Pixel 5 is here - the journey from my OG Pixel XL and first impressions

 In October of 2016 I bought a Pixel XL (first generation, larger model) phone.  I reviewed that phone here. Today I received my Pixel 5.  This post is first impressions but I have a feeling I won't have a huge amount more to say about it later, as it's a pretty basic phone, and I have pretty basic expectations.  

Interestingly, I went back to re-read that old Pixel XL review and the section at the beginning where I talk about myself and my expectations has changed almost not at all in 4 years.  I have reasonable expectations, but I want a new phone to be fast, and I want a very good camera.  If we're at the point where we are quibbling over minor differences between the top 3 or 4 phone cameras available I think I'm going to be satisfied, and that's where we are right now.

I used my Pixel XL longer than Google intended me to - late last year they announced the end of software updates, although they did provide a full upgrade to Android 10 (the phone was originally on Android 7) as well as a final set of security and bug fixes.  That was part of what prompted me to begin thinking about updates, because frankly that Pixel XL was still a rock-solid phone going on three years.  It was fast, reliable, took great photos, everything I ever wanted in a phone.  Plus it had ZERO bloatware, which is one of the things I LOVE about the Pixels.  

Then another thing happened - the battery started to fail, rapidly getting to the point where it would barely hold a charge for maybe 6 hours.  The Pixel 4 was just coming out at that time and it would have been my natural progression - stay in the Pixel line for the no-bloatware-pure-Android-frequent-updates-great-camera experience.  But there were a few things that didn't bode well.  The Pixel 4 had ditched the fingerprint sensor which I think is the best of the biometric options I've found on any phone, and to make matters worse the battery in the Pixel 4 was so undersized the phone couldn't last a normal day's use.  Given that I was already dealing with battery issues I was not keen to buy a NEW phone with poor battery life.  Also, I was not interested at all in the new face-unlock features.  

So instead of upgrading, I took my trusty old Pixel XL to a phone repair store and bought a new battery.  Problem solved.  Sort of.  Of course I still wasn't getting updates, but at least the phone itself was still solid and worked well.  However as fall 2020 approached, I started looking hard at the Pixel 5.  The biggest driver was the fact that I had saved up about $80 of bonus "device dollars" with Verizon - but the bonus dollars were about to start aging out and disappearing, so I needed to use them.  Since the Pixel 5 was already a little lower-priced that the flagships from other companies, this got the price down pretty well for me.  Plus, the battery was reported to be much better, and the fingerprint sensor was back.

So here I am, having just transferred my contacts, data and apps.  What can I tell you so far?

• The new phone is physically smaller than the Pixel XL in every dimension but the screen is larger, as it totally lacks the top and bottom "chin".  
• It is fast - buttery smooth, apps start fast, etc.  
• The screen is bright and colorful and supposedly refreshes faster than my old phone, but  I can't really tell.  
• The fingerprint sensor works fine.  
• I have snapped a few photos with the phone - can't tell if they are  much better than the original Pixel but that was a pretty high bar (then again my eyesight is not good).  I haven't tried out the wide angle lens yet but I suspect it's fine.  
• This phone supports 5G, but I'm on Verizon and there is no 5G where I live.  Interestingly if I jumped to Google Fi I could have 5G here (I guess it's from T-Mobile).  My cell signal here is faint but it always has been with all my phones.  
• I have made a couple phone calls - not sure if they were running over cellular or Wi-Fi but they sounded good.
• I hooked up my Bluetooth headset and that works fine.
• As with all Pixel phones, there's no bloat.  A couple Verizon apps are included but they're not required (I can completely delete them).  
• The Pixel 5 is running Android 11 out of the box.  
• I have fully charged the battery but I have no clue how long it will last.  Supposed to be more than a day.

Complaints?  Only one - I wish these phones still came with headphone jacks.  I'll probably never understand the rationale for removing it, especially as it is included on Google's less expensive "A" phones like the 3A and 4A.  I still have an awesome set of Bose earbuds that don't require charging.  Oh well...

