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The mystery of the power bank phone taking over Ghana

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51–60 of 133 posts

Re: The mystery of the power bank phone taking over Ghana

#51

Impressive that it sells for $25 given that I just (yesterday) paid $60 for a Fujitsu MC700 10,400 mAh battery.

The battery in this phone is only 1,000 mAh, so not that impressive really. Edit: my mistake, the phone is 10,000 mAh. Impressive indeed!

Well it certainly says that on the battery, but I really doubt has that much power in practice.

Re: The mystery of the power bank phone taking over Ghana

#52
post #23

Can we talk about the Nokia 8210 candybar phones? Circa 1999 this thing was indestructible and had battery life that would probably outlast 3-4 iPhones. I think there is a market for these types of phones again. Even if it was ugly it was durable and functional. There is definitely a market for a phone that can be dropped and still function.

Since the 8210 didn't really have a working web-browser (by modern standards) or legitimate animations, you could likely make a 8210 today with an eInk display and also take advantage of the battery tech' improvements.

At the time it only had a 650 mAh battery. And while it is a very small phone, similarly small phones today can easily get double that in the same physical dimensions.

So I guess what I am saying is, if someone actually made a 8210 today and REALLY tried they could likely double its already insane battery life.

Re: The mystery of the power bank phone taking over Ghana

#54
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember once when I was roaming at exhorbitant cost, I was regularly turning off data to save money and my battery life was greatly improved. I wish I could have finer control on the polling frequency and volume of most apps...

It should be doable to build an Android app that turns data on every X minutes. Does such a thing already exist ? Does it really help with battery ?

Sony Xperia devices have a Stamina mode that turns off data and wifi right after the screen is turned off. Big difference in battery life if one is not really interested in push notifications, etc.

Re: The mystery of the power bank phone taking over Ghana

#55
One of the confusing things to me about the apparently competitive smartphone market is how little creativity there is in smartphone design. Why do we only get thin rounded rectangles? Seems like there would be a market everywhere for big thick indestructible smartphones.

Re: The mystery of the power bank phone taking over Ghana

#56
post #55

One of the confusing things to me about the apparently competitive smartphone market is how little creativity there is in smartphone design. Why do we only get thin rounded rectangles? Seems like there would be a market everywhere for big thick indestructible smartphones.

Caterpillar sells some purportedly hardened android phones:

http://www.catphones.com/phones/b15-smartphone/

http://www.catphones.com/phones/s50-smartphone/

Re: The mystery of the power bank phone taking over Ghana

#57
post #45
post #23

Can we talk about the Nokia 8210 candybar phones? Circa 1999 this thing was indestructible and had battery life that would probably outlast 3-4 iPhones. I think there is a market for these types of phones again. Even if it was ugly it was durable and functional. There is definitely a market for a phone that can be dropped and still function.

I had a Nokia 6310i when I was younger, and on average (short calls, a few texts per day) the battery would last for 2 weeks. It had a small (but perfectly formed) black and white screen, a distinct lack of apps, and no 3G. All helps. Interestingly, the claimed talk time, at 7 hours, was no better, and in fact possibly a bit worse, than a modern iPhone. Draw your own conclusions.

Modern Nokia feature phones get battery life of 2-5 weeks depending on talk time. I use one.

Re: The mystery of the power bank phone taking over Ghana

#58
I felt more concerned by the behavior of the Facebook and Whatsapp applications as the author described them. At first guess, the poor notification for new messages might reflect the absence of a proper multitasking OS.

On the other side, chances for these applications to be legit seem quite low considering that nobody seems to have any clue where and by whom these phones are manufactured. This constitutes a big opportunity for a serious widespread scam scheme being built up (or already operational).

Any security folks looking into it?

Re: The mystery of the power bank phone taking over Ghana

#59
post #23

Can we talk about the Nokia 8210 candybar phones? Circa 1999 this thing was indestructible and had battery life that would probably outlast 3-4 iPhones. I think there is a market for these types of phones again. Even if it was ugly it was durable and functional. There is definitely a market for a phone that can be dropped and still function.

A few years ago, I bought a Samsung quad-band flip phone for about $50. The battery lasted nearly two weeks with light usage.

If you just need a reliable phone, I'm sure they're still out there.

Re: The mystery of the power bank phone taking over Ghana

#60
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be doable to build an Android app that turns data on every X minutes. Does such a thing already exist ? Does it really help with battery ?

Sony Xperia devices have a Stamina mode that turns off data and wifi right after the screen is turned off. Big difference in battery life if one is not really interested in push notifications, etc.

+1 for this, my z3 compact with stamina mode on lasts almost a full week(!) even though i do a few calls, check emails, browse a bit etc. Performance while using it actively is still 100%, so not like many other lame battery saving modes that reduces the frame rate to 1fps and brightness to 0.01% making the phone unusable.

Only drawback is that background downloads get canceled when the screen dies but i don't have any downloads outlasting my active usage sessions anyway so i don't care really. Many people wouldn't like missing the push notifications from the mailbox but for me that is just another good reason to activate it.

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