iPhone 7/7+ Verge Review

[GoodBytes]

46 minutes ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

Explainable Storage - A redundant feature that is increasingly becoming a performance bottleneck for the phone.

Incorrect. Expandable storage like microSD card are getting faster as well. Like USB flash drive, you have different speeds.

 

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Replaceable Battery - If there is ever a case where you need a battery for "free recharging", then perhaps you are using your phone for the wrong reasons. The phones' lifespans are limited as it is; the main NAND will fail sooner than the battery, in most cases.

Heumm no. NAND last for a crazy amount of time. Your typical cheapo chips (used in cheapo flash drives, for example), supports 100,000  program–erase cycles per cell. Added that with technologies like SSDs in evenly spreading usage, and you increase by a significant amount. We have 1,000,000 program–erase cycles these days (introduced back all the way in 2008), and now we are talking about "self healing" NANDs (introduced back in 2012) which can push 100 million program-erase cycles.

 

 

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NFC - I stand my my original statement that it is completely useless in the context of smartphones. Want the functionality? Get some customizable key cards; a much much more practical solution.

NFC makes payment easier, and getting things (say URL to jump to an app store page). Those applications are now common in US and Canada, and probably other places in the world, and those who don't, it is definitely coming.

 

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Dual Sim - This matters to... who, exactly? Even with dual-sim, you end up doing quite a few swaps, so the benefit there is ultimately moot.

It allows you to have 1 phone for both business and personal. Many employees have their employers give them a business phone used to do business activities, such as contacting or receiving calls from manufactures, clients, between employees, and more. The idea, is that it allows you to keep your life personal, and makes it much easier for you to not have to change phone numbers when you change jobs, or role in the company.

 

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OLED - Not exactly a mature tech; image retention is still a problem, also the color accuracy is still a bit off with the blue pixels being short-lived.

OLED has advanced a lot over the years. Yes, blue still wears out quickly, but that is why OLED screen have more blue than anything, and with the high density of pixels on a phone, you don't see the sub pixels being of different size, keeping the content sharp. Also, OLED display controllers, with the help in dropping of price of color processors, the colors are automatically adjust based on wear and your settings. Hence why we have OLED TVs now.

 

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1080P - At this point, you probably only want this because the number is so catchy. The PPI (DPI) is where it matters, and it is already more than good enough for the iPhones.

Exactly.. PPI matters, and the higher the resolution, the higher PPI, and the smoother the text, and the more detailed your images/icons, etc, are. That is why things looks better on your phone, than on your desktop monitor.

 

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3.5mm - While I understand that audio is by definition analog, that is no excuse to have a hanging analog cable with you... move on!

Oh! Are you saying that you magically acquired the ability of listen to digital signal?

Here is a wonderful sound clip of a popular song, I am sure you'll recognize it.

http://www.helpweaver.com/digital.swf

 

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Wireless Charging - Hey! Charging docks are a thing! USB power outlets are a thing! Both more secure and much 'cooler' (hence safer) options!

Hmm yea... no... try it, it is very convenient.

 

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Radio - I can count with one finger the amount of people who even bother to turn it on in the car. For the 2% that care, we have internet radio for crying out loud!

See my previous post

[GoodBytes]

19 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

1. That doesn't change the fact that a a growing number of people (and a lot at that) don't even have music/video locally on their phones. Plus, most people don't have anywhere near enough music to fill a 32gb iPhone anyway. 

If you take a lots of images and 4K videos it goes quick. And if you wonder why 4K, well even 1080p does quick, I'll still say that for filming important moments that you know you'll keep, and re-watch,  then yea you want 4K, you want the best quality. I mean, else why do you take pictures anything above 140p, right? Same argument.

 

19 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

2. Most people don't keep their phones for long enough for the battery life to matter. My iPhone 5s's battery is still great after three years of use. And again, you can replace the battery in the iPhone -- the argument to have "replaceable" batteries is so you can swap them on the fly -- which isn't something more than a handful of people would ever do anyway. 

And THAT is a massive consumerism problem. People changing their phone every year or so, while their current one not only works, but still meet their needs just fine. Very sad.

 

19 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

4. You're in a VERY niche minority that uses more than one SIM, ever. 

Anyone in the business world want dual SIM. In fact, Dual SIM is hugely popular, in Europe and Asia. Only here, manufactures makes a special model for 1 SIM, mostly because carriers prefer that you get 2x phones under contract.

 

19 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

7. Also irrelevant to most people since most people only use one pair of headphones with their phones (thus, leaving an adapter on them permanently isn't an issue), and most people don't frequently charge their phone and listen to music at the same time. 

Does not matter. That 1 time where you need both, you'll see how shitty it is. Did you try putting your phone in your pocket with an adapter? Fun times. Go out for a run with that.

 

19 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

9. Or locally stored music. A radio antenna would just be a waste of space. If you happen to be in the fraction of a percent that would use radio, then I'm sure there's something you could buy. (or a different phone that is targeting a niche market)

Radio antenna doesn't waste space, you know why? Because it uses your headphone wire.

And Radio chip doesn't waste space either, because your cellphone wireless chip (the one that you use for phone calls, data transfers with your carrier service) supports FM already. (not to mention that we have programmable radio chips these days).

[Sauron]

13 minutes ago, patrick3027 said:

Take any benchmark except those exclusively based on multi-core performance and the A10 blows every competition out of the water.

 

The A10 gets 178,397 points on Antutu. Let's compare that to the Android side:

That's a 25% higher score for the iPhone 7.

 

On, Geekbench 4, single core is 3233 and multi-core score is 5363 for the A10.

For the Exynos 8893, the single-core score was 2536 while the multi-core was 8110.

The SD 820 scores 2306 on single-core with a multi-core tally of 5403.

A Helio X25 scores 2060 on single-core and 5317 on multi-core.

 

 

And? Don't you think android software can take advantage of multiple cores after 90% of mid to high end phones started using quads? The numbers you kindly provided actually show that I was right in saying it's behind in terms of performance. I made that assertion based on a sentence I misread, now I can make it based on numbers - especially when it comes to the Exynos, but the 820 also holds its own considering its relative age.

[Dabombinable]

15 minutes ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

That is debatable at best. You do not buy a phone for the amount of features that it has, but rather how useful the phone itself is to your use case. As much as some people would love to deny it, the iPhone wins most of the time from a purely practical standpoint. As mentioned earlier, a good amount of these features that Android that (that iPhones do not) are either tacked on solely for the sake of marketing, or rushed to the door out of impatience. Remember when people were loudly screaming that Android phones had Adobe Flash support where Apple were "too stupid to allow such a fabulous technology"? Take a look at where that went.

You still, pay more for less however. No matter how useful a phone is (and an iPhone is as useful as any Android flagship, so that's a moot point). And only idiots who had no clue as to how much Flash Player sapped their devices battery said that-or those with a flagship device (it hammers the shit out of the CPU).

[79wjd]

11 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

If you take a lots of images and 4K videos it goes quick. And if you wonder why 4K, well even 1080p does quick, I'll still say that for filming important moments that you know you'll keep, and re-watch,  then yea you want 4K, you want the best quality. I mean, else why do you take pictures anything above 140p, right? Same argument.

 

And THAT is a massive consumerism problem. People changing their phone every year or so, while their current one not only works, but still meet their needs just fine. Very sad.

 

Anyone in the business world want dual SIM. In fact, Dual SIM is hugely popular, in Europe and Asia. Only here, manufactures makes a special model for 1 SIM, mostly because carriers prefer that you get 2x phones under contract.

 

Does not matter. That 1 time where you need both, you'll see how shitty it is. Did you try putting your phone in your pocket with an adapter? Fun times. Go out for a run with that.

 

Radio antenna doesn't waste space, you know why? Because it uses your headphone wire.

And Radio chip doesn't waste space either, because your cellphone wireless chip (the one that you use for phone calls, data transfers with your carrier service) supports FM already. (not to mention that we have programmable radio chips these days).

And 50GB of iCloud storage is $1/ month, 200GB is $3/month, 1TB is $10/month, and 2TB is $20/month. So again, 32GB with 50GB of iCloud storage is enough for the VAST majority of people. Sure, you'll have people who will need terabytes of space to store all the videos they shoot, but that is by far not the majority, and even then, that's technically an option. A 2tb micro sd card is how much exactly?

 

Whether or not it's a problem doesn't matter, that's just how things are. But even ignoring the fact that people upgrade frequently, my three year old 5S still has great battery life (and it can be replaced if it goes to shit in its useful lifespan anyway). 

 

That also not exactly true. Sure, some people would prefer that, but most businesses don't require you to have separate phones, and those that do will often want you to use a specific phone anyway. Not to mention, you technically should keep your personal and business phone separate...unless you want the company you work for to legally be allowed to peruse any personal information on your combination business-personal phone. 

 

The last time I needed it was five years ago, and even then, it's not a big deal. I can put my phone down every 12 hours for a half hour to charge it. Or use an adapter for a half hour to charge it -- if you're already plugging your phone into something having to deal with the adapter isn't much of an issue (either you're dealing with a relatively large battery bank, or a wall). 

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, djdwosk97 said:

And 50GB of iCloud storage is $1/ month, 200GB is $3/month, 1TB is $10/month, and 2TB is $20/month. So again, 32GB with 50GB of iCloud storage is enough for the VAST majority of people. Sure, you'll have people who will need terabytes of space to store all the videos they shoot, but that is by far not the majority, and even then, that's technically an option. A 2tb micro sd card is how much exactly?

 

Whether or not it's a problem doesn't matter, that's just how things are. But even ignoring the fact that people upgrade frequently, my three year old 5S still has great battery life (and it can be replaced if it goes to shit in its useful lifespan anyway). 

 

That also not exactly true. Sure, some people would prefer that, but most businesses don't require you to have separate phones, and those that do will often want you to use a specific phone anyway. Not to mention, you technically should keep your personal and business phone separate...unless you want the company you work for to legally be allowed to peruse any personal information on your combination business-personal phone. 

 

The last time I needed it was five years ago, and even then, it's not a big deal. I can put my phone down every 12 hours for a half hour to charge it. 