My Pixel 5 is the "sorta sage" green model.  I have it in a Spigen Ultra Hybrid Clear case, with a glass screen protector added on the front.

Lenovo IdeaPad Chromebook Duet - Hitting The Sweet Spot

This is a review of the Lenovo IdeaPad Chromebook Duet.  I hereby announce I am just going to call this thing "Duet" for the remainder of this review.  I will briefly describe the product for those that might have missed the large number of announcements and reviews - and I urge you to check those out, as this has been a highly anticipated and sought-after device.

The Duet is an early example of what might become a popular device category - the Chrome tablet.   The Chrome OS is a slimmed down Linux operating system tuned to run the full desktop version of the Chrome browser (with plugin extensions and apps), which generally will require a keyboard and either a trackpad or mouse to operate comfortably.  It therefore may seem like an odd thing to want to run this on a tablet, but a couple years ago Google began altering Chrome OS to enable it to also run Android apps, to add capabilities beyond what could be done in the browser.  Android apps are tuned to run on a mobile device with a touchscreen.  

This melding of Android apps with Chrome OS led to nearly all modern Chromebooks having touchscreens and some form of convertability, usually with a keyboard that rotates into a position behind the screen.  This does not necessarily make a standard Chromebook into a good tablet.  For example, I have a Samsung Chromebook Pro with a 12 inch screen - the keyboard rotates all the way around flat behind the screen, but the device is too big and too heavy for comfortable use as a tablet.  

Enter the Duet, not the first device in this category but certainly newest and most interesting.  This device is designed to be used as a tablet, with the capability of "going into laptop mode", rather than being a laptop that goes into tablet mode.  This means it works really well as a tablet - but it leads to design decisions that some may not care for.  The body of the device itself is thin, light, with a bright 10 inch screen.  It is easily held in one hand leaving the other hand free for touchscreen operation.  The Duet will make an excellent couch surfer, airplane companion, etc.  As with any modern tablet you have front and rear cameras and built-in microphones, power and volume buttons, and a single USB-C port.  That last is going to be a struggle for some folks when we talk about using this as a laptop, but remember - this is a tablet first, laptop second.

The Duet comes with 4 gigs of RAM.  Some in the Chromebook crowd are complaining about this, but for average people in real-world Chromebook use it's generally enough and can run multiple Android apps handily.  On the other hand the device has 128 gigs of storage, which is important if you plan to install a bunch of Android apps.  Notably, in one of those "tablet first" compromises there is no card reader for an SD card.  I'll address that a little later on, but combined with the single USB port, the design choices here seem to push one towards needing a USB-C hub.  Honestly it's not an absolute necessity and it will depend on how you intend to use the device.  

One great thing about the Duet is the promise of eight years of software updates.  Unlike your average Android device or even most Chromebooks, there is a serious commitment to making this device useful for the long haul.

So how do we turn this tablet into a laptop?  It's done with the connection of two addon devices which I should point out are supplied with the tablet, rather than being extra purchases.  First there is a magnetic back "cover" that snaps to the back of the tablet and which has a fold-out stand.  The fold-out stand has a very wide range of positions so you can get the angle just right, and it can be useful to hold the tablet up even as a tablet.  On the down side it adds considerable weight.  This won't matter when the Duet is sitting on a desk but when toting it around with you, it will be noticeable.  Second there is a keyboard which is also magnetically attached.  There are a number of connection points on the edge of the tablet and the keyboard that have to line up, but they pop together so easily it almost feels like magic.

