• weew@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    Because every time a manufacturer releases a small phone, nobody buys them.

  • kamen@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Because apparently people want big phones.

    For the last 10-15 years it’s been a boiling frog situation really - .1 or .2" increase every generation until 7" somehow becomes the norm (for a phone, not a tablet, mind you).

    I wish there were more small hi-end phones too.

  • BlueBaggy@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    “Why can’t we go back to small phones”

    Company releases small phone

    “No one” buys it

    Company stops making small phones

    People complaining why there are no small phones

  • User79185@discuss.tchncs.de
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    2 days ago

    I do, I bought smallest phone available from known company. But most of those companies just decided you need huge phone that can’t fit everywhere, removed sdcard slot, removed headphone jack. Last time I remember nobody asked them to remove those features. I think it is the same enshittification like with everything, they no longer make cheap houses, smaller cheaper cars, actual budget gpus etc, etc. Feels like every company targets top 20% and the rest - gtfo and be damned.

  • jaschen@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    You can. Ditch Apple and join us. Plenty of small phone selections here on the other side. Edit: you know what. Android doesn’t have that many either.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      And screen. And buttons.

      I also want something that’s supported more than 3 years so there’s a point to repairing it. Ideally, support should come from the community so it can be infinite as long as someone is willing to do the work.

        • Ulrich@feddit.org
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          I crossed them off the list after they ditched the headphone jack and the CEO tried to blow smoke up everyone’s ass as to why. Then they introduced their new Bluetooth headphones.

        • Lazycog@sopuli.xyz
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          2 days ago

          I’ve also been looking at FP but I believe there are some issues of getting one outside of Europe.

          • nerdyshades@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            I am in the US, and bought my FP5 through clove technologies in the UK. I’m on T-Mobile and get 5G and everything.

        • neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 days ago

          They are pretty expensive for the hardware.

          Unless I’m misremembering don’t they charge flagship prices but have midrange specs?

          • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 days ago

            Unfortunately, that’s the cost you pay for a more “ethical” phone. Apple, Samsung, and all the mainstream phones are cheaper because they are subsidized by underpaid labor and sometimes even child labor.

            (Not judging people who buy mainstream phones, just stating the reality.)

            • neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              2 days ago

              Thanks! I didn’t know that was part of their thing. I just thought they made the phones repairable. Has their supply chain been audited by a third party?

      • NaibofTabr@infosec.pub
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        2 days ago

        I really wanted to buy the Fairphone 5, but they don’t ship replacement parts to where I live which makes the entire concept pointless.

          • NaibofTabr@infosec.pub
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            2 days ago

            OK, so that’s a possibility, but when you start adding a ~$30 fee on top of the cost of the part and shipping from Fairphone you’re looking at about $100 per repair, which stops making sense pretty quickly. You’re better off spending a little more money on a good device that is dust- and moisture-sealed and taking care of it for a few years.

            • Dremor@lemmy.world
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              Makes sense. But you can offset part of the shipping from the fact that you can easily do the repair yourself.

              Another possibility would be the HMD Skyline. Less repairable than Fairphones, but still far easier than most other smartphones. Only 2 years of updates though.

              But starting from 2027, a removable battery will be mandatory for all smartphone in the EU, which mean most, if not all smartphone will switch to removable battery. This may also make repair a lot easier.

          • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 days ago

            Yea, but with the De Minimis rule overturned by the trump administration, importing it to the US is gonna have import fees. And also a lot of fees for each part you import, making the whole “repairability” thing pointless as it cost so much.

    • IHeartBadCode@fedia.io
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      I’m curious, how repairable? Like comfortable with a solder iron or slots and what not like a PC?

      Repairable phones would be great but the demand for them hasn’t undone the cost of design for them. There’s a lot of tech in an incredibly small package, so repairable phone would still require people to have specialty equipment to repair.

      Like very few people own an oven for working with BGA chips. And if we go with socket based chips, the thickness of the phone has to increase or the battery has to decrease.

      Don’t get me wrong, I think an open and repairable phone would be great. But having one is an engineering challenge that most phone makers have opted to just skip putting dollars into because the demand for one doesn’t justify the cost. Your average buyer is just chasing shiny and doesn’t see repairing their dinosaur as valuable.