Cloud storage: the solution to not being able to get anything off an iPad or iPhone easily, now enhanced by shitty/overcharging mobile carriers world wide.

[79wjd]

Just now, Dabombinable said:

Cloud storage: the solution to not being able to get anything off an iPad or iPhone easily, now enhanced by shitty/overcharging mobile carriers world wide.

For most people cloud storage is still the best alternative. Most people aren't tech-y people. They don't want to have to deal with syncing their phone and backing it up to their computer. They don't want to have to deal with downloading and transferring music (that's why Pandora, Spotify, and Apple Music are so popular). The average consumer just wants things to work. They don't want to deal with any of the back end stuff. 

[Bouzoo]

1 hour ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

3.5mm - While I understand that audio is by definition analog, that is no excuse to have a hanging analog cable with you... move on!

Radio - I can count with one finger the amount of people who even bother to turn it on in the car. For the 2% that care, we have internet radio for crying out loud!

There is,  better quality sound. Apple is aware among other things of that and that is why they are giving the adapter. Not a good excuse since wireless ear/headphones have a long way to go. I'm all for removing it when the tech improves, but not yet. Hell, even the 7 and 6S have exactly the same dimensions. They gained absolutely nothing by removing it. Absolutely nothing.

 

And I can count with 3 fingers the amount of people that don't turn on the radio while driving, almost everyone does it. Don't trust me? Let's look at the surveys:

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/04/13/am-fm-radio-still-popular-cars-study/

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The traditional radio in cars was thought to be on its last legs only a few years ago, but two studies conducted in 2015 by market research firm Ipsos found that drivers haven't decided to switch off just yet. Of those surveyed, 84 percent reported still listening to AM or FM, and 62 percent of people turned it on at least once a day. As further evidence, 67 percent said the radio was their main form of audio listening when behind the wheel.

http://jalopnik.com/am-fm-radio-is-still-popular-thanks-to-cars-1558692811

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Quartz reported today on a Pew Research study that shows in 2013, 91 percent of Americans over the age of 12 still listen to the radio at least on a weekly basis. That's down just 5 percent from 2001. People listening in their cars still makes up 44 percent of the radio audience, compared with 29 percent at home or 15 percent at work.

Even more interesting is that a full 81 percent of people are listening to the AM/FM stations. That, however, might change a little more as Internet connectivity reaches more cars.

 

Or best read this:

http://www.diamundialradio.org/2015/en/content/celebrating-radio-statistics.html

http://www.newsgeneration.com/broadcast-resources/radio-facts-and-figures/

 

Many people still listen to the radio while driving. It's much more convenient and easier to use than setting it on the phone. And again, better sound.

[Sauron]

34 minutes ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

That is debatable at best. You do not buy a phone for the amount of features that it has, but rather how useful the phone itself is to your use case. As much as some people would love to deny it, the iPhone wins most of the time from a purely practical standpoint. As mentioned earlier, a good amount of these features that Android that (that iPhones do not) are either tacked on solely for the sake of marketing, or rushed to the door out of impatience. Remember when people were loudly screaming that Android phones had Adobe Flash support where Apple were "too stupid to allow such a fabulous technology"? Take a look at where that went.

And do you remember when people were saying the iphone 4 had the perfect screen size and aspect ratio? What happened to that? Or how the "retina" screen was apparently so superior to other phones until it got left behind, and now higher resolutions are suddenly a gimmick? Technology like expandable storage and dual sim have been around for ages and are in no way rushed or incomplete. Granted, radio may not be the most useful thing in the world nowadays, but it's there on pretty much every other phone.

14 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

And 50GB of iCloud storage is $1/ month, 200GB is $3/month, 1TB is $10/month, and 2TB is $20/month. So again, 32GB with 50GB of iCloud storage is enough for the VAST majority of people. Sure, you'll have people who will need terabytes of space to store all the videos they shoot, but that is by far not the majority, and even then, that's technically an option. A 2tb micro sd card is how much exactly?

It's funny how we went from sd cards being "too slow" and "holding phones back" to the cloud being the second coming. You know very well that cloud storage is inherently far slower than an sd card, and the seeming low cost doesn't take into account the internet fees. Wi Fi doesn't count, because at home I can have a storage server and save my stuff there with significantly cheaper hdd storage. But when I'm outside, on a trip, which is when I'm most likely to use my phone for pictures, video or music (I'm the guy who'll bring a mirrorless, but when I said the camera was pretty irrelevant I was immediately told that wasn't the case) the only kind of storage that is suitable for that use is either internal or an sd card. I'm not going to upload a 12GiB file to the cloud then and there with my internet contract (which by the way, is a lot cheaper thanks to having a second sim dedicated to it), even if it didn't take 8 hours.

 

Just to show what that last rethorical question sounds like,

"I can buy a 2tb hdd for 80$, 1/3rd as much as I'd pay for a year of iCloud, a 2tb NVMe SSD is how much exactly?"

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

5 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Incorrect. Expandable storage like microSD card are getting faster as well. Like USB flash drive, you have different speeds.

True, but the top grade SD cards are not exactly fast by current phone standards. Remember that it is essentially in the process of being phased out by UFS.

