Usable Smartphones?

degen

Gurm Sorry I looked around and it seems like I deleted it. Never thought it would disappear from the internet!

Gurm

degen it's ok. I'm not sure what's going on - there are display glitches that are resolved by turning off hardware overlays, which is never a terrible thing, but that were fixed in a November 2017 update. The release on the PA site is older than that. It appears they did at least 2 point releases, but no idea where to find them (or if they were real at all). I've got a working phone for the time being, but it's frustrating. It's also not perfect - still have eyestrain, definitely not as good as my HTC. But functional.

KM

It's still there: http://paranoidandroid.co/downloads/oneplus3

Better get it and save it somewhere safe. I have put it on the phone itself (for easy use with TWRP) and on my HDD, too.

Gurm

KM Yeah that doesn't seem to be the version with the display glitch fixes - I've gotten display glitches flashing it onto a OnePlus3 and a OnePlus3T. And neither one of them is perfect for me to look at afterwards. The OnePlus3 is definitely a little better than the OnePlus3T, not sure what that even means. PA comes with its own firmware, but I wonder if there's some older firmware that needs flashing on. There's also a fixed "touchscreen" firmware for the 3T, but I doubt that does anything to the display, sounds like just a digitizer driver.

KM

Maybe the phones have different display hardware after all. I never had any screen glitches and I have flashed a lot of ROMs from XDA. I mean there must be a reason for the glitches.

Gurm

Interesting. Happens on the 3 and the 3T.

Sunspark

What do these display glitches appear as?

Gurm

The screen shifts up and down about 50-100 pixels, the top 50-100 pixels get squished and the rest of the screen jumps up and then back down correspondingly.

Sunspark

That's a bug alright. I wonder what is causing that.

Gurm

I've moved on. Even with PA and the overlays turned off, the screen is only marginal. Not as good as an iPhone7+/8+. So I'll be dropping back to the iPhone7+ and continuing my search. I may try the Pixel3A next, I hear good things but would have to buy it outright so I have to do it when my eyes are good and I have time.

degen

Gurm Have you noticed a difference between the 7+ and 8+? I was thinking of trying a 7+ but I would have to find second hand. I am using my mom's old 6s (non-Plus) right now and it is more comfortable than the Galaxy M20 I just bought. If the 8+ was just as good as 7+ that would make things a lot easier.

I'm switching between 3 phones right now lol, iPhone 6s, OnePlus 3, and Galaxy M20. Galaxy M20 is the worst and I can only imagine modern Android rendering is the problem, which is why the Pixel 3a worries me.

Gurm

degen I know, I'm not sure why people like the Pixel 3a. I wonder if the people reporting that it's good have the same issues as we do. I see people saying "Oh, I used Android 7.0 and it was fine..." which doesn't sound reasonable to me because if there was a device that rendered Android 7 just fine, I'd have switched to it 2 years ago.

I don't know about the 8+, I've clocked limited time with it but it seemed "ok". The 7+ I know is tolerable as is the 6+. Completely different rendering from the 6/6s/7.

Sunspark

Gurm That's in part because it actually is different rendering. The way the pluses work is that they actually upscale and then downscale to 1080, so 3 steps vs 2 steps for regular resolutions. The smaller devices don't do the downscale part.

degen

Gurm I just picked up a iPhone 7 Plus second hand just now. So much lighter (main reason I chose it, doesn’t feel like holding a brick) than the 8+ and there is reason it could be different. 8+ has the first apple branded GPU. When I upgraded from 7+ to 8+ previously the 8 hurt more but it was complicated by an iOS upgrade (10 I remember was the last comfy OS).

And this phone is pretty nice feeling so far. Get this this though it’s running iOS 12.1.4. I’m wondering if I should just leave it and not update OS to 13.... What OS have you tested on the 7+?

Peter

Gurm When you say the 7+ is tolerable, does this mean you can look at the screen 3-4 hours a day without eyestrain?

Gurm

degen OS 12. Not sure my wife's 7+ has gone to 13 yet. Going to have her hold off though.

Sunspark

degen iOS 13 has been absolutely riddled with bugs. I'd say leave it be for now.

degen

Gurm https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/122701

Peter

I am currently testing the Pixel 3aXL. I got the phone today. At the moment it seems i can tolerate it and i am playing with it the last couple of hours. I get a mild eye strain but at the same time no nausea, no neck cramps, no headache.
I will let you know how it goes the following couple of days.

Also i like that the display is not very bright.

Sunspark

Peter That's great! I can make a recommendation. In the display settings don't use adaptive color. That's too much. Natural is SRGB. I recommend Boosted. That one is the same profile as Natural but colors bumped up 10% to compensate for the smaller display size vs a monitor. Either/or are good. I also increase the font size as well.

Gurm

Peter this is excellent news. I'm going to check one out at Best Buy... if I like it, next week they are running $100 off for Black Friday, bringing the price of a 3a to $249, or a 3aXL to $299.

« Previous Page Next Page »