u/WhatsUpLabradog

I find the volume on this phone's speakers so high that I don't need it to ever get close to 100% even, and because of that it is sometimes a bit difficult to adjust to the best level when fiddling the slider at the lower end of its range.

So if the entire range of the slider would be limited to 100% it should decrease the difference between each step (slightly, at least, as 200% and 400% are just the last two steps).

Is that possible somewhere in the settings? Thanks.

I know you can manually adjust the slider while auto brightness is enabled, but it forgets your adjustment each time auto brightness is disabled.

I basically always prefer a lower screen brightness than the default auto value, both indoors and outdoors.

At nighttime indoors I usually prefer the lowest brightness (or close to it) so it doesn't become bothersome, and outdoors I rarely need the absolute max (which auto often chooses) and constant high brightness is a major factor in OLED burn-in. It should also logically drain battery faster, although when I checked with Amper I barely saw a difference between mA draw during lowest and highest brightness (it sometimes even read lower during highest brightness, which doesn't make sense).

I found a way to enable the Extra Dim setting on my Poco X8PM. It enables applying a constant dimming effect at the intensity of your choice, separate to the position of the brightness slider, but that has two issues:

1. It seems to work by compressing the dynamic range of the digital RGB bits, so the more intense the dimming setting is the more it can crush hues.
2. I suppose (but I'm not certain) that in OLED displays it reduces screen usage/wear practically the same as lowering the actual brightness slider, considering each pixel is its own light source as dictated by both the global brightness and the RGB data. But for LCD displays (nowadays almost exclusive to tablets) it won't reduce the intensity of the backlights, meaning it won't reduce power draw and the blacks will be whitewashed even more compared to actual lower brightness (as LCD black pixels can't effectively block all light).

Bottom line: it is a very simple feature to add as an extension of the auto brightness. I would even make it so one can either apply a uniform adjustment across the entire auto brightness range, or adjust more/less at dark/bright environments (for example, "dim more than usual when dark, maintain default brightness in daylight").

I know you can manually adjust the slider while auto brightness is enabled, but it forgets your adjustment each time auto brightness is disabled.

I basically always prefer a lower screen brightness than the default auto value, both indoors and outdoors.

At nighttime indoors I usually prefer the lowest brightness (or close to it) so it doesn't become bothersome, and outdoors I rarely need the absolute max (which auto often chooses) and constant high brightness is a major factor in OLED burn-in. It should also logically drain battery faster, although when I checked with Amper I barely saw a difference between mA draw during lowest and highest brightness (it sometimes even read lower during highest brightness, which doesn't make sense).

I found a way to enable the Extra Dim setting on my Poco X8PM. It enables applying a constant dimming effect at the intensity of your choice, separate to the position of the brightness slider, but that has two issues:

1. It seems to work by compressing the dynamic range of the digital RGB bits, so the more intense the dimming setting is the more it can crush hues.
2. I suppose (but I'm not certain) that in OLED displays it reduces screen usage/wear practically the same as lowering the actual brightness slider, considering each pixel is its own light source as dictated by both the global brightness and the RGB data. But for LCD displays (nowadays almost exclusive to tablets) it won't reduce the intensity of the backlights, meaning it won't reduce power draw and the blacks will be whitewashed even more compared to actual lower brightness (as LCD black pixels can't effectively block all light).

Bottom line: it is a very simple feature to add as an extension of the auto brightness. I would even make it so one can either apply a uniform adjustment across the entire auto brightness range, or adjust more/less at dark/bright environments (for example, "dim more than usual when dark, maintain default brightness in daylight").

I wanted to check that and DevCheck has been recommended by many people, but on my phone it doesn't show any temperature readings beyond battery.

The app doesn't notify about any issue, but according to the developer if the CPU temp field is missing then the OS is simply blocking access to the sensor.

Is that the right explanation or is it possibly something else? Thanks.

I was testing the camera on my new Poco X8PM and this strange bug happened.

I was capturing photos using the 50MP + RAW mode in the default camera app, and two of the photos captured one after the other won't get removed from the gallery.

I think I did apply a delete command to these two at first, but something happened and unlike the other image files (which I successfully removed) these two stuck. They show as thumbnails in the gallery, and I can click on them to load the images in full screen, but they won't zoom-in, and trying to either delete, edit, share them or even just access their file details returns the "wait until all photos are processed" message.

The image files actually no longer appear in the DCIM/Camera folder. I accessed the Gallery storage through Android's Files app and thought I removed different iterations of these in "gallery_disk_cache", but they still appear in the gallery.

Anyone familiar with this bug? How can I fix it?

Thanks.