      But yeah, I’m sure there’s plenty here that would love such a device. Sadly we are not the majority.

      • WrittenInRed [any]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 days ago

        Imo I don’t think the goal is/should be “every part is repairable by any average person without tools” tbh. Like that would be awesome but it also isn’t realistic, like you said phones are super complicated. But making simple repairs – stuff like swapping a battery – possible for anybody is realistic imo, and then the rest should be as easy to repair as possible for local shops or someone who does have the necessary skills and equipment. At least personally I feel like that’s a good spot to aim for.

      • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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        2 days ago

        Replacing SMT components would fall outside of repairability for 99.99999% of people. More realistically things like ports, screens, and batteries should be replaceable since they’re typically connected to the main board with cables. Furthermore ICs going back on a phone is probably extremely rare while the above mentioned items are very common failure points.

      • Druid@lemmy.zip
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        2 days ago

        It’s sad that people have gotten used to just throwing away stuff instead of repairing it. Sure, some repairs really aren’t worth it - like the screen I’d gotten replaced of my LG G3 that was prone to have this defect with its screen regardless of screen swaps and whatnot - but most of the time, it’s just minor things that can actually be fixed by non-tech savvy person.

        I think it should be of paramount importance that more companies are held accountable as to the amount of waste they’re producing and how much they’re contributing to pollution and waste around the globe. Unfortunately, capitalism is a thing, so that’s not gonna happen.

        Having repairable options for those that do care is awesome, though. If I could afford, I’d gladly go for a Fairphone if I ever need to replace my current phone (still going strong after 5 years of use). Until their mass appeal, they’ll likely remain out of my pockets.

      • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 days ago

        Bga is more about skill than equipment. I’ve done it with a cheap hot air gun and a toaster oven. Though it took many failed attempts to get right

        But this isn’t always about your phone being repairable by you. It’s about your phone being repairable at all. Apple, google, samsung, et al have made it clear that they have no interest in refurbishing and repairing phones. That’s fine, they have the right to do whatever I guess. And further, this creates a great opportunity for many people to create small businesses.

        America has very few markets left wherein one can create a business that is not utterly dominated by some conglomerate that will eat your shit. This is one where you can do so, with honest work (eg not just buying shit from Chinese manufacturers and reselling it on amazon for a profit).

        However, the tech industry is openly hostile to small business and its consumers, so every business that has worked in this sector has been either destroyed or hollowed out to barely anything by big techs greedy bullshit in the name of security.

        This would enrich communities: you would have another possible route where someone local could open a business within the community, that would hire locally within the community. But apple, samsung, microsoft, etc lobby extremely hard to make sure that they never have to stop pairing parts, providing spare parts, providing schematics, etc. and of course they’re not being asked to do this for free. They’re being asked to do this for a fair and reasonable cost, but they still refuse.

        Now designing phones with user replaceable wear items like batteries or even common failure points like screens is obviously a good idea as well in theory but comes with challenges. However the challenges are mixed. Batteries can be user replaceable in thin and waterproof phones. The galaxy s5 is almost as thin and almost as waterproof as the s23 and has a user replaceable battery. If more engineering effort was put forth I’m sure it could be greatly improved. The issue is design; they (especially apple) don’t want to disrupt their “beautiful”glass back phones that 99.9999% of people slap a case on. User replaceable screens are more challenging to make waterproof but I’m sure they could figure it out.

        But if the above was addressed, they wouldn’t necessarily have to. We could go back to the days of going to a small store next to your grocery store and getting your phone screen changed out for $150 while you do your shopping. except much more money because an iphone 16 pro max oled is ~ $700 just for the screen, which brings up the other issue of people don’t want to repair stuff anymore because component cost is outrageous. The phone is $1200 for the base model so if the screen and labor is $800 a lot of people will (foolishly) go “well for $400 more I can just get a brand new one!” even though it’s the same damn phone. However, these screen prices fall dramatically when the phones get even a few gens older and a bunch get recycled

    • OfficerBribe@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      HMD (Nokia) Skyline has a cool feature where you unscrew 1 screw and can change various things like battery. Unfortunately phone itself is not impressive especially from OS update standpoint (only 2 year support for major Android versions). I would love to see this idea being copied by other manufacturers.

      • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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        Unfortunately phone itself is not impressive especially from OS update standpoint

        I swear to god manufacturers do this on purpose so that they can point to the low volume of sales and claim “See! People don’t really want these features” when in reality they’ve just slapped a couple good features onto a completely dog shit device.

        • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          Unfortunately phone itself is not impressive especially from OS update standpoint (only 2 year support for major Android versions).

          Companies with a smaller market share tend to do that (with Fairphone being the exception).

          Why spend resources to support devices for 5 years (or more) if you can keep selling newer phones and redirect your devs to work on the new phone. Its just capitalism 🤷‍♂️

    • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 days ago

      replace the battery

      Besides the obvious Fairphone, theres a Samsung Galaxy XCover series, which acoording to many users on Reddit, the specs are not great for its price. The latest XCover 6 Pro is like $599 USD at release.

      • daw@feddit.org
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        I bought a refurbished Xcover 6p and so far it’s great. There’s also the perks of being intended for companies: very long software support and pogo pin charging accessoires.

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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      Whoever owns the Nokia badge are selling phones designed specifically for repairability by end users; the only issue I have with them is they don’t really say much about how long they’re going to have software support, so expect it to last 4 to 6 years tops before replacing it becomes required anyway.

  • Fair Fairy@thelemmy.club
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    2 days ago

    I don’t want a small phone or a slide out keyboards.

    I want :
    Replaceable battery.
    Non glass back.
    3.5 jack.

    • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3.5 jack is easy, most budget phones have them (along with a MicroSD card slot)

      The replaceable battery? That’s gonna be hard to find. There the obvious Fairphone, but its very costly for its specs and is only made for EU, and even if someone from the US imports it, the only US carrier allowing it is Tmobile.

      Samsung Galaxy XCover series have IP67 Water resistance, headphone jack, and MicroSD card slot, and the replaceable battery, but its specs are not that good for its cost (as reported by various Reddit users).

      I wouldn’t trust the water resistance tho. One drop into a puddle and the back comes off exposing the internals.

      • SnortsGarlicPowder@lemmy.zip
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        The xcovers backs usually stay on when you drop them and the back only really holds the battery in. The internals are protected by another layer of plastic.

        As you say the specs do suck though.

    • tal@lemmy.today
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      3.5 jack.

      They exist, but it’ll constrain your phone choices a lot.

      I’d just get a USB-C-to-1/8"-TRS adapter. If you want to charge while playing, you can get one with passthrough.

      Without passthrough:

      https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Adapter-Female-Samsung-Devices/dp/B08Z3B5QL3

      or with passthrough:

      https://www.amazon.com/ZOOAUX-Headphone-Charging-Earphones-Compatible/dp/B094Z6149B

      Can probably just leave the thing plugged into your headphones.

        • tal@lemmy.today
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          Just leave it plugged into the headphones, don’t even take it off. I mean, I have 1/4 inch audio hardware, and I’ve got 1/8 inch headphones that have a 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch adaptor that just lives on the end.

          I totally understand people who want to use wired, TRS headphones. They’re inexpensive, widespread, aren’t going to become e-waste when their battery dies, aren’t going to become obsolete when radio protocols move on, are lightweight, don’t suffer from radio interference etc. I have a bunch of TRS headphones and like them. Only downside is that they need some power source if you want to do ANC, but it’s not like one has to have ANC.

          But…I think that a lot of people are treating it as a “we live in a Bluetooth world or a wired headphones world, and which we do depends on whether there’s a TRS jack on the phone itself”.

          I’d also add that if you have a USB-to-TRS device acting as your DAC, you can swap in others, aren’t stuck with the on-phone DAC. I had a phone that had an extremely obnoxious tendency to, when charging in the car, play noise back through the headphones jack (and thus to my car’s aux jack and through the speakers). Was fine on Bluetooth. Problem was that the manufacturer had failed to stick the proper filtering circuitry in the power supply for the DAC and was spewing noise from USB power into the audio output, probably because you couldn’t see a problem when the phone was running on battery and filtering circuitry for the DAC uses up space in the cramped confines of the phone. (In practice, USB power can be amazingly dirty – I was astonished watching some people with oscilloscopes look at the power lines on USB.) Anyway, the noise was appalling. If you use the built-in DAC, you can’t really change the thing out. With an external DAC, you can stick a reasonable one in.

