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On this segment Mark joined us for his Into Gaming feature
Spud in California listens on KTIP asked us about camera phones
Spud asked: “Interested in a large screen camera/phone arrangement”
Do you mean cameraphone with a large screen? Cause pretty much any modern phone will take very nice pictures. You can probably just settle for the phablet of your choice, be it the Galaxy Note 5, the iPhone 6+, or any of the many, many other ones and they will all function as a great point and shoot camera.
A lot of phablets even have pretty high megapixel counts if you want to take big pictures, the Note 5 has a 16MP camera for example, the LG G3 has a 13MP camera, those should give you plenty of pictures for large prints.
You could also look at a smart camera, which would pretty much have to be one of the cameras on the Samsung Smart Camera line up. Those are fully featured, large zoom cameras that run on Android and can do just about everything a smartphone can.
Joshua in Sparta, Tennessee listens on SuperTalk WTN 99.7 asked us about whether his S4 is worth fixing
Joshua asked: I lost a battle with my Samsung Galaxy S4 phone, I crushed it up against the wall so the screen is black but I can still receive phone calls– the screen is shot otherwise. I was wondering if you thought it was worth fixing? As well as my Sanyo television, the HDMI plug in the back is starting to cause trouble. It’s probably a 9-year old television, I was wondering if that would be worth repairing?
We’re extremely sorry to hear about your recent troubles with electronics! Be gentle with them. Tech is your friend! That must really cause plenty of inconveniences, especially the way you’re limited to not being able to make phone calls on your own. Just being forced to take calls from telemarketers and bill collectors must be a nightmare!
Prices will vary depending on the issue
Now, your best bet is definitely not to get another phone as it will likely be way more costly than just repairing this one, and to do so, you will probably need to visit a local repair shop and have them take a look at your phone. Prices will vary depending on the issue and what the particular repair shop charges– but it seems like that would help, because you’re still able to receive calls, meaning your phone is not entirely dead and could likely — hopefully — be fixed.
The more tedious but pocket-friendly solution is to order a repair kit for your phone, finding good instructions and doing it yourself. It may sound difficult, but plenty of people — including me — have been able to save money by doing this. Our intern had an issue previously with a broken phone screen and before paying $100 to a repair shop to fix it, his father was able to order a repair kit on Amazon that came with instructions and after it arrived– it was fixed within an hour. He thinks that if his father, was able to fix a phone, just about anyone could do it too!
About your TV, you’re probably better off not fixing the port, a 9 year old TV is probably not worth an awful lot today. If you have another working HDMI port, you could buy an HDMI switcher and just use that to plug in whatever was connected to the dead port. We’ve seen estimates of about $150 to replace a broken HDMI port, a switch can cost you as little as $5.