Daddy's newest toy

Photo: Motorola

It's been over 17 months since I last upgraded phones (link).  That's a pretty good stretch for me.  Last summer I told the salesman at the Verizon store if he could get the price tag of this Z4 down to under $500 (including activation fee), I'd buy it.  But he couldn't.  This weekend I was in the area of Best Buy and I felt the urge to check out the store.  I had long since forgotten/given up on this phone.

While at the store, I looked at the laptop that I plan to get when I start my job at the Creation Museum next month, and then expected to leave.  My daughter was looking at the phones, and we walked by the Z4 for some reason and I noticed the price tag was only $400.  That's well under what I was hoping last summer.  When I got to talking with the salesman, it turned out with a two year no interest contract it was only $240.  Sold.

The feel of the back of this phone is amazing.  It doesn't feel like glass, but it is.  It's got kind of a ceramic feel to it.  Good job Motorola, this phone feels fantastic in the hand.

The embedded fingerprint sensor (behind/inside the screen) works good.  I've read complaints about it, and sure it doesn't work 100% of the time on the first try.  But remember there's no physical button to put your finger on, just an illuminated icon, so aligning your thumb or finger on the sensor is easier said than done.  Even when I know exactly how to do it, sometimes I don't get it right and I remember my thumb needs to be a quarter-inch higher.  No worries.

I love love love the dark themed phone app.  As dumb and petty as such an appreciation sounds, the primary blue background of the phone app in the Z3 was just insultingly childish.  Thanks for fixing it Motorola!

The Motorola Display (their version of the always on display) works a little more consistently than the Z3, so that's a welcome improvement.  Though really, I've never seen a better example of an idea that was not taken far enough.  The lack of customization on that feature is stupifying.  They should really be running with this feature, instead, it still works the same as it did in 2015 and the software is still on version 1.01.  When will there be a version 2, or even just 1.5?  The larger display is nice.  They squeezed two more lines of text in, compared to the Z3.

After a few days, I'm very happy with it. The camera images are adequate, though the saturation is lower than I'd prefer and the camera app is surprisingly slow, even though it appears to be the same app as they've been using forever.  It's as if when the camera is activated the CPU goes into overdrive and is taxed to take any photos.

Photo: Motorola

Healthy families in the digital age

Got a healthy family? Then you need to share a common cloud-based calendar so the family has one version of the truth (I mean, the schedule).  Use whatever tool you want, but here's how with Google:

As far as I know, this onetime setup only works on a laptop, not a phone.  After it's setup, the calendar can be viewed on a variety of apps.  Click the settings icon in the upper right corner, then click "settings" again (click any of these photos to zoom in):

Then click your name on the far left, and click on "share with specific people" beneath that:

Click the "add people" button and type the email or name (from your Google Contacts) and specify whether they should have read-only or read-and-write access.  Once you finish this step, they should have access immediately.

Similarly, it's important for modern families that are constantly on the run to know where each other are without the burden of having to call and ask.  Use whatever tool you want, but here's how with Google:

Open Google Maps on your phone.  This onetime setup only works on a phone, not a laptop.  Touch the settings icon in the upper left corner, then touch "location sharing."

Then touch the icon to add a person to share with.  You can see in this screenshot I share my location with my wife and my mom.

The default is to only share for an hour.  Touch the option "until you turn this off" then choose the person you want to share with.  (Drag the list of contacts left to scroll through it.)

The only drawback of Google Maps is it's hit or miss if the location it displays of your spouse or kid or whoever is recent.  It'll tell you how recent/stale their location info is, and at least half the time I use it, it tells my wife's location within the last 2 minutes.  But more often than never it'll say her location is 30 minutes or 2 hours or something else pretty old.  Most of the time this is fine, this is all I used for many years.

For the last couple months I've been using an app called Life360 (life360.com) that 90% of the time or more provides real time location, even showing my wife moving on the map as shes driving.  This isn't stalking, it's a time saver.  If we agree to meet somewhere and she's delayed, I can see that without calling her and wasting her attention while she's driving stressed to ask her to explain to me where she is.  I can know without asking her, and she knows it.  And vice versa is true.  When I'm working late in the office, she knows that's what I'm doing (where I am).  The Life360 app & account are free with limited tracking features, and offers a paid version with more.  So far I've been impressed with just the free version.

