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

Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

androidauthority.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 430 posts

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#101

Post by alex23478 »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #22

> When was the last time you felt your smartphone really couldn’t cope? Every day since a couple years now. > I struggle to recall the last time an app jerked and juddered into life. I don’t. But here’s the thing: it wasn’t that way at first. It’s just that over time my phone just slowed down. Purging it of its data and unused software did nothing, I just had less and less available memory over time, and maps grew sl…

This happened to one of my previous Xiamoi Phones too. Apparently the Flash Storage degrades over time, which makes everything that uses I/O super slow. For instance, starting Firefox took almost a minute, but it was usable as soon as all needed data was available in RAM. This is a known issue in the respective community, and sadly kills devices that would still be usable with the latest Android thanks to Custom Roms.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#102

Post by hilbert42 »

I find it highly annoying that these rather powerful handheld smartphone computers don't have decent port access for use with instrumentation, etc.

A huge range of features comes to mind from Geiger counters, oscilloscopes, sound level measurement, light intensity, etc , etc. The potential to expand the smartphone capability is enormous yet no manufacturer has tackled it. Why not?

Why aren't there multiple USB ports? By now why don't all phones use USB-3? Why isn't there general purpose D/A and A/D ports/outputs for instrumentation? Why don't they include a GPIB-like bus to connect to things? Why can't we use the screen as an oscilloscope with a bandwidth of say 100MHz?

Of course not everyone needs these features but the smartphone stands out as an ideal device for use in instrumentation and measurement and data collection (of the other kind).

I find it amazing that no smartphone manufacturer has branched out into this field. Such potential and no one is servicing it. Phone manufacturers are missing out by not servicing this scientific/techie measurement market.

Why, say, doesn't Fairphone provide a range of interchangeable ports/modules that can changed for different functions, to add additional sensors, etc.?

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#104

Post by xethos »

jventura wrote: post #76
rchaud wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not my experience at all. I have a 2016 Galaxy S7 in a drawer that would still be fine as a daily driver were it not for the worn-down battery. I have a separate phone from 2020 that I was using as a TikTok device (quite resource-heavy app) and it runs fine even now.

Why don’t you replace the battery? Third party batteries are usually quite affordable and good enough! Even yesterday I’ve replaced a worned out battery on a very old iPhone 5S (2013) for my son to watch things on youtube kids..

Because iPhones are not layers of glass glued together from either end, with a battery sandwiched in-between. Apple gets a lot of shit (deservedly or not), but they have taken pains to make refreshing their phones (battery, screen, etc) a not-garbage experience

If you want to replace a battery on a relatively modern Samsung flagship, you will likely swear, drink, and/or curse the engineers that decided "Glass and glue is good enough"

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#105

Post by coldtea »

ghaff wrote: post #30
orev wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad reality is that market forces don’t want this to happen, since it would cannibalize sales of those other devices. It’s much better for manufacturers to make sure a phone can only do “phone stuff” and a PC can only do “PC stuff”, because then you need to buy both devices.

I'm unconvinced. Lots of people are increasingly fine with just phones. My dad I sort of see but I had a co-worker who told me their kid didn't even want a laptop for schoolwork which blew my mind a bit but so it goes. Any hybrid would be a compromise for me. I do have multiple systems--almost certainly more than I need.

>a co-worker who told me their kid didn't even want a laptop for schoolwork

It's not like kids ever wanted computers for schoolwork in general...

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#106

Post by bud_davis »

hilbert42 wrote: post #102

I find it highly annoying that these rather powerful handheld smartphone computers don't have decent port access for use with instrumentation, etc. A huge range of features comes to mind from Geiger counters, oscilloscopes, sound level measurement, light intensity, etc , etc. The potential to expand the smartphone capability is enormous yet no manufacturer has tackled it. Why not? Why aren't there multiple USB ports?…

although i would buy one.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#107

Post by Kirby64 »

hilbert42 wrote: post #102

I find it highly annoying that these rather powerful handheld smartphone computers don't have decent port access for use with instrumentation, etc. A huge range of features comes to mind from Geiger counters, oscilloscopes, sound level measurement, light intensity, etc , etc. The potential to expand the smartphone capability is enormous yet no manufacturer has tackled it. Why not? Why aren't there multiple USB ports?…

> Why aren't there multiple USB ports? By now why don't all phones use USB-3? Why isn't there general purpose D/A and A/D ports/outputs for instrumentation? Why don't they include a GPIB-like bus to connect to things? Why can't we use the screen as an oscilloscope with a bandwidth of say 100MHz?

Because the population of people that would actually use that functionality rounds to approximately 0. There do exist phones with multiple USB ports, and there do exist plenty of USB3 capable phones. Instrumentation and measurement is an extremely specialized field, and the number of people that would maybe find use out of it would quickly switch to a more useful interface for something like an oscilloscope.

For your general purpose adc and dac, they already make one: it’s called a usb-c audio adapter.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#108

Post by Lariscus »

jillyboel wrote: post #90
ghaff wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems pretty judgmental even if I'm not really in a position to weigh in on whether it's a particularly bad idea or not.

If you're in school you will have to write papers. It is objectively a worse experience to do so on a phone than on a full sized keyboard and screen.

A piece of paper and any kind of pencil will do just fine for writing papers. There is no need for a laptop.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#109

Post by ghaff »

Lariscus wrote: post #108
jillyboel wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're in school you will have to write papers. It is objectively a worse experience to do so on a phone than on a full sized keyboard and screen.

A piece of paper and any kind of pencil will do just fine for writing papers. There is no need for a laptop.

Don't know what schools typically require these days. But I generally agree that requiring laptops, especially in younger grades, seems unnecessary.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#110

Post by ghaff »

cassepipe wrote: post #85
pjmlp wrote: post #79

It has been years already for me, I don't buy any Android phone that goes over the 300 euro barrier, and use them until they are no longer fit for purpose, meaning they die, or get stolen. Updates are anyway a joke, so I stop caring for that to the point I only have a passing interest on what Android team shows off at Google I/O. Apple stuff I only use via my employer/customers, but same reasoning applies regarding f…

Happy user of a Galaxy S7 from 2016. It's smaller than what you can get now and has a physical apps/home/back area which I love. I use them till I break or lose them. I never have to care about because I know I can get a second had one for less than 100 euros. Not having valuable stuff with is really liberating. Will use them until I can't no more.

Who regularly gets phones lost or stolen? I did break one once hiking with some sort of rock collision in my pocket but this isn't a regular thing over many years.
Post reply on HN