Buying a new phone when I don't need a new phone

I nearly bought the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra a moment ago.

But nah, I don't need a new phone, I keep telling myself. 

pearlie

116 apps and counting

I was searching for an app in my phone when my colleague commented, "wow, you've got so many apps!" 

I know I like to look for apps when I want to get something done using my phone but I thought it's a norm that phone are filled with lots and lots of different apps. There are so much you can do with them!

I download a lot of them but since my Razer Phone 2 only has 64G memory, I try to cut down on the apps in my phone and remove those I seldom use. 

Right now I have 116 apps installed.

Too many? Too few? Or a norm? 

How many do you have?

Oh yes, a shout-out to Quimchee, the webtoonist of I Love Yoo, from where I took my phone wallpaper from as you see in my screenshot above. I love her work!

pearlie

I am on my way to becoming a gamer

My son has a second unit of Nintendo Switch but it doesn't work. Someone had accidentally dumped the unit into the washing machine. It was then given to my son.

We brought the unit to Low Yat twice, and they weren't able to find out what was wrong. During the second time, they even told us there is nothing wrong with the unit. 

But how can it be when it doesn't work?!

So my son continued to dabble with it and he finally found out that it was the micro-sd card slot that was faulty. 

We brought it back to Low Yat to see if they can fix it but we were told to return an hour later when the technician is back. 

So we went to a cafe for coffee, and this mommy as she would always do, googled for the cost of repair. I didn't get any indication of repair cost but what I found was that Shopee sells the micro-sd card part for only RM7.08.

After an hour's wait, we dutifully went back to the shop. They quoted us a sum of RM140 to repair it.

What?

We told them we will think about it but what we did instead was to go hunting for the required screwdrivers. We found some but we weren't too sure if they were the right ones. We bought them anyway, and then I logged into shopee.com and ordered the micro-sd card slot. 

It arrived yesterday. 

My son fixed it. 

And it only cost us RM10.88 inclusive of shipping, not counting the cost of the screwdrivers since that would be considered as fixed cost. 

We saved a whopping RM129.

And mommy now has a new toy. 

pearlie

I went watchless only for a month

I posted last month that I am again doing without a watch but it only lasted for a month.

I keep lifting my wrist to read the time.

I was chatting with my husband when I mentioned the new Mi Band 4 and before I knew it, he ordered two units. 

One for him and one for me. 

They arrived a couple days ago and we are so far very happy with it. 

With an AMOLED screen, the watch face is very bright and attractive. 

And I found out today that we can actually load up third party watch faces on it.

Since my Razer Phone 2 does become a conversation piece wherever I go, I found this cool watch face for my Mi Band 4. 

pearlie

The heart won't let it go

Ever since I began using my Razer Phone 2, which I won in a lucky draw, it has now become the only device I use. 

And I had so many devices that I carry with me everywhere I go: the iPhone, the iPad and my Kindle Paperwhite.

I sold my iPhone two weeks ago. And I just sold my iPad an hour ago!

I have been using my Razer Phone for all that I need to do so much so that my iPad had been sitting on the shelf untouched for the longest time.

I do not like to see it unused. But my heart didn't want to let it go. 

But then I was thinking since nobody batted an eyelash when I put up my iPhone 6S for sale in mudah.my, I thought I'd just do the same with my iPad and see if there'd be any interest. 

I posted these shots. Not very attractive I know but believe it or not, I got 10 inquiries for it. 

I responded to the ones I was comfortable with and finally sold it to one of them. 

My head won. But my heart is aching.

pearlie

Going watchless...again

My Fitbit has gone kaput. 

And now I will need to get used to not wearing a watch, again. 

I stopped wearing a watch back in year 2004 when I found it obstructive when at work. Wearing a watch and using the notebook computer is not a good combination. And since I have the time on the computer and my phone, I decided to ditch the watch. 

Until year 2017 when I decided maybe a fitness watch would be a good idea. 

And so I bought a MiBand 2 and later I switched to the Fitbit Alta HR which my husband didn't want to use anymore. 

And now it's no longer working. 

I don't think I will buy another one. Reason being, these things don't last unlike real watches and I found that I don't really need one anymore. 

Only a day has gone by without a watch. I'm still lifting my hand up to read the time but I'll soon get used to it in no time. 

