Android

upcoming OnePlus device, rumored to have a massive 7800mAh battery (per Wccftech).
and it would absolutely smoke the 5,000 and 4,685mAH batteries in the Galaxy S25 Ultra and iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Instead, Apple and Samsung seem to be prioritizing thinness at all costs, for reasons that aren't entirely clear beyond aesthetics and bragging rights. It's been years since I've heard anyone complain about how thick a phone is, if not a decade or more. Complaints have trended in the opposite direction, I'd say -- without a case, some phones can be so thin and slippery that they're hard to grip securely. Even my wife's OnePlus 9 5G has that issue. A few foldables, like Google's Pixel 9 Pro Fold , are so thin when open that they feel like they might bend or snap.

I have had my Xiaomi phone for a few years and have mixed feelings about it. It is one of the Redmi Note 12 series.

One thing that is awesome, if maybe the single thing that it is great with, is charging.

It goest from almost 0 to full charge within 15 minuttes! I never realized thatvi needed this, until i had it.

Now, while looking at phones that maybe could take better photos, had less bloatware and maybe just worked better, i just seem to gravitate back to Xiaomi that apparently is one of the few companies that make phones with hyper charge!

I would have imagined that this would be the new standayby now

I am considering one of the higher end flagships of the company, simply because of this but I am still sceptical of their performance and especially all the bloatware and ads that seem to be integrated into their OS

I have a Samsung Galaxy S21 and I just got the new OneUI update. Now when I watch media in Jerboa there's an annoying scrolling notification that appears:

How do I get rid of this?

Also how do I get rid of whatever this is in my edge tray?

Thanks in advance!

Edit: I figured out the first one, search settings for the Now Bar and disable whatever you don't want to see

I've been using Before Launcher and requested the feature a few years back. They said they wanted to support it eventually.

I've tried a handful of alternatives and they all seem to lack this capability.

4 Major Android updates & 6 years of Security updates finally! My 1 VI is still working great, but this is great news for anyone wanting a headphone jack and SD card storage on a flagship.

Weird Countdown on lock screen. I've restarted both devices.

Any ideas?

I posted about this phone when I bought it and promised to tell about my experience after some use. So here is my story :)

Background

I needed to buy a new phone and wanted something unusual. Initially, I was looking at the Hisense A9. It's an e-ink phone and, based on reviews, people love it. But the phone there is no official open source Android distribution available for it (although there is an unofficial LineageOS port). I just don't like running outdated Android versions. I wish we had broader device support, like we do with GNU/Linux distributions.

A few days later I read news about the LineageOS 22.2 release and went to check out which models were supported from day one (it was December 2024). These phones are usually actively maintained, which means they're usually good. I was surprised to see the F(x)tec Pro1 X there. Here is a good article from 2022 if you've never heard of it. To put it shortly, it's a crowdfunded phone with a physical keyboard that had a lot of issues at release. I went to the unofficial F(x)tec Discord server and found out that they finally finished shipping the phone to all backers in November 2024! But some people already have more powerful phones and no longer need the shipped F(x)tec. They had a dedicated channel for buying/selling, so I managed to buy one in mint condition for 300 EUR.

Keyboard

The keyboard is awesome. I previously had the Nokia Asha 200, Motorola Droid 4, Motorola Photon Q, and a physical keyboard addon for my PinePhone, so I can compare. The one in the F(x)tec is by far the best. People who designed it clearly had a passion for physical keyboards. The keyboard is full-sized with Ctrl, Shift, and Fn keys on both sides. It's very important for a slider because it allows you to type while holding it. The keyboard also has home row markers on F and J, and it's natural to type on it without looking at it. The keys also very responsive - I never miss my inputs.

These days, physical keyboards are not very practical. Glide typing on touch keyboards is quite convenient. But I feel like I can type a bit faster and more accurately with a physical one. Plus, I really like the tactile feeling.

