Re: Really Annoying Cell Phone Issue

[micky]

In alt.home.repair, on Thu, 14 Oct 2021 11:03:25 -0700 (PDT), Marilyn
Manson <comawhit...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 10:50:09 AM UTC-4, trader_4 wrote:
>> On Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 10:44:22 AM UTC-4, Frank wrote:
>> > On 10/13/2021 8:34 PM, hub...@ccanoemail.ca wrote:
>> > > On Wed, 13 Oct 2021 19:50:11 -0400, Ed Pawlowski <e...@snet.xxx> wrote:
>> > >
>> > >> On 10/13/2021 7:32 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
>> > >>> In article <dXJ9J.206069$Kv2...@fx47.iad>, e...@snet.xxx says...
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>> What matters is proximity to cell towers. There is far from 100%
>> > >>>> coverage from any of the carriers. I've been in locations where Carrier
>> > >>>> A was good but Carrier B won't work but another place, just the opposite.
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>> Only solution is another tower.
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>>
>> > >>>
>> > >>> Or you could get a phone that works on wifi. My phone will go to wifi
>> > >>> if needed.
>> > >>>
>> > >>> At one time I had a service that the primary service was wifi and if it
>> > >>> could not find a wifi it would then look for a cell tower.
>> > >>>
>> > >>>
>> > >>>
>> > >> Assuming wifi is available.
>> > >
>> > > Ah Ha ...
>> > >
>> > > Perhaps her cell restricts < large > data attachments <?>
>> > > but when connected to a familar wifi - no problem ..
>> > > .. it seeks & downloads ..
>> > > Makes sense to me ... who still misses his flip phone ..
>> > > John T.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > My Tracfone flip phone was becoming antiquated by higher G so I went to
>> > a smart phone. Nicer to use but often a real PITA often beeping with
>> > inane shit like asking me to sign up for Tik Tok.
>> A large part of that problem is that if you buy a phone from the carriers
>> they load it with bloatware that you can't even delete. If you buy a phone
>> directly from the manufacturer, you can generally avoid that. And then a
>> couple Android companies, eg Google and Oneplus, stick very close to stock
>> Android, so you don't have to deal with some of the things others put on
>> there that they think make them better, but that many people don't like.
>>
>> I'm trying to figure out what phone to get right now and it sure isn't trivial.
>
>If you buy a phone from the manufacturer, you get *their* bloatware plus their
>business partners' bloatware. I just bought a S21 5G directly from Samsung.
>Some stuff you can turn off, other stuff you can't. There's a Samsung folder
>with 7 apps.

You got cheated. My Samsung folder has 9 apps. 3 I've never opened,
Samsung Heatlth, Galaxy Wearable, and SmartThings.

The others seem all to be essential, valuable apps, Phone, Messages,
Voice Recorder, Email, My Files, Internet [the only browser I used], and
Radio, for the built-in FM radio.

I dont' think any of these run when I dont' run them.

> There's another folder for Microsoft (3 apps), Google (9). Many

My MS folder also has 3, Office, Linkedin, and Onedrive. I don't use
any of these either but maybe I shoudl use Onedrive. Does it backup
photos I take?

My Google folder has 8. Yours has 9. I got cheated. I never used
Chrome, Drive, Duo, Photos, or Google (though maybe I shoudl have used
that. It was in an option in the built-in browser) I did use Maps (all
the time), Youtube a couple times, and Gmail, mostly when I sent myself
directions from the Google Maps on the PC.

>other stand-alone apps that apparently don't deserve their own folders. ("Crap"

Yes, Samsung Members (I was blackballed), Galaxy Store (A t-shirt that
says Samsung on it? ), Samsung Note, probably useful if I didn't own
paper, maybe a couple others I messed.

>would be a good name for the folder.)

You're by far not the only one who complains about bloat, but I never
had occassion to inquire about it. On this phone, I dont' see how any of
this matters.

I thought the problem with Windows bloatware was it ran all the time and
used resources because it was running, or interfered with other tasks.
For phones, extra apps don't bother me because when they're not started,
I don't think they do anything but take us some storage.

I'm using 20G for storage of all apps together, out of 64G. I have 100
apps, many (most?) I added myself. A few extra apps within the 20G
doesn't seem like a problem.

>Biggest issue with S21: The Phone goes dark while making phone calls, even if you
>are not holding the phone to your ear. Supposedly to save battery. If goes dark
>so fast that you don't even have time to get through some "Press 1 for Sales, 2
>for Customer Service" IVR systems. I had to download an app (KinScreen) to
>keep the phone on so I use it on speaker phone or headset during meetings and
>have access to the Mute button, etc.

I'm glad I don't have that, but I still had to dl a similar app so that
google maps would stay on continuously, even though charging it is
supposed to keep the screen on.

>They also made the notification bar so small that you need a magnifying glass to
>see what time it is. There's a bizzare workaround to enlarge it that requires enabling
>Developer Option mode (7 taps of the Build Number field in Settings) then setting
>the display cutout to Waterfall mode, rebooting and then going back in and setting
>the display back to Default. WTF? It works, but why should users have to do that?

I don't have that problem. I do have a long term problem stopping most
things from notifying me. And iiuc now that I have another phone, I
have to start all over.