Practical Question - Using Smartphones

"Jeff Gaines" snipped-for-privacy@outlook.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.individual.net:

The max and minimal effect on bat life as my thumb sleeps it when I don't need a long duration display. Do people still say seeemples?

If I were in that position I would go into settings and change the screen timeout to, say, 5 minutes. When finished change it back to whatever it was before.

Unless the screen used a lot of power when lit up I doubt that you could tell the difference to battery life.

A lot of modern phones are OLED which only takes power when a pixel is non-black. So a dark screen will only take power for the few pixels that are lit, while a bright screen will take more power. But often you aren't actually using the full 2000 nits brightness of a modern phone, and it will adaptively dim based on light levels. So if it's a typical indoors environment it's likely not going to take much power being lit for a few minutes.

Theo

The keyboard setting will have its own timeout, usually very short, but it really shouldn't disappear until you seem to have stopped entering data. But there may be a race when you memorise a few digits, then look back at the source for a couple of seconds while memorising the next set.

Certainly the screen itself shouldn't blank in that sort of time.

A problem I have is that if I am phoning some outfit that requires me to input numbers in response, I keep having to get the screen alive again.

Chris

As recommended, set the display timeout to longer than it is, which may be only five seconds at the moment. I keep mine on 30 minutes, but I need to remember to shut it down when I'm finished. I'd have thought one minute should deal with most of these situations.

The problem I find is that having entered a number, and being invited to enter another, just as I'm about to tap the screen, the numeric keypad disappears. It's usually quick enough to get it back, but it breaks up the flow of whatever transaction it is. I haven't found a time setting for that. I still miss the buttons...

The screen will turn off when you put the phone to your ear, to prevent your ear touching the screen and accidentally clicking on some buttons. It can take a second or two for the proximity detection to notice the phone is no longer at your ear and turn the screen back on.

Speakerphone avoids that problem.

Theo

So do the sensible thing. Use a computer, not a mobile phone - the worst input device ever invented

All of which convinces me that my 'pseudo-mobile' number which is actually a VOIP number at A&A is a much easier way to do things.

All those things that get 'texted' to you actually arrive in my E-Mail as I have set up the A&A number to forward texts to my E-Mail address.

I can then cut and past to my heart's content between multiple screens and tabs on my laptop, easier to cut ans paste with a proper mouse and nothing disappears after X seconds.

I tend to use "Phone Link" on my windows PC which lets me see the texts on my laptop.

Dave