The keyboard itself is...nice?  Not nice?  This is such a subjective measure.  First it's not real big and it can't be, given that it "fits" the 10-inch screen.  You can certainly pair up a full size keyboard over Bluetooth or with a USB connection but we're talking portability here, something that is designed specifically for this tablet.  In order to keep most of the keys decent size and maintain some spacing, some of the keys (mainly for punctuation) have been reduced to about half-width.  So you will read some reviews where people complain that the combination of the small keyboard size and the tiny punctuation keys makes it hard to type.  For the record I'm typing this blog post on the Duet keyboard.  My hands aren't huge but they're by no means small either and my fingers are long.  It's a tad cramped, and I do make some mistakes here.  I am adjusting.  I think it's fair to say that I would not want to use this keyboard as my primary / only keyboard for the rest of my life - but I would also say it is WAY better than typing with an onscreen keyboard.  I am going on a trip in a couple months out of the country for 3 weeks, I'll be using this device to remotely connect to work on occasion, and for basic use it's going to be just fine.  Note:  my 3 week trip was cancelled due to COVID considerations but I did a 9 day road trip and used the Duet with its tiny keyboard daily.  It worked and I didn't die.  I didn't mention the trackpad yet - it works.  It's not spectacular.  Personally I usually carry a small Logitech mouse and plug in a USB wireless thingy.  I'll probably keep doing that.  But just to be clear, I have used the trackpad and it does work.  It's fine.

So where are we?   We got ourselves a nice tablet - 10-inch, bright screen, light weight.  I didn't mention the performance before but it's smooth - I've run big Android games and apps, not a single hiccup or stutter.  I don't open 100 tabs or anything but every site I use displays flawlessly and I don't notice any issues.  We got a nice back-cover / stand that holds the screen up at any angle, and a detachable keyboard which, if not spectacular, is perfectly usable.  What's left to talk about?

Well first there is that single USB-C port.  This may be a tablet-first-laptop-second, but it is a Chromebook, and being able to connect peripherals is part of the game.  You're going to likely want a USB-C hub.   There are a ton out there and I'm not going to describe them all but I just got a new one I like a lot - I bought this VAVA 9-1 USB-C Hub at Amazon.  It passes the USB-C power through to the latop / tablet while giving me 2 USB 3.0 ports, a USB 2.0 port, an HDMI port, a Ethernet network port, an audio jack, a full-size SD card reader and a TF (microSD) card reader.   This was a bit pricey, and honestly I will not use it often, but I will not want to be without it.  In particular when I go on a longer trip like the one I have planned, I'm going to want the USB 2.0 port for my mouse dongle.  

Second, the Duet does not come with a stylus but supposedly it is designed to work with any stylus that meets the new USI standards - Universal Stylus Initiative, that is.  USI styli are powered devices with electronics inside that let them communicate to the device on which they're being used - stuff like angle and pressure, etc.  Lenovo will have one coming out eventually but right now options are few.  It will be a little while before we know how this will shake out.  

The final thing to note is the price, and this is the part that has so many in the Chromebook community so excited - the full package as described above, with the back stand and keyboard, and with 128 gigs of storage, costs $300 (ok, it's $299). In the U.S. this is only available through Best Buy but there will be other resellers eventually, as well as a 64-gig version for $279 (honestly, $20 to double the storage on a device that will be running Android apps is not much).  $300 for a nice tablet with the stand and keyboard seems like a steal.  Now ... I already said I spent more money on a USB-C hub, and I am thinking I'll buy the Lenovo USI pen when it comes out so my total spend will probably push me over $400, but those are choices I'm making.

I think the Duet works really well, feels great as a tablet, works well enough as a Chrombook to use for extended periods (but probably not full time forever), and with the included accessories makes for a fantastic value.  It's a keeper.

Shortwave, Tecsun & Ergonomics

It's a weird time to be "into" shortwave listening as a hobby.  The number of broadcasters (especially the big powerhouse international ones) is dwindling year over year.  On the other hand, we seem to be in almost a golden age for receivers, especially portables.  For those of us who can remember the situation from a few decades ago, today's receivers represent amazing value - great band coverage and performance, tons of features, reasonable (sometimes downright cheap) prices.

In fact, in a lot of ways receiver performance and features seem to be converging.  There have always been similarities - tuning knobs, keypads and the like - but the reliance on DSP chips in a lot of newer radios not only gives us similar capabilities but similar feature sets.  For example there are a whole bunch of little radios out there that all cover the same set of bands, give you the same number of memories, use the same sequence of button presses to enter frequencies, etc.