The above instructions have to be completed twice (once for each person who's sharing their location).  It should be obvious, you can only give out your location, no one can take it from you (without advanced hacking skills).

Enjoy!

My new toy, and it's not a Samsung

Photo: Motorola

I've had the Samsung Galaxy S8+ for about 16 months and was getting fairly tired of not having a usable fingerprint sensor, and the infinity display was getting old.  I saw the latest Motorola Z3 has the all black glass front & back so caught my eye.  The super thin profile with hard edges was really attractive, and most of all the price tag less than $500 was the icing on the cake.  I am really looking forward to the 2019 lineup of Samsung phones having embedded fingerprint sensors under (inside) the display, but I'm fearing they're going to charge a lot.  I thought the $850 was basically too much for the S8+, and I fear Samsung will charge at least $100 more for that.  So after having a Galaxy S3, Note 4, S7, and S8+, I decided to give Motorola a try.

After almost a week, there are a handful of software complaints I have, but those are more with Google than Motorola, since Motorola does a good job of keeping it pretty "vanilla" Android.  The all primary color blue call screen is an embarrassment to the design principles of either Google or Motorola, or both, I'm not clear.  The lack of a dark theme in Android (namely for the pull-down notification pane, but also for the settings) reaks of Android v3, not v8.  The fingerprint sensor on the right side is in a poor place, but functionally better than being on the rear.  There's no headphone jack, but I'm fine with that as it makes for fewer openings on the device.  I like the lack of the Bixby button, just power & volume.  I miss the always on display that Samsung has, and since always on display is such an awesome feature, and yet after a couple years still no one else has it, it makes me wonder if Samsung was a jerk about it and patented it.  Moto display is both cool and dumb at the same time.  Compared to the always on display it looks childish (like the primary blue call screen).  It's better than nothing, but that's about it.  Could we please have a little customization (size, color, features)?

The dual camera is a gimmick, but no more so than the iPhone X.  Portrait mode is a gimmick, fairly cool, but probably only truly useful once or twice a year, and even then I'll only care because I have it, not because it's needed.  It does capture the photos with very low lag, and they're only just perceptibly lower color saturation than the S8+.

I do enjoy the feel of this Motorola in my hand, and knowing I paid almost half what the latest generation Samsungs cost (especially considering the Note9 is $999).  This year's iPhone comes out in a week or two, and I sincerely hope they can make me envious.  If they repeat last year then I'll be laughing rather than lusting, so we'll see.

The biggest leap forward since the original

Go Apple.  iPhone X.   I'm trying really hard not to be cynical. Apple is a good company, really. They produce good products that do what they claim and last. They're not junk. I will never forget the awesomeness of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 6 designs, the bold "jet black" of the iPhone 7, and the truly revolutionary marketing of iPhone 6 with ginormous marketing photos of their product (not those stupid dumb little teeny photos that most marketers offer). But they're clearly coasting this year. Makes me wonder if they've lost their touch.

Their CEO, Tim Cook, made two claims at their annual product launch last week.  Two dumb little sentences that if they'd left out, I wouldn't be cynical.  But those CEO speeches are written weeks and months in advance, and are very carefully crafted.  With these sentences Apple is going out of their way to (yet again) prove to the world how devoted their fans are, and that the fans will drink any "kool-aid" they serve up (no matter how bad).

The product launch video is at https://www.apple.com/apple-events/september-2017/, and as videos go it's perfectly fine. High quality, clearly good planning of the event, nice new venue. But here we go. At 1 hour 16 minutes in, Mr. Cook says "our teams have been at work for years on something that is important to all of us: the future of the smartphone. The first iPhone revolutionized a decade of technology, and changed the world in the process. Now, 10 years later, it is only fitting... to reveal a product that will set the path for technology for the next decade." At 1:17:50 he continues "This is iPhone X.  It is the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone." You've got to be kidding me. One of my favorite articles I read in my masters class had this excerpt in it:

Here's the thing about innovation: I'm not sure any of us needs a definition. We don't need a journalist to tell us what it is. Or who really gets it. Innovation is like obscenity: We know it when we see it. It's hard to miss when paradigms shift.
-http://www.informationweek.com/it-leadership/innovation-is-executive-porn/d/d-id/1111194

If he'd left these exaggerations out of his speech, I'd have nothing to be cynical about.  iPhone X is a decent product. But it's nothing innovative. It's new features are:

• edge to edge screen (something almost every other manufacturer has dabbled in for years)
• wireless charging (something every other manufacturer has had for years)
• facial recognition (Samsung did even better earlier this year)
• super retina display (Samsung has had higher for at least 2 years)

And that's what he calls "the biggest leap forward" since the original device?? Then at 1:21:25 Phil Schiller says removing the home button "is a big step forward in the iPhone user experience." Now instead of pressing the home button we swipe up from the bottom of the screen. He follows by saying "it's incredibly smooth and once you do it for the first time, you'll know there's never been a better way." Really? Last I checked, swiping takes more effort than touching. And let's not get into how old all this is to Android users, especially those who've installed alternate launchers.

