55PM (#320899) Journal

    I have an HTC One, about two years old, and the reason I bought it was that it could be rooted fairly easily and loaded with Cyanogen

    I hate all the bloatware that comes with smart-phones and being able to eliminate it is one good reason to root a phone, the other being getting rid of apps that basically are used to spy on you.

    Previous phone was a Motorola something, not a smart-phone but it started failing and had to be replaced.

  • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday March 21 2016, @12:16PM

    by Snotnose (1623) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 21 2016, @12:16PM (#321056)

    This one will be 4 years old in July (it was my birthday present to myself). I'm hoping to get another 6 months out of it but the battery is going fast, and the phone overall is showing it's age.

    It's generally the battery that makes me get a new phone, like any rechargable it's got a finite life.

    --
    You can call me antisocial. Just don't call me.
    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @09:25PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @09:25PM (#321260)

      I'm going against the trend here. Most people are talking about how they've kept a phone so long. For me, its been 14 phones since January 2013. Started out with Nokia C3-00, went Nokia E6, then Asha 311. Followed that with a Samsung Galaxy Ch@t, then a Nokia N8, and a Galaxy Nexus. Then I went to a Nokia 511, followed by a Jolla, then a BlackBerry Q10. From there, Z30, Passport, and a Moto G. And finally, a OnePlus One, replaced by the OnePlus Two. I've had the OP2 for seven months, with no plans to move on.

      I have sold all phones except the Moto G at a higher price than I paid. I ship to a friend in a country with a closed economy where they cost 2-3x what they cost in the States. The Moto G had a warning message that voided the warranty when I put CyanogenMod on it, so I sold it at a loss. The OP2 is the best phone thus far; dual-SIM, great community support, etc. The worst would probably be the Jolla. It did not even have 3G in the USA, and photos taken with it had a horrible blue tint. It was probably my most profitable sale though, since it was so hard to get initially.

      I was late to the smartphone game. Didn't text until 2010, no data plan until 2014. The next three years was me trying to do everything to find a phone that would respect my privacy without having to go all Google or iPhone. First I went with Nokia, then BlackBerry. Both operating systems are dead now. I am happy with the current setup of CyanogenMod with a custom hosts file, extremely restricted Play store permissions, SELinux enforcing, etc. It's a pocket computer, except I actually have a bit of control.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2016, @09:28AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2016, @09:28AM (#321489)

        APK, is that you?

        • (Score: 2) by TheReaperD on Tuesday March 22 2016, @04:34PM

          by TheReaperD (5556) on Tuesday March 22 2016, @04:34PM (#321706)

          Has that scourge appeared here? I hope not.

          --
          Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
        • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday March 23 2016, @09:15AM

          by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday March 23 2016, @09:15AM (#321995) Journal

          The post isn't littered with bold font, and it doesn't mention hosts files even once, so no, it probably isn't APK.

          --
          The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 23 2016, @12:49PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 23 2016, @12:49PM (#322049)

            The post isn't littered with bold font, and it doesn't mention hosts files even once, so no, it probably isn't APK.

            I am happy with the current setup of CyanogenMod with a custom hosts file, extremely restricted Play store permissions, SELinux enforcing, etc.

            • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday March 24 2016, @04:52PM

              by maxwell demon (1608) on Thursday March 24 2016, @04:52PM (#322581) Journal

              Ah right, I overlooked that. But still, there was no bold (let alone excessive bold) in that post.

              --
              The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 26 2016, @10:45AM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday March 26 2016, @10:45AM (#323242) Journal

      Why not just get a new battery?

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday March 26 2016, @02:02PM

        by Snotnose (1623) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 26 2016, @02:02PM (#323283)

        As I said before, by the time the battery goes the phone is showing it's age. My current smartphone (HTC One V, HTC not recommended) is slower than snail snot nowdays for some reason, and it gets slower every week.

        --
        You can call me antisocial. Just don't call me.
        • (Score: 3, Touché) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 26 2016, @04:24PM

          by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday March 26 2016, @04:24PM (#323319) Journal

          So contrary to what you wrote, the battery is not what makes you get a new phone, but your excuse for it.

          --
          The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
          • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday March 28 2016, @12:09AM

            by Snotnose (1623) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 28 2016, @12:09AM (#323673)

            Timeline. Bought my first cellphone in '97/98. I remember because I A) bought a house and the wife and I talked about keeping or nuking the land line and B) I worked for Qualcomm at the time and they bought my phone and I paid the monthly fees. It was a candy bar phone, lasted until, I dunno, '06. By the time the battery gave out a couple keys on the keypad weren't working well, the 5 and 7 I remember. As an example, let's says the '1' key didn't work. Press 1, nothing. Press 1, nothing. Press 1, 2-3 ones come out. Time for a new phone.

            Phone 2. Flip phone. Bought when my candy bar phone decided my keypad wasn't an essential item in my life. By the time the battery gave out I had a cracked screen, and the flip part worked about half the time. As in, flip, nothing, flip, nothing, flip, hey I gots me a phone. Whoops, in a call and flip decides to flop.

            Fast forward to phone 3. Birthday present to myself 7/12. HTC V One. Decided within a week I'd made a bad decision, phone HW was shit. Bought from Amazon, didn't have any other phone, kinda stuck with a POS hardware phone. As the months wore on realized the HW was better than the SW (kids: don't buy HTC). Phone is slower than snail snot on Valium. Navigation has been useless for at least a year. Doing anything with the phone is painful, it's just so farking slow. Things like getting a text, and trying to read it takes a good 2-3 minutes. Making a phone call is a good 5 minutes from turning the phone on to actually making the call.

            So, changing the battery is just my excuse how?

            --
            You can call me antisocial. Just don't call me.
            • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday March 28 2016, @07:57AM

              by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday March 28 2016, @07:57AM (#323765) Journal

              bought a house and the wife

              So, changing the battery is just my excuse how?

              Well, apparently all those problems are not enough for you to justify to yourself buying a new phone, or else you'd not wait until the battery fails. And thus the battery is indeed your excuse.

              --
              The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
              • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday March 28 2016, @08:00AM

                by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday March 28 2016, @08:00AM (#323767) Journal

                Oops, somehow my post became completely butchered — anyway, the missing part was just a joke I couldn't resist, and which you can already guess from the initial quote. And of course the sentence that is now following that quote was intended to be quoted.

                Reminder to self: Don't forget to preview!

                --
                The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  • (Score: 2) by drussell on Monday March 21 2016, @06:02PM

    by drussell (2678) on Monday March 21 2016, @06:02PM (#321167) Journal

    Nokia 5300 from 2007...

    I have several of them so I'll be probably still be using one for quite a while before they've all been worn out... :)

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @06:04PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @06:04PM (#321171)

    Too much of a coward to post this with my name on it here...but I use an iPhone. Latest model actually, though that's really just because I switched carrier in September and Sprint's pricing doesn't give much incentive for an older device. Been using iPhones since my first smartphone, a 4S (dropped in a bowl of soup). I looked hard at alternatives, but nothing looked good enough to put much effort in. iPhone in my opinion is definitely the cheapest phone in giving-a-shit-about-your-phone credits.

    • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @09:40PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @09:40PM (#321273)

      > Too much of a coward to post this with my name on it here...but I use an iPhone

      Whatever. Its your hard-earned money. You got the phone that you wanted, with an OS you are already familiar with and that receives updates, and probably has the best support anywhere.

      This isn't GSMArena where people will ridicule you in broken English if you don't have the newest Galaxy S7 Edge with 128GB to shove up your ass.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 23 2016, @09:26AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 23 2016, @09:26AM (#321999)

        But you might encounter some Free Software activists who criticize your decision to use a phone that not only does not respect your freedoms, but actively abuses you with malicious anti-features like digital restrictions management, walled gardens, and censorship.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2016, @06:15PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2016, @06:15PM (#325389)

          and standing up to the government to protect your privacy . . . those evil bastards!

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by TheReaperD on Tuesday March 22 2016, @04:39PM

      by TheReaperD (5556) on Tuesday March 22 2016, @04:39PM (#321709)

      If you prefer iCrap, by all means, enjoy. Just don't expect me to provide any support for it other than my wifi password.

