Goodbye and thanks for all the fish!

[gomezz]

My trusty, old Lumia 820 running 8.1 is heading for the obsolete gadgets drawer with the recent unreliability of even the browser version of Facebook proving to be the final straw to add to an ever growing mountain of lost functionality. Getting back into the modern connected world with a Samsung S20 FE 5G which hopefully will last me another seven years!

Actually the 820 will take over the role of back up PAYG mobile using my Giff Gaff SIM while it is a Nokia 5800 which gets consigned to the drawer of the doomed.

 

[gomezz]

Actually, thinking about it the 5800 probably works better as the back up phone for emergency calls or texts as the battery charge lasts roughly a week compared to the day or so I am now getting from the 820. Comments?

 

[libra89]

Actually, thinking about it the 5800 probably works better as the back up phone for emergency calls or texts as the battery charge lasts roughly a week compared to the day or so I am now getting from the 820. Comments?

I agree with you on this decision. Longer battery for the win.

 

[gomezz]

The 820 will still remain in play for a few weeks until I get the new phone sorted including sorting out the best podcatcher app to use. Currently use Podcast Picker but want to have a look at Pocket Casts for its ability to sync across both phone and tablet.

 

[libra89]

The 820 will still remain in play for a few weeks until I get the new phone sorted including sorting out the best podcatcher app to use. Currently use Podcast Picker but want to have a look at Pocket Casts for its ability to sync across both phone and tablet.

That sounds good! Yeah, I use Pocket Casts almost daily and it's great at syncing in this way. Occasionally I might have issues updating on the other device but closing the app and then reopening can fix that.

 

[gomezz]

Another decision to make is which music player app to use. I prefer to keep things simple with one folder per album and play each album as a whole just like the old days of vinyl. Use Loco on the 820 so what is the most similar Android app?

 

[gomezz]

Just had another play with the bundled Samsung player on my Android tablet and finally (after four years) found out how to stop it randomly shuffle playing tracks but to play them in the strict album sequence that I prefer! The problem was that the Shuffle icon on the playbar changes to a Shuffle icon with a thin diagonal line through it which doesn't look that much different unless inspected very closely.

So for now, that will do as my default music player on my initial pass at getting the new phone up and running. May or may not look for something better at a later date given that I mainly play music on the move using my Rockbox'd Sansa Clip+ PMP. If only there were a Rockbox app for Android, that would be wonderful!

 

[Laura Knotek]

I use Poweramp Pro on all my Android devices, since it works well with my lossless music files (FLAC and WAV).

 

[gomezz]

When my 256GB SD card arrives I will have the space to copy over the FLAC versions of my music collection. The Smart Switch process from my Android tablet copied it to my the phone's internal storage where it is taking up a worryingly large percentage of the available space. At least they should sound better than the MP3 down-conversion of my music that is on the Lumia 820.

Just realised that Smart Switch also initiated the install of VLC app so that is another option.

 

[gomezz]

Been having some dark thoughts about my choice of new phone:

Had a Psion PDA back in the day then Psion went tits up;
Moved to a Windows something or other PDA then MS stopped supporting it;
Got a Nokia 5800 then Symbian wents tits up;
Got the Nokia / Lumia 820 then first Nokia went tits up then MS pulled support for WM8.1.

So now with a Samsung S20 running Android have I sounded the death knell for Samsung and Google? :sweaty:

 

[tgp]

So now with a Samsung S20 running Android have I sounded the death knell for Samsung and Google? :sweaty:

Nope! You sounded the death knell for your practice of adopting dead end platforms. Welcome to the long term club!

 

[gomezz]

My setting up of the new phone had stalled somewhat as I was getting bogged down in deleted emails constantly rising from the dead. Mostly the kind of emails telling you about activity on one of your accounts on a new device and was it really you? Well yes, as I am signing in to various stuff on the new phone.

Took me all week to realise that this was due to my old main email address was bouncing everything as the mail hosting has gone kapput. Been busy updating all my important contacts to a new email address but forgot that a couple of secondary email accounts needed the automatic forwarding address changed too.

So not really related to my changing phone but one of those issues that looks as though it may have been.

