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Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone

theguardian.com

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Re: Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone

#861

Post by open1414 »

SparkyMcUnicorn wrote: post #500
open1414 wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android manufacturers pick a LTS kernel when developing their phone. By the time it is on the market, that kernel version only has 3-4 years left of security updates. Custom roms never upgrade the kernel so you are still vulnerable to bugs that were never backported to your kernel

> Custom roms never upgrade the kernel That's not entirely true. There's plenty that bundle a custom kernel. Browse some device-specific development topics on XDA developers for examples.

Custom kernels are not upgraded kernels. They usually just back port a few fixes. No custom kernel running Android has a full kernel upgrade because it breaks the KMI and kernel drivers aren't usually updated.

Re: Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone

#862

Post by open1414 »

palata wrote: post #570
SparkyMcUnicorn wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Custom roms never upgrade the kernel That's not entirely true. There's plenty that bundle a custom kernel. Browse some device-specific development topics on XDA developers for examples.

Aren't projects like PostmarketOS upstreaming many devices? Meaning that you can then update the kernel, right?

PostmarketOS is the mainline Linux kernel and doesn't have all the features that are needed for a proper Android phone. There are a lot of Android userspace drivers that may break with another kernel.

Re: Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone

#863

Post by LinuxBender »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #365
LinuxBender wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It fits in a velcro holster, my jacket pocket and in my snow monosuit.

> snow monosuit Just makes me picture Maggie Simpson But to be actually on topic, supporting custom ROMs in order to extricate android from Google is my top priority when buying a phone. If this phone gets lineageOS support then it may be the perfect phone.

Just makes me picture Maggie Simpson

Well, a really old Maggie Simpson with a buzz-cut. I do jokingly call them onesies. Expensive onesies anyway.

If this phone gets lineageOS support then it may be the perfect phone.

That would work for me as well.

Re: Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone

#864

Post by raffraffraff »

komali2 wrote: post #590
foobarbecue wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loving my Unihertz Atom (for a particular sports application). https://www.unihertz.com/products/atom if you haven't tried one. I agree that it would be great if Nokia did this product but in a reasonable size.

I've been running unihertz jelly 2 for ages and it's phenomenal. The only two annoyances I have are no 5g (I'm always tethering my laptop) and that google maps scooter mode just isn't available on this phone and there's basically no solution to get it working (and I'm hard pressed to figure out whose fault that is - google for failing to recognize the device location? Unihertz for failing to indicate my location corr…

I have one that I use as an mp3 player. My main gripe is the awful battery life.

Re: Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone

#865

Post by shepherdjerred »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #689
shepherdjerred wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original iPhone had 128MB of memory. The iPhone 6s (releasing in 2015, which is the oldest model currently receiving security updates) has 2GB of memory. The latest iPhone, the iPhone 14, has 6GB. It doesn't make sense for Apple to support devices that aren't even going to be able to run the apps that users want. Not many users are going to want to be using a 6-7 year old device when hardware is advancing and the…

There are tons of people who use their phones to make phone calls and send texts and read the occasional Wikipedia article. They don't need newer hardware. People who want to play video games on their phones will need newer phones, but even they benefit from being able to sell their old one to the people who don't need that instead of having to throw it away.

You're completely right, but I don't think Apple is targeting those people. Most people don't want an iPhone for just the basics.

Aside from that, I'm not sure that even web browsing would be very enjoyable on an iPhone 6s today considering that the performance demands of web pages are getting higher and higher.

Re: Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone

#866

Post by fencepost »

ohuhuhu wrote: post #589
fencepost wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By comparison to the Samsung Galaxy A series this is unimpressive. Everything in that line is either 2 OS upgrades/4 years of security updates or 4 OS upgrades/5 years of security updates. That's all the way down to the A03s which is Those are from the release date of the phone, but I think they're doing roughly annual releases on that line. Edit: Samsung also planned for longer device life - there's an option to tur…

I was recently looking for support cycles for Android phones but failed to find anything concrete. Can you point me to where Samsung have documented their support cycle?