8 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Heumm no. NAND last for a crazy amount of time. Your typical cheapo chips (used in cheapo flash drives, for example), supports 100,000  program–erase cycles per cell. Added that with technologies like SSDs in evenly spreading usage, and you increase by a significant amount. We have 1,000,000 program–erase cycles these days (introduced back all the way in 2008), and now we are talking about "self healing" NANDs (introduced back in 2012) which can push 100 million program-erase cycles.

That is a hardware-level failure. That does not take into account the unrecoverable soft errors, of which is an exponential probability instead of a flat number.

11 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

NFC makes payment easier, and getting things (say URL to jump to an app store page). Those applications are now common in US and Canada, and probably other places in the world, and those who don't, it is definitely coming.

Again, The use of cards can make this more worthwhile case for the end users. What would you rather pull out in the middle of a drive-through, for instance?

13 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

It allows you to have 1 phone for both business and personal. Many employees have their employers give them a business phone used to do business activities, such as contacting or receiving calls from manufactures, clients, between employees, and more. The idea, is that it allows you to keep your life personal, and makes it much easier for you to not have to change phone numbers when you change jobs, or role in the company.

You know there is a reason for this, right? Keeping a second phone helps keep your personal things from intervening with businesses matters, and it is more than just phone numbers. Also, since they receive the phones themselves, this benefit is once again moot.

18 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

OLED has advanced a lot over the years. Yes, blue still wears out quickly, but that is why OLED screen have more blue than anything, and with the high density of pixels on a phone, you don't see the sub pixels being of different size, keeping the content sharp. Also, OLED display controllers, with the help in dropping of price of color processors, the colors are automatically adjust based on wear and your settings. Hence why we have OLED TVs now.

Yes it has advanced, but that does not mean that the problems have disappeared. In fact, all we have thus far to solve both issues (blue diode and burn-in) are hacky workarounds, not actual solutions.

21 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Exactly.. PPI matters, and the higher the resolution, the higher PPI, and the smoother the text, and the more detailed your images/icons, etc, are. That is why things looks better on your phone, than on your desktop monitor.

Only to a point. You know what "diminishing returns" is by any chance? The point where you fail to see the finest details has already been passed by the iPhone 4, a dinosaur of a phone that many people are still happily using. Exceeding 350 PPI nets you no benefit, unless you actually intend to glue the phone to your eye sockets.

26 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Oh! Are you saying that you magically acquired the ability of listen to digital signal?

Here is a wonderful sound clip of a popular song, I am sure you'll recognize it.

Comically missing the point. I already said that audio is analog, so why you brought up this red herring is beyond me. What I was saying is that having a 3.5mm cable should be defacto replaced by USB and the like, and have the DAC/amp closer to the physical drivers. This method significantly reduces signal noise, and modifies the 'sound quality' variable to the headphones; the end devices no longer contribute.

31 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Hmm yea... no... try it, it is very convenient.

Huh...? When you that the two thing I have mentioned, and they are literally everywhere, why on Earth should I settle on a less stable solution? And yes, I have tried wireless charging, and while it worked well, it was quite slow and was rather redundant.

35 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

See my previous post

You haven't really provided much of a valid use case, so I believe this is settled then. Radio is practically obsolete.

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

16 minutes ago, Bouzoo said:

There is,  better quality sound. Apple is aware among other things of that and that is why they are giving the adapter. Not a good excuse since wireless ear/headphones have a long way to go. I'm all for removing it when the tech improves, but not yet. Hell, even the 7 and 6S have exactly the same dimensions. They gained absolutely nothing by removing it. Absolutely nothing.

 

And I can count with 3 fingers the amount of people that don't turn on the radio while driving, almost everyone does it. Don't trust me? Let's look at the surveys:

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/04/13/am-fm-radio-still-popular-cars-study/

http://jalopnik.com/am-fm-radio-is-still-popular-thanks-to-cars-1558692811

 

Or best read this:

http://www.diamundialradio.org/2015/en/content/celebrating-radio-statistics.html

http://www.newsgeneration.com/broadcast-resources/radio-facts-and-figures/

 

The majority still listens to the radio while driving. It's much more convenient and easier to use than setting it on the phone. And again, better sound.

For the love of...

 

I am not even going to bother, as I have written about this already

19 hours ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

Now let us look at the nature of analog transmission. An analogous signal is a sinusoidal pattern, relative to frequency (bit rate) and amplitude (power). The problem with that is that the lengthier the travel distance between the source and destination, the more noise will be introduced into the circuit, which in this case translates to data corruption. If you recall, this was one of the major reasons that VGA connectors are so widely reviled nowadays. Now how does that compare to a digital signal? A digital signal is binary, only ones and zeros, meaning that the factor of data loss is completely removed for all intents and purposes. With a 3.5mm, you would risk losing some audio quality in busier environments if you have a particularly lengthy cable, and also have to deal with the awkward situation of a semi-functional set of cans when the cable starts fraying. With a USB-type connection, it either works to the best of it's abilities or it does not work at all. In addition, you can have the amp/dac units much closer to the headphones, which provides not only a cleaner overall end signal, but potentially does a higher-end conversion over what most mobile devices (including laptops) have packed in.