          I don’t know how the ones I linked to above perform. But I’m confident that if they are a problem, there are other DACs out there. Whereas with a built-in jack, you get the DAC that the phone manufacturer provides, and clearly some are willing to ship their phones with an inadequate DAC.

          I’d kind of like to see someone set up a rig with intentionally-dirty USB power and a bunch of USB audio interfaces and USB-powered devices with an audio output and then see how much noise leaks through into the DAC’s output.

          EDIT: I also had a (purely analog) audio mixer at one point that used USB power and also leaked audible – not as bad as my phone in the car – noise from the USB power source into the audio. Solved that by moving it from my computer’s USB output to a dedicated USB charger. I’m sure that there’s still leakage and if I were doing pro audio work with that hardware, I’d still be looking at it, but at least it isn’t easily-perceptible to me any more.

          I think that it might be underappreciated how bad the DAC situation in home electronics is. I haven’t seen people trying to measure and quantify it. I have seen lots of people going to great lengths to measure frequency response on headphones, whether or not a cable has (probably completely unnecessary) shielding, and worry about the encoding of their music and sometimes even its encoding for wireless transmission to headphones over Bluetooth. But “how much junk is leaking into the DAC’s output” seems to be a curiously un-measured area.

  • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
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    Here’s my dilemma:

    • Been without cell service since the pandemic (eventually stopped using the smart phone altogether)
    • All my digital needs are satisfied, devices and functionality in every room for every purpose I need
    • Have multiple forms of solid and satisfactory communication channels (don’t need a cell number)

    I’ve thought about buying a model I could jailbreak, but again it’s just to use a system that’s abusive. “Download our app!”, “Use our digital coupons!”, “Link your phone number!”, “Scan our code!”, “Let us track your location for your convenience!”.

    I’m really a niche subgroup though, I already need other devices while at work that a phone wouldn’t suffice for. I kinda see more people going this route though. If your transportation has a computer, then what’s the endpoint in carrying a phone? If your job requires digital devices, the phone is basically reduced to a large brick of a communication device. I see more and more equipment being specialized and having added communication aspects for more complicated machinery, cell phones are not going to keep up with it in a general sense.

    tldr: cell phones are just a fad with an abusive system that will die out one day and be remembered like rotary phones. They’re generally subpar for any specific task and are only a place holder till we figure out better systems.

  • Habarug@lemm.ee
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    Well, I can’t speak for everyone else, but I can’t go back because they don’t sell any small phones.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      I picked the Pixel 8 because:

      1. it runs GrapheneOS
      2. It was a little smaller than the Pixel 8 Pro

      If there was a smaller version available, I would’ve gotten that instead.

      • EngineerGaming@feddit.nl
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        2 days ago

        I picked the Pixel A because:

        1. It runs GrapheneOS
        2. It’s slightly smaller and slightly cheaper than the normal version
        3. The back is plastic and not glass

        Glad I can use it and type on it one-handed, can’t imagine using a bigger phone.

        • wols@lemm.ee
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          The only A series Pixel phone smaller than the Pixel 8 was the Pixel 4a.

            • wols@lemm.ee
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              That point absolutely still stands.
              It’s just strange that since the 4a, the 2 smallest phones Google released were both not in the a series.

      • rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works
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        I’ve been using the “A” branch of the Pixel line for years now.

        But I use CalyxOS so I guess you and I have to be enemies now. My name is Inigo Montoya, you use a different OS, prepare to die.

      • Krelis_@lemmy.world
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        I picked the Sony Xperia 1v because:

        • 71mm width (similar to pixel 8)
        • Flagship specs (*for 2023 - Snapdragon 8 gen2 / 12gb)
        • not Google Samsung or Apple
        • little to no bloatware
        • Decent cameras
        • SD card expandable
        • Headphone jack 3.5mm (though I haven’t used it yet)
        • No glass back (and solid build quality allround)
        • LineageOS support (for when vendor support runs out)
        • I got a good refurb deal in 2024

        I was considering a Zenphone 10 or Xperia 5 v - mainly for size and brand reasons as above - when i found this for £650

        • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl
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          I picked the 5ii for similar reasons at the time.

          The problem is it only gets 2 years of support, so I haven’t gotten an update in years. Sony is living in 2010.

