Blog: Entries Tagged With 'phones'

Well I held out for as long as I could, but after using the same phone for 6.5 years, I've finally moved on to something newer.

Okay, technically we had two ZTE Axon 7 Minis that I bought in 2016, and I switched to the spare one (which was Priscilla's but she gave it up for a Samsung Galaxy S8) a year and a half ago, but the point still stands. This phone wasn't made to be easily serviced, and every time I pried it open to fix something, a small piece of something would break off. The antenna finally got so damaged such that I could make calls but not receive them (though some might call that an anti-spam feature). The phone was also getting sluggish and some apps were no longer available due to the old OS. So while I like keeping things running as long as possible and am averse to buying new things, buying new parts to keep the phone operable no longer made sense.

I was set on sticking with Android and I still wanted a small form factor. I also needed NFC to be able to badge into the parking garage at work, and I wanted a headphone jack since I sometimes use wired headphones when on calls. According to the phone finder at GSM Arena, there were only 4 phones that fit all my criteria. I ultimately settled on the Asus Zenfone 8. The Zenfone 9 and 10 would've also checked all the boxes, but I didn't want to pay more for something newer.

Though it's two years old, the Zenfone 8 turned out to be a pretty decent phone. Most of the hardware is way better than my Axon 7, response times are great, and the battery life is terrific. I've gone 4-5 days between charging, though my usage tends to be low overall. The phone even has an FM radio, requiring headphones to be plugged in to act as an antenna. I don't know if I'll actually use that, but it's pretty cool to have.

On the downside, though the phone has stereo speakers, they don't sound as full as those on the Axon 7, which has some phenomenal speakers. So I'm still using the Axon 7 to listen to podcasts and music when working in the backyard. The other couple downsides are that the front pinhole camera is punched into the top of the screen (instead of being in a bezel above the screen like on the Axon 7), and the notification LED is on the bottom of the phone, making it harder to notice.

I had several apps where all the data was stored locally, and all but one of those was able to be migrated using the Android Setup Wizard. Unfortunately, the wizard failed to copy some things the first time, and it doesn't allow you to run it again without factory resetting the phone.

Overall, I'm really happy with the upgrade. Priscilla had been telling me for a while to replace my aging phone. There isn't going to be a perfect phone for me, but the Zenfone comes fairly close.

In November 2016, I bought two ZTE Axon 7 Mini phones - one for Priscilla and one for me. A mere two years later, Priscilla moved onto a Samsung Galaxy S8, as the ZTE wasn't able to keep up with her heavy usage. My ZTE was still good enough for me, so I stayed with it and used her old one as a spare for listening to podcasts and whatnot.

Over the years, I dropped my phone many times and finally managed to crack the lens of the rear-facing camera, rendering the camera effectively unusable. So whenever I wanted to take a picture, I'd either use Priscilla's new phone or the spare. A year ago, the degrading battery life of my phone finally pushed me to switch my sim card to the spare, which by that point also had mediocre battery life but better than that of the other phone. Normally my carrier charges a $15 fee to switch devices, but support was able to help me with it over the phone for free.

So for the last year, I've had a network-connected phone with a working camera (my newly-designated main phone), and when I'd be in situations where battery life would be an issue (e.g. when I'd be out trail running), I'd bring both ZTE phones with me and split tasks between the two. Not the most efficient, but it did the job.

But a month ago, the battery life in my main phone finally degraded to the point where the battery meter was untrustworthy under 50%, and the phone would just turn off when I was out on runs. That was the final straw, though I didn't want to pony up for a brand new phone, so I bought a replacement battery from eBay for $14. I could only find new aftermarket batteries, not OEM, but I figured they're probably all made in the same place anyway. I had wanted to replace the battery for a while now, but the slightly complicated process (you don't just pop open a cover and take the battery out like with our previous phones) deterred me.

But with YouTube videos giving me confidence, I managed to pry off the adhesive-attached speaker grills of the phone, pry apart the two halves of the case, unclip ribbon cables, and finally pry the very much adhesive-backed battery loose from the inside of the case. Reassembly with the new battery was straightforward, and finally I had a phone with decent battery life again! I tested the speakers to make sure that I hadn't damaged those.

But the next day, I found that I couldn't make calls. I had damaged a plastic part when removing the lower grill due to everything being bonded tightly with adhesive. The plastic part got bent and torn just from me trying to take the grill off. I'd assumed that that part was just a bracket, but it turned out to apparently be part of the antenna. However, I was unable to find anything online that corroborated that, and what looked like a serial and version number that was printed on the part (the only thing printed) turned up no results. But I had a spare phone with a presumably working antenna, so I very carefully opened that up, being extra careful to open the grill from the right side, since the left side is where the antenna previously sheared off. Once that antenna was removed and installed into the main phone, network functionality was restored. Success!

