Getting a new cell phone

[BigBluePappy]

I am giving up my faithful old Blackberry Torch after 5 short years and have ordered an HTC One.

Any of you technical guys here can tell me anything about it, like how to turn it on and answer it?

I may need to borrow Mr. Cartwright's screw extractor kit if I am left alone with that beast for too long; they tell me it does not have a changeable battery.

[Darrell KSR]

Ooh, ooh. If you need help upgrading the memory, let me know. I'm an expert.

[BigBluePappy]

The phone's or mine?

[dan_bgblue]

Hehehe!! Good one Pappy.

btw the company Iphone I carry does not have a replaceable battery either, or if it does one has to send it out for replacement. Damn thing does not even have any visible screws to attack

[Darrell KSR]

The phone's or mine?

I'm offering a 2-for-1 special if you're interested .

[CitizenBBN]

Seems a bunch of the new phones don't have battery access for users, which is one reason I got the Galaxy b/c you can access the battery and the SIM card slot as well as the SD card.

Afraid I'm not familiar with that particular model, but its Android OS so it's the same basic functionality as mine. If you can find the on button I can probably help from there.

[PedroDaGr8]

Seems a bunch of the new phones don't have battery access for users, which is one reason I got the Galaxy b/c you can access the battery and the SIM card slot as well as the SD card.

Afraid I'm not familiar with that particular model, but its Android OS so it's the same basic functionality as mine. If you can find the on button I can probably help from there.

Htc is bringing back the microsd card slot on their next major phone

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk

[CitizenBBN]

Htc is bringing back the microsd card slot on their next major phone

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk

cool.

While we're on the subject but not to hijack, which phone do you think has the absolute best camera? The LG2 seems to promote it hard and a stabilized picture would be a huge plus.

[ukcatlvr]

I have the "HTC One" since last August. I had the "HTC Inspire" for 2 years prior. When I bought the "One" I also bought the "Mophie" juice pack which has a secondary battery. It will keep the phone battery charged until it drains and then the phone battery takes over. I very seldom have to charge from the time I get up until I go to bed, then I let it fully charge while I sleep. I like the phone very well and it is not really all that hard to figure things out. I did go to the HTC website and download the PDF manual which is a lot easier to read compared to the real small print in the manual that came with the phone.

http://www.mophie.com/shop/juice-pack-htc-one?a92=12

[PedroDaGr8]

cool.

While we're on the subject but not to hijack, which phone do you think has the absolute best camera? The LG2 seems to promote it hard and a stabilized picture would be a huge plus.

It kinda depends on what you want. The HTC One excels at low light but can have some issues in bright daylight. The Galaxy S4 is decent to good. The G2 is a strong camera phone. The OIS behaves as advertised. The best all around camera phone is the Nokia Lumia (I think 1020). On android, I'd wait and see what the rest of the manufacturers have in store for this refresh.

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk

[CitizenBBN]

It kinda depends on what you want. The HTC One excels at low light but can have some issues in bright daylight. The Galaxy S4 is decent to good. The G2 is a strong camera phone. The OIS behaves as advertised. The best all around camera phone is the Nokia Lumia (I think 1020). On android, I'd wait and see what the rest of the manufacturers have in store for this refresh.

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk

Good advice and info. This will be to replace the cameras we use for inventory work. I need some custom software for image manipulation and I could write it in Android. Years ago there was an OS for cameras and other devices that was put on some of the early digital cameras but sadly the makers went away from it to the bloatware of installing software on the computer and hard coded cameras. Shame really.

With Android you really have the chance to have a camera with custom code, which would speed up our inventory work, but it has to be a good quality camera and easy to use, i.e. not require a tripod to get a non-blurry shot and handle white balance and lighting at least reasonably well. I can write the software, just need a good camera, I won't even put a sim card in it, just need a camera.

[PedroDaGr8]

Good advice and info. This will be to replace the cameras we use for inventory work. I need some custom software for image manipulation and I could write it in Android. Years ago there was an OS for cameras and other devices that was put on some of the early digital cameras but sadly the makers went away from it to the bloatware of installing software on the computer and hard coded cameras. Shame really.

