As long as you don’t buy a Moto Z. Or a LeEco (whatever one of those is).
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The million-dollar question. Fuck Apple and their ‘we know what’s best for you’ attitude. The only reason I still own an iPhone is Hipstamatic, and it’s the only reason I would continue to own one.
I’m looking very hard at the LG V20 right now.
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Well, they have to build that stockholm syndrome somehow.
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Pretty much. I like records, tubes, wires, and all the rest because it makes me sit down, be mindful, and enjoy 30-40 minutes. It’s closer to meditation than anything. YMMV.
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I’m waiting for someone other than THL to get their battery tech.
There’s no going back from 5Ah, but I’d really like something with 4G, decent GPS, and a good camera.
I guess THL might have lifted their game by the time I need a new phone…
Blu makes some phones that look great on paper. I can’t say I’ve seen one in the wild, but they make at least one model of phone that’s also a battery bank and they have several other ones that are specd out to have 3.5Ah batteries.
Most of the current year-models come unlocked w/LTE radios and pretty high res cameras 12 to 24 megapixel.
So they look great on paper. But I don’t know if they actually deliver.
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I’ll check em out.
Oh yeah, one other feature that’s on the list: two front-mounted speakers, dammit. My GF’s Samsung makes every other phone I’ve used look absolutely stupid for watching video, or listening to music without something plugged in. Having stereo rocks, but the main thing is having double the diaphragm area to provide some approximation of frequency response below 1kHz, not to mention a useful amount of volume. And it’s pretty dumb to point the speaker in the opposite direction to the screen…
BTW, THL’s speakers aren’t just inadequate, they die in the arse. I had to replace mine, and the replacement died, so then I grafted in a different speaker from an old HTC, which has also now died. Grr.
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Are you comparing on the same speakers? Because if not your comparison was a waste of time. The characteristics of the speaker is by far the most important factor to consider when it comes to audio quality these days, pretty much all modern digital formats and hardware are more than good enough as to be impossible to tell apart. All speakers will differ greatly in their frequency response though, as will their ability to perform without distortion at varying volumes, and of course the most important factor is simply how loud they are, the louder something is the better it sounds.
Bluetooth does not use aggressive lossy compression since v.2.0 came on the market many years ago now, unless you’re using one of the communications profiles. The highest quality codec in use is about the same as a 320kbps mp3 (if not slightly superior in some cases), and the standard high quality one is only slightly worse (and that’s only based on objective freq-analysis measurements - mostly related to freq-content too high for human ears to hear, in properly blinded subjective tests you’re not going to be able to tell the difference). It can also support arbitrary codecs as well, mp3 for example, which prevents the need to transcode the data, meaning it will sound identical to the source (as long as both the transmitter and receiver both support it, not sure how well supported that is in current devices though).
Bluetooth isn’t perfect, it can suffer from EF interference (my microwave interferes with the speaker in my kitchen for example, causing it to drop packets and skip every second), and obviously range issues can lead to packet loss as well. None of that will affect the audio quality as long as the data arrives fast enough without packet loss.
The main problem with bluetooth though is that the pairing can still a pain in the arse, especially if you’re constantly chopping and changing between various different devices and speakers (in my house I’ve got about 4 different transmitting devices, and 3 different receivers - once every week or so I’ll have to completely unpair a device/delete the other devices/try everything possible for ten minutes until it eventually re-pairs successfully). Upcoming versions will hopefully sort this out, as well as speed up the pairing process.
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The Energy XL.
5Ah
4G
3GB
64GB internal
MicroSD
Dual SIM
AMOLED (bright)
USB-C (reversible)
1.3GHz
AMOLED (thirsty)
USB-C (currently rare)
Android 5.1
Single rear-mounted speaker
No compass or magnetometer
Only available in gold or silver
Hmm… at US$300, I’m not super keen. Samsung style speakers and/or the THL’s AU$300 price, and I’d be interested.
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The cheap knock off ones that may or may not work might be five bucks.
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That one’s the powerbank, and it’s actually a few years old now. By rights it shouldn’t cost $300 USD, or $300 AUD. It should be like $90, the only thing it has over the current model year Blu phones is the powerbank. But current model year Blu phones do have more current tech, won’t be quite so thirsty, and are actually cheaper.
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Waterproof, like my GS7, with it’s handy headphone jack?
Nope. I won’t miss the headphone jack anytime soon.
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You know, they could have wireless charging, wireless headphones via bluetooth, wireless calls, wifi, and wireless cheese cutting, and STILL have a headphone jack.
This isn’t the floppy drive. This is a dick move designed to move more Beats.
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"IT JUST WORKS!"
– Dead Steve Jobs
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“Lossy” ≠ “humanly perceptibly deficient.” Even less so in the noisy environments (cars, jogging, gyms) anyone is likely to use these. Nobody is suggesting Bluetooth is adequate for your recording studio or dedicated listening room.
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Not always, but in this case definitely so. Bluetooth audio is noticeably inferior in a way that I believe even casual listeners could pick in a blind test.
I hate it. I suffer it for the convenience in my car, but on my bike you can pry my headphone cable out of my cold dead hands.
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I am (certainly in theory, using the latest versions and as long as the manufacturers are following the specs correctly, etc.).
That’s just bullshit.
You can clearly hear artifacts in mp3 in a dedicated listening environment, much less bluetooth.
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nope (depending on what you mean by mp3 of course).
That’s likely to be the situation sooner rather than later if you’re biking with headphones.
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