      --
      Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 27 2016, @12:45AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 27 2016, @12:45AM (#323433)

        Not sure if your post was intended as a joke or not, but your wifi password is actually the only support any iPhone user would probably need from you. It just works.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by TheReaperD on Tuesday March 29 2016, @05:20AM

          by TheReaperD (5556) on Tuesday March 29 2016, @05:20AM (#324239)

          The number of people that have brought their i(whatever) to me and ask me to make it work would seem to punch a hole in your theory. I did not actually made any attempt to fix their issues so I cannot say if the problem was due to the device, user stupidity or both.

          --
          Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @11:53PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @11:53PM (#321336)

    the pocketwatch pocket in my Levis jeans... it's not a cellphone, it's a tablet.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MostCynical on Tuesday March 22 2016, @10:21AM

      by MostCynical (2589) on Tuesday March 22 2016, @10:21AM (#321510) Journal

      I have broken one phone (wasn't even mine!), sitting down with it in my pocket.
      If a phone doesn't fit in a pocket, then I wouldn't use it.

      Also, people taking calls on modern phablet things look very silly; almost as silly as people taking calls on their watch.

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2016, @02:12PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2016, @02:12PM (#321611)

        Also, people taking calls on modern phablet things look very silly; almost as silly as people taking calls on their watch.

        Maybe true, but people trying to do anything reasonably productive such as typing or reading on a 4" screen look even sillier. These are pocket computers; the "phone" function is legacy, probably not even used 1% of the time, and only describes the type of network that the handheld computer primarily connects to. GSM is a broken standard, and texting isn't reliable internationally.

        To see how far things have come, consider this: I cannot even deposit a check on my desktop anymore. Java RE is deprecated and none of my financial institutions ever made an updated version of their check scanner. I either have to mail it in, or take a photo from my cellular phone. Guess how I make deposits? Also consider that I can communicate with people far easier in real-time via smart phone than via a computer, especially if I am running Linux. Not using the phone function, but software that is encrypted end to end with source code available (Signal Private Messenger).

        I also use it to make payments in public. It is an extra layer of security versus using a magnetic strip or chip and PIN which frankly, hasn't been deployed correctly in the Western Hemisphere yet. Again, more reason that it is a portable computer and not a "phone" in the traditional sense.

        I would not be opposed to a 7" bezel-less device for portability. It would be only slightly larger than the Motorola Nexus 6 and would serve as my primary mobile computing device. It would fit in my pocket just fine; I don't wear skinny jeans, and I don't have tiny hands.

        Would it be less offensive to you if we just called them portable computers and not anything -phone?

        • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday March 25 2016, @09:08PM

          by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday March 25 2016, @09:08PM (#323082) Journal

          I cannot even deposit a check on my desktop anymore.

          Well, the last time I saw a cheque is already years ago, and it was sent from abroad. The last time I've seen a domestic cheque was in the last millennium.

          I either have to mail it in, or take a photo from my cellular phone.

          Wait, they care about the device that photo was made with? Or that it is actually a photo and not a scan?

          --
          The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
          • (Score: 2) by Zinho on Monday March 28 2016, @06:35PM

            by Zinho (759) on Monday March 28 2016, @06:35PM (#324024)

            Wait, they care about the device that photo was made with? Or that it is actually a photo and not a scan?

            If the AC's bank is like mine, then it doesn't matter where the image originates; however, it can only be submitted as an image by using the mobile app (i.e. there is no interface for "scan your check" in the web interface). I'm free to use my desktop computer's scanner to generate a picture of the check, but to deposit the check I'm required to upload it using my cell phone; no interface exists for doing so directly from my desktop.

            --
            "Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
  • (Score: 2) by gman003 on Tuesday March 22 2016, @02:52PM

    by gman003 (4155) on Tuesday March 22 2016, @02:52PM (#321642)

    I use an old Droid phone as a bedside alarm clock, because I had a charging dock for it. The battery is still good enough to act as a UPS (with just a clock running and the screen normally off, it can last longer than my current actual phone does in normal use), so I still wake up if the power goes out. It keeps clocks synced through WiFi. And for me personally, having a variety of music set as alarms works better than one song, or a simple beeping sound.

