Promoting products on reddit by blatantly advertising in the comment section? Who would do such a thing?

To celebrate a particular movie's nominations for the Golden Globes next Sunday, Jan 7, we are hosting our very own Golden Lemmy award for Best Android Device on [email protected].

Rules are simple, tell us about your favorite Android phone from 2023 in the top level comment, and the device with the most up votes wins the esteemed and coveted Golden Lemmy Award, along with 1 Lemmy Silver.

Our regular discussion will resume in 2 weeks.

Previously on Lemmy: Tablets

Let's talk about deGoogling Android this week, since it's a common topic of interest around here to talk about GrapheneOS and CalyxOS.

I feel like Google services has been lacking for the better part of a decade to the degree that I am reluctant to rely on most Google services nowadays. However, I don't think I have the effort to actively remove all traces of Google from my phone, as the cost of bootloader unlock and rooting is a bit too much for me.

So, I would like to hear what your deGoogling experiences, since I'm unlikely to do it myself.

Past Discussions

• Asus
• Productivity
• Emulators
• iPhones
• Repairability/Build Quality
• Google Pixel
• Foldables
• Samsung
• Sony
• OnePlus
• Motorola

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9491179

While they were happy with what the fairphone 4 brought to the table, they seem to like what was changed for the fairphone 5.
What are you guys' opinions on this? A welcome change? would you get one if your phone died within the next year?

We talked about this a while back. Curious if people's thoughts have changed since then on the Fairphone 5.

Previously on Lemmy: Asus

Android tablets are devices that I don't know a lot about. I've seen plenty of them around, but I haven't seen many people actually use them, but I've seen plenty of iPads and sometimes Surfaces out in the wild. Many large Android manufacturers have tried, like Samsung and Huawei, but reception to them seems lurkwarm at best.

Tablets, to me, are more of media consumption devices than productivity devices. So, I guess the questions of the week would be, what is your experiences with Android tablets, and what are some features you are looking for in an Android tablet to make it worth buying?

Past Discussions:

• Productivity
• Emulators
• iPhones
• Repairability/Build Quality
• Google Pixel
• Foldables
• Samsung
• Sony
• OnePlus
• Motorola

Previously on Lemmy: Productivity

I've actually been pretty busy IRL recently, and my schedule on this has really been slipping, so, probably no more big writeups until things slow down. I'll probably move the discussion to a biweekly schedule, but no promises.

Not that much experience with Asus phone on my part, I know they use to use Intel processors until they suddenly stopped.

The new Zenfone 10 looks nice, and the ROG Phones are a bit overkill, but still very interesting spec wise.

Past discussions:

• Emulators
• iPhones
• Repairability/Build Quality
• Google Pixel
• Foldables
• Samsung
• Sony
• OnePlus
• Motorola

Previously on Lemmy: Emulators

Past Discussions:

• iPhones
• Repairability/Build Quality
• Google Pixel
• Foldables
• Samsung
• Sony
• OnePlus
• Motorola

For the last couple of weeks, it was all fun and games. This week, we are going for a more generalized topic on how you use your Android devices for work.

I'm boring in regards to work apps, so I very much favor using Microsoft apps over Google apps for work, as overall I feel Google apps work better on iPhones than on Android (to my great frustration). Office and Teams work exactly how I expect them to, while their desktop version are a bit bloated, on Android they work super well, and there really is no replacement that's as good as Microsoft Lens for scanning printed documents into PDFs.

But, I understand my use for Android for productivity is fairly limited, so, I'm interested to see if we can put our head together and find some interesting ways to use your Android devices to help us all be more productive.

cross-posted from: https://packmates.org/users/Wander/statuses/111280488886937575

The future of selfhosted services is going to be... Android?

Wait, what?

Think about it. At some point everyone has had an old phone lying around. They are designed to be constantly connected, constantly on... and even have a battery and potentially still a SIM card to survive power outages.

We just need to make it easy to create APK packaged servers that can avoid battery-optimization kills and automatically configure an outbound tunnel like ngrok, zerotrust, etc...

The goal: hosting services like #nextcloud, #syncthing, #mastodon!? should be as easy as installing an APK and leaving an old phone connected to a spare charger / outlet.

It would be tempting to have an optimized ROM, but if self-hosting is meant to become more commonplace, installing an APK should be all that's needed. #Android can do SSH, VPN and other tunnels without the need for root, so there should be no problem in using tunnels to publicly expose a phone/server in a secure manner.

In regards to the suitability of home-grade broadband, I believe that it should not be a huge problem at least in Europe where home connections are most often unmetered: "At the end of June 2021, 70.2% of EU homes were passed by either FTTP or cable DOCSIS
3.1 networks, i.e. those technologies currently capable of supporting gigabit speeds."

Source: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/broadband-coverage-europe-2021

PS. syncthing actually already has an APK and is easy to use. Although I had to sort out some battery optimization stuff, it's a good example of what should become much more commonplace.

cc: @selfhosted
#selfhosted #selfhosting

Saw this post on [email protected], want to get some thoughts on it, because the idea seems a bit crazy to me.

According to Xiaomi's CEO, it is a heavily modified Android and Vela (Xiaomi's IoT OS based on the open source embedded OS Nuttx) to replace MIUI in all Xiaomi mobile, auto, and intelligent home products.

I didn't even realize Qualcomm removed the built in FM radio from their chips. Huh.

Previously on Lemmy:

• Buying Guide: Low End
• Buying Guide: Midrange
• Buying Guide: High End

Past Discussions:

• iPhones
• Repairability/Build Quality
• Google Pixel
• Foldables
• Samsung
• Sony
• OnePlus
• Motorola

Now that our buying guide (or a first draft of it) is done, let's get back to our usual discussions. This week's topic is emulators, by request of u/AlmightySnoo. As emulators could not be loaded on iPhones without jumping through many hoops, Android remains the preferred OS for emulation on smartphones.

(Reminder, rule 2 is in effect, so please don't give out links to ROM sites.)

Now, as we all know, the mobile gaming landscape in 2023 is not great exactly. Most of the games in twr Play Store are designed for frustration instead of fun, littered with microtransactions, timegating, and of course, ads. Even the good games have terrible monitization practices, and there are a lot more bad games than good.

But emulated games are a way to get away from that, and let us remember a time when games on the go are simply games that are fun and nothing else, the nights when you are sitting in the backseat of your parents car with only the glow of your GameBoy and the passing streetlight as you play Pokemon. Nostalgia from a time when we didn't have grownup things to worry about.

But of course, many emulators didn't only aim to "emulate" the original console, but to enhance them into the modern age: Save states, rewind, enhanced graphics, texture replacements, easy cheats, touchscreen and gamepads. Things we could only dream of as kids are now reality.

So, please share your experiences with emulation on Android and give out some cool tips and tricks here.

(A special shoutout to RetroArch for having the (dis)honor of staying as one of the most frustrating software that I have ever used.)