GeekNights Monday - What Phone Should Rym Buy?

MrPeriod

Tonight on GeekNights, Rym debates what phone he should buy to replace his Nexus 4. The Sony Z3 compact is the smallest (smaller than the iPhone 6), but is still a god damned monster. In the end, the best cell phone to buy at the end of 2014 is either the iPhone 5s or the Nexus 4. In the news, you can sort of build an actual PC on Newegg, New York's gentrification monoliths are getting gigabit WiFi, Google Glass is "dead," at least for mass market consumers, but still has massive utility in professional spaces. Also, you can start to earnestly debate whether or not it's immoral to torture a simulated creature.

• WINNING THE MEGA JACKPOT!!!
• SHAUN!!! SHAUN! SHAUN!!!

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Rym

USB On The Go wasn't the best idea.

Churba

Rym said:

USB On The Go wasn't the best idea.

Yeah, there's only so many jokes you can get out of USB and cars.

Totally Guy

Is the Z3c not marginally smaller than the Nexus 4?

Rym

Totally Guy said:

Is the Z3c not marginally smaller than the Nexus 4?

It is. But the Nexus 4 is also a fucking monster. It's massive compared to my old Nexus S. It's a monster that should never have been born.

Totally Guy

You know who I blame? Penny from Inspector Gadget. Damn big computer book!

Luke Burrage

I was going to buy myself a new iPhone 6, but what with Scott's comment in this episode and many other columnists/podcasters comments about the same issue, I think it's going to be too big. Everyone says the features are good, and the camera is the best yet, but they'd all jump at the chance to return to an iPhone 5 size phone with the same specs. Even John Gruber, who is a super Apple fan, switched back to the iPhone 5s for a few weeks, and said except for the camera he'd regret buying the 6.

My iPhone 4s is getting a bit slow now with some apps, and iOS8 isn't really designed for the screen and processor and RAM, but it's steadily chugging along, even now the top of the front glass panel is cracked. Unless it completely breaks I'll wait until next year when the 4s will no longer run the latest iOS, and when Apple Pay stuff is available in Germany.

okeefe

Did Scott sell his iPhone 5 already? If your Nexus 4 breaks, try his old phone for a week.

Apreche

okeefe said:

Did Scott sell his iPhone 5 already? If your Nexus 4 breaks, try his old phone for a week.

All my old iPhones have gone to @no fun girl‌

DJ_Katsuhiko_Jinnai

That Google modular phone concept looks interesting. The first wave is supposed to be released in early 2015

HMTKSteve

I am still using my Nexus 4 and see zero need to upgrade. I skipped the Nexus 5 because it is not that much better and the Nexus 6 is too far out of my price desire (I can afford it but I will not pay that much for a phone).

I use T-Mobile so the data is plenty fast.

sK0pe

I personally like the screen size at 4.7" (Nexus 4, HTC One (M7), Moto X (2013)).
The 4" screen size is too small for a fully functional OS with consistency through its menus, whether 3rd party or not. Media also sucks at this size.

I hope that the phone just becomes a big battery for android wear, this is where Google was headed with glass and watches.

Rym said:

USB On The Go wasn't the best idea.

I didn't know USB on the go was a thing.

There are many apps that you can torrent on Android, you could do this in the Win CE days so not sure why you would think that it was impossible now. uTorrent is also the most popular. Maybe iOS thinks this is porn and is censoring iPhone users from the world.

I don't often use a Mac but why would you buy a Mac Pro, most high grade iMacs are better for video compression, your top of the line trash can shouldn't be beaten in any test by your consumer grade products.

That pachinko - like machine is crazy.

Mycroft000

I consider the iPhone 5 to be too big. I had the 4 when Verizon first got the iPhone and it was the best phone in terms of size, though I wouldn't even mind a phone that was slightly smaller. I'm just pinning my hopes on the iWatch being incredible and amazing in every way so I don't ever have to pull my phone out of my pocket because then I can consider the battery and radio in the 6+ as being a realistic possibility instead of being an absurdly oversized phone that's designed for professional basket ball players.

okeefe

Rym said:

USB On The Go wasn't the best idea.

I read the Wikipedia page, but what's so wrong with it? Yet another connector? Already obsolete?

