The Android Thread

[Nacey]

6 hours ago, Grym said:

The more leaks I read about the Pixel 2 the more disappointed I get and the less I feel like waiting. Getting a Pixel for £400 is starting to look pretty good.

The designs of the new Pixel phones seem barely updated, foregoing a number of design changes that have come to the latest flagships whilst taking a number of backward steps like removing the headphone jack and having the camera stick out from the body of the phone. Given that the price is likely going to go up with the new model it just doesn't seem to me to be worth £250+ for a year's updates, a new processor, and a worse design. Am I missing something?

No, I'd say this is an entirely reasonable assessment. It sort of depends on how you feel about some of the changes and obviously we don't know the full details yet but it's not like the existing Pixel is slow.

[Nacey]

2 hours ago, Brynneth said:

The problem is that there are only very very few audiophile quality headphones that are wireless. Partly because very few devices actually can stream lossless audio over Bluetooth - Sony have a proprietary codec which is currently only available on Xperia phones but might get generic support in Android O, there are a couple of others which aren't supported on most phones. I don't understand why this "top end" target audience excludes people with top-end audio hardware. If, say, I've spent £400 on a set of Beyerdynamic cans, why can't my top of the line phone use them?

Just realised that Google are still disdaining the SD Card slot as a thing, so I'd need to splash out £100 extra for the larger model to fit any decent amount of hi-res audio on it. Might stick with Motorola for the moment, though have just discovered that the Moto G5 doesn't have NFC so can't use Android Pay - though the G5+ and the G5S/+ coming out this month seem to have it. Looks like the release price on the G5S is probably going to be £220, with a few incremental changes over the G5 - .2" larger screen (though same resolution so lower PPI),  200mAh larger battery, 16MP camera rather than 13, same processor but 3GB RAM and 32GB storage basic. No reviews in yet, but reckon it'd be worth that?

Nobody cares about your stupid use case where you need to listen to lossless FLACs on your phone. You're a tiny niche so get used to being ignored. Normal people are streaming from Spotify or Play Music because it sounds fine to them.

Worth noting that the new XL probably does have a headphone jack, though it's not confirmed. And Android O supports Sony's LDAC, yes. Bluetooth/Lightning/USB-C are the future and you just kind of have to get used to that. 3.5mm is a stupid proprietary connector that needs to die.

Also you're acting like a little adapter somehow makes your headphones unusable which seems ridiculous.

And yes, the new Moto G seems like a decent offering, as ever.

[Grym]

I really need to be quicker if I want a good deal. The Pixel is already back up to £480.

[Brynneth]

I honestly was unaware of a USB-c to 3.5mm adapter existing and was mostly addressing Dan's "just get wireless" comments. 

Still don't see why a phone shouldn't have an SD card slot.

[Nacey]

I would be amazed if the phone doesn't ship with one. The iPhone came with the equivalent for Lightning.

There is no reason for an SD card slot because the cloud exists. They are unreliable as a piece of tech and people expect to be able to install apps on them and such which creates a horrible situation for the OS to try to support that on a piece of slow removable storage.

Normal people just stream shit because it works fine and it's a phone not a cinema.

[Dan]

I don't really understand the use case that means I want to be listening to really high quality music from my phone through high quality headphones anyway. If I'm on a train or similar, there is background noise (I've never met fully sound cancelling headphones that could resist the sheer vibration of travelling - nor do I want to cut off the only sense capable of working behind me). If I'm at home, I have my PC and the option to have high quality speaker (I don't because I don't actively listen to music, its a passive thing and so I'm paying attention to the other things I'm doing). If I'm away from home, I am away from home for a reason, why am I not doing that? If I am, its background again.

Spotify is 320kbps. This is higher than most CDs, and is easily plenty.

[Brynneth]

CDs are totally uncompressed WAV and average 1100kbps, the compression algorithm used by Spotify is lossy and thus has objectively worse sound quality, your statement is bullshit.

I listen to music on mobile basically 100% of the time that I am out of the house and alone, be this walking to the shops, going out for a walk at lunchtime, being in the gym, etc. There is often little to no background noise and I want to be able to hear the music as clearly as possible in those circumstances. It sounds like your issue is that you largely listen to music as background noise. I don't. 

[Myrrh]

I mean, Dan's not wrong about how 320 kbps MP3 is transparent for almost all listeners. Spotify Premium's "extreme" quality setting is exactly that.

Having the lossless WAV or FLACs is useful for transcoding purposes, though.

[Nacey]

Going to change all the images on the website to massive BMPs because PNGs are lossy and I can totally see the difference.

Even if you're somehow that audiophile nerd who needs this, nobody else is and phones are not designed for such stupid niche use cases. So deal with it, basically. As a developer I can tell you that SD cards and removable storage in general are shitty and can kindly die.

[Lagrosh]

Totally agree with Todd. SD Cards are a real pointless ballache.

