You will have to define what you mean by "best"? Cheapest? Fastest? Most features? Best built? Let's try for cheapest with the maximum features...
My last phone was a $350 Nexus 5. I used it for something like 4 YEARS (replacing the battery once). Didn't regret it a bit. But it is kinda irrelevant now, so...
Now I have a Lenovo/Motorola Moto G5 Plus that I bought in November for $170 at Costco and does almost everything I could want. It is much faster than the Nexus 5, not overly large, yet not stupid thin, has decent battery life, nice screen, is totally unlocked, works on all carriers, has no crapware, the cameras work great (but doesn't try to compete with my professional Sony), has decent sound and functionality, has a real headset jack I can plug into anything, a freaky fast fingerprint sensor on the FRONT where it is easily accessed, and has SD card support so I can have all my music and photos with me. Popped in the T-Mobile SIM card, my SD, added a magnetic USB charger and a gel case, logged in and pulled in the rest of my stuff, loaded Nova Launcher and I was in business! I wish it had an easily serviceable battery and better updates (like to the next version of Android, which was implied but still not delivered), but for $170, I consider it a MAJOR win even if it lasts me only 2 years (it has already been 9 months).
I told all my friends and family about it, and before they sold out a few months later, mot of them grabbed one and like it a lot. Why anyone would want to buy a $1000 phone, especially every couple of years, is totally beyond my comprehension, unless it is just some stupid fashion statement and they have way more dollars than sense.
>"Given the ambiguous data, $289M seems excessive"
That is a huge understatement. There is no proof Roundup caused his cancer at all, or any human cancer for that matter. Just remember where this circus is- California.... where EVERYONE is a victim and EVERYTHING causes cancer, including coffee and, somehow, Christmas tree lights.
Aside from the "punching" stuff.... +1 insightful. This has nothing to do with raising standards across the country, it has more to do with subsidies and the HUGE number of homes that don't even have what we NOW call "broadband." Until we can bring up rural areas to current standards, why do we need to elevate the definition for everyone else?
Besides, let's not pretend that most cities don't already have way, way higher rates than 25/3 right now. I think I might be on the cheapest and slowest plan on my cable company, and it is 50/6.. but they offer all the way up to 1Gb. Things have not changed do much in the last few years that would make 25/3 seem slow or even unworkable. I thought the whole point of defining "broadband" was to relay what a minimum reasonable speed would be for doing most "modern" stuff and to set targets to bring it to those who don' t have it yet. And right now, 25/3 is still quite capable of it and WAY too many people have no access to it (and no, expensive/spotty cellular data shouldn't count; and neither should expensive/weather-affected/latency-prone satellite).
>"why can't we just buy the rom? and not be forced to use there [sic] crappy emulator?"
I support reasonable copyright laws (ours have become overkill now), but it is a crazy position for Nintendo to "protect" intellectual "property" which they no longer license or sell to the public. I believe there should be a grace period of a few years or something, and if a company no longer sells or licenses their "property", they forfeit it and it should go public domain, or at least some type of public, non-commercial, free-to-use/distribute license.
Same thing with music, movies, books, software. If there is no reasonable, legal way to buy/license/obtain it, then there is really nothing left to protect because they seem to imply it has no value anymore. An example- I asked Netflix why there are so many discs that are not being replenished... their answer? Many are no longer available for them to buy anymore. Ridiculous.
>"[...]t's $250. Certainly there are people who'll have some need for the top-of-the-line, but for the vast majority of people that's a perfectly good phone. [...] The "entry level" phones will steadily advance and the "flagship" ones will argue about screen notches and stuff like that. I can't see myself buying another flagship one, and I'm sure i'm not alone."
You are not alone. My last phone was a Nexus 5. I used it for something like 4 YEARS (replacing the battery once). Now I have a Moto G5 plus that I bought in November for $170 at Costco and does almost everything I want. It is much faster than the Nexus 5, not overly large, yet not razor thin, has decent battery life, totally unlocked, works on all carriers, no crapware, a camera that works but doesn't try to compete with my professional Sony, decent sound and functionality, a real headset jack I can plug into anything, and SD card support so I can have all my music and photos with me. I wish it had an easily serviceable battery and real updates (like to the next version of Android, which was implied but still not delivered), but for $170, I will consider it a win even if it lasts me only 2 years (it has already been 9 months).
