Android

Quote from KnoxRents

If anyone has been on the fence about installing a custom ROM, Cyanogenmod is about to make it a whole lot easier for most phones with an installer available at the Google Play store.
http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/a_new_chapter

My S3 does what I need it to. No real need to root. I just bought 10 NFC tags, so I can tap and change settings instantly. Like in the Jeep , turns on bluetooth, brightens screens , turns up ring volume, turns on Pandora.. Pretty cool stuff.

Quote from altierior

Have you tried Go SMS?

I forget what I did but I was able to get it working with Handcent.

Heads up to anyone using the Photobucket app.

I did an Android update today and upon re-powering up PB decided to U/L every picture and video on my phone to their website.

I was at work and didn't have WiFi available.

I have a 2GB plan so I started getting overage texts before I realized what was happening and uninstalled the app.

All Verizon would do is increase my data to 4GB for the rest of the period for $10 more. >:(

I hate the new photobucket app, also all my pictures are in different order and the app is slow as crap.

VzW launched xlte in some cities recently, it should be available in Dover. Im getting more than 3x the speed of my home FiOS connection.

What would be involved with that? I can probably get my kids to set that up.

Either sign up for a data plan that includes the Mobile Hotspot feature or install a custom ROM like Cyanogenmod (basically hack your phone) that has the feature enabled. A less drastic and free option may be to use an app called Foxfi which works on many but not all phones http://foxfi.com/ and is very simple to setup. All recent VzW phones should have the mobile hotspot application, you used to be able to open it up and try to turn on the hotspot feature then while it showed a message that it was checking subscription if you hit the home button quickly to exit it still turned on the hotspot. Not sure if that still works or not.

The obvious risk is if you are not on an unlimited data plan it's very easy to use a couple gigs of bandwidth per month and exceed your quota plus a family isn't going to share one device very easily. I use it all the time while traveling but for a family or power user it's not going to easily replace your home intarweb.

It doesn't support googles app store, all apps come from Amazon's competing app store which probably has almost all of the same apps but not guaranteed. I would stick with one of the flagship models from Samsung, HTC or Motorola.

edit: this sums it up
http://www.droid-life.com/2014…ire-phone-flaw-no-google/

Too soon to tell. I haven't really looked into it much myself. But I did just upgrade my phone from the S3 to the new Galaxy S5. So far I'm liking the added features and the bigger screen. It makes being unproductive at work a lot better.

I'm just gonna leave this here

http://www.pcworld.com/article…ent-smartphone-share.html

Quote from KnoxRents

There aren't any custom ROM's available for the S5 yet and this crappy Samsung touchwiz is killing me. I wish I had stayed with my S4 a little longer.

As far as the Amazon fire phone, I think it will be the king of bloatware designed to make you spend money on Amazon with every touch. Stock Android at least let's you control the phone/tablet which is why I like my Nexus 7 so much more than the Kindle Fire. I'm going to pass.

EDIT: Just read the article Geoff posted. Yep. That's exactly what I assumed would be the major flaw.

I am running NOVA launcher as I could not stand Touchwiz either. So far I like it and might spring for the paid version. Very customizable and did exactly what I wanted it to do

The wife and I switched over to Tmobile today and I switched from an iPhone to the Galaxy S5. I didn't know much about my iPhone and now I have a headache from playing with this one for the last couple hours. I've DL all my apps just fine. Then I started playing with the settings and there's a hover magnifier, a scroll feature that follows your gaze, mute by flipping the phone or placing your hand over the screen....@_@ my eyes hurt! The 16th cam is pretty impressive though!