Bandwidth Place 2

I got a new phone again.

Its specs are currently the best available, 1GHz dual core Tegra 2 with ULP GeForce and 1GB RAM.

The 960x540 screen res is also the highest of any Android phone (ugh that iPhone 4 screen is awesome) but its a friggin AMOLED LCD crap. AMOLED PenTile doesn't do the normal RGB pixel grid, they cheaped out.

Compare between the screenshot of what it should look like and what the screen actually shows.
http://www.mylilsite.net/images/atrix/homescreen1.png
http://www.mylilsite.net/images/atrix/h ... n1-t2i.jpg
You'll notice full colors like the battery icon at the top become a checkerboard type image on the screen.
http://www.mylilsite.net/images/atrix/speakPrompt1.jpg
http://www.mylilsite.net/images/atrix/s ... t1-t2i.jpg
The gradient went from bad (screenshot) to terrible (screen).

The LCD is high-res and all, but has shit colors.

Battery life is just about legendary, amazing, totally not what I'd expect from a dual core phone.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Smartphone/132

Moderately disappointed that Motorola recently confirmed that they are not updating the Atrix with newer versions of Android. So, my phone is now 2 versions behind and that will only increase. Yayyyy!

Looks nice. I just got the Samsung Stratosphere and i'm happy with it. May not have the res like yours but my screen seems to look better.
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-p ... AVZW-specs

Your phone uses Super AMOLED which has a similar issue with not using the proper subpixels for a pixel, so I'm not sure if the reality is that yours looks any better.

Here is a very close up picture I took of my phone:
http://www.mylilsite.net/images/atrix/h ... n2-t2i.jpg
Main attention to this:

http://i.imgur.com/072xT.jpg

Each pixel only has red+green or blue+white instead of standard red+green+blue. That means for many colors, only every other pixel (checkboarded) is able to display it. This makes the image grainy looking and most commonly noticed for me in blue links because the edges are jaggy as every other pixel is being used. Or, if the line is one pixel wide... it becomes a dotted line.
Look at what it does to the outside of the M in the gmail logo:

http://i.imgur.com/T8OhQ.png

It is a fantastic technology! Why? Because it takes two pixels to display the colors a normal pixel can display! Higher res, my ass.

Oh and the white subpixel is how they bullshit us with "brighter screen with lower energy consumption" since adding pure white to the output makes things look brighter without actually making what you want to see any brighter.

You can scroll down this article to see the proper RGB used on the iPhones, as comparison.
http://prometheus.med.utah.edu/~bwjones ... 4-display/

How did you get a pic like that? Just use a camera and get real close?

Nah I got one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/Fotodiox-Canon-Ex ... nsion+tube

and then yes, got the lens up real close. I don't understand the optical physics behind how it all works but it lets me take such pictures.

This significantly more expensive one is a bit better because the tube actually continues to provide the 8 contact pins so that the camera can still control the lens while using the tube...
http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Optic-Budget- ... nsion+tube

I had to manually adjust the lens while using my cheap one.

LOL like I have a DSLR camera. I got a canon A550. I think my phone take better pictures. I know my phone takes better video. I did look at my phone real close and I think I see some squares. I just know it looks better then my ally did, and faster.

I have an iPhone 4S, and pretty screen and all it's pretty great. What isn't great is the fact that my phone bill is $100 a month.

That bill looks even bigger now that I'm faced with $650 a month student loan payments for the next ten years. I think the cell phone might be a thing of the past for me!

You mean you'll go back to a dumbphone?

And yeahhh student loans lol. Gotta thank my parents for "letting" me avoid that. :O

As of in I'll go back to not having a cell phone. Even a straight talk is $30 a month (for the non unlimited plan).

If I can't get the student loans lowered or something worked out I will litterally be living paycheck to paycheck for the next ten years. That is with me living at home as well (which I wont) and hoping my car lasts for ten years (which it wont) and that I don't have any major expenses pop up.

I will literally have less then $100 a month of expendable income after my bills are paid. And again thats with me living with my parents, only driving 1 mile to work and really doing nothing as far as entertainment goes...

so yea cell phone might be going the way of the dodo!

Whats the rent for like a 1 bed / studio apartment? Given you live with parents, the student loan could be seen as the cost of rent and I'm curious how similar $650 is to a typical small apartment rent for the area.

Well you have to look at it this way.

My check is $400 a week total and after taxes I get about $315 each week.

So that puts me at about $1260 a week.
Now subtract my student loans and your
left with $610.

Now take out gas and the food that I eat.

That probably works out to about $75 each week. Which is cheap for food and gas... so there goes $300 more taking me down to $300.

Now take out $50 for car insurance. Then take out the $250 I give to my parents to help them out. and I am left with $10.

So if my car breaks down I can't buy a new one or even pay to fix the one I have. If I need a new pair of shoes or some new clothes I can't buy them. If I want to go out and have some ice cream I don't have the money for that. Basically I wouldn't have money for anything or to do anything for ten years all the while living at home with my parents.

I can feel for ya. The wife and I are in the same boat, except not living with parents. Living paycheck to paycheck is rough. Most of the time not being able to set money aside for savings. We look forward to 5 Friday months, because that 5th Friday doesn't get medical insurance deducted from. We have one car and we both work, good thing we have the same hours. We may not have student loans but we have loans. As long as you prioritize well and live for yourself, then you can be happy with both what you choose to have and what your working and debiting for. We choose to live without cable TV, cheaper to use Netflix.

That sucks, guys...

2005, are you still searching for a software engineering job?

As for the Atrix, there is news!
http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/android-4- ... 0-10-2012/
Yayy, except I'm one of the unlucky ones where the leak just does this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgujByS-P9E

Still looking yes but I'm not getting my hopes up.

I'm right on with you Directive. I think I can be fully happy even if my "financial forecast" stays the way it is now. I don't need a lot of money of fancy things to be happy.

The thing that I find a bit tough to swallow is that I've worked so hard for five years of my life and invested so much money into my education and unless I do find a software engineering job I'll be no better off then the average high school graduate.

I guess things could always be worse though.