Posts by djstardust

Hmmmm

Nice in theory, but I have a Yoga 12 Thinkpad under a business warranty which caught fire recently due to a component on the motherboard frying itself.

Being blunt, Lenovo's customer support (even with a 3 year business warranty) is absolutely atrocious. 45 minutes every time I called for someone to pick up the phone, operators who can't speak English ..... then a comedy of errors, no show "engineers" due to them arguing about what needed repaired and finally a random bloke who turns up after 8 days and doesn't have a clue what to do to fix the machine.

If you get one that works and you never have to get it serviced then fine, other ways avoid, avoid, avoid.

Who would want one anyway?

Seriously expensive.

Not enough ports.

Major quality issues.

Poor battery life.

Insides completely glued together and non-upgradeable.

Many software glitches because M$ can't even get their own software to work with their own hardware.

No thanks!

There may be trouble ahead ....

Seems the developer community are walking away due to them withdrawing bootloader unlock keys.

There are also rumours that OTA updates are causing previously rooted devices not to boot at all.

Given that originally Huawei / Honor devices were the easiest to root and make custom ROMs for, this seems a strange change of direction.

I know only a small percentage of buyers actually do this, but it will have an impact in the longer term. At least with some Samsung devices knox can be overcome quite easily.

Above that, their array of handsets are totally confusing. Hundreds of models all sort of similar but different between two brands that are essentially the same. Seems they are doing what Samsung used to do by releasing a new handset literally every week hoping that if they flood the market it will make them succeed.

Apple will end up like Nokia

Expensive not very good phones that people will get tired of. An operating system that has only incremental updates and is old and tired just like S60.

Not to mention the absolute rip-off prices of their accessories and their very poor handling of design flaws.

Nokia had a massive pile of cash as well at one point but it can disappear quick enough.

Once sales start to drop investors will move on and that will be it.

Tick tock tick tock ......

Hmmmm

How about the Leveson Enquiry anyone .......

Hmmmm

Expensive

Out of date tech

Not enough ports

Non-upgradeable

Everything you need to know about Apple today.

Vidafone .....

Great netwoek ..... poor customer service ..... terrible website ...... expensive prices.

In a nutshell.

Another price increase .....

From £869 to £899 in a year.

the Note 4 was £569 at launch so I don't see where the extra cost comes from ..... unless Samsung are copying Apple of course.

Rather than selling it at a reasonable price point (£650 comes to mind) they would rather be stupid, price themselves out of the market and close manufacturing plants.

Same issue with the Tab S4. £600 for the tablet and another £150 for the keyboard is ridiculous. They hardly sold any Tab S3 at that pricing point but that doesn't matter to someone in an office crunching numbers and making up silly prices. As much as I dislike apple the basic ipad at £319 is very good indeed and competitively priced for once.

I don't understand companies these days (shakes head)

Maybe so

But at those prices Apple can go suck.

Apart from that, the SSD being soldered to the motherboard is a definite no-go for me.

How much?

Bloody hell .....

At least the displays are decent. That's about it.

Hmmmm

Windows update service = disabled

Windows modules installer = disabled

Job done.

P.S. Why do they spend so much time on Edge browser when absolutely no-one uses it?

Well.....

Their incident reporting is obviously as late as their shitty charter flights.

GPD Pocket

£400

USB 3.1

USB C

Micro HDMI

128gb SSD

Intel Atom

8gb RAM

7" touchscreen

Windows 10 home

It's around £400 and I've been using my one for months running VirtualDJ with HD video out and it works a treat. It's also available in Linux for the geeks out there.

Don't even waste your time MS as you're late to the party, your one will be infinitely more expensive then abandoned after a matter of months.

Apple are shit nowadays

Not a desirable product any more.

Mass market poorly designed and manufactured crap that gives you the least for the most money.

That's why the keyboard is glued to the frame and the hard drive can't be replaced.

That 285 BILLION dollars in their bank account is you getting plainly ripped off.

Wake up people.

Interesting this

Especially since so many non legitimate businesses use Facebook to advertise for free.

There is one in our area (Gardens, landscaping, roofing, tree surgeons surprise surprise) who constantly have "competitions" no-one wins except the business owner's sister. They are also known for overpriced and incomplete work but literally hundreds of people have reported their page and Facebook just refuse to do anything about it.

As far as I am concerned Facebook are complicit in their illegal activities by giving them a free advertising platform.

BT

Thing is, if they tried actually being nice to their customers they might get more business.

They need to get above the broadband rat race and stand out.

No more discounted 12 month contracts that double after the first year

No more stupid introductory prices for new customers whilst the current ones get increases

No more false promises about broadband speeds

No more rip-off out of contract costs on BT Mobile

No more line rental increases to pay for the sport that most users don't want

And on it goes.

BT have become a toxic company like M&S and BA and it's going to take a lot of work to get customer confidence back.

Just more BS

From Apple. All they want to do is make as much margin for as little cost base as possible.

I have a £400 GPD pocket laptop that has USB-C, USB3, a headphone socket and micro HDMI out ..... so what's Apple's excuse for not including these ports on a "pro" laptop at many times the price?

Add to that a non-removable SSD, non-upgradeable RAM, still no touch screen or "yoga" tablet form and a shocking keyboard and it really makes you wonder why anyone would by one.

Apple will be the next Nokia. Tick tock tick tock .......

It's not funny at all

It's our taxpayers money being flushed down the shitter when GB PLC is already in a financial mess.

If it wasn't for all those multi million pound homes being bought by the Russians and Chinese with dodgy money where would we really be?

