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A bit of a rant, but what to do about new smartphones?
  • I'm guessing this is going to be an unpopular take here. Earlier this year I got a Xiaomi and have had a great experience.

    I was getting frustrated with my s10's battery life. I've replaced phone batteries before but always end up cracking the glass shortly after. So this time I spent around 300 usd on a Redmi note 13 pro. It seemed like a hassle to flash but I was able to get rid of all the bloatware via adb. The benchmarks are comparable to the S10 and with my settings the battery easily lasts 2 days (unless I play games). It also has a flat screen and a 3.5mm jack. No Bixby button.

    I don't know the security implications of buying a Chinese phone but I have solved all my complaints about my previous Samsung phones by switching.

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    Is it worth upgrading my cheap Chinese bike?
  • Good to hear it's worked out for you:) this is basically what I landed on after weighing all the comments. If I notice something that makes me think the frame is going to fall apart under me I'll replace it lol but I'm not really in a place to drop a lot of money on a bike now.

    Anyway I'm glad I asked because I learned a lot from this thread alone

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    Is it worth upgrading my cheap Chinese bike?
  • The brand is called tragen and the drivetrain is all sunrun. After some googling it seems like a knockoff of a brand called sun race.

    I'm just commuting through the city mostly. I figured a mountain bike would be most beginner friendly and good for going over curbs and speed bumps and the like

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    Is it worth upgrading my cheap Chinese bike?
  • This is really helpful! Thanks! From what you and everyone has said I think I'll skip the gearing for now. If it breaks or something it'll be a fun project to replace them later. So will big tires change the turning radius? I have 27.5 now. I'm interested in trying 29s but I do sometimes have to avoid cars and pedestrians as I don't have many bike lanes lol

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    Is it worth upgrading my cheap Chinese bike?
  • I started thinking about it because I thought going to 1x would be simpler for me. I was leaving the front chainring on the highest gear for a long time before I ever heard about cross chaining. Once I was looking at options I was thinking it might be worth getting a full set of nicer parts since I'm commuting every day but I wasn't sure what the benefit would be. Reading comments now makes it seem like it's not going to change much for me as everything I have still works fine. Maybe I'll see if I can just change the chainring

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  • Hi, I hope this is the right place to ask. I decided to start commuting by bike as it's only about 15 minutes each way. So I got my first bike and learned how to ride. It's a cheap Chinese MTB from my country's version of amazon. This was a few months ago now. Since then I've been riding almost everyday and taking longer trips along the river trail near my home.

    So I'm thinking about getting a lower end Shimano groupset. But I'm wondering what I'll get out of upgrading. Will there be a noticeable difference in performance? Smoother shifting? More speed in top gear?

    Thanks for any insight you can share :) any essential gear recommendations would be great too!

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    First ep of the Netflix series
  • The visuals and action are surprisingly great. Imo all the dialogue is awkward and forced. I don't think it's the acting as much as it's the writing. I'm really hoping it's just because they're trying to cram all the exposition in and the second episode will be better

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    How did you lose weight?
  • I was never good at staying on a diet. I have really bad self control and go through phases where I get hooked on soda or energy drinks or smoking, etc.

    Two things helped me finally lose weight and maintain a pretty healthy build (these days 90kg 183cm originally 110-115k).

    First, I found I could lose weight in short periods when I had a concrete goal. I lost 10k in maybe 6 weeks. Plenty of it was water weight and came back. But after doing that 3 or 4 times I was down to a place I felt more comfortable with myself. During those cycles I was basically always thinking about my calories. It would get tiring in normal life but it was ok if I was trying to hit my goal.

    Second, by focusing on my macros and trying to limit salt every day I ended up filling my stomach way before I went into calorie surplus. By going low sodium it eliminated any kind of fast food and most frozen foods. Getting rid of salt wasn't really for health it was just to lose water weight and hit my goal. But getting rid of salt ended up making my diet way healthier.

    I also had some success by cutting out bread. I don't think bread is terrible for you or anything, but by giving myself that limitation I made myself choose better options

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