* Posts by GlasshalfHull

16 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Feb 2018

Huawei says its latest flagship smartphones lack 5G, blames US sanctions

GlasshalfHull

Last Huawei with Google services?

Is the P30 range the last Huawei release with the full Google app suite?

Users complain iOS 14.2 causes some older iPhones to overheat, rapidly lose charge

GlasshalfHull

I was given a new 6S only a couple of years ago by my work. Just because the 7 was the 2016 model doesn't mean they all were in use from 2016!

GlasshalfHull

Yes, my work 6S had been a dying duck since the latest update. At first i had thought it might be the covid app as we'd just come out of lockdown and entered tier 3, but removing it made no clear difference. On one occasion i checked and my 7minutes of screen on time to check emails had used 78% of the battery. I the checked under teh battery settings and found the Mail app was using most of the power, so i've stopped using it, removed all its notifications and moved to outlook again (i was using Mail on the instruction of my work IT team anyway), I've also changed other notification settings and found that having charged the phone fully 24 hours ago I now have 51% remaining. Only an hour or so of screen on time (working from home!), but its better than it was by far. I also allowed the phone to recalibrate the battery by using it to empty yesterday (torch on for half an hour) before charging. Today i'm leaving it off the charger overnight again and will allow it to fully discharge again. Hopefully it will be as good as new thereafter. The battery is still at 95% of its original capacity so it was definitely a product of the recent update screwing with existing apps and settings. i have a wireless charging case on teh ophone and it often sits fully charged for hours on end, maybe once in a while the gas guage just needs to reset itself properly.

Vivo pushes out X51 5G: Chipper whippersnapper, quite a battery-sapper, but at least the wrapper's dapper

GlasshalfHull

Same SoC as a Pixel 5 or Pixel 4a (5G) so why choose this over those?

BBK mixed-grill realness: Realme's pair of 7s are two more reasons not to spend over £300 on a smartphone

GlasshalfHull

Should we be wary of 65W charging generating heat? (Is heat still thought of as the main enemy of lithium ion batteries?) I occasionally check my droid's battery health and performance after disappointing experience with an earlier handset. After nearly 400 slow overnight charges the estimated capacity shows as 98% of the original 3,000mAh, with a potential screen-on time of nearly 7 hours.

Ports in a storm: The Matebook 14 won't set your world on fire, but it's still a half-decent laptop

GlasshalfHull

Keep away from the Lenovo Miix 520 then. I had three from work where the USB C failed with gentle daily plugging in. The Thinkpad X270 I have now is going strong for now, despite the USB C being used for power, which it isn't on the Miix 520.

Ancient telly borked broadband for entire Welsh village

GlasshalfHull

Re: More to the point

When something similar happened in Hull, KCOM bought the owner a new TV and swapped it. I'm sure the owner was delighted, and the old TV is in the "Lighthouse" with other KCOM curiosities, as a discussion point for customers and visitors.

What legacy is IBM really shooting for? Cheating its own salespeople out of millions? Here we go again, allegedly

GlasshalfHull

Good sales governance prevents sales people closing deals that won't deliver. Also, paying commission based on billed margin rather than solely on revenue at the time the contract is signed. Make sure there is a comprehensive contract and that it meets a well publicised clean order process; preferably one that doesn't keep changing on a whim. Also, sales people are employed to win business and not to deliver it, so don't keep going back to them with questions that are already andwered in the project docs or sales pack because your team "don't speak to customers", or ideally, read all the paperwork.

Mods I have known, Mods I have loved, Mods I have hated: Motorola's failed experiment is now a savvy techie's dream

GlasshalfHull

Sale price Mods

Anyone looking for mods should try their local John Lewis during the current sale. I found a Turbopower mod for £5, a Gamepad and JBL (2nd version) for £10 each. I bought two mods for myself and left a good few still on the clearance shelf. They don't tend to advertise them on the website so it's in store only.

iPhone price cuts are coming, teases Apple CEO. *Bring-bring* Hello, Apple UK? It's El Reg. You free to chat?

GlasshalfHull

Re: "Our users are hanging on to their iPhones a little longer"...

Not just me who saw "landmines" at first glance then?

The 6S battery change we undertook at an Apple store was certainly not efficient or particularly cheap after a 50+ minute drive to the Apple store and five hours it then took to fix it. At least it was Christmas and I was off work, and it seemed a good way to re-purpose the phone to another family member (now with a decent battery life). I meanwhile will stick with Android and can see no reason to reconsider based on Apple's 2019 product portfolio.