Good

Most of these "free" ad supported apps are crap anyway and the ads are over intrusive.

I would much rather pay for a fully working version with no ads.

Saying that, many of the really good independent apps I bought when android started have been snapped up by the big boys and that creates it's own problems ......

Or

He could just tell Offcom to do their effing job and stop BT running away with countless grants whilst delivering very little.

GPD Pocket

Maybe there a market for non power tablets and the likes.

I have a GPD pocket, it's Atom powered with 8gb RAM, 128gb SSD, runs Windows 10 with no issues at all and has more ports than Apple or MS. Cost around £400 and I use it as a DJ laptop which runs all night flawlessly outputting HD videos.

Not everyone needs i5, i7 and all the shiny stuff at well over a grand. The Pocket is solid aluminium and is made by a non-branded factory. It has sold well and proves that you don't need the best of everything to succeed.

Microsoft have no strategy at all, and it shows.

Confusing .....

The range of phones and names that Huawei / Honor have out at any time is just so confusing.

They all look similar but there are vast differences in price with no rhyme nor reason to the feature set on the handsets.

The fact they also bring out a new handset literally every week says it all.

Samsung used to do this and have now cleaned up their act a bit.

Seems that

Idiots on Facebook are still doing these stupid data slurping "quizzes" and have no idea that they are allowing both their own and their "friends" data to be harvested.

EN.NAMETESTS.COM

Here's Your Sick Note From Work!

Bitch, Angel Or Badass?

What Is Your Irish Nickname?

What Disease Will You Develop According To Your Name?

What Bitchy Quote Do You Wish Was Written Across The Sky?

Funny thing is that the people I see taking part in this shit are supposedly mature adults in their 30s and 40s. (who are then unfriended)

Jesus!

This is laughable

When they find it doesnt work (shock, horror) they will then try and ban VPN's in the UK.

Banning smoking in shared or works vehicles hasn't worked one little bit and this will go the same way.

How about for once @UK Gov actually works out a proper solution to an issue instead of banning or taxing something else instead?

I find this funny

Back when the iphone came out, Apple were having a go at S60 claiming it was a developers nightmare because of all the different processors and especially screen resolutions. iphone apps were clean and perfect because they didn't have to be developed for the lowest common denominator.

Wind things on 10 years and ..........

Apparently .....

LG executives thought .... what can we do to make our next phone stand out and make people want to buy LG

And the answer was ..... copy everyone else (but put in a smaller battery)

What a joke.

Just stop buying their shit

And Apple's too.

They'll get the message eventualy.

Expensive tech should come with a minimum 5 year warranty too IMO

That's really spooky .....

My previous search prior to loading ElReg was:

"How to completely disable Windows 10 updates"

This is exactly why I now avoid Apple gear

Poor quality components and build leads to inherent faults but out of warranty you're on your own. And for the price of Apple products and the fact they are "premium" (apparently) they should have a 5 year warranty.

£502 for a keyboard replacement is insane, especially when you can buy their complete standalone metal one for an already expensive £129. they are really really taking the piss with this.

Time and time again this happens to Apple gear but mugs just go back for more. Bending iphone 6 models, peeling screens, dodgy batteries, MacBook Pro video card issues ..... the list goes on.

On the other hand, my 8 year old 24" cinema display backlight circuitry died this week. It was one of the old school Apple products built to last, unlike the thin designer crap they produce today. Given the fact it was used pretty much every day over an 8 year period and cost £600, that's twenty pence a day, so not bad value at all. But after investigating it is in fact another inherent design fault where the power supply to the back light burns out. Most of these cinema displays are now dead with exactly the same issue, but of course Apple now don't repair them or stock any parts. Shock.

A disaster

As a TSB customer of 33 years (It was Aberdeen Savings Bank when I signed up) I have finally decided to move on. Shame really as the local branch have good long term staff .... but the real issues are higher up the chain.

This is yet another example of outsourcing not delivering (Accenture) and another company using outsourced IT support rather than a professional, committed in-house team.

Good luck hiring IBM, because most of their decent people either got the Ruud Gullit or moved on somewhere else.

I have a real issue with outsourcing, especially when seing what's recently happened with Carillion and Crapita, and any company who I find willingly using it to save a quick buck (in the short term of course) will be losing my business.

Hardly a surprise

In the old days, you paid the price for the handset (divided by the monthly amount the handset was worth) plus the airtime on top.

Now the big boys see contract handsets as a money spinner, so they up the monthly fees, extend the contract length (some now up to 36 months) and add an up-front payment so if you were to get the handset and equivalent sim-only deal it's a couple of hundred pounds more in some cases, and that's not factoring in the bulk buy discounts they get on the handsets.

Bottom line is that they have tried to rip people off and it's caught up with them.

In my weekly wonder round town, EE seem particularly expensive, but given they are now owned by BT that's hardly a surprise.

Hmmm

I have the Note 8 and it's almost perfect, apart from the headphone volume being limited to death and no FM radio. The new Galaxy S9 is pretty much the same device.

I still think the issue here is pricing. For some time now Samsung have put £50 on each new handset to match Apple and it's getting ridiculous. The price of some contracts for this are over £60 a month.

Bear in mind this is the same level of handset as the original Galaxy S, and it sold for £399.

I'm not denying it's not a great handset but the price (and profit margin) is just too high.

Just

Don't buy it.

They will all get the message ..... eventually .....

I can guarantee if someone sold unrepairable cars then there would be a revolt. This is no different.