I told all my friends and family about it, and before they sold out a few months later, almost of them grabbed one and like it. Why anyone would want to buy a $1000 phone is totally beyond my comprehension, unless it is just some stupid fashion statement and they have way more dollars than sense.
Good- I don't want any more of what is recently called "innovation." I am ready for CHOICE instead. Give me a SMALLER, not LARGER phone. I don't care if it is a bit thicker because I want better battery life and serviceability.... and would be happy to have a replaceable battery at that. Give me a headphone jack and no buttons or sensors on the back. Give me regular UPDATES to fix annoying bugs and security flaws.
If giving me that is "boring", the boring is great. Bring it on.
I don't want to lose all my connectors, nor have a huge phone, nor a fragile/ultra thin phone with poor battery life and impossible to service batteries, nor a 100MP camera, nor notches, nor stupid OS mods and forced bundled crapware, nor something that costs twice as much as it should.
>"I think you are presenting personal opinion as fact."
Nope
>"Fact is, 3000K is still very warm and for most people it looks yellowish."
That might be, but the industry typically calls that color "bright white" not "warm white", which is typically 2400K to 2700K. Although it does vary by manufacturer.
> "Cool White" is absolutely not 4000K, you can even see on the label it is above 6500K."
Again, I didn't make up these terms. The lighting industry typically calls "cool white" 4000 to 5000K. 6000 to 6500K is defined as "day light".
>"We're in an old villa and use "Warm white" bulbs as it looks odd not to architecturally. They are on the redder (actually cooler 3000K) end of the spectrum to emulate your classic tungsten filament lighting. "
Warm/soft white is more like 2700K, which is traditional tungsten lighting. Bright white is around 3000K, cool white around 4100K, day light is around 5000K. I will admit to still buying and using mostly warm white and a bit of bright white in my house, with nothing colder. I can't seem to get used to the colder temperatures, residentially, no matter how popular it seems to be. It is just too harsh at night/evening and not pleasing.
>"Three movies per month should be enough for anyone."
That is $3.32 per movie, assuming one always saw 3 movies a month (and not counting the "price" of your privacy). Still not a bad deal. Except, are there really even 3 movies worth seeing each and every month? Sure, there are probably months where I could find 3 interesting things in a month, but other months it could be higher, and most months it would be lower. Too bad they didn't work out a "banking" or "rollover" system so you could utilize those passes later. Seems like that would be a reasonable next step coming off of "unlimited."
>"Except that Lenovo makes their $700 Yoga keyboards crappy (they feel like stabbing a bowl of dough)"
Good point- I was talking about the Thinkpad, not Yoga and not Ideapad. I should have been more specific.
>"so you relent and buy a $1800 Thinkpad instead."
Or you buy a $600 Thinkpad, which does have the same keyboard as the other Thinkpads (you aren't forced to buy a super-high end with Lenovo to get the good keyboard). Although it is not backlit.
>"Also the Macbook Pro keyboard is a quarter as thick."
>"...to never have noticed themselves the positive value of tactile feedback??? Seriously!"
It isn't just tactical or hepatic, either. I would imagine trying to "type" on a flat surface will create all kinds of new repetitive stress injuries; on top of being unfriendly, slow, and uncomfortable.
>"Apple Engineers: Rather than trying to come up with new ways for users to enter text into Macbooks, why don't you accept the input method that has been around for more than a century and come up with a keyboard that fixes the problems that were introduced in 2016? If you don't feel like they can be fixed than either go back to the old mechanicals or come up with new ones."
Or perhaps contact Lenovo and license their designs. They seem to make perfectly good laptop keyboards that last forever, feel good, and are quite functional, all while being thin and nice looking too.
>"The summary didn't mention if this "feature" was possible to disable."
about:config network.trr.mode = 5 to completely disable it
0 Off. To use operating system resolver. 1 Race native against TRR. Do both in parallel and go with the one that returns a result first. Most likely the native one will win. 2 First. Use TRR first, and only if the secure resolution fails use the operating system resolver. 3 Only. Only use TRR. Never use the native (after the initial setup). 4 Shadow. Runs the TRR resolves in parallel with the native for timing and measurements but uses only the native resolver results. 5 Off by choice This is the same as 0 but marks it as done by choice and not done by default.
>"The rate of inflation is approaching a million percent a year; they've just lopped five zeroes off the value of the currency. The Venezuelan people are fleeing across the border as fast as they can."
That utpoic Socialism conversion isn't working out so great for them. But one more central-planning initiative is sure to fix it...
>"Why is your license scannable? The first thing I do with my license is bring it home and demagnetize it. None of the stores can swipe it. Easy fix, they try a few times and give up, and type in my birth date."
Exactly. Although ours has no mag strip any more. I put a sticker over part of the 2D and now the 3D barcode so it can't be scanned. Back when they were stupid enough to put SSN on the card, I would "accidentally" damage a few digits to prevent someone from reading that, too. If it was actually needed, I would just tell them or produce the SSA card.
">The thing about exposing your identity when you prove your age is that there is, to the best of my knowledge, no age-ID card you can get. You're stuck using what you could call an all-purpose ID like a driver's license, passport or the like."
Which all have your DOB printed on them. So yeah, they can LOOK at it with their human eyes, see the DOB is OK to buy, and finish the transaction. The same way it has been done for eons.
>"Never heard of stores scanning and saving a picture of your license, though"
They don't save a picture of it, they scan the 3D barcode on the back, which contains all the information about you and it gets instantly stored in their computer system. Which is why I intentionally cover the barcodes with a sticker so they can't. I tell them, look at the information on the front for what you need (while I hold it), but I will not allow them to enter it into anything.
At some point, it might be necessary to replace the barcode with a sticker of a different one that has fake info on it, since they seem to not care to LOOK at the ID at all to see it is, indeed, valid.
>"In most of the life you live you don't have to expose your identity, it's only if you are doing specific things - like purchasing liquor - and even then your identity data is rarely used except to prove your age."
And that is dead wrong too. You should NOT be required to expose your identity when purchasing liquor or such. You should only be required to PROVE YOUR AGE. And that does NOT mean a retailer should capture/store ANY information about you (name, address, license number, hair color, race, anything), just that they look at your date of birth. And, yet, retailers are, more and more, thinking it is acceptable to "scan" your license or whatnot. Unacceptable.
I had a Target try to do that when I was buying freaking canned air (yes, AIR, you know, dusters for computers) and insisted on scanning my license. I was paying cash. I flatly refused and escalated all the way up to the store manager, who finally admitted there is no law requiring such tracking and let me purchase it anonymously, like it always should be.
People, please stand up for your rights, before you lose them all...
1) The banks suddenly require it 2) Your DMV suddenly requires it 3) Amazon suddenly requires it 4) etc....
And this is over and above the fact that the browser might not work on your platform of choice. So we go from an open web to a proprietary web, just like in the days of IE.... except worse because we somehow expect some company putting out a closed-source binary to be trustworthy.
>"Also, what's with the promises? Why isn't this a law?"
And with something this important and "final", what difference will a law make, anyway because... promise or no, law or no, the government will get their hands on all the data whenever they want, with or without warrants, above or under the table. That is what happens when the government is way too huge, everyone is a "potential terrorist", and safety is more important than freedom.
>"San Francisco Officials Are Planning To Ban Corporate Cafeterias"
Ah, central planning in Socialist SanFran to the rescue again... I am sure government meddling in all aspects of the "free market" will prevail, eventually, because bureaucrats know so much better what is best for people and economies and businesses. And CA still wonders why they are hemorrhaging tax payers to surrounding states more rapidly every year.
Slashdot Mirror
>"What's the best unlocked smartphone?"
You will have to define what you mean by "best"? Cheapest? Fastest? Most features? Best built? Let's try for cheapest with the maximum features...
My last phone was a $350 Nexus 5. I used it for something like 4 YEARS (replacing the battery once). Didn't regret it a bit. But it is kinda irrelevant now, so...