On their product pages for each phone, expand the section to compare phone models and it's listed for each in the Security section.

https://www.samsung.com/us/smartphones/galaxy-a53-5g/

Re: Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone

#867

Post by grishka »

Sammi wrote: post #826
grishka wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I build Android apps for a living. Let me tell you, the majority of users are on "outdated" OS versions. You have to support 5-7 years of Android releases to cover a substantial part of the Android user base. The app I'm currently working on requires a minimum version of 6.0 — this came out in 2015. I still test my apps on a Nexus 5. Many people would buy a phone that will never receive a single update. The software…

Tell your management that usage of v6.0 is as good as gone, and you are wasting resources in doing any work to keep support for it: https://gs.statcounter.com/android-version-market-share/mobi... I you look at that data then you can see that the oldest version with any significant usage is v8.1. But even that is quite low, and you might do quite well in not supporting anything older than v9.0.

What management? I decide this kind of thing myself in that project. The app is open-source and for a nonprofit. I don't see much reasoning to drop Android versions above 6.0 because there aren't that many API changes that would make a difference for my case. It's not like supporting 4.x or 2.x, the "you gotta carry the reimplementation of a substantial part of the UI framework with your app" kind of annoyance. The app in question doesn't even use appcompat. The apk is around 3 megabytes.

Re: Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone

#868

Post by AnthonyMouse »

scarface74 wrote: post #842
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This comparison isn’t really relevant. Could you run the then current operating system in 2006 on a computer that you bought in 1986? The processor available in 1986 was the i386, which was supported by Linux until 2012. i486 support is on its way out just now, more than 33 years later. > A 2010 iPhone 4s can’t connect to any network in the US let alone a 2007 iPhone. It's not expected to do what modern phones can…

> The processor available in 1986 was the i386, which was supported by Linux until 2012. i486 support is on its way out just now, more than 33 years later What could you do with it in 2012? A 2010 Core2Duo 2.66Ghz Dell laptop can run Windows 10. Browse the modern web, mine had gigabit Ethernet, could run the latest version of Office decently and had a 500Gb hard drive. > It's not expected to do what modern phones can…

> What could you do with it in 2012?

Now you're arguing against yourself. An original iPhone is much more capable than an i386.

> Yes, as far as I know, the iTunes app still supports all iPods and iPhones. You can sync your music. And you can fill all of its massive 4GB or 8GB of storage.

But as you point out, the storage is quite small. The hardware could perfectly well stream over WiFi, until you take away security updates and the ability to install the app.

> It was a much better NAS than trying to repurpose an iPhone with very bad Wifi.

A modern one would be better still, but I'm trying to use the thing I already have sitting in a drawer, not acquire something else.

And sometimes the performance is irrelevant. If I'm just using it for automated backups I don't much care if it finishes in one minute or ten.

> You are going to “read text” on a 3.5 inch 320x480 Poot resolution screen in 2023?

Maybe I wouldn't, but some kid whose alternative is having no device at all, sure.

> And you want Apple to continue supporting a “phone” that can’t be used as a phone anymore?

It was never just a phone, but hotspot + WiFi calling and it still is a phone. To say nothing of Signal or similar.

Your argument comes down to "newer things are better," but that isn't the same as older things are trash. Until you stop updating them and refuse to provide the documentation needed for anybody else to do it.

Re: Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone

#869

Post by mikepurvis »

cyanwave wrote: post #531
mikepurvis wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still rocking an iPhone 8, and it's just fine for me— came out in Sept 2017. At this point I consider Apple's commitment to long term support to be a key element of my loyalty to them.

It’s true. They’re one of the best values if you can afford them all things considered. Store network, long term software. Quality of SOC, all components.

If you can't afford one at new prices, you can always pick them up for a fraction of that 2-3yrs after release, and still get a solid few years of supported use out of them at that point.

Re: Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone

#870

Post by b1ue64 »

shp0ngle wrote: post #708
b1ue64 wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HMD Global, a Finnish company, currently runs Nokia's phone business.

Oh. For some reason I thought they are Chinese… I guess I confused it with BlackBerry ownership, that’s now… Chinese? I think? I don’t know.

TCL produced Blackberry-branded devices for a few years, but they stopped a few years ago. Blackberry is still an independent company doing other things (mostly in the enterprise security space I think)
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