Skill me up in smart phones and IT

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Skill me up in smart phones and IT

Postby Wollemi » Wed 07 Apr, 2021 10:37 am

I use a Samsung S5 phone. Pretty remarkable, really - when I last did a lap of Bass Strait by sea-kayak in 2015, we were able to always get BOM weather from all places, even if we did have to walk a kilometre to the other end of a Prom beach or in darkness up to the top of Hogan Island.
I wonder would things be even easier now if I had a S20 or S21, with a surely improved aerials?

[In 2007, when solo across Bass, I still used a Nokia flip-phone. I had to rely on personal observances at dawn prior to leaving Hogan for the Prom, and earlier simply walked up to Flinders Island farms to ask to go on-line to look at the weather.
Before I left my Sydney area home, I had a guy I didn't know ring me and insist I needed a SW radio with a very long soft wire antenna that you had to set up on a beach in a rectangle and seek out the weather via that system. I didn't follow through.]


A couple of years ago, this S5 smartphone would hold up to 4500 jpegs, before I was prompted to remove them/upload them to another drive.
Today it says I do not have enough room to do updates... yet only had 350 photos on it. (Updates are done after removing photos to laptop and external HD).

I installed Avenza for a great solo walk up Hannels Spur to Kosi summit some months back - but phone seems slower overall now?
I removed that amazing, delightful App (for now) - and the phone is still slow?

Can Apps such as Avenza slow down a smart phone?
Can Apps be store on the mSD card?
Will Avenza work in a spare S5 phone without a SIM card?
Problem is that working S5 phone has a cracked screen with only 5% display. Local shop wants $200 to replace the screen on this 'old' S5.

I need to get another phone to use as a better controller/viewer for my new (to me) drone. DJI do not have the S5 listed - but it certainly does work.
So much info displayed is crammed upon it's display.
How do I get the DJI GO 4 app onto a tablet (whether iPad or Samsung Tab) without a SIM card installed?
Live everyday as if it were your last... one day you will be right.
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Re: Skill me up in smart phones and IT

Postby CraigVIC » Wed 07 Apr, 2021 11:15 am

Not all apps can be stored in the SD but Avenza can and will work without a SIM. You will have to put the maps on while you have Wi-Fi.
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Re: Skill me up in smart phones and IT

Postby Warin » Wed 07 Apr, 2021 1:52 pm

I purchased a refurbished S7. Takes 230?Gb mSD card ... plenty of space. I forget how much built in memory if has .. but more than enough. I'm happy with it, the SIM/mSD card holder is fragile if your going to play with it get a spare .. ~$4? each .. I put in a 128Gb card .. I found 64Gb was more than enough in my last phone.

Why the S7? Because I could and did get a 'lifeproof' case for it - water proof and can be tested without the phone in it, so before a trip I can test it and be fairly certain that I'm good. Yes the S7 is supposed to have some 'water resistance', but how are you certain? It could have failed and be waiting for its next contact with water. With the case .. I clean it under a tap.

I don't think the newer models improve the aerials that much ... only so much area/volume to work with. They do improve performance. Watch the battery life with newer models too.
Last edited by Warin on Wed 07 Apr, 2021 5:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Skill me up in smart phones and IT

Postby rcaffin » Wed 07 Apr, 2021 2:32 pm

Do remember that the wavelength used by the phone matters!!!
3G: longish wavelength, 30+ km range, good battery life
4G: medium wavelength, much shorter range and more line-of sight, limited battery life
5G: very short wavelength, very short range, urban areas only, very line of sight, short battery life (recharge every night).

'They' keep talking about closing down the 3G system, but in many country areas that is all they have, and in fact all that works.

Cheers
Roger
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Re: Skill me up in smart phones and IT

Postby izzeho » Wed 07 Apr, 2021 10:47 pm

rcaffin wrote:Do remember that the wavelength used by the phone matters!!!
3G: longish wavelength, 30+ km range, good battery life
4G: medium wavelength, much shorter range and more line-of sight, limited battery life
5G: very short wavelength, very short range, urban areas only, very line of sight, short battery life (recharge every night).

'They' keep talking about closing down the 3G system, but in many country areas that is all they have, and in fact all that works.

Cheers
Roger


This seems to be a commonly held misconception. 5G can and does operate at the same wavelengths as 4G and 3G. For example, Telstra operates 700MHz frequencies for 3G, 4G and 5G. The difference is 5G is also capable of operating in what's called 'sub 6G' or 'mmWave' bands as well as the regular freq, these are medium/short range frequencies that can push massively higher bandwidths. The only reason you're getting 3G in areas you aren't getting 4G/5G is because the mobile carriers have not invested in regional infrastructure, as it's not as profitable/beneficial to them. I would almost guarantee this gap will be filled before 3G is turned off though (in mid-2024 by the way), there's just not the race there is with the big cities. You can even play with the coverage here: https://www.telstra.com.au/coverage-net ... _accordion

As with most things, you need to blame the people, not the technology, for crappy service :)

Battery life for a modern 4G or 5G chipset is going to be as good, if not better, than an older 3G chipset.

To the OP: a newer smartphone is going to have moderate coverage improvements, at most, particularly from something like an S5 that Samsung did a pretty good job with the antenna design (I believe Telstra even marketed it to rural users). 4G and 5G will become more and more relevant as time goes on though. The big sells for me are the quality of life from better waterproofing, better screens (a newer OLED screen will use a lot less battery to keep on) and better cameras - as I take advantage of these a lot.
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Re: Skill me up in smart phones and IT

Postby Neo » Thu 08 Apr, 2021 9:56 pm

Hi Wollemi

Probably need to bite the bullet and get a newer model phone. I don't know why but eventually a device just runs out of room for keeping apps updated. I had a "quad core with a gig of ram" about ten years ago, now that's the minimum/standard on a cheap supermarket phone.

About 2019 I went backwards to a dumber phone, on purpose. To get the internet out of my pocket (read face, litterally) and then used a tablet when I wanted email, internet, to read news etc. Worked well and I trained/weaned myself off the phone.

I progressively tried a few slightly smarter models, each only capable of a few apps. Recently I dropped a thousand dollars on a Pixel 5 and it does everything smoothly, if I want to. That is an extreme example, a phone with good lasting specs could be had for $500 or less.

Also recently I bought a $99 tablet that is as good or better than a 5 year old model I have been using in the car for nav.
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Re: Skill me up in smart phones and IT

Postby Biggles » Tue 20 Apr, 2021 10:31 am

Keep the old phone.
It's a frequent misconception that running out of space or a phone slowing down means needing a new phone. It doesn't necessarily. It very often means a lack of maintenance!

Move all and everything (including apps you do not use frequently) to the phone's SD card. The S5 can take a 128Gb card — enough for thousands and thousands of photos and apps.

SanDisk MemoryZone app will do this for you once you have selected all photos and videos etc. to move.

Install and run CCleaner or Glary Utilities on the phone and thoroughly clear out the cache which can dramatically slow down the phone irrespective of removing/force-stopping apps and/or shuffling photos.

I am using a Samsung S9 from 2018; not 5G compatible, and I don't care; I see no reason to jump to a pricey new phone just for 5G when 4G and even 3G are still serving people well. I store everything like photos and videos on the SD card (64Gb) and the phone is set to reboot itself in the wee hours as a 'refresher'.
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Re: Skill me up in smart phones and IT

Postby johnrs » Tue 20 Apr, 2021 12:18 pm

And removing the SIM does not end WiFi availability, Avenza will still run and maps can be loaded
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Re: Skill me up in smart phones and IT

Postby Ms_Mudd » Tue 20 Apr, 2021 3:37 pm

I love reading these threads as inevitably I learn something myself.
My previously empty 125gb micro so card now has things on it!
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Re: Skill me up in smart phones and IT

Postby wildwanderer » Tue 20 Apr, 2021 3:58 pm

Biggles wrote:Install and run CCleaner or Glary Utilities on the phone and thoroughly clear out the cache which can dramatically slow down the phone irrespective of removing/force-stopping apps and/or shuffling photos.


One thing to be mindful of if you're using oruxmaps as your nav app. The app author recommends against using cleaning utilities as in the past they have cleaned out and deleted users maps, GPX and track logs. No indication if this was due to user error or not but something to keep in mind.
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Re: Skill me up in smart phones and IT

Postby Biggles » Tue 20 Apr, 2021 4:05 pm

^ I have made that mistake past, and characterise it as a user error. Stuff ups like that can be softened if your phone has a scheduled backup to cloud — just restore what was swiped and your sweet. Apps for cleaning are provisioned to give you a choice to select those files to be cleaned out versus those files to keep, and files you do wish to keep should be kept on the SD card (which has a lot more available space than the phone's). In regard to explicit and certain choice of what is deleted, Glary is better than CCleaner (and there are many others). Backing up to cloud frequently is still the best insurance against unintentional deletion, but you better be quick in restoring files if sync is turned on!!
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