random strings - phonehttps://blog.randomstring.org/2022-11-11T10:03:24-05:00new phone minireview2022-11-11T10:03:24-05:002022-11-11T10:03:24-05:00-dsr-tag:blog.randomstring.org,2022-11-11:/2022/11/11/new-phone-minireview/
<p>Being a mini-review of the Asus Zenfone 9.</p>
<p>(It’s mini because the phone is the smallest current flagship.)</p>
<p>Previous phone: OnePlus 7Pro, a 6.7” screen with rounded edges and an
enormous battery life. This one has a 5.9” flat screen. Flat is much
better. The manufacturers decided that rounded edges were “premium”, so
they put it on the highest end phones… making them less usable and more
prone to weird glare and distortion. </p>
<p>Being a mini-review of the Asus Zenfone 9.</p>
<p>(It’s mini because the phone is the smallest current flagship.)</p>
<p>Previous phone: OnePlus 7Pro, a 6.7” screen with rounded edges and an
enormous battery life. This one has a 5.9” flat screen. Flat is much
better. The manufacturers decided that rounded edges were “premium”, so
they put it on the highest end phones… making them less usable and more
prone to weird glare and distortion. </p>
<p>How much smaller is it? Let’s ignore the crude physical dimensions
and go with this: at a comfortable reading width, the OnePlus shows 35
lines of book text, and the Asus shows 30 lines of the same text. I
guess I’ll be flipping pages 14% more often.</p>
<p>In exchange, the Asus is much lighter and much more comfortable to
hold one-handed… and I have big hands. Not NBA big, but proportionate to
my height, which is still somewhere in the 99th percentile.</p>
<p>It’s fast, but all flagship phones are fast, even the ones that are
three years old. It has cameras, but all the phones have cameras. Unless
you are a camera person, it will be enough.</p>
<p>It is reported to have excellent battery life. It claims to be
waterproof (IP68), but I note that the warranty specifically disclaims
water damage. Hmph. And it has a headphone jack, which is awesome. When
did it become awesome? About five years ago, when flagship phones
stopped having them because you were expected to buy expensive
low-quality wireless earbugs which would then need to be recharged and
someday become more toxic waste.</p>
<p>Feature that I miss from the OnePlus that nobody is selling this
year: instead of having a stupid cut-out hole in the screen for the
front camera, the OnePlus had a motorized drawer for the front camera. I
tested it about fifty times and used it about three times. Much nicer.
Bring that back, along with the physical three-way switch for
mute/stun/kill.</p>
<p>Overall, I think I’m content. But I also think that if I were more
budget constrained, I would be pretty happy with one of Motorola’s
near-flagships instead.</p>
revisiting Google Fi2018-02-21T11:03:37-05:002018-02-21T11:03:37-05:00-dsr-tag:blog.randomstring.org,2018-02-21:/2018/02/21/revisiting-google-fi/This is the end of my second year as a Google Fi subscriber.<p>This is the end of my second year as a Google Fi subscriber.</p>
<p>TL;DR: I’m keeping this service and I recommend it for people who are
happy with the limited phone selection.</p>
<p><a
href="https://blog.randomstring.org/blog/2017/02/24/i-recommend-google-fi">About
a year ago, I wrote about Fi.</a> This is the update.</p>
<p>Average price per month, exclusive of the phone: $30.24. This
includes unlimited voice calls and texts, and data paid for at the rate
of $10 per GB, accounted for at the megabyte level - one cent per
megabyte.</p>
<p>I have not paid for a new phone in that time, but when I complained
about battery life problems with my Nexus 6P, Google sent me a new Pixel
XL for free. I do not expect an offer like that to be repeated, but I
also don’t expect a phone to die of battery problems when it’s just over
a year old.</p>
<ul>
<li>two years of service: $725.84</li>
<li>phone: $700</li>
</ul>
<p>The cheap phone option right now is the Moto One X4, which is $250.
It appears to be a perfectly good phone.</p>