Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The mystery of the power bank phone taking over Ghana

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 133 posts

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

#101

Post by LeUsername »

bri3d wrote: post #96
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a car (at least an old one) the ridiculously robust lead-acid battery is used also to filter out spikes and to act as a voltage regulator. If you've ever wondered why the headlamps on a kick-start moped flicker while idling, that's what you get without using batteries as a filter. Li-ion wouldn't survive very long in this application AFAIK.

There are plenty of replacement LiFePO4 auto batteries available, and they work very well without needing much in the way of support circuitry. I think that it's mostly cost keeping lead-acid around (as well as operating temperature range and lifetime), not that nothing is suitable for the application. The headlamps on a moped probably flicker because it uses a magneto instead of an alternator as its power source.

Can't comment about mopeds, but in car, when your battery nears the end of its life, when you turn the steering wheel (with electric power steering) while stationary, headlights dim for a short moment until the alternator increases its output.

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

#102

Post by cmyr »

solidpy wrote: post #89
userbinator wrote: post #7

This is likely a truly unbranded OEM feature phone based on a Mediatek or Spreadtrum reference platform. Resellers then add their own branding to it. I couldn't find that exact one but a bit of searching turns up similar models: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/9000mAh-long-standby-power-ba... http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Original-H-mobile-X8-4... http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Original-Xiaocai-X6-...…

The main reason to use feature phones in my developing country is that they are not worth stealing.

There's also the reality that repairs and replacement can be very difficult or impossible. Similarly, my iPhone fundamentally expects me to have access to a highish-speed, lowish-cost internet connection for tons of its functionality, and that still isn't necessarily available in much of Africa. In Zambia last year, in a large second-teir city, my _household_ internet cost about $8/gb, so things like automated backups and downloading software updates isn't especially attractive.

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

#103

Post by kens »

hucker wrote: post #6

This phone looks really interesting as a backup/utility, especially for people who travel a lot with many sim cards from different countries... Has anyone found somewhere to order internationally? EDIT: Specifically that exact design, there's something about it..

If you find how to get one of these phones, let me know. I'd like to do a teardown.

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

#104

Post by mangecoeur »

antimagic wrote: post #14
mangecoeur wrote: post #12

Batteries that last a week would be nice in current markets too! Not just emerging ones. I personally still don't understand how flagship phones costing $100s barely make it through the day but still get rave reviews. I can't count the number of times Galaxy and iphone touting friends have become unreachable in the evenings because of this - I would have trashed those in a review, who cares about fancy features if yo…

I recently went camping in an area where there was no data reception. My iPhone 6+ still had 17% battery left after 5 days of using it like a normal phone (voice and SMS). Smartphones have short battery life because we do so much more with them. I'm sure those friends of yours could have made their phones last through to the end of the evening by switching off data once they hit 30% battery, but they preferred to hav…

It's true that it's a tradeoff, I just don't understand why people put up with this, why it's apparently still more desirable to shave 0.5mm of the thickness rather than have more reliable power. Or my pet peeve - reviewers who compare 2 phones with high density screens and clearly state that you can't see pixels with the naked eye on either one... then proceed to mark down the one with fewer pixels, even though it would be more power efficient.

If this is how reviews go, it's not surprising we see impractical tradeoffs.

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

#105

Post by mangecoeur »

abalone wrote: post #24
mangecoeur wrote: post #12

Batteries that last a week would be nice in current markets too! Not just emerging ones. I personally still don't understand how flagship phones costing $100s barely make it through the day but still get rave reviews. I can't count the number of times Galaxy and iphone touting friends have become unreachable in the evenings because of this - I would have trashed those in a review, who cares about fancy features if yo…

Quite simply because longer-life phones would get trashed even more for not having the features they traded to get longer battery life. Imagine what the reviews would be if the next iPhone is twice as thick and double the weight. That it goes 3 days without a charge for most people would be a footnote to an otherwise poor review.

The irony being people then have to shove them in massive cases, often with built-in extra batteries, because the thin phones are vulnerable and have crap battery life.

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

#106

Post by vorbote »

ThomPete wrote: post #100
solidpy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason to use feature phones in my developing country is that they are not worth stealing.

Is this something you have sources on or just an opinion? Would be interested in knowing.

Hmmm... Very uninformed of you.

Just walk into an alley at night in Manhattan or Chicago or Boston or Los Angeles or (surprise!) San Franciso and you'll know... Seriously, read the newspapers of any more or less poor third world country and you will find many notes about people mugged and killed, stabbed or shot to death, to steal them some US$75 chinese MediaTek shitphone you can find in Amazon.

I'll give you some newspapers in Latin American cities that range from 6 to 25 million inhabitans:

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/

http://www.eluniversal.com/

http://www.clarin.com/

http://www.eltiempo.com/

http://oblobo.globo.com/

http://www.folha.com/

As always, Google Translate is your friend.

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

#107

Post by shirro »

I wouldn't mind downgrading to a feature phone that was mostly battery that had a minimal screen (watch sized) for power saving and was good for text, voice, tethering, music and gps logging and not much else. Then tether a 7" or bigger tablet sitting in the car or backpack for when I need the screen.

Lugging around a huge, fragile, power hungry screen just to play music and receive texts and being tied to a charger is moving in the wrong direction for me.

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

#108

Post by ThomPete »

vorbote wrote: post #106
ThomPete wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this something you have sources on or just an opinion? Would be interested in knowing.

Hmmm... Very uninformed of you. Just walk into an alley at night in Manhattan or Chicago or Boston or Los Angeles or (surprise!) San Franciso and you'll know... Seriously, read the newspapers of any more or less poor third world country and you will find many notes about people mugged and killed, stabbed or shot to death, to steal them some US$75 chinese MediaTek shitphone you can find in Amazon. I'll give you some n…

I live in New York and I don't experience what you claimed but we arent talking about the west as far as I can tell.

I am still trying to figure out if that is actually the reason or just an opinion. The links didn't provide info about that but thanks for trying.

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

#109

Post by kw71 »

LeUsername wrote: post #99
plorg wrote: post #65

Only partially related, but I have a friend who carries around a comically-large 14000 mAh battery[0]. Comically large as in about the size of three or four iPhone 6s's stacked on top of each other - he wore it on a belt clip. My other friends and I made fun of him. He always had his ridiculously large, power-guzzling phone plugged into it. But he insisted that he had it because it could jump-start a car (he's a mech…

If I understand your description correctly (and it is the way it should be done, whether jumpstarting with external battery dolly or using another vehicle), you had the battery pack connected together with that old monstrosity of lead-acid battery at parallel, which still had some charge left and also acted as a buffer. It would be completely different story having the lithium battery pack connected as the main and O…

I think 55 Ah is a bit large for an econobox. That's about the size in my 6 cylinder volvo and my 6 cylinder pickup. I have seen quite a few small cars with batteries that look to me like they should be for a motorcycle.

I have replaced a few wet Pb batteries in my vehicles during the past couple years and the average lifetime I got from them is 9.5 years.

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

#110

Post by vorbote »

ThomPete wrote: post #100
solidpy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason to use feature phones in my developing country is that they are not worth stealing.

Is this something you have sources on or just an opinion? Would be interested in knowing.

Sigh ThomPete, where do you live? The Hamptons?

Really, you need to actually go out and meet the world around you. It isn't all wine and roses I assure you, but it is better than living in a bubble, those burst, you know. If you decide to travel to South America and go by Bogotá, contact me and I'll show you around the good, the bad and the ugly.

Post reply on HN