I went 13 years without one anyway. 

pearlie

Where do you store your photos?

I heard in the news that Google is ending their partnership with someone that manages the syncing of photos in Google Photos and I wasn't happy. 

I use Google Photos a lot and my Razer Phone 2 believe it or not does not have a photo gallery. All my photos goes into Google Photos. 

I only found out later that my fears were unfounded. The change only affected syncing between Google Photos and Google Drive, which I don't do. At least I hope that is the only thing that is affected. 

If you only store your photos in your phone, then you should take a look at syncing your phone with Google Photos. I have two of my friends who lost all their travel photos. You can imagine how devastating that can be. 

I hope Google Photos will stay for a long while. The cloud and data storage scene will see more changes as we go along and I wonder how long more will I be able to keep up with my data storage without paying a single cent.

pearlie

Listening to music in the car

My car does not like my new phone. I drive an old car and it does not have Bluetooth built-in.

It's funny that I still remember 10 years ago when I went shopping for a car, the one question I kept asking all the car salesmen was that if their cars came with a USB port.

Anyway, my car does not like my phone. I plug it in and it says "unrecognised device".

Since I cannot not listen to music, I need to find a solution and my hubby suggested I go find a Bluetooth dongle with a AUX adapter.

I found and bought one from Lazada for only RM15.

And it works.

Except that now I want it to do more. My iPhone plays my music the moment it gets plugged in. With my Razer, I had to tap it so many times to get to it play something.

That's when I found out that there are automation apps in Android. Apparently I can automatically get my phone to perform actions depending on the trigger. 

I did some search, or rather, I got my son to do some research. 

We tried Autoroid, Tasker and Automate. All of these are good automation apps, but none of them seemed to work with Apple Music.

Until my son found the MacroDroid app. He built a macro and voila! It works.

I start my car, my Bluetooth announces, "Connected", and my last played song starts playing.

I'm happy.

Though now I need to learn how to build those macros myself. For example, in order to save battery, how can I get my phone's WiFi to switched on only when I'm at home. 

pearlie

How many powerbanks do you have?

I still remember the first power bank I bought. 

It was a YooBao with 5800mAh capacity that cost me at least RM200. 

That was many years ago. 

Right now, just like me, you probably would have so many you don't know what do with them.

   

I have 4 not counting the one that is like a lamp, which is so impractical. It's so inconvenient to carry around and putting it on the desk is useless since I will use the electric wall socket anyway. 

I know. Four. Why, right? 

From left to right: I bought the first one and thinking it was spoilt, I bought the second one. The third was a door gift and the fourth is my newest favourite thing. 

Melissa bought it for me when she was recently in Korea. Thanks Melissa! Loving it!

    

And how much capacity do you think I have all in all? 

29,200mAh. LOL. 

pearlie

My take: Android vs. iOS

After using iOS for the past 10 years, I've finally jumped ship and have been using Android for 2 months now. I'm still discovering new things and having fun with it. 

And so for those who might want to consider shifting from Apple to Android, here's my take on what's better in Android and what's better in iOS. 

How Android is better than iOS

1. I find that Hey Google is way better than Hey Siri. It's much more more intuitive and you'll get more things done with Hey Google. 

2. I like it so much how I can customise how my screen looks like in my Android phone. It uses Nova Launcher where I can pack all apps that I frequently use into the home screen–all 47 of them. I do the same with my iPhone too but it can only fit 28 in the home screen. 

3. I also like how I can remove the app names from the apps in my home screen. It looks much better visually and I recognise them by their app icons anyway. I do this via Nova Launcher and here is how it looks like, all 47 apps:

In comparison, I had this old picture posted in 2016 on how my iPhone looked like back then, all my screens. I've cropped out the bottom 4 apps that stays on every screen though. Yea, I sorted them all by colours. I suppose I'm quite a visual person and I found apps much easier this way:

4. It is much easier to find what you need in Android's Settings. When I'm in iOS, I always find myself trying to think and remember where the item is situated. Locations? Privacy? General? Where on earth? And I will be poking here and there until I find what I want if at all. In Android, I can simply just perform a search and find it in no time. 

5. I use the Android back button a lot. And it works seamlessly in and between apps. In my iPhone, I'd have to double click the home button, scroll to the app before to get back to where I was before. In Android, it's just a back button away and I'd get back to the previous app immediately. 

