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    Android Moronic Monday (Feb 03 2020) - Your weekly questions thread!

    February 03, 2020

    Android Moronic Monday (Feb 03 2020) - Your weekly questions thread!

    Moronic Monday (Feb 03 2020) - Your weekly questions thread!

    Posted: 03 Feb 2020 03:15 AM PST

    Note 1. Join us at /r/MoronicMondayAndroid, a sub serving as a repository for our retired weekly threads. Just pick any thread and Ctrl-F your way to wisdom!

    Note 2. Join our IRC, and Telegram chat-rooms! Please see our wiki for instructions.

    submitted by /u/AutoModerator
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    Gmail's dark mode has gone missing for some people

    Posted: 02 Feb 2020 07:40 PM PST

    [Android Authority] A guy wheeled around 99 phones in a cart to create traffic jams on Google Maps.

    Posted: 03 Feb 2020 12:32 AM PST

    My old HTC found in damp shed ... still reasonably buttery

    Posted: 02 Feb 2020 01:57 PM PST

    [Samsung] Good lock update available for android 10

    Posted: 02 Feb 2020 10:08 PM PST

    In-depth detailed breakdown of my experience with the Galaxy Fold. Aka the stuff the reviews don't mention.

    Posted: 02 Feb 2020 02:01 PM PST

    So my short history with this device was that originally I wanted to get one at launch... which was delayed several months and once it finally was available, it was near impossible to get an unlocked one (Didn't want to mess with an at&t one). Now that its more readily available, but with the fold 2 apparently having large improvements (spen!), I really wasn't in the mood of paying full price for the original... but the interesting thing now is that people are selling used ones for about $1500 which was within the price I was ok with, so I grabbed a 'amazon renewed' one with 90 day return policy. Win-win? So the packaging was pretty sketch. Phone came in a padded envelope. No box no accessories nothing. There are definitely signs of this phone has experienced drops as well ('like new' lol)... so yeah definitely returning this. Anyways lets talk about this thing.

    • So the very first thing I've noticed about the device was that... when it was open it was solid. It really has zero movement and its great. When folded though... its a bit... creaky, and not just from me squeezing it a bit hard here, when I pick it up normally I can hear and feel it move a bit. I was told on the subreddit that, its just how it is. It's not the biggest deal after you get used to it, but it definitely caught me off guard the first day.

    • Besides that though, the device just feels great to hold. This is the first phone in years that I've felt confident carrying around without a case. the slim folded mode is easy to carry around or use one handed, and when the thing is opened, the plastic protective rim around the screen gives you a decent place to hold on to while doing your thing. Do note the weight and form factor will take a few days to get used to, if you are like me and generally mostly hold a phone with one hand and the other hand is for navigating, outside of typing. It really is just like a lighter slightly smaller ipad mini with less bezels (apple really should put some money into refreshing that line visually). Do note with all glass phones that it will love to slide out of your pants if you sit down, so if you are gonna go case less, jacket chest pocket is ideal.

    • So let's talk about the screen... the outer one! Honestly for me its surprisingly useable. I've used it plenty when outside or at work in a meeting. It's not particularly hard to type on once you get used to it. The screen isn't that different from my old iphone 5/se and its super easy to 1 hand. If they decreased the bezels, it would be kinda hard to reach the top area.

    • the inner screen... is interesting. People say that you don't see the crease when you are looking directly at it... and that's true, but that is a much tighter view than you'd think. If you have bright overhead lights its real apparent unless you position yourself just right. This is my bedroom light. At work. At an apple store. So the texture of the phone feels... different. It scrolls smooth enough like one of the better plastic screen protectors, but its still that. The crease in the middle... is quite noticeable especially if you are in landscape and scrolling down a list. But besides these aspects... the screen is pretty damn great for a first gen attempt. It really is the only hdr amoled mini tablet on the market (maybe there is some samsung budget tablet too?) and its great to look at... just gotta spend a half second to position yourself right.

    • So let's actually talk a bit more about this device and its use vs any other phone (will use my note 10+ as reference, currently one of the largest flagship phones on the market). In terms of media consumption... it might actually be equivalent or worse or better than any other large phone depending on the content you are watching. 16:9 video comparison 1. Comparison 2. Movie aspect ratio. The place where the device shines is watching older 4:3 content.. Great for manga and books too. Much easier to type on this device too with the larger keyboard.

    • Proper stereo speakers on both sides is really nice. They are on the left 'half' though so depending on how you hold the device in landscape, your palms could be covering them.

    • So if you wanted to get this purely for media consumption... not worth it. Where it gets interesting is other stuff. Do note with how android apps typically work, the screen density does affect if you see the phone or tablet variant of an app and classic samsung's default zoom puts everything into phone view... which sucks. Changing it down to the smallest does change stuff up though. Here is youtube. Feedly. Google Calendar. Gmail does its split panel view,chrome gives you the tabs at the top and much more. Obviously not all apps on android have robust tablet views, so stretched phone apps often give you less info... but apps that are optimized for tablets typically do give you more stuff on the screen. YMMV on the app. This includes the web as well. Sites behave differently too and might offer you more or less text on screen.

    • So lets talk more about one of the key selling points of this device... multiwindowing. As people might have remembered... samsung been doing this for years since the early days, long before android officially supported it in nougat. The way its implemented here... is a bit odd. Samsung obviously took some inspiration from how iPad does it. Anyways the quickest overview is that once you enable this feature, the primary app is shrunk to around 2/3 of the screen width, while the second app takes up the right. If you add a 3rd, it splits the area of the second app. You can resize the horizontal width, but not the line between app 2 and 3. You weirdly enough can't add a 4th app outside of doing the floating window. So this is where its weird... in portrait orientation... this really isn't that useful at all. Here is a comparison with my note. As you can see, the video is tiny on the fold to the point where... its just not fun to use. In landscape though with some resizing you can do some fun stuff like [run 3 autobattling mobile games at once.] The left app being the primary is also a bit backwards compare to android in general when you do splitscreen in landscape, the right app is the primary one in which switching apps will always switch the right one. (https://i.imgur.com/fJZmpFK.jpg) I do feel like this is a solid start for samsung to experiment with this new form factor. My suggestions is to save how you distribute the apps, and let users do a 4 app grid setup as well.

    • Let's spend a quick second about the weird notch on the inside. As someone who skipped the s10 with its wacky side notch hole thing... this is really awful for the main reason of it cutting into some video apps like youtube, and plenty of games have buttons and ui elements on the corners which makes this unusable. Luckily its pretty straightforward to turn this off and never think about it again.

    • I'm actually pretty impressed at how much of the basics this device didn't cut (Can't imagine cramming most of the flagship features into a first gen foldable was easy). same camera setup as the 2019 flagships. flagship memory and specs. wireless charging (might be the only foldable on the market with it? Dont know if huawei does or not). Slightly bummed it doesn't support the 25/45w fast charging that the note 10 introduced... but the battery life is great. Better than you'd think for a tablet with only 4300ish mah. Software also is fully featured, including many things that the samsung tablets cut, including themes, all the good lock apps (task switcher is a bit wonky though, drag an app to enable splitscreen doesn't work). video enhancer mode. Wish you could flip the device into dex mode on the device like the tablets. Hopefully that is added someday. the one thing that's missing that is a bummer is edge panels. I'm the weirdo that uses those daily for app pairs, cropping image tool and quick launch other apps. I know the multitasking bar is the same gesture here... but it would be nice if they added it to the left or something.

    • Software updates... is where its weird here. This unlocked at&t model (with like 2 dozen or so bloat apps that I had to disable/uninstall. Jesus) for some reason is stuck on august security update and says its the latest version. I don't really wanna call at&t and see whats up... with me not being a customer with them. I think there are ways to flash unlocked on this... but I'm probably just not gonna bother and return this. Haven't heard any major features being added though, and android 10 update is slated for april.

    Overall I'm pretty happy with the device and the idea of foldables. This device is way less fragile than you'd think, and samsung experimenting with floating windows all the way back in the day is paying off finally. Definitely a product line to keep an eye on. Expect huge improvements yearly. If you been wishing you had an ipad mini style device that is pocketable and is your phone... keep an eye on foldables.

    As always if there are any questions, chuck them below.

    submitted by /u/chickdigger802
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    Alleged leaked video shows off Samsung’s folding Galaxy Z Flip

    Posted: 02 Feb 2020 06:15 AM PST

    Xiaomi may launch a Redmi K30 Pro with the Snapdragon 865 but no 108MP camera

    Posted: 03 Feb 2020 01:53 AM PST

    Desktop Modes: Do you use them? Do you have questions? Ask me!

