Internet smartphone reviews seem to be written by the dangerously unbalanced. The phone I’ve been using for the last six years or so was cheap, reliable, and did everything I wanted except take good photos. I was not concerned with the niche tech fetishes that are of vital importance to the geeks – performance metrics that mean nothing to me, design subtleties I don’t even notice, yadda yadda. I needed a phone with an SD slot so I could load my albums into it and a headphone socket, basically. I don’t “do” social media. So the Samsung A02S fit the bill, and still did until recently, when recurring side switch failure, cable socket damage and quietly corrupting the SD card turned it into a bit of a nuisance. But the reviews of this humble entry-level device were universally scornful; only an idiot could be happy with this piece of junk. Dumb old me.
Headphone sockets have disappeared from most new phones, but I made the leap of faith to wireless buds a while back (brilliant Samsung Buds Core at a knockdown price) so that wasn’t a concern. But the SD slot is a dealbreaker, and that seems to be going the same way, and I don’t really understand why. Buying storage capability on a phone is expensive, limited, and inflexible. An SD card gets you up to 1TB of storage, and also offers a simple way of discretely transferring large amounts of, er, albums, from device to device. The Samsung A27 had the slot, if not the hole, but nothing above it in the product line did. It also has a reasonable camera, a slightly bigger, much brighter and clearer display, and most of the bells and whistles that have arrived in the last six years. The nice lady at the Samsung tiki hut at my local Lotus copied over everything I needed from my old phone, apps, files, photos, the lot, doing in twenty minutes what would have taken me the weekend and a lot of swearing. And gave me a folding camping chair, probably because I looked like I needed one. The phone was more expensive than the A02S, but so is an entry-level Etch-A-Sketch©, and I’ll probably have this one clutched to my hollow breast when they slide me into the temple oven, having been unable to pry it from my cold dead hands. I love it, but the reviews are universally sneering, and never mention the SD slot.
And I’ve discovered the browser of my dreams. It’s not even a browser, really, just a blazingly fast (as internet reviewers like to say) way to see your favourite web sites on your phone. Browsers are mostly too complicated, too much clutter in a small space. The Samsung native browser is pretty damn great, and scores higher than Firefox (which I’ve used on my Mac for decades) because the bookmark system is simple, intuitive, and quick. For some reason Firefox makes you struggle. But I’m not here to sell you the Samsung browser, but Firefox Focus, the Ariel Atom of browsers. Download the app onto your phone (I don’t think it makes much sense on a “home computer”) and open it up. What you see is what you get – a blank-ish page with an address bar at the top, and that’s about it. It does tabs, and there’s a refreshingly basic range of settings, but no bells, whistles, smoke, mirrors, and no bookmarks! What you do – well, what I do – is enter a website into the address bar, open it up, and choose “add to home screen” from the three dots. This will plant an icon next to the app icon on a “pane” (or whatever they’re called) of your home screen. You can reserve a pane for these links, which function as instantly accessible bookmarks you can arrange as you want. I have about a dozen sites that I visit regularly, and a quick swipe and tap and I’m there without even consciously opening and operating a browser. For actual “browsing” I still use my Mac, but on the phone Firefox Focus is a very sweet thing to have, and it needn’t supplant Your Browser Of Choice. Although it might.
I could have accepted my daughter’s year-old iPhone (therefore hopelessly outdated), but the storage is pathetic and I don’t want to go through all the hoops of Macownership.
These “about a dozen sites” you visit regularly – care to elaborate?
You’ll find the pub relatively unchanged (still not sure we needed a skittles alley) . I found Wordle very hard today.
Of course I’m delighted to share my regularly-visited websites with you and the AI bots who harvest the data on very popular forum !
They are, in no particular order:
regvarneyappreciationsocietymessageboard.org
paintyourshed.com
blimeyishestillalive.net
askthebabyjesus.com (AI but very inspiring)
learntotwerk.com
lemoncurdworld.co.uk
haveawank.com
harrythehappyhedgehog.co.uk (nsfw)
funycatoons.com
smeltingmyway.org
thewitlessdullard.co.uk
unboxingnews.ni
pondlife.net
brotherhoodofbeef.com
Not even rentatray.com I am disappoint.
Their TOS are frankly a slap in the face for the tray enthusiast.
We rebels don’t give a toss.
Are you “hedbAnger” on reddit’s r/alt-tray?
How’s the boy?
If you mean my stunt son, he’s much the same, thanks. He will soon be strong and brany enuff to bring in the coal.
Strewth, how lovely to see you on these pages once again, you old rascal. What’s stirred your asian erie recently? Are you opening a new canning factory for the Corsair franchise? Do tell!
I am sitting on the deck, watching the birds swoop over the swollen river. While the dogs fight under my chair. Life is much the same day to day. And I am very grateful.
I visit smeltingmyway.org on a regular basis. Wonderful stuff.
Steel yourself.
A music player with a SD card slot? Buy a Fiio!
P.S. pylonofthemonth.org is still going.
Lulzies!
