Live data from Hacker News

HMD Touch 4G

hmd.com

41–50 of 120 posts

Re: HMD Touch 4G

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah in your dreams maybe. I'm often seeing zero bars, asking others if they have any signal only to have them show me a full 5G signal. New towers aren't backwards compatible, and the bandwidth has been largely reduced.

> New towers aren't backwards compatible, and the bandwidth has been largely reduced. Yup. In tech-speak there is 5G NSA (Non-Standalone Architecture) and 5G SA (Standalone Architecture). 5G NSA is a kludge, it is 5G radios operating on a legacy 4G core. Inherently backwards compatible. 5G SA is 5G radios on 5G core. Clearly not backwards compatible. 5G SA is the preferred route for good reason: 1. It delivers reduce…

In other words - noone in real life is deploying 5G only infrastructure right now and won't for awhile.

MSR base stations are the norm in the industry, not a rarity.

Re: HMD Touch 4G

#42

This is an odd little device. It seems you can only call other express chat users? it's reminiscent of cellphone systems from the old old days like Nextel walkie talkies. Also I see its available in India only and given the feature restrictions perhaps it's meant as an ultra low end device ? If HMD came out with something that was optimized to the nth degree for whatsapp calls, that might be interesting, but even the…

I assure you it can do regular calls and texting on the public telephony grid.

Re: HMD Touch 4G

#43
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did you mix up 4G with 3G/2G? Most operators have switched off both 3G and 2G by now.

This is why I'm asking, because noone is shutting down 4G anywhere. And 5G actually has LESS range than 4G.

4G is ending up as the replacement to 2G as the base network. I suspect 5G networks will be shut down before 4G ones given IoT devices are largely setting on the low power variants of LTE.

Re: HMD Touch 4G

#44
post #31

Without WhatsApp support it will not go far.

> Without WhatsApp support it will not go far. Speaking of which, it is bizarre how the tables have turned. Whatsapp used to support everything under the sun... But now it is all Android and iPhone

To be fair there's nothing else left under this sun.

Re: HMD Touch 4G

#47

What is special about this? Does it cost $20? Is it a cheap smart phone (why do they call it a hybrid phone?) targetting India (mentioning of cricket)?

It says "Small phone".

And it is indeed smaller than most smartphones. Apple never made a small smartphone, presumably because they need the big screen for their vending-machine-in-your-pocket to sell more content.

Re: HMD Touch 4G

#49
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without WhatsApp support it will not go far. Speaking of which, it is bizarre how the tables have turned. Whatsapp used to support everything under the sun... But now it is all Android and iPhone

To be fair there's nothing else left under this sun.

It's a chicken and egg problem tho, whatsapp doesn't support smaller platforms, and smaller platforms can't grow without app support. I remember that the uptake of Windows Phone 7 and early versions of 8 was pretty low partly because whatsapp didn't support that OS.

Re: HMD Touch 4G

#50
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you mix up 4G with 3G/2G?

> Did you mix up 4G with 3G/2G? Most operators have switched off both 3G and 2G by now.

2G is still active in a few areas as a low-speed, long-range fallback while 3G is being shut down.
Post reply on HN