Tag: new phone

It’s not as easy as it should be

Posted on

It’s not actually that easy to set up a new phone from scratch.
And maybe that’s a good thing.

As I said the other day, I got a new phone recently, and I am using the opportunity to de-clutter my handheld mobile experience. That’s all well and good, but it does mean that I can’t just press the magic Google button and transfer everything over onto my new device.

And so there has been a bit of picking and choosing, and then once there is a picked and chosen situation, you have to log in to each of those new accounts on the new device. Extra authentication is obviously enabled on everything I use, adding at least two extra steps each time, and some things just don’t want to work at all – more Sweet FA than 2FA. I can’t transfer my banking app over (the QR code just won’t scan), and I can’t log into Reddit at all, even though I’m still logged in on my laptop.
Whatsapp – as one might expect – is being an utter bastard.

But I guess that the trouble I’m having to go to is at least somewhat reassuring in that my online life seems quite well – too well? – protected.

And so I suppose that it would have made things a lot easier if I had just pressed the magic button and then let Google do its thing. But then I would have spent a lot of time deleting apps and data and things. Or would I? Would I just have been lazy and be left with a new, sparkly, but full and cluttered phone?

Mmm. Probably.

And so I’ll keep going with this new, minimalist approach and see if I can conquer the gremlins and the demons of just being able to log into an app. Jeez. It really shouldn’t be rocket surgery.

Oh – the camera on this thing, by the way – very nice.

New Phone – who dis?

Posted on

I was lucky enough to get a new phone for Christmas. It’s sleeker, faster and – most significantly – has a much better camera than my trusted old Poco F3, which lasted a whole 4 years.

The only issue with the new sparkly phone is its smaller memory size. I could have got one with a larger memory size, but that would have added a whole 50% to the price of the device.

So rather than throwing money away, I decided to use this as a downsizing, streamlining opportunity.

I use a lot of apps. But a lot of the lot, I don’t use very often. And so – and yes, it’s a work in progress – I have chosen not to load a lot of those occasionally used apps onto the new phone.

It’s actually rather liberating. Goodbye, UberEats. Goodbye, DJI Go 4 and Marine Traffic.

And several (or more) others.

And goodbye heaps of unnecessary music on my music streaming app. I’ve been unknowingly hoarding. And why? I’ll keep a couple of playlists, and I’ll ditch downloading the rest. I can always choose to grab the odd album on mobile data, and we all spend a lot of time in and around WiFi these days.

I’ll manage.

So this phone (and by extrapolation, probably my whole life going forward), will be faster, sleeker, speedier and just better than previously. Happy days.

Day 699 – Phone trouble

Posted on

My Sony XZ Premium is 5 years old and in phone years, that makes it 100 years old. I’m sure that you can do the rudimentary calculation to switch between actual years and phone years, despite it being a concept I just made up. Anyway, as with many things 100 years old, my Sony XZ Premium is struggling a bit with getting things done, it’s running out of energy and it’s not always able to connect wirelessly to my car anymore.

Sadly, its life is nearly at an end.

I’m not one for paying our local cellphone companies through the nose (or any other orifice) for the privilege of buying a new phone through them, so I’m looking to buy a handset outright and just lob my existing SIM card into it.

First thought, (obviously) a new Sony, but then I saw the price. I know that this switch was going to be expensive, but that was clearly (a long way) out of reach. Samsung doesn’t interest me, Huawei is a no go and I would rather be strung up by cheese wire around my nether regions than ever own an iPhone.

Not even joking.

Suddenly, the playing field is narrowed somewhat. The Google Pixel 6 Pro seemed to be an obvious choice, but The Guru reports some nasty bugs, even though we’re several months down the line from its launch.

And so, with limited time in which to get this organised, I are back to the drawing board. Am I looking at the Poco F3 (another The Guru suggestion) or a more basic Sony?

For me, the camera is probably the most important part of the whole phone, and the Pixel wins hands down on that, but there’s no use in having a great camera and getting great images when you can’t access them because the fingerprint sensor doesn’t work. But then is there any point in having easy access to your images, only to realise that they’re all rather crap?

Ugh. Such an important decision and nothing is jumping out to assist me.

Model T

Posted on

The decision has been made. I am leaving the yellow brand and heading red. In fact, as of this morning, I’ve already gone red. And not just with anger at the yellow brand.

Anger because the yellow brand made it extremely difficult to port my number, repeatedly suggesting that it was a huge hassle and that I’d probably be better off sticking with them. But I didn’t want to do that, so I’m leaving my number with them as well. Apart from anything else, it should cut down on the nuisance calls. The incoming ones anyway – I’ll still be making just as many as before.

I’ve had nothing but excellent service from Vodacom with my tablet, so I’ve decided to trust them with my cellphone contract as well. And things got off to an wonderful start with Nicole from their Canal Walk store giving me faultless service and an in-stock handset this morning. Kaboom!

My last 3 phones have all been Sony Ericssons and generally I’ve been hugely happy with them. Sony has now dropped Ericsson, but by all accounts they’re still making great phones, suggesting that Ericsson was probably just along for the ride anyway. After much research and many sleepless nights (the latter more to do with my kids than any cellphone-related troubles) I finally decided on this baby:

Behold: The Sony Xperia T

Isn’t she gorgeous?

Her vital statistics make awesome reading, with a 13MP camera, HD video thanks to the Sony Mobile BRAVIA Engine and a rather nippy dual-core 1.5 GHz Krait CPU.

I’ll obviously do a full review on here once I’ve played a bit and seen how things go. But apparently, it’s the phone that James Bond uses in Skyfall, so it must be good. And have lasers or something.

Oh, and I’ll also be keeping an eye on how much difficulty (or joy) changing one’s cell number after 6 years can cause. I’m intrigued to see whether it’s a liberating or encumbering experience.

Right, now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to play.