Android thread

[altec]

What's a good phone that ships with android 12? A53 samsung. And what else is out there?

[motion55]

I looking for a phone with wireless charging. It's likely to be on the flagship end of a brand but I want to spend just around 40K or less.

It will replace my Samsung Galaxy S8+. Battery was still OK but somehow the S8 lost its power button. The button itself just dropped off. That's really annoying as I can't lock my phone on demand. I would prefer the new phone to be the same size.

[barurutor]

I looking for a phone with wireless charging. It's likely to be on the flagship end of a brand but I want to spend just around 40K or less.

It will replace my Samsung Galaxy S8+. Battery was still OK but somehow the S8 lost its power button. The button itself just dropped off. That's really annoying as I can't lock my phone on demand. I would prefer the new phone to be the same size.

Oppo Find X3 Pro 12/256
OnePlus 10 Pro 12/256
Xiaomi 12 8/256
Galaxy S22 8/128
Galaxy S21+ 8/256


NovaLauncher allows to run apps like this https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.katecca.screenofflock using various gestures.  So you can double tap the screen to sleep+lock.

[motion55]

^^^But where (in the Philippines) can I reliably buy them at the 40KPhp price point?

I can buy a Galaxy S21 Ultra 12GB/256GB from Lazada from an overseas seller for about 44K (dual SIM model). As far as I can tell, it's a US model which isn't compatible with the Philippines 5G band. I can live with that though. I am seeking clarification from the seller as to what exact model the dual SIM is. It could be the HK or China model.

Edit: The seller just replied and said the dual SIM model is SM-G9980 (HK). The US model is single SIM and is now out of stock.

A Galaxy S21 FE 5G direct from Samsung Philippines costs about 42K. However, the free ear buds are out of stock and the Samsung website refuses to sell me the S21 FE without it.

[wickwire]

[quote/]Edit: The seller just replied and said the dual SIM model is SM-G9980 (HK). The US model is single SIM and is now out of stock.

A Galaxy S21 FE 5G direct from Samsung Philippines costs about 42K. However, the free ear buds are out of stock and the Samsung website refuses to sell me the S21 FE without it.


Just a quick note. If you intend to use the phone when you travel to the US. Any phone brand (except iPhones) that has 2 physical simcard slots will most likely have the 3G bands available/ turned on. It will be ‘deactivated’ when used with AT&T prepaid or postpaid. None of our workarounds will work. Calling ‘advanced tech support’ doesn’t fix the issue either. It’s both a phone manufacturer and carrier-side thing. Apple has managed to ‘avoid’ this headache with most older iPhone models.

[jojitb]

^^^But where (in the Philippines) can I reliably buy them at the 40KPhp price point?

I can buy a Galaxy S21 Ultra 12GB/256GB from Lazada from an overseas seller for about 44K (dual SIM model). As far as I can tell, it's a US model which isn't compatible with the Philippines 5G band. I can live with that though. I am seeking clarification from the seller as to what exact model the dual SIM is. It could be the HK or China model.

Edit: The seller just replied and said the dual SIM model is SM-G9980 (HK). The US model is single SIM and is now out of stock.

A Galaxy S21 FE 5G direct from Samsung Philippines costs about 42K. However, the free ear buds are out of stock and the Samsung website refuses to sell me the S21 FE without it.

I bought my S20FE 5G from a facebook seller a couple of years ago. panget na kasi choices as tipidcp. Slight risk but you can look for someone who is well known. No warranties however (I've had tens of phones no need for warranty yet). HK units are fully compatible here and dual-sim also. much cheaper too.

[motion55]

^^^The S21 Ultra I ordered from Lazada just arrived. It's the dual SIM HK model with a few freebees like the transparent case, screen protector and wireless charger. It costs 44K.

Yes it's pricey but I was willing to buy the local S21FE for 42K anyway. I needed the macro photography of the Ultra. The S21+ was also available from the same seller for 12K less (32K). I am not regretting my choice (yet).

I delayed replying because I didn't want to jinx the order.

[wheelee]

Congrats! Never ordered anything at that price range in lazhapee

how is the transaction made? do you pay upfront the whole amount?
what about those horror stories that wood/ stones are in the box?