    Posted: 02 Feb 2020 10:01 PM PST

    After several recent threads related to using phones as desktop/laptop alternatives, I've seen a lot of misunderstandings and disbelief with respect to what many devices are actually capable of these days.

    For example, here's what Excel on DeX looks like: https://imgur.com/rZW8aNS

    Here's what browsing Reddit on Samsung Internet looks like: https://imgur.com/CZlX7xE

    Samsung has DeX, Huawei/Honor has EMUI Desktop, and LG recently rolled out a first iteration of their desktop mode, too.

    I have an S10 Plus and I use DeX on a daily basis. I also have a desktop PC. I find myself using my "DeXtop" on a more regular basis than my desktop, given all I need to do is take my phone and stick it on the dock, and I'm up and running. I find the only time I'm hitting the desktop PC is when I want to do some modern AAA gaming (although even that is in question given where Microsoft xCloud is headed).

    Here's the desktop dock I use: http://www.baseus.com/product-364.html along with a keyboard, Bluetooth mouse and monitor.

    What I'd like to do here is answer some questions people may have about using a phone in this way, what it's capable of, and speak to any of the perceived shortcomings. It'd be great if others who use these interfaces could chime in, too.

    AMA :)

    submitted by /u/nickthaskater
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    Given how long phones stay on between restarts, wouldn't a phone with ECC memory make sense?

    Posted: 02 Feb 2020 02:55 PM PST

    Compared to many computer setups, phones are subjected to more things that can 'potentially' flip a bit. Wouldn't it make sense to have ECC hardware in a phone?

    submitted by /u/ObsidianWraith
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    Huawei outsells Apple in 2019, becomes No. 2 global smartphone vendor

    Posted: 02 Feb 2020 06:12 AM PST

    Good Lock 2020 with Android 10 and One UI 2.0 support is out now

    Posted: 03 Feb 2020 03:55 AM PST

    Moto RAZR seems to be compatible with Google Fi

    Posted: 02 Feb 2020 09:09 PM PST

    Hi, everyone, I just received my Moto RAZR production model today. I managed to get my Google Fi account into the esim and everything seems working (LTE, wifi calling, SMS, etc), except that a "sim card is not verizon" notification will stay and never go away (just like other verizon-only moto devices, i.e. Z3). You only need to skip the activation step when you power up the first time then download Google Fi app, then proceed to activate from there using your google account. Maybe you guys already knows but I was pretty excited. Cheers.

    submitted by /u/dxin
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    Trick to Enable Google App / Assistant Dark Mode on Android 10, Non-Pixel

    Posted: 02 Feb 2020 08:21 PM PST

    Google and Android customer support have been telling many (including me) that Google App / Discover dark mode isn't ready yet, or will come 'soon', and they've been saying this for a long time now. The reality is that they seem to be keeping it as a Pixel exclusive for the time being. Not sure why they won't be up front about this, but regardless, I did find a way to enable it.

    Let me preface by saying you need Android 10 for this trick to work. Also, no guarantees it will work for your device. But it works on my Essential Phone.

    -Make sure system-wide dark theme is enabled in your settings

    -Open the Google App and tap on your account in the top-right corner

    -Click 'Use without an account'

    at this point, the app and Assistant should go dark after a few seconds. Now...

    -Turn on airplane mode, then switch back to your account in that top right corner. Return to your home screen

    -Disable airplane mode and quickly reopen the Google app. It should remain in dark mode now (without the airplane mode step, it just reverts immediately to light mode). Depending on your device, Google Podcasts may also now be dark

    That's the trick. Been working for me for quite a while now. It may revert back to light mode when you plug in your phone to charge, or after a few hours (unless you use it without an account, but that takes away a lot of the usefulness). If it does this and you want it back, just repeat the steps. I re-enable it whenever I'm using my phone after dark. Not a permanent solution, but nice to have when you want it. Despite Google support telling me the feature's not ready for my specific phone, it's been working perfectly for me, no bugs, visual or otherwise.

    submitted by /u/midnightmeteors
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    Anyone else randomly lose their Gmail Dark Theme today?

    Posted: 02 Feb 2020 07:22 PM PST

    I have lost my dark theme for Gmail, without changing any settings. It appears the toggle has been removed from the 'General settings' tab aswell.

    http://imgur.com/gallery/LSNJZQJ

    submitted by /u/CalShero
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    This may be the framework design of the Galaxy Note 20

    Posted: 01 Feb 2020 02:49 PM PST
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