The tradeoff with replaceable batteries is if when you swap the phone loses track of time until finding a cell tower. Fine if in range but a risk when hiking far away, and might also propagate the wrong time to your smartwatch.
Like xda? :)
Otherwise FP works fine with Google Fi and T-Mobile in the US. Maybe not the best coverage but worth it to be able to swap parts easily.
(I've similarly been wanting a FairPhone here.)
Anyway, your point reminds me that the my "dream smartphone" would be one with no cellular connectivity at all. I'm still waiting for some company to start producing a keychain-sized 4G (or 5G) hotspot with an eSIM, which (I hope) would lead to more people asking for the return of the iPod Touch and for something equivalent in the Android/Mobile Linux/Windows world.
You mean a PDA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_digital_assistant)? Modern smartphones are basically a PDA with cellular connectivity (this is more obvious with early smartphones like the Treo 650), so if you take out the cellular connectivity, what you have is once again a PDA.
When I'm on the internet, browing maps, reading books, I find a phone screen too small. But I don't want a massive phone.
A dumb flip phone that lasts a week on a charge so that I can camp with it, combined with a 7" tablet that I can throw in my bag, for when I want to read, but doesn't need cellular connectivity so that it lasts without spying on me.
An odd term in this context. No-one has to 'justify' not selling their stuff to Americans.
Small entities can do whatever they want but big corporations should have justifications for not selling a thing.
And the duty to owners is what you said yourself in your other comment, so I'm not sure why you seem to not understand what I'm saying.
They don't have to maximize profit at the cost of other things. But if they want to ignore a huge sales venue, they should justify it.
Justifying isn't some huge bar. It's due diligence. If you have many reasons, then write them down.
You've been repeatedly arguing against a strawman where I want to force companies to make certain decisions. But that's not what I said at any point.
- Bluetooth for control/signaling.
- Bluetooth for voice audio.
- WiFi AP in super reduced Rx/Tx power mode when not charging. The only requirement here is that signal is strong within a 3ft radius from the hotspot, and acceptable on a 6ft radius. It really shouldn't need more than that.
- WiFi AP in normal mode when charging.
- WiFi AP completely shut-off when the paired device reports that they have access to any other trusted wifi network.
My idea here is that for me at least, mobile data is truly a connection of last resort. Almost anywhere I go there is WiFi available. And the places where there isn't, perhaps I simply don't need an always-on fast connection?
Only some chipsets work with all frequencies and when 90% of the population of the planet all use the same settings why spend the cost to cover the other 10% which would double your chipset costs but would unlikely increase sales.
Americans bully each other over the colour of their chat bubbles because apparently not buying iPhone makes you appear poor. There are lots of justifications to avoid increasing costs to try selling to the Americans.
https://www.hardwareschotte.de/tests/Surfsticks
Sure, having wifi hotspots would be nice, but this way you don't have to worry about batteries.
Can be managed by bluetooth LE.
> remembering to charge it every day
People do it for their smartwatches. Also, making it in a key fob format would lend itself naturally to some nice key holder accessory where you can charge it (wirelessly, even?) or it can have a spring-loaded usb port to charge in your car.
[Edit]
It appears that the US doesn't overlap with the majority of the world for most of the ranges, except for one band at the top which overlaps with Japan/Korea.
https://5gobservatory.eu/5g-spectrum/
> Currently, the most used bands are:
- Low-band: 700 MHz (except in US); 600 MHz (US)
- Mid-band: 3.3 – 3.8 GHz (except US); 2.6 GHz, 3.7 – 4.98 GHz (US)
- High-band: 26 GHz (except Japan, South Korea and US); 28 GHz (Japan, South Korea and US)
You're overestimating the Volla phone and Fairphone, 1st one still doesn't support VoLTE which I heard is essential in the US, 2nd one isn't even recommended by UT.
Either go with an Xperia + SailfishOS if you want more than a toy or Pinephone + PmOs if you love to tinker on your daily driver. Both have VoLTE support.
https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/ https://shop.jolla.com/ https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/PINE64_PinePhone_(pine64-...
FP2 is the second device on the "promoted" devices page. That feels like a recommendation?
https://ubports.com/supported-products
> Google Pixel 3a/3a XL.
Doesn't support one of the most interesting features to me in UBports, which is display output for convergence.
The FP2 is a very old device lacking some features and probably got recommendation back then because other devices were worse. https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/device/fp2 Otherwise I'd also could have recommended the Nexus5.
On FOSDEM 2023 Ubports developers didn't show off this old phone, either.
In the EU it's common practice to buy without a contract, whereas this is very rare in the US.
In other words, it's the carriers that dictate what gets sold.
If that was true, then Wal-Mart wouldn't bother carrying every pre-paid SIM under the sun in the same section of the store that sells shitbox Motorolas, nor would Amazon bother carrying the same exact Motorola shitboxen - all unlocked, mind you.
I did buy a newer phone a few months ago, but I'm keeping the S5 around as a spare. In fact my previous S2 is still working as well, but I don't think it receives updates (also it has no battery right now - luckily it can operate with just power plugged in).
Btw degoogling phone almost double battery life.
Just makes me picture Maggie Simpson
But to be actually on topic, supporting custom ROMs in order to extricate android from Google is my top priority when buying a phone.
If this phone gets lineageOS support then it may be the perfect phone.
Well, a really old Maggie Simpson with a buzz-cut. I do jokingly call them onesies. Expensive onesies anyway.
If this phone gets lineageOS support then it may be the perfect phone.
That would work for me as well.
I have an old Nokia smartphone. I barely use it as a phone; really it's just for 2FA, when the provider insists on SMS for 2FA.
An inexpensive Android device which is hackable and exposes GPIO pins would make an interesting robotics platform. If this device supports replaceable CPU, then perhaps it also exposes GPIO.
A sweet bonus would be if they also provided and fully supported de-googled image or at least had an option to download the de-googled image after accepting some disclaimers. Or perhaps even set up a public community for phone hackers to help them build said image i.e. crowdsource the work.
An optional large shell for a bigger battery would be a nice upgrade too. My current phone has a 10,000mAh battery and lasts a very long time after disabling background networking on most apps.