And lastly, to add insult to injury, they're charging a whole grand. Yeah right. Sorry Apple fans. The 10th anniversary was supposed to be the year for the iPhone. What a let down. I mean, if you want a thousand dollar phone, and you want it to be an Apple, then great, I'm happy for you, go for it, it is their most impressive yet. But don't try to brag about it's technology. It's not cutting edge. Unlike the original iPhone, there's nothing new here here at all.

Sucker for technology

Image credit: Samsung

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 is $100 off this week. I was really tempted. I even blogged about how cool it was back on April 7th. I was thinking tonight how I could justify buying another tablet... Then it occurred to me, I really love my S8+. I really hope they keep every design feature of the Tab S3 in the Tab S4, but ditch the physical buttons like they did with the S8. If they do that, and release the Tab S4 in less than a year, then I'd kick myself for having bought the Tab S3. So I have to wait. But Samsung, keep the all glass design, the all black look (even the sides/edges), the 4 speakers, and the awesome display.

I looked up some stats on phonearena.com:
The S2 8" is 272g and 5.6mm thick.
The S3 9.7" is 429g and 6mm.
The NotePro 12.2" is 753g and 7.95mm.
The latest iPad 9.7" is 478g and 7.5mm.
The iPad Pro 12.9" is 692g and 6.9mm.

It is available from Verizon.  Oh so tempting, but $700 from Verizon plus $30 activation plus $20 per month, and only $500 flat for WiFi only.

Daddy's new toy 2017

I did get my new toy on Friday and it is awesome. As I described a few days ago, this is the year for hardware to shine. The awesomeness of the S8 (S8+ in my case) is impossible to either explain by text or even photos. The user experience is beyond text or still photo. The tactile feel of the glass front and back, the practically seemless flow of glass and frame, the soft edges and curves, the image quality of the screen, and the responsiveness of the processor culminate to an experience that doesn't translate into text or photo.

My new all black phone came 10 years 1 month and 1 day after I added a black theme to my website (for the Rock subdomain, here). It was the fifth and final theme, the only one I've added any content to since then. I've wanted an all black phone to match and gotten closest with the Note 4, but this S8+ is surely the best yet. Also remember my post in September 2014 for the inevitable cell phone design, here, where I described the ultimate design being one that made the device look like it was just a single, solid, piece of glass. Here's a photo of it on my kitchen counter, a closer up image of it on a table, and then how it looks on my car dashboard. Visually it fits the description.

Of course for demonstration purposes I had the Always on Display off, which I normally keep on and find very useful. And FYI, the vent clip I use for my phone in my car is from iKross and is the only valid style of car vent mount on the market, here, because it can be used one handed. I seriously don't understand why there are no copycats out there.

Not only is the phone itself all black, but Samsung allows us to theme it, and no surprise, I picked an all black one. This way the software and the hardware look like they were made for each other.

And while I was at it, here's a photo of how big the screen is. It may or may not look like it in a photo, but in person, this is huge.

To quantify some of the radical hardware upgrade, here's a couple numbers. The S8+ has a physical body 0.8% bigger than the iPhone 7+ but has 12.7% more screen. That's huge. For anyone still holding on to Samsung's battery problems in last fall's Note 7, don't forget Apple has had their share of problems, too. The iPhone 4 antenna made Apple the laughingstock of the industry for a while (here), and they've recently had their own battery issues (here). I'm not really trying to pick on the iPhone, just using them as a comparison since iPhone is the single best selling smartphone in the world (and Android is the single most popular operating system in the world of smartphones).

