There was a stretch where phone design went bananas • Hacker News Board

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#121

Post by njarboe » Tue, Nov 15, 2022, 2:28 PM UTC

bitwize wrote: post #74

bombcar wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The end result is often called a "local maximum" and what you've pointed out happens time and time again. Cars underwent something similar very early on, but by the time we got to the "Model T" era it was pretty much determined what they would look like.

After the Model T there was still variety in style and design building on the basic formula... up until the present day when everybody seems to have settled on the same basic bean-shaped blob, specialty vehicles such as sports cars and pickups excepted. Bigger or smaller beans account for body variations from subcompact to crossover, and the name Cadillac, which once conjured images of limo-like luxury, today means a…

Check out the Cadillac Escalade. That is the Cadillac that is still used for limos and the high end models sure shoot for limo-like luxury. I have not been in one inside, so I don't know how well they hit that mark though. Not a bean shaped blob.

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#122

Post by Sharlin » Tue, Nov 15, 2022, 2:48 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #117

Sharlin wrote: post #47

The Nokia 8110 [1] was literally nicknamed "banana", at least in Finland, due to its shape and its being available in yellow. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_8110

It was used in The Matrix with a spring-load mechanism because, IIRC, the Wachowskis thought it would be cool if the phone worked like the slide release on a handgun. For the sequels, they managed to convince Samsung to design a phone with a similar spring-loaded mechanism that you could actually buy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_SPH-N270

Nokia also introduced an actual spring-loaded model already in 1999: the 7110, which also, incidentally, was the first mobile phone to include a WAP browser.

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#123

Post by tweetle_beetle » Sun, Nov 20, 2022, 7:06 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #81

tweetle_beetle wrote: post #28

I actually had the Nokia 7600 pictured at the top of the thread. It's often ridiculed, but I don't know anyone else who had one who can fairly pass judgement. It had genuinely good ergonomics - not disimilar to the fancy split keyboard philosophy. Each thumb had clear acces to specific buttons and the distance between them was maximised, easing strain on the wrists. In the era of T9, it was great. It was also hand fr…

I had the 7600 too, and enjoyed the “lemon” form factor! But it certainly wasn’t a cheap phone when it launched. The typical Nokia cost around $150. This was the high-end model of Nokia’s feature phone range, and they highlighted it in ads with fashion brands. (The fashion touch was a leather strap you could attach to the lemon phone’s corner.) The 7600 did include technical innovation: it was the first Nokia model e…

That's interesting, I stand corrected. I was on a budget at the time and definitely wouldn't have had lots of disposisble income to spend on a phone. Maybe I bought it as it was being phased out.