Androids, Everybody needs good Androids - The Bear and Badger

Kow

Pocket Casts.

Facewon

Seconded

cockbeard

Need to try that, doggcatcher fell off a cliff about a year back, just guzzles my available space despite what I tell it about minimum space requirements before downloading

GooberTheHat

A vote for pocket casts here to. It's good, and syncs across multiple devices (as you'd expect nowadays I suppose).

halfgone

Podkicker Pro!

Kow

Anybody on Android 7? I updated my z5 yesterday and now the option in contacts to display only contacts with phone numbers has disappeared. Contact list is an unusable mess of crap now.

GurtTractor

Noticed my battery depleting much faster than usual when idle, did the usual checking and stopping of background stuff but it didn't help. I shut it down and turned it on again and it seems to have sorted it. The battery usage graph went from an almost 45 degree slope to its usual 5-10 degree. Very glad as I thought there might be something up with my S7's battery.

Going to reboot it every few days now I think.

hunk

Reset to factory settings after an os upgrade may solve the battery binging.
Used to help on cyanogenmod anyways.

GooberTheHat

GurtTractor wrote:

Noticed my battery depleting much faster than usual when idle, did the usual checking and stopping of background stuff but it didn't help. I shut it down and turned it on again and it seems to have sorted it. The battery usage graph went from an almost 45 degree slope to its usual 5-10 degree. Very glad as I thought there might be something up with my S7's battery.

Going to reboot it every few days now I think.

Interesting, my s7 seems to have been caning the battery recently. How long have you had yours?

GurtTractor

Just a few months, like I said the reboot seems to have sorted it for now.

I also keep an eye on the running services in the dev options menu.

Kow

I really don't understand Android updates, they seem designed as a mixture of making things worse and arbitrary changes just for the sake of changing things. Apart from my contacts being screwed up, now the quick access icons in the pull down menu aren't quick anymore - the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/mobile networks icons no longer turn those things on and off, rather they lead to another screen with a toggle switch - two clicks instead of one. The clear all apps icon is no longer an icon, it's changed into words, and is at the top of the screen, not at the bottom - pointless. Money was paid and somebody spend time doing that. What a fucking joke.

Hodge360

Where would I get older versions of apps when the store version no longer supports my phone?

Diluted Dante

Is your phone rooted?

cockbeard

The piracy sites are pretty good, even if you don't want to pirate. Shouldn't need to root it you can turn on sideloading in the settings

Something like security, allow install from untrusted sources, you'd do the same if you were testing an app for a mate

Then download the apk from apkmirror or similar places like that

Hodge360

Phone not rooted. I've got the odd one from TPB before but hoped for a more reliable,dedicated repo so I'll have a look at that site thanks cocko.

Dinostar77

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/motorola-g4-play-16gb-79-01-with-code-motorola-2632146?page=2#comments

Motorola phone down to £79.99 with codes.

GurtTractor

Does anyone know of a good general purpose text to speech solution for listening to articles in webpages and PDFs? I tried Google's Talkback but that doesn't really work the way I need it to.

I could really do with a way to absorb more research, while walking hither and thither and doing cooking and such. Something that I could quickly activate in a browser or other app with tolerable voice quality would be great.

Hodge360

No but I remember my Note4 having an option to download a "HD voice pack". Although it was an improvement on the robotic voice preinstalled I felt it was too sultry for anything other than bored housewife romantic novels!

HawBawJaws

Upgrade day approaching, after opinions.

The huwawawaweeehie P10, yay or nay? Saw one in carphone warehouse today, looks and feels nice, but didn't get to play with it as the battery was dead. From what I've read, they've got bitching cameras, which is a draw as my next phone will be taking loads of baby pics. But, its got a relatively small screen compared to some of the other ones out there, anyone got any experience with this brand?

The Samsung s8 should be announced in a couple days, all the rumours suggest it'll be the cats pyjamas. I've avoided Samsung in the past, as every man and their dog has one, and they used to be stuffed with bloatware, has that improved of late? Downside with the s8 is it probably won't be dished out to customers till mid April, I'm itching to get a decent phone asap.

Did like the HTC u ultra, but Vodafone aren't stocking it.

Any other suggestions? No lg, had a g flex 2, was shite. No apple either, lovely bits of kit I'll admit, but never really appealed to me. No blackberry either. It has to be available direct from Vodafone, not from a third party like carphone warehouse, the missus gets 20% off our bills, but it can only be done at the time the contract is started/renewed, and has to be done in a Vodafone shop.

hunk

1+ 3T
Excellent phone although the 1+ 4 (5? because of superstitious bs) might pop up soon.
With an S821, 6gb ram and 128 gb ssd this is a very capable puppy.
Add dash charging, a nice 1080p Oled screen and awesome buildquality and it's a steal.
Software updates are good and their rom (vanilla android light) is well maintained.

https://oneplus.net/3t

HawBawJaws

Seen them around, look good, but I'm restricted to what Vodafone will carry, can't afford to buy a flagship phone outright.

GooberTheHat

The huuwwwahhahhahaheewwee phones are supposed to be decent hardware, but apparently the custom UI the stick on is crap. It basically mimicks an iPhone so you don't have as much flexibility as most Android's, which kind of misses the point imo.

Hodge360

Had a Samsung Note4 and loved it but yeah,bloatware was there and I didn't use a lot of it.
Currently using a Huawei Y6 II,a budget phone I got for free on contract but is perfectly capable. Between that and the impressive free Bluetooth speaker that came with it,I've developed a fair amount of respect for Huawei.

afgavinstan

The gf has the hwahwehhh and its great. Camera is indeed the kitties titties. Can always put a custom launcher on if it annoys you that much. And also, SONY FFS.

Diluted Dante

Hwhwheiehh are shite, get so many calls about them.

HawBawJaws

afgavinstan wrote:

The gf has the hwahwehhh and its great. Camera is indeed the kitties titties. Can always put a custom launcher on if it annoys you that much. And also, SONY FFS.

Is it the p9 or the p10 sho'nuff has?

Sony phones are tasty bits of kit, but I dunno, just not sold on them. The new fancypants version they announced looks OK, but it's main selling point is that it can film in super slo mo, dunno how often I'd use that.

cockbeard

My current issue with Sony is I can't see any compact job that's any good, nor one incoming

So im thinking i get another z5 compact, or go for a big phone for first time in years

Dinostar77

GurtTractor wrote:

Does anyone know of a good general purpose text to speech solution for listening to articles in webpages and PDFs? I tried Google's Talkback but that doesn't really work the way I need it to.

I could really do with a way to absorb more research, while walking hither and thither and doing cooking and such. Something that I could quickly activate in a browser or other app with tolerable voice quality would be great.

Dude did you find anything? I'd like something that would read pdfs aloud for me.

WorKid

I've got a Xiaomi Note 3 which is grand if you can be arsed to wait for one to make its way on the slow boat from China.

hunk

Agreed, Xiaomi phones are awesome, affordable and rock solid.
Ibuygou and gearbest are good for importing.
Best combined with sim only options.

The Huawei P10 seems like a solid little performer.

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