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The Light Phone III

thelightphone.com

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Re: The Light Phone III

#51

Post by [deleted] »

_heimdall wrote: post #39
husam212 wrote: post #4

I would rather get a cheap Android phone with LineageOS and just remove anything I don't want.

I've been tempted by a Light Phone for years but have never made the leap. GrapheneOS and paring my list of apps way down. A homescreen replacement from the F-Droid app store that looks extremely similar to Light Phone's home screen is a nice balance without losing Signal messenger, but I have to say I'm really tempted by this new generation. I'd say the price is way too high, but hardware isn't easy and they don't s…

[deleted]

Re: The Light Phone III

#52

Post by _heimdall »

_heimdall wrote: post #31

Oh they seem to have done a really nice job with this, at least based on specs and mockups. I've been interested in the Light Phone for years but never could commit myself to dealing with so many tradeoffs of the second version. This is very tempting. Signal would be the one app I miss, other than that basic navigation and a podcast player is really all I use anyway.

I missed that they moved from an eink display to AMOLED.

I'm a little surprised they did that actually, I thought they got quite a few customers due to the e-ink display. There have been a few devices recently with greatly improved eink performance and resolution, I was hoping the LP3 would have managed to go with one to keep the nicer reading experience.

Re: The Light Phone III

#53

Post by _heimdall »

Rumudiez wrote: post #42

I really want to make the switch, but I still need a web browser for a minimum viable replacement. I don’t want to manage 2 phones just for the occasional restaurant that makes you order from a QR code or parking meter with a busted display

The idea of a restaurant or parking meter requiring internet access is crazy to me. I'm clearly just getting old, but there's no way I'd gate my customers on the assumption that they have a smartphone with them. Dead batteries, data connection issues, shit happens.

Re: The Light Phone III

#54

Post by sockbot »

islewis wrote: post #35
sockbot wrote: post #22

So many services now, including government, are requiring phones for "two step" authentication. There are technically alternatives like receiving a phone call or a secret word lookup table, but those are so impractical to use that I need my phone to be a TOTP device. I was close to putting in a preorder but I will need to see TOTP supported before I can drop my regular smart phone.

Could a hardware authenticator (Yubikey) be a workaround for this? Or are there services which don't support this?

Not only are there tons of devices that don't support non TOTP, a lot of them are not optional due to monopoly or oligopoly. Government, for one. Banking is another (SMS "auth")

Re: The Light Phone III

#55

Post by RIMR »

neilv wrote: post #6

With those corners being rounded only in 2 dimensions, will the 3rd be rough on pockets? (The only pocket photo is the phone half-inserted into what looks like the non-tight front of a paint-splattered heavy denim work apron, pulled away.)

My guess is yes. I have a little MP3 player (HiFi Walker) with similar thickness and hard edges, and I had to find a little silicone sleeve for it because it rubbed a hole in my pocket from walking with it too much.

Re: The Light Phone III

#56

Post by LeifCarrotson »

GoodJokes wrote: post #32
RadiozRadioz wrote: post #12

I'd buy this purely to support a company making phones held together with screws. Oh how I long and wish that my phone had screws. This glued-shut brittle glass box with a puffy time bomb inside makes me sad. It's sad that the concept of a phone with screws makes me so happy.

It’s all about durability. For example, that phone is not going to be up to the standard of an iPhone when it comes to water resistance. What’s better constantly being able to fix your own phone or never needing to fix your phone. It is a spectrum, but I think for environmental and most consumer reasons, one wants it to be more towards the later.

"Never" is a false hope when the average lifespan of a phone is something like 2.5 years.

The battery will fail, it's just a matter of time. The screen will become cracked. The charge port will become corroded or loose. Water intrusion will happen and be unrepairable because it's inaccessible and uncleanable, not because anything's been dissolved.

Yes, eventually the hardware will be inadequate to keep up with modern apps and websites, but I think we're to the point of diminishing returns on laptops and close to it on smartphones.

And yes, eventually the software will not be supported, but that's a problem of hardware churn and economics, not engineering and durability.

A short lifespan is largely because it's not repairable, not in spite of it being repairable.

Re: The Light Phone III

#57

Post by 1oooqooq »

SahAssar wrote: post #45

If it's not eink and it's not smaller than other small-ish phones then I don't really see the point of using this besides skinning an existing phone and just not installing apps you don't need. Get an iphone mini, don't install any apps, turn on greyscale mode. There you have a cheaper version of this, and if you have any apps that you actually need for identification or banks or similar you can actually still use th…

there's no way to remove most bundled software on a phone (Android, ios)

Re: The Light Phone III

#58

Post by 1oooqooq »

sockbot wrote: post #22

So many services now, including government, are requiring phones for "two step" authentication. There are technically alternatives like receiving a phone call or a secret word lookup table, but those are so impractical to use that I need my phone to be a TOTP device. I was close to putting in a preorder but I will need to see TOTP supported before I can drop my regular smart phone.

all comments on this thread are pointless as the requirement now is a non-rooted Android or ios phone with a special app per entity.

nobody is accepting TOTP anymore.

some govts (br, sg, ru) even allows govt apps to authenticate via bank apps.

Re: The Light Phone III

#59

Post by fragmede »

Johnny555 wrote: post #34
sjducb wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An alternative is a really slow and old android phone. One that has a visible lag as it logs in and you have to wait for a minute or so before the apps open.

Doesn't "old android phone" also mean one that's no longer getting security updates? Probably not what you want on a phone that hosts your TOTP tokens.

if you don't run random apps and or use it for web browsing, and block incoming sms, a standalone device would have a smaller attack surface. if you really wanted to be paranoid, TOTP is computed off the time and a seed value and doesn't need Internet access, so the standalone device could have the cell modem and wifi disabled to reduce the attack surface even more.

Re: The Light Phone III

#60

Post by SahAssar »

1oooqooq wrote: post #57
SahAssar wrote: post #45

If it's not eink and it's not smaller than other small-ish phones then I don't really see the point of using this besides skinning an existing phone and just not installing apps you don't need. Get an iphone mini, don't install any apps, turn on greyscale mode. There you have a cheaper version of this, and if you have any apps that you actually need for identification or banks or similar you can actually still use th…

there's no way to remove most bundled software on a phone (Android, ios)

There is usually a way to hide it and if you don't use them you should not get any (or at least not many) notifications. For more free android phones you can also absolutely remove them or load a distro that does not include them at all.

I'm very confident that I could recreate a similar enough experience on iOS or "normal" android at a similar price-point.

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