[altec]

One youtuber (marques brownlee) noticed that his sony phone videos get a lot of traffic. Everybody is interested in the sonys but nobody is voting via their wallets. (Pardon my 15 year old sig.)
 I honestly yearn for that japanese or finnish quality. Built for 4+ years use.

Samsungs are buggy after within 2 years. No choice these days. Buy and replace nalang.

Is the price diff worth it between the a53 and a73 peeps?

[motion55]

Congrats! Never ordered anything at that price range in lazhapee

how is the transaction made? do you pay upfront the whole amount?
what about those horror stories that wood/ stones are in the box?

Yes, I was concerned with the possibility the item can literally turn to stone as what happened to a Youtube vlogger.
https://youtu.be/0VdOZush4nI
The feedback from buyers from this seller say the phones are legit. The ones that gave bad (1 star) reviews said they just didn't receive the freebees. So I was confident he was sending the genuine item. The concern was what if the package was swapped in transit.
The package arrived just 5 days from order date. It was so fast, Lazada's tracking on the web could not keep up. It was delivered by the regular Lazada delivery guy who gave me a call that he was on the way even if tracking said it was still in the logistics center in my area.
The package looked like it was never opened with box tape securing the white plastic bag and all sealed by Lazada's tracking label. I should have asked the seller to send a photo of the package so I know if it's the same one. I took photos of the unboxing process in case it would turn out to be a rock inside.

It's the highest priced item I ever ordered. And at 44K it hit several transaction limits. 25K is the limit for COD orders. The BPI account where the money originated has a 50K daily limit for online transfers. I transferred 43K to GCash last Saturday. I could have paid Lazada from GCash but apparently there is a 40K transaction limit on GCash and payment was declined. So I transferred first 20K from GCash to Lazada Wallet (success) and a 2nd 20K a short time later. If there was a 40K daily limit, then I may have to wait the next day or buy the S21+ phone for 32K. Luckily I was able to transfer 4K to complete the amount.


When first powered, the phone was on Android 11 OneUI 1.0. After 3 hours being powered ON, it asked  to update and ended up with Android 12 OneUI 4.1 two hours later.

[wheelee]

nice! nice!
don't we have a payment system that is held by a middle party that you can release when item is received?

here in china when i shop in taobao or pindoudou the payment system is handled by Alipay, I pay for the item, money is held by Alipay then after receiving the item I can confirm in alipay to release the payment or will be released by default after 1wk.

incase of any disputes or delay of the arrival of item, you can tell the system (one time) to increase the receiving time so as not to release the payment to the seller. if the item does not arrive on a specific time or it's not what you ordered you can opt for a refund telling the system why. refund last from 24hours to two days or after seller receives back the item.

BTW most of my phones i get used, i usually get last years Flagship at a discounted price. I'm still using my Galaxy Note 8 even though i also have the Oneplus 7pro. I like using the Note8 more maybe coz the 7pro is really heavy.   

[ris]

nice! nice!
don't we have a payment system that is held by a middle party that you can release when item is received?

here in china when i shop in taobao or pindoudou the payment system is handled by Alipay, I pay for the item, money is held by Alipay then after receiving the item I can confirm in alipay to release the payment or will be released by default after 1wk.

incase of any disputes or delay of the arrival of item, you can tell the system (one time) to increase the receiving time so as not to release the payment to the seller. if the item does not arrive on a specific time or it's not what you ordered you can opt for a refund telling the system why. refund last from 24hours to two days or after seller receives back the item.

BTW most of my phones i get used, i usually get last years Flagship at a discounted price. I'm still using my Galaxy Note 8 even though i also have the Oneplus 7pro. I like using the Note8 more maybe coz the 7pro is really heavy.   

there is.  its lazwallet and shopeepay.  they do exactly that.  they hold payment to the seller until the buyer confirms that the item received is in good condition

[splerdu]

AFAIK Shopee does it by default even if you're not using their internal wallet. I've always paid by CC and have gotten reminders from them to confirm receipt of delivered items so they can release payment to seller, otherwise if no action on my part they will have to wait for a default timeout period before getting paid. Can also increase the hold duration.

