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Essential Phone, available now

essential.com

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Re: Essential Phone, available now

#541

Post by as1mov »

baddox wrote: post #289
as1mov wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Manufacturers just stopped making phones with PKB because since Apple wasn't making them, they weren't worth it. It hard to estimate the demand for PKB phones when no one is making them. I'd buy one in heartbeat if one launched with low-mid end specs and less than $400. We've constantly chosen form over functionality. Larger sized phones, fragile build materials(glass over plastic), lesser battery just so…

What is the draw of a tiny physical keyboard? I can type much faster on an iPhone than with any similarly-sized physical keyboard. The only advantage I can think of is the ability to touch type without paying attention to the screen as closely, but for a phone that doesn't seem like a very big deal.

I can still type faster on physical keyboards. But the two other noteworthy advantages were

1. Ability to use the phone as a emulator machine. I had a Xperia X10 Mini Pro few years back. I used for playing Snes, Genesis, GBA/C, NES games. Playing the same games with a touch keyboard is almost impossible. Not to mention native Android/iPhone games are just gimmicks at this point due to being crippled by having only touch based input.

2. It's easier to enter arcane commands and text with the physical keyboard. Useful for things like SSH, fiddling with the terminal etc.

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#542

Post by as1mov »

epicide wrote: post #262
as1mov wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Manufacturers just stopped making phones with PKB because since Apple wasn't making them, they weren't worth it. It hard to estimate the demand for PKB phones when no one is making them. I'd buy one in heartbeat if one launched with low-mid end specs and less than $400. We've constantly chosen form over functionality. Larger sized phones, fragile build materials(glass over plastic), lesser battery just so…

Decent specs, niche audience, cheap. Pick two.

Considering I mentioned low end specs in the parent comment, I think I'll go with 'niche audience' and 'cheap' :)

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#543

Post by as1mov »

drewmol wrote: post #292
as1mov wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Manufacturers just stopped making phones with PKB because since Apple wasn't making them, they weren't worth it. It hard to estimate the demand for PKB phones when no one is making them. I'd buy one in heartbeat if one launched with low-mid end specs and less than $400. We've constantly chosen form over functionality. Larger sized phones, fragile build materials(glass over plastic), lesser battery just so…

I want an email client, talk, text, gps, music streaming app, dual sim, wifi, 4G Bluetooth, eBook/PDF, voice to text on an e-ink screen. Would settle for email client talk text and wifi on e-ink. Edit: forgot tracking cookies, telemetry, and an animated paperclip assistant thing

Err...have you tried Yotaphone? They are coming up with a second iteration. Someone will probably hack it to use the secondary e-ink display to show whatever you want.

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#544

Post by tomaskafka »

zanny wrote: post #483

Since no one else has, I'll take the piss out of this "hollier than thou" bullshit. > Devices are your personal property. We won’t force you to have anything you don’t want. Devices are your personal property. The SoC is still a proprietary trade secret, the baseband is still spying on you for the NSA, the GPU is still a closed blob piece of shit. No mainline driver support, bootloader is closed source, firmware is c…

> Technology should be trustable, and a device where you cannot tell if or when the microphone and/or camera are recording and being remotely accessed is anything but.

Yes. This means no Google services.

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#545

Post by natch »

exabrial wrote: post #411
natch wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any of these should work: https://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywo...

Much like JNCOs, dongles were a bad idea from the 90s, why are we reliving this

I thought we already went over this moths ago.

It's because 1) they want to save space inside the housing for other components, and 2) industry leaders want to move the industry beyond wired headphones.

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#547

Post by wingerlang »

patrickthebold wrote: post #514
froo wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Devices shouldn’t become outdated every year. They should evolve with you. I really don't understand this sentiment. I've still got my iPhone 6 Plus. I haven't seen the need to upgrade yet. It does absolutely everything I want. At this rate, the only reason I'm going to upgrade is if I destroy my phone somehow (I've yet to even put a major scratch on any of my smartphones over the years) or if a vendor comes out w…

>>I've still got my iPhone 6 Plus. Not the parent, but that's pretty new. I used a 4s earlier this year and there were several apps that couldn't be upgraded and/or stopped working.

That's still an 6 year old phone, do you consider this long or short? Generally Apple are extremely good at keeping their devices usable.

I used an iPhone 4 up until late last year, my dad is still using it. Now I upgraded to an iPhone 5s.

The annoying part is generally apps that require a higher OS, which is the app developers fault. But even then you don't always necessarily /need/ the absolute newest version of an app.

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#548

Post by jacalata »

betenoire wrote: post #362
jacalata wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tons of things, like "my phone is two weeks old and the battery life has halved"

I'd complain about the battery in that case, not support.

Well, if you want your complaining to achieve anything, you should do it to support.

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#549

Post by riku_iki »

dforrestwilson wrote: post #427
bmelton wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you find problematic with the Pixel?

I currently use a Nexus 6, and I run into issues with the battery as well as general performance when the battery is low (despite turning off battery saver). Otherwise the phone is fine (if a bit too large and less sexy than an iPhone). I'm also becoming more concerned about privacy, and in that respect I think Apple will probably always care more than Google.

I switched from N6 to Pixel XL, and difference is very significant: no lags at all, I now don't know what more I would want from the phone. For N6, I think they had some hardware bug in memory card controller, which degradated performance because of some data fragmentation.

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#550

Post by dayaz36 »

Timing could not be any worse. iPhone 8 will be out next month so even the people considering buying Essential will at least wait it out another month to see how the iPhone is. And by then, the spotlight will be turned towards the iPhone and people will be less excited about Essential. They needed to release this months ago, as far away from September as possible
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