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Essential Phone, available now

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Re: Essential Phone, available now

#401

Post by r3bl »

balls187 wrote: post #301
fiatjaf wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Mostly in the US"? Of course, it's only being sold in the US. Do you know how awful it is for a single customer to try to buy something from another country?

> Do you know how awful it is for a single customer to try to buy something from another country? Would you mind elaborating?

I think I can sum it up like this: no worldwide delivery for a substantial amount of products you can buy online + higher shipping costs + import cost (in my country, anything above ~30 bucks) + occasional delivery failure + at least a month of waiting for the actual delivery.

I once payed ~$30 import tax for ~$40 worth of books from Amazon. I ended up purchasing Kindle (no delivery inside of my country, so I had it delivered to another country + didn't declare it at the airport) just to avoid dealing with all of the above for book deliveries.

And I'm not living anywhere remotely inaccessible. I've lived most of my life like 500 meters + a river away from the European Union country.

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#402

Post by sannee »

scott_karana wrote: post #380
Yetanfou wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and if you believe that, I've got a bridge for sale. Titanium is many things but soft it is not. It can also be alloyed with many other metals for specific purposes. One thing it definitely is though is expensive which is most likely the reason for Apple to look for alternatives. That is actually is possible to use titanium to create form-stable notebooks can be seen by e.g. the many Thinkpads which sport titanium…

Thinkpads generally use magnesium frames, not titanium. https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-T400-T500-and-newer-T/...

For anyone wanting to brighten their day with some thinkpads, it unfortunately looks like large chunks of magnesium are not flammable [1].

[1] http://www.fishercast.com/downloads/FisherCast_Magnesium_Whi...

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#403

Post by throwaway613834 »

veeti wrote: post #395
throwaway613834 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just make sure not to open any videos from the internet. Hardly an issue! What? Chrome and Firefox protect against it [1]... do you not use either? [1] https://www.howtogeek.com/225834/stagefright-what-you-need-t...

The app-level "mitigation" is that media isn't automatically loaded. You are still just as vulnerable after you decide to play that innocuous-looking MP4 file.

I wasn't aware, thanks for mentioning that. However, the videos I watch are on YouTube and news sites and such... not sketchy sites. And I never play MP4s on my phone directly (unless they're videos I've recorded). I'm not sure many others do either, frankly. So how much do I need to worry and how much of a justification is this to upgrade the phone every 1-2 years?

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#404

Post by Animats »

metalliqaz wrote: post #229
Animats wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generic unlocked Android smartphones, which this is, run $200-$400.

Well, I don't think they want a piece of that market. I think they want a piece of the high-end market.

That doesn't mean they get much of it.

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#405

Post by r3bl »

5trokerac3 wrote: post #37

Freedom from everything except needing a Google account to turn the damn thing on.

Well, if you stay outside of the Google Play Store, you don't really need a Google account to get it working. Bought a new one this month, and I was able to do basic functions + receive a security update before I got home and typed in the password from my password manager.

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#407

Post by lolsal »

notheguyouthink wrote: post #374
lolsal wrote: post #48

> Your phone is your personal property. It’s a public expression of who you are and what you stand for. No, it's really not. It's literally just a tool I use for communication.

> No, it's really not. It's literally just a tool I use for communication. I'm curious, wouldn't that imply you're not the demographic they're seeking? So are you basically saying, "I'm not in their demographic"? Or is there another point to your comment that I'm missing. I ask because often I see people get pissy about statements like this, almost as if they think the web page was curated for them. I could make a we…

I don't like the marketing appeal to some sort of deep emotional instinct that the advertisement is making. I think it's ridiculous that consumer goods represent who I am and what I might stand for. That's silliness and hyperbole, right? To say that a person's phone choice defines them in any sort of meaningful way is extremely silly to me. This feels similar to something like:

"This product stands for freedom! You stand for freedom don't you?"

The guitar analogy is not accurate - your statement about cherishing the guitar is evaluated internally and is true or false. It's not the same as saying the guitar publicly and externally (and deliberately!) defines you and what you stand for.

"There goes lolsal - now there's a guy that really stands for non-branded personal compute devices!" Give me a break.

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#408

Post by epmaybe »

Hasz wrote: post #338

You want fixable and well designed, long software updates, and a good price? Buy an (old) iPhone. I've got a 5S -- still perfectly fast for what I use it for (email, youtube, brokerage account, general internet, some small games), and is getting OS updates and security patches until IOS11. It's $120 on eBay; a new screen can be had for $13, a new battery for $11. it's solidly designed and there's a gigantic field of…

The se, if you're lucky, can even be found for less than $200 USD. Amazing battery and performance, enough that I can forgive the smaller display and 1st generation touch ID.

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#409

Post by davemp »

tjoff wrote: post #400
davemp wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of clunky and may cause issues with multiplexing high bandwidth protocols like monitors.

Clunky in the face of connecting monitors and many peripherals? If anything it would make it way easier.

If I'm holding a phone I don't want a usb hub flapping around to plug in >1 device. More ports fit strictly more use cases. The only reason to limit phones to one port is so the manufacturer can save a few bucks.

Sure I can work around just about any problem, but I'm gonna say fuck you for making me.

EDIT: someone should fund me to make the ~11mm no speaker, no aux port, 2-4 usb-c port, dual sim, large/fast storage, beefy battery, rooted, juicy ass laptop killer that nobody knew they needed.

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#410

Post by posguy »

freehunter wrote: post #387
Hasz wrote: post #338

You want fixable and well designed, long software updates, and a good price? Buy an (old) iPhone. I've got a 5S -- still perfectly fast for what I use it for (email, youtube, brokerage account, general internet, some small games), and is getting OS updates and security patches until IOS11. It's $120 on eBay; a new screen can be had for $13, a new battery for $11. it's solidly designed and there's a gigantic field of…

Plus you have a great piece of industrial design. I love the look of the 5S/SE. It looks premium, it feels nice in your hand, it's solid, and those chamfered edges are so nice. It's a shame they went from that to the iPhone 6 design and stuck with it all this time. It might make bigger phones easier to hold but man it just doesn't look as nice IMO. It looks like a generic round phone. Nothing stands out about it at a…

Having sold hundreds of iPhone 5s's when I was selling B2B, I have to say I was fairly unimpressed. Not great battery life over time, if an employee left with iCloud enabled it was a whole affair with Apple to get them to reset the device and allow it to be reused, and the brick style design is not very comfortable overall.

My favorite is the curved back, as is on most Motorola's and some LGs. Personally, I stick with cheap LG phones ($100 or so) that are rootable/rommable. If the phone gets damaged or I want a newer phone, no skin off my back, biggest concern is just moving Signal Private Messenger over to the new phone I get :P

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