My latest "I hate technology 'improvement'" gripe re cell phones

[Darrell KSR]

The last time I had one of these gripes was when I was lamenting the loss of the physical keyboard. I have a lot of use for the cell phone, from texting to emails to actual research, to rare occasion, document editing, and I still lament the loss of the physical keyboard, which I preferred. Sure, the use of things like Swift key and predictive technology have helped, I guess, but I liked the ability to type fast without worrying about typos because if I made a typo it wouldn't change the word, just a letter. But anyway, those days are long gone.

I've just about had it with my "current" phone, but I'm really struggling on the replacement for another reason. One thing I enjoy is having battery power. A lot of it. I have a Galaxy S5 with an extended battery, and a regular battery, and a separate battery charger. I never have to put my phone on a charger--wired, wireless, whatever. I just take two seconds, pop the back off, and replace the battery with a fresh one. I absolutely love it.

But I'm really hating the sluggishness of this phone. I use it...a lot. I use it for timekeeping (I have a program for that), for surfing, for this site, for email, for phone stuff, for stuff like Runtastic pro to sirius xm radio to accuweather to soccer apps to DroidTV with hundreds of TV shows on it (fortunately, all on the microSD card) to Square register for credit cards to all my credit cards to online banking to phone apps for recording, to "pro" scanning apps and dozens of other apps that I use, frequently and constantly. And it has, unfortunately, just become sluggish.

But in replacing the phone, I am driven toward phones with non-removeable batteries, which have apparently gone the way of the dinosaur, or nearly so. I can't/won't give up the microSD card storage (DroidTV alone, for which I have a lifetime subscription warrants that by itself), but apparently I'm going to have to get a phone with a battery I just have to live with. I will miss having a 5600mah battery and a backup 2800 mah battery for the phone, and no requirement (although I do occasionally) to plug up the phone to get a charge. Even wireless charging requires the phone to be connected, in some way, to something rather than just sitting in my pocket.

Does anybody have a suggestion for a T-Mobile compatible cell phone that is stout on processing power, but might still have a replaceable battery? Something several steps up from a Galaxy S5?

And don't look at me like the old guy yelling, "get off my lawn."

[Darrell KSR]

By the way, I'm going to try to "root" the Galaxy s5 before I "upgrade" it, but I figure i need to be ready to pull the trigger on the new phone immediately in case I screw it up. And I don't even know if "rooting" it will help; just figure I could get rid of bloatware and stuff that could be utilizing processing power.

Just FWIW, 2 or 3 times a day I will just reboot the phone to help it run better. It is not unusual at all for it to work fine for hours, but it's also not unusual for it to have a period of time where it just wants to "freeze" for a couple of minutes before it will do anything. I. can't. stand. that.

[CitizenBBN]

I get it. I had that years ago with a phone, liked having the option.

What I've done is pick up a USB charger battery, keep it in my computer bag. You can get a quick charge one so you can plug in the phone and it's charged up good in 15-20 minutes or so depending on the phone. It's not ideal, but it works in a pinch and the battery units are pretty small, probably about like your spare phone battery now.

So you wouldn't be able to swap them outright, but you could charge those and carry one and just plug it in. Not ideal, and I'm sure you've run across them already, but just a thought.

As for one with a swappable battery I don't know of any. Probably some out there, but I know Samsung Galaxy has gone to a more and more sealed case. Heck now they don't even have headphone jacks.

[Doc]

I tried surfing on my phone once but the water ruined it

My son talked me into a new phone just before Xmas. He wanted a new one and it was a BOGO so I agreed. Now Ive had a cell phone for 15 year, never broke a screen or case....on day 2 this one fell into my recliner, got caught in the gears and cracked the case all to hell which voided the manufacture warranty. I still have the insurance though. Then 2 weeks ago I drop it in the pool. Sinks to the bottom and had to scoop out with the net but it still work. I hate the damn keyboard as it constantly throws "." in as its too close to the space bar. But my biggest bitch is the plug. They changed the plug and give you an adaptor. Why change the plug? I have 20 old style cords and one new cord and one adaptor. Why not just keep the old plug? Obviously they could have since they give you an adaptor!

[Darrell KSR]

Well, it took several hours, off and on, but I successfully rooted my phone. I waited until a day when I could run to the T-Mobile store and buy a new phone if necessary. Now downloading a System app remover (ROOT) that is supposed to be foolproof (HA!) and let me know what bloatware I can safely remove.

Going to give this a try and see if it helps the phone's performance. If so, I'll hang in with it awhile longer.

[Darrell KSR]

Early feedback is good. It's flying. I didn't delete *that* many system apps, but the bloatware I removed seems to have helped tremendously. We'll see.

[KeithKSR]

You can also buy phone cases with an extra battery built in to extend time between charges.

[dethbylt]

FWIW, as a cyber security guy be VERY careful with a rooted phone. Around 40% of apps that run on rooted phones have malware. Rooted phones are a little easier to crack too.

With that being said, I really like some of the Samsung phones but have always owned an Apple. IMHO, the Apple fleet is a little better even with the tradeoff with lack of customization and lower battery life. I just like the ecosystem. Not a fanboy just like they way they work.

[KeithKSR]

FWIW, as a cyber security guy be VERY careful with a rooted phone. Around 40% of apps that run on rooted phones have malware. Rooted phones are a little easier to crack too.

With that being said, I really like some of the Samsung phones but have always owned an Apple. IMHO, the Apple fleet is a little better even with the tradeoff with lack of customization and lower battery life. I just like the ecosystem. Not a fanboy just like they way they work.

Stupid question. What is a rooted phone?

I like Apple products, there is a uniformity across the product line that makes it easy for me to go from iPhone to iPad and back again. Plus, lots of my stuff that is on one is on them all.

[PedroDaGr8]

Stupid question. What is a rooted phone?

I like Apple products, there is a uniformity across the product line that makes it easy for me to go from iPhone to iPad and back again. Plus, lots of my stuff that is on one is on them all.

Rooting is roughly equivalent to jailbreaking in the iPhone community. It just refers to getting system administrator level privileges, called root in linux (which android is a fork of).

The latter is nice, but is not nearly as big of an issue on Android as it used to be. You will get the EXACT same uniformity benefit from being with any one manufacturer even in the Android ecosystem. More importantly, as Google has been getting much more strict on how much variation can be in an Android build and still have access to the Google Play Store, you can often easily switch manufacturers and still have the almost the same uniformity. Additionally, a lot of google apps are the same or better than Apples options. Be it Siri v. Google Assistant, iCloud v. Google Photos, etc. That being said, once invested in an ecosystem it is seldom worth it to switch unless you are unhappy in said ecosystem.

[Darrell KSR]

I love rooting the phones. Gets rid of all the bloatware. Runs faster/better. I've done it for several phones (WAY after everybody else has done it. I'm a very late adopter of anything).

I'm "down" to 121 apps on the phone, trying to go "lean and mean." Not that much else I can get rid of.

My son is asking me for extra batteries, etc. I'm tempted just to go ahead and bite the bullet and get me a new phone, and give him my two batteries and my separate battery charger (we have the same phone). We'll see.