Earlier in April I was wondering how many times a day I check my phone. The question is in the context of amortizing the cost of the phone over a one year period. I installed an app and found over the last 2 weeks I've checked my phone an average of 75 times per day. If we say we can allocate a penny per check, then over 365 days that's $274. 2¢ would be 548, 3¢ = $822, and 4¢ = $1,095. Similarly (yet opposite) since this phone will cost me $420 a year and I check it 75 times a day, then that's 1.6¢ per check. If you only paid $200 for your phone but only check it 20 times a day, then you're paying 2.7¢ per check. If you pay $200 but only check it 4 times a day, you're paying a whopping 14¢ per check. So while my phone is expensive, I get my use out it.

I do love the feel of glass front and glass back phone. In the case of the S8+, the glass on the back is too thin, causing it feel like plastic. It should probably be an extra half millimeter thicker. It's so obvious I noticed the first time I picked it up out of the box. That was Friday, and Monday I found a CNET article that essentially confirmed it, here. When I showed another techie friend the first thing they said was it felt like plastic. I think making the back have as good of glass as the front would be worth any extra thickness. The S7 felt great, the S8 (or now the S9) should too.

By the way, I was pleased to see that another manufacturer has embraced the design style that Apple started with the all black iPhone 7 and Samsung followed with the S8. A company called Xiaomi is releasing a phone called the MI6 that looks beautiful. It's out in China this week and in the US in May. I've never heard of them, but this looks awesome. Especially if the price tag is less than $400 like some websites claim: here. It's not waterproof, but I like the idea of an Android phone that looks this good and is half the price of the S8. Not for myself but for consumer choice.

The biggest missing feature from both iPhone 7 and S7

I'm a fan of consumer choice. When Samsung pushed the envelope of big phones I rejoiced. I have big hands and my eyes sometimes want something bigger to look at. The iPhone set the standard in 2007 with a 3.5 inch diagonal screen. In 2010 the iPhone 4 was arguably the best design of their 3.5" models. In 2012 Samsung released their Galaxy S3 at 4.8" diagonal. It was huge. In 2011 they released the Note, the biggest phone on the market, with a 5.3" diagonal. I love the big screen, but it's ridiculous that big should preclude small.

In 2014 Apple caved and the iPhone 6 was big. The 6 Plus was even bigger. Samsung's latest S8 and S8+ are their biggest yet. But why have both these companies stopped making small phones? If they make the regular and a plus size, how about a mini? Especially Samsung who makes an "active" version of their flagship phone, and the "J" cheaper versions.

Not everyone has big hands and wants to watch movies on their phones, therfore not everyone wants big phones. I've seen advertisements for bras that were designed with pockets to fit those cute little iPhones. How many women in the world are or would prefer to walk around with neither purse nor pockets? Answer: a lot. But they should have a phone with them. (You should especially agree with that statement if you make a living making or selling phones.) How many people have small or medium sized hands? Answer: a lot. When you double the size of the phone, you make it harder for most women to carry it directly on their body, and even uncomfortable to use. Come on Apple and Samsung (and every other manufacturer) add an iPhone 8 Mini and Galaxy S8 Mini as part of your standard product line from now on.

As an example, here's a photo of my hand and my wife's:

And while we're on the topic of size, let's point out that both iOS and Android still look the same on 3.5" screens and on 6" screens. The standard method of handling this is just to display at higher resolution. Can the operating systems please catch up and scale better, with an option to make everything on the home screen smaller? Namely, fit more icons and use smaller fonts, and in the case of Android, make sure the widgets scale proportionally too? Because while some of us buy big phones because our eyes are getting older and we need bigger text, none the less for the rest of us big icons and big text is what we do for toddlers and children. Big kids and grown ups can read small print. Now, I'm a fan of consumer choice, so make sure there is an option for scaling, don't just change the default.

All Black

The natural state of paper is white (or light) so naturally the highest contrast ink is black. Reinforced by the fact that the easiest ink to make is black (as opposed to the opposite, which is white, or a random color like red or blue). Because ink is a manifestation of color, or pigment. Blend all the colors together and you get black, because pigment is subtractive.

Image credit: Adobe

The natural state of a computer screen is black, so naturally the highest contrast pixels will output white. Because pixels outout light. When they're off, no light means darkness (black). Blend all the colors together and you get white, because light is additive. (Interesting link explaining the difference.)