6. This is more the phone than the operating system, but I can add memory to my Android phone now. The Razer Phone 2 has a pathetic 64G internal memory and so I bought and installed a 128G SD card in it as external memory. With the iPhone memory, what you buy is what you get. 

How iOS is better than Android

1. I must say that the keyboard in the iPhone is much better than the one in Android when it comes to selecting text, hovering over text to position the cursor and using the spacebar to move the cursor. But Android is quite accurate when you tap where you need the cursor to be and you can move the cursor with your finger which you can't do it as easily in the iPhone. 

2. The one feature I miss most is the ability to shake to undo and redo in the iPhone. How I wish it's the same in Android. I once accidentally deleted a whole line of text. I never got it back and I couldn't remember what it was to type it back. 

3. I like the iPhone's ability to return to the top of the screen by just tapping the top. In Android, I'd be furiously swiping it up to get back to the top. 

4. As much I used to hate having badges on my apps in the iPhone with the number of items pending, I got used to it and it didn't bother me anymore. I soon found it useful to see whether my attention was needed. When I started to use my Android phone, I began to miss that. I didn't know what needed my attention. But now, I use Notifications a lot more. I don't remember using it much in my iOS days. But there is the Notification Dot in Android, without the number though. 

5. I prefer the management of pages in Safari where I can move them front and back. It cannot be done in Chrome. I suppose I should go find another internet browser app. 

Things to consider if you decide to move from iOS to Android

1. If you have purchased apps in iOS, you will now need to repurchase them in Android, if you still need them that is. I did buy quite a number of apps in iOS but when in Android, I've only repurchased 3 of them. Not too bad. But not cheap though. 

2. Some apps are only available in iOS. I once read that developers prefer to create apps in iOS compared to Android and so you might not get what you want in Android. I tried to look for alternatives in Google Play and so far so good. I got what I needed and what I couldn't I've ungrown myself out of it. 

3. The only casualty I had was my WhatsApp texts. I couldn't figure it out initially and couldn't transfer any of my text over. Had I known earlier, I would have at least save the important ones on the cloud. 

That's just my take anyway and with Android I think it also depends a lot on the phone model and not just the operating system. 

You may have other items on top of what I've listed above. Please leave a comment below or in Facebook. I'd love to hear from you!

pearlie

Me? Apple to Android?

I have gone Android! Haha. My friends and colleagues were so surprised because I was as Apple as I can ever be, beginning with my 3G, to 4, 4S, 5S right up to the 6S, and not forgetting my iPad 2, 3 and Air 2.

Not anymore.

And with that my whole family has gone Android and I'm not to be left behind. And I meant it—behind. It's another blogpost altogether but we felt that Apple is stuck in the their former glory and not only that, their prices have gone absolutely crazy.

Anyways.

It started with my son getting the Pixel 2, having sworn off Apple products. My husband bought the S10 when it was launched here on 5th March. He who does not line up for anything lined up 3 hours to get the phone and a free pair of Galaxy Buds.

Me?

I was left alone with my iPhone 6S. Not that I mind and I was prepared to continue to use it for two more years since I just got its original battery replaced.

Until...

I won a phone another phone at a lucky draw! For the record, this will be the third time I won a device in a lucky draw. I first won a Palm V back in year 2000. Then I won a Samsung Galaxy A7 in 2017.

And now?

I just won myself a Razer Phone 2! Two months ago. And I'm loving it. Though it is a gaming phone and I'm no gamer to begin with, I'm enjoying the change to Android and the experience of discovering new things. Android is more fun than iOS. And the screen and speakers are just awesome. I have even somewhat abandoned my iPad.

Just look at this beauty.



pearlie

I’m loving it—my Kindle Paperwhite

I started to pick up read again extensively back in 2011 when I found that I could buy e-books from Kobo.com. 

And since then I have always wanted an e-ink reader. I tried to get a Kobo one but they will not deliver to Malaysia. 

It was only in 2016 that Amazon began to sell e-books to Malaysia. But till today, they still do not deliver their Kindle e-readers here. 

And so when I was in the US last month, I went to Target on the very day I arrived and bought the Kindle Paperwhite. 

But I did feel the pinch. It cost me more than RM500 but now after a month of using it, I have no regrets. 

It’s because I am reading again. 

