Technology Chat Thread • Page 40

I've got both an earlier gen with no smart features, only used for casting from phone and a Chromecast with Google TV and it seriously makes no sense why the baked in OS responds slower than an external source. The new Chromecast replacement kinda seems neat and I'd be willing to try it but not at that price lol. The dongles were like $20 or $30. And they'll do until they flat out stop working.

 

The Pixel 9 appears to get the Marques seal of approval

 

Sounds like the latest Tensor chip is significantly improved and can compete with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 with normal phone use? That's kind of insane and shocking.

Also, wow, the S24 Ultra delivered pretty embarrassing performance in this stress test, crashing within 15 minutes

 

Ok ibtro about a demo Pixel 9 and holy shit the fingerprint scanner is like voodoo magic. Insane.

 

Oh yeah, ultrasonic fingerprint reader is the #1 thing I miss from my S21. It's super reliable.

 

My wide eyes expression and exclamation of HOLY SHIT was a massive understatement. It's so fast! It's instantaneous!

 

Yeah and it even works with wet fingers iirc.

I prefer my Pixel 7 in pretty much every other way though, but MAN the fingerprint reader on this thing is frustrating as hell haha. Although an AMOLED display and better Bluetooth audio codec would be nice

 

Ugh the fingerprint reader was the absolute worst. Like if get out of the shower, I'd dry myself off and it wouldn't read my finger. Or every time I washed my hands and dried them off my finger still wouldn't read. The 8 is better than it tho so I'm like whew. I wonder if the ultrasonic is gonna be the go-to now? I hope so that's for sure.

 

I would hope so; it is much more secure. You can break into the old kind of in display fingerprint readers if you just have a photo of a fingerprint; it is camera-based instead of using sound waves.

Plus, no blinding light around your thumb when you try to unlock it in the middle of the night lol.

 

Oh??? Wow I had no idea they were that easy to break into.

 

My family is about to be spammed with so many cat photomojis

Also, started using RCS with my fiance now that she downloaded iOS 18 and it's great. I just need to convince my dad to stop using Verizon's stock messaging app on his S22 (he claims Google's "doesn't work") and have my sisters and mom update their iPhones lol.

 

explain this to me as an Android user with a wife who has an iPhone and has been begging me to get one for like 5 years

 

Oooh neat I'll definitely be checking this out now.

I think Android 15!is next week? Last I heard was the 15th was being rumored but I don't think Google actually officially stated it.

 

I sent my brother this link last month as he's an apple user and we didn't use the texting app because my green bubble was a bad experience lol so we used FB Messenger. But I explained to him that rcs is more like blue bubble quality, no more shitty photo quality but apple still wants us to be green and not blue.

Here’s how green bubbles are getting upgraded in iOS

 

Get Google Messages for texting, which has RCS support. Any texts between you and an iOS 18 user can send messages over WiFi and data and will have full resolution photos and videos, as well as show reactions and real-time typing. If you go under settings in Google messages, you can set it to standard SMS and MMS when RCS doesn't work on low data networks. Unfortunately, it will still default to standard MMS if even a single person in your group chat doesn't have RCS

It's also end to end encrypted which is nice for privacy (at least on Android. IOS has not implemented RCS e2e encryption). MMS and SMS does not have this. Google has had this for years but Apple has dragged their feet to pressure people into getting iPhones. The EU has pressured them into RCS support

 

I'm so stoked to have a Pixel now so I still have timely updates even if I don't have the latest and greatest haha. Unlike Galaxy phones where they take forever with older devices

 

Yeah it's not the latest or greatest as you said, other phones ARE fancier and more robust with their features/specs but Google is cleannn and I've always been a fan of stock OS, back when I had HTC or Samsungs I would always flash custom ROMs to get a stock UI. And getting the updates as soon as they're available? Hell yeah. Of course I've had some issues with T-Mobile sometimes having a week delay with monthly patches but if I'd wanted I could have always gone online and flash it to my phone manually.

 

Man, I need a new laptop. I'm still using a 2014 MacBook pro that no longer gets security updates which isn't very safe, with a Windows 7 boot camp partition that is also unsafe lol.

I would love another Mac... Been using them for 13 years now including at work. But they're just too expensive, and I really only use my home laptop for torrenting, applying mods to ROMs, and taxes lol. I work 40 hours a week coding so I'm tuckered out by the time I get home and only use my phone or tablet for the most part. Heck, I even torrent from my phone these days and just transfer files to my external SSD with a USB C cable.

Are there decent Windows laptops for cheap these days? I'm talking $300-500. The lower the better, really. Just enough to do basic things without crashing all the time

 

What about a used first Gen M1 air or pro? Are those still too pricey?

 

Oh wow, there is a refurbished M1 MacBook Air on Amazon for $499. Not bad at all! Will need to do some saving up over a few pay periods but that could be a good option

Only downside is there are times where I want to run a .exe file and I'm pretty sure only the Intel macs can have a boot camp partition. Hmmm.

 

Android 15 out now for pixels. Hop fully it's for some near features although I don't think anything is ever gonna be as noteworthy as 12.

 

Nice, will have to check if Verizon pushed it to my phone when I get home!