Image credit: Adobe

On a piece of paper, anything not white is supposed to be there to be processed by your brain and interpreted as either information (meaning) to be communicated, or aesthetics to convey branding, style, and other feeling/ perception. On a digital screen, anything not black should fit the same description. Screens are the opposite of paper for the fundamental reason (physics) described above. Too much software these days is made either ignoring this principle or pandering to customers who think it's too complicated.

Devices that are all screen, like TVs, tablets, and smartphones, should be built with all black bodies. I don't mean some cheap looking dull grayish blackish frame, I mean dark black that harmonizes well with the screen when it's off. This is because the device is nothing more than a carrier. The device, the hardware, is meant to be a comfortable pleasing input. The screen (the software) is the only output, therefore the only thing that should be specifically designed to attract attention. Like the old saying that a child should be seen and not heard (meaning they should be present in the company of adults but well behaved so as to not interrupt the peaceful conversation of the adults). A well manored child will receive high praise for successfully doing what they're supposed to, even without them doing their best to attract attention. Similarly, the hardware of a device that is all screen should get its praise by quietly doing what is needed without demanding its own attention. If the designer does their job well, the unassuming black device will earn plenty of praise.

For tablets and phones, the most impressive user experience will be when the device feels like it's just all one piece of material. Since the best screens are glass, it makes sense that the whole thing be glass. If that's not sturdy enough then just the front and back should be glass. The iPhone 4 and Galaxy S7, S8, and Tab S3 fit these descriptions. May they not be the last.

Images credit: Apple
Left: model 4, right: model 7

Once the device is designed to blend in with the screen when it's off, we may ask how to make the screen blend with the device when its on. The way to do this is with dark themed apps that exploit the properties of light and ignore the concepts of pigment. The user should always have choice to customize to their personal style, but to demonstrate design excellence the device should come standard with backgrounds that help fool the user into thinking the device is all one solid, strong piece of material. Apple made some cool backgrounds with their iPhone 7 (including the blue blob). May these inspire many more.

   

Images credit: Apple

The reason not just any black background will do is we must show of the awesomeness of the display (the screen). This isn't the 1980s and we're not running 640x480 with 50 pixels per inch and using dot matrix printers. It's almost 2020 and a good display these days rivals the quality of a laser printer. Laser printers output at 600 dots per inch and a good phone has at least 200. (Microsoft Windows still assumes all desktop monitors are running at 72 pixels per inch.) The iPhone 7+ has 400 and the Galaxy S7 has 575 pixels per inch. The stock wallpapers (including live wallpapers) should show this off in all its glory with ultra high resolution and high detail photography that harmonizes with the physical device beautifully. The Apple fighting fish, blue blob, and purple flower (from the iPhone 6) are great examples. OK world, let's see some more :)

Image credit: Apple

For example, Motorola, maker of the flip phone that rocked the the world (the Razr) and the insanely thin Moto Z Droid (a whopping 26% thinner than the iPhone 6 but the same 5.5" screen size), how awesome of a device could you make if you took these design principles just a little more seriously? Good luck to us all.

The year hardware finally blew software out of the water

For a long as the computer had existed our imaginations have exceeded our capacity to express it. When the personal computer came around in the 1980s, Steve Jobs was one of the first to realize that computers could (and should) display text in more than one font.  Displays running 640x480 pixels at a ridiculously low pixels-per-inch were the standard for over a decade.  Then the Pentium set new standards with 1024x768 displays and Windows 95 entered a new era of visual computing.  The world wide web connected us like never before and experienced a revolution of it's own when Steve Jobs again rocked the world with the iPhone. (Remember a wide screen iPod, a phone, and a revolutionary internet device, on YouTube here.)  iOS and Android made us drool over our phones, but the software continued to press the envelope of what was possible given the available hardware. And the hardware was usually dumb looking.  It rarely looked like technology of the future.  The iPhone 4, the iPhone 6 and exceedingly rare other devices were worthy of science fiction writing from the 20th century.

I saw this year's model of Samsung's Galaxy Tab S3 at the store today.  It is beautiful.  It puts an iPad to shame.  It was clearly designed by the same company that made the S8 (set for release 2 weeks from today, I preordered it tonight).

It's impossible to explain how glorious it feels and looks.  The feel of matching glass on front and back is just amazing.  The nuance of how they made the side frame metal and match the color and tone of the glass makes for a wonderful unibody appearance that exceeds the iPad because it affords the strength of metal on the edge and the look, sheen, and feel of glass on the front and back.  It truly looks like something that is a work of science fiction, like something that jumped right of the screen from Tron Legacy or Star Trek.  (iPad's curved back may make it easy to pick up off a table, but that's the end of the pros.)