So now I have a phone that's more or less as good as it was the day I bought it over five years ago. Who knows, maybe the new battery will allow it to last another five years! I know that time is money and I have the means to buy any new phone I want, but I enjoy being scrappy and frugal and not buying new things when my old things still do what I need them to do. It's often worth it to me to spend time fixing something instead of paying for a replacement or even paying someone else to do the fix. Sometimes this is to Priscilla's chagrin. But the way I see it, my DIY'ing saves us money and allows me to learn things, and I do outsource plenty of things that are complicated or tedious.

It's definitely useful to have two of the same model of phones, and the same thinking led me to opt for another old 9th generation Corolla (so that we'd have two of them) a few years ago when I was buying something to replace my old Taurus. Now when something goes wrong on one of our cars, I can use the other car as a reference and even swap parts between them to help troubleshoot. Most people probably don't have that option available to them.

Most people would probably think I'm an oddball (Priscilla often does!). But not only have I come to accept that, but now I kinda relish it.

Another year has unceremoniously come and gone, and while 2016 was a prodigious year for us in terms of activity, the same cannot be said of my blogging habits.

So for the benefit of posterity (or, more likely, my future self), here are the highlights from 2016.

At the end of April, Priscilla and I went up to SF to celebrate our anniversary. We got free entry to the California Academy of Sciences, de Young and the Exploratorium, courtesy of our friends' Chase Private Client card. We stayed a night at the Grand Hyatt for free, courtesy of Priscilla's credit card rewards. And we rode Uber and Lyft for free due to a signup promotion. Not a bad deal for an anniversary weekend!

At the beginning of June, we went to Carmel to celebrate our birthdays. We hiked Point Lobos and stayed a night at the Hyatt Carmel Highlands, again for free. We spent some time exploring Fisherman's Wharf the next day before returning home.

In mid-June, Sarah got married, so we drove down to LA and got to spend some time with family. Sarah got married at Bel Air Presbyterian Church, which has a really beautiful building and campus. I got carpal tunnel that weekend, presumably triggered by the driving, but that cleared up after a couple weeks of wearing a brace and trying to not type much. The joys of getting old.

Our all-church retreat was at Redwood Christian Park in August. It was about the same as the last time we were there, except Priscilla and I were in a family cabin this time instead of in a suite. We hiked to the cross in the nearby hills, and even got to do rock climbing this time around. The rock climbing was difficult and I didn't see anybody make it to the top of the "medium" difficulty route. Our retreat speaker was Pastor Alton from Berean Mission Church, and his messages encouraged us to live as a steward, a disciple-maker, a child of God, and a pursuer of Christ.

After the retreat, when trying to look for productive things to fill my time with, I came across a fitness mobile game called "Zombies, Run!". Definitely more productive than sinking all my time into an MMORPG. I played it for a month and ultimately quit due to the game always restarting when being run in the background, but during that time I bought some gear for running including bluetooth headphones for listening to music. In October, I bought a heart rate monitor to use with Strava, as well as a yearly subscription of Strava Premium. I really like Strava's Beacon feature, which allows me to share my real-time location data with Priscilla, and the Heatmap, which shows my running and cycling activity as a colored heatmap. I've also been more motivated to rack up running badges on Strava, which are admittedly easier to get than cycling badges. Apparently, badges and points, even if they are virtual, are the key to my heart.

So in trying to maximize my Strava achievements, I've been trying to do more runs and hikes. In 2016, I went on a total of 29 hikes; Priscilla a couple times fewer. My favorite hike this year was Mount Diablo in September. The panoramic views from the top were amazing. I went with Priscilla and Tracy and we did a 15-mile hike, and they were pretty tired most of the way up, but we slogged through it and I later designed die-cast medals for them for making it to the top.

We drove down to LA for both the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Both were a good time of getting together with family and friends. We hiked with Victor and Sally during the Thanksgiving break, and ate with my Van Nuys friends and hung out with Raymond during the Christmas break.

During the Thanksgiving weekend, I bought new phones for myself and Priscilla. I got us both the ZTE Axon 7 Mini which, despite the name, is quite a large phone. This phone is better than our old ones in nearly every way, and we've enjoyed no longer having to deal with the frustrations of having a cheap smartphone.

During the rest of the holiday leading up to and following New Year's, I took the time to get housework done and look for contractors to help overhaul our front yard. I'd like to rip out the neglected plants we have and put in drip irrigation so that I can plant something that will be low-maintenance. With any luck, and a bit of money, we will have a nice looking front yard yet.

I have no doubt that the new year will be exciting and productive in its own capacity, but I'm hoping that it will be equally as restful. There is a saying that in the beginning of your life when you are young, you have energy and time, but no money. Then in the middle of your life, you have money and energy, but no time. Finally, towards the end of your life when you are old, you have time and money, but no energy. Well I'm clearly in the middle of my (anticipated) life, as I wish there were more hours in the day to do everything that needs to be done. I guess what I need is more downtime!

Since MetroPCS got acquired by T-Mobile, a couple months ago our area was being transitioned off the CDMA network and onto T-Mobile's GSM network.

Metro did something nice, offering trade-in upgrades for old phones, and in June I was able to get a new LG Leon, a case and a 16GB microSD card for free after trade-in. The Leon is a quad core phone with 8GB of internal memory, and seems superior to my old LG Spirit in every way except one: the camera is fixed focus and doesn't take clear pictures up close. But overall I'm pretty happy with the new phone as well as the blazing-fast LTE speeds.

At some point in the past, Metro upped the amount of data in my plan from 1GB to 2GB without changing the price. Priscilla's also had smartphone envy for a while now, so two weeks ago we drove to the Metro store and got her a Samsung Core Prime. We also switched to the 1GB plan, so each of us would be paying $30, but Metro was also doing a promotion where multiple lines under the same plan would pay just $25. So while before I was paying $40 for just myself, we're now paying $50 for the both of us. Not too shabby!

Now I just have to watch my data usage, as I tend to go over 1GB at the end of the month (Yelp and Chrome are such data hogs). Metro does unlimited data, so after you pass the cap, you still have data but it's throttled a LOT, such that you should basically not bother trying to watch Youtube or view pictures on Yelp.

No, I'm not talking about myself. I'm talking about my phone.

Since Pure Storage gives us a monthly $75 cellphone allowance (they don't provide landlines), I had an excuse to finally get a smartphone. The allowance is just additional money added to my paycheck, which I can choose to spend (or not spend) however I want, but I figured it was finally time to upgrade, since there've been plenty of times I've wished I had a smartphone (95% of those times being me wanting to check into a place to satisfy my Yelp addiction).

That's right, I've held out longer than almost everybody I know, but now I've finally sold out.

So this afternoon Priscilla and I went to a MetroPCS store. I went with Metro because of their low prices ($40/month for the cheapeast plan, taxes and fees included), no contracts, and unlimited usage on all plans. I had picked out the LG Spirit 4G ahead of time due to its low price point ($200 after rebate) and decent features:

• Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
• 4.5-inch display
• 1.2 GHz dual-core processor
• 5 MP rear-facing camera
• 1.3 MP front-facing camera

The first thing I did with my new phone? Install Yelp, of course.

I can't believe I've had my original AT&T phone, my Samsung Sync, for over 5 years. Thank you my trusted flip phone - you've served me well despite me dropping you numerous times, and how you've lasted on your original battery all this time has truly impressed me. But now it's time for me to move on. It's nothing personal. But sometimes, people realize they need... a bit more in their lives. Know that you'll always have a place in my heart. And, unless I decide to eBay you, a place in my drawer.

Our Verizon Wireless contract has been expired and we've been keeping the service on a month-to-month basis. But the service has been pricey and reception's not that great on the hill where we live, so we decided to switch to AT&T, which would save us $10 a month on their cheapest family plan of 550 minutes per month. So today we drove down to Monterey Park, where Asian people and Asian stores abound, and there's a cell phone store on almost every block (which translates to dealers competing for your business).

We got to keep our current phone numbers, and for our three lines we got three phones and bluetooth headsets for free. I chose for myself a black Samsung SGH-A707, nicknamed the Sync. It owns my old phone in almost every way- it's thin and fashionable, the menus are sensible, the camera is decent, and the MP3 player rocks. And I'm enjoying using my headset to talk while driving and not risk getting ticketed.

Most importantly though, the reception up at my house is a lot better. Which means I'll actually answer my phone now!

I bought a used Verizon phone off eBay and activated it as a replacement for my damaged phone. So I will be answering my phone again.. to the extent that I regularly do, at least. ;)

Moving into the dorms was a breeze. I arrived on the last day when most people had already moved in, so I didn't have to fight anyone getting stuff from the van up to my room.

