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On August 22 2018 02:12 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
My research has indicated that any modern phone recent modern smartphone should have usable map apps, though there are some phones that may have greater access to certain global navigation satellite systems, and some chips are more accurate than others though phone manufacturers and sellers seem to refuse to give out that information in an accessible manner.
if you want small phones i think the XZ2 compact and the S8 normal are your choices, you could go for a Pixel or an iPhone 8 (normal)
out of those, the XZ2 is the smallest overall with a 5in display but with bezels while the s8/s both have a 5.8in display but on a much smaller form factor, slightly bigger than the xz2 compact but a lot bigger screen
almost every single phone nowadays have maps, lte, etc... by the way
you can use this site to compare phones, i put the XZ2 compact vs the S8/S9, which are the "small" phones nowadays
https://www.phonearena.com/phones/size#/phones/size/Sony-Xperia-XZ2-Compact,Samsung-Galaxy-S9/phones/10834,10716
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If you are not hardcore, the XZ1 Compact and the S8 can be find dirty cheap nowadays, and they are still super good phones and will be for a few more years
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On August 23 2018 00:44 Faruko wrote:
If you are not hardcore, the XZ1 Compact and the S8 can be find dirty cheap nowadays, and they are still super good phones and will be for a few more years
I'm always a bit amazed at people thinking €400+ is "dirt cheap". Sure, it's cheaper than the current generation flagships, but there are plenty of phones out there in the sub €200 range that appear to offer everything broetchen is looking for. I am not that interested in them, so I can't really help beyond that. But something like the Galaxy A3 is sufficient for his stated goals of text messaging and using maps applications and half the price of the S8.
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Hey guys, i will check out your options this weekend, probably will try to get the phone then. Just looking over amazon wih the intended goal of finding a phone with a smallre display then 5" shows that this segment of the market is not very well developed anymore, looks like most companies have left this field to apple. People really want to walk araound with notebooks in their pockets i guess  If the only small ones with modern batteries are by sony and apple i will probably have to go with them and overpay on features i don't really need, but i prefer having a small and efficient phone in the pocket to a big and simple one that is out of juice when i finally need it
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On August 23 2018 18:14 Broetchenholer wrote:Hey guys, i will check out your options this weekend, probably will try to get the phone then. Just looking over amazon wih the intended goal of finding a phone with a smallre display then 5" shows that this segment of the market is not very well developed anymore, looks like most companies have left this field to apple. People really want to walk araound with notebooks in their pockets i guess If the only small ones with modern batteries are by sony and apple i will probably have to go with them and overpay on features i don't really need, but i prefer having a small and efficient phone in the pocket to a big and simple one that is out of juice when i finally need it
I'm a big fan of the Moto G models. They're cheap (around 200 euros), have no bloatware, and they do everything you expect. I used the gps on holiday, works fine. No need to buy an expensive phone, unless you actually need a semi-pro camera in your phone.
You'll limit your search alot if you look for (sub)5inch screen phones, because as you said that market is gone. I tried as well, so I know. I really don't understand why there is no market anymore, but hey The Sony is the only true option sub5inch, and I think it's too expensive. However, the 5 inch restriction is something that's in your mind only. The annoyance of a bigger model will be gone once you get used to it. If you trust me on this, then suddenly there is a whole range of 2-300 euro phones that you can compare. Especially if you're new to smartphones, it will give you a better spectrum to choose from.
Good luck!
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Yes, might be that once i am holding some oft hem in my hands i can not tell the difference between them and the smaller size is not the biggest factor anymore. Then i could go with much cheaper handies which would be preferable.
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Buy a xiaomi device from alternate or look up the top ten budged smartphone list from notebookcheck.
Top10 =< 5 inch
Top10 below 300€
Personally I've enjoyed the upgrade from a redmi4 to a mate 10pro mostly because I ignorantly went for a non 4g phone and appreciate the bigger screen as well as faster os.
And maybe another thing to note with small devices is that they tend to run older versions of android...
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On August 24 2018 19:42 Broetchenholer wrote:
Yes, might be that once i am holding some oft hem in my hands i can not tell the difference between them and the smaller size is not the biggest factor anymore. Then i could go with much cheaper handies which would be preferable.
The main advantage of smaller models is that they are easier to navigate with just one hand. However, manufacturers have largely found ways to make bigger phones better to navigate with one hand, and the competitive advantage of small phones there is mostly gone. Ergonomics on bigger phones got a lot better.