          The fingerprint reader slowly stopped working 6 months ago via a prolific software bug that is all over forums for xperias that will never be fixed.

          The battery (even ONLY charging it to 80% using battery care) is horrific after a few years, mediocre when I got it and the standby time is shit. It loses 1.5-2% battery per hour not being used at all now. I get maybe 4h SOT browsing (much less with video).

          The default camera app is crap and not even worth using…

          I want to try lineageOS when I get the time to see if it fixes the battery and fingerprint reader, but here in Belgium we really need access to our bank apps because almost everything is done through there.

          • calamityjanitor@lemmy.world
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            I had a 5 II too, used lineageOS for years, worked great. Doesn’t totally solve the battery or fingerprint reader. My screen got the dreaded green lightsaber too. Nail in the coffin was Australia turning off 3G so it can’t make calls anymore. (Wasn’t officially sold here so they didn’t bother loading it with VoLTE profiles)

      • thanksforallthefish@literature.cafe
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        I can’t trust anything made by google. It’s a company that literally makes its money capturing everything everyone does on the internet…and yet the phone they make is the ONLY phone immune to having everything captured…

        Sorry. Not buying it. There will be a chip in there phoning home we’ll find out about in a decade.

        • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          All phones already have that, regardless if its Google or Samsung or whatever.

          And all computers even those running Linux, are still vulnerable to the Intel ME and AMD PSP backdoors.

          Like I don’t see a way to stop mass surveillance unless we have open source hardware.

      • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl
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        If the pixel series had a damn SD card slot it would be the perfect phone for me.

        I just want to sync all of my music and local backups to an SD card via syncthing dammit. I don’t want to have to pay 200€ for them adding a 5€ chip

    • otacon239@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I’m clinging to my SE. It’s the last small phone made by anyone other than Chinese no-names. I will be sad when it’s no longer viable as an option.

      • nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        my Chinese tiny phone has a name, it’s the Unihertz Jelly Star. they even have a subreddit, not sure what makes you think it’s a “no name” they make a lot of phones for niches in today’s world including one with a physical qwerty keyboard.

        now the fact that they’re the only company filling those niches sucks, but it’s better than nobody doing it.

        • kurcatovium@lemm.ee
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          Well, how’s it supported? This is usually what kills these phones. Even brand like Xiaomi dump their non-flagship model really soon. I have one, bought as a new model, was officially supported for like a year. Great.

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            not sure. stacking niches means there’s a good chance the answer is no though.

            if it’s just a matter of specs it should be up to it, the hardware is pretty beefy for a phone, but I figure there’s more to it than that.

            personally I don’t have the spoons to pour in the effort required to degoogle. the fact that the algs and few ads I see are completely irrelevant to me suggest that I have thoroughly confused them by how non-standard my internet usage is. I’m not overly concerned about the data they do get or what they do with it.

            there are enough Man-Made Horrors Beyond My Comprehension™️ keeping me up at night but you do you

            • ilmagico@lemmy.world
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              The old jelly pro had a decent modding community, and I definitely was able to unlock the bootloader and root it, though not sure about degoogling.

        • EngineerGaming@feddit.nl
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          2 days ago

          Seems to not be supported by Lineage… I wonder if a more privacy-preserving OS can be installed at all? I don’t trust stock ones.

          Edit: another comment here links to a Reddit post about installing a modified Lineage there - haven’t checked it yet, but seems like it IS possible!

      • TheRealKuni@midwest.social
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        2 days ago

        There was the iPhone 13 Mini. It’s adorably small. But it didn’t sell well so they stopped making the Mini line.

        • bluesheep@lemm.ee
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          I’ve got a 12 mini and bought it just because it was small. Had nothing else from the apple ecosystem (altho I did buy airpods with the phone cause it had no 3.5mm jack), and still bought it just because it was small. People like to point out and laugh at how tiny the phone is, but I don’t care cause at least I don’t have to carry around half a tablet everyday. Sad to hear they discontinued the mini line, even tho I wasn’t planning on buying apple again.

          • TORFdot0@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            I’ll use my 13 mini until I literally can’t anymore. Sadly it seems like maybe Apple will release a clamshell to get back to the pocketable size but never a mini phone again. Wish the 16e used a mini chasis

      • MellowYellow13@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Still using mine too and it’s awesome, all my coworkers also notice and compliment it. I do think there is a market for small phones

    • Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz
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      2 days ago

      I upgraded to a Sony Xperia XZ2 compact last year. It has a 5" screen and decent capabilities, the only down side is it doesn’t support 5G. For a phone that’s over 5 years old, it’s probably the most recent usable phone available which actually fits in my pocket.

