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Blloc – minimalist smartphone

blloc.com

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Re: Blloc – minimalist smartphone

#111

Post by adhambadr »

existencebox wrote: post #108
adhambadr wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

honestly its the lowest thats technically possible to sell. Good components just cost that much. After vat our margin is around 35 (pre-retail) which is lower than most vendors, meaning if we sell to retail we wont make a cent. it just costs that much to get tested, working components with decent manufacturing. If you find good specs cheaper trust me they used B-grade components that will break down sooner or later.

I both disagree with your assertion, and find it sad that michaelmior is being downvoted. My wife uses the moto G Play. As I told a coworker when I saw this post: Either our expectations of "minimal" or the english language has gotten entirely out of wack, because 350 pounds for a smartphone is so far from minimal as to be laughable. Maybe a "minimal flagship" (and this is where I'm inclined to think the gap between…

I guess you're right we have complete perception of minimal. I wrote somewhere else our aim was to be exactly between Flagship smartphones and complete detox options like litephone or an old refurbished nokia, I think you're more looking for those options.

Re: Blloc – minimalist smartphone

#112

Post by adhambadr »

bArray wrote: post #106
deft wrote: post #75

"The root" is an exact copy of BlackBerry 10's Hub and sounds great. The problem with all these new phones is they can't secure enough funding or developer attention to ever take off. Not to mention hostility from third party app providers like Facebook. This is android based which is great, but how the heck is The Root supposed to work? I don't think it's possible with closed APIs and walled gardens. You chat with y…

For a while now people have bypassed Facebook's API restrictions for chat and news-feed by using the "mbasic" webpage version. It's pretty trivial to get around most of their API hostility. How long that'll last I don't know, but it's a pretty important service for connecting people in places with very low bandwidth. But... That said, building one decent chat app is a massive time sink in itself. Then do this for man…

its a bit of hurtful truth bArray there. We did already pull back a bit on most of our SW promises and packed them inside a "beta-mode" as we realised after testing a personal driver phone is no experimenting ground. This post just beat us before we finished relaunching our website with a simpler communication strategy and a def. a better website.

Re: Blloc – minimalist smartphone

#113

Post by existencebox »

adhambadr wrote: post #111
existencebox wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I both disagree with your assertion, and find it sad that michaelmior is being downvoted. My wife uses the moto G Play. As I told a coworker when I saw this post: Either our expectations of "minimal" or the english language has gotten entirely out of wack, because 350 pounds for a smartphone is so far from minimal as to be laughable. Maybe a "minimal flagship" (and this is where I'm inclined to think the gap between…

I guess you're right we have complete perception of minimal. I wrote somewhere else our aim was to be exactly between Flagship smartphones and complete detox options like litephone or an old refurbished nokia, I think you're more looking for those options.

You're probably right re: how we're looking at minimalism, and if that range was your aim, your price point seems much more fair.

The mental dissonance came for me simply from my perception of the word "minimal;" I have a wonderful moment of "Oh man someone's finally making the phone I wish I could buy" whenever I see a thread with this or similar verbiage, then the sad realization that I'm apparently too far to the 'throw out everything but your matress' side of minimal.

I was simply surprised to have not seen other feedback along this vein, and moreso when the other commenter was going grey for advocating what I thought were some good examples of models in that range.

Anyway, I'd want to cap this with a friendly "good luck"; Don't take my jaded disappointment as anything more than the whinging of someone tilting at the windmills of eternally larger and more expensive phones. (Although if you DO ever get the chance to advocate for a truly bare-bones-minimalism in a future product, here's a hearty nudge nudge from this curmudgeon.)

Re: Blloc – minimalist smartphone

#114

Post by 01001010 »

jjrh wrote: post #96
01001010 wrote: post #72

Does anybody know of any projects similar to this one (and Light Phone 2 [1]) but for desktop OS in laptop format? Apple's products of late does not interest me and I'm stuck with my beloved 2013 MacBook Air until it dies or something better comes along. I have yet to find something better. I long for a laptop purposely designed for productivity, simplicity and minimalism. Ideally with a custom designed OS (could jus…

Lot of people want eink on a laptop (including myself) - mostly for the benefit that it's readable in the sun and low power. My understanding is the refresh rate is still too slow and the cost of a large panel is pretty high. I'd just grab a used thinkpad, chromebook, whatever and treat it as a dumb terminal. Pretty much how I used my laptop these days, ssh -X to a powerful machine and go. emacs --daemon / emacsclien…

Yes!