300,000 BT pensioners await Court of Appeal pension scheme ruling

GlasshalfHull

There's still at least one remaining benefit of investing in a pension; if you are a higher rate taxpayer but expect to be a basic rate taxpayer in retirement. Take the higher rate of tax relief on paying in, and reap the "benefit" of the lower basic rate tax on your income from the eventual pension. If higher rate relief is lost in an upcoming budget just watch for the fall in pension contributions.

Motorola extends modular phone adventure for another year

GlasshalfHull

Happy Moto Mod user here

I bought a Moto Z with JBL speaker mod and black herringbone styleshell in 2016. I bought a Motorola battery Mod just as the internal battery on the Moto Z was prematurely failing. Motorola offered a replacement Z2 Play, and it being a mid-range phone agreed to bundle in the Qi wireless mod. In any event they also fixed the Moto Z, so i have both phones and 3 styleshells and the JBL, battery and wireless charging mods. Both phones take SD cards while the Z2 Play takes 2 SIMs and an audio jack, so i use it in preference currently.

Day to day they're both great devices and the mods work as intended. When travelling with boarding passes or tickets on an app, a battery mod for long battery life is reassuring, while installing a second PAYG 3 SIM when overseas is a boon. I'd like more frequent security updates, and was put off by the premature battery problem, but Motorola more than made up for that. The form factor is still current, and IMO the mods have been value for money for early adopters. The phones all charge quickly too.

I moved to Motorola from OnePlus, with no regrets.

Motorola Z2 Force: This one's for the butterfingered Android lovers

GlasshalfHull

Support is a worry

I have a Moto Z and a Moto Z2 Play, not a Z2 Force, so can't comment on that phone, however I do like both of the phones I have, and don't intend changing for a while.

I got a fabulous deal on the Moto Z with the JBL speaker mod (which is superb). I've now got three styleshells and a wireless charging styleshell, and the recent Motorola battery pack too. All are excellent.

When the battery started to fail on the Z after just 6 months (really really poor) I sent it to Motorola for repair. It took several such returns for them to fix it, and in the intervening months they'd agreed to replace the Z with the Z2 Play, but in the event sent both the repaired Z and the new Z2 to me. I have done well out of this, but it highlighted that sometimes Motorola will use poor components (batteries in this case), and they'll sometimes struggle to repair when requested. The fact that they left me with a better Z than i had at the outset (according to the Accubattery app its capacity is consistently 200mah higher than spec), and a Z2 Play has been fantastic, but for a while i used a cheap BQ that I bought on a warehouse deal, and it made me realise that the cheap end of the android market has really caught up.

My experience with Motorola must have made them a financial loss, and I can't see how they can continue for long making and selling phones against the high end brand loyalty of Apple, and the low-end value of the Chinese manufactured EU marketed likes of BQ and Nokia unless they can consistently deliver the kit and the support that keeps customers coming back again and again. They are to be congratulated for trying to do something different, and maybe encouraged to keep it going, however, I wonder whether the cracks are showing in their infrastructure if not on the Z2 Force's screen.

Motorola Mods its global workforce

GlasshalfHull

Re: Recently got hold of a Moto Z2

I'm using a Moto Z and now have a Z2 Play too. I have a Qi Wireless charging mod, JBL speaker mod, a few "styleshell" mods and the battery mod. All work really well. Unfortunately, the concept would have worked better had an Apple or Samsung adopted and promoted it; the few manufacturers of cases and bumpers tend not to understand what is needed to make a case compatible with the mods, so it become easier to just use the phone and a mod, or abandon the mod when the protection of a case is preferred. Samsung and iPhone users typically have more accessory options, and those third party manufacturers would probably have better supported a more powerful brand. Had Motorola's experience and market penetration been more successful though, my two phones and six mods would have cost me more than the £380 I have paid for this lot! I definitely can't complain.

Home fibre in the UK sucks so much it doesn't even rank in Euro study

GlasshalfHull

OFCOM still require copper

I believe OFCOM still require a copper connection be delivered to each building to meet the universal service obligation. So, neither BT nor KCOM will yet be able to deliver just fibre to any new build, whereas other carriers will not be tied down by that.

GlasshalfHull

KCOM have more FTTP subscribers than DSL subscribers in its regulated area. Their first step was installing the fibre to pass the majority of homes and premises (and filling in the significant gaps will still take time), but getting a majority of customers to move to FTTP is already a fantastic success.