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Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard

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Re: Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard

#31

Post by johnchristopher »

mrbombastic wrote: post #23
nonethewiser wrote: post #22

I appreciate these basic phones but what I need is something different. I would prefer 2 phones: a regular smartphone and a basic feature phone. Then I’d take the one I need when I leave the house. The problem is you either need two lines with your carrier or swap physical sims. Swapping physical sims is inconvenient and means you cant use an esim.

Not exactly what you want but how about this setup: keep your minimal phone as your default phone with cell service. Whenever you head out use that. Your second distracting regular smartphone has no cell service. If you want to use that one either use wifi or bring both along and tether to your minimal phone.

I was under the impression most minimal phones don't have wifi hotspot feature/capability ?

Re: Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard

#32

Post by seam_carver »

I recorded a video of another e ink phone running many common Android apps really well (in direct sunlight)!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvO9ScTdwz8

It's the Hisense A9 with a beautiful and fast Carta 1200 e ink display. It's very capable, I would have preferred a phone more like that instead. It's biggest drawback is terrible USA cell reception. This company was initially going to make a phone like this but apparently keyboards were much more popular in polls.

Re: Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard

#33

Post by dorchadas »

ipv6ipv4 wrote: post #27

The best minimal phone is a cellular smart watch.

I'm leaning more and more towards this myself, except for the fact I hate the look of most of them, and love my traditional watches. Maybe I could just keep it in my pocket. But it's ideal for what I want - GPS, WhatsApp, telegram, Spotify.

Re: Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard

#34

Post by fragmede »

toast0 wrote: post #26
bookstore-romeo wrote: post #12

I'm the owner of a Light Phone II [0] and (other than battery life), the biggest downside to the Light Phone I can envision for most people is the absence of apps like Uber, Apple Pay and Spotify. I think 5G isn't that necessary on a phone like that, except maybe for future-proofing. This phone seems to have a camera, though, and access to Play Store (although it will likely be messy) really sets it apart from most "…

> I think 5G isn't that necessary on a phone like that, except maybe for future-proofing. 5G is more than future proofing, at least where I am, 5G is deployed at new lower frequencies (taken from broadcast TV) that provide for more full coverage. With my new 5g phone, I have less dead zones than my old 4g phone.

That is to say, you live in the future. I have the same experience with my phone. 5G is already here.

Re: Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard

#36

Post by SoftTalker »

mrbombastic wrote: post #23
nonethewiser wrote: post #22

I appreciate these basic phones but what I need is something different. I would prefer 2 phones: a regular smartphone and a basic feature phone. Then I’d take the one I need when I leave the house. The problem is you either need two lines with your carrier or swap physical sims. Swapping physical sims is inconvenient and means you cant use an esim.

Not exactly what you want but how about this setup: keep your minimal phone as your default phone with cell service. Whenever you head out use that. Your second distracting regular smartphone has no cell service. If you want to use that one either use wifi or bring both along and tether to your minimal phone.

The reality is that most people do not want to carry multiple devices around. Carrying some kind of minimalist phone for text and voice, and a tablet or other device for "apps" isn't really a great experience.

Re: Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard

#37

Post by throwaway81523 »

missedthecue wrote: post #21
throwaway81523 wrote: post #18

A minimal phone, with an e-ink display and an alphabetic keyboard, that costs $400? Umm, that is confused. Here is what I would call a minimal phone: https://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_3310-192.php Unfortunately those are all now bricked by the 2G/3G shutdown and nobody makes a phone with a similar feature set (i.e. absence of everything but voice calls) any more. The Jitterbug Flip 2 comes sort of close but it still has…

Look at the Raz Memory phone. $349 and it comes network unlocked.

$349 minimal phone, um no, a minimal phone should be more like $20 ;).

https://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_1661-pictures-2572.php

Not really minimal but the above is the type of thing I have in mind.

Re: Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard

#38

Post by Y_Y »

UberFly wrote: post #35

These phones remind me (a bit) of the Windows vs Linux arguments. There are a lot of appealing aspects to these phones but switching to them is really impractical for most of the population.

"The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation" -Thoreau

I understand caring about the huddled masses if you're trying to mass-market something. Here, as with so many other threads on hn, I feel like it's fine to acknowledge that most people won't be interested.ñ and then move on to discussing the subject at hand which invariably is going to be interesting to more significant portion of hackers.

I love this product idea, but the device itself isn't the hard part. Already pine64 or random Shenzhen supplier could do this, getting a UI (android or otherwise) is going to be the challenge.

Re: Minimal phone gets back to basics with E Ink display and real keyboard

#39

Post by Difwif »

Ugh another minimal phone that tries to sell me new hardware.

I don't think there's anything wrong with current smartphone hardware. What I want is someone to reimagine the OS. My phone should be like a Startrek Tricorder - a very advanced tool that can assist me with anything. The key metric should be how much time it saves me... not how much time I waste using it.

What I don't want is spyware, ads, and interactions designed to maximize my engagement. I need to be able to use feature rich apps sometimes, but I also want very hard limits that I set on my social media usage and other time wasting activities. Every single blocker app completely sucks and needs to be implemented as an OS feature. Screen time on iOS isn't enough and Digital Wellbeing on Android is a joke. Sometimes I don't have the willpower to overcome the digital crack at my finger tips.

So bad I want a new OS to enter the market that reimagines my phone as just a tool and not the center of my life. Apple could do it and has the right incentives (kinda) but I don't understand why they don't make screen time more feature rich with an API. I've never owned an iPhone but I would finally switch if they did this.

Edit: I'm being too harsh to the creators of this phone. Clearly I am not the customer. I just want a solution that doesn't involve giving up useful tools like Maps.

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