turn it off and on again

Has anyone ever been able to try their hands on Fire Phone before? I've been looking at the device yesterday on Amazon, and it seems to regularly go on sale for around $180 (its usual price is more than $300, I think). Apparently, it could compete against the likes of iPhone, and with a low price like that, I'm leaning more on buying one for myself.

While the Fire phone does have good hardware advantages, I dislike its software entirely. They advertise it as an Android phone, but it's more-so like an operating system on its own, backed by Android.

So I found out the difficult way yesterday (as in, my phone almost died) that my car charger has a short in it. :|

Tsutarja said:

So I found out the difficult way yesterday (as in, my phone almost died) that my car charger has a short in it. :|

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Sounds like it needed replacing.

How did you find out that it was shorted out, anyway?

flight said:

I thought the Fire phone was pretty much mediore/below average as far as software is concerned, right? They've tried to make it so that it competes with Android and iPhone but....they've got a long way to go.

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I can't say I'm surprised. How long has Android had to perfect its software? The fire phone hasn't been around for that long

Twiggy said:

How did you find out that it was shorted out, anyway?

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When you try to plug it in and the green light (indicating that it's working) keeps going on and off while trying to plug it in.

I'm beginning to think that it might be a good idea to just open up a new thread on T&I about Windows tablets, as I kind of want to get a new one to replace my creaky old one (that is basically a browser in hardware form nowadays, and it's not even doing well at that).

Tsutarja said:

While the Fire phone does have good hardware advantages, I dislike its software entirely. They advertise it as an Android phone, but it's more-so like an operating system on its own, backed by Android.

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So are you saying it's more than just a custom fork of Android? 'cause all the major smartphone makers have their own forks/flavors of Android that they pack into their phones.

And the Amazon App Store is really just an alternate Android app marketplace.

Tsutarja said:

I dunno why, but I really want an Android phone, and one that is not el cheapo and the budget brand. Too bad that most of the ones that are up-to-date aren't available unlocked at an affordable price.

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Look at the Moto G 2nd Gen! That's the phone I use myself right now. It cost me £144, but trust me the phone operates at a level much higher than that price tag. It has a 5-inch 720p display, Snapdragon 400 CPU, 8MP rear camera, front-facing speakers and a microSD card slot. For the money you will be paying this phone is an exceptional buy, trust me.

Nauje said:

Look at the Moto G 2nd Gen! That's the phone I use myself right now. It cost me £144, but trust me the phone operates at a level much higher than that price tag. It has a 5-inch 720p display, Snapdragon 400 CPU, 8MP rear camera, front-facing speakers and a microSD card slot. For the money you will be paying this phone is an exceptional buy, trust me.

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Yeah, you're right! I looked at its specs and it is indeed good for the price. The only thing stopping me is perhaps the fact that it runs Kitkat 4.4.4, and I'd prefer Lollipop lol.

Hopefully the phone is still available at the end of the year, around Christmas. :P

Tsutarja said:

Yeah, you're right! I looked at its specs and it is indeed good for the price. The only thing stopping me is perhaps the fact that it runs Kitkat 4.4.4, and I'd prefer Lollipop lol.

Hopefully the phone is still available at the end of the year, around Christmas. :P

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The Lollipop update for the Moto G has already been rolled out, I've been running Lollipop for a few months now! I live in the UK too, so the 5.0 update should definitely be available in the States.

Team Fail said:

I hate when companies do that. Android is a great OS in and of itself, but when companies start screwing around with the OS and add their own crap to it, it really slows it down and ruins the device. Samsung has their proprietary framework, TouchWiz, and it is absurdly bloated. Same goes for Alcatel - they customized the OS so much that parts of it are broken!

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Wait, that was a wholly customized interface on my OneTouch Fierce? Sure didn't feel that way compared to TouchWiz on the Galaxy devices. That device was more stable compared to my HTC Sensation and HTC G2 before it as well. But maybe that's because the HTC Sense interface may have been horribly broken and the Sensation has/had battery firmware issues.

Tsutarja said:

Yeah, you're right! I looked at its specs and it is indeed good for the price. The only thing stopping me is perhaps the fact that it runs Kitkat 4.4.4, and I'd prefer Lollipop lol.

Hopefully the phone is still available at the end of the year, around Christmas. :P

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A lot of the flagship phones from the past year are still stuck at 4.4.4 either by carrier choice or by manufacturer choice. My Xperia z3 is still stuck at 4.4.4 because of either Sony or Verizon's decision not to push an update out.

Nauje said:

The Lollipop update for the Moto G has already been rolled out, I've been running Lollipop for a few months now! I live in the UK too, so the 5.0 update should definitely be available in the States.

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In the US, the Moto G is only on KitKat. Apparently it's in the UK where it's on Lollipop.

Tsutarja said:

In the US, the Moto G is only on KitKat. Apparently it's in the UK where it's on Lollipop.

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I'm pretty confident the Lollipop update is available in the US...

http://motorola-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/its-time-to-unwrap-android-5-lollipop.html
https://twitter.com/Motorola/status/558477728253743104
http://www.androidauthority.com/moto-g-1gen-2nd-gen-lollipop-india-us-582181/

The phone comes with KitKat, and then you update it to Lollipop afterwards.

Nauje said:

I'm pretty confident the Lollipop update is available in the US...

http://motorola-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/its-time-to-unwrap-android-5-lollipop.html
https://twitter.com/Motorola/status/558477728253743104
http://www.androidauthority.com/moto-g-1gen-2nd-gen-lollipop-india-us-582181/

The phone comes with KitKat, and then you update it to Lollipop afterwards.

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Huh, interesting. Weird though that they still manufacture the device to come with Kitkat; you'd think that they would start later shipments to already include Lollipop. Guess not.

Oh, seriously? I thought Nexus supposed to be one of Google's trump card if it comes to smartphones. And I'm wondering if the battery problem is caused by big power consumption, or the lack of battery capacity. And I think the affordable price should be a priority as well (while keeping the quality intact), which was the reason I decided to buy Xiaomi phones back then.

Even though now Google has released the series of affordable-priced phones under the umbrella of Android One (which is available on selected countries, iirc, like where I live), but still.

The Nexus phones in general are just "overpriced" in my opinion (of course, overpriced is in in quotes because you may feel otherwise). However, they did do great with the pricing of the Nexus 7 2013 tablet, which was one of the reasons I got one when it was still hot and trendy.

flight said:

I definitely don't expect Google to release a super flagship within the $150-250 range, and that's completely fine with me.

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I mean when you consider the fact that they own Motorola (last I checked), they don't need to when the Moto series is sitting right under their desks waiting to be sold to budgeters like myself.

That said, I'd nab a nexus if it wasn't exactly because of the pricing.

White Glint said:

I mean when you consider the fact that they own Motorola (last I checked), they don't need to when the Moto series is sitting right under their desks waiting to be sold to budgeters like myself.

That said, I'd nab a nexus if it wasn't exactly because of the pricing.

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Nope, Motorola Mobility is now under the ownership of Lenovo, and has been since late last year.

Oh, really? I almost forgot that Motorolla's on Lenovo now. Btw, this makes me wondering if any merger of phone brands can become a success or not, tho, even though I think Sony Ericsson succeeds quite well imo before Sony drops the Ericsson moniker.