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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

#931

Post by Sammi »

grishka wrote: post #867
Sammi wrote: post #826

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Well then it doesn't sound like supporting v.6.0 is much of an issue for you in your particular case. I'm happy for you.

Re: Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone

#932

Post by graderjs »

hot_gril wrote: post #908
graderjs wrote: post #907

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah! I had a 5S. I loved that little guy. Another reason I got the mini for the angles like the 5S. How much bigger is it? 13 is okay. But I should make it go back to 5S size

The phone sizes aren't that much different. 5: 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6 mm 12 mini: 131.5 x 64.2 x 7.4 mm The more important difference is, the 12 mini screen is 5.42" diagonal instead of 4" like the 5. This is maybe marketed as a benefit, but it means I can't comfortably reach the entire screen during one-handed use.

Mmm, yeah I thought they felt similar. A little different. Screen size, yeah maybe that affects the reach of the finger. Gotta keep the hands loose and clean, not get them twisted up. Thanks! :) ;p xx ;p

Re: Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone

#933

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

paulmd wrote: post #687
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.

It's interesting hearing in this thread about some of the smaller android companies, you mentioned unihertz and someone else mentioned ulefone. Something a little different from the usual flagships at least.

I'd love a Ulefone Power Armor 13, like the one I've been daily driving for the past 14 months, but with smaller screen size.

The Power Armor 13 takes multi day heavy use to approximately what I've always wanted out of a handheld computer.

Re: Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone

#934

Post by palata »

open1414 wrote: post #862
palata wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh, that makes sense!

Re: Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone

#935

Post by linker3000 »

999900000999 wrote: post #457
peterlk wrote: post #391

And it comes with a 3mm headphone jack! Hallelujah!! I’m so, so glad someone is stepping up to fill this niche. My only complaint, and it’s kind if a big one, is that the screen is too damn big. I’m tired of phone manufacturers forcing me to carry a television in my pocket. I want something small that I can hold in one hand without a pop socket. I’ll trade performance, camera quality, basically anything for a phone w…

Plenty of jacks if you know where to look. Midrange phones like the Moto G line still have them.

I am happy with my Moto G60S.

I just wish:

* The battery was replaceable

* Moto didn't do stupid things such as break VPN functionality when they released the Android 12 upgrade. This was a failure of pre-prod testing that had to be corrected with a further update a few months later.

Re: Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone

#936

Post by HenriTEL »

45453836 wrote: post #636
cubefox wrote: post #439

Does anyone notice the irony of it being partly repairable, while offering just three years of security updates, after which you basically have to throw the thing away? The repairability sounds nice, but it is very irrelevant compared to the limited software updates. Imagine buying a Windows laptop and only receiving three years of security updates. (I know, most other phones aren't better.) It would have been better…

To be fair the mobile device iteration of the repairability movement has always been laden with irony. It's a user empowerment movement solving a problem users didn't care about or want to deal with, championed mainly by middle and upper income individuals in tandem with politicians looking for easy karma (bonus points if they're European because it makes them look tough against the big corporate Americans plus Samsu…

No, it's an ecological movement. The goal is not to help the poor but to fight climate change. I agree with the second part tho. This phone is still pretty complicated to repair. It's much easier than for the average smartphone but still simple things like changing the battery involve tricky steps like disconnecting the fingerprint reader and motherboard cache. And yeah the real obsolescence issue is on the software side.

Re: Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone

#937

Post by rglullis »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #924
rglullis wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of models that can work with all frequencies, so I am not sure if that's enough of a justification. Anyway, your point reminds me that the my "dream smartphone" would be one with no cellular connectivity at all. I'm still waiting for some company to start producing a keychain-sized 4G (or 5G) hotspot with an eSIM, which (I hope) would lead to more people asking for the return of the iPod Touch and for somethin…

Aren't those usually USB sticks? E.g. stuff like this: https://www.hardwareschotte.de/tests/Surfsticks Sure, having wifi hotspots would be nice, but this way you don't have to worry about batteries.

If I had to plug a surf stick every time on the device to use it as a phone or to connect to the internet via 4G, then of course I'd rather have it integrated with the device already. Wireless connection is not a nice-to-have, it is the key feature.

Re: Nokia launches DIY repairable budget Android phone

#938

Post by fennecfoxy »

Spivak wrote: post #441
scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Psh 5 years? What kind of standard of quality is that? We should have several decades of support for all cheap electronics at least…

And they hated him because he spoke the truth. Phones being disposable is something we just accepted. A POTS phone bought in the 1890’s would work without modification until the 1990’s and still will work today with an adapter. Why? Because we didn’t have continuous protocol churn. If it was invented today in 2 years there would POTS/2, KETTLE, and a draft spec for POTS2.1 written on a used napkin but somehow already…

Some of it is to do with your so-called "protocol churn" but also the fact that a phone from the 1890's is order of magnitude less complex than a modern smartphone. It's really a ridiculous argument.

Many of the required updates to a device are security related, perhaps they could write said software better so that there are never bugs...but software is complicated now; millions & millions of lines or code and dozens and dozens of different chips. It's better to make phones much more recyclable than it is to make them last longer.

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