Be Excellent To Each Other

Quick dash to carphone warehouse at lunch and, as predicted, I now have an S4. Countdown to obsolescence begins. 4 days Remaining

Yay! My SIMs have switched over at last.

I need to do that, but I'm so lazy I'm just carrying two phones.

I did it. Aren't I good?

*pats head*

While the Samsung-iness of the OS sometimes makes me frown, the phone itself is a lovely bit of kit.

I've even used the stylus about twice (and the phone beeped at me when I left it behind once).

Download nova launcher. Pretty much standard UI with extra configuration options

The home screens are fine - it's other bits like the gallery, folders on the apps list and fifty billion power controls that make me pull a face.

I'm getting the hang of them, though.

I didn't think the Gallery app was too bad, it's certainly much more usable than HTCs overly-complex effort.

Their implementation of folders in the app drawer is pretty ropey though, I've only fiddled with that for a few minutes but I honestly couldn't tell you how to take things out of folders once they're in there. Mrs B doesn't care so I'm not going to look into it any further but it's pretty annoying. At least you can actually order things properly now; in older versions of TouchWiz the apps were ordered by install date so you'd have all the original apps in alphabetical order followed by stuff you'd installed in date order and no way to change it. It was the most stupid fucking thing and at least they saw sense and added an option for alphabetical ordering.

If the power controls that're bothering you are the ones that appear when you swipe down the window shade thing then you can customise what appears in there.

Nothing's really "bothering" me, as such - it's just jarring after being used to using stock Android builds for so long.

Oh, except for the fucking back button being on the right.

The gallery simply didn't work for me - I couldn't scroll through my pictures. I replaced it with something from the store and everything is fine now.

Want an Android phone but hate Google services and prefer the look of Windows Phone? Nokia, somewhat bizarrely, has you covered.

They need to dip their toe in the water with this - Windows Phone will never gain enough traction now.

Unless they suddenly do something really special.

Given Microsoft's recent track record (Xbox One, Windows 8, Surface), I'd say it's unlikely.

It's a shame really. It's no secret that I'm a fan of the Windows Phone and I think it's really good. People are missing out.

It is a decent operating system, this is true, but they were far too late with it and it doesn't have any compelling reason to choose it over the two more established OSes.

If you live in the developing countries. These devices will never ship here.

@Britishnervoso You are correct, unfortunately. I find it much easier to use than Android but the Samsung Galaxy mob are a blinkered bunch according to my phone selling friend.

Earning achievements is the only unique thing it does I guess but it does do everything else well.

I like Nokia hardware, but don't want to give up google services. Will keep an eye on custom roms.

Which is compelling for a gamer who cares about achievements like you or me. Not a huge subset of the mobile consumer community at large, unfortunately.

In terms of other Android news of possible vague interest from MWC:

• Sony announced yet another flagship phone the Xperia Z2. 5.2-inch 1080p screen, 2.3 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801, 3GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage (with microSD support), 3,200mAh battery and a 20.7-megapixel. It's also waterproof as with the rest of their mobile kit these days.
• Similarly they've upgraded their high-end, and pretty well received, table to the Xperia Z2 tablet which comes with a 10.1 inch screen, Android 4.4, 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 and 3GB RAM. I was vaguely interested in this given that Google are showing no signs of ever bloody refreshing the Nexus 10 but I've just noticed that the screen on the Sony tablet would be a bit of a resolution drop so boo to that.
• The Alcatel smartbook is a twist on the concept originated, I think, by Asus with their PadFone. The gist of it is that you've got a smartphone and a 'dumb' laptop/tablet shell which you can plug the smartphone into when you want to work on the bigger form factor. So together the parts cost more than just a phone but it's cheaper than buying two dedicated high-end devices. Alcatel's twist is that instead of physically plugging the phone into the tablet shell they connect wirelessly.
• A new iteration of the YotaPhone's being shown which continues the idea of having a normal touch screen one one side and an E-Ink screen on the other. The new version bumps the specs up to keep up with the usual arms race (so 1080p screen, Snapdragon 800 CPU, etc) but also adds touch functionality to the E-Ink screen which makes much more (potentially) useful.

I like the little pen it comes with. You can scribble on screen shots.

