PythonFanPA

Same here, generally navigating between pages seems fine to at least usable whenever whatever is going on is in play, but clicking on a thread to view it is when suddenly the site response just hangs for several seconds (in my experience anywhere from 10 to even as much as 20-25 seconds before the thread page will finally load). To be specific, these days I'm usually clicking the icon to go to the next unread post in the thread - I have no tested to see if the same behavior exhibits itself if you just click in the thread link normally or if there's any differential.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/smartphones-are-eating-the-consumer-tech-world---59-of-2018-global-consumer-tech-spending-spent-on-smartphones-300800174.html

Gizmodo's take: https://gizmodo.com/the-lg-g8-will-make-you-feel-like-a-magician-sort-of-1832839067

Hand-on review from Engadget: https://www.engadget.com/amp/2019/02/24/lg-g8-thinq-hands-on/

On another note, the site in general has seemed to have issues the past several days in terms of either accessibility or latency from my end. Hadn't seen any particular posts from others expressing the same thing but I've experienced it both at work, at home and on via mobile. Having said the above, right now and generally today so far its been fine.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/motorola-moto-g7-news/

Much cheaper than that even if you find one via eBay or Swappa.

Here's some info/reviews on the new G7 midrange series by Moto: https://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Motorola-Moto-G7-G7-Plus-G7-Power-and-G7-Play-Review_id4607 https://www.stuff.tv/features/which-motorola-moto-g7-should-you-buy **NOTE**: Apparently the G7 Plus won't be available in the US

Interesting and ironically timely article on resistance to premium smartphone costs: https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/286114-report-consumers-are-getting-tired-of-expensive-phones

6G will be the Borg hive mind stage. We won't need to debate spectrum/SNR/chipsets etc etc anymore, we'll all be directly plugged into the collective consciousness and insta-transmit movies and media directly into our cerebral cortex.

If you take it *that* literally and only read it at face value without understanding all the factors/variables in play, you could have that perspective I suppose, but just because one has some 'money' doesn't mean they're not going to try to manage it responsibly and use it in the most responsible way given their current set of circumstances. I have money/cash on hand too. I also have a mortgage, 10k+ credit card debt (mostly inherited/trying to pay down over time) and 30k of student loan debt (also inherited), and while I might want to ideally, I'm not going to go invest in Tesla or SpaceX or whatever forward-thinking type of investment expenditure I could pull out of my butt right now either. Much less go buy a Lamborghini (disclaimer: I'd much rather have the Lambroghini than invest in some hoity-toity company anyway). I'd take that statement of more 'placing emphasis on/playing to where your current strengths are' and choosing to downplay the other perspective, because of the type of scenario illustrated in my comments above. If they had little debt and money to burn, sure, they could have participated in 600 as well, but it didn't make sense for them at the time given the next-gen road ahead, their current spectrum and factoring in their overall financial situation. With anything other than the federal government it seems (insert your own joke/jab here), tough financial issues forces you to make tough choices. And even then, as Robert pointed out, those tough choices unfortunately don't always turn out to be right.

BA, what are your feelings on the camera cutouts on the S10? I'm not quite sure where you stand on that, please clarify.

Never tried HAM, but the mention of CB takes me back, plus makes me cringe in hindsight. Back in late gradeschool through much of my middle school years, I got into CB, because my folks had bought a used car with a cheaper model Cobra mobile unit (also Smoky & the Bandit, Convoy and the like probably helped spur that on a bit as well) . Looking back, in a sense those days were my geek infancy to social networking, before I graduated to dial-up single line BBS'es, to multi-line BBS (shout out for Sounds of Silence, for anyone from/near Nashville back in the day), and Q-Link after that, before Al Gore finally invented the internet *cough*.... Anyway, the reason for the hindsight cringe: I got so hooked on CB'ing that I sold whatever I could in yard sales at the time so I could save up for a semi-decent base station setup. So being someone who was born in 70 and naturally was a kid square in the midst of the Star Wars craze, I over time had a decent (for a kid of rural based family with lower middle class roots/money) collection of classic Kenner toys - including both TIE's, the X-Wing, and my prized possession: the Millennium Falcon herself. I never cared near as much about Jedi/the Force or all that - my childhood fantasy was to be Han Solo, not Luke. And yet I betrayed my youth and sold the Falcon and all the rest, figures and all, for a large base model (I can't remember the make to this day, but I remember my first one had vacuum tubes) and a Starduster omnidirectional mounted on a 50' pole. I had some fun years and had 2 memorable late night 'skip' connections, one cross country somewhere in Nevada and even one international New Zealand hit that blew my mind. Also experienced (in day-after fashion) the power lightning can have - I was always smart enough to disconnect the coax whenever I was done in case of storms, but I just laid the end on the concrete floor of the secondary concrete block building my setup was in (primarily was built for my dad's woodworking tools plus lawn/gardening equipment), and one day I walked in and there was a 3 inch deep divet blown from the concrete floor after the prior night's storm. Was some fun times/memories to be sure, but that said though - if Doc Brown showed up right now in the DeLorean and offered to take me back, I think I'd go strangle my younger self until I agreed not to give up all that valuable classic Kenner swag, knowing what I know now.

I was considering a mint or at least good condition GS8 or possibly the LG G7 by around midyear myself. The G7's especially, you can already get a refurbished G7 for under $300 via eBay, and a good to mint G7 for between 300-400 (though timing/constant monitoring matters on something like Swappa it seems). I don't get too fussed about the launchers as I always switch to Nova and personalize everything back to my liking anyway, so unless there's some sort of hardware deal breaker (which generally no longer applies for me anymore since everyone abandoned removable batteries), I don't really tend to defer to Samsung over all else, and unless I can still hit the $300 or possibly $325 max (a stretch even then), I'm not banking on being able to find an S9 reduced that much that quickly.

First, I want to state on the front end that if you read this and feel uncomfortable by it, I understand - I've been on the other side of these things myself when I've seen them posted say on Facebook particularly, though I've tended to be more willing to help out here when I've seen them. I even feel uncomfortable posting it to some extent, but I'm just simply trying to help out family in any way I'm able. I also want to state that I requested and received Robert's ok to post before just doing this arbitrarily. Let it be understood that even that being the case, S4GRU is not in any way directly tied to this. This is just a fellow member asking for help from anyone willing on behalf of family, and again, I just want to stress that if you feel uncomfortable with helping out here, no worries - I totally understand that perspective will exist and apologize up front, because no offense is intended, and none taken by me for anyone that feels this way and moves on to the next post. With that out of the way: My wife's niece and her parents are in a real bind right now, and had to resort to the GoFundMe route to try and cover necessary medical expenses for past treatment attempts as well as the last resort treatment for her finally landed on diagnosis of Autoimmune Encephalitis/PANDAS. For the 'last resort' angle, basically there's a drug treatment that was primarily developed for cancer patients but has around an 80% success rate treating this particular disease. The initial blood work for her, from what they were told, looks positive in her case that this should be treatable with this method. The only problem is, the treatments cost $16k a pop, they require the money upfront before they'll administer the treatments, and insurance won't cover a penny of it, at least for someone based in Pennsylvania. Right now they've raised enough for one treatment, and gotten past it, but they're not where they need to be yet past that for the 2nd one last I've heard. I think is technically supposed to happen 2 weeks after the first timing-wise The link to their GoFundMe follows: https://www.gofundme.com/morghan039s-medical-mission First and foremost and above any financial assistance, for anyone of faith and willing to be receptive to that angle (and I understand going in, not everyone will be), and her parents would tell anyone this to their face - they ask for prayer. True, genuine, heartfelt prayer, because they need a great deal of it - that not only can they finish out this path, but that it actually works, because so far as they're aware, this is their final shot for a resolution. Past that, if you're willing to donate, that would be greatly appreciated. If this is something you're sympathetic and you're also not uncomfortable sharing on Facebook with others you know, that would be appreciated as well (there is a button link on the page to do this). Particularly on the latter however I especially understand if that's beyond the personal comfort level. And my humble and sincere thanks in advance for anyone just simply taking the time to read. No responses in the thread are really necessary for my part - again, just trying to help beyond how we already have otherwise by trying to spread to word to anyone willing to help. Tim

Jet Fighter

Green Ranger

Ranger Rick (boy, this one dates me)

I agree with you Robert. The 'high end' too has tilted far too high IMO pricewise - this applies to Apple as well, if not others - in the face of supposed 'innovations' that have at least sometimes introduced controversial debate at best to driving some loyal customers away in many respects - thinking the whole 'notch' angst just for starters. Beyond that though, the stark reality is that $400-500 every 2-3 years is about the limit for a ton of average consumers who just want all the main/usual suspect high points checked off, with more updated security and some perceivable performance improvement/better battery life than their last phone perhaps, and in most of those consumer's eyes/experience with the relative big picture plateau technology has hit, it doesn't take an $800-1k phone to give them that. I state this as someone making this post on a refurbished LG G5 - there's literally nothing (other than having consistently reliable GPS, but that's something even then I could probably laterally switch to a used/refurbished GS7 and fix too if I wanted) I absolutely either want or need to do on a regular basis that I can't do currently with this phone. I'll eventually upgrade to something newer mainly to keep up with Android, and in my case I might be willing to shell out only maybe $300 or so to do that, but even then that's driven by OS/software vs hardware - and I'd still be getting a hardware upgrade regardless by default. I'm sure both companies will continue to make profit emphasizing the launch day/top of the line premium crowd at the expense of true midrange bang-for-the-buck value for now, but longterm they're going to be dangerously close to playing Russian Roulette with 5 bullets instead of one - and all it takes is one company with a combination of the right phone at the right price with the right marketing and perfect timing to start changing the game entirely. LG, Moto, OnePlus, others, eventually one of these companies are going to have a real shot at it if they finally bring the right package to market and Sammy/Apple keep with the status quo and disenfranchising enough people. Not saying it *will* happen either, but it absolutely can. It's not like we've never seen prior mountain kings toppled before in the consumer world, much less within our lifetime.

Info released about the new A-series 2019 range of midrange Galaxy phones: https://bgr.com/2019/02/14/galaxy-s10-vs-galaxy-a50-specs-leaked-for-new-samsung-phones/

GSM Arena article on finalized full specs for all 3 variants of GS10: https://www.gsmarena.com/exclusive_here_are_the_final_detailed_specs_of_the_samsung_galaxy_s10_trio-news-35487.php Related BGR article: https://bgr.com/2019/02/12/galaxy-s10-plus-vs-galaxy-s10e-specs-leaked-well-ahead-of-launch/

Potato Head

Place Mat

To be clear, it says 'up to 550' which means whatever they credit for your phone would be the trade-in credit (also means you'd have to fully own whatever you're trading in and assuming eligibility). The $50 credit otherwise is towards accessories and not directly attached to the new Galaxy device.