EDIT: Okay, I got it fixed but I think this method wasn't possible at first. I wanted to delete them from the Camera app's browser (because I figured maybe the stuck "processing" status stems from there), but if I'm not mistaken when I tried that earlier I could only view images older than the bugged ones (after the new images that weren't bugged had already been deleted through the Gallery app).

Things I tried but are possibly not related to the solution: I rebooted my phone before deleting files inside the cache folder – images still stuck in the Gallery app. I rebooted again afterwards and that didn't help too.

But now I captured a new image and was able to browse backwards from it in the camera browser to reach the bugged images. I deleted them from there and now they're finally gone from the gallery.

Anyone has an idea why would that happen? I have a couple of different Google accounts associated with the same phone number. One of them was opened when I registered to some service and preferred to use a different email address and name.

As things go, I needed to access that Gmail again but forgot the exact address. I eventually recalled it on my own (and also managed to reset the password once I had the correct address), but for some reason Google would not recover my address even though I gave it the correct details.

If I give it the exact full name used for that specific account, after verifying my number it returns that error message. Actually, it does the same even if I try recovering my other addresses (under my real name, with the same phone number).

It used to work fine, so what might have gone wrong now? Thanks.

As I'm trying out my new X8PM I'm taking notes of how it performs during different scenarios.

The indoors ambient temperature (without AC) is quite hot right now, 27-28 °C. I'm using Ampere to read the battery's temperature and I have the following readings:

1. When browsing for 10+ minutes, basically right now as I'm writing this, it reached ~30 °C at first but kept rising to 32 as I was switching between tabs or going from Chrome to the Ampere app a couple of times (so up to 5 degrees above ambient).
2. When I played some game for an extended period of time (I don't know whether to define it as heavy or not, but it runs much smoother on the X8PM than on the Redmi Note 10 Pro so it definitely uses the additional processing power) it read close to 40 °C (about 12 degrees above ambient).

I should also mention that I keep my screen brightness quite low, and I'm using the case included with the phone.

Are such temperatures normal within these scenarios? How do your phones compare?

Thanks.

I got some unbranded screen protectors for my new X8 Pro Max. I did the same with previous phones, as the cheap ones seem to do the same job preventing scratches and cracks.

But this phone has an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner and it doesn't work at all with this screen protector. When trying to register a new fingerprint it either doesn't detect any finger at all or if it does then it just tells me to move the finger around the scanner but it doesn't even begin showing the print-pattern graphics.

The product page says it is "ultra thin at 0.26 mm", so if it's true then what else is required for a glass protector to work with such a scanner? If anyone has a recommendation for a personally-tested protector please share it.

Thank you in advance.

>US President Donald Trump says he opposes calls to strip Iran of all of its ballistic missiles.

>Speaking at a press conference, Trump says the US and Iran will discuss the latter’s missile program in the upcoming negotiations following this week’s MOU signing.

>“They have to have some (missiles) because other people have some. You gotta have some,” Trump says.

Also: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/trump-downplays-need-to-reach-irans-stockpile-of-enriched-uranium-claiming-its-not-valuable-and-tehran-cant-access-it/

>US President Donald Trump again downplays the importance of obtaining Iran’s stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, claiming that Tehran can’t access them anyway.

>He again claims that the “nuclear dust” is buried deep under rubble after the US bombed Iran’s three main nuclear sites last year. He says only the US and China have the equipment to reach it.

>“It’s actually not valuable, but we’d like to get it psychologically,” Trump says.

I've been looking at a few listings on AliExpress. One of the stores (that has the "Brand+" certification, so it should be legit) has a specific listing that costs a few dozen dollars less than the others (even within the same store), even though it says "Global Version" so on paper it's the same. But at the end of the item description there is a sentence saying that it doesn't come with a case due to "version-specific reasons". What could that mean?

The thumbnail for this listing does show a charger with "EU" written, so at least that should be included in the box. But some unboxing video I watched and reviews for the other listings mention theirs came with a charger, a case, a pre-applied screen protector and a SIM tray opener.

So is there a specific area/country where the X8PM comes with an EU charger but no case?

Thanks.

My current phone is quite old already and at times runs very slowly, and due to Redmi's limited updating period it is still on Android 13.

I've been looking at some current phones with priority features being fast and responsive (I don't game too much but high-ish performance is a nice to have), good display, cameras are not my main concern but I still prefer something decently good (the Note 10 Pro's main camera is decent at day but not very good/sharp at night, while its 5 MP macro camera has actually been surprisingly useful at times), and eSIM support.