 

And radio transmission, especially on FM, is rather flaky, so "better sound" relies on some rather inconvenient factors. There is no such thing as a high end or low end receiver, as it is simply a piece of crystal attached to a set of wires.

 

[Dabombinable]

27 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

For most people cloud storage is still the best alternative. Most people aren't tech-y people. They don't want to have to deal with syncing their phone and backing it up to their computer. They don't want to have to deal with downloading and transferring music (that's why Pandora, Spotify, and Apple Music are so popular). The average consumer just wants things to work. They don't want to deal with any of the back end stuff. 

What's so difficult about plugging a device in, and just doing a drag and drop of the files (or removing an SD card and doing the same? Its a lot simpler than messing with cloud storage. And it just works BTW, regardless of your mobile's carrier.

[GoodBytes]

47 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

And 50GB of iCloud storage is $1/ month, 200GB is $3/month, 1TB is $10/month, and 2TB is $20/month. So again, 32GB with 50GB of iCloud storage is enough for the VAST majority of people. Sure, you'll have people who will need terabytes of space to store all the videos they shoot, but that is by far not the majority, and even then, that's technically an option. A 2tb micro sd card is how much exactly?

Wonderful! So now you need:

• Earpods neck holder thingy
• Earpods
• Cloud storage
• Expensive data plan for radio
• Or Pay high fees because you pass your monthly limit

So let's see.... in Canadian...

$220 for the wireless earpods

+ ~$15 for the neck holder thingy

+ $1.29 per month for 50GB, so: $15.48 per year

+ $88 for 8GB data plan service per month... so say 6GB plan normally one would get ('cause I can't find a reasonable price 3GB plan, before that is 1GB), that is $66. So a difference of $22 per month more. So that means: $264 per year

 

That iPhone 7 is becoming a great deal!

 

So, if we JUST look at storage, and assuming you don't pass your limit:

That is: $264 + $15.48 = 279.48$ per year... say you keep your phone for 2 years, and buy another.. that is $558.98.

 

Let's see here...

Oh, a 4K recording ready microSD card 200GB, which will be faster than your internet connection... is....

https://www.amazon.ca/SanDisk-Ultra-200GB-Micro-SDSDQUAN-200G-G4A/dp/B00V62XBQQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1473787697&sr=8-2&keywords=256gb+micro+sd+card

$109.98 Canadian. AND you have more storage (200GB vs 50GB), AND you get to keep the card for your next phone, or other purposes.

 

Makes sense.

 

You guys needs to watch your expenses.. things add up QUICKLY. And this applies to everything you buy.

 

 

Quote

Whether or not it's a problem doesn't matter, that's just how things are. But even ignoring the fact that people upgrade frequently, my three year old 5S still has great battery life (and it can be replaced if it goes to shit in its useful lifespan anyway). 

Most people need to change their battery after 2-3 years. But if you have user replaceable battery, you can do it easily, else you need to go to a shop and do it (assuming you don't have the tool and technical know how to do it at home), and you need to pay the guy doing it.

 

Quote

That also not exactly true. Sure, some people would prefer that, but most businesses don't require you to have separate phones, and those that do will often want you to use a specific phone anyway. Not to mention, you technically should keep your personal and business phone separate...unless you want the company you work for to legally be allowed to peruse any personal information on your combination business-personal phone. 

Nha, I know people who have 2 phones, and they have asked, and while they give them a second phone and ask them to use it, there is no problem in using a dual sim phone. The only reason why company says that you need to use their specific phone, is because dual sim phones is virtually unheard off, and that the phone they provide you has been "tested" to work. But you can use a dual sim phone no problem, the people I know, both got the OK, but to be careful to not get confused which SIM card you use when doing a call.

 

 

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

13 minutes ago, Sauron said:

And do you remember when people were saying the iphone 4 had the perfect screen size and aspect ratio? What happened to that? Or how the "retina" screen was apparently so superior to other phones until it got left behind, and now higher resolutions are suddenly a gimmick? Technology like expandable storage and dual sim have been around for ages and are in no way rushed or incomplete. Granted, radio may not be the most useful thing in the world nowadays, but it's there on pretty much every other phone.

Funny enough, that is an argument I stand by to this day. Unfortunately, people have bought in to Samsung's marketing campaign that a bigger screen is somehow better, when we were all working to get the phones smaller not too long ago. It is rather sad that Apple has caved it to this artificial market "demand", but at least it is just the screen where they've done this. Higher resolution are a gimmick because you get NOTHING in value, as I had explained earlier with GoodBytes. I have already explained my piece with storage and dual sim, and you have just proven my point with the radio about having features tacked on for empty marketing.

[Dabombinable]

3 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Wonderful! So now you need:

• Earpods neck holder thingy
• Earpods
• Cloud storage
• Expensive data plan for radio
• Or Pay high fees because you pass your monthly limit

So let's see.... in Canadian...

$220 for the wireless earpods

+ ~$15 for the neck holder thingy

+ $1.29 per month for 50GB, so: $15.48 per year

+ $88 for 8GB data plan service per month... so say 6GB plan normally one would get ('cause I can't find a reasonable price 3GB plan, before that is 1GB), that is $66. So a difference of $22 per month more. So that means: $264 per year

 

That iPhone 7 is becoming a great deal!