      Seriously, don’t show me a damn tablet computer and try to sell it to me as a mobile phone. If you can’t make a compact phone then you’re not really advancing the technology, are you?

      • myplacedk@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        If I can’t use it one-handed (using ALL physical buttons and ALL parts of the screen), then it’s not a phone.

        Seriously, this is how we used to define the difference between phones and tables - one-hand or two-hand use.

        • Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz
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          Right? I mean I’m still lamenting the loss of slider keyboards, typing on a screen is so damn unreliable that I was forced to turn on the auto-correction, which itself is highly unreliable and constantly changing real words while failing to fix the words where I hit a number instead of a letter (the word “9f” gets typed a LOT!). I use my phone for phone calls and sending texts, with a secondary usage as a GPS in my truck. If it can’t perform one of three basic tasks then what good is it?

    • Xanthrax@lemmy.world
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      They do, but service providers don’t like selling them. There isn’t as much of a return on smaller/ dumb/ cheap phones. I used to work at spectrum, and we’d speak of the cheap phones in hushed tones like they were the boogeyman. It felt horrible because I was using my cheap android while selling people iPhone 15s.

      • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 days ago

        So once again instead of providing choice the market is simply phasing out things with smaller profit margins as if they planned it together in some kind of cartel.

        • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          Demand also isn’t there. The iPhone SE sold ok, but the other thing to keep in mind was that it was the cheap iPhone too so it’s supposed to sell.

          If it was outselling the main model every year then they’d keep making them small. But they didn’t so they got dropped.

          • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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            If it was outselling the main model every year then they’d keep making them small.

            Why would they do that if they make more money on the main model? It’s not like you have a choice in iOS manufacturers.

        • corbin@infosec.pubOP
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          Not really, even the cheap phones have large screens now. There’s no correlation anymore between price and screen size, the cheap phones just have lower quality panels.

  • atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    I don’t understand why so many people here keep saying that it’s too hard to make a small phone when all these companies literally make watches with 5G connections…

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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      They always lean a little too hard into making the small one the “budget” phone and end up gimping it into something nobody wants, and yet they still don’t make it cost attractive.

      Compared to the SomePhone Pro, the SomePhone Mini has:

      • 6GB of RAM rather than 8. (I mean, okay, what do I need that much RAM for?)
      • 128GB onboard storage rather than 512GB (Those chips are the same footprint so that wasn’t done for miniaturization, but I don’t store a lot on my phone so ok)
      • No SD card slot. (I suppose you could argue that IS for miniaturization but it’s still a kick in the pants)
      • 1080p display rather than 4k. (fine, the PPI is still finer than my eyes)
      • 3100mAh battery instead of 3600 (You know the reduced resolution on the display will probably make up for that anyway)
      • No NFC (really?)
      • No fast charging (fucking sigh)
      • No wireless charging (pegwarmer says what?)
      • 5.9 inch 9:21 display (so it’s 89% the size of the Pro model anyway?)
      • a laptop grade VGA camera (you’re actively trying to make this product fail, aren’t you?)
      • Locked bootloader, locked carrier (because of course)
      • $899 instead of $949 MSRP (Okay just stop saying words and drown yourself in the septic tank)
    • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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      Seems like a straw man, because I can’t see a single comment claiming that.

    • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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      i don’t think it’s “too hard” to make small phones. but i bet it’s easier to sell bigger phones with more profit margin.

    • potustheplant@feddit.nl
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      Who said that? That’s not the limiting factor. Also, smartwatches have crappy processors.

      Supposedly, what’s hard is making a phone with good performance and battery life that’s also small.

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    If they’re going to make only bog phones they could at least bring back all the hardware features they’ve removed over the years.

  • Bloomcole@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I don’t know how you youngsters do it.
    One hand eternally glued to this big phone and now they need the other for a soup thermos they suddenly feel the need to drag with them everywhere.

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    Bigger screens mean bigger and more obtrusive ads.

    I’m convinced this is 90% of the reason right here.