[motion55]

Yes, Lazada Wallet and Shopee Pay holds the funds in escrow until the buyer confirms delivery. However, if there is a refund, the money returns to these. If I pay through GCash, it is refunded back to GCash. Which is what I wanted in the first place. But due to limitations of GCash, I ended up sending the money to Lazada Wallet. I didn't want to use my credit card or ATM debit card.

GCash, Maya and Shopee Pay require a valid gov't ID confirmation to raise the monthly limit to above 50K. I don't recall confirming with my ID on Lazada Wallet. Maybe there's a monthly 50K limit. There was a time when I hadn't confirmed on Shopee Pay and I exceeded the limit after buying PC parts. The Shopee Pay confirmation process was tedious. Aside from supplying my gov't ID one with a close up photo and one with me holding it below my face, I also answered shome question like "am I at one time related to a high gov't official (Congress, Judfge, etc..)"?. After the last big transaction,.GCash sent me a text message stating they raised my monthly limit to 500K.

BTW, I use BPI mobile app to pay bills, transfer money and load GCash. It's quite convenient. Strangely, the mobile key to confirm a transaction is tied to the phone and not to the SIM. I had already transferred my SIM to the new phone but the mobile key was still sent to the old phone and confirmed with its fingerprint sensor. There is (probably) an option to transfer mobile key confirmation to the new phone but I am keeping it on the old phone because that one is staying home.

[jojitb]

congrats on the new phone. yung HK variant ang maganda kasi snapdragon na dual sim pa. yung local kasi exynos, madami yata problems

my biggest tech purchases in lazada were a couple of Samsung tab s6lites for my daughters late 2020. got them for 16k+ each, local prices were 25k++. had a bunch of savings/rebates from credit card promos also. (just delete your card from lazada after using)

seller I think is also HK based but the units are UAE models..

[wheelee]

..Just out Samsung beats TSMC in the 3nm die War! But, there's always a but lol

https://techwireasia.com/2022/07/semiconductor-superpower-samsung-beats-tsmc-with-the-the-worlds-first-3nm-chips/

https://www.androidpolice.com/samsung-3nm-foundry/

[ris]

congrats on the new phone. yung HK variant ang maganda kasi snapdragon na dual sim pa. yung local kasi exynos, madami yata problems

my biggest tech purchases in lazada were a couple of Samsung tab s6lites for my daughters late 2020. got them for 16k+ each, local prices were 25k++. had a bunch of savings/rebates from credit card promos also. (just delete your card from lazada after using)

seller I think is also HK based but the units are UAE models..

super ayos nga talaga pag lazada.  aside from the lower price already, they have credit card promos during sale for additional discounts.  bought a bunch of stuff there too.  even in shopee.  its cheaper on shopee if there are no credit card discounts. and also, there are items that are only available on one platform only so better to check different online stores for the product youre looking for

[motion55]

So I got my new Galaxy phone. Samsung's SMS messenger is inadequate in filtering out promo messages from business registered numbers like Meralco, PLDT, GCash, Maya, etc. My old Samsung phone can block messages with certain phrases. It's mostly effective in blocking promo announcements. My new phone doesn't have that feature. So I sought other apps to replace Samsung messenger.

I have two SIMs. I left the backup SIM in the old phone. I then moved the registered mobile contact numbers for PLDT, Meralco, and some others to that SIM. They send mostly useless promo messages. So I can keep notifications silent on the old phone.

However, some like GCash, Maya, are tied to my primary SIM. It turns out that Google messenger is much better than Samsung's app. I think Samsung messenger is derived from Google messenger as they have very similar user interfaces. However, Google messenger has the feature to mute a conversation. So I can select the type of notification for each sender. I was able to silence several annoying promo messages.

Lastly, Google messenger has a feature called "Google messenger for web". Your phone can be paired with another device or PC to allow you to read and send SMS messages from your phone on that device or PC.

[jojitb]

yeah. google messages is much better. also, activating RCS is easier.

[altec]

Wait and see, wait and see if it's going to be a goodie.