Screen

The screen is also great. Colors are very vibrant. It's curved on the sides and I saw people reporting accidental touches while holding it, but it might have been fixed on the software side since I never encountered such an issue. And I actually like how the curved screen looks - especially with such a nice OLED panel and the Android dark theme.

Slide mechanism

It feels very robust, but I don't like how it opens - it's quite loud. I liked it more in my Motorola sliders. But what I like is that the screen is angled when you open it. It's a much more natural than when the screen is parallel to the keyboard. Plus, you get a built-in kickstand :)

When closed, it looks like a regular phone. It's not too bulky - I'd say it's comparable to a typical phone with a protective case.

Fingerprint sensor

I hate it. It's the worst place they could have put it. I constantly touched it by accident when gripping the phone. So I ended up disabling it completely.

Connectivity

Some units have issues with the antenna. I asked the seller to test the connectivity before buying, and it looks like my unit is unaffected. Can confirm that calls and mobile internet work fine.

Performance

The specs are quite low. But I don't game on phones. I use it for calls, web browsing, messaging, and social media. It works smoothly, so it's good enough for me.

Software

As I mentioned, the phone is officially supported by LineageOS. So I immediately re-flashed the stock Android 11 with it after testing the functionality.

Unfortunately, my favorite FUTO Keyboard doesn't propagate the defined layouts to the physical keyboard - it's always English. It works only if I select the default AOSP keyboard as my input method. But since I don't need the sensor keyboard much, I just use the AOSP keyboard. It hides automatically when I open the physical one.

But even when the touch keyboard is hidden, it still leaves a tiny bar at the bottom of the screen when any input field is active. It takes extra space, and in horizontal layout, you don't have much space to spare. So I installed the Hide Navbar module for Magisk which removes it.

Also, when the keyboard is open, the previews for running apps behave as if they're in horizontal mode. But it's a minor bug.

But there is one major issue I still haven't figured out. Sometimes the phone just refuses to wake from sleep once every few days. I have to hold the power button to force reboot it. I asked about it in Discord and it looks like only one other person besides me has this issue. Others never encountered anything like this. The only thing I found in common is that they all install Google services, while I use MicroG. Not sure if it's related. If you have any idea how to debug it, let me know.

Battery

Battery life is okay. I charge it once every few days, but I don't have a lot of screen time. Also, I think the lack of Play Services improves it.

Camera

I currently can't leave my house, so I don't have nice photos to share :) But the camera is okay, even with the built-in LOS camera app.

There's also a dedicated camera button. I think it's convenient, but I don't mind using the on-screen shutter button either.

Weight

It's 46g heavier than my wife's Google Pixel 7 (197g vs 243g). It doesn't bother me - I barely notice the difference.

Headphone jack

I like that this phone has a headphone jack. I know I could just buy a Type-C adapter, but I don't like to carry it with me. And I just can't leave it connected to the adapter, since I also share the headphones with my PC.

Conclusion

I like this phone - it fits my use cases perfectly. I'll continue to daily drive it. But it's not a great value - you can buy a much more modern phone for the same money. And I wish its launch hadn't been surrounded by so many issues. We need more niche phones.

Lemmy has a rate limit on uploading photos, so I've uploaded more photos in this Imgur post.

I have no idea if there is something like that, but I know there are a lot of different tools to create an android app (Android studio with Jetpack compose, React Native or Flutter).

So like the title says,I have my S23 on cell data and Firefox and Chrome say I'm in Florida when I'm actually I'm NY. I turned on location data, turned off ad block (I really don't want to do that) and some other extentions amd did a restart. Any idea where I go next?

Edit/small update- I was in Connecticut yesterday and tried it again on cell data, it had me in Pittsburgh, so it's something on AT&Ts end. I'd like to thank everyone for commenting, I appreciate it.

I adore Xiaomi's build quality (especially Redmi 4x's metal case and liked the haptics on 11 lite 5g), they are the only cheap devices with decent specs (good SDM CPUs, IR-reciever, now discontinued sdcard slots, bootloader unlocking (for LineageOS with decent privacy (and DivestOS when it still existed)), decent durability and modularity (I ocasionaly repair phones).

**But of course this is just too good to be true, so let's just start with the drawbacks: **

My first personal experience with Xiaomi was the mi 11 lite 5G, which I got as a Christmas gift in 2021. It was the best phone I ever had (both on paper and my subjective perception). Well, let's just say, that perception changed not much after the waranty; first I started experiencing random reboots and after a few months the serious issues started appearing (random connectivity problems). I tried to reflash it and it had no effect. Later all the issues started to rapidly escalate: WiFi now only works if the phone is in warm climate and it resets every couple of minutes (so it's practically useless - so I rob it for parts). Later I inherited my dad's Redmi 4x (don't worry, he isn't dead, just upgraded) and it's also starting to have this issue (after 8 years not 2). I have also seen this problem on many Xiaomis from my friends.

So in conclusion: Xiaomi purchases are a gamble. (at least if you keep a phone for a long time). But they are still the only decent low-midrange phone brand (I even recommended a Poco to my cousin)

Problem explanation: I think the problem is mostly caused by heat (from the SOC and/or the enviroment) which causes the connections on the CPU to deform and slowly lose conectivity, making the device's core functions slowly deteriorate and Xiaomi didn't fix this problem for years, as they probably don't care.

Solution (probably repairshop): edit: this is aparently bullshit

The solution to this problem is CPU reballing (a process, where you remove the CPU from the motherboard and replace it's solder. This is not an amateur job, it requires professional tools (your grandpa's old soldering iron won't do).

And of course: I would be happy if anyone would recommend a comparable brand (with at least pricing and custom roms).

trying to transfer a large (13 GB) folder via USB to my phone with adb push. if I try singular, smaller files they go through, pushing the whole folder hangs adb and then gets OOM killed.

adb pull from phone #1 worked without issues, pushing it to phone #2 starts eating up all RAM (16 GB) and then gets killed. so I created a 16 GB swap file, swapon, push - same thing, eats up all RAM, then all swap, then OOM manager kills konsole. no files are created on the phone.

transferring via MTP isn't viable, it's like 700 bytes/sec.

tried everything suggested here.

edit: tried adb over wifi, different terminal, same deal.

Google is planning a significant UI overhaul, and it could start materializing with a future Android 16 quarterly release

After appx. 20 years in the apple eco-system I have decided to move on.

This will take time, i’m thinking 2-5 years.

My first order of business was a tablet. I couldn’t find a viable european tablet so went for a Samsung Tab S10 Ultra which has worked out great. It won me over from my pre-conception that android is somehow more budget, 2nd tier stuff. Its actually a very solid well-designed/built piece of kit in every way an equal to an iPad.

So i’m looking at Fairphone and Nothing right now for a new phone, i’m not in a hurry, I was supposed to upgrade my 14 Pro this autumn and i’m thinking that is still the time line.

Are there other european alternatives that I should be looking at?

Will air pods and apple watches still work in any sort of way with android? I will eventually replace them but both are still quite new.

Any advice from people who has already done this journey?

Pic ridiculous but related.

Hi folks,

After numerous feedback and hundreds of changes, I'm happy to share that my project, Octopi Launcher, is ready for open testing.

Below are some key features, with more to come:

• Foldables support - have totally different layouts on each screen
• (Auto scrolling) widget stacks
• Float/ pin a widget on top of home screens
• Display drawer icons as tiles
• App drawer folders and favorite apps
• Assign a nickname to an app (e.g. searching "ff" can instantly launch Firefox)
• Launch different apps using swipes on an icon
• Icon pack and shortcut support
• Resize individual home screen icons
• Index bar and reachability mode for drawer
• Option to hide status and navigation bars
• Notification badges
• Private space support
• Lock home screen layout
• Haptic effects

Shane has also done a video review on a slightly older version, which gives an idea what this launcher can do.

Have a great day!