At first it looked like all my stuff wouldn't fit comfortably, but being the engineer that I am, I was compelled to rearrange all the furniture to achieve maximum space efficiency. So this year I get to have my server next to my desk instead of hidden behind my fridge.

I also got a new 19" monitor, so I'm running a dual display setup. Being able to watch a movie fullscreen while doing work on the other is sweet.

Today I broke my record for the stupidest thing I've ever done.

9 people including myself went to Zuma Beach to hang out. I drove 6 of them in my dad's van. When we got there I decided to go in the water on one of the boogie boards we brought. I was out there for a bit, having a good time. I had forgotten that I had my van keys and cell phone in my pockets.

When I got back on shore I realized what I had done. The phone was completely dead. The keys were missing.

The only part of the beach I could search was the shore, and they didn't wash up there. It looked like my passengers and I were stuck.

In the end, my mom found a spare key at home and drove an hour to bring it down to me. Not once was she critical towards me. The only thing that puts me to shame more than my absent-mindedness, is being treated with that kind of love.

Our family cell phone plan entered a new billing cycle a couple days ago. I just checked the usage totals for my phone:

11 peak minutes
6 off-peak minutes
4 in-calling peak minutes
0 in-calling off-peak minutes

Compare that to the usage for my total family pool, which comprises my mother, my brother, and me:

115 peak minutes
634 off-peak minutes
58 in-calling peak minutes
70 in-calling off-peak minutes

o_O

Well at least they're making the most of the money we're paying.

We went to a small Korean cell phone store called Power Comm and, after much deliberation, decided to get the Verizon 2 phone 600 minute local calling plan for $60 that was advertised in the ad. I finally have my own cell phone!

We also went to dinner at Carrows to celebrate my mom's taking her nursing exam. She felt pretty good about the test, and we'll find out her results shortly.

Whew.. I can't believe I'm going back to UCLA tomorrow. What a long vacation it has been. And unfortunately... for the most part, unproductive. Heck, I never even unpacked most of my belongings when I came home in June. I guess that can be a plus, since it's saving on the time that I'll spend packing (yeah, I haven't started doing that either).... But I won't let laziness get a hold of me this quarter. It's time for me to work more seriously and make sure I get good grades. That's one thing I'm going to commit to.

Turns out that Cingular ad was very deceptive. It showed a picture of 2 phones and said in big bold words "Free LG1300 & Samsung X427." We took that to mean that we would get those two phones (and thus two lines) in the deal. But at the Cingular store, the sales rep told us that it really meant that we'd get ONE line, and we could pick any ONE phone (of which the LG1300 and the Samsung X427 would be free). I say that's just false advertising.

Cursed Cingular. I'm on the verge of adding them to my mental list of bad companies next to Alta Vista (for installing a toolbar on my computer without my consent, and totally screwing up my operating system) and LA Times (for not delivering any papers and repeatedly sending me bills for what was supposed to be a free trial). Well, Cingular didn't do too much harm, aside from some wasted minutes.

Priscilla came to my house in the morning to learn some HTML stuff, and in the afternoon we met up with Sophonias at the theatre to watch Cellular. It wasn't a blockbuster, and the fact that it was playing in the room all the way at the back of the hall went hand-in-hand with the fact that I had never heard a thing about the movie until three days ago. Yeah... another one of those space-fillers that come and go and leave no imprint in the annals of time. But not like there are any really good movies showing now..

Surprisingly though, Cellular wasn't too bad. In fact, I kind of liked it. I think of it like a movie like Speed, only with more contemporary teen elements, and a weaker script. But it was good.

WARNING! MAJOR SPOILER IN THIS PARAGRAPH: Something I thought was interesting was that I recognized the actor playing the role of the old officer's friend. He also played the role of Truman's friend in The Truman Show. And in both movies, he ended up being a traitor!

On somewhat of a similar note, I'm finally getting my own cell phone. Now I won't have to bum my dad's phone, which is more or less a plastic stick with a few buttons on it (and no games!) and which has this pay-per-minute plan where each minute costs something like 50 cents or a dollar. Right now we're looking at this Cingular deal which looks awesome: 1000 nationwide anytime rollover minutes, and 2 phones (I guess that means two lines) for $40 a month. My brother can take one phone, so I guess that gives us each 500 minutes a month. That'll probably be enough. Oh, and the phones are LCD flip-phones.. really cool! I know that sounds pretty backwards, since everybody already has a phone with loads of features, but it's a major jump upward for a guy who's been using a plastic stick all this time. =)