I have a Pixel 7 which I I’m very happy with but I had the SD card slot problem too so I ended up with the 250 gig one which has enough room for music I want to put on there. I too use the Samsung browser but I also use DuckDuckGo. The nice thing about the pixel is it doesn’t have any secondary layer of software like you get on a Samsung so it’s very efficient and fast. And you basically just decide what apps you want. It doesn’t come with pre-installed Facebook and linkedin and so on which you can’t remove. So it doesn’t care at all that I don’t really use Chrome but I do use DuckDuckGo and Samsung as browsers.
Yebbut (and it’s a big one) you get Zuckerberg peering at you through it. He watches you on the toilet and everything.
The Zuk isn’t on my phone. Well, What’s App but try as I might only 3 people have moved to Signal.
From a internet: “Mark Zuckerberg does not use a Google Pixel 7; he is a known user of Samsung Galaxy Android smartphones, and there is no public connection or record of him using Google’s Pixel 7 device.” And WHY?? BECAUSE HE DOES NOT LIKE TO WATCH HIMSELF ON THE TOILET.
I got a free iPhone 16 through work about a year ago. No SD card here and 128 gigs only. All my digital music is within PlexAmp stored on my home computer and I can stream it over WiFi wherever I am. I don’t have a big data plan but can download a selection of albums on WiFi for road trips, flights, running etc. Still not a massive iPhone fan but I find that by using certain Apps and storing most stuff elsewhere I can get along with it
The camera is very good, I have wireless earphones but also a pair of wired ones that plug into the USB-C slot. I do use Safari a lot to browse the internet, but I also like Opera.
Well, I don’t mind Callas – but she’s no Renata Tebaldi!
I liked her when she sang Save Your Love.
Arf!
Phones are the very embodiment of modern marketing. Whilst I do use iPhones (looked after, I get 5 or 6 years out of them) I mainly do it because I have other Apple devices and the ecosystem works for me and my work.
I avoid Facebook and X and most social media. It is all a bit shit and the price to pay on privacy is high. I use LinkedIn a bit and WhatsApp groups mostly.
I would recommend http://www.americanscrapmetal.com and http://www.powergenitalia.com as two excellent websites.
And welcome back HP. Good to see you.
I opened both of those links successfully because I run Mac Mojave, an older OS that is unaffected by more recent site takedowns, and I am frankly shocked that you knew about them.
Would you say that your interest in Powergenitalia is not unconnected to your advanced years and concomitant lessening of capabilities in this area?
At my age, Powergenitalia is especially interesting. I always knew Americans were crap at metal but it is reassuring to have ones prejudices validated.
I am disappoint. I thought Americans Crap Metal was going to be something to do with the Barium meals and Bristol Stool Charts.
*hushed poetry reading applause*
I wasn’t disappoint at the time, but I am now.
Here, have a Werther’s.
The offer of a Werther’s cements your position as a grandfather figure (albeit the wayward one) to me.
Rather you take it out his pocket than I………..
I hadn’t thought of its pocket based proximity. I am perturb.
Oh go on, root about. You know you want to.
I have an iphone 17 coz it takes good pics and I am embedded in the apple ecosytem. I use safari, I am active on facebook, peruse X. use all the google apps etc , dont untick AI.
Come and get me.
Re your photos thing HP. Just download em frequently to another device.
Glad you’ve popped back H.P. You’ll be able to tell me why there’s been a delay in the new Church album. Cheers!
I haven’t been in touch with Mr. Kilbey for a while now, so you know more than I do. I haven’t really liked the band since, ooh, heroin bled out all the tunes. They never really came back. But that early run of albums still sounds absolutely extraordinary to me.
Tend to agree old chap. Last couple of albums are a bit dull but I’d still go see them should they head this way-ish.
“Them” in the context of The Church is a bit tricky, tho, innit. Unless you mean Van and his pals?
See also: Barney Sumner and his pretend New Orders.
Nope, deffo mean Bondi’s finest.
It’s definitely Kilbey’s band though the drummer has been around a bit. I do miss the Wilson Piper/Koppes interplay on the albums but the ‘new’ boys seem to do well live.
I’d certainly go and see them if they turned up in Nakhon Phanom.
Call me naive but I was expecting haveawank.com to be a tongue-in-cheek repository of leftfield cultural insight and comment. Imagine my disappointment when it turned out to be a boring old porn site.
Good to see old Saucebox back around these parts though.
I can imagine your disappoint.
I am quite happy with my 256GB iPhone 15 Pro, thanks for asking. It’s teetering on the edge of out-of-dateness but good for a fair few years yet. Terrific camera.
But card slots? Tchah. Roughly 100GB of my tunes is/are available to me on my phone in Apple Music either on my computer via wifi or in the cloud via 5G. That’s enough to get me to the shops and back, which is mostly where I go these days (assuming I don’t listen instead to the approx 64GB in the car slot). And enough to get me to Brisbane -> London -> Brisbane should the need arise, I dare say.
Good to see you back, Sauce. Mekong floods bother you at all?
River high but not broached its banks. Good to see it at full width, clear across to the nothingness of Lao, undivided by the monster sandbanks that throttle it most of the year, a result of the Chinese being fucking bastards and building hundreds of dams in Lao, selling resultant electricity back to Lao and Thailand and probably Vietnam.
Apple Music, eh? *smirk emoji*
You know Apple Music used to be iTunes, right?
The important thing is that you’re happy with it, Mike. That’s all that matters.