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US Smartphone Shipments Decline 19% in Q3 2023 as More Americans Delay Upgrade

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Re: US Smartphone Shipments Decline 19% in Q3 2023 as More Americans Delay Upgrade

#331

Post by iggldiggl »

vel0city wrote: post #267
freedomben wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah, moved on to what? What has replaced those things and rendered them obsolete? On-board storage sure didn't, that's small and not portable, and we already had that. Bluetooth headphones didn't, those require special hardware, have to be charged (battery), have higher latency, reduced sound quality (lower fidelity), packet loss, and spyware built in, and DRM capable. Not even close to a replacement for analog h…

The storage on the device is portable when the device is portable. There are very few instances where I'd find an SD card acceptably portable but a phone not so. Phones these days come in hundreds of gigs of storage. My current phone was a decently cheap one and had 128GB of storage, easily >100GB of usable space. On Android one can easily mount the storage as a USB drive and transfer data at high speeds. And given i…

> On Android one can easily mount the storage as a USB drive and transfer data at high speeds.

One can? I thought one actually can't, because a) the internal storage is using a file system Windows PCs and Macs don't understand and b) you can't simultaneously mount the internal storage on both your phone and your computer because that would only lead to data corruption. And unmounting the internal storage while the phone is running isn't possible either, because that's were all your apps and settings and whatnot are stored.

Hence for a very long time now you can only access your phone via MTP, which can be annoyingly fickle and less stable.

Conversely, an external SD card that only gets used as additional storage space for documents, music, pictures, etc., actually can be unmounted and at least in principle be switched into true mass storage mode (although in practice this might require root, and I don't know how well this still works on current phone models that still feature SD card slots).

Re: US Smartphone Shipments Decline 19% in Q3 2023 as More Americans Delay Upgrade

#332

Post by tonyedgecombe »

pbmonster wrote: post #54
VancouverMan wrote: post #14

I know a number of people, myself included, who have been waiting for the return of decent mid-range phones before getting a new one. Right now, there are very few options for people who want a reasonably sized phone, offering reasonably good performance, at a reasonably low cost, with reasonably good durability, with reasonably long software support, from a reasonably trustworthy manufacturer.

> want a reasonably sized phone I think that's the biggest problem. If you accept >6" screens, you'll find a phone that hits most of those criteria. But if you want a smaller phone? iPhone 13 mini from 2021 or Pixel 4a from 2020. And I still would call those large, one-handing those screens is uncomfortable even with large hands. You want an actual small phone, around 5", like the early iPhones? Fucking XZ2 Compact f…

>iPhone 13 mini from 2021 or Pixel 4a from 2020.

The trouble is nobody buys them, if they did then Apple wouldn't have dropped it from their range.

Re: US Smartphone Shipments Decline 19% in Q3 2023 as More Americans Delay Upgrade

#333

Post by randomdata »

nicoburns wrote: post #309
randomdata wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why is USB-C not a benefit of the iPhone 15, per the discussion? It has a USB-C connector, only limited by its USB2 implementation.

No one in this thread has made that claim.

The contextual parent asked, in response to a comment lamenting the they don't want to pay for the Pro iPhone model to get high USB speeds, why you need high speed USB-C outside of some niche cases related to video (where you are already bound to want the Pro model for the better camera). The response was that the main benefit (of high speed USB-C) is that you can standardize on USB-C cables.

But it is not clear why high speed USB-C cables are not compatible with the iPhone 15, which has USB-C but does not support high USB speeds. If it were, then the purported main benefit would also be found on that device, leaving the question to be unanswered and the attempt at a response nonsensical.

Re: US Smartphone Shipments Decline 19% in Q3 2023 as More Americans Delay Upgrade

#334

Post by sumtechguy »

aqfamnzc wrote: post #170
sumtechguy wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a usbc to barrel adapter. It has a extra cable for power if I want to charge too. Still annoyed they took it away. s5->s22 was my step.

That's quite the leap! Good job holding onto the old one so long.

replaced the battery 3 times! this new one not so much.

I bought it thinking 'ill get the best there is. At the time it was. Then all I used it for was very light web stuff and phone calls. So as long as it did those 2 things I was fine. Still trying to figure out what to use it for. I think one of the flash chips is EoL at this point.

Re: US Smartphone Shipments Decline 19% in Q3 2023 as More Americans Delay Upgrade

#335

Post by vel0city »

iggldiggl wrote: post #331
vel0city wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The storage on the device is portable when the device is portable. There are very few instances where I'd find an SD card acceptably portable but a phone not so. Phones these days come in hundreds of gigs of storage. My current phone was a decently cheap one and had 128GB of storage, easily >100GB of usable space. On Android one can easily mount the storage as a USB drive and transfer data at high speeds. And given i…

> On Android one can easily mount the storage as a USB drive and transfer data at high speeds. One can? I thought one actually can't, because a) the internal storage is using a file system Windows PCs and Macs don't understand and b) you can't simultaneously mount the internal storage on both your phone and your computer because that would only lead to data corruption. And unmounting the internal storage while the ph…

You're using an extremely narrow definition of "mount" here, as in natively mounting the filesystem. Accessing your phone via MTP is still a form of "mounting" the storage over USB. Different than how one would mount an SD card, sure, but its still "mounting" the storage.