Starfox

Not a lot of travel-related usb jokes.

sK0pe

Mycroft000 said:

I'm just pinning my hopes on the iWatch being incredible and amazing in every way so I don't ever have to pull my phone out of my pocket because then I can consider the battery and radio in the 6+ as being a realistic possibility instead of being an absurdly oversized phone that's designed for professional basket ball players.

The iWatch looks to be terrible, the price is insanely high for something that will be repetitively made redundant. It also doesn't know what it is, literally they just put an iPhone inside of a watch with an old ass winder on the side to navigate through stuff on a tiny screen which is supposed to be touch-screen and have voice control. Plus they're trying to have a go at doing a Google Now type experience, may be another Apple maps situation. GLHF when you roll your dice on that.

Luke Burrage

Wow, sK0pe, you really have a hardon for hating Apple stuff. Can someone mention Apple anything just once without you declaring how terrible everything they do is?

Dromaro

Speaking of haters...

http://the-toast.net/2014/11/17/bible-verses-word-philistines-replaced-haters/

Matt

I thought the intelligent text responses was an impressive (and innovative) feature of the iWatch.

Luke Burrage

It hasn't come out yet. Nobody has written apps for it yet. It's literally impossible to know and review it, as it's not a finished product, let alone a released product. It might be shit, it might be terrible, it might be genius. Nobody can know yet.

Rochelle

Luke Burrage said:

Wow, sK0pe, you really have a hardon for hating Apple stuff. Can someone mention Apple anything just once without you declaring how terrible everything they do is?

I'm always amused by the Apple hate. Samsung holds most of the market in sales from what I dug up on a quick Google search. However, it amuses me to do end when it comes to marketing.

If you look at any of the Apple commercials, they only talk about their product. However, on any other product e.g. Samsung, Microsoft, and HTC, most of their commercials (yes, I see these commercials mostly during Hand Egg) have to either mock Apple or compare their products to Apple products to state their products are vastly superior to what Apple has to offer. In the end, Apple still sells quite well regardless of negative publicity/commercials.

lackofcheese

I like Apple's products, but I don't like their prices.

Luke Burrage

Mac vs PC was all about comparing their products to other products. But that was when PC was making more money than them. Once Microsoft isn't worth as much as Apple, it's not the classy move.

George Patches

Is it bad that I want a Moto 360 just so I can have phone conversations on my watch?

MATATAT

Doesn't really matter if you dislike something as a developer, you still need to be familiar with it and use it fairly often. I fucking hate IE for various development reasons, it has some good parts and some bad, but since a large number of people use it I also have to use it.

sK0pe

Luke Burrage said:

Wow, sK0pe, you really have a hardon for hating Apple stuff. Can someone mention Apple anything just once without you declaring how terrible everything they do is?

Yes, I love the 5k display and I liked the original cinema displays.
I've used many Apple products in the past and had really poor experiences with service and the products.

Apple is an excellent recipe/rebranding/advertising company, they've never really invented anything but made some great products from pieces of other's innovations. Using these recipes to then become patent trolls seems a little be silly e.g. wedge shaped laptops, squares with rounded corners. It seems two faced but it is the optimal strategy for a recipe company.
Who knows maybe they will patent 5k monitors.

Luke Burrage said:

Mac vs PC was all about comparing their products to other products. But that was when PC was making more money than them. Once Microsoft isn't worth as much as Apple, it's not the classy move.

A Mac is just a PC with the cheapest components in it.
I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at unless you think a PC is inherently combined with Windows.
Are you comparing operating systems now?

Matt said:

I thought the intelligent text responses was an impressive (and innovative) feature of the iWatch.

Hardly innovative if it has been present in 3rd party apps and built into the the OS of mobile systems for over a year on multiple platforms.

MATATAT said:

Doesn't really matter if you dislike something as a developer, you still need to be familiar with it and use it fairly often. I fucking hate IE for various development reasons, it has some good parts and some bad, but since a large number of people use it I also have to use it.

Yeah I'm doing to try writing some stuff in Objective C for iTunes during the break. One of my better friends does this as his full time job.

Rochelle said:

In the end, Apple still sells quite well regardless of negative publicity/commercials.

I don't think Apple receives any negative publicity. My twitter and news feeds are constantly full of an unending, uninformed positive perspectives on Apple with passive aggressively written posts or articles written towards other tech companies e.g. oh look "people are moving to iOS 8", followed by "Android users must be fuming over fragmentation". However when the iOS 8 released in a buggy state or the Apple keynote was executed poorly, the events are ignored. Anything odd that happens with other platforms is trashed in mainstream media. The double standard is so glaringly hilarious.