Running more than full HD and 9.7 inches diagonal with an HDR display and four built in speakers, and a processor that delivers silky smooth graphics (I don't even care what the processors is, it delivers) this thing pumps out the sensory experience to the max (for a tablet).  But it's running Android.  Not that I dislike Android, I like it better than iOS and to an extent Windows.  But for a piece of hardware like this, Android 7 visually presents the experience of a child's toy from the early 2000's.  iOS would too if you somehow forced it on there, and so would Windows.  Now that our hardware has almost caught up to my design expectations (both the S8 phone and this S3 tablet) it's time for someone to theme Android in such a way that the OS lives up to the hardware.  A game that hardware manufactures have been playing catch-up on for a decade and this year finally took the upper hand.  At least Samsung has.  Now we'll see if anyone else follows suit.

Image credits: Samsung

Design Delays

Samsung has gotten a lot of criticism for what they did with the fingerprint sensor. In the S7 it is on the home button, but the S8 has only a virtual button and is near bezel less, so it had to move. Putting it on the back is logical next best option, but their choice baffles most of us. Here's what it really looks like.

The problems are (a) the fingerprint sensor is right next to the camera lense and (b) it's still small (just rotated 90° from the S7). Now I don't know what is under the hood and what challenges they faced in moving this sensor, but it can be done differently. Here's how LG did it.

I can see not wanting to copy or be accused of copying. So how about this?

This design will take care of both criticisms A and B above, and would make the fingerprint sensor be in the better place for us right handed people who hold our phones with our left hand. My pessimistic hypothesis is they've already thought of this and are just waiting for the S9 to do it. The current state may just get annoying enough after a year that people will upgrade just because of it.

In the same vein, I've wondered why the iPhone doesn't have wireless charging yet. My pessimistic hypothesis is Apple is developing a new wireless charging standard that's incompatible with existing standards but works as good and allows them to continue selling proprietary chargers. Sure, they'll claim it's some percentage better than the industry standard, but that wasn't the point, it wasn't about helping the consumer, it's about market control. I don't have to respect that.

Remember my post from Sept 2014 about the inevitable cell phone design...

New toy coming soon?

Image credit: Samsung

The Samsung Galaxy S8 looks nice.  I thought I'd compare it to some other leading phones and some other historical references.

Model	Weight (g)	Length (mm)	Width (mm)	Depth (mm)	Surface Area to Depth Ratio	Direct Compare
Moto Z	136	153.3	75.3	5.2	2,224	-22%
iPhone 6+	172	158.1	77.8	7.1	1,732	0%
iPhone 7+	188	158.2	77.9	7.3	1,688	3%
S8+	173	159.5	73.4	8.1	1,445	20%
S7 Edge	157	150.9	72.6	7.7	1,423	22%
Note 4	176	153.5	78.6	8.5	1,419	22%
Pixel XL	168	154.7	75.7	8.6	1,363	27%
iPhone 6	129	138.1	67.0	6.9	1,341	29%
iPhone 7	138	138.3	67.1	7.1	1,307	33%
S8	152	148.9	68.1	8.0	1,268	37%
S7	152	142.4	69.6	7.9	1,255	38%
Pixel	143	143.8	69.5	8.6	1,166	49%
S3	133	136.6	70.6	8.6	1,121	54%
iPhone 4	137	114.3	58.6	9.3	720	141%
iPhone	135	115.0	61.0	11.6	605	186%

Model	Year	Diagonal (in)	Screen to Body Ratio	Vertical Pixels	Horizontal Pixels	PPI
S8+	2017	6.2	83.32	2960	1440	529
S8	2017	5.8	84.26	2960	1440	570
Note 4	2015	5.7	74.39	2560	1440	515
Moto Z	2016	5.5	71.77	2560	1440	535
Pixel XL	2016	5.5	71.22	2560	1440	534
iPhone 6+	2015	5.5	67.91	1920	1080	401
iPhone 7+	2016	5.5	67.58	1920	1080	401
S7 Edge	2016	5.5	76.09	2560	1440	534
S7	2016	5.1	72.30	2560	1440	576
Pixel	2016	5.0	68.88	1920	1080	441
S3	2012	4.8	65.82	1280	720	306
iPhone 6	2015	4.7	65.71	1334	750	326
iPhone 7	2016	4.7	65.71	1334	750	326
iPhone 4	2010	3.5	55.77	960	640	326
iPhone	2007	3.5	52.35	480	320	165

Data credit: Phone Arena

Getting excited to preorder...

Daddy's new toy 2016

Image credit: Samsung

It was divine timing. I just so happened to stop by the mall to turn in some old cell phones for recycling and stopped by the AT&T store. I'd heard the Samsung Galaxy S7 was coming out soon, but didn't know when.  They had one on display in the store.  I've actually looked in the last couple weeks at various cell phones on the market and thought about upgrading.  My current Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is awesome, but it's 16 months old.  They gave me 20 months of payments with no interest and I wasn't done yet, so assumed I had to (or should) wait until at least July or even August to even think about a new phone.  While at the store, the salesman said I could simply turn in my old phone and upgrade for free, and they'd cancel my remaining payments and I could have the same 20 month payment plan for the new phone, so there would be no net change on my monthly bill, no activation fee.  That means rather than paying for my 650-800 phones, I'd be just renting them.  Since I've never done anything with my old phones (and I can't give them to my kids because then they'd argue over who gets which) I took them up on the offer.  I'm still not convinced it was a great idea, but I haven't thought of a specific need/use for the old phone yet (as cool as it was) so I'm not sad I did.  I went back on Friday (the release date) and showed up right as they opened.  I was their first customer.

The S7 is awesome (PhoneArena).  It feels great.  Some say it's "slippery," but I prefer the term "smooth."  The material used for the surface feels very nice to the touch, and the smooth edges (which I admit have obvious inspiration from the iPhone 6, but do have a subtle difference) are nice.  I figure since I've got a 12.2 inch tablet (Samsung also) that I am ok with downsizing my phablet to a human size phone.  The Note 4 is 5.7" and the S7 is 5.1".  Some more features:

• Waterproof (up to 5 feet for 30 minutes)
• Wireless charging (ordered a charger online, should be here Friday)
• Fingerprint sensor (touch not swipe, good upgrade)
• Android 6
• Home screens allow 5x5 (traditional is 4x4)
• Ultra shiny (gold is not my preference, silver would be better, but they didn't offer that, but the shiny is cool. Not better than black, better than white though, and just different.)

Battery life is great (I've been actively "testing" it the first three days and it's ended with 30-50% each day).  I'm very pleased.  Praise God for Samsung, and for Apple too, who I'm sure provided significant inspiration.

My family's new toy

Photo credit: HP

I got an awesome phone in October and posted about "Daddy's new toy."  In January I got my wife one of these and a couple weeks ago I bought a second one.  I'm loving it.  It's an HP Chromebook 14.  It doesn't run Windows or Mac or Android or iOS, it runs Chrome OS.  The thing cost $250 and is just an Internet browser.  It's very light, returns from standby before you even finish opening the lid, has a decent keyboard, 14 inch screen, about 8 hours of battery, and runs very smooth and stable.  It's not a full replacement for a Windows 7 desktop or laptop (yes, I said 7) but it's a great portable thing for almost dirt cheap.  I'm not necessarily "recommending" it, but I will tell you, I love it.

Daddy's new toy

Photo credit: PhoneArena

I've had my Samsung Galaxy S[martphone] 3 for almost 16 months now, and I got it when it was a year old, so it was time for something new.  As aluded to a month ago, I was impressed by the Apple iPhone 6 (see my post "prediction of the inevitable smartphone design").  The hardware impressed that is.  I've never been impressed by iOS, at least not since version 4 when I realized I disliked so many of their intentional design choices that Android proved they'd made.  So while I drooled over the hardware of iPhone 6 for a couple late nights in mid September, I eventually gave up on it.

I wondered to myself if I should get the Samsung Galaxy S5 (released five months ago) from my carrier, Boost Mobile, or hope that they get the LG G3 in November.  But I finally resigned myself that what I had was fine and not worth getting the S5, perhaps I could wait until the S6 next year.  More importantly, I decided that God knows what I want and if it's not available for me today, then perhaps He's got something even better in mind for me for tomorrow.  That was mid September.  In mid October, I found out what that would be.  I began to hear stories of the Samsung Galaxy Note 4. I'd been somewhat envious of the Note for a couple years now when a coworker had it at a conference I was at a couple Christmases ago.  I've had a saying for as long as I can remember (a few years): I like my screen big and my phone small.  The Note 4 (PhoneArenea) is a powerhouse, and that's what I want.  My phone represents power to me.  The power to manage information, which is my obsession.  And lets count the ways it kicks the iPhone6 Plus's (PhoneArenea) rear.  (Following list has iPhone comparison in parenthesis.)