So, aiming for a more serious phone now, I was considering at first the F8 Ultra. Reviews were highly positive about its cameras (especially its 5x telephoto, which is also somewhat of an alternative to a dedicated macro camera) and speakers, the display seems good overall even if not the most advanced, and the SD 8 Elite Gen 5 is obviously very powerful but the thermals are reportedly not very good.​ Other perks unique to it are USB 3.2 with Display Port and wireless charging. It's also rather expensive.

I then saw the X8 Pro Max, which costs considerably less​. Its SOC being Mediatek 9500s is in some people's opinion a con (apparently they don't work well for emulators? Any other "issues"?), but it is much stronger than what I currently have and according to GSMArena its thermals are more stable (even if not perfect) than the F8 Ultra's, which seems to make their practical performance pretty similar. Like the F8 Ultra it has eSIM, UFS 4.1, and an ultrasonic fingerprint reader. The display can apparently get a bit brighter and it supports 30-120 Hz (vs 60-120 Hz) in specific scenarios (although neither has granular Hz like LTPO), its Si/C battery has ~30% more capacity (have we concluded these are good already?), and while its speakers have way less bass in comparison, they are apparently an identical stereo pair so the sound should be completely symmetrical when held horizontally (the Redmi's stereo speaker are not too bad, but the earpiece side has a bit less volume and is more trebly).

The camera(s) is what I read the most mixed opinions about. The ultrawide is useless, obviously. Even it it's just for aesthetics' sake, I don't know why they stopped putting decent-ish macro ones instead. The main camera has actually been given a good (very, even) review by GSMA, both for daylight and lowlight conditions, but many users think otherwise. Can anyone who happens to have owned a Redmi Note 10 Pro in the past and an X8 Pro Max nowadays describe the difference in camera quality? The review shots on GSMA look better to me, but the sensor itself doesn't immediately seem better. It is actually considerably smaller (1/1.95" vs 1/1.52") with fewer pixels (50 MP vs 108 MP, although that's not necessarily worse), but it does have OIS and support a wider aperture (f/1.5 vs f/1.9).

And lastly, considering the software, or more specifically bloatware: ​does the X8 have more bloatware than the F8? Some X8 users complain about it, and apparently if you want to use ADB to debloat manually Xiaomi requires you to connect to a Xiaomi account. These two things seem unrelated, so is that true?

Excuse the long-winded post, and thank you in advance.

Not sure why it's doing that. I can't see the listing anymore, and someone who asked about this in the past said that changing the "ship to" setting to a different country (where it is not blocked) should reveal the listing.

I tried several different locations and it still shows that message. Maybe it only works if I actually enter a new default shipping address?

And I noticed that a bunch of other items in the same store (mostly in the same category – stainless grilling/baking trays plus some other metal utensils) are also "blocked" now. But it's not all of the items, and some of the items that are still available aren't necessarily small/light to ship. So I'm trying to understand what could make a store block almost all of its listings within a specific category.

A bought some chocolate liquor the other day in order to make low-sweetness dark chocolate out of it. I already did a couple of attempts with it: while I need to work on my tempering technique, I did get a pretty decent one with 15% blender-ground sugar + 10% NFDM — which was mostly smooth, but it did have slight grittiness if we're being pedantic.

Sugar doesn't dissolve in fat, and you shouldn't add water directly to chocolate as it would make it seize. So I figured perhaps I could dissolve sugar in some warm water, then add it to a fat and evaporate the water while maintaining it mixed-together?

I don't have cocoa butter so, even though it behaves differently and isn't a great fit for classic dark chocolate, I decided to make a test run with a little bit of dairy butter. I asked ChatGPT to see if it finds a general logic to support my idea, it said this won't work, I didn't listen to it because ChatGPT is dumb.

Anyway, I only did a very small test-run of ~100 grams final weight as I didn't want to waste much liquor over a questionable experiment, and that makes tempering to exact temperatures more finicky.

1. I boiled 15 grams of water + 15 grams of sugar in the microwave and stirred until dissolved. That amount of sugar can actually be dissolved in less than 5 grams of boiling water, so the initial "wateriness" could've been minimized.
2. I then added 5 grams of butter (which contains about 1 gram of water) and reheated (in bursts) + stirred a few more times until it evaporated almost all of the water, ending with a thick but runny (when warm) slurry.

With complete evaporation it should've weighed 19 grams, I stopped at about 20 but could probably concentrate it a little bit more. Also, I used a non-inverter microwave, so it only operates at 100% power or 0%. The better option, especially for larger quantities, would be to slowly heat it over the stove (or perhaps with an inverter microwave).

I wanted the final chocolate to be 15% sugar, so I made a mistake and added the slurry to 100 minus 15 grams of liquor (should've been ~81). Never mind. Anyway, it didn't seem to seize up and granule-wise it is definitely smoother than the previous batch. Its snappiness is about half-way between proper dark chocolate and milk chocolate, probably in part because of the butterfat's properties and otherwise because of my bad tempering, but I think it demonstrated this is a viable technique if one doesn't have a melanger but wants to get better smoothness compared to simple powdered sugar.

So I assume (perhaps incorrectly so) that such a fat-sugar slurry can also be made with cocoa butter, which would temper better in dark chocolate.

I found some relatively good-priced 55% cocoa fat chocolate liquor (considering the usual prices in my country. It's still quite expensive, nonetheless), and I wanted to try turning it into low-sugar dark chocolate.

I don't have a melanger, so I processed table sugar in a small Ninja blender until it was as fine as achievable and added it to the liquor at a 1:9 ratio (so 90% dark). I know it's usually said to combine both chocolate liquor and cocoa butter to reach the optimal fat level (usually about 52-53% at this darkness level, although I've seen close to 60%), but if the 55% fat content is accurate then a 1:9 sugar:liquor ratio results in 49.5% fat — so a bit lower but I presume this still suffices.

So from the quick reading I did it seemed I should:

1. Heat this mixture using a bain-marie to ~52 °C (~125 °F).

2. Cool to 29 °C (84 °F).

3. Reheat to 32 °C (90 °F).

4. Transfer to a mold to cool and set, preferably at an ambient temperature of 15-18 °C (60-65 °F).

My actual process:

1. I did a mistake by using a slow-to-heat/cool glass bowl as the chocolate vessel, so it seems I might've heated it up to ~56 °C (133 °F), slightly above the upper end I read for dark chocolate (55 °C), but I think I had the other temperatures better controlled. I also used an IR thermometer out of convenience, but I did compare it with a high-speed probe while the chocolate was melting and it was about as accurate.

2. I don't have a proper mold yet, so after the reheating step I spread it on some parchment paper. The ambient temperature here is 22 °C (72 °F) and it didn't really seem to start setting within the first 5 minutes or so, so I placed it in the fridge and tested periodically.

3. It was overall solid after 15 or so minutes, but not snappy. After half an hour it became snappier, but it's not as solid of a snap as I'd like. Also, it is probably several degrees colder than ambient so I'm not sure if it will maintain it after storing outside the fridge.

4. The texture though is smooth enough, in my opinion, even without a melanger. You may sense a tiny bit of the sugar granules if doing a full bite, but it's not really grainy and that bit of sugar tends to melt before you can even notice it.

So is the unsatisfactory snappiness most likely due to heating it too much during the first step? Or perhaps the too-hot ambient temperature and resorting to the refrigerator? Or something else?

Thanks!

I haven't tried to redeem credits in a while, but I checked it now and noticed that the $5 and $50 amounts remain unclickable (continue saying "restocking"). Interestingly, the $20 coupon (which probably not many people exchange for, and I don't think is supposed to have a limited stock) too was grey before and after the current timer.

I don't know if it's related, but my account's Play & Earn page has had an unprovoked sort-of "shadowban" going on for several weeks now (*it actually seems to be a general, region-based issue, and I recently saw people from some other countries complaining about it as well).

We had some previous Samsung model that became faulty, and it was replaced with a newer Samsung. There were some other brands considered, but we eventually got an almost-new used Samsung for half the retail price.

So here's the thing – the fridge/freezer cool down to set temperature just fine, but the water being dispensed is way hotter, being just a couple of degrees lower than the faucet temperature even for the first glass in several hours. On the previous fridge the water would get as cold as the fridge itself (but there was no visible water tank, so it must have been something internal that isn't easily accessible [which made me think whether it starts to look disgusting after a while]).

Of the few customer reviews I found for this model (which is local so I can't provide a specific number relevant for other countries) one complaint was exactly about the water temperature. This model needs to have the filter installed externally (unlike the previous model), but I can't find any sources mentioning that this also equals no chilled water reservoir.

Are you familiar with such a "symptom"? Do some of the Samsung fridges simply move water directly from the connected plumbing to the dispenser, with minimal chilling happening on the way in real time?

Thanks.

I tested these on other phones with other people's AliExpress accounts and it's the same, which makes me think that for some reason AE "shadowbanned" the entire region where I live.

I've been collecting game points from World Go Tour and didn't try to convert them yet, but some people indicate it might not work during a shadowban. The coin discounts have also been shit, and now I'm thinking it might have coincided with the game point reduction. Some very specific products might have 5%, maybe 10% discount, but they're few and far between, and even the "Super discounts" page is capped at 35% while I remember it used to be 70% and even higher.

Anyone else has these two issues?