One issue outstanding is that I continue to use Outlook for my email, contacts and calendar but I cannot for the life of me get the S20 to display the next calendar event on the lockscreen. A cursory search shows this is a common issue but there does not appear to be a solution which does not involve rooting or installing some possibly dodgy app or other. Any suggestions, please?

 

[gomezz]

Why did no-one tell me about widgets? Been using an Android tablet for four years and not seen them mentioned. And, lo and behold there is an Outlook widget which let me put a full screen agenda display on its own app page. Tap on it and it takes me into the Outlook calendar proper. Just the ticket! Just got to find a way now of getting the next calendar event on the lockscreen then I can move on. This looks promising but that can wait for tomorrow once I am feeling more relaxed again

https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5...th-outlook-calendars-on-s9/td-p/470925/page/3

Bonus accomplishment was getting all my 3000+ text message transferred over though that did cost a couple of quid to unlock the app that imported them for me without doing it in 200 message chunks.

 

[gomezz]

USB headphone adaptor now arrived so can now play music and podcasts through the work van radio (no Bluetooth) with the new phone. But that highlights the flaw with putting the USB socket on the bottom of the phone as it means you need to put it in the cradle upside down. That means all the playback controls are now upside down as the inbuilt auto-rotation does not do 180. Luckily there is an app to deal with that, Rotation Control, so I can fix it in Reverse Portrait mode when needed.

(every day is a school day :smile

 

[gomezz]

I agree with you on this decision. Longer battery for the win.

What I am trying at the moment is turning Battery Saver mode on permanently and turning on Flight mode on the 820 and stopping all background activity. So far it is looking like I can extend the standby life to three or four days which would be acceptable.

Just had to order a new SIM from Giff Gaff to fit the 820 as the 5800 SIM is huge.

Edit: Just unselected all Calendars so it doesn't keep popping up with reminders.

Now showing 62% battery after two days or so and that is still with some occasional fiddling.

Edit: Two days later and now showing 55%. I think we could have a full-weeker which means I can just have a weekly recharge as part of my routine which is what I have been doing with the 5800. :smile:

 

[RTGent]

Another decision to make is which music player app to use. I prefer to keep things simple with one folder per album and play each album as a whole just like the old days of vinyl. Use Loco on the 820 so what is the most similar Android app?

Don't know Loco, though I like the name. I still use Groove on my 950, which still gives me an artist image on my lock screen, along with the tile one. On the Angroids, I use VLC which plays my WMA lossless and FLAC files; Groove never played the latter, so I still rip lossless mostly in WMA. Zune -desktop and otherwise- never recognized, nor ripped in, FLAC either. I believe all apps have had the "one folder per album", including multiple album folders within its Artist (or Various Artists) folder. I also play whole albums , like I read (or play) full books, although in the car, it's usually an all- artist- or genre-shuffle.

BTW, is there an angroid app that has the lock-screen feature?

Enjoying your long goodbye; enjoy your new phone.

 

[RTGent]

... At least they should sound better than the MP3 down-conversion of my music that is on the Lumia 820.

MP3 rips at max, i.e., at 320 kbps, still sound great. I rip at lossless or 320 only. It does take more space, but still a small fraction of lossless.

 

[RTGent]

Been having some dark thoughts about my choice of new phone:

Had a Psion PDA back in the day then Psion went tits up;
Moved to a Windows something or other PDA then MS stopped supporting it;
Got a Nokia 5800 then Symbian wents tits up;
Got the Nokia / Lumia 820 then first Nokia went tits up then MS pulled support for WM8.1.

So now with a Samsung S20 running Android have I sounded the death knell for Samsung and Google? :sweaty:

On nostalgia: Also had a PSION revo, "the switched on organizer" (still have the spiral-bound 222-page user guide on a shelf in my "library"), after my TI Avigo, and then it was an HP Jornada 720, the "Handheld PC", running Windows CE, and I believe an HP iPAQ was my last organizer ahead of my/the first smartphone, the Palm Treo 270.

Cheers to those fine pioneering devices, and my 950 -speaking of nostalgia for many of you!