Now I have a Lenovo/Motorola Moto G5 Plus that I bought in November for $170 at Costco and does almost everything I could want. It is much faster than the Nexus 5, not overly large, yet not stupid thin, has decent battery life, nice screen, is totally unlocked, works on all carriers, has no crapware, the cameras work great (but doesn't try to compete with my professional Sony), has decent sound and functionality, has a real headset jack I can plug into anything, a freaky fast fingerprint sensor on the FRONT where it is easily accessed, and has SD card support so I can have all my music and photos with me. Popped in the T-Mobile SIM card, my SD, added a magnetic USB charger and a gel case, logged in and pulled in the rest of my stuff, loaded Nova Launcher and I was in business! I wish it had an easily serviceable battery and better updates (like to the next version of Android, which was implied but still not delivered), but for $170, I consider it a MAJOR win even if it lasts me only 2 years (it has already been 9 months).
I told all my friends and family about it, and before they sold out a few months later, mot of them grabbed one and like it a lot. Why anyone would want to buy a $1000 phone, especially every couple of years, is totally beyond my comprehension, unless it is just some stupid fashion statement and they have way more dollars than sense.
>"Pretty easy to get around that restriction, just charge $10^100 per copy."
Good point. Maybe it should be based on sales and not offers.
>"Given the ambiguous data, $289M seems excessive"
That is a huge understatement. There is no proof Roundup caused his cancer at all, or any human cancer for that matter. Just remember where this circus is- California.... where EVERYONE is a victim and EVERYTHING causes cancer, including coffee and, somehow, Christmas tree lights.
https://www.popsci.com/califor...
https://www.businessinsider.co...
Aside from the "punching" stuff.... +1 insightful. This has nothing to do with raising standards across the country, it has more to do with subsidies and the HUGE number of homes that don't even have what we NOW call "broadband." Until we can bring up rural areas to current standards, why do we need to elevate the definition for everyone else?
Besides, let's not pretend that most cities don't already have way, way higher rates than 25/3 right now. I think I might be on the cheapest and slowest plan on my cable company, and it is 50/6.. but they offer all the way up to 1Gb. Things have not changed do much in the last few years that would make 25/3 seem slow or even unworkable. I thought the whole point of defining "broadband" was to relay what a minimum reasonable speed would be for doing most "modern" stuff and to set targets to bring it to those who don' t have it yet. And right now, 25/3 is still quite capable of it and WAY too many people have no access to it (and no, expensive/spotty cellular data shouldn't count; and neither should expensive/weather-affected/latency-prone satellite).
>"Wow, did you not even RTFS? Nintendo's selling retro consoles and licensing these ROMS today."
Every game they ever made? I doubt it. And what about the years between the first market and the retro console?
>"why can't we just buy the rom? and not be forced to use there [sic] crappy emulator?"
I support reasonable copyright laws (ours have become overkill now), but it is a crazy position for Nintendo to "protect" intellectual "property" which they no longer license or sell to the public. I believe there should be a grace period of a few years or something, and if a company no longer sells or licenses their "property", they forfeit it and it should go public domain, or at least some type of public, non-commercial, free-to-use/distribute license.
Same thing with music, movies, books, software. If there is no reasonable, legal way to buy/license/obtain it, then there is really nothing left to protect because they seem to imply it has no value anymore. An example- I asked Netflix why there are so many discs that are not being replenished... their answer? Many are no longer available for them to buy anymore. Ridiculous.
>"[...]t's $250. Certainly there are people who'll have some need for the top-of-the-line, but for the vast majority of people that's a perfectly good phone. [...] The "entry level" phones will steadily advance and the "flagship" ones will argue about screen notches and stuff like that. I can't see myself buying another flagship one, and I'm sure i'm not alone."
You are not alone. My last phone was a Nexus 5. I used it for something like 4 YEARS (replacing the battery once). Now I have a Moto G5 plus that I bought in November for $170 at Costco and does almost everything I want. It is much faster than the Nexus 5, not overly large, yet not razor thin, has decent battery life, totally unlocked, works on all carriers, no crapware, a camera that works but doesn't try to compete with my professional Sony, decent sound and functionality, a real headset jack I can plug into anything, and SD card support so I can have all my music and photos with me. I wish it had an easily serviceable battery and real updates (like to the next version of Android, which was implied but still not delivered), but for $170, I will consider it a win even if it lasts me only 2 years (it has already been 9 months).