 

So, if we JUST look at storage, and assuming you don't pass your limit:

That is: $264 + $15.48 = 279.48$

 

Let's see here...

Oh, a 4K recording ready microSD card 200GB, which will be faster than your internet connection... is....

https://www.amazon.ca/SanDisk-Ultra-200GB-Micro-SDSDQUAN-200G-G4A/dp/B00V62XBQQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1473787697&sr=8-2&keywords=256gb+micro+sd+card

$109.98 Canadian. AND you have more storage (200GB vs 50GB), AND you get to keep the card.

 

Makes sense.

 

You guys needs to watch your expenses.. things add up QUICKLY. And this applies to everything you buy.

 

 

Most people need to change their battery after 2-3 years. But if you have user replaceable battery, you can do it easily, else you need to go to a shop and do it (assuming you don't have the tool and technical know how to do it at home), and you need to pay the guy doing it.

 

Nha, I know people who have 2 phones, and they have asked, and while they give them a second phone and ask them to use it, there is no problem in using a dual sim phone. The only reason why company says that you need to use their specific phone, is because dual sim phones is virtually unheard off, and that the phone they provide you has been "tested" to work. But you can use a dual sim phone no problem, the people I know, both got the OK, but to be careful to not get confused which SIM card you use when doing a call.

 

 

Cloud storage is worse in countries that have ISP who think 8GB is a huge amount of data BTW....

[patrick3027]

41 minutes ago, Sauron said:

And? Don't you think android software can take advantage of multiple cores after 90% of mid to high end phones started using quads? The numbers you kindly provided actually show that I was right in saying it's behind in terms of performance. I made that assertion based on a sentence I misread, now I can make it based on numbers - especially when it comes to the Exynos, but the 820 also holds its own considering its relative age.

Meh, the iPhone still blows everything Android does out of the water, which leads me to believe single core performance is still the most important. 

 

Just look how the 6S blows the Note 7 out of the water here. 

 

[o0Martin]

23 minutes ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

Yes it has advanced, but that does not mean that the problems have disappeared. In fact, all we have thus far to solve both issues (blue diode and burn-in) are hacky workarounds, not actual solutions.

But the point is when it comes to new phones w/ new panels the disadvantages of OLED are very very rarely going to become an issue, and the vast majority of the time if it becomes an issue it'll be outside the usual life span of a smart phone anyway and the person would have upgraded by then, we're talking probably 5 years + for phones. 

Having OLED is nothing but an advantage in mobile devices.

 

5 minutes ago, patrick3027 said:

Just look how the 6S blows the Note 7 out of the water here. 

It's funny because my 2 year old jailbroken iPhone 6 opens a lot of the apps quicker than both the devices in this video thanks to their built in slow animations which I removed on my device. Thankfully you can remove the animations on both devices, but you do need to be jailbroken on iOS. Speed tests are useless, I can't  remember the last time I cared about processing specs on a phone. Maybe that's because I don't do mobile gaming though. 

[GoodBytes]

14 minutes ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

True, but the top grade SD cards are not exactly fast by current phone standards. Remember that it is essentially in the process of being phased out by UFS.

Sure they are.

 

14 minutes ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

That is a hardware-level failure. That does not take into account the unrecoverable soft errors, of which is an exponential probability instead of a flat number.

So then your controller is broken as it fails at doing error correction.

 

14 minutes ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

Again, The use of cards can make this more worthwhile case for the end users. What would you rather pull out in the middle of a drive-through, for instance?

?! You know we already have NFC cards... people find phone to be better.

 

14 minutes ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

You know there is a reason for this, right? Keeping a second phone helps keep your personal things from intervening with businesses matters, and it is more than just phone numbers. Also, since they receive the phones themselves, this benefit is once again moot.

If you used a dual sim phone, you can see that this is none issue. You usually have 2 modes, 2 messaging/phone app clearly identified, with 2 set of contact list depending on which phone icon you tap. Or combined, where the phone auto-switches between SIM cards based on who is calling you, and who you are calling to, same for messaging and the rest. There is no management to do.

 

14 minutes ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

Yes it has advanced, but that does not mean that the problems have disappeared. In fact, all we have thus far to solve both issues (blue diode and burn-in) are hacky workarounds, not actual solutions.

blue diode? You mean the sub pixel of an OLED (Organic Light Emitting DIODE).. yes you need blue diode to output blue color.

 

14 minutes ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

Only to a point. You know what "diminishing returns" is by any chance? The point where you fail to see the finest details has already been passed by the iPhone 4, a dinosaur of a phone that many people are still happily using. Exceeding 350 PPI nets you no benefit, unless you actually intend to glue the phone to your eye sockets.

Yes, and I believe on a 5.5-5.7inch screen 1440p is the perfect resolution, not 1080p.

 

14 minutes ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

Comically missing the point. I already said that audio is analog, so why you brought up this red herring is beyond me. What I was saying is that having a 3.5mm cable should be defacto replaced by USB and the like, and have the DAC/amp closer to the physical drivers. This method significantly reduces signal noise, and modifies the 'sound quality' variable to the headphones; the end devices no longer contribute.