Fans of accessories will be happy to hear that I now have a matte screen protector on my S4. It works well as an anti-glare cover and fingerprints are a thing of the past!

I also have a tech21 impactology case.

Oh yes.

So the Galaxy S5 has been announced and predictably, despite Samsung's earlier chat, there seems to be as little to recommend it over the SGS4 as there was a delta between the 4 and the 3.

0.3 seconds/photo! Come on!

Oh no! My brand new phone is obsolete!

6 days.

take it back and complain.

You should be in your cooling-off period, if you care.

Nah. A slightly better phone available doesn't make mine shit.

You are doing this wrong.

No new Nexus 7 this year apparently, they are going to move to a Nexus 8 instead, which will be annoying as I doubt that will fit in my pocket...

Forget that; where's the new bloody Nexus 10?

They are moving to a nexus 9.

My Nexus goes up to 11.

Interesting point - when the Samsung Note 1 came out everyone went apeshit about the size of the thing. It had a 5.1" screen - the same size as the Samsung Galaxy S5 will have.

I don't want anything bigger than my HTC One.

I was making that point to Mrs B just after the SGS5 announcement. When I first got the original Note I'd get questions about it from waiters, bar staff, people at nearby tables in the pub, folks at work just walking by my desk, etc; and I'm pretty sure Samsung sold a good few just from people who'd seen mine then fancied one. These days no one bats an eyelid at the bigger phones and I think you'd need to be waving something like the Xperia Z Ultra around before anyone would even look twice.

Radient Defense is a lot of fun if you like Tower Defence games, like what I do. It's free, too - you can pay to unlock weapon packs, but you don't need to.

I picked up Little Inferno last night after really enjoying a session BURNING STUFF with the PC version and would totally recommend it (albeit more for tablet rather than phone play).

The gist is you're given a Little Inferno fireplace in which to BURN STUFF. Stuff you unlock by burning other stuff. You can then buy new sets of stuff to burn using money you gain. From BURNING STUFF. So it's about BURNING STUFF. Deeply weird stuff that reacts in amusing and charming ways.

It's a bit sandbox-y but the core of it, for me at least, is the puzzles represented by the combo targets so it's definitely an actual game in that resepct. There's a slowly building and weirdly compelling story based around letters, both from your neighbour (who's also got a Little Inferno) and from a weird weather man figure. Obviously you can set fire to the letters after reading them because BURN STUFF. It's all very gorgeous and relaxing and weird and fun and I'm gagging to get back to BURNING STUFF frankly. Oh, and there's a more professional EG review here if you'd rather read that rather than me just talking about BURNING STUFF.

It's worth noting that's it's out on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS and even the Wii so there's no reason for anyone not to get it.

I've been playing around with Themer a little bit this morning. It's another launcher but the USP here is that you download pre-designed themes for it via the in-app browser and then apply them to your phone. Actually, put like that, it's not really a USP as you can download themes for all the other launchers; but Themer themes are a lot more structured compared to 'normal' themes--which typically just change your icons and maybe wallpaper-- and, crucially, a metric shitload prettier than anything else I've seen. The downside of course is it's not as configurable as you might be used to precisely because the various elements of theme are placed where they are in service of the overall design. It's free though and the process of browsing the available themes is incredibly slick (the preview function lets you swipe though high-res images of each screen the theme includes so you see exactly what it looks like before you download it) so worth a shot in my opinion.

Some of those are quite nice, but unfortunately none of them support more than 1 email account, which is a bit useless to me

My Nexus 4 died this morning.








*shops*

Joans has somehow managed to get it working. It's no longer a mobile phone though, just a phone now. Stupid non removable battery. Grrr.

s4 mini 199 on ibood today http://www.ibood.com/uk/en/

He's wired it up to the mains?

That's not a very good deal when you can get the massively superior Nexus 5 for another £100, or even the much better Moto G for the same price.

Moto G is half that price isn't it? £100 I thought.

meh, I didn't check if it was a good deal or not, that is what you lot are for.

Yeah, you're right. I think I had accidentally looked at the dollar cost for the 16GB version. The UK cost for that one is still a bit more expensive at about £135 but still much cheaper than that Galaxy thing.

The Nexus 5 was £240 in car phone warehouse last week. I'm looking out for a similar offer.