E-Ink Android phone promises a week long battery life • Hacker News Board

Re: E-Ink Android phone promises a week long battery life

#81

Post by batiudrami » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 4:10 AM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #35

I have a crazy idea, how about a touch LCD phone that is: 1) actually small enough to fit in my pocket 2) Not PoS 3 years out-of-date hardware designed so that the phone company can offer a "free" smartphone. The smaller screen would probably greatly improve battery life.

Like, the iPhone? Or maybe a Lumia 800? They both fit comfortably in all mens' pockets (and most women's, assuming they have pockets).

The problem is Android is such a power hungry OS that you need to be constantly updating the specs as hardware and app demands grow higher, and high-end specs require space to fit everything in (including ever-growing battery demands), so small Android handsets have to make compromises on specs. It feels sort of like PCs did 10 years ago - 3 years of use and your top-of-the-line PC was near unusable. I find Windows Phone and iOS don't suffer from this nearly as much.

Re: E-Ink Android phone promises a week long battery life

#82

Post by zokier » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 5:59 AM UTC

lifeformed wrote: post #56

I dream of one day when someone will make a minimalist phone that meets my needs. The perfect phone for me would be this: - Can make and receive calls and texts. - Has a phone book (just a name/number key-value pair). - Has a clock and timer/alarm. - NO OTHER SOFTWARE FEATURES. Nothing extra other than calls, texts, phone book, time. - Small e-ink display. - Simple T9 keypad. - Rugged construction, should be able to…

> Simple T9 keypad.

Just doesn't make much sense. Most input you are going to do is textual, ie. names and sms messages. Thus keypad optimized for that purpose would be more reasonable. Full QWERTY is probably impractical due desired small form factor, but there could be some good compromised solution. Maybe something like in E55?

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/images/news/E55/nokia-e55-and...

Re: E-Ink Android phone promises a week long battery life

#83

Post by dutchbrit » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 7:47 AM UTC

I wouldn't buy it, due to not really being able to see photos on an e-ink display. I've just become so use to color. Great idea though, especially for people that travel a lot, go camping etc...

It doesn't seem that snappy right now speed wise. Not sure if thats the phone or Android though (I'm not a big Android user), but nonetheless, cool stuff.

Re: E-Ink Android phone promises a week long battery life

#84

Post by barry-cotter » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 9:30 AM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #35

I have a crazy idea, how about a touch LCD phone that is: 1) actually small enough to fit in my pocket 2) Not PoS 3 years out-of-date hardware designed so that the phone company can offer a "free" smartphone. The smaller screen would probably greatly improve battery life.

I have a Lenovo S220, a China only phone not appreciably smaller than a Samsung Note. It fits just fine into the front pockets of all of my jeans and cost 2000 Yuan which is a little over $250. If you're male you should not have any problems finding a phone that fits your criteria unless you demand a “free” phone. Even some women's clothes have suitable pockets.

Re: E-Ink Android phone promises a week long battery life

#85

Post by konstruktor » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 9:31 AM UTC

zokier wrote: post #82

lifeformed wrote: post #56

I dream of one day when someone will make a minimalist phone that meets my needs. The perfect phone for me would be this: - Can make and receive calls and texts. - Has a phone book (just a name/number key-value pair). - Has a clock and timer/alarm. - NO OTHER SOFTWARE FEATURES. Nothing extra other than calls, texts, phone book, time. - Small e-ink display. - Simple T9 keypad. - Rugged construction, should be able to…

> Simple T9 keypad. Just doesn't make much sense. Most input you are going to do is textual, ie. names and sms messages. Thus keypad optimized for that purpose would be more reasonable. Full QWERTY is probably impractical due desired small form factor, but there could be some good compromised solution. Maybe something like in E55? http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/images/news/E55/nokia-e55-and...

If it's very thin (which it could be due to little battery drain and low-tech), the standard Blackberry format could be rather nice.

Re: E-Ink Android phone promises a week long battery life

#86

Post by JoeAltmaier » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 1:32 PM UTC

snogglethorpe wrote: post #80

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a controller-chip issue, not intrinsic to the display technology. http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2011/05/i-wish-my-nooks-e-ink-disp... E-Ink was done a great dis-service by the scanning-refresh chips that came out with the display. Simultaneous-refresh is how any reasonable display device does it.

Wow...! So... the entire perception of e-ink as being slow/flaky is because of the controller chip used to drive it?! That's ... man.... Are the faster electronics too power-hungry to use in a device like an e-book that's very focused on extremely long battery life?

Yeah; what we have is smaller electronics, fewer data paths, slower technology and probably uses quite a bit less power. Power consumption is proportional to update rate too.

Re: E-Ink Android phone promises a week long battery life

#87

Post by aapl » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 2:00 PM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #35

I have a crazy idea, how about a touch LCD phone that is: 1) actually small enough to fit in my pocket 2) Not PoS 3 years out-of-date hardware designed so that the phone company can offer a "free" smartphone. The smaller screen would probably greatly improve battery life.

Try Sony Xperia U. I have the previous model Xperia ray and have been very happy with it. Great display (3.3 inch widescreen high-DPI), great camera, okay processor, would prefer more memory. It's so small that just about everyone mistakes it for a feature phone.

Re: E-Ink Android phone promises a week long battery life

#88

Post by nuje » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 2:53 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #2

Is "week long battery life" really a killer feature? As long as a phone has enough battery to make it through the 16 hours per day most of us are awake, anything more is just gold plating. Just how big is the "week long battery life" niche?

Yes. It sucks to worry about your chargers when you're not going home for the night (trips or something more spontaneous).

Even for a 9-5 family lifestyle, charging every night is a habit you have to learn and you need to keep chargers around your night table.

Phones used to work like this (run for a week) before the current smartphone craze. For other stuff you could have a PDA that wouldn't leave you incommunicado if it ran out of juice.

Re: E-Ink Android phone promises a week long battery life

#89

Post by ps258 » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 3:13 PM UTC

batiudrami wrote: post #81

aidenn0 wrote: post #35

I have a crazy idea, how about a touch LCD phone that is: 1) actually small enough to fit in my pocket 2) Not PoS 3 years out-of-date hardware designed so that the phone company can offer a "free" smartphone. The smaller screen would probably greatly improve battery life.

Like, the iPhone? Or maybe a Lumia 800? They both fit comfortably in all mens' pockets (and most women's, assuming they have pockets). The problem is Android is such a power hungry OS that you need to be constantly updating the specs as hardware and app demands grow higher, and high-end specs require space to fit everything in (including ever-growing battery demands), so small Android handsets have to make compromise…

It isn't android. It's the manufacturer skins. AOSP Jellybean runs really smooth on my low end phone. (512 MB ram, 600 MHz processor) But HTC Sense 4 runs like crap.

Re: E-Ink Android phone promises a week long battery life

#90

Post by batiudrami » Wed, Oct 24, 2012, 2:32 AM UTC

ps258 wrote: post #89

batiudrami wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like, the iPhone? Or maybe a Lumia 800? They both fit comfortably in all mens' pockets (and most women's, assuming they have pockets). The problem is Android is such a power hungry OS that you need to be constantly updating the specs as hardware and app demands grow higher, and high-end specs require space to fit everything in (including ever-growing battery demands), so small Android handsets have to make compromise…

It isn't android. It's the manufacturer skins. AOSP Jellybean runs really smooth on my low end phone. (512 MB ram, 600 MHz processor) But HTC Sense 4 runs like crap.

It's a bit of both. The original Galaxy S (which was only a year and a half old at the time, and was a top-of-the-line phone) struggled really hard with stock android ICS for me.