My most recent search for any developments in e-ink laptops was literally yesterday. My understanding is that current e-ink screens are not technically limited to low refresh rates, but are artificially limited to save power. (I think someone hacked their e-reader to run linux at fairly high refresh rates?)

Regarding dumb terminal, if your situation allows you to I feel this is currently one of the better options available. One problems is you still need to browse the web locally and graphically and use various tools not available using emacs and/or the command line. And when internet connectivity is not available.

Re: Blloc – minimalist smartphone

#115

Post by 01001010 »

SquirrelOnFire wrote: post #89
01001010 wrote: post #72

Does anybody know of any projects similar to this one (and Light Phone 2 [1]) but for desktop OS in laptop format? Apple's products of late does not interest me and I'm stuck with my beloved 2013 MacBook Air until it dies or something better comes along. I have yet to find something better. I long for a laptop purposely designed for productivity, simplicity and minimalism. Ideally with a custom designed OS (could jus…

Define "designed for productivity?" If I'm a writer, I will need very different things than a video editor or software developer to be productive.

That's true and a fair point.

Although I imagine many aspects to be the same for many general needs (while clearly not for very specific needs). Ideally, those which aren't (such as, perhaps, the monitor) for said general needs could offer multiple choices.

I wanted to be inclusive by saying "productivity" since at this point I'd be open for literally anything that is purposely designed with those general goals in mind — whatever the professional pursuit. It may still be superior for my specific needs compared to all the bells and whistles I keep seeing.

Re: Blloc – minimalist smartphone

#117

Post by adhambadr »

nickles wrote: post #69
kennysmoothx wrote: post #60

Looks fake. Do you have any working versions of the phone? A video of the phone being used? All pictures look like renders, not real devices. Not sure who would pre-order something with such little information.

EDIT: Given the presence Blloc has established online, it's likely that this is a real project. My apologies to adhambadr and the rest of the team. ------------------- I noticed this as well. The images of the device are entirely inconsistent with one another [0]. * Rendering effects are visible in some of the images * The front is displayed inconsistently. In some renders, a speaker is shown. In others, it is absent…

appreciate the honest edit mate. We def. did something wrong on communication to give some people this perception will work on it. Let me know if you any other suggestions / questions

Re: Blloc – minimalist smartphone

#118

Post by adhambadr »

morganvachon wrote: post #107
decebalus1 wrote: post #6

Any other details about the OS? Is it an Android? How are the applications managed and what's their update pipeline? Are they whitelisted and managed by the manufacturer's own App Store? What's the privacy policy like? How often will it issue updates? I really like the display. I've been waiting for a phone with minimalistic display to save battery ever since the Motofone F3. But there's way too little information th…

Indeed, I'm immensely curious about the OS (I'm an unabashed OS junkie) and if it's not Android based I want one just to dig into that part of it. Beyond that, the display and the GUI are absolutely gorgeous. I was always a fan of Microsoft's flat design for Windows Phone, and this takes it to another level of minimalism. I'm drooling over here. Edit: I see below that it's Android based after all. I still love the wa…

We had to im sorry. Its quite unrealistic for a startup to write its own OS from scratch. And there's the app topic that everyone else failed at. We always had a vision to do an open web-based (Chromium like) os when it becomes realistic.

Re: Blloc – minimalist smartphone

#120

Post by yellowapple »

ggggtez wrote: post #90
yellowapple wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of companies sell Android devices without explicitly calling it Android. The most notable example is Amazon (Android - without GApps - is the OS on pretty much everything in the Fire line, e.g. Fire Tab and Fire TV). In other words, I think you've got it backwards: you're not allowed to use Google's branding/trademarks (including "Android") unless you have authorization from Google. Meanwhile, I'm not aware of a…

Incorrect. Look at the specs page: OS Android O (8.0) It's not just that it's not visible, it's the Blloc is pretending they invented an entire new os ("Blloc OS"). Amazon Fire is a different story, because they package their own app store ( not the Google Play Store). But Blloc is loading the Play Store. I am fairly sure that a requirement of doing so means you have to accept the Google branding (i.e. you have to ca…

Well shoot. I even did a Ctrl-F on the page and got zero results, probably because it was hidden under that drop-down.

Regardless, worst-case is they just have to tweak their OS branding to be "Android with Blloc Root" (which is what HTC does, i.e. "Android with HTC Sense"). Yet I'm not finding anything which explicitly requires that (only finding instances where use of Android branding is not allowed, e.g. FireOS).

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