With Android you really have the chance to have a camera with custom code, which would speed up our inventory work, but it has to be a good quality camera and easy to use, i.e. not require a tripod to get a non-blurry shot and handle white balance and lighting at least reasonably well. I can write the software, just need a good camera, I won't even put a sim card in it, just need a camera.

Does it have to be a cellphone? Samsung makes a line of cameras which run android os.

http://www.samsung.com/us/photography/galaxy-camera

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk

[CitizenBBN]

Does it have to be a cellphone? Samsung makes a line of cameras which run android os.

http://www.samsung.com/us/photography/galaxy-camera

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk

Heck no man, if it will let me load custom apps on it to embed inventory info I'm golden. I havent' gotten into it very deep but I know it's coming, but man that's a great piece of info!

The cameras we use were designed for this purpose. They can scan barcodes and they store the info in the exif header of the jpeg. I wrote software to read the exif header and extract it. For most uses it is the inventory number of the item. that way we go picture 100s of items, plug in the camera, run the software and it connects all the images up to the right inventory records in the database. Otherwise you have a lot of dragging and dropping to do.

If I can write an app for the camera that can scan a barcode and let me store it in exif or rename the file to embed it I'm golden. I'm going to check them out. I need to find some barcode components for reading them, I figure surely there is something off the shelf in the android development world for such a task given the number of apps that can do it.

[PedroDaGr8]

Heck no man, if it will let me load custom apps on it to embed inventory info I'm golden. I havent' gotten into it very deep but I know it's coming, but man that's a great piece of info!

The cameras we use were designed for this purpose. They can scan barcodes and they store the info in the exif header of the jpeg. I wrote software to read the exif header and extract it. For most uses it is the inventory number of the item. that way we go picture 100s of items, plug in the camera, run the software and it connects all the images up to the right inventory records in the database. Otherwise you have a lot of dragging and dropping to do.

If I can write an app for the camera that can scan a barcode and let me store it in exif or rename the file to embed it I'm golden. I'm going to check them out. I need to find some barcode components for reading them, I figure surely there is something off the shelf in the android development world for such a task given the number of apps that can do it.

Then these sounds like they might fit exactly what you are looking for. They are basically the hardware of a phone melded to a point and shoot camera. Some have 3G/4G on top of Wi-Fi capability. Giving full phone functionality(based on images I've seen). Either way the OS is Samsung's variant of 4.3 Jellybean. Which means full app store access plus custom app ability. Just like on any phone. As an aside, you could even exploit the data connection to provide instant upload to a centralized location. Where your software scans for new files. Giving more or less real-time updating of the database.

EDIT: https://gist.github.com/tobytailor/421369

Open-source java barcode reader. Should be a good start for you

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk

[CitizenBBN]

yeah the wifi got me thinking about real time storage. it's not essential b/c we do inventory for a day and then upload that to the website server so it's a batch deal anyway, but it sure got me thinking.

They could definitely be ideal.

[dan_bgblue]

Do you use the photos for the auction website, or just for inventory?

Sorry Pappy I think your thread has been officially hijacked

[CitizenBBN]

Pappy I'm sorry, I worried about it, almost started a new thread.

Dan, they end up on the website, if it was just internal stuff I'd use what we have it's fine for that. It just doesn't do a good job with white balance and some lighting conditions. It's a business, I just need to point and shoot and get a quality but not artist level picture. Not blurry, not the wrong color, crisp, but not Ansel Adams.

What happens with the camera we use is we shoot on a black background and if we put something white on there it will have a long shudder time no matter what we do and that makes for blurry pictures when it's just handheld. I have to tweak the adjustments back and forth as we do stuff, it's hard to train people on such things and it takes time. My Galaxy does a better job shoots a better picture IMO, thus my idea to just use a phone and write software.

i can't say for certain it's the camera, but I think it is. We put together a simple photo booth that diffuses the light and everything, shoot without the overheat florescents and it still is a problem.

[BigBluePappy]

No worries and I found the power button.
I don't like like the lack of a tactile keyboard, but so far I am very well pleased with what little I have got to use it.

[PedroDaGr8]

No worries and I found the power button.
I don't like like the lack of a tactile keyboard, but so far I am very well pleased with what little I have got to use it.

Sorry Pappy I forgot to mention. Check out the Swype keyboard. It's a very different way of typing. Also get Tapatalk for easily browsing this forum and iHeartRadio for listening to the cats.

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk