I was warned that one of the Lumias in the box is bricked. It immediately gets stuck in a boot loop when turned on. So, I counted it as dead. Yes, I tried some resurrection tricks, but nothing worked. I wanted to give up and just throw it away.
However, my colleague wanted to try it out. He succeeded using a very interesting method that he discovered by accident. He downloaded the same recovery/firmware flashing tool as me, but he downloaded the operating system for the phone from a different page. It appeared that the only OS that worked was the Russian ROM. He downloaded it because it was the only one he could find. And it worked. The phone booted on the first try without any problems. I am really happy it works, even though it is a Windows Phone.
As usual, I have installed enough games to fill all the available memory, and I am going to try them out.
I tried a Lara Croft-based endless runner, but it just displayed some cutscenes with a book and then crashed immediately after the gameplay should have started. I also took some stupid games from ...
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Every time I get a new Windows Phone device, I'm amazed at how annoying the system is.
I can understand that some people like the GUI, even though I think it's really ugly and unintuitive. However, the controls of that system are terrible.
I found a few examples just by taking screenshots. To be honest, taking the screenshots was easy enough, but then I wanted to share them with a PC or phone. I decided that the easiest method would be to use Bluetooth. I opened the gallery, saw my screenshots and tried to select and send them. Yes, mark them. I tried my best with gestures, holding the thumbnails and various combinations, but nothing worked. Then I realised there were two icons at the bottom of the screen. One was a kind of hamburger menu and the other was an icon with a tick. I clicked on the checkmarks, thinking it would turn on the 'select' mode. Nothing happened. I tried it many times and still nothing happened. So I tried clicking the menu button. The only thing that happened was the bottom bar enlarged to show these two icons in a larger size with descriptions. Now ...
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PHP, the scripting language that helped shape the modern web, celebrates another milestone this year. Thirty years. From its humble beginnings as a set of simple tools for tracking personal website visits, PHP has grown into one of the most widely used server-side languages in the world.
During the fifteen-odd years that I have been using it, I have heard countless announcements that it is dead and that we should use a newer, cooler language. The 'cool' language has changed over the years, while PHP has stayed the same. With an estimated 80% market share on the web, I would say it is still not dead and will not be in the near future.
It has changed significantly, especially since version 5.6, and, to be honest, I really like it. Since version 7, I have had hardly any complaints. It runs all my websites.
Does anyone still remember ColdFusion, ASP.NET or Django, which were supposed to replace PHP? I don't know of any websites that run on any of these, and even Microsoft, the creator of ASP.net, recommends against using it for web development.
So, what should we do? I guess we should still use PHP. It still has something to offer, and it ...
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In addition to the phones, there was also a tablet in the mystery box I received. It's a Galaxy Tab 3. It's quite old, but I like the size of the screen, and so does my son.
Unfortunately, the tablet was dead when it arrived, and nothing happened even when it was plugged in. I plugged the detector into the USB charger and it detected zero current. I therefore concluded that the battery was dead. However, I tried the donor to see if it worked. He replied that he had powered it on just before packing the box. I tried to disassemble the back, but I was a bit nervous about the plastic. My colleague did it for me as he had more strength and it wasn't his device! So, after that, I found a battery connector with doubled wires connected by an unusual connector. I plugged the testing wires from my multimeter into the wires of my laboratory power supply, carefully pinning the needle directly to the battery connector, and started to charge it slowly. The voltage was under 3 volts at first, so the reason it wouldn't charge via ...
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I really wanted to try programming something using an Android accelerometer, and I recently found some CC0 starter assets for Arkanoid. Coincidence? I don't think so.
So... One of the hardest parts is done. I have some starting assets. I've started the second boring part: designing and creating menus. That seems to be finished, too. Now, the exciting part is finally beginning!
I have already initialised and handled the accelerometer. It's basically just the tilt function for now, but it will be improved later. However, I am really looking forward to programming the physics and mechanics. I would also like to introduce more game features and experiences, and maybe even some minigames. We'll see how long I'll be able to work on it. It looks really interesting, though, so wish me luck!