Still, I have my favorites.  I got spoiled.  I bought a Tecsun PL680 (nearly identical to the popular PL660) as well as a PL-880.  Later I picked up the smaller PL-310ET as a travel radio.  And along the way I learned a bit about what I will call "the Tecsun way".  Much of this has to do with how the keypad and other tuning features are used for entering frequencies, accessing memories, etc.  Let me run through some of the things I like.  In later posts as I review radios I'm going to refer back to this stuff.

Tecsun radios have lot of memories - LOTS.  

Thousands of presets on the PL-660 & PL-680, even more on the PL-880.  Maybe that seems crazy, especially if you have one of the common "500 memory" radios floating around these days.  But those little 500-memory buggers actually give you 100 for longwave (wasted for most of us), 100 for mediumwave (maybe useful), 100 for FM (almost certainly mostly wasted), 100 for AIR band (who know if this is too much or not enough?), and the biggest insult is only 100 for shortwave.  That's the entire 28 MHz or so of spectrum, all SW bands, including SSB modes.  To put it another way, if you think 100 is enough, you probably don't use memories at all.

To make matters worse within each band those radios separate the memories into 10 per "page" - basically they want you to be able to do single button presses to recall memories, but you have to switch pages every 10 memories.  And there is no other way to recall them.

Tecsuns - by contrast - give you vast amounts of memories, MOST of which are "all mode" memories that can be used for any frequency, any band, and they are usually in pages of 100 memories.  That means you can actually put a ton of MWARA frequencies on one page, for example.  Or if you're trying to learn Spanish, put a ton on a page. 

To sum up this part - most radios force you to think about what's worth saving in memories, whereas a Tecsun gives you freedom to store and organize how YOU want.

Tecsun radios don't punish you for wanting to enter frequencies

Most of these little modern radios default to using the numeric keypad to recall memories.  You want to tune in 5000 kHz? Press the "5" and you'll actually recall memory location 5 on whatever page you're on.  To enter a frequency you have to hit a frequency button, THEN enter your frequency...and then hit the frequency button AGAIN.  If you have found a list of frequencies in an old book or on the web and you want to enter them one by one, that's a lot of extra button pressing.  

On a Tecsun, you can toggle the keypad AND tuning knob AND up/down slewing buttons to be used for memories or for frequency entry.  In Frequency mode, you want to tune 5000, you just press 5-0-0-0.  Done and done.  Or spin the turning knob, or use the up/down buttons.  If you want to work with memorized stations, a single press of that toggle button puts you in Memory mode - now the keypad recalls memories, but SO DOES THE TUNING KNOB!  As you turn the knob it goes from one memory to the next - and so do the slewing buttons.  On many modern portables if you had, say 50 memories to go through, you gotta press 0...then 1...then 2...then 3...and when you get up to 9, then you have to press "page" and 1 to go to the next page and then 0...then 1...then 2...then 3...and up through 9 on that page, then change pages again, and on and on.  On a Tecsun?  Put 'em all on one page and turn the knob.  

Tecsun radios don't mute (and the nicer ones don't "detent")

On most modern portables, as you turn the tuning knob it sort of bumps.  That is, it resists being turned, then your force overcomes the resistance and it clicks into the next position.  This is called "detent" and it's a pain in the rear.  Further, on these radios, as you are in between "clicks" or "bumps", the radio mutes itself. 

The combination of these two characteristics makes "band scanning" a MISERABLE process.  Band scanning is pretty much what it sounds like - pick a band, and start turning the knob to move up or down the frequencies.  Do it a a slow clip and listen hard and your ear can pick out faint signals that might be worth chasing.  But on a radio where the knob has a detent and the radio mutes?  Not happening.

Note, it's the nicer Tecsuns that do better here - the PL-660, PL-680, and PL-880.  The small units like the PL-310ET and PL-380 have pretty bad detents.

So is there a problem, officer?