I'd look at things like the Moto G series, the Samsung Galaxy A line, and the Xiaomis. Samsung improved their bloatware a lot, and Samsung Pay is useful if you want to give that a try (although I'm not sure it's enabled on the A line). The Motorola and Xiaomis come with barely any bloatware and give really good bang for your buck. There's some budget huaweis that do well too, but I had a bad experience with a huawei and am staying away from them.
No need to go for the huge phones, but slightly larger than 5" (think 6") there is a plethora of options not available in the truly compact segment.
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United Kingdom7084 Posts
Thanks for the advice guys. There's a bewildering array of models out there, so looking at the cheaper models (400 euros is not dirt cheap!), it seems that the best performing models tend to be bigger, probably because they can cram more electronics into it. Using the metric of cheaper and small, none seems to fit; for instance the Motorola Moto G6 Plus looks like a good performer for price but it's huge.
Notebookcheck seems to be a great review website. How many reviewers can you say that applies pressure to the case to check its toughness instead of gushing about a phone's brand power? It looks like I am going to have to keep comparing phones; I am in no particular hurry at the moment. What are people's opinion about the Samsung galaxy A5? From the sound of it there is an upgraded model, but is there a good way to see if it is the upgraded version from online retailers?
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It really depends on what you want from your phone tbh.
I wanted 4g, good screen with at least FHD, good transmission quality, decent camera, high screen to body ratio, responsive OS, USB C, good battery.
That led me to a s8 which I returned because I disliked the handling and the battery wasn't that great. Then I went for the mate 10pro which got criticised for many details - rightly so - many of which have been addressed by the time I got the phone.
Even though its way way way bigger than I thought I wanted, I do appreciate its 6 inch screen every day and my old redmi 4 with the 5.5 inch body I considered borderline too big now seems too small for decent TL usage - it really isn't though.
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United Kingdom7084 Posts
Most of the time I am planning to receive and send text messages and to phone and to receive phonecalls. What is different is that I want to be able to use GPS (I've gotten lost a fair few times in unfamiliar cities) and language apps in foreign countries but it appears that approx 200 euros phones is accurate enough, but almost everyone of these are too wide for my small womanly hands to use one handed. I'll also like to join the rest of the modern people and have a responsive OS and use the internet on the phone; it sure beats the weight and volume of a book, but maybe I'll get an e-tablet for that instead. Like I said I am in no hurry; at the moment I am just trying out friend's and relative's phones to see if they fit well in my hands. As it happens I did handle an S8 and it seemed to be the maximum width I am able to handle, but in all honesty, since I can remember a time when an iphone was £200, it seems rather unneccessarily extravagant to spend much more than that.
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On August 26 2018 06:13 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
What are people's opinion about the Samsung galaxy A5? From the sound of it there is an upgraded model, but is there a good way to see if it is the upgraded version from online retailers?
I tried the A5. Its size and performance really appealed to me. In the end I sent it back and got a Moto as an alternative. The reasons for sending the A5 back were a) the glass rear cover, which to me felt a bit slippery and vulnerable, since I was coming from a sturdy phone, and b) the Samsung PenTile screen (which has great colors, but a fuzzy look over it due to a different subpixel layout).
Note that those reasons are my personal opinions, partly colored by my phone history There is nothing technically wrong with the A5. If they offer it with Android 7 or 8 nowadays, I'd certainly check it out.
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I use the A5 2017 as my first Android phone.
Value city. 180 Euro for USB-C, SD-Card slot, waterproofing and a nice 1080p screen. The always-on display is great as well!
I really dislike all the Samsung shit they put on it, and you can't get rid of those extra apps, and Android permissions are still bewildering, but hardware-wise, I couldn't be happier.
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On August 29 2018 05:22 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Most of the time I am planning to receive and send text messages and to phone and to receive phonecalls. What is different is that I want to be able to use GPS (I've gotten lost a fair few times in unfamiliar cities) and language apps in foreign countries but it appears that approx 200 euros phones is accurate enough, but almost everyone of these are too wide for my small womanly hands to use one handed. I'll also like to join the rest of the modern people and have a responsive OS and use the internet on the phone; it sure beats the weight and volume of a book, but maybe I'll get an e-tablet for that instead. Like I said I am in no hurry; at the moment I am just trying out friend's and relative's phones to see if they fit well in my hands. As it happens I did handle an S8 and it seemed to be the maximum width I am able to handle, but in all honesty, since I can remember a time when an iphone was £200, it seems rather unneccessarily extravagant to spend much more than that.
