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gvidas · 01-12-2015, 08:01 PM

I think the thing that makes me glaze over when it's phone-shopping time is that I just don't care enough relative to how much information is available. All the reviews/info sites go on and on about features that are either presumably important, but esoteric (some specific processor!); clearly not important but presented as though they are (heart rate sensor!); or presenting as positive things that I consider negatives (massive screen!) To be more fair to the phone industry: largely I just don't have the patience for decisions between subtle choices, especially when it appears that the subtle choices are in fact significant.

I want a phone that's reliable: it rings when someone calls me. Beyond that, I'm thrilled if I can do some basic math on it, check emails, read a PDF, search the web, and take a quick picture. I've been slowly gaining an appreciation for all the other smartphone perks (music, etc), but most of the time I'm at work or at home, where if I were less lazy I could have my laptop handy. If 2015 is the year that Peak Oil/Colony Collapse Disorder/etc ends the world as we know it, and I have to go back to a rudimentary flip phone, I'd be fine with that. I'd leave reading material in the bathroom and probably be completely fine with the rest, phone-usage-wise.

In terms of battery life, I'm happy to charge a phone nightly.

In terms of durability/cases, this 4s is more or less unscathed after ~2.25 years of steady (ab)use, notwithstanding the wifi dying (which I am concluding is a hardware problem, and altho there is an amazing guide on how to fix it I'm not going to go there.) I put it immediately into an Incipio case. Actually, that's a lie -- the cord port is a little funky, there's a specific angle that the cord has to be at to charge. But the occasional drop onto a sidewalk / concrete floor (once it came out of my pocket onto pavement while bicycling) has yet to crack the screen, which I'm lead to believe is the usual first failure.

01-12-2015, 08:01 PM	#83
gvidas Hoodoo Guru Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 286	I think the thing that makes me glaze over when it's phone-shopping time is that I just don't care enough relative to how much information is available. All the reviews/info sites go on and on about features that are either presumably important, but esoteric (some specific processor!); clearly not important but presented as though they are (heart rate sensor!); or presenting as positive things that I consider negatives (massive screen!) To be more fair to the phone industry: largely I just don't have the patience for decisions between subtle choices, especially when it appears that the subtle choices are in fact significant. I want a phone that's reliable: it rings when someone calls me. Beyond that, I'm thrilled if I can do some basic math on it, check emails, read a PDF, search the web, and take a quick picture. I've been slowly gaining an appreciation for all the other smartphone perks (music, etc), but most of the time I'm at work or at home, where if I were less lazy I could have my laptop handy. If 2015 is the year that Peak Oil/Colony Collapse Disorder/etc ends the world as we know it, and I have to go back to a rudimentary flip phone, I'd be fine with that. I'd leave reading material in the bathroom and probably be completely fine with the rest, phone-usage-wise. In terms of battery life, I'm happy to charge a phone nightly. In terms of durability/cases, this 4s is more or less unscathed after ~2.25 years of steady (ab)use, notwithstanding the wifi dying (which I am concluding is a hardware problem, and altho there is an amazing guide on how to fix it I'm not going to go there.) I put it immediately into an Incipio case. Actually, that's a lie -- the cord port is a little funky, there's a specific angle that the cord has to be at to charge. But the occasional drop onto a sidewalk / concrete floor (once it came out of my pocket onto pavement while bicycling) has yet to crack the screen, which I'm lead to believe is the usual first failure.