2016 wasn’t a good year in reading for me. I only managed to read 20 books. I got caught up with too much television. 

So I’m happy. It’s only February and I’ve just finished my fifth book today. 

I am not very ambitious but I hope to read at least 25 books this year. 

pearlie

Emergency Bypass on your iPhone

Now that I have used my Mi Band 2 for about a week, I realised one very important thing about emergency calls. 

Ever since I started using it, I have switched off all sound and vibration in my phone in order to prolonged battery life, since I’m going to get notifications on my Mi Band anyway. 

Except when it’s on a Do Not Disturb mode, which I have set to turn on when I’m asleep. 

I then thought—what if I were to receive an emergency call in the middle of the night? 

Even without my Mi Band with the DND mode, my phone would have been on silent anyway and I wouldn’t have notice it vibrating when I’m sleeping. 

Gone were the days when family members can call the house phone that will ring so loud you can hear it from anywhere in the house at any time of the day or night. 

I googled and found out that I can switch on an Emergency Bypass for any selected contacts. 

Do this on your iPhone:

1. Open your Contacts app

2. Search for the desired contact

3. Tap Edit on top right of he contact card

4. Tap Ring

5. Enable Emergency Bypass

6. Do the same for Text, if desired

When the Emergency Bypass is switched on, your phone will ring and vibrate even if your DND is on. 

Do it. Your life or someone else’s may depend on it. 

pearlie

My mom lost her phone today

She did not get a high end model in the first place and that is a blessing in that it wasn’t as regrettable if she had lost an iPhone 7 for example. 

Her mobile phone needs are very simple - phone calls, WhatsApp messaging, Facebook and YouTube. And so she decided she didn’t need anything expensive. 

So I drove her to the U Mobile store and got her a very affordable Lenovo Vibe C for only RM221. 

It’s a low-cost model but one that apparently is packed with enough power to be a decent basic phone. 

And this package is for those who earns less than RM3,000 a month, where you will get unlimited data free for one whole year and you do not even need to top it up, for one year. 

It certainly works for my mom’s basic needs. 

pearlie

Fitbit Alta HR vs. Mi Band 2

It all started with my attendance at the introduction to the BookDoc app event that I got motivated to walk more. 

Gone were the days when I would go to the gym every weekday morning. I now need something else to get myself a bit more motivated to be active. 

And so I decided to get a fitness tracker. 

Fitness trackers have not appealed to me before but from what I gathered from my hubby who has worn one for the past one month, I thought it would be a good idea to get one for myself. 

And so off we went to Low Yat Plaza today. 

We were soon seated at a storefront and whilst at first I wanted the same model my hubby is using, the Fitbit Alta HR, he also told me that his friends are very happy with the Xiaomi Mi Band 2. 

The Fitbit Alta HR and the Mi Band 2

And the price difference is significant - RM680 for the Fitbit vs. RM165 for the Mi Band 2. The storekeeper told me that the Mi Band can do what the Fitbit can, it’s only the brand I will be paying for. 

So I was torn. I like the Fitbit design better and obviously the brand but the Mi Band is more than 4 times cheaper. 

I thought and thought and weighed and weighed...the Mi Band 2 it shall be. 

The moment I decided to go with that, the storekeeper started rattling on about what the thing can do. 

I don’t know why he didn’t tell me when I couldn’t decide between the two because with what he started telling us, my hubby responded sadly that his Fitbit can’t do those things. 

And it’s not small stuff. 

For one, the Mi Band 2 vibrates when I get a text message from WhatsApp. And not only from WhatsApp but also from WeChat and Kakao, which happen to be the very apps I use to connect with my language friends. The Fitbit only connects to iMessage, and who uses iMessage these days?

Also, the Mi Band 2 changes its display at the twist of the wrist, whereas the Fitbit needs to be tapped, so you need both hands. 

The Mi Fit app syncs with Apple Health. Fitbit does not. Apple Health consolidates everything you have on health and so it’s important to sync with Apple Health. 

But the biggest is this: the Mi Band 2 battery will last for 20 days. The Fitbit Alta HR battery only last for 7. 

The only thing we found so far that the Mi Band 2 doesn’t do that the Fitbit does is a continuous heart rate measure. 

But one thing I’m not too happy about is that from today onwards, my Bluetooth will have to be on all the time. My phone will now run out of battery very often before the day is out. 

