Random household issues -- questions asked and answered here

wprager wrote:Tell her to get her fill at the gym.  Get on that treadmill or elliptical or bike, switch the set to HGTV and done.  That's what mine does all the time (but she clearly doesn't get her fill as she's still glued to it when she gets home).

I'll just enjoy the savings while I can. It was a struggle to ditch cable in the first place.

As for the phone, the review I read said the battery lasts nearly 13 hrs. With continuous video play.

Some more info on this. Those prices I quoted are USD. Buying it on aliexpress many vendors include DHL shipping. One particular vendor (Hong Kong Goldway) only charges $16.xx for DHL while another charges $26. Most (all?) vendors will flash the phone with the global ROM but you can do that yourself and ask the vendor explicitly (I think they have the "additional instructions" or some similar box) to send you an unopened box, and then do the ROM flashing yourself. It is not difficult and it may save you shipping time (the guy on the RFD forum said it arrived less than a week from ordering).

So, summing it up:
- $230.96 (CDN) for a gold phone (silver is more expensive)
- $16.62 shipping
- $23.30 customs fees
Total: $270.88 or roughly equivalent to $240 + taxes.

For that money (give or take a few bucks) I can get (on Amazon) an HTC One M7 (only 2GB RAM, 4.7" screen), a Moto X 2nd gen (up to 5.2" on the screen but just 16GB storage), Asus Zenphone Max (nice big battery but, again, 16 GB), some Blu phones (won't even bother checking specs as most of the ones I looked into before were well below FHD screen-wise). Very few phones in this range have 32GB storage, most are only 2GB or less RAM. None of them feature either a metal case or a fingerprint scanner.

I think I have my birthday present picked out (8 weeks to go).

wprager wrote:So, summing it up:
- $230.96 (CDN) for a gold phone (silver is more expensive)
- $16.62 shipping
- $23.30 customs fees
Total: $270.88 or roughly equivalent to $240 + taxes.

For that money (give or take a few bucks) I can get (on Amazon) an HTC One M7 (only 2GB RAM, 4.7" screen), a Moto X 2nd gen (up to 5.2" on the screen but just 16GB storage), Asus Zenphone Max (nice big battery but, again, 16 GB), some Blu phones (won't even bother checking specs as most of the ones I looked into before were well below FHD screen-wise).  Very few phones in this range have 32GB storage, most are only 2GB or less RAM.  None of them feature either a metal case or a fingerprint scanner.  

I think I have my birthday present picked out (8 weeks to go).

So... you're rolling the dice on a Chinese phone to bump up your storage and RAM? Wouldn't you feel more comfortable getting something from legit retailer?

I'd be more into it if I knew that a comparable phone, screen size, storage and RAM; cost twice as much for a name brand.

I had a colleague buy a tablet from aliexpress and he was pretty excited about it but I was thinking he could have gotten a POLAROID or COBY brand for the same or less and at least known he could exchange it from the drug store he bought it from.

SeawaySensFan wrote:

wprager wrote:So, summing it up:
- $230.96 (CDN) for a gold phone (silver is more expensive)
- $16.62 shipping
- $23.30 customs fees
Total: $270.88 or roughly equivalent to $240 + taxes.

For that money (give or take a few bucks) I can get (on Amazon) an HTC One M7 (only 2GB RAM, 4.7" screen), a Moto X 2nd gen (up to 5.2" on the screen but just 16GB storage), Asus Zenphone Max (nice big battery but, again, 16 GB), some Blu phones (won't even bother checking specs as most of the ones I looked into before were well below FHD screen-wise).  Very few phones in this range have 32GB storage, most are only 2GB or less RAM.  None of them feature either a metal case or a fingerprint scanner.  

I think I have my birthday present picked out (8 weeks to go).

So... you're rolling the dice on a Chinese phone  to bump up your storage and RAM? Wouldn't you feel more comfortable getting something from legit retailer?

I'd be more into it if I knew that a comparable phone, screen size, storage and RAM;  cost twice as much for a name brand.

I had a colleague buy a tablet from aliexpress and he was pretty excited about it but I was thinking he could have gotten a POLAROID or COBY brand for the same or less and at least known he could exchange it from the drug store he bought it from.

It's China's largest smartphone manufacturer, they sold 180 million of these sets, they have had nothing but very favorable reviews (cons include low-light camera performance and lack of availability in the US). They are very legit.

When you use shopbot.ca to look for this phone all the deals point to gearbest.com. I only checked out aliexpress because a poster on RFD said he used DHL shipping option and got it in under a week -- and I did not see this option with gearbest sellers.

I've bought numerous things from China on eBay -- if you can afford to wait you can't beat the price. This is definitely pricier than the items I've gotten so far, but I've seen enough people's comments to feel fairly comfortable. I remember how tentative I was with my first Amazon.com order.

wprager wrote:

SeawaySensFan wrote:

wprager wrote:So, summing it up:
- $230.96 (CDN) for a gold phone (silver is more expensive)
- $16.62 shipping
- $23.30 customs fees
Total: $270.88 or roughly equivalent to $240 + taxes.