I hope that I won't get stoned for that but giffgaff has the iPhone se for around 200 quid. I'm sure it's gonna be cheaper on ebay but that's I think a very good option for smaller phones. Though the os updates probably aren't that secure anymore.
What else you could look out for are the bq aquaris devices I think.
For example the vs 64. But better look up one or two reviews as I'm not familiar with the uk branding of their phones.
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Canada8033 Posts
On August 29 2018 18:30 hobbyistGamedev wrote:
I use the A5 2017 as my first Android phone.
Value city. 180 Euro for USB-C, SD-Card slot, waterproofing and a nice 1080p screen. The always-on display is great as well!
I really dislike all the Samsung shit they put on it, and you can't get rid of those extra apps, and Android permissions are still bewildering, but hardware-wise, I couldn't be happier.
Typically you can remove a lot of bloatware. The process is a bit more complicated, but it can be done!
Android permissions are garbage and I fully expect that to bite us in the ass sooner or later.
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Zurich15358 Posts
Does anyone have experience with migrating one google account to another?
Even worse, migrating a regular google account to a G suite account?
I am trying but it's a fucking nightmare to get anywhere. Right now I can't get Assistant working on my phone because it says it's not enabled by my Device admin and I don't know if that is my as my original account or the G suite admin. Which is also me.
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United Kingdom7084 Posts
Could someone explain this "android permissions" business to me?
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Canada8033 Posts
Doesn't G Suite come with support? I'd try asking them first.
On September 04 2018 01:48 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Could someone explain this "android permissions" business to me?
Permissions are stuff like "This app can access your location", "This app can access storage", etc. There's a couple problems with this system.
First, permissions aren't granular enough. For instance, if I grant Facebook permission to use my camera/camera roll, obviously it's because I want to post pictures or whatever. But what happens when I'm not using the app? Do they still have access to all my pictures? Are they running analytics on my photos, even if they're not uploaded to the site? If I revoke permissions, do they keep the data gleaned from stuff they've already processed? And so on. It's hard to be more stringent with what apps can do when all we get is a big enable/disable button.
The second problem is that the typical user isn't tech savvy. Ever try installing a random flashlight app? I searched for one just now, and the top result asks for permissions to:
- Location
- Photos/Media/Files
- Storage
- Camera
- Network access
That's a stupid amount of permissions for a flashlight.
Most people are conditioned to grant permissions with no second thought. People got all worked up over the Cambridge Analytica stuff, but the reality is that this kind of thing has been going on for a while now in many different places. They just don't know any better, or don't care. In any case, the problem's here to stay, and there's no real solution on the horizon.
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Zurich15358 Posts
On September 04 2018 09:33 Spazer wrote:
Doesn't G Suite come with support? I'd try asking them first.
Mine doesn't. I have a grandfathered-in G suite account from a free Google Apps account I had back in 2010. It's stays free but doesn't come with support. Since I can run it with my own mail+domain my idea was to use that as my main google account. I am a step further but might give up because the migration is too much work 
BTW: You can ask Google to download all the data they have on you on a certain date. Yesterday mine was 18gigs compressed. Wow. Especially since only 12gigs of that is my Google drive inclusive Photos.
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United States12240 Posts
On September 04 2018 09:33 Spazer wrote:Doesn't G Suite come with support? I'd try asking them first. Show nested quote +On September 04 2018 01:48 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Could someone explain this "android permissions" business to me? Permissions are stuff like "This app can access your location", "This app can access storage", etc. There's a couple problems with this system. First, permissions aren't granular enough. For instance, if I grant Facebook permission to use my camera/camera roll, obviously it's because I want to post pictures or whatever. But what happens when I'm not using the app? Do they still have access to all my pictures? Are they running analytics on my photos, even if they're not uploaded to the site? If I revoke permissions, do they keep the data gleaned from stuff they've already processed? And so on. It's hard to be more stringent with what apps can do when all we get is a big enable/disable button. The second problem is that the typical user isn't tech savvy. Ever try installing a random flashlight app? I searched for one just now, and the top result asks for permissions to: - Location
- Photos/Media/Files
- Storage
- Camera
- Network access
That's a stupid amount of permissions for a flashlight. Most people are conditioned to grant permissions with no second thought. People got all worked up over the Cambridge Analytica stuff, but the reality is that this kind of thing has been going on for a while now in many different places. They just don't know any better, or don't care. In any case, the problem's here to stay, and there's no real solution on the horizon.
Great explanation.
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EPT