I've had no problems over several years using my Android device as essentially a large external storage device to move files around. For the purpose of copying photos, videos, documents, other files, side loading apps, etc. it works well.

And one can go the other way and take an external drive and plug it in to most Android devices these days to copy data off of it without having to use it with a Windows/Mac/Linux device. So from the perspective of someone who went on a vacation in the woods and is shooting hundreds of gigs of videos it is possible to plug in external storage and copy off to it directly. One could even use a USB SD card reader and write it to SD cards. Or MMC cards. Or floppy disks if you're so inclined.

Re: US Smartphone Shipments Decline 19% in Q3 2023 as More Americans Delay Upgrade

#336

Post by Glyptodon »

vel0city wrote: post #297
Glyptodon wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see how. New to new, a cheap ICE economy car can still run low $20s and your total fuel costs over 3 years will probably be under $2k. And even a cheaper EV like a Chevy Bolt won't make up the difference. It seems like the gap only gets worse when comparing higher up the price curve hybrids to their EV cousins.

At 13,000mi/yr (average US mileage), 30MPG, $4/gal, that's $1,733.33/yr. Same mileage, 3.5mi/kWh, $0.12/kWh, that's $445.71/yr.

National average electric cost is above $0.12 kWh, I think closer to $0.16, on top of that I think tiered pricing is common. And hybrids often beat 30 mpg.

For a car where electric is $40k and hybrid is $27k like a Kia Niro, it looks like your numbers would produce a payback period on the electric close to 10 years, but longer the less you drive. But that doesn't even get to including potential returns on the $13k saved at the beginning.

Re: US Smartphone Shipments Decline 19% in Q3 2023 as More Americans Delay Upgrade

#337

Post by iggldiggl »

vel0city wrote: post #335
iggldiggl wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On Android one can easily mount the storage as a USB drive and transfer data at high speeds. One can? I thought one actually can't, because a) the internal storage is using a file system Windows PCs and Macs don't understand and b) you can't simultaneously mount the internal storage on both your phone and your computer because that would only lead to data corruption. And unmounting the internal storage while the ph…

You're using an extremely narrow definition of "mount" here, as in natively mounting the filesystem. Accessing your phone via MTP is still a form of "mounting" the storage over USB. Different than how one would mount an SD card, sure, but its still "mounting" the storage. I've had no problems over several years using my Android device as essentially a large external storage device to move files around. For the purpos…

> I've had no problems over several years using my Android device as essentially a large external storage device to move files around. For the purpose of copying photos, videos, documents, other files, side loading apps, etc. it works well.

Yeah it works, but I'd still say that "well" only applies with some caveats. MTP only works with full computers, not other devices that only expect some dumb USB storage (like the book scanner at my local state library), for a long time there was a bug whereby Android didn't preserve the last modified date when copying files via MTP (and I'm still not absolutely sure it's been fixed in current Android versions – I guess I'm going to find out once I finally upgrade my phone), sometimes it didn't show changes I made on my phone if the media scanner hadn't got around to indexing them yet, normal software on my computer other than the file explorer couldn't directly access files, listing of directories was slow, if you tried to do too much at once (like continuing to browse the storage while some large file transfer was underway) you'd get the dreaded "device is busy" error… it's better than nothing and it's not completely unusable, but there's a reason why I immediately looked for better solutions

Re: US Smartphone Shipments Decline 19% in Q3 2023 as More Americans Delay Upgrade

#338

Post by pbmonster »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #332
pbmonster wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> want a reasonably sized phone I think that's the biggest problem. If you accept >6" screens, you'll find a phone that hits most of those criteria. But if you want a smaller phone? iPhone 13 mini from 2021 or Pixel 4a from 2020. And I still would call those large, one-handing those screens is uncomfortable even with large hands. You want an actual small phone, around 5", like the early iPhones? Fucking XZ2 Compact f…

>iPhone 13 mini from 2021 or Pixel 4a from 2020. The trouble is nobody buys them, if they did then Apple wouldn't have dropped it from their range.

Of course, demand is not high.

In my experience, it's only one very specific type of person who wants that. Usually male (phone goes in front pocket) and older (at least older than gen Z, rarely watches videos on mobile devices). Uses smartphones more as a utility/tool instead of as an entertainment device.

Which fits that apple actually released another phone with that form factor after the 13 mini: the iPhone SE 3 is also this small and it is more recent than the 3 mini. I just didn't list it because I dislike the large bezel and I think from a performance perspective, it's strict worse than the 13 mini.

But that phone fits the demographic, because those people also don't switch phones every 2 years.

Re: US Smartphone Shipments Decline 19% in Q3 2023 as More Americans Delay Upgrade

#339

Post by major505 »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #221
major505 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And new phots are super expensive. You are paying more in the phone than your work notebook, something is terrible wrong with that.

That's why I drag out my upgrades as long as I can. If I want a decent upgrade it's gotta be higher end, and if it's higher end it's gonna be >$1000 CAD (if not ~$1,500). If I have to spend that much, I'm going to try to get it to last as long as possible so that I get the value out of the current phone AND the greatest improvements possible before plopping down that money down again. The phone makers did it to thems…

pretty much. This days Im happy with a middle end phone, because my mother and step daugher always Inherit my old phone from me, so if I have to buy for everyone I will buy every year a middle of the range phone and after a year or 2 give to one of them,
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