    It's currently at about 22 months uptime. I'm actually surprised how stable it is - I expected to find some sort of obscure bug around multiple DST changes on a single boot, but nope, works fine so far. Quite surprising given that it's still on Android 2.2 (or maybe 2.3), and would last maybe a week before crashing when I used it as my daily phone.

  • (Score: 1) by cpghost on Tuesday March 22 2016, @05:42PM

    by cpghost (4591) on Tuesday March 22 2016, @05:42PM (#321747) Homepage

    One of my phones qualifies as a tech museum candidate. It's a nearly 10 years old, old school 2G GSM NOKIA 1110i [wikipedia.org] phone, that can only do voice and text SMS, and that's it! Its battery still lasts over a week standby, and it is good enough for its intended purpose: getting 2-factor SMS auth codes securely, being paged on an alternate channel, and as an emergency voice phone. I like that little guy, and I don't plan to give it away any time soon.

    --
    Cordula's Web. http://www.cordula.ws/
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 29 2016, @01:19PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 29 2016, @01:19PM (#324347)

      As long as the new phones are as incredibly unethical as today I will stay with my museum piece. The Fair phone is taking baby steps the right way but besides that all I see is pitch black.

  • (Score: 2) by GlennC on Tuesday March 22 2016, @08:16PM

    by GlennC (3656) on Tuesday March 22 2016, @08:16PM (#321806)

    <sarcasm>I'm Amish...I don't use technology!</sarcasm> :)

    --
    Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 26 2016, @10:46AM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday March 26 2016, @10:46AM (#323243) Journal

      Well, the question wasn't how long you have used your current mobile phone. :-)

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  • (Score: 2) by TK on Tuesday March 22 2016, @09:40PM

    by TK (2760) on Tuesday March 22 2016, @09:40PM (#321844)

    Got the Nexus 5x in October so that I could get on Google Fi.

    At my current usage/billing rate, I will have saved the equivalent of the purchase price of the phone on my phone bill by January of next year.

    --
    The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
    • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Sunday March 27 2016, @09:17AM

      by dyingtolive (952) on Sunday March 27 2016, @09:17AM (#323506)

      How are you liking the 5X? Seemed it wasn't getting good reviews, but I've been eager to get in on Google Fi. The 6 looked like it was getting better reviews, but my current Nexus 5 is already larger than I'm comfortable with. I'm not going to want something still larger just to get on a (admittedly awesome sounding) phone plan.

      I've never replaced a phone for any reason other than "because it broke" or "because I switched to a plan that still saved me money in spite of a new phone's cost being involved".

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
      • (Score: 2) by TK on Friday April 01 2016, @01:41PM

        by TK (2760) on Friday April 01 2016, @01:41PM (#325730)

        I came from the Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini, so my phone size increased immensely. That being said, I got a very slim case and I don't think it's too large since I've gotten used to it. I wear slacks most of the time, so it's only noticeable when I'm wearing jeans.

        I got the 32gb version, and I think it's way too little space, but non-expandable storage is the way things seem to be going so I had to bite the bullet on that. The new version of Android has been great so far, and I don't know how much of what I like is solely due to that. Overall, I'm a big fan, I don't regret my purchase.

        I do have one gripe about Google Fi, the severity of which would depend on your use case. Fi preferentially uses wifi over cell towers in order to minimize data usage. So at home I won't touch my data at all, calls and SMS included. It also will VPN tunnel everything through open wifi hot spots when one is available. This is where my problem comes in.

        Let's say I'm in the lobby of a hotel with wifi. The network doesn't require a key to connect, but everything goes to the hotel wifi landing page until you put in your name and room number. So if I just walk in, my phone will connect, and I won't receive push notifications, incoming calls, texts, etc. as long as I'm connected to that hot spot, or until I sign into that network. I haven't missed anything critical yet, but if someone is trying to get a hold of me, I will be blissfully ignorant until I realize.

        --
        The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 23 2016, @11:17AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 23 2016, @11:17AM (#322028)

    And I only bought the sucker year ago because I though my old phone had given the ghost... turns out it was the FUCKING SIM CARD!

  • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday March 23 2016, @02:36PM

    by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday March 23 2016, @02:36PM (#322094) Journal

    First I had a flip phone -- the LG VX9800. That thing was built like a brick and made it 8 years. Then I had to get a new one when I switched providers. Got the Galaxy S3 when that was still pretty new; made it two years before it started running slow and I dropped it and cracked the screen. Now I've had an S5 for about a year in a big Otterbox case. I'm with a provider that does the subsidized updates (Credo Mobile -- they were one of the last still offering REAL unlimited data and I'm still clinging to mine!) so I'll probably upgrade next year, but after that I might try to get another compatible provider to buy out my contract...

  • (Score: 2) by Some call me Tim on Thursday March 24 2016, @02:49AM

    by Some call me Tim (5819) on Thursday March 24 2016, @02:49AM (#322380)

    Palm Treo 700P. Looking for a cheap and stupid flip phone to replace it. I really don't need all the fancy web/email/apps etc. on my phone, that's why I have a computer. Besides, my vision is getting so bad that when a co-worker shows me something on an iPhone, I have to break out the magnifier to see it. Excuse me while I go outside and yell at clouds ;-).

    --
    Questioning science is how you do science!
  • (Score: 2) by darnkitten on Thursday March 24 2016, @03:58AM

    by darnkitten (1912) on Thursday March 24 2016, @03:58AM (#322399)

    I live in a town that no longer has cell service.

    By my count, we have had 7 or 8 (generally theoretical) providers in 13 years (due to divestments and buy-outs), we have 2 towers in town, 2 providers operating within 10 miles of us (on opposite sides of the town), and we can't get anyone to provide us with service. We can't even get them to install business-class access points at the library.

    OTOH, we DO have plenty of pissed-off locals...and state regulations forbidding us to set up muni wifi...or for munis to compete with "traditional" telecoms...

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 30 2016, @02:11PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 30 2016, @02:11PM (#324827)

      Why not set up a local co-op ISP?

  • (Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Thursday March 24 2016, @09:54PM

    by GungnirSniper (1671) on Thursday March 24 2016, @09:54PM (#322674) Journal

    As long as I've got an unlimited data plan with Verizon, I'll keep my outdated Android device. It probably needs Cyanogen now, security-wise, but It Just Works.

  • (Score: 2) by Hartree on Friday March 25 2016, @06:28PM

    by Hartree (195) on Friday March 25 2016, @06:28PM (#323019)

    It's an old as the hills tracfone. I make sure it's charged and operating, but leave it turned off.

    It's there for an emergency, and if anyone calls it, I probably don't want to talk to them anyway.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by quixote on Saturday March 26 2016, @04:05AM

    by quixote (4355) on Saturday March 26 2016, @04:05AM (#323162)

    Nokia N900 owner here. Built like a brick, weighs about as much as one, and there's always been open source apps in the repositories for what I want it to do. Love that thing.

    There's nothing that even comes close now. Just walled gardens as far as the eye can see.

    (yeah, I know about Sailfish; too expensive. And Tizen; almost totally unsupported with such a short list of apps it's unusable. There's not even an epub reader! No location tracking if you want GPS coordinates for a kml file. Etc. etc.)

    No idea what I'm going to do when the N900 finally gives up the ghost.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 27 2016, @09:21PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 27 2016, @09:21PM (#323647)

      I'm posting from my second n900, as is my g/f, and I have 3 more as spares (so that's 7 in total). I'll be picking up a couple more in a week, hopefully. When it dies, if it's potentially repairable with spare parts, drop me a note, I can possible give you what you need if I have enough of that part.
      FatPhil

      • (Score: 2) by quixote on Friday April 01 2016, @12:55AM

        by quixote (4355) on Friday April 01 2016, @12:55AM (#325561)

        Hey, FatPhil. I've got you bookmarked. :D

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday March 30 2016, @11:17PM

    by Arik (4543) on Wednesday March 30 2016, @11:17PM (#325049) Journal
    The most disgusting misuse of technology in my lifetime, cellphones actively turn computers against their owners every day, with a freedom Microsoft can only dream of having on home computers. It's utterly incredible that they were ever able to convince anyone to buy this trash, and it's even worse to see otherwise intelligent and respectable geeks showing off these badges of slavery as if they were something to be proud of.

    They aren't. They represent surrender to evil, nothing more, nothing less.
    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?