Or you know, put decent hardware in the phone to start with, and cutting the cost of headphones/earphones significantly, allowing you to get better sound for your money, assuming you spend the same, or gain some nice savings.

 

14 minutes ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

Huh...? When you that the two thing I have mentioned, and they are literally everywhere, why on Earth should I settle on a less stable solution? And yes, I have tried wireless charging, and while it worked well, it was quite slow and was rather redundant.

You haven't really provided much of a valid use case, so I believe this is settled then. Radio is practically obsolete.

Ok, so while you have wire everywhere, that a power adapter on your floor for a spot to charge your know, or a dangling wire on your table, you now have a nice pad on a table which you can put anywhere, and deposit your phone on. And with features like phone integration with your system, which is what Microsoft is actively working on, all your notifications and messages, appears on your desktop or laptop computer, so you don't need to pick up the phone. Also, you keep the phone from falling, or being step on by accident as it has no cable attached to it, and well it isn't on the floor (depending on your setup).

[Sauron]

5 minutes ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

Funny enough, that is an argument I stand by to this day. Unfortunately, people have bought in to Samsung's marketing campaign that a bigger screen is somehow better, when we were all working to get the phones smaller not too long ago. It is rather sad that Apple has caved it to this artificial market "demand", but at least it is just the screen where they've done this. Higher resolution are a gimmick because you get NOTHING in value, as I had explained earlier with GoodBytes. I have already explained my piece with storage and dual sim, and you have just proven my point with the radio about having features tacked on for empty marketing.

Phones were getting smaller when the screen's only function was to display 200 char messages and the keyboard only included 12 buttons. Now a smartphone is much more than just a messaging device and it is widely used for content consumption. A 4" screen is not good enough anymore. It is more uncomfortable to type on, more awkward to watch a video on, too small to fit more than a couple of lines of a web page with text at a readable size and does not significantly improve your ability to grip the phone if you don't have child sized hands. My own hands are not particularly big but I can use my 5" phone with no effort. Maybe you don't care, but stop pretending there are no advantages to a larger screen. And it's just as much bs that you get nothing out of a higher resolution than the iphone offers. Granted, 4k and 1440p at that size are too much, but 1080p at 5" is noticeable if you are not blind. And it doesn't require awkward scaling, unlike the non standard, barely more than 720p resolution that an iphone offers.

 

Tell me, when is the last time you heard anyone market their phone with "radio support"? And yet it's just a feature tacked on for marketing... sure. Just scroll through this thread and you'll find quite a few people who do listen to radio on their phone. And you're still avoiding the fundamental issue that you're paying more NOT to have these features.

[79wjd]

4 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Wonderful! So now you need:

• Earpods neck holder thingy
• Earpods
• Cloud storage
• Expensive data plan for radio
• Or Pay high fees because you pass your monthly limit

So let's see.... in Canadian...

$220 for the wireless earpods

+ ~$15 for the neck holder thingy

+ $1.29 per month for 50GB, so: $15.48 per year

+ $88 for 8GB data plan service per month... so say 6GB plan normally one would get ('cause I can't find a reasonable price 3GB plan, before that is 1GB), that is $66. So a difference of $22 per month more. So that means: $264 per year

 

That iPhone 7 is becoming a great deal!

 

So, if we JUST look at storage, and assuming you don't pass your limit:

That is: $264 + $15.48 = 279.48$

 

Let's see here...

Oh, a 4K recording ready microSD card 200GB, which will be faster than your internet connection... is....

https://www.amazon.ca/SanDisk-Ultra-200GB-Micro-SDSDQUAN-200G-G4A/dp/B00V62XBQQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1473787697&sr=8-2&keywords=256gb+micro+sd+card

$109.98 Canadian. AND you have more storage (200GB vs 50GB), AND you get to keep the card.

 

Makes sense.

 

You guys needs to watch your expenses.. things add up QUICKLY. And this applies to everything you buy.

 

 

Most people need to change their battery after 2-3 years. But if you have user replaceable battery, you can do it easily, else you need to go to a shop and do it (assuming you don't have the tool and technical know how to do it at home), and you need to pay the guy doing it.

 

Nha, I know people who have 2 phones, and they have asked, and while they give them a second phone and ask them to use it, there is no problem in using a dual sim phone. The only reason why company says that you need to use their specific phone, is because dual sim phones is virtually unheard off, and that the phone they provide you has been "tested" to work. But you can use a dual sim phone no problem, the people I know, both got the OK, but to be careful to not get confused which SIM card you use when doing a call.

 

 

I'm getting really sick of arguing with you. Any time you argue for or against anything you purposely choose facts that support your arguments and ignore those that don't. 

 

No, you don't NEED airpods. You can use regular headphones with an adapter, lightning headphones, or literally ANY other bluetooth headphone. Again people ALREADY use streaming services as their main source of media consumption. 

 

So, morel ike $110 vs. $36/month for 200gb of cloud storage. So, then that would mean it would take three years for the SD card to cost the same amount. 

 

So you know two people who work for companies that don't care. A lot -- most that want a separate company phone -- want a specific model device. 