For that money (give or take a few bucks) I can get (on Amazon) an HTC One M7 (only 2GB RAM, 4.7" screen), a Moto X 2nd gen (up to 5.2" on the screen but just 16GB storage), Asus Zenphone Max (nice big battery but, again, 16 GB), some Blu phones (won't even bother checking specs as most of the ones I looked into before were well below FHD screen-wise).  Very few phones in this range have 32GB storage, most are only 2GB or less RAM.  None of them feature either a metal case or a fingerprint scanner.  

I think I have my birthday present picked out (8 weeks to go).

So... you're rolling the dice on a Chinese phone  to bump up your storage and RAM? Wouldn't you feel more comfortable getting something from legit retailer?

I'd be more into it if I knew that a comparable phone, screen size, storage and RAM;  cost twice as much for a name brand.

I had a colleague buy a tablet from aliexpress and he was pretty excited about it but I was thinking he could have gotten a POLAROID or COBY brand for the same or less and at least known he could exchange it from the drug store he bought it from.

It's China's largest smartphone manufacturer, they sold 180 million of these sets, they have had nothing but very favorable reviews (cons include low-light camera performance and lack of availability in the US).  They are very legit.  

When you use shopbot.ca to look for this phone all the deals point to gearbest.com.  I only checked out aliexpress because a poster on RFD said he used DHL shipping option and got it in under a week -- and I did not see this option with gearbest sellers.  

I've bought numerous things from China on eBay -- if you can afford to wait you can't beat the price.  This is definitely pricier than the items I've gotten so far, but I've seen enough people's comments to feel fairly comfortable.  I remember how tentative I was with my first Amazon.com order.

I guess. I'd sleep better if the ultimate payoff was paying half the cost of a phone with the same features.

As for gearbest, they look even dodgier than aliexpress.

Either way my policy is let wprager try before I buy. So get cracking.

My b/d is in 8 weeks. Not cracking till then.

I wonder if it's worth buying a bunch of these to resell? PTFlea?

SeawaySensFan wrote:I wonder if it's worth buying a bunch of these to resell? PTFlea?

He's still reeling from that Regin comment I made.

I'm now looking at the LG G4. Same size (5.5") but a little lighter, much nicer screen and camera, NFC. Cons are smaller battery, no fingerprint scanner, plastic construction. You can get it for "free" on a $55 plan from Virgin Mobile (unlimited Canada-wide talk only) plus 250,000 PC points ($250 in groceries). Or save $3/month and get the $44 (plus $8 add-on for phone) on a similar PC Tel plan, with 175,000 points.

So let's say the Xiaomi phone would have cost me $280 all in, add $175 in free groceries and divide by 24 months, that's $18.96/month I'd have to "save" on a cheaper plan. So $52 - $19 means I'd have to find a plan for $33 or less to "break-even".

Gene Wilder just passed away. He was 83.

wprager wrote:Gene Wilder just passed away.  He was 83.  

Fare thee well, Young Frankenstein.

SeawaySensFan wrote:

wprager wrote:Gene Wilder just passed away.  He was 83.  

Fare thee well, Young Frankenstein.

It's pronounced "Fronkensteen."

If I go with Wind mobile I'll take the $45 plan ($40 for first 10 months) that will give me unlimited talk/text anywhere in NA plus 5GB (full speed) in the Wind Home zones (of the places I frequent this means just Ottawa). So that's $12 above my "break-even" point. With PC Tel's $44 plan (plus $8 to get the LG G4 for "free") I can get 1GB data for $10 as an add-on (and only $5 if I use 500MB or less). Definitely not as good as Wind's 5GB but I'm not limited to Ottawa (on the other hand what good is coverage everywhere when you can only use 1GB total).

I hate Canadian wireless providers.

Awful news last couple of days -- a motorcyclist killed yesterday and a bicyclist today; three others injured critically in the past week. Some of it, undoubtedly, because of all the traffic being rerouted downtown with the LRT construction. But bicyclists have to be careful, too. Was driving on 2nd Line Road just now and the stupid girl/woman on her bike is riding *right* on the friggin' white line separating the road from the bike lane. That's a regular rural-sized road, so not very wide, and they painted the bike lanes on it without making it any wider. We (drivers) pay for road maintenance with your registration fees (that are going up as of today) while the two-wheelers get away with not even having a license. I see people on bikes routinely disobeying the traffic rules (and I don't mean just going through a stop sign without stopping -- as long as no-one else is in the intersection they are sill going slower than a car doing a "rolling stop" anyway). What purposes did this lady server by riding *ON* the white line? She was not near it, she was right on it! The bike lane is not very wide, maybe 2 feet across, but that's still plenty wide to fit a bike. And there's no side-walk next to it, just a soft shoulder and then a shallow ditch (culvert?) so there's absolutely nothing stopping her from riding smack down the middle of the bike lane.

Maybe she was daydreaming about random household issues?

Could be.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/samsung-recalls-all-galaxy-note-7-smartphones-after-battery-explosions-1.3055409?hootPostID=427cd7de1577135eca55558ec3a1d8a4

Well, I guess I won't be getting this one.