Best smart phone?: Page 28 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Best smart phone?

Ivansen

I have a Sony Xperia Z5 Compact, and it's been a bit of hit and miss. At this point in time, with the Marshmallow update, it's very good. Nice size, and good value.

Mirth

What's been the major issue with Xperia? I've got the Xperia tablet and it's a beauty.

Ivansen

It's been a bit slow and jittery, but this became much better after the update to Marshmallow. The camera is still way too slow in opening, like 4-5 seconds, and not that brilliant taking photos. I had issues with the battery draining, but a clean install fixed that. Playing audio over bluetooth the sound will sometimes be stuttery. The fingerprint sensor doesn't work every fifth attempt or so.

Qwiss

jones wrote:
There's no need at all to get rid of the jack, the talk I've read from that direction was usually either Apple fanboys or people championing progress for progress' sake and ironically the people who'll lap Apple's shit up are going to listen to 128kbps YouTube rips on their shitty Beats resulting in the sound quality of $5 trash cans. I think most manufacturers know most of this already thankfully and won't drop the jack anytime soon.

Exactly. Who is going around listening to uncompressed digital audio on their phone?

Rex

I don't make a big deal about sound quality on my phone, but I much prefer cordless headphones because I think the cord is pretty damn annoying.

jones

Rex wrote:
I don't make a big deal about sound quality on my phone, but I much prefer cordless headphones because I think the cord is pretty damn annoying.

There's no need for the "but" in that sentence, if you prefer wireless headphones you most definitely cannot care too much about sound quality. All wireless cans I tried have horrible resolution from treble mids to bass, constant static and are extremely overpriced, you can get wired cans for 30 quid that are better than wireless ones for 200.

Burnwinter

Rex: bought a waterproof Walkman headband for lap swimming recently and I've taken to wearing it on my commute because of the convenience of not having to deal with the cord. Quite like this setup, but I like thrashing a playlist for a week or two so the limits of a non-visual interface don't bother me.

banduan

MY Xperia is rather obviously on its last legs. Am severely tempted to take the leap into the ultra expensive new productivity windows phone.

Irishgunner

Anyone have an iPhone 6 SE? I'm thinking of getting one, my carrier is offering it for 27€ if I renew my current contract for another 2 years.

Claudius

Interesting step by Apple yesterday. They've conceded the platform market share battle, and are just targeting three things: 1) monetizing their Beats acquisition and increase revenue per customer with their move to lightning earphones, and 2) improving the user experience through better audio, and the longer battery life and thinner phones that comes with losing the 3.5mm jack, and 3) better controlling peripherals, creating more revenue sources.

On the first, they could've adopted USB-C as a standard for iPhone ports, but lightning means sales of Beats headphones and royalties on sales of headphones by 3rd parties. They should do quite well on this front.

The second related point around achieving user experience will have to be a wait-and-see. Battery life is good. But is there real demand from the average person to hear better music? And do folks really want an even thinner phone?

The third is just greed.

Savz

Airpods... oh my god what a con. €160 too. FOR EAR PHONES!

I bought these for £30, they are so good. Those damn Airpods are going to go missing.

Claudius

are those bluetooth?

QuincyAbeyie

Looks like cable. I refuse to wear big headsets walking in public or sitting on the bus.

Klaus

The biggest issue with this change isn't the headphone connection anyway. It's the DRM. Apple have by design always been geared towards fenced-off technology and locking users out from as many features as humanly possible. The analog 3.5 mm headphone jack was a nuisance for them in this regard.

Cory Doctorow wrote an excellent piece about the past and future implications of DRM a year or two back: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2014/feb/05/digital-rights-management

Qwiss

Quincy Abeyie wrote:
Looks like cable. I refuse to wear big headsets walking in public or sitting on the bus.

Me too. I've got a pair of ok Sennheisers for at home but out and about I just use a pair of ear buds. Thing is they don't cost €160 and when they fall out they dangle from the wire. Plus I wear them walking too and from the pub sometimes, no way I don't lose airpods in that situation.

Claudius

IMe too. I've even gotten to the point where I no longer take my noise canceling headphones on flights anymore. Travel so much that I need to keep things as light as possible so just use noise isolating ear buds.

I was on the verge of buying a new iPhone. And now with no iTunes tying me to iPhones any longer, I'm seriously contemplating my android options. I don't want to spend $200 on a pair of decent earphones only because they have a $100 premium due to being a lightning device with Apple royalties. And no, the 5 hour airpods that lack a snug fit in the ear are not an option.

Burnwinter

Work out which knockoff consumer electronics outfit is going to produce off-brand $10 dongles that convert Apple wireless twattery to 3.5mm headphone jack.
Invest heavily in their shares.

Aside from anything else, people will need them to use all the obsolescent auxiliary inputs on their car stereos with their recently upgraded iPhones for a few more years.

Apple suck by the way, the negative externalities of the shit they do are enormous.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth

Bryant

jones wrote:
Rex wrote:
I don't make a big deal about sound quality on my phone, but I much prefer cordless headphones because I think the cord is pretty damn annoying.

There's no need for the "but" in that sentence, if you prefer wireless headphones you most definitely cannot care too much about sound quality. All wireless cans I tried have horrible resolution from treble mids to bass, constant static and are extremely overpriced, you can get wired cans for 30 quid that are better than wireless ones for 200.

What are your favorite cans jones? I have the sennheiser hd 598 and momentum in ears right now.

I am on the apple upgrade program for the iphone 7, but i think ill skip this and let my contract with them run out.

jones

Claudius wrote:
The second related point around achieving user experience will have to be a wait-and-see. Battery life is good. But is there real demand from the average person to hear better music? And do folks really want an even thinner phone?

First off no, there is no demand from the average person to hear better music. Apple know this, that's why they bought Beats. Second, as was mentioned earlier in this thread, the top end of aural capacity of human ears is nowhere near what is transferrable via 3.5 jack - it's a horseshit exercise to milk customers and to push brand "loyalty" to the next level and nothing else

jones

Bryant wrote:
jones wrote:
There's no need for the "but" in that sentence, if you prefer wireless headphones you most definitely cannot care too much about sound quality. All wireless cans I tried have horrible resolution from treble mids to bass, constant static and are extremely overpriced, you can get wired cans for 30 quid that are better than wireless ones for 200.

What are your favorite cans jones? I have the sennheiser hd 598 and momentum in ears right now.

I am on the apple upgrade program for the iphone 7, but i think ill skip this and let my contract with them run out.

I'm using several cans, depending on the circumstances and type of music I'm listening to. My favourite earphones in general (even though technically speaking they aren't the best) are the UE triple.fi10, their resolution is while on a high level not the best but their tuning suits bass-heavy music the best by far - they are basically what Beats would sound like if they weren't complete cancer. For singer-songwriter stuff I'm using either the StageDiver SD-2 or UE900. For overhead phones I'm using my Beyerdynamic DT-770 phones although I'll probably upgrade those pretty soon

« Previous Page Next Page »