[Bouzoo]

1 minute ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

For the love of...

 

I am not even going to bother, as I have written about this already

 

And radio transmission, especially on FM, is rather flaky, so "better sound" relies on some rather inconvenient factors. There is no such thing as a high end or low end receiver, as it is simply a piece of crystal attached to a set of wires.

 

Don't get me wrong, I didn't mean it like "yeah, FM signal is better than what you'd get on the internet", it was more like "yes, it's most likely that your car will have better sound with its system than your phone with some ear/headphones while listening to internet radio", even when streaming to your car via Bluetooth since sadly, that is still not that good as well, and the cars that have an option to connect it via a cable are still a huge minority. 

 

Wait a second, I was not talking about the USB/3.5 jack or cables for that matter, but about your part:

Quote

While I understand that audio is by definition analog, that is no excuse to have a hanging analog cable with you... move on!

Since the only way to not have an analog cable is if you are using wireless. Are you talking about the fact that they are connected via USB-C via cable or about the receiver for EarPods? Because your paragraph sounds like you're talking about cable via USB-C and I was talking about your post about wireless. 

 

And  this part:

Quote

Radio - I can count with one finger the amount of people who even bother to turn it on in the car. For the 2% that care, we have internet radio for crying out loud!

Which is dead on wrong. The internet is full of sources, and I've posted a few. 

[GoodBytes]

1 minute ago, djdwosk97 said:

I'm getting really sick of arguing with you. Any time you argue for or against anything you purposely choose facts that support your arguments and ignore those that don't. 

 

No, you don't NEED airpods. You can use regular headphones with an adapter, lightning headphones, or literally ANY other bluetooth headphone. Again people ALREADY use streaming services as their main source of media consumption. 

 

So, morel ike $110 vs. $36/month for 200gb of cloud storage. So, then that would mean it would take three years for the SD card to cost the same amount. 

 

So you know two people who work for companies that don't care. A lot -- most that want a separate company phone -- want a specific model device. 

You didn't even read my post. LOL!

 

I said:

Quote

So, if we JUST look at storage, and assuming you don't pass your limit:

That is: $264 + $15.48 = 279.48$

I am counter arguing with you, not informing the public.. so I present facts that goes against yours, as yours were presented already. We know them, we read them. That is how it works. You are tired of arguing with me, because you have nothing else to say to country my counter points.

 

The whole discussion on the headphones is that wireless is better, hence you don't need the wired one. So ASSUMING that is try, you need to buy wireless ones. And the Apples ones are around the cost of other solutions which one can assume to be decent at worst, so that is good. If you use the adapter, you admit that you need a 3.5mm jack for the phone, and you demonstrates how important it is. Even if you buy the wireless ones later on (or others), it doesn't matter, you add it to the total cost of the phone during its lifetime to you (say 2 or 3 years).

 

[Kimmers]

The Verge has never been iVerge for a very very long time.

 

The only people who call them iVerge are fanboys who are intolerant to anything other than their own opinions.

[79wjd]

51 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

You didn't even read my post. LOL!

 

I said:

I am counter arguing with you, not informing the public.. so I present facts that goes against yours, as yours were presented already. We know them, we read them. That is how it works. You are tired of arguing with me, because you have nothing else to say to country my counter points.

 

The whole discussion on the headphones is that wireless is better, hence you don't need the wired one. So ASSUMING that is try, you need to buy wireless ones. And the Apples ones are around the cost of other solutions which one can assume to be decent at worst, so that is good. If you use the adapter, you admit that you need a 3.5mm jack for the phone, and you demonstrates how important it is. Even if you buy the wireless ones later on (or others), it doesn't matter, you add it to the total cost of the phone during its lifetime to you (say 2 or 3 years).

 

your argument is predicated on the fact that streaming is more expensive than not, due to data costs and what not. Well, people ALREADY stream. So the cost of the service, that they're ALREADY paying for, is moot. 

 

No, you don't NEED wireless to stream though. There are also advantages to having audio go over a port which can provide power and data for other functionality, not to mention allow for headphones with superior DACs. And again, no there are plenty of good non-truly wireless bluetooth headphones which are good and cheaper (Jaybird X2, BackBeat Go Pro 2, etc... -- many of which are in the $50-$100 range), then you also have the cheap chinese knockoffs that are $15-$20. 

 

And that is also ignoring the fact that there is a good chance anyone who bought a different phone would end up with wireless headphones anyway, so again, no you can't add that to the cost. 

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

20 minutes ago, Bouzoo said:

Wait a second, I was not talking about the USB/3.5 jack or cables for that matter, but about your part:

Since the only way to not have an analog cable is if you are using wireless. Are you talking about the fact that they are connected via USB-C via cable or about the receiver for EarPods? Because your paragraph sounds like you're talking about cable via USB-C and I was talking about your post about wireless.

And now I am confused... since when was I talking about wireless audio? There was a reason I had specified "analog" in analog cables; if I was indeed talking about wireless, I would never have mentioned it. I had believed that the replacement with digital cables (such as USB-C) was clearly implied. The person talking about wireless was @djdwosk97, while @GoodBytes was talking about... some spaghetti logic.