PCA Forums

FlyingPenguin wrote: ↑Thu Jul 22, 2021 10:45 pm Hmmm. Haven't had that issue with the wife's Pixel 3. My Pixel 2XL still running fine, except for the above mentioned issue. I've bought a couple of BT earbuds: one for the car, one for home.

I can't ever consider an iPhone for myself. It's a fine phone for the vast majority of users, but not for me. I use a file explorer app on my Android phone to browse and play videos from my media server, copy photos and videos to the server, and copy personal files from my workstation to the phone. There's just no easy way to do that on the heavily walled garden of an iPhone.

Not sure when was the last time you looked, but I checked every single app that I used on Android and everything was available. I don't use a file manager like you on my phone, but I can go try FE File Explorer: File Manager on my kid's phone and let you know how it is
For my file sharing across devices, I just use Drop Box, One Drive, Google Drive, etc. Trust me, everyone that knows me, couldn't believe I bought my son an iPhone. He's been bugging me for one since middle school, all his friends use iPhones. I finally gave in and surprised him for his birthday when we were down in Miami. I was extremely surprised to see all the Google Apps running on it. Hopefully the class action lawsuit regarding the Pixel 3s goes through one day and I'll get some money back.

Oh I know I can use drop box or something, but I don't want anything on a 3rd party cloud service. I don't keep anything on cloud services except a few shared photos, and my encrypted AWS backups.

FlyingPenguin wrote: ↑Thu Jul 22, 2021 10:45 pm I use a file explorer app on my Android phone to browse and play videos from my media server, copy photos and videos to the server, and copy personal files from my workstation to the phone. There's just no easy way to do that on the heavily walled garden of an iPhone.

What are you using to do that? I haven't looked into it but it would be nice.

FX File Explorer by NextApp. One time $3 premium license unlocks all the features. It has it's own media player, or you can associate your own. Also fully supports AES 256 Zip file encryption, which I use to secure private files I keep on the phone.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... n_US&gl=US

I put it on my wife's phone as well, so now instead of tediously copying her photos and videos to the server, and sorting them myself, I just created a share on the server called "From Joyce's Phone" and she can copy her photos and videos over to it, and organize them into folders and sub folders, and when she's done I move them over to the photo archive on the server.

File transfer speeds are actually faster than using the USB-C port on her phone (we connect the phones to 5GHz Wifi in the house).

Nice. Thank you, Sir.

Interestingly, I noticed my USB-C port was working again today. I needed to do something text heavy on the phone, and forgetting that the port was supposed to be dead, I connected a keyboard/mouse combo to it and it worked. I also tested it with USB-C earbuds and a data cable to the PC and it's all working again.

I can only assume they fixed it with the last firmware update.

That's just weird.
Check out the Pixel 6 if you're curious. Got two of them for me & wifey. We're very happy with them.

I was going to get the Pixel 6 at Costco last month, but they were out and would not have any until Mid Dec, so I opted to have my battery replaced in my Samsung S9. Cost me $60. Wife got the new iPhone 13. She was upgrading from an iPhone 8.

Why Costco? You could probably get a deal from your carrier. We traded in our old Pixel 2 and Pixel 3. T-Mobile offered us $300 for each phone, cutting the price of the Pixel 6 in half. For the first time in ever, we both have the same phone. I typically give her mine, while I get the latest model.
We're both loving the Pixel 6 phones. Holy crap! I get 2 full days of battery, easily (I also turn off a lot of unnecessary features) and it's impressive. The Magic Eraser feature is awesome. A couple of taps and it deletes whatever you don't want in pics. Mostly gets rid of other people in the background but you can circle something and it will remove it. Very cool.

My carrier is Verizon and I won't switch to something else. I have a professional plan from work and even retired, it's still good. Hell, even the guys at Costco said not to switch.

With a new battery, I can now go every other day before I have to charge the phone.

Question:
I read that the best way to recharge your phone is to let it go to 40% and charge it to 80%. It even suggested charging in between these 2 values in order to extend the life of the battery. Thoughts?

Modern phones do a LOT of internal battery management, and I think these recommendations really aren't worth it. For instance, it's impossible to overcharge a modern phone - the internal electronics just won't allow it.

I just charge my phone any chance I get. It stays on a charger overnight, and while in the car. I don't want to have to worry about running low on juice.

Now I will say that the one thing that I've seen kill a battery is a cheap charger. Especially car chargers. It's easy to make those things so they supply too much voltage.

Stay away from those cheap chargers you always see at a store checkout in a big bin. For my phones, I only use genuine Google chargers (purchased directly from the Google store, because Amazon is full of knock-offs), and I have found the Verizon USB-C chargers to also be real good quality. They even support the fast charge mode on the Pixel.