It depends.  Newer radios do have some pretty nice features.  A bunch of them have AIR band, which Tecsun used to care about but which they seem to have abandoned in newer models.  Other radios have RDS, a nice feature that shows digital information with FM stations.  These little DSP models have lots of selectable bandwidths which can be nice.  The Tecsun PL-880 was designed around a DSP chip and has SOME of these features but it didn't implement them all, and in some respects it even stepped backwards from the PL-660 and PL-680.

Still, from an ergonomic (usability) standpoint, I consider Tecsuns to be the gold standard.  Models from XHData, Digitech, C. Crane and others need to take some lessons here.

Anytone DMR - Resolving Type Mismatch Errors

Note, the following post references the Anytone AT-D868UV handheld radio, but I imagine the information applies to the AT-D878UV and other similar models from Anytone.

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tl;dr - The virtual com ports created by the com0com software package are incompatible with Anytone QXCodePro and D868UV (used for updating and configuring Anytone DMR radios), causing those programs to crash when they try to start up and enumerate the com ports in the system.  The error presented to the user is "Run-time error '13': Type mismatch".  The fix is to (temporarily) uninstall com0com prior to using the Anytone programs.

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I have an Anytone DMR handheld radio, model AT-D868UV.  Anytone makes several models of handheld and mobile radios and their DMR radios have become quite popular in the ham radio community, due to a combination of low price and extensive feature set.  As with all DMR radios, the Anytone radios have to be connected to a computer for programming, both for updating the firmware to fix bugs and enable features, and for configuring the radio itself including features and frequencies.

There are two software packages for Anytone radios that must be installed to do these tasks - a firmware update tool called QXCodePro, and a program for creating and maintaining the "codeplug" (just a fancy name for "the configuration file for the radio") called D868UV.  The Anytone radio connects to a PC using a custom USB cable.  Special driver software allows this to be seen by the computer as a "com" port, like an old-fashioned serial port.  Both the QXCodePro and D868UV programs connect to the radio through this serial com port to read and write firmware and configurations.

The software is updated on a somewhat irregular basis - downloaded either direct from Anytone or from a radio vendor.

Recently after not using my DMR radio for some time I decided to pick it back up and work with it.  My first goal was to download the newest software package which would include new versions of QXCodePro, D868UV, and a firmware file.  After installing the new program executables, I tried firing up QXCodePro and ran into this error - "Run-time error '13': Type mismatch".

Trying to load the D868UV software which manages codeplugs gave the same error.  I tried uninstalling the software and reinstalling, no luck.  I tried installing an older version, didn't work.  I did some Googling around for the error message - it is real common with some Visual Basic stuff plugged into Excel spreadsheets, none of which helped me.  After trying everything under the sun that I could think up, I gave in and posted questions all over a variety of Reddit and Facebook groups.

As sometimes happens, after I posted all those queries, I found my answer buried deep in the comments on a Facebook post.  I'm sharing it here for others who may have the same issue.

In addition to my Anytone radio I have a Software Defined Radio (SDR) - an RSP1A from SDRPlay.  I use a piece of software called CSV User Browser to import shortwave schedule and frequency lists, and one of the things CSVUB can do is control the SDR.  It works by sending commands to the SDRUno control software that comes with the radio. That communication is accomplished through... wait for it... com ports.  I have installed a program called "com0com" which creates two virtual com ports which are connected to one another.  I program CSVUB to grab one of the com ports, and SDRUno to grab the other, and the virtual com port pair pass messages between the two pieces of software.

The issue seems to be some characteristic of these virtual com ports created by com0com.  Remember that BOTH the QXCodePro and D868UV programs start by enumerating the com ports in the system upon startup.  Apparently there's something about these virtual com ports created by com0com that the Anytone programs can't handle - thus the "type mismatch" error.

The only solution I have found is to uninstall com0com temporarily when I need to use the Anytone programs, then reinstall it when I'm done messing with the DMR firmware or configuration changes.  It's sort of a pain in the butt, but it doesn't take terribly long.  There may be a way to configure the com0com ports so they don't trigger the type-mismatch in the Anytone programs, but I haven't found one.  I am toying with opening a bug report to Anytone, but they're a Chinese company and I don't think they are going to be very responsive.

73 -
James