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Samsung's folding phone breaks for reviewers

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Re: Samsung's folding phone breaks for reviewers

#191
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean if you own a Ferrari and it doesn't need frequent servicing, I'd question why the hell you bought the thing if you didn't intend to drive it as it's designed to be driven.

Because most people aren’t car people and buy it to brag to their friends or so. It’s more important that they look cool. Also, to be fair, it’s not a big deal to remove the engine and it makes a lot of work much easier.

Most people who buy a Ferrari have a couple of other supercars and a garage and mechanic on staff.

The frequent servicing doesn't bother them.

Re: Samsung's folding phone breaks for reviewers

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My toilet is dramatically different, better ceramic and less of it, lighter. It's a close-coupled cistern doing away with some piping. It's dual flush, uses much less water; it even has a redesigned ball-cock (float shut-off valve). It has a soft-close removeable seat/lid. It's actually surprising the amount of new tech in a regular toilet - even compared to 20 years ago. And that's not a complex automated toilet, ju…

I've never weighed a toilet ?! So I cant comment on that. Close coupled cisterns have been around for over a century. The ball cock redesign is a result of the dual flush arrangement (I thought?). But yes that is a change. Having never come across a soft close lid on a toilet I can't agree they're anything close to standard, I'm sure they exist though. (I'm British also btw, so our experience should somewhat match) S…

>Close coupled cisterns have been around for over a century //

That's interesting, high cisterns (with a chain!) were still common, when I was younger (80s) these were replaced by low cisterns with a pipe between. In the last 2 decades in the UK these have been replaced by close-coupled systems IME.

Re weight, firing is costly, you can improve the shape to reduce the mass of clay which reduces firing costs considerably. I've taken out 50 yr old toilets and fitted new ones.

All the recent commercial fittings (ie in businesses, or in domestic settings done by plumbers) I've seen have been soft close & removeable. There's still a bug IMO, they need some sort of arrangement to make them lift quickly but lower slowly, or soft close only at the extremes of travel (soft close drawers have it, so I guess it'll come; probably a price issue).

The toilet cistern ball cock has changed twice AFAIK, once to accommodate the dual flush (central column), and again to alter the hinging to improve the pressure applied at the valve and reduce leaks.

What were we talking about again ...

Re: Samsung's folding phone breaks for reviewers

#193
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh... removable batteries?! I jest, but my best hope for a stagnant market is competition on merits that we really want, and less so for the whizz-bang features that attract attention without improving our lives. I've got a used Nexus 6P with a dying battery. I don't know of any improvements in newer phones I need (except security updates!) but I'm torn whether I want to learn how to replace the battery and risk dama…

Why did batteries stop being replaceable again? I'm guessing it makes the design of the phone circuitry easier? You don't have to make the case removable? The idea that it forces you to buy a new phone never seemed like a good reason to me.

For a few reasons:

1. There is an industry drive to make phones thinner, and one way to do that is to minimize the casing that a battery requires.

2. Waterproofing is a desirable feature, which is much harder to do when you have an accessible battery, especially in conjunction with 1.

3. Very few customers ever replace their battery.

4. Phones held together with adhesive and made from glass/metal feel and look better than plastic that snaps together. When marketing a premium product it has to look and feel premium.

Re: Samsung's folding phone breaks for reviewers

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And for all of those things, external battery packs exist that you can carry with you. To anyone who complains that they won't be happy until the perfect device exists that meets all their needs and nothing they don't and doesn't need adapters or dongles to do it: I still use serial cables at least once a month. Do you hear me complaining that I can't find a laptop that includes a serial port? No. Because I recognize…

> To anyone who complains that they won't be happy until the perfect device exists that meets all their needs and nothing they don't and doesn't need adapters or dongles to do it I think the point of frustration is that phones used to address most or all of these needs, and now they don't. So it can clearly be done.

Yes, phones used to satisfy the multi-day battery life needs. Smartphones never did, at least not mass-market smartphones. There were some smartphones that offered massive battery life but they didn't sell well enough to make it profitable to keep making them.

Same with two USB connections. Maybe one existed, but it wasn't a big seller so it was discontinued. Headphone jacks still exist, but phones without them aren't really selling worse so who knows what the future holds.

You know what sells? Mass market phones that meet everyone's needs and accessories that meet everyone's desires. Want longer battery life? Get any off-the-shelf mass market phone and pair it with a portable battery pack. Done. Want louder speakers? Get any off-the-shelf mass market phone and pair it with a Bluetooth speaker. Want a serial port? Buy any mass-market off-the-shelf laptop and a serial port adapter.