I told all my friends and family about it, and before they sold out a few months later, almost of them grabbed one and like it. Why anyone would want to buy a $1000 phone is totally beyond my comprehension, unless it is just some stupid fashion statement and they have way more dollars than sense.
Good- I don't want any more of what is recently called "innovation." I am ready for CHOICE instead. Give me a SMALLER, not LARGER phone. I don't care if it is a bit thicker because I want better battery life and serviceability.... and would be happy to have a replaceable battery at that. Give me a headphone jack and no buttons or sensors on the back. Give me regular UPDATES to fix annoying bugs and security flaws.
If giving me that is "boring", the boring is great. Bring it on.
I don't want to lose all my connectors, nor have a huge phone, nor a fragile/ultra thin phone with poor battery life and impossible to service batteries, nor a 100MP camera, nor notches, nor stupid OS mods and forced bundled crapware, nor something that costs twice as much as it should.
>"I think you are presenting personal opinion as fact."
Nope
>"Fact is, 3000K is still very warm and for most people it looks yellowish."
That might be, but the industry typically calls that color "bright white" not "warm white", which is typically 2400K to 2700K. Although it does vary by manufacturer.
> "Cool White" is absolutely not 4000K, you can even see on the label it is above 6500K."
Again, I didn't make up these terms. The lighting industry typically calls "cool white" 4000 to 5000K. 6000 to 6500K is defined as "day light".
>"We're in an old villa and use "Warm white" bulbs as it looks odd not to architecturally. They are on the redder (actually cooler 3000K) end of the spectrum to emulate your classic tungsten filament lighting. "
Warm/soft white is more like 2700K, which is traditional tungsten lighting. Bright white is around 3000K, cool white around 4100K, day light is around 5000K. I will admit to still buying and using mostly warm white and a bit of bright white in my house, with nothing colder. I can't seem to get used to the colder temperatures, residentially, no matter how popular it seems to be. It is just too harsh at night/evening and not pleasing.
>"Three movies per month should be enough for anyone."
That is $3.32 per movie, assuming one always saw 3 movies a month (and not counting the "price" of your privacy). Still not a bad deal. Except, are there really even 3 movies worth seeing each and every month? Sure, there are probably months where I could find 3 interesting things in a month, but other months it could be higher, and most months it would be lower. Too bad they didn't work out a "banking" or "rollover" system so you could utilize those passes later. Seems like that would be a reasonable next step coming off of "unlimited."
>"Tactile and Haptic."
LOL! Not sure where my mind was when typing that. Not wanting to use my keyboard as a weapon, generally, although it has been a difficult day...
>"Except that Lenovo makes their $700 Yoga keyboards crappy (they feel like stabbing a bowl of dough)"
Good point- I was talking about the Thinkpad, not Yoga and not Ideapad. I should have been more specific.
>"so you relent and buy a $1800 Thinkpad instead."
Or you buy a $600 Thinkpad, which does have the same keyboard as the other Thinkpads (you aren't forced to buy a super-high end with Lenovo to get the good keyboard). Although it is not backlit.
>"Also the Macbook Pro keyboard is a quarter as thick."
Than the CURRENT Thinkpads?
>"Only 9 months ago? Pfttt! I quit Facebook well before it was the 'cool' thing to do."
Bah.... I knew it was a disaster from before you quit it. I have NEVER had a Facebook account, and plan to keep it that way. :)
>"...to never have noticed themselves the positive value of tactile feedback??? Seriously!"
It isn't just tactical or hepatic, either. I would imagine trying to "type" on a flat surface will create all kinds of new repetitive stress injuries; on top of being unfriendly, slow, and uncomfortable.
>"Apple Engineers: Rather than trying to come up with new ways for users to enter text into Macbooks, why don't you accept the input method that has been around for more than a century and come up with a keyboard that fixes the problems that were introduced in 2016? If you don't feel like they can be fixed than either go back to the old mechanicals or come up with new ones."
Or perhaps contact Lenovo and license their designs. They seem to make perfectly good laptop keyboards that last forever, feel good, and are quite functional, all while being thin and nice looking too.
>"The summary didn't mention if this "feature" was possible to disable."
about:config
network.trr.mode = 5 to completely disable it
0 Off. To use operating system resolver.
1 Race native against TRR. Do both in parallel and go with the one that returns a result first. Most likely the native one will win.