Rochelle

sK0pe said:

.

Rochelle said:

In the end, Apple still sells quite well regardless of negative publicity/commercials.

I don't think Apple receives any negative publicity. My twitter and news feeds are constantly full of an unending, uninformed positive perspectives on Apple with passive aggressively written posts or articles written towards other tech companies e.g. oh look "people are moving to iOS 8", followed by "Android users must be fuming over fragmentation". However when the iOS 8 released in a buggy state or the Apple keynote was executed poorly, the events are ignored. Anything odd that happens with other platforms is trashed in mainstream media. The double standard is so glaringly hilarious.

Seriously? I think you're completely biased on this perception. Do you not recall when iPhone 4 came out and people complained of the constant dropped calls? What about the recent bending of iPhone 6 Plus?

As for commercials I just did a search on Youtube for Samsung Mocks Apple with several commercials over the last year or so, not to mention there are commercials from Windows and HTC.

Overall, I'm not hardcore into all the events or news and don't pay that much attention. The only thing I'm exposed to are the occasional Verge articles, commercials I can't ignore during football games, and a tweets on my feed.

My mainstream media do you mean major news networks like CNN, ABC, and/or CBS? Or others like Wired, TechCrunch, and/or Engadget ?

Luke Burrage

sK0pe said:

Luke Burrage said:

Wow, sK0pe, you really have a hardon for hating Apple stuff. Can someone mention Apple anything just once without you declaring how terrible everything they do is?

Yes, I love the 5k display and I liked the original cinema displays.
I've used many Apple products in the past and had really poor experiences with service and the products.

Apple is an excellent recipe/rebranding/advertising company, they've never really invented anything but made some great products from pieces of other's innovations. Using these recipes to then become patent trolls seems a little be silly e.g. wedge shaped laptops, squares with rounded corners. It seems two faced but it is the optimal strategy for a recipe company.
Who knows maybe they will patent 5k monitors.

See, this is exactly what I'm referring to. I have no problem with someone merely not liking some products, or collection of products, or even all the products by a single company. I've no problem with someone trying a product and concluding "This is not for me".

But you are a classic hater. As soon as someone posts anything about any Apple product, you trot out exactly the same kinds of responses, all of them negative. Even if it what you say is true, which it blatantly isn't, it's just sooo tedious and repetitive that you might as well be a bot.

Are you trying to convince of anything? Are you preaching? Attempting to convert us away from some church of Apple? You're just living in your own bubble.

We all have criticisms of Apple products. That's exactly what these threads are about! Scott complaining the iPhone 6 is too big. Other people (including some of the best known pro-Apple commentators) agreeing. Rym not even considering Apple because he prefers Android. We are not mindless drones sucked in by advertizing, but informed customers.

sK0pe said:

Luke Burrage said:

Mac vs PC was all about comparing their products to other products. But that was when PC was making more money than them. Once Microsoft isn't worth as much as Apple, it's not the classy move.

A Mac is just a PC with the cheapest components in it.
I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at unless you think a PC is inherently combined with Windows.
Are you comparing operating systems now?

This was actually a reply to Ro's comment: "If you look at any of the Apple commercials, they only talk about their product."

If you're still confused by my meaning and intent, read it again.

Rym

So, for a full size comparison

iPhone4 115.x 58.6 x  9.3 mm
Nexus S 124 x 63.0 x 10.8 mm
Z3 Comp 127 x 64.9 x  8.6 mm
Nexus 4 134 x 68.7 x  9.1 mm
iPhone6 138 x 67.0 x  6.9 mm
Nexus 6 159 x 83.0 x 10.1 mm 

Starfox

I feel thinness is overrated. Basically every phone is thin enough. Imagine you had a phone the thickness of a sheet of paper. Holy shit! But to fit in any battery, it's also the height and width of a sheet of paper. That's unusable. Maybe dial up the thickness a touch so the phones don't have so much surface area?

George Patches

Just buy a damn phone man! The Z3 Compact is clearly the only thing that's anywhere close to the form factor you want. I would have bought that if I knew it was going to come out so soon, but I have the Moto X already and now a house so buying another phone is out.