The part where you said "I get the impression that the project came out of some people running some financial models rather than an innovator trying to to solve a problem." My feeling about the phone is that it's the latter case.

Yep my 6p has completely went off the rails in the last month. Sweet scam.

Android Auto has been a big old ****tard for the past week or so. It's so weird, on my morning commute it's been 100% perfect, but in the evenings the music/podcast will just cut out constantly. I have to either pause/play or wait for it to correct itself, which can be anywhere from 5 to 60 seconds. And this probably happens either every few seconds or every minute. Unplugging and using the phone the conventional way over bluetooth slightly fixes it, but occasionally I do still have to fiddle.

I can't explain why, but I don't think it's an internet connection issue, it feels more like a bluetooth one (and it seems the Pixel has certainly had its share of bluetooth issues). Dunno. Feels bad. Whenever I run into garbage issues like this I think wtf am I doing I should just get an iPhone I don't customize anything anymore anyway. But they probably have their own set of issues. And I wouldn't have Google Maps in the car.

New TechCrunch article Essential Phone is the best deal in smartphones thanks to camera updates I'm still offering the $200 off code for $100.

Is this what they call astroturfing?

Buying the first phone of a new company when you have many proven valid choices is stupid.

Pixel tho

Having owned (and loved) the Nexus One, Nexus 4, Nexus 5, and Nexus 6...the Pixel was a no brainer.

According to his pitch he's selling a Nexus/Pixel device at the same price point but with a worse camera, lag, and with most of the benefits derived from a line of Essential products that may or may not be coming down the road (pretty dicey for many reasons IMO). I guess now its a Nexus/Pixel that's worse but $200 cheaper. I guess that's something, but sounds like a **** way to spend $400. I'd probably just pick up last year's Pixel instead.

https://www.recode.net/2017/5/30/156...tant-code-2017

The team at Essential does Q&A every week for the subreddit and there are quite a few products in the pipeline for the magnetic connector. Those that had problems with the camera at launch are satisfied with the new updates. I haven't had any lag problems and the battery life is outstanding. Whatever, I thought someone might want it for $400 after splitting the rebate with me. It's a cool phone, no bloatware or branding, and the build quality is impressive with the materials they are using. You hold it in your hand and you know it's a premium device. There are definitely some people that have had issues with the phone but I haven't myself experienced any. I think it's a great deal for $400 but I don't know about the Pixel/Nexus so maybe I'm wrong.

Bobhalford is obviously overselling a bit, but I think other comments are underselling the Essential. It's a really slick phone with a sub-flagship price.

I currently have a Pixel and love it, but if it crapped out right now I'd probably rather buy the Essential (I almost never take pics and have bluetooth headphones so it's negatives fit me well). That said, it's in a bit of a weird spot where I'd probably rather pay more money for a better phone.

I'm honestly very underwhelmed at the current Android selection. Hoping when it comes time to upgrade my Pixel things look better (Pixel 3, mostly).

What are some good games for playing with with a single hand, preferably on portrait mode? Usually only have 1 hand free during commute

maybe hearstone, but the landscape orientation must be boring.
Look for games that are turn by turn

Ran out of space while filming a video, phone crashed and powered off/on. When it started back up, I got this:



(not my photo but that's the exact message)

It seems to boot up fine after displaying that error.

Been reading about what to do over the the Google forums but most of the recommendations seem to be either:

- Rescue OTA
- Factory reset

Kinda leery about doing either of those as I'm in Africa with sketchy internet access. Do not want to brick my phone.

Been looking for any halfway decent diagnostic / health check apps to run but not coming up with much. Found various lists of the "secret" Android codes that you can dial to access various menus, but while *#*#4636#*#* was interesting, it wasn't useful for diagnostics. Looks like *#*#197328640#*#* and *#*#7378423#*#* are supposed to get you into Service Mode but neither worked for me.

Anyone have any suggestions for a way to do a health check / verify the memory? There are lots of apps out there that claim to do this but I'm skeptical of most of them.

Hopefully this is just some kind of fixable file system corruption and not malware/rootkit.


Nexus 6 / Android v7.0 / 01 April 2017 security patch
Not rooted, all apps from Play Store, no sketchy activity, bootloader is locked

I recently posted something that violated FB communinty standards. As a result my account has been restricted. I've attempted to make an alternate account, but it appears FB has barred my IP address.

Is there any way to circumvent this restriction?

VPN

https://imgur.com/a/DJ9ke

This thing in the top left of my phone has slowly grown the last few days. Am I ****ed or is there a way to stop it?

Looks like bubbling in the screen protector. Time for a new one no big deal.

@CHOPSTICK *#0*# Gets my Samsung into a test mode.
Others: https://www.pcmag.com/feature/345471...n-your-phone/1

just keep emailing them/going through the recovery process. say you dont know what you did wrong etc. you'll eventually get to a human who will give it back. prob only been dealing with bots so far.

Any good deals running right now for reasonably sized budget android phones? (<$300)?

Friend is looking for something cheap and missed the deal on the Moto G5 plus for $170...back up to $220.

so i have a note 4 and have been having weird network problems with sprint. my wifi and bluetooth work fine but my mobile data connection basically never works, it keeps saying searching for service or just 1 little bar and then every now and then it shows full LTE but then craps out if you try to use it.

i've been using this phone in the same location (northern NYC suburbs) for 2+ years with no prior issues.

went through the whole rigamarole with sprint phone support and then took it into a corporate location where the guy did everything up to a hard reset and said it's probably the antenna and would have to be mailed away. it's an old phone so i'm not paying $100+ to repair when it might not even work.

do these phones have separate antennas for wifi vs mobile, or is it all one unit? any way to test the mobile data capacity of the phone separate from their network, like by popping in a different sim card? i've had it in a case forever and no physical damage whatsoever, just seems weird and i suspect it's not a device problem because they (sprint) suck and i don't trust them.

You may find this interesting: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Samsung...lacement/36109 (it shows two antennas, and I would bet one is BT/WiFi the other is Cellular, but I really don't know)

In the UK you sure could swap out the SIM and try an alternative cell network. I have no idea if that's applicable on your side of the world, unfortunately.

Also, since it's such an old device and warranty is of no concern, you can maybe find a local repair shop that can take a look while you wait and has more reasonable pricing than Sprint corporate?

I imagine a Note 8 is looking pretty attractive though

Possibility of sim card being the problem, id go to sprint and just get another card and see if it helps.

Or possibly battery related, is your battery still holding up?

Last resort would be a hard reset, but it might help.

I sympathize with you, im on sprint and the ONLY reason i stay is because of the truly unlimited data.

I switched to an aftermarket Anker battery a few months ago because the original wasn't holding a charge - but I tried swapping it back and it had no impact. The Sprint guy was skeptical of the SIM card idea but I will go back and try it. If i know someone else with a sprint phone could i try it without going to the store, or would i just run in to device activation issues?

Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk