191–200 of 702 posts
Screen power draw and battery capacity scale as the square of the linear dimension. They largely cancel out.
However, all the other hardware are a fixed size so proportionally large phones have longer battery lives.
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> very small Android phones IMHO this is just not viable in the current world. I agree with line the article sets (5"4 for 1080p, almost the size of the Pixel 4a), as mainstream apps will properly work at that size. I still have a working 4a, and some banking apps are getting pretty cramped for instance. And many websites already need furious panning and zooming. A credit card size phone would only work for people wh…
I agree. I think the article about them was on Ars Technica, but I don’t really feel like looking for it. They seemed underwhelmed at the phones. [EDITED TO ADD] Found ‘em: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/10/palm-rises-from-the-... Also, these: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/11/meet-this-unique-com...
I used the iPhone SE 1 until January of this year, it was such a great phone and a great form factor. I wrote an article about it to send it off: https://blog.bschwind.com/2025/01/11/the-original-iphone-se-...
Pour one out. I’m still on my SE 2020 and have no idea what to go to once it dies.
If you are interested, Unihertz launched the titan 2 and it's pretty nice, but no waterproofing or wireless charging are big issues for me.
My cynical take is that small phones don't exist because they are not the product. Similar to vape pens the product is the addictive substance the device loads. In this case its apps and ads. A smaller screen probably negatively impacts KPIs on many levels, at Google/Apple/Meta/X and on down through the ecosystem. I understand that Apple did not make enough money to make it worth their while to continue the iphone mi…
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What Linux computer can you buy with the battery life, quietness, lack of heat and speed of a modern ARM based Mac? As far as phones - your alternative is to buy an Android phone with an operating system by an ad company that is also pushing AI just as hard. And you still end up getting most apps from the Google Play Store. By the way, iMessage supports SMS/MMS/RCS for interoperability. What else do you want?
> What Linux computer can you buy with the battery life, quietness, lack of heat and speed of a modern ARM based Mac? M1 Air or M2 Air, running Asahi Linux. I am posting this using my M1 Air, running Fedora Asahi. > As far as phones - your alternative is to buy an Android phone with an operating system by an ad company that is also pushing AI just as hard. I use Fairphone 4 with Ubuntu Touch.
As far as the Fairphone - poor battery life, bulky, poor camera, and the IP rating of 55 for water? Well at least it runs Linux.
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You’re way too cynical and have let your cynicism cloud history. The first phablets were probably the Galaxy Note line starting in 2011 which was met with some skepticism due to the size of them. These were well before the edge to edge screen days. So you had 5.7 inch screens with a bezel. They were huge but I would routinely see small women pull these things out of their hand bags and press a device that obscured al…
The general population wants larger phones because they are addicted to their screens.
It's a vicious cycle. Phone manufactures make the screen bigger, app and website developers realize they can cram more junk on the page, consumers demand larger screens as a result, return to step 1.
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Folding phones don't solve the problem of oversized phones, which is that they are awkward and cumbersome to use.
Some customers want a phone the size of iPhone Mini, rumored to be sold for $2K+ by Apple in 2026.
I get the "just works" with decent privacy aspect of the smaller iPhone, health benefits from Apple Watch and for anything requiring longer screen time, termux, shelter cloned apps etc. I use the bigger android (Infact I'm typing this on the excellent HN client Hacki from android).
Earlier I used to use Apple Watch with android using a tool I built[1] which now serves notifications from android to my iPhone.
I'm glad Eric is going ahead with the small phone.
[1] https://github.com/abishekmuthian/apple-watch-with-android