And with the growth of streaming, no-one wants lossless anyway. You'd never have the bandwidth to download it. It's about finding the sweet spot. E.g. Spotify's Ogg Vorbis usage is actually pretty high quality, and it's extremely rare to find people who can here the difference at that bitrate with that format.

And I still think you're missing the point about hardware design. By removing the 3.5mm they can make the devices thinner & use that space for something else (like battery), and without accessing the SD card they're also making a lot more use of the rest of the space for something else (like battery). Also, phone creators should add more battery.

[Brynneth]

I get that there are sensible design reasons for the removal of the headphone jack and SD slot, it's just annoying that in order to carry my existing setup forward I would have to use an adapter (slightly annoying) and pay an extra £100 for the onboard storage space to replace my SD card (considerably annoying).

Most of the music on my SD card is in MP3 format anyway, only about 20% is lossless and that's where I bought it in studio master quality on Blu-ray, which okay, is an edge case. What I actually want is to be able to have my entire (or at least the majority of my) music collection available on my phone through a single media player app, including all the bands which are unavailable on any streaming services due to expired licences, being too small/obscure or just refusing to licence their music to them. I think it just sucks that I am being forced away from the solution I have for this already and into forking over more cash.

[Dan]

It almost feels like you'd be better of with your audio device and your phone being separate pieces of technology... You seem to be accepting your an edge case, so why not get a phone that isn't trying to cater to you, and an audio device that does? You don't have to upgrade the two together then either, so outside of this one shot payment separating the two, you don't actually have to pay extra to "carry your setup forward" unless your requirements in that area change.

[Nacey]

I Present To You: The Gaz Phone!

But seriously:

5 hours ago, Brynneth said:

What I actually want is to be able to have my entire (or at least the majority of my) music collection available on my phone through a single media player app

Google Play Music allows you to upload 50000 tracks for free. It seems unlikely, though admittedly not impossible, that you have more than fifty thousand songs that aren't available to stream.

[Dan]

That phone looks cool from an external perspective looking at Gaz' needs. I feel the brand actually has value for its target audience too.

[Nacey]

On 11/08/2017 at 2:33 PM, Grym said:

I really need to be quicker if I want a good deal. The Pixel is already back up to £480.

They have the Pixel XL for £500 now but I can't get the regular Pixel page to load.

[Nacey]

It's Pixel day! Not planning to upgrade though.

Going to pick up an nVidia Shield TV instead when they release the SKU without the stupid gamepad in a couple of weeks.

[Brynneth]

New Moto G5S currently at £176 on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Motorola-Moto-Single-SIM-Free-Smartphone-Lunar-Grey/dp/B074DYFDJT?th=1

[Nacey]

On 04/10/2017 at 10:28 AM, Nacey said:

It's Pixel day! Not planning to upgrade though.

Going to pick up an nVidia Shield TV instead when they release the SKU without the stupid gamepad in a couple of weeks.

This post was actually from opposites land.

[Sharp]

https://www.tnhh.net/posts/google-maps-insane-backward-compatibility.html

Makes sense but is still cool.

[Tiran]

Pixel 2 the thing to get right now? My 5x seems to have died.

[dangphat]

I know this is addressed to Todd, however it is worth noting that the new Moto G6 (including plus and play varieties) will be arriving at the end of this month. The reported spec for this is comparable to last year's flagship models at a fraction of the price.

[Nacey]

If it's within budget, yes. The two models have the exact same hardware except for the screen. Battery life is roughly comparable between the two, the smaller one tends to come out a touch ahead in lab tests. The bezels are much smaller on the XL but its screen does suffer from some blue shifting when viewed at an angle.

Samsung also continue to get better in regards to software and if the stylus is a thing you'll make good use of the Note8 could be worth considering. I personally value faster updates and clean UX more.

On a tighter budget, the Moto G5S is a decent choice, or wait for the G6 which is due imminently.

[Tiran]

I prefer the smaller size screen anyway, so thats good to hear, and a Stylus isn't something I'd be likely to use.

[Nacey]

4 hours ago, dangphat said:

I know this is addressed to Todd, however it is worth noting that the new Moto G6 (including plus and play varieties) will be arriving at the end of this month. The reported spec for this is comparable to last year's flagship models at a fraction of the price.

This is not true at all, though I'm sure they'll be great value phones for the price. They are objectively slower than last year's flagships, the cameras are garbage, they've tended to lack features like NFC or gyroscopes (different things in different models but there always seems to be something missing), they have terrible update record (generally you get one major OS update and basically no monthly security patches).

Also the Pixel (even the original) is still just incredibly fast and smooth compared to anything else due to software optimisation.

Also the new Pixel has a guaranteed three years of updates which is a first for any Android device and certainly improves the value proposition.

So no, these are not equivalent at all, even though the Moto G6 will most likely be the recommended budget phone option for the next year.

[Sharp]

2018 android tablet recommendations?