Howdy. Long time lurker but certainly a relative lay man. I have done some cursory research on my own and have a general idea of how the chips are falling but I figured I'd be remiss if I didn't use this great tool at all of our disposals. I have queried various other communities to no avail so here goes nothing:
Regarding screen size: tired of not being able to effectively utilize all the screen real estate. I find it cumbersome and challenging to accurately hit my intentions on the distant areas of the screen. Also, battery life, tired of it dominating my pocket capacity.
Regarding root: I am not necessarily looking for something with a bunch of mod support - just looking for a phone that is at least currently rootable by someone who is only ok reading about it for an hour or so every couple years when he gets a new phone. I suppose a phone from a manufacturer without a track record of making things more and more difficult for the rooting community would be a plus.
Lastly, for me, it's just a phone to me. That is to say, it is an appreciated substitute for a desktop environment for me but falls short. Thus - I only do "advanced" tasks on the mobile platform when required and certainly am not looking to further my time spent doing upper level tasks. Given the inevitability of me losing it, breaking it or being forced by culture to at least pretend to keep up with the joneses - I don't think it apt to go top (or even near the top) of the line. Different strokes for different folks.
Anyways, any advice, insight, recommendations etc are certainly appreciated. Look forward to it. Thanks.
Related
Hello, newb, I searched and skimmed the first couple of dozen results but didn't find what I need.
I'll try and keep the background to my request brief, you're not bothered about my life story, but a few bits of info are relevant to the question; I have a form of High Function Autism, one of the symptoms of which is that I have real trouble with "day to day" stuff - I can spend two days straight reading physics papers or writing short fiction, but keeping track of appointments, even remembering to do simple stuff like take a shower or put my clothes in the washing machine is a struggle. Until recently, my mum was around to remind me to do stuff and nag me when I didn't, alas she recently passed away.
So, in trying to find new coping strategies, it occurred to me that I might use an android smartphone as a personal organiser, set up in such a way as to give me daily reminders for basic things and also to manage appointments. The issue is I'm a bit lost as to what to actually buy. Are the sort of apps which would meet my needs hardware intensive? Do I have to shell out for an SGS2, or would something like an HTC Wildfire be enough?
Essentially, I'm looking for a handset which has a decent battery life, a decent screen size(I have ludicrously large hands), which can serve as a personal organiser, main phone(no point in having a landline as well), and occasional portable music player, and I don't want to overspend. I'm in the UK, and the handset would have to be available sim-free and unlocked, as I'll be going pay as you go and will likely use giffgaff.
Any recommendations or advice you can offer would be appreciated.
EDIT: Rats, I forgot to mention, being DLNA-compliant would be handy but not essential - I've no idea if that's a common feature on smartphones, as I've never actually owned one before.
Hi and welcome.
I'd recommend a large screen "making user input easier" but that doesn't mean needs to be SGSII, some great device's even though ageing are the Desire HD / Atrix / LGO2X and they can be found at a decent price.
Regarding keeping track and having formality then nearly every android device will do this with the many pieces of software available on the market, not intensive @ all either.
Device data base has allot of info regarding specification - link @ top page. "if anything is baffling feel free to PM"
Not sure DLNA has certified android phones.
I'm working on a project for work, and I'm not sure if the product I'm looking exists, at least yet anyways. I'll tell you what I'm looking to do, and hopefully the community can let me know if this kind of device is out yet, or if it will be released soon.
I work at a hospital and I primarily provide training and support to Physicians for our Electronic Medical Record. One of our challenges has been getting physicians engaged and interested in learning about upgrades/changes/optimization and such pertaining to our medical record. We may fix a problem that they've been complaining about for a year...but then it's very difficult to let them all know that it's been fixed without tracking each of them down to tell them. We're not talking about a dozen physicians either, it's probably closer to 400 or so.
I spoke with a few other people and we came up with the idea of basically creating an electronic bulletin board that can be wall mounted in the doctors lounge, and they can use it to look at recent tip sheets, patch notes, lesson plans, etc, that we post about our EMR. I'd also like to add some links to the more reputable medical journals, so they can use it for something more than just reading our tip sheets.
I feel that Android would be the best platform for what we're trying to do, especially since it makes it easy to share and email items to accounts, that way if a Doc doesn't have time to review it in the lounge, they can at least email the document to themselves for later review.
I'm looking for an All-in-one device, a flat panel touchscreen display running android, and the display needs to be between 32 and 50 inches.
If I could get it done for 1500 or less, that would be great, although I pretty much have the approval to use up to 5000 in capital. I know there are several devices coming out that are integrated with Google TV, but few if any of the ones I've seen have a capacitive touch screen.
Does anyone know of a current or upcoming device that could meet my needs?
Bump
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Being a big fan of Android, I really do hate to say this, but I don't know you're going to find what you're looking for. From what I've seen lately, there have been fairly successful pilot deployments of iPads + AppleTV touchscreen bulletin boards in the medical sector, but without some serious serious hacking, I don't think you're going to see this in the Android arena. I don't think I've even seen any android device larger than 11" screens... On the plus side, that does sound like a new break-in type of market if any of the major product ODMs are paying attention
L4T
What about this!? asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Pad_Transformer_TF101
Although the subject is rather troll like I hope I can do it in a non troll way.
There's a number of things that are really hacking me off about phones these days. I thought I'd have a major slam out to let off steam with the off-chance that someone might say "Ah but if you try X you can avoid that".
...some of the challenges in the mobile phone area these days...
1) Battery capacities aren't good enough as we all know. Getting through a single day is really the basics for me. Why not have hot swappable batteries? For me I expect to be able to go for 3-4 days. I don't know why... I just kind of expect that kind of efficiency.
2) Samsung Galaxy series... seems amazing but the batteries overheat, no?
3) So many people are ignorant of security to the point that most people are walking around with devices and apps that can just completely own you. Yeah there's sandboxing but it doesn't really work, it's been sidestepped. The iPhone just hides what's going on, rarely fixing the issues.
4) Licensing, all that stuff. Companies reinventing the wheel, fighting, all the rest. You can't buy a phone that does X and Y because company X won't license tech X to company Y
5) Trying to get everything perfect in one device... it's a bit of an ask but needed for portability. If things were separate we could have the better of most worlds, but that doesn't seem possible
6) Closed source. Just a bit irritating to see the inefficiency of it all in general. Bit of a hash moan but for those who can imagine better it seems like the dark ages in some areas still.
7) Closed source binary blobs. See Replicant on Samsung phones as the best we can do... the modem is arranged such messily and it's just not true a solution because of that. Kind of irritates me that there is no phone that can really guarantee it's not recording my phone numbers, conversations and credit cards because it's fully open source. Certainly an issue for companies. Companies in general are happy to rely on the word of Blackberry for thier integrity but for those of us who can imagine a solution that is secure by design it's not the best.
8) App whitelisting. Similar to the reactive rather than proactive security we tend to see as the trend in general. Manually checking all apps in the app store, trying to block and check them all.... doesn't seem the best. We've also had censorship. There are alternative stores, that's good.
9) Wakelocks. The Dalvik VM not managing or helping us track them down. Further, it's hard to tell if the app that you want to use is going to shaft your battery... once installed it's hard to tell if the app is ruining your battery too. It's messy.
10) IMEI security is a pain in the butt. It slows down the criminals but it also slows down everyone more so. In the case of Turkey it's another way to screw people with tax. Again, imperfect design.
11) As a man, if you have a phone at waist level that reduces your sperm count. Almost nobody notices or cares.
12) Just the usual society things... people looking at phones rather than each other. Can't really complain about that... the interface of looking at a screen is a bit basic. I've had speech recognition available to me... but I don't use it because there's always people around me and I'd rather be quiet... just one of those funny inventions
13) Screen don't work in bright sunlight still. We've got Motheye coming though which is great but we've had eink for ages and still no eink phone. Further, it can't be hacked onto an existing phone. Some of us aren't interested in games and movies and are focussed on getting stuff done. I feel Mirasol & PixelQi are being blocked or delayed as they try to slow things down until the point we've run out of ideas to make things better so only then does that tech get deployed.
14) Networks interfering with phones. I always go prepay because it's cheaper if you do the maths in many countries and also it allows for freer trade. Networks are always trying to get thier fingers into the mobile phone pies. Thank you Samsung for helping get against that, and also custom ROMs.
15) Apple are great but it's not clear what's going on behind the scenes.
16) eink displays would help battery life. A NookTouch can last for a month. How much would that help a phone on standby? Yet no eink display or anything like that.
17) Great to see the back of proprietary connectors but they still come back sometimes.
18) I hate the way things are made to break. Watch out for this. There's usually one thing on a phone that is designed to break. Sometimes it's a moveable part, like a ribbon cable in a slide phone. Sometimes its the USB connector. You can't buy port savers. When they fail you're screwed. Mitigate against this if you can. Try to figure out what the weak spot on your phone is.
19) Lock in software. I have an old backup phone... but I still have to keep the sync software... bit annoying. One day it probably won't work on Windows9 or whatever. People say throw it away but that's just it, throw away society. No, fix it, get it to work and be in control.
All of these things can be mitigated against. But you have to think about these things when you select your new phone.
If the commercialisation of the industry, cut throat tactics and so on aren't good enough as they are for me one thing you can do is buy a slightly older, but popular phone. In my case I never buy a new phone and instead go for something that I already know is popular with the hacking community. I know you guys can give me an insight into what I'm really looking for in life. As an example my last phone was a Galaxy S i9000. Way out of date in a sense. That's the way I find the best way to go. Go with something popular. That way you have some real support like a real man able to handle things yourself, not AppleCare and a 1 year limit. A philosophy for life. You can't have it all but with a bit of thought you can do a lot to get a bit closer to it all.
As seen in the title, I'm a smartphone addict. Although I don't have an Instagram or Facebook account, my addiction is plain and simple information. In that sense, news is what I crave for most, mostly political related or anything relevant going on in the world or my surroundings. You may ask then what is the problem with that, since I keep myself well informed on a daily basis. Well, the problem is that I'm absolutely fed up with the unending torrent of information that I spend most of my day searching for, to the point that I often put aside almost all of my responsibilities, from simple daily chores to work, social relations, hobbies, religion, books and many other things, necessary ou just pleasant. I literally spend hours on news websites and Twitter searching for that next fix. I struggle with this condition for some time now, as it has ups and downs, and I know I'm not alone: you get the impression that you are living normally; it isn't something the media or the doctors are ranting about (at least as they should be); and hey, it is technology after all, what could be wrong!?
Well, I see now that, as it occurs with everything, this too has a limit, and I've reached mine. I constantly see myself wondering about times past (from when I was I kid or teenager or even earlier, in movies and such), when people dind't have this absurd amount of distractions and futilities bringing them down. As an example for me, I picture the time when all the news one would be exposed to during a day were contained in a few pages of the daily newspaper. And that was it: if you wanted more, you had to wait for the next day, and so our brains were acostumed to that feeling and could focus on other things without any anxiety.
I'm not criticizing the rate at which we CAN get information nowadays, as this is a very good inovation for many reasons. What I am saying is that we aren't prepared for this at all, and that our brain, once it sets sight on anything that we deem good for ourselves, will relentlessly chase that to the ends of the world if possible. So now you can imagine what happens if all of this information is contained on a single device that fits on our palms and is beside us all the time. Long story short, I've tried many things and failed, and I can't take anymore of this, AT LEAST when I am out working, with friends, doing chores and such.
So I finally get to my question, and I apologize to all for the extended introduction. I want to know two simple things:
- If there is a basic phone out there that offers ONLY Whatsapp as an app, with no possibilities of downloading new ones. A browser is fairly ok, but not desirable.
- If there is a way or custom ROM that effectively and permanentelly disables the funcionality to download new apps after I've selected the ones I want to have on my smartphone. I have tried many cold turkey like apps and solutions, but they are so easily bypassable it is ridiculous (you can just uninstall the app or cheat in many ways). If I had to completely reset or flash another ROM in my phone, at least I know my laziness would work out in my favor (ok, I'm not THAT addicted). Otherwise, the only solution would be to destroy my phone altogheter and live as a hermit haha.
TL;DR: I need to drastically reduce my phone usage to only messaging apps, calls, and utilities like bank, food and mobility apps. But I need to do so in a way I can't easily bypass.
To anyone who read it all, thank you very much. I'm in dire need of help, so any is welcome. I think this is my last resort. Sorry for the drag.
grjota said:
As seen in the title, I'm a smartphone addict. Although I don't have an Instagram or Facebook account, my addiction is plain and simple information. In that sense, news is what I crave for most, mostly political related or anything relevant going on in the world or my surroundings. You may ask then what is the problem with that, since I keep myself well informed on a daily basis. Well, the problem is that I'm absolutely fed up with the unending torrent of information that I spend most of my day searching for, to the point that I often put aside almost all of my responsibilities, from simple daily chores to work, social relations, hobbies, religion, books and many other things, necessary ou just pleasant. I literally spend hours on news websites and Twitter searching for that next fix. I struggle with this condition for some time now, as it has ups and downs, and I know I'm not alone: you get the impression that you are living normally; it isn't something the media or the doctors are ranting about (at least as they should be); and hey, it is technology after all, what could be wrong!?
Well, I see now that, as it occurs with everything, this too has a limit, and I've reached mine. I constantly see myself wondering about times past (from when I was I kid or teenager or even earlier, in movies and such), when people dind't have this absurd amount of distractions and futilities bringing them down. As an example for me, I picture the time when all the news one would be exposed to during a day were contained in a few pages of the daily newspaper. And that was it: if you wanted more, you had to wait for the next day, and so our brains were acostumed to that feeling and could focus on other things without any anxiety.
I'm not criticizing the rate at which we CAN get information nowadays, as this is a very good inovation for many reasons. What I am saying is that we aren't prepared for this at all, and that our brain, once it sets sight on anything that we deem good for ourselves, will relentlessly chase that to the ends of the world if possible. So now you can imagine what happens if all of this information is contained on a single device that fits on our palms and is beside us all the time. Long story short, I've tried many things and failed, and I can't take anymore of this, AT LEAST when I am out working, with friends, doing chores and such.
So I finally get to my question, and I apologize to all for the extended introduction. I want to know two simple things:
- If there is a basic phone out there that offers ONLY Whatsapp as an app, with no possibilities of downloading new ones. A browser is fairly ok, but not desirable.
- If there is a way or custom ROM that effectively and permanentelly disables the funcionality to download new apps after I've selected the ones I want to have on my smartphone. I have tried many cold turkey like apps and solutions, but they are so easily bypassable it is ridiculous (you can just uninstall the app or cheat in many ways). If I had to completely reset or flash another ROM in my phone, at least I know my laziness would work out in my favor (ok, I'm not THAT addicted). Otherwise, the only solution would be to destroy my phone altogheter and live as a hermit haha.
TL;DR: I need to drastically reduce my phone usage to only messaging apps, calls, and utilities like bank, food and mobility apps. But I need to do so in a way I can't easily bypass.
To anyone who read it all, thank you very much. I'm in dire need of help, so any is welcome. I think this is my last resort. Sorry for the drag.
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Click to collapse
**What phone should I buy next?** -- Not sure what device to buy? Ask here!
We're planning to add glass-only cracked screen repair capability to our shop. We've got ~$20k to invest in this project, and we'd like to do it properly. What are some good resources to get started? How did you learn to do it? Most importantly, how long did it take to learn?
There're many youtube videos on the topic, but people's methods are inconsistent. Some repair screens in-frame, some take the whole phone apart. Some use freezers for curved screens, some swear by heat + wire.
At the moment, I'm trying to put together a list of machines/gear to get started
Welcome to XDA
I hope you appreciate the difference between science and art.
Example; while modern medicine is based on science, effectively practicing medicine is an art.
You use what works best for each particular case based on your acquired wisdom learned while practicing medicine.
Knowledge plus practice equals wisdom (hopefully).
Hands on is the only way to learn a trade and it's tricks. Learn the assembly technologies and techniques. Use cheap or trash phone to practice on. As you progress if you're persistent eventually you will go from novice to skilled to expert. A novice or skilled practitioner can't do what someone at the expert level can. It takes experience to learn the material properties, signs, variables, techniques and to develop skillset to effectively execute the proper actions.
You have to learn which tools, then brand of tools fit each operation best for yourself. In time you will become quit particular about this if you make to the top. I go for tools with the best ergonomics and usability. The right tools become an extension of yourself, but first you need to have the depth of understanding and skillset to choose and use the tools effectively.
An expert has a whole bag of tricks that they have learned over the years, decades to use for the situations they encounter.
There may be more money in fulfillment work or contact assembly. You're own business is as good as it gets but it's hard at first.
Thanks, for the warm welcome, and for the insightful reply.
Of course it's only possible to learn these things by doing, but, from my experience, you can accelerate the process by having good guidance and quality learning materials. That's what I'm looking for myself and for my technicians.
Do you know of any good courses/classes that one could take to learn about display refurbishment?
rebeltechlabs said:
Thanks, for the warm welcome, and for the insightful reply.
Of course it's only possible to learn these things by doing, but, from my experience, you can accelerate the process by having good guidance and quality learning materials. That's what I'm looking for myself and for my technicians.
Do you know of any good courses/classes that one could take to learn about display refurbishment?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're welcome.
Nothing takes the place of experience for doing precision assembly. Looking at Grey's Anatomy isn't the same as doing surgery, it's a beginning.
Some techniques work better than others depending on the situation. You need experience to decide which is best. You learn the feel for it only by doing.
I saw guides and vids of the Note 10+ battery replacement. They intimidated me. Then I watched someone actually do it and quickly realized I could do it better myself
Of course that's not the end to my battery replacement learning curve, but it's a good start.
The biggest concern is breakage and then cosmetics. Doing it professionally means doing it right each time or at least most of the time.
Failures cost you more time and money. As for employees they will be one of or you're biggest headaches. Getting someone to do what you want, even the simplest of tasks can be challenging to say the leas
To access most displays requires a partial/full teardown. This is challenging to do on many phones. You need adapt ESD protocols and get ESD mats, wristbands, hydrometer* and such to avoid damage to the displays and especially the mobos. Out of circuit they become much more susceptible to ESD damage. Many don't do this; not doing so is unprofessional and can get very expensive.
If you find white papers and good documentation on this please share it if you can. This fascinates me.
*Humidity control is essential in dissipating static electricity ie a minimum of 40-60%. I like to see about 47-53% A temp controlled heat pot/fan works well to raise it.
rebeltechlabs said:
We're planning to add glass-only cracked screen repair capability to our shop. We've got ~$20k to invest in this project, and we'd like to do it properly. What are some good resources to get started? How did you learn to do it? Most importantly, how long did it take to learn?
There're many youtube videos on the topic, but people's methods are inconsistent. Some repair screens in-frame, some take the whole phone apart. Some use freezers for curved screens, some swear by heat + wire.
At the moment, I'm trying to put together a list of machines/gear to get started
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess you live in America, it's very important for any new shop to understand what is the chance to survive in the first 1-2 year of operations so be ready to invest money even if you don't see that money coming back.
Dealing with mobile phones it's somewhat like dealing with computers, a customer's phone has a broken screen but the phone also doesn't start up so you need to know a bit more than just replacing screens.
Dealing with Apple phones will be more complicated due to the distributor's (in fact Apple don't make phones) tricks like the latest one secret codes stored in the CPU that must match with the replaced part's embed code.
You might want to make a partnership with a specific brand so that you can get better support and deals and even workshop manuals but there are always pro and con because they will want to be the only brand in your shop.
Regarding courses, it depends on where you're (on site courses) and there are online courses like those from Udemy which is a popular site: How to repair mobile cell phones