Friday, October 12
Daily News Stuff 12 October 2018
Tech News
- Razer announced the Razer Phone 2. (AnandTech)
It's a phone. It does game stuff. It has a 5.7" 2560x1440 120Hz HDR display, a Snapdragon 845, 8GB RAM, and 64GB of storage. Dual exposed front-facing speakers as well, so sound will be better than most. No headphone jack though.
- Huawei announced the Honor 8X. (Anandtech)
It's a phone. It does big screen stuff. It has a 6.5" 2340x1080 display, up to 6GB RAM and 128GB storage, and a Kirin 710 CPU.
- Samsung announced the Galaxy A9. (AnandTech)
It's a phone. It does camera stuff.
Exact CPU is not specified, but it has 6GB RAM, 128GB storage, a 6.3" 2220x1080 AMOLED display, and one-two-three-four-five cameras.
That's a 24MP front-facing camera, a 24MP rear main camera, an 8MP rear 120° wide angle camera, a 10MP rear zoom camera, and a 5MP depth-of-field camera. The last camera is used in combination with the others to improve the image quality.
- An IBM PC emulator in 4043 bytes.
- Tomas Bohr - Niels Bohr's grandson - investigated to see if there could be a classical solution to quantum mechanics along the lines of de Broglie's pilot waves. Nope. Turns out grandpa was right all along. Bohr the Younger came up with a thought experiment that would decide the matter one way or the other - and then conducted the experiment for real.
This is cool, but not a surprise to most physicists, who are firmly in the "the Universe is fundamentally weird" camp.
- Google's Pixel 3 supports wireless charging and works with a Samsung charging pad. (Android Central)
So does the Nexus 4, from 2012.
- In Australia? Can't buy the Pixel Slate? Too bloody expensive anyway? Missed out on HP's September sale?
No worries mate! HP's October sale has the same Spectre x2 with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD, including keyboard and pen, for the same A$1350 including tax and delivery. Again, that's about the same price as the entry level Celeron/4GB/32GB Pixel Slate with keyboard and pen.
Social Media News
- Epic Games apparently DMCA'd their own trailer video. (TechDirt)
Oops.
- Google+ has moved to G Suite, where apps go to die. (ZDNet) [Warning: Auto-play ads with audio. But if you turn them off, the site remembers the next time.]
Video of the Day
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
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1
"An IBM PC emulator in 4043 bytes."
That's a lot of bytes to print "?syntax error" in response to anything you type.
Re: the phones--that Razer looks kind of interesting, but is, of course, expensive. I mostly love my Essential, but I ran into the problem that I discovered since buying it, that a lot of people have reported--the touch sensing around the edges doesn't fully work. That, and the fact the camera app doesn't have a manual mode have me looking hard at the Mi Mix 2s, which you can get for like $430 on Gearbest right now.
That's a lot of bytes to print "?syntax error" in response to anything you type.
Re: the phones--that Razer looks kind of interesting, but is, of course, expensive. I mostly love my Essential, but I ran into the problem that I discovered since buying it, that a lot of people have reported--the touch sensing around the edges doesn't fully work. That, and the fact the camera app doesn't have a manual mode have me looking hard at the Mi Mix 2s, which you can get for like $430 on Gearbest right now.
Posted by: Rick C at Friday, October 12 2018 11:20 PM (Q/JG2)
2
I'm looking for a new phone at some point to replace my Moto G4 Play. When I bought it, there were no good mid-range phones, so I bought an entry-level one instead.
Now there are dozens. Things have really changed in the past couple of years.
Now there are dozens. Things have really changed in the past couple of years.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, October 13 2018 12:34 AM (PiXy!)
3
Yeah, there's a ton of decent choices at good prices. My last phone, the Moto G5S Plus, was great, and only around $200. The only flaw (for my purposes) was the weak GPU.
Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, October 13 2018 05:22 AM (Q/JG2)
4
I pulled the trigger on a white, 6GB global 2S, $421 shipped (7-10 business days? oy!) & insured.
It's going to be fun getting it working on Verizon! It supposedly has all the right bands, but you can't get a new SIM; you have to use one that's already been activated on another phone on the Verizon network (I've got my fingers crossed that the VZ SIM in my Moto G5S Plus that I bought unlocked and activated on VZ works for that) and then use a *# code to fiddle with the network settings, but other people on XDA Developers say it will work.
It's going to be fun getting it working on Verizon! It supposedly has all the right bands, but you can't get a new SIM; you have to use one that's already been activated on another phone on the Verizon network (I've got my fingers crossed that the VZ SIM in my Moto G5S Plus that I bought unlocked and activated on VZ works for that) and then use a *# code to fiddle with the network settings, but other people on XDA Developers say it will work.
Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, October 13 2018 05:37 PM (Iwkd4)
5
I pulled in a Moto E4 Plus a few months back. I have no idea if it's good or not, I have nothing to compare it to since I've used nothing but dumbphones until now.
It's large and heavy though... big battery.
It's large and heavy though... big battery.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sunday, October 14 2018 12:23 PM (H9U8W)
6
Based on the specs it sounds decent, although the GPU's probably not very powerful. Should run basic games fairly well.
Posted by: Rick C at Sunday, October 14 2018 02:27 PM (Iwkd4)
7
The E4 is very similar to my G4 Play, but with a newer CPU, updated OS, and a fingerprint reader. Just fine for everyday tasks.
The Mi Mix 2S looks very nice - a high-end phone in all but price.
The Mi Mix 2S looks very nice - a high-end phone in all but price.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, October 14 2018 08:01 PM (PiXy!)
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