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To write about something more interesting, I got an Honor X5 in a box from a friend. The interesting thing is that the phone was bought in China, so it comes with Chinese software, which might have some interesting features and functions.
So, I unpacked the phone. Even though its dimensions are quite standard and it's the same width as my everyday phone, it feels too wide when I hold it. I do not know what the cause is, but it feels weird. The body, however, is really well manufactured. The phone has an aluminium frame and back, which makes it relatively heavy.
It has a 5.5-inch screen with a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels, which is impressive. The screen is sharp, and I really like it. The Octa-core CPU (4x1.2 GHz Cortex-A53 & 4x1.5 GHz Cortex-A53) is powerful, and my model has 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of ROM. It seems that nearly 10 GB of the ROM is still available for the user, so that should be fine.
The screen looks great and has excellent colour ...
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I took another phone from the mystery box. It's a Chinese Samsung Galaxy clone running Android 4.1.
To be honest, there isn't much to write about. It's just a standard Chinese 'shitphone', which were really common years ago. It's impossible to find any information about it.
However, it is really impressive hardware. It has an unknown ARM processor, 256 MB of RAM and incredibly small storage. This is a common problem with old Android phones, especially Chinese ones. This restricts its use to making calls and sending text messages. I could only fit four small games on it and it is absolutely full!
The only advantages I have found are that it is less laggy than these phones used to be and that it is fully translated, which is more unusual than it sounds. But what good is smoothness when you can't install apps because you don't have the space?
So I've only installed Candy Crush and Slingshot Racing, which is a really nice game that was deleted from Google Play many years ago. You can see them on the following screens:
Also, here is ...
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Yes, I know my English isn't the best either, since it's not my native language. However, the Czech translation that I saw when installing the Bluetooth driver for the notebook that I received is really funny, and I have no idea how it was created.
Directly translated, it says:
"setting is set the drive wheel, be nice wait one important"
That's quite funny. Isn't it?
I thought it was unique, but when I shared the screenshot with a group of vintage PC collectors, I was told it's quite common with Bluetooth drivers. So, nothing special after all. But I still found it funny and a bit scary, as I thought I had downloaded a scam driver containing a virus.
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So, I got the Huawei Y6s (2019) as a gift, and honestly, itβs a pretty cool little phone for what it is! Itβs got this MediaTek Helio P35 chip with 3 GB of RAM, which is totally fine for my use. Its a pitty that i bought new phone couple weeks ago to replace my broken Realme 7.The 6.09-inch HD+ screen looks nice and clear for videos, and at just 150 g, and it is really thin.
The one thing thatβs would stop me using it is the micro USB port. In 2025, it feels like a blast from the past when everything else I own is USB-C, and it is just a hassle to deal with different cables
Nevertheless, if youβre not chasing fancy specs, itβs a solid pick for a budget phone. It would make a great gift for someone like me who collects phones and uses them for gaming.
It's not old enough to be considered a vintage phone, but I'd put it in the archive and take care of the battery. However, it still supports Android, so I can easily fill it with games, as you can see in the ...
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This is the first phone that worked straight out of the box: The Huawei Ideos X3. It's one of my oldest Android phones, running version 2.3.4.
It was also the first phone I got with those stupid softened plastics and all their disadvantages.
So I took a wooden stick and started scraping the mess off, as the phone was incredibly sticky when I touched it. After a while β and after outsourcing the task to my wife β it started to look really nice.
So, after cleaning up, I started thinking about which software to install. I downloaded some game packs for Android 2.2 and 2.3 from the Web Archive, connected the phone in "mass storage" mode, and started copying the smallest installers to the phone. But I encountered a problem immediately. While the phone was showing that there was about 150 MB of free space, the PC was showing just 16 MB. I was unable to use any more than that. So I only installed a couple of the smallest games, one of which surprisingly included a Minecraft copy or an early version of Minecraft. Even more surprisingly, the game runs ...
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