This is not good, but I’ll have to get used to it...and use my power bank more often. 

pearlie

They have retired Plants vs. Zombies

Sniff sniff. They killed my all-time favourite game app Plants vs. Zombies. 

I have blogged it before - that I have been playing and I am still playing Plants vs. Zombies for the past 7 years. 

They did launch the newer Plants vs. Zombies 2: It’s About Time in 2013 but it never grew on me. I played it halfway and soon had it removed from my devices. 

And as you have it, IGN published this article yesterday - Update: Plants vs. Zombies Creator’s EA Departure Clarified. 

Apparently, Plants vs. Zombies’s creator George Fan was fired because he objected to the newer version’s pay-to-win model, which I wasn’t keen on as well. Why should I pay to win?

It was reported that “when EA proposed its sequel - Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time - has a pay-to-win model that supports in-app purchasing, Fan pushed back. He's like "I dunno, that's not really a good idea and I don't want to do that with my game."”

And now the original game is being retired and removed from the Apple Store. They did relaunch a free version of it but I think it takes to a pay-to-win model as well. I have just started playing it and so far I have been watching endless and irritating ad videos in between games. 

And I just brought up the subject of lifetime purchases for devices with my colleague and this is a case in point where lifetime is not forever. 

pearlie

One of my compulsive disorder

I think I have this compulsive disorder to maximize storage space, in my iPhone and iPad. 

I have a 64G iPhone and it freaks me up if I have used up more than half of the 64G space. 

Okay. I’m exaggerating. I won’t freak out but I tend to prefer to have lots of spare space. I just don’t know why. When you have it use it, right? 

I spent a big part of my day today cleaning up my iPhone, deleting apps, photos, content and messages. 

And I had to give up and delete messages that I’d prefer to keep but iMessages do not have an function to export messages like WhatsApp does. 

And I deleted more than 800MB(!!!) worth of space in just two string of messages with my husband and son. I must have kept it since day one when I started using the iPhone.

I removed the Facebook app too. It’s very data and space hungry. 

How have our lives been reduced to data and storage space? Cloud storage is another story. I am not paying for cloud space yet, but I think I will soon have to. 

pearlie

Isn't life a bit easier to manage with apps but...

I have just updated my iPad with the latest iOS 11 and I'm very happy with it but since there are not many big changes for the iPhone, I've decided to hold on to it first for the phone. 

This is because I do have some apps that will be rendered useless if I do the update:

I am not worried about any of those apps except for Xiezi HSK-3. I just bought it for RM17 in June! And I don't think there are any plans for them to upgrade it. 

I am still so far away from writing any Chinese and I have to give that app up when I upgrade. Looks like it's back to paper and pen then. 

The other app I paid money for that will no longer work is Travel Pocket but I suppose I've got my value worth of $1.99 for 5 years. It's a good app but I should be able to find something free to use. 

It's trivial but these days my life seems to evolve around what apps can do for me to make life easier. 

pearlie

Helping my mom buy a new phone

I met up with my mom today to help her buy a new phone. 

She has an old Xiaomi Mi2 that was no longer working. She does have a Huawei phone, which I think is the Mediapad model, but it is too big for her to carry around. She is the rare kind of woman that does not carry a handbag. 

I wanted to show her the Huawei Y5 but she wanted one with a bigger screen. So it was finally between Oppo, Lenovo and Vivo. 

She settled for the Vivo Y51.

 

It has this one feature that sort of sold me over: a pull-up feature screen from bottom of the phone screen just like the iPhone. 

The thing is that my mom is the only one in my family that uses an Android phone and once when she asked me to help her with her phone rotate display, it took me a really long time to figure out how to do it when it only take seconds on the iPhone. This Vivo phone has it just like how I'd do it on the iPhone. 

I then advised her to port her number over to U Mobile and had to spend some time explaining to her with patience the difference between her phone memory and mobile data plan. 

pearlie 

I left my iPhone behind, twice!

I do not know what's wrong with me today. I left my iPhone behind not once, but twice! But I got it back! First in the restaurant and the second time in the washroom. I am so, so thankful. 

Was my mind too occupied? Was there a change in my habits? What there a change in my routines?

I think my mind was too occupied. I admit I was so busy thinking today it is a wonder my brain did not explode. 

I can feel a headache coming. Oh! Where is my phone?

pearlie