• 5.7 inch diagnal screen (5.5)
• 515 pixels per inch (325)
• 8.5mm thick (7.1mm)
• S pen (nada)
• IR blaster (nada)
• Heartrate sensor (nada)
• microSD card (nada)
• Android 4.4 (iOS 8) and I hear rumor that Android 5 is coming out tomorrow (coincidentally)
• MultiWindow (nada)

The Note 4 is a monster.  It's huge.  But it still fits in my pocket.  I love the hard edges which are only vaguely reminiscent of the iPhone4, but are noticeably different with their shiny chamfered angles (like the iPad air, but on both front and back rather than just on the front).

Once I made the decision I wanted this device, which was about a day or two before it was officially released in the USA, I had to gamble.  Will my carrier of four years get it or will I have to change to AT&T or Verizon.  Boost Mobile was showing no evidence of getting it and I found that AT&T had a plan only a couple bucks a month more expensive than Boost, so I made the switch.  However the AT&T store was out of stock of the black phone, and I'm never buying a white phone again (if I have a choice).  So I waited five more days, calling the store each day to see if they'd gotten any more in stock.  Finally the store across the river did, so I drove over during lunch to get it.  I've been loving it since the moment I got my hands on it.

I noticed after I'd brought it home that it's only the third top of the line device I've owned since graduating college almost 15 years ago.  This was a surprising revelation given that while growing up I was known for obsessing over computers and technology and I have always been blessed by God with a good job.  I graduated in 2000 and the first top of the line device I got was the Dell Axim PDA in 2004 (three years before the original iPhone came out and smartphones became popular).  It had an astonishing 640x480 screen resolution, double that of any other consumer device on the market.  Then in 2008 I got the Blackberry Bold right after it came out.  When I showed a techie friend the demo movie that it came with he said "that's sad, a phone shouldn't have a screen that good."  I loved that phone.  Now in 2014, I've got the Note 4.  May it never get wet ;)

I've been a loyal user of Boost Mobile for about four years and only switched away to get this phone from AT&T.  Boost was great, and I got good reception (they use the Spring network) all over town and everywhere except in my office building.  We have a microcell for AT&T at work, so now I get great reception.  I can also send and receive international texts, a bonus that I'll rarely use but is nice to have (I have twice in the last four years missed out on coordinating with coworkers who were in town and they could text met but I couldn't text them back).  And I'll actually be able to use this phone if I travel overseas with it.  All good perks.  Also, I've never used swipe on any of my previous devices, even though it's been available, but the keyboard is so big on this phone that it was kind of a no brainer to try out.  And what a surprise, I like it.  Swiftkey is a great keyboard.

Prediction of inevitable smartphone design

I'm no Apple fan but when I saw the iPhone 6 this week I immediately thought "I want that." Then I remembered how many things about iOS I hate. But still, the hardware in this latest phone is stunning. I was thinking about why was I so strongly attracted to it. The reason I think is it comes closer than anyone's come before to making a real, fully functional computer look like a single simple piece of glass.

The ultimate design would be all black, the whole chassis the same color as the screen when it's off, so that we can't tell where the screen edge is. Whether it has rounded edges like iPhone 6 or hard edges more like iPhone 4 should be a mater of specific model choice, so long as it superbly fools the user into thinking, when it's off, that they're just holding a piece of tinted glass.

I remember the first time I used an original Kindle. It was years ago and I was browsing at Target. I wasn't looking for Kindle, I was just walking down the aisles and I passed a display for this plastic e-reader looking thing. I specifically remember thinking to myself "this must be a plastic sample of that new Kindle thing" (like how cell phones have plastic samples for display). Then when I touched it, the display changed from one page to another and I almost freaked out that it was a real, functioning device! I had never seen "e-ink" in person before. That surprised reaction of "this piece of glass is actually a working smartphone!" is the experience that the ultimate cellphone design will give us.

May someone beat Apple to it, or if not then at least have the guts to copy them and do just as good or better.

(from my phone)