Because the next stop after "I demand a phone with loud speakers, multi-day battery life, and a headphone jack" is "no, that one is too expensive" or "no that one is running the wrong OS" or "no that one doesn't have a big enough screen" or "no that one charges with the wrong cable". The next stop is the millions of reasons to not buy exactly what you asked for. People here demand every product be exactly perfectly tailored to their own desires and no one else's and get offended when a device fits their needs but misses one or two of their desires, but also get offended when a product is released that fits someone else's needs and desires because it doesn't perfectly fit their own needs and desires.

"It can clearly be done" so why aren't you using a Moto G7 Power with its massive battery? Because this reason and that reason and the other reason because there is no way to make a device that satisfies every one of your desires. So why are you pretending that there aren't accessories available to satisfy every one of your desires... unless one of your desires is to just endlessly complain about modern technology?

Re: Samsung's folding phone breaks for reviewers

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To anyone who complains that they won't be happy until the perfect device exists that meets all their needs and nothing they don't and doesn't need adapters or dongles to do it I think the point of frustration is that phones used to address most or all of these needs, and now they don't. So it can clearly be done.

Yes, phones used to satisfy the multi-day battery life needs. Smartphones never did, at least not mass-market smartphones. There were some smartphones that offered massive battery life but they didn't sell well enough to make it profitable to keep making them. Same with two USB connections. Maybe one existed, but it wasn't a big seller so it was discontinued. Headphone jacks still exist, but phones without them aren'…

> You know what sells? Mass market phones that meet everyone's needs

Yes, but as of late, those don't exist. At least, none that meet many of my needs.

> why aren't you using a Moto G7 Power with its massive battery?

The battery is an important issue, but not the most important to me. I could compromise on battery life for devices that met my other needs.

I've also decided to bail on commercial smartphones entirely and build my own. I could no longer find a commercial smartphone that was an acceptable compromise for me, and I'm also very much looking forward to no longer having to deal with the Android OS.

Re: Samsung's folding phone breaks for reviewers

#196
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you've realized your dream phone will never exist, it sounds more like an older ultrabook than a phone. What's the reason for a USB port, much less two of them? Every new vehicle the past few years has bluetooth, so why a loud speaker?

I have yet to see a bicycle with bluetooth. (electric bike is not the same thing). My car doesn't have bluetooth - it is only 13 years/250000 miles out so it has plenty of life left (most people replace their cars long before they are worn out, I drive mine into the ground). I haven't seen a leaf rake with bluetooth either, and most lawn mowers still don't have it either. I'm well aware that the dream phone may never…

Slightly off topic, but for power tool work / lawnmowers I can heartily recommend 3M Worktunes. It's like $50 bucks and you get decent bluetooth speakers with ear protection, and the battery lasts all day.

Re: Samsung's folding phone breaks for reviewers

#197

Let's assume that they knew this was a half baked product. Not a "first edition" product like the first iPhone, but a rushed, half baked product, released without consideration of sales but just for being the first in the market for this niche. Given this assumption, why would you give it to reviewers at all ? Remember "Vertu" ? They were the Ferrari of phones during the Blackberry era and were _shit_. I got my hands…

Vertu weren't really shit. They were just outdated Nokia phones wrapped in gold.

Re: Samsung's folding phone breaks for reviewers

#198

There are a few ways of looking at this. Most of the more engineery-types are pointing out the inevitability of failure, the challenges trying to find a good enough substrate to mount a touchscreen stack on, and trying to protect an exposed external hinge from impact, and all that material engineering science stuff that's really clever... But well besides the point. I can't even rationalise why anybody wants a foldin…

Uh... removable batteries?! I jest, but my best hope for a stagnant market is competition on merits that we really want, and less so for the whizz-bang features that attract attention without improving our lives. I've got a used Nexus 6P with a dying battery. I don't know of any improvements in newer phones I need (except security updates!) but I'm torn whether I want to learn how to replace the battery and risk dama…

Security updates and finite battery lives seem to have a convenient crossover. I'm fairly sure if we could keep a device alive indefinitely, people would use them much longer.

I don't think you can safely have replaceable batteries without first making sure the devices' software are user serviceable. Completely flip the development model to something much more like a Linux distribution and get the onus on updating away from the people plugging bits of electronic-Lego together.

Re: Samsung's folding phone breaks for reviewers

#199
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avenir manufactures a variety of devices (licensed under the Energizer brand) that might intrigue you: https://www.energizeyourdevice.com/en/mobiles/catalog/ . I think they're only sold in EU markets, though.

Wow, those phones look good. Do you know how easy it is to root those phones?

No idea, unfortunately.
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