Berliner: have you gotten your Evo yet? If so, how is it?
Berliner: have you gotten your Evo yet? If so, how is it?
My contract doesn't expire until around August, so it'll be a little while yet for me. I am hearing there is a rush in a lot of places though, which surprises me. I didn't think they really advertised it that much.
Winter is Coming: Summer 2011.
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Probably just as well -- by then the Froyo situation will presumably be worked out (Sprint just plugged the hole that allowed rooting the Evo to install 2.2), along with the SD card bug.Originally Posted by Berliner
Yeah, it sounds like a hit... This is a good thing, especially for iPhone users -- who will see more innovation from Apple with the increased competition. It might be a bad thing for Sprint, as their network is potentially not be ready for a popular smartphone.
I dropped by a sprint store and took a look at it. It's OK I guess. I don't know how impressed you can be by something that's locked and tethered and you can't really do anything with it. It didn't feel too heavy to me, so that's good.
Winter is Coming: Summer 2011.
I hate that about playing with shit in stores. You cannot get a feel for a cell phone with a fucking leash glued to it. Good to hear about the weight though: a couple of reviews said it was kind of heavy.
I'm leaning toward getting the EVO, mainly because I'm due for a new phone and both my ipod and camera are broken, but what I read about the battery life is concerning. I want the ability to walk around taking pictures and listening to music all day, having the phone there if I need it, and maybe play a game or two on the subway home. I don't plan to do much video chatting or spend a lot of time on Hulu. Is this the device for me?
I'd say wait a little to get more comprehensive reviews about the battery life. There are also tricks you can employ to not use up that much battery. One of the gadget sites had a guide for the Evo, but I can't find it anymore. Maybe someone else can put it here.
Also, usually third parties will come out with batteries that will hold more juice but with the same size of the original battery. They already have one with 17% more battery life, but that's not really impressive to me. Hopefully they'll make better ones.
Winter is Coming: Summer 2011.
Naw dude, this is what I'm talkin' about:
Now, obviously, ABC and Netflix don't have iPhone apps (yet) -- the above is strictly an iPad 3G on 2GB/mo. discussion. But what this tells me is: if ILIS wants to stream one or two shows a month, stream radio one or two times a week, upload some photos, send some emails and browse some web, he's going to need the 2GB data plan for the iPhone... Or he's going to need to use wifi for some of that activity.To find out what you could really watch on the new plans, we ran some tests on an iPad 3G. Here's what we found:
YouTube: When we watched a 2-minute YouTube video, 2MB was used; so if 2GB is 2048MB, one could theoretically watch 17 hours of programming on YouTube before using up all your bandwidth for the month. This assumes you do NOTHING else on your iPad that eats up bandwidth.
Netflix: When we watched an episode of Netflix (Arrested Development) running 21:54, 55MB of bandwidth was used; so, let's say 22min is 55MB, then Netflix consumes 2.5MB for every minute of streaming video watched. Therefore:
A half hour TV show (~22min.) on Netflix would consume 55MB of data
An hour-long TV show (~43min.) on Netflix would consume 110MB of data
An hour-long movie on Netflix would consume 150MB of data
An hour and a half movie on Netflix would consume 225MB of data
A two-hour movie on Netflix would consume 300MB of data
** In total, you could watch 13.65 hours of programming on Netflix before using up all your bandwidth. This assumes you do nothing else on your iPad that month to eat up your bandwidth. (And remember: the average American watches over 150 hours of television per month alone.)
ABC App: We watched an episode of Better Off Ted, running 25:41 with ads used 97MB. For simplicity's sake, let's average it out to 26min and 100MB. That's ~4MB/minute.
A half hour TV Show on ABC streaming would consume an estimated 100MB
An hour-long TV Show on ABC streaming would consume an estimated 200MB
** In total, you could watch 10.24 hours of programming on ABC Streaming App before using up all your bandwidth. Again, this assumes you do nothing else on your iPad that month.
I don't know if this is at all an accurate way to estimate it, but if streaming audio at 64kbps uses the same bandwidth as saving an audio file at 64kbps takes disk space, then you can expect to use about 30 MB of bandwidth per hour. Not too bad if you only need to listen in the car for an hour a day once a week, although that would end up being more than half your data use on the $15/200MB plan.
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/06/...about-android/
Another option is to just try it for a month, and if you think the battery is draining too quickly, look into something else. God I hate that Sprint shit that comes with the phone.
Winter is Coming: Summer 2011.
Really interesting article on branding, fanboyism and how none of us can help it when we argue that our shit is the best.
http://gizmodo.com/5555953/fanboyism-and-brand-loyalty
To be honest, I probably suffer from the opposite of some of that. Growing up a pretty poor and being made fun of not being able to afford the cool brands makes me (probably often irrationally) lash out at brands like Starbucks, Apple, etc. I don't know if I'm as pro google as I am anti apple.
On a side note, at my work, it's kind of a sad seeing China embrace branding the way it has these days. On the one hand, brands are going to important for it to shift towards a value added consumer economy and away from poverty. On the other hand, it's disturbing to see a country with roots in Buddhism become obsessed with materialistic status. A meal from McDonald's costs about as much as what those workers at Foxconn make in a month. But kids in China are obsessed with it, and the nouveau riche think it's Western haute cuisine. You can buy an incredibly delicious meal, like a several course banquet, for the same price as a big mac value meal, and you won't end up with the health problems that's going to become epidemic as the country shifts to Western style diets and lifestyles.
Uh, phones right? I do find it funny that the website who hired a body language interpreter to try to decipher Jobs and Schmidt's psyches wrote that article.
Winter is Coming: Summer 2011.
Actually they didn't: it was reprinted from You Are Not So Smart (worst name for a blog ever?). No way Gizmodo would ever be that insightful or self-aware.
similar topic are you guys still enjoying your IPADs or has the allure worn off a bit? I picked one up last week and didn't want to put it down. I just kept chanting 'want' in my head.
Free thought doesn't cost that much!
Yeah, I use it every day to read blogs and AST and stuff. Still love it. The only problem is that my wife and I thought we'd be able to share it, and that she could read books on it in bed at night, but if I have a script to read I'm using it for that, which means she hasn't had a chance to read anything on it yet. It's become quite the marital schism.
the tiered plans suck. i checked out my usage. most months it's 0.3 GB, but a few times i went over. 1.8 GB, 2.1 GB, and last month, 6.1 GB. no clue how i blew through that, since i wasn't using my phone any differently than normal.
anyway, i need to keep the unlimited plan because i don't want to just eek out over 2.0GB and get charged another $10/month. what's more, no way am i paying $20/mo to tether. especially since, due to the fact that my 3G will be my primary internet connection from home, and i use the internet a lot. when i'm illegally tethering all the time on my unlimited plan, i'm gonna hit 10 GB a month easily. i hope the at&t people don't come after me. unless my new neighbours get wifi and let me onto their network, i couldn't get home internet even if i wanted to. damn you charming old poorly wired houses!! damn you!!
dear at&t... please lower the prices on your tiered data plans or increase the amount of data at each tier, find some better way to charge me for texts, and please offer smaller phone minute plans. i've had my phone for less than a year and i've got almost 4000 rollover minutes. despite my obvious data hoggage (6.1 GB!!), i don't think i've ever used more than 25 phone minutes a month.
AT&T has moved their upgrade dates and instead of being eligible in two months, I'm up now. Either way my contract runs until February and I knew I'd have to make this decision at some point. My 3G works fine and I've never really had any problems with it. The new iPhone is going to have to blow me away to make me upgrade now. I guess the good thing is that if I break or lose the phone in the next 8 months I won't have to worry about spending ~$600 on a replacement.
You can also change to one of the new data plans now, which I'm pretty sure I'm going to do.
My upgrade got moved up too. It was in December and now I'm fully eligible. Which is awesome because even if my upgrade wasn't moved up, I was going to get the new iPhone launch day regardless (I've got about $250 in Apple giftcards burning a hole in my wallet).
Mine got moved up even though my contract ends in January, proving that it's not just a 6-month thing (or maybe it's exactly a 6-month thing, since I bought my phone on Jan 4th).
Anyway, I'm not falling for it. This looks like a desperation move on the part of AT&T to lock in as many customers for 2 more years as possible so that when the Verizon (or Sprint, or both) iPhone comes out, they can extract their new "double" penalty ($350, up from $175) for early termination, or keep as many people from bolting as possible. I mean, if I didn't have any problems with the AT&T network I'd be all over the new phone, but as it stands I gotta keep my eyes on the prize, which is an iPhone on a carrier that works.
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