The Technology Thread

[Martin Phillp]

I feel that is going to happen to me as the more I think about it I'm drawing the conclusion that an A25 will do me just fine whereas I had always previously thought I couldn't live without an S series handset (extending to the point of buying the S10 in the first place when it had already been replaced twice at the time of purchase).

As an A series user, you'll find it fine to use, although unlike the A25, the A54 doesn't have a 3.5mm jack, but I'm happy with Bluetooth.

[WillPS]

Agree A series are perfectly competent devices. The standout feature of S series over A (and even Z) series for me is the quality of the camera. A and Z series phones have 'good', S series is 'great' (rule of thumb, I'm sure there are exceptions).

I think OLED screens were a differentiator previously too (between A and S/Z) but it looks like they too are creeping on to A series now. My wife moved from an A70 to an S21 and that was the feature she found most beneficial.

[Charlie Wells]

Agree A series are perfectly competent devices. The standout feature of S series over A (and even Z) series for me is the quality of the camera. A and Z series phones have 'good', S series is 'great' (rule of thumb, I'm sure there are exceptions).

I think OLED screens were a differentiator previously too (between A and S/Z) but it looks like they too are creeping on to A series now. My wife moved from an A70 to an S21 and that was the feature she found most beneficial.

I got a Galaxy A90 back in late 2019, as my old S5 had seen better days. Back then I decided that the S10 was a bit too expensive for me. I settled on the A90 as it was Samsung's first mid-range phone to support 5G, and I felt it would future proof me.

To date I've not really felt the need to change my phone since then. The only slight temptation is that newer A series phone take better selfies than mine, which can be handy for holiday snaps with the wife.

[Martin Phillp]

Worth noting that the A25 also supports O2's new 'Standalone' 5G service which is now in some cities.

[thegeek]

Despite my initial misgivings, I've quickly come to love my wireless earphones - admittedly it's partly driven by my change in commuting habits, but the case takes up very little space in my pocket, so I'm far more likely to stick them in and listen to something when out and about or even doing odd-jobs around the house, than I would do if I had to unfurl a cable (and thread it down the back of my jumper).

I'm still a bit grumpy about the disposable e-waste that's involved compared to a wired pair, but, eh, whatcha gonna do?

[cwathen]

Ended up buying the A25 5G in the end, side by side with the S10 you can see that the screen isn't quite as good, also that under heavy load it isn't quite as smooth with the weaker CPU and slightly smaller RAM. Also the construction feels noticeably cheaper but since all my phones live in a case most of their lives that won't get noticed anyway. A perfectly competent phone and judged by itself without the S10 for reference I don't really feel anything wrong with it. Very happy with it for the price.

A couple of things I actually prefer, I was never a particular fan of the curved edge display I've had on the S8 and S10 anyway (opted against an S6 Edge in favour of the standard one back in the day) so more than happy to be back to a flat top phone. Don't mind that it has a bit of bezel either, adds a bit of impact protection. The much bigger battery will be very welcome too.

Might also be the first time since having a Motorola Atrix that I actually use the fingerprint sensor too, the position on the power button feels much more natural and it's within reach of where I grip the phone anyway (was mounted on the power button on the Atrix too actually).

[Critique]

For the first time since getting an iPhone more than a decade ago, a software update has borked my device and I am now stuck with a very expensive paperweight.

Considering that needing a computer to activate devices or do software updates was removed as a requirement years ago, I was amazed to find that the only way of doing a full reset of a iPhone at home is to connect it to a computer. I retired my Mac a few years back and just have an iPad Pro these days. Whilst perfectly specced to do computer tasks, iPad OS is still a far cry from Mac OS and my iPad cannot help, so I have spent most of this evening coaxing my old Macbook back to life, only for the restore to fail. The error code suggests that it couldn’t finish the update because the Mac is too old. If that’s the case, then why it lets you go through the charade of downloading an update and trying to install it is beyond me!

Genius bar appointment duly booked, I shall spend what’s left of the evening trying to resurrect an ancient iPhone 6 that I found in the back of a drawer. However, as I adopted an eSIM a few years back I shall be without a phone number, and the one thing that my usual phone did manage before dying is to remove my phone number from my Apple ID…

[Dr Lobster*]

If your phone had been a Samsung and had failed in a similar way, you would have almost certainly had to send it away. At least Apple has a network of stores in fairly easy reach.

[WillPS]

If your phone had been a Samsung and had failed in a similar way, you would have almost certainly had to send it away. At least Apple has a network of stores in fairly easy reach.

Really? I live close to Nottingham, which has no Samsung store. When my Galaxy S9+'s USB port binned out a few years ago I was sent to an EE store in the city centre where my phone was repaired under warranty within a couple of hours.

The nearest Genius Bar is Leicester or Sheffield.

[Blewatter]

Out of curisosity, Metropollers, did anyone get affected by the IT Outage yesterday? Personally, it was quite minimal in terms of impacting my day. The worst was the dot matrix screen at my station was not working, and my online Maccies order went a bit funny. Besides that, felt like it was a bit overblown. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[all new Phil]

Sadly not. I was working from home and thought I might have had an unexpected day off.