2 First. Use TRR first, and only if the secure resolution fails use the operating system resolver.
3 Only. Only use TRR. Never use the native (after the initial setup).
4 Shadow. Runs the TRR resolves in parallel with the native for timing and measurements but uses only the native resolver results.
5 Off by choice This is the same as 0 but marks it as done by choice and not done by default.
https://blog.usejournal.com/ge...
>"the Hill took over nine seconds to load; at Politico, seventeen seconds; at CNN, over thirty seconds. This is the bullshit web.."
LOL! You said it! That really is the BS web, especially if you throw in the websites of Huff, NYT, Salon, and WP! :) Sorry, couldn't resist.
>"The rate of inflation is approaching a million percent a year; they've just lopped five zeroes off the value of the currency. The Venezuelan people are fleeing across the border as fast as they can."
That utpoic Socialism conversion isn't working out so great for them. But one more central-planning initiative is sure to fix it...
>"Why is your license scannable? The first thing I do with my license is bring it home and demagnetize it. None of the stores can swipe it. Easy fix, they try a few times and give up, and type in my birth date."
Exactly. Although ours has no mag strip any more. I put a sticker over part of the 2D and now the 3D barcode so it can't be scanned. Back when they were stupid enough to put SSN on the card, I would "accidentally" damage a few digits to prevent someone from reading that, too. If it was actually needed, I would just tell them or produce the SSA card.
">The thing about exposing your identity when you prove your age is that there is, to the best of my knowledge, no age-ID card you can get. You're stuck using what you could call an all-purpose ID like a driver's license, passport or the like."
Which all have your DOB printed on them. So yeah, they can LOOK at it with their human eyes, see the DOB is OK to buy, and finish the transaction. The same way it has been done for eons.
>"Never heard of stores scanning and saving a picture of your license, though"
They don't save a picture of it, they scan the 3D barcode on the back, which contains all the information about you and it gets instantly stored in their computer system. Which is why I intentionally cover the barcodes with a sticker so they can't. I tell them, look at the information on the front for what you need (while I hold it), but I will not allow them to enter it into anything.
At some point, it might be necessary to replace the barcode with a sticker of a different one that has fake info on it, since they seem to not care to LOOK at the ID at all to see it is, indeed, valid.
>"In most of the life you live you don't have to expose your identity, it's only if you are doing specific things - like purchasing liquor - and even then your identity data is rarely used except to prove your age."
And that is dead wrong too. You should NOT be required to expose your identity when purchasing liquor or such. You should only be required to PROVE YOUR AGE. And that does NOT mean a retailer should capture/store ANY information about you (name, address, license number, hair color, race, anything), just that they look at your date of birth. And, yet, retailers are, more and more, thinking it is acceptable to "scan" your license or whatnot. Unacceptable.
I had a Target try to do that when I was buying freaking canned air (yes, AIR, you know, dusters for computers) and insisted on scanning my license. I was paying cash. I flatly refused and escalated all the way up to the store manager, who finally admitted there is no law requiring such tracking and let me purchase it anonymously, like it always should be.
People, please stand up for your rights, before you lose them all...
>"Well then don't use the stupid browser."
Easy to say until:
1) The banks suddenly require it
2) Your DMV suddenly requires it
3) Amazon suddenly requires it
4) etc....
And this is over and above the fact that the browser might not work on your platform of choice. So we go from an open web to a proprietary web, just like in the days of IE.... except worse because we somehow expect some company putting out a closed-source binary to be trustworthy.
>"Also, what's with the promises? Why isn't this a law?"
And with something this important and "final", what difference will a law make, anyway because... promise or no, law or no, the government will get their hands on all the data whenever they want, with or without warrants, above or under the table. That is what happens when the government is way too huge, everyone is a "potential terrorist", and safety is more important than freedom.
>"San Francisco Officials Are Planning To Ban Corporate Cafeterias"
Ah, central planning in Socialist SanFran to the rescue again... I am sure government meddling in all aspects of the "free market" will prevail, eventually, because bureaucrats know so much better what is best for people and economies and businesses. And CA still wonders why they are hemorrhaging tax payers to surrounding states more rapidly every year.