My cell phone (Samsung Galaxy S4) had been showing signs of its age, and then more recently it started spontaneously (and unpredictably) rebooting, sometimes several times in a row. This happens with both of my batteries, so it's probably something in the hardware. (Yeah, checked for seating, dust, etc.) It's also running Android 4.4.4 and Samsung has no plans for further updates (aside from security patches, when they get around to it); meanwhile, the current Android release is 7.something. So I started shopping and reading reviews.

I would have been willing to get the latest Samsung, on the theory that after the fiery-batteries-of-death fiasco they're probably being careful with the next one. But... ugh, aspect ratio! I do not want a long, skinny phone! I'm mot going to watch super-wide-screen movies on my phone, and the thing is too skinny to read web pages, email, or anything else once I apply a bit of zoom. Meanwhile, the extra length (height) isn't helpful and further challenges pockets. Ick. Remember back before smartphones, when the two form factors were flip-phones and candybars? I hated candybars, too.

Sadly, "longer and skinnier" seems to be becoming more common; the Google phones are the same way. So, criterion #1: reasonable aspect ratio (and size).

Criterion #2 turned out to be even harder. When did removable batteries stop being a thing? I've replaced the battery somewhere along the line on my last two phones (to get extra life out of them). Actually, with the S4 I got a spare battery fairly early on, which allowed me to carry an extra, charged battery in my pocket on phone-intensive days, like when taking lots of photos on vacations. There are still phones out there with replaceable batteries, but they're a dying breed. I only found one that got ok reviews, and it had some other weirdnesses.

I went to the local T-Mobile store to see if they had anything interesting that I'd missed in my searches (and, you know, to fondle the phones). Long and skinny rules the shelves there too.

In the end I bought a ZTE (who?) Axon 7 (whazzat?). It has a good screen size and aspect ratio and lacks a removable battery. I'm a little concerned about the latter (how many times can I charge this phone before the battery dies, taking the phone with it?), but I assume if it modern batteries were terrible that way, I'd've heard. I've never bought a phone without seeing one first, but I took a chance.

I took it to T-Mobile today to have service transferred, came home and took a 1.8G OS update to 7.0 (the phone shipped with 6.something), and at this point I think I've got most of the basic settings right. So far I'm happy.

It's too early to evaluate the software, but the folks at ZTE clearly put some thought into other usability and user-experience considerations. I don't usually care about the "opening the box" experience (just gimme my stuff), but their packaging stood out as well-designed. The box includes the wall charger of course; it also includes an adapter to use with your micro-USB cables because this phone (like many newer ones) takes USB-C in. They could have just said "hey, we gave you a charger; you're on your own for the rest", but they didn't. The box also includes a case -- not a high-end one or anything, but I've never seen a phone that included one before instead of making you buy it separately. It also includes a screen protector -- ditto, always a separate purchase in the past. In short, the box not only contained everything I needed to use the phone, but it even included an adapter I could stick on my car charger or power pack. (There's also a set of earbuds, which I don't care about.)

There is one mystery object in the box, a piece of rubber(?) of a size to cover the (rear) camera and fingerprint reader (why would you?), but with no obvious place to snap it in, and with what looks like a pin buried in it at one end. The guy at T-Mobile was mystified, too.

Price-wise, this is a mid-range phone, not inexpensive but also not in the Samsung Galaxy S8 range. I hope the battery lasts a few years, to give me a cost per year that's comparable with the last one.

After some heavy storms this afternoon (complete with flash-flood warnings), we came home to a power outage. The power came on around 7, but we had no Internet service. We have FiOS, so I checked the phone (dial tone) and TV (receiving channels I don't get over the air), so it wasn't a general outage. We restarted the router a couple times, but that didn't help.

Dani called for support, worked through an automated menu, and eventually requested a call back. We made and ate dinner -- no call. I tried Google, which took me to Verizon's troubleshooting pages. One painstaking step at a time I told it that the problem was Internet, I was using a wired connection, yes the wire was plugged in (I assume the Wifi path would have had me verify the password), yes I'd restarted the router... and then told me I needed a technician. Gee thanks; I'd figured that much out on my own. Other pages told me that I might need to reset something in the "ONT" (the box in the basement), and I found an anecdote that said Verizon had talked the blogger through the process just fine and it was easy and saved him a service call, but didn't say what to do. (Who were you, DenverCoder9???) We opened the side of the box labelled "customer access" that nonetheless required a screwdriver, saw that the "data" light was off, and saw no obvious way to proceed.

I called and worked through an automated system full of "duh" and a test from their end saying the problem is in my house (yeah, that seemed pretty likely), and eventually I got into a queue for a human. And waited. And waited. Occasionally the recording interrupted the hold music to tell me that I could go through the same troubleshooting by using their software, which I could download from... , missing the irony that we didn't have an Internet connection. (Ok, there's probably a phone app that I could get from the Play Store, but that's not where they were directing me.)

43 minutes later "Steve in Texas" picked up. For my own future reference and perhaps your information, he had me:

1. Turn off the router.

2. Disconnect the coax cable. (He asked where the cable went and when I said "into the wall" he said "good, that'll be easier".)

3. Reconnect the coax cable.

4. Turn the router on.

And that fixed it. Is that so much harder than telling people to verify that an Ethernet cable is plugged in? Would it have been so hard to put that information on their support page? Are they worried that people can't disconnect and reconnect a coax cable without damaging something, so they don't want just anybody trying that? (Well if so, let me just clarify that I offer no warranties on this blog post.)

I asked Steve why that works, and he said that sometimes the router gets "out of sync" after a power outage and fully disconnecting it from the data feed resets it. Good to know.