$700 and no headphone jack? what courage!
Essential Phone, available now
451–460 of 695 posts
Re: Essential Phone, available now
#452Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, do tell. What does my choice of an iPhone express about who I am? People seem to believe they can infer a very weird amount from a smidgen more than 1 bit of information.
You don't care about free software.
I have an iPhone, and a mac (two actually,) and an AppleTV, and an Apple Watch. There are a pair of beats headphones sitting next to me on the coffee table.
Somehow, I still manage to write free software that I care about, release it for free, and contribute to other FOSS projects. Caring about free software doesn't mean I have to use ONLY free software.
What you're doing with that argument is called gatekeeping http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Gatekeeping
Re: Essential Phone, available now
#453I think this company gets a lot of things right. Frankly, some of their marketing really speaks to me, like this bit from the home page[0].
Your phone is your personal property. It’s a public expression of who you are and what you stand for.
Just because we played a part in making it doesn’t mean you should be forced to advertise that fact to everyone in your life. Now you know why we don't have any logos on the phone.
They've thoroughly outclassed Apple in this and a number of other ways. I think they've put a lot of thought into matching the thoughts and aspirations of customers, and if the phone is anywhere near what it's cracked up to be, it's probably worth the price.
Re: Essential Phone, available now
#454Give me software updates for 7+ years, then we'll talk about buying your $700 phone. Lasting hardware means nothing without lasting software. In the meanwhile, I'll keep buying $120 phones (Moto G4 with Amazon Ads FTW) and keeping them for ~2 years until they break or software updates stop. Even though as a Catholic (Laudato Si, Rerum Novarum) it kills me to waste all those materials every couple of years and be part…
I'm 90% sure this is because Qualcomm won't give out the source to various drivers. Instead you get a binary blob to deal with which makes the interface with other parts of the system untenable over time.
Re: Essential Phone, available now
#455I found it off-putting that on the home page, the 2nd section about the phone was an interview with the founder with exposition on his intentions. Seems unnecessarily narcissistic--tell me about the phone and it's features first and sell me on your product.
Further down the page you "meet" more of the team. I think the idea is to emphasize that this is a phone made by real people, not an faceless corporation.
I don't really disagree with your response, but I do think there is something nice about humanizing the design and production of technology.
Re: Essential Phone, available now
#456Earlier quoted context omitted.
If this has to be a car metaphor, surely it's automatic vs manual transmission. And there have been no mass market cars with joysticks but there have been a number of phones with keyboards.
And the manual transmission is also almost dead, at least in the US. And soon self driving cars and electrics will make the whole question moot, just like voice and gestures and mental control will make keyboard preference obsolete.
> at least in the US
They are alive and kicking everywhere else.
Re: Essential Phone, available now
#457You 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…
iPhone SE is available for as little as $150 from best buy depending on your carrier and it's guaranteed updates until at least 2020 (assuming a 3 year update schedule).
Re: Essential Phone, available now
#458Give me software updates for 7+ years, then we'll talk about buying your $700 phone. Lasting hardware means nothing without lasting software. In the meanwhile, I'll keep buying $120 phones (Moto G4 with Amazon Ads FTW) and keeping them for ~2 years until they break or software updates stop. Even though as a Catholic (Laudato Si, Rerum Novarum) it kills me to waste all those materials every couple of years and be part…
I'm 90% sure this is because Qualcomm won't give out the source to various drivers. Instead you get a binary blob to deal with which makes the interface with other parts of the system untenable over time.
Google fixed that in Android O with Project Treble, but the Essential Phone won't ship with O unfortunately.
Re: Essential Phone, available now
#459Give me software updates for 7+ years, then we'll talk about buying your $700 phone. Lasting hardware means nothing without lasting software. In the meanwhile, I'll keep buying $120 phones (Moto G4 with Amazon Ads FTW) and keeping them for ~2 years until they break or software updates stop. Even though as a Catholic (Laudato Si, Rerum Novarum) it kills me to waste all those materials every couple of years and be part…
I'm 90% sure this is because Qualcomm won't give out the source to various drivers. Instead you get a binary blob to deal with which makes the interface with other parts of the system untenable over time.
You are (mostly) correct. Either qcom doesn't give you blob updates (sometimes) or they don't update vendor/qcom/proprietary for new releases (most of the time). Partially on qcom, partially on OEMs.
Re: Essential Phone, available now
#460Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh, what are those apps then? Also, what accessories? There's just a charger right? Supposedly Lineage runs well on them btw.
That's another annoying thing. OnePlus uses a specific type of charger, the Dash(tm) charger, so you can't just buy any random USB charging unit, or else it will take all day to charge. And the chargers are expensive. The other problem is that the screen is not flat, so you need to buy a curved screen protector. For the OnePlus 3, they've been sold out for months, and have no plans to restock them. Furthermore, there…
I can only agree with the dash charger, I've had no problems getting what turned out to be better screen protectors than the official from Amazon for my one plus three.
On the plus side I plug my dash charger in and forty minutes later I've got a charge that will last the day.
But agreed that if I forget to bring it on overnight trips it's annoying.
And the phone has worked flawlessly for my needs.