I was hoping this was made py Palm, Inc (sold to HP?); but It is a different company:
Certificate by Letsencrypt, and the TOS say somethong about "Palm Ventures Group".
The Palm name has been sold time and time again. The original company and even the WebOS company are definitely not involved in the latest Palm phone:
> Yep, this phone, which is called "Palm" and from the company "Palm" (so the Palm Palm?) is a newly formed zombie brand made from the ashes of the legendary Palm Inc, the very same company that created the Palm Pilot, the Palm Treo, and WebOS. After bombing out in the smartphone market circa 2010 and selling to HP, Chinese firm TCL bought the rights to Palm back in 2014 and announced plans to resurrect the company in 2015. The corpse of Palm remained still for several years, but the right combination of a full moon, or lightning strike, or something roused the company back to life just last month.
It is, except it's about the size of a credit card - that's a really appealing size for some people, either to replace their current behemoth, or as a second phone when you want something tiny.
This _looks_ really nice. I'm a fan of smaller phones, I currently own a Pixel 2, and if it was a tiny bit smaller, I think it'd be perfect.
However, saying that I think the challenge with this phone might be the battery life. It comes with a free phone case with a battery pack(making the size waaay chunkier than without the case), and the specifications don't mention mAh, just 'battery life' (which from my experience is rarely accurate).
Don't know about iPhones, but the only way my Nokia 7 plus will do 60 hours is without radios, reading music from internal storage, and piping sound do a powered speaker.
Yes. I can get a day and a half out of my XR easily with quite heavy usage. And the battery health is 90% after 18 months of ownership. Best phone I’ve ever had.
Well no not really. It’s two data points. Let’s work out what is different and work out why yours sucks :)
I run mine with default apps, couch to 5k, nutracheck, YouTube, eBay, Santander, OS maps, prime video, Netflix, slack, PayPal, Uber eats, duo mobile TOTP and that’s it. No social crap.
I’m on a brand new 2016 model iPhone SE A1662. Full charge capacity is 100%. I rarely get through the day before I have to charge again with moderate use.
I’ve been using a iPhone SE as my primary phone since summer 2016.
If I recall, my original new iPhone SE had great battery life. It was first on iOS 9.
Up Until iOS 12, Battery life was fine on it. With iOS 12, had to get a extended battery case; that held up As a workable solution until iOS 13.
At the end of last year, after iOS 13 came out I replaced that iPhone SE with a brand new one I bought on fire sale.
That had an accident this week, which I replaced with another new iPhone SE.
For it, I set it up as a new device, without any apps, and not restoring from any backup, I still have the same battery life.
I’m going to chalk it up to iOS background process bloat and third party background app refresh, etc.
It will be I nteresting to see how iOS 14 Holds up on the iPhone SE 2016.
What can I say, I refuse to use a phone without flat sides, no headphone jack and not of a reasonable size. I could take a few of those exceptions but all three has been a no go for me. Really the new “meh” battery life is the only complaint I have about this device.
Really excited for the rumored iPhone 12 5.4 inch since it may be about the same size as the old SE; with flat sides.
Mix of battery aging out and possibly more background activity.
The gen 11s have rather good battery life (I rarely dip below 50% at day's end even though I use my phone a lot) — though some folks have apparently reported drain issues — but they have almost double the battery capacity of an '8.
Yes. iPhone XR already had great battery life and 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max have more than 4-5 hours additional battery life compared to Xs and Xs Max. My 11 Pro can easily last 1.5 days with heavy usage.
Doubt it would last the entire work day on a single charge with casual usage (playing music, making some notes).
It feels like more of a companion than a phone replacement. I feel like it'd be just another gadget after a few days sitting in my drawer, never to be used again.
Sadly, still on Android 8.1. If anyone is looking for small Android device with a bit more recent Android version, check out upcoming Unihertz Jelly 2 https://www.ogadget.com/x/jelly-2
Hm, some interesting design decisions with the Jelly 2 there. In particular, if that comparison table is right, it's more than 16mm thick - I daresay none of us have seen anything like that since the flip-phone days. And the payoff is that you get quite a chunky battery for the size. I imagine there must be a few people here who would happily take that.
I have the Jelly 1 and am very happy with it. Will definitely go for the Jelly 2. Thickness isn't so much an issue because the phone is so small. It usually lives in the 'coincatcher' in my pocket and I hardly notice it's there. Only issues are battery life and low specs (and no fingerprint!) but the Jelly 2 will solve that.
But the Palm doesn't solve any of those issues. No fingerprint scanner. Only 800mAh battery (Jelly 2 has 2000). Much lower specs, 28nm SoC. Single SIM. Just nope.
As someone who has a Palm Phone and looked at the previous Unihertz offerings but found the screen size to phone size to be poor, I think the Palm Phone is still more accessible due to the screen resolution of 720x1280 and a 3.3" screen on a phone that's basically the same size.
The Jelly 2 seems like an improvement over the Jelly 1, but still that resolution of 480x854 is hard to swallow. Although given that there will likely be no Palm Phone 2, I could see myself getting a Jelly 3 or 4 in a few years.
Even on my Palm Phone that is 720p, occasionally programs end up with UI elements overlapping each other when they shouldn't. Going even lower could result in unexpected issues like that.
Good to see there is a market for tiny phones. That gives me hope there's a market for sub 5 inch screen phones as well. Or something not bigger as a Samsung Galaxy A3 2017.
I have an XZ1 Compact. It's great, works really well, appealing design, every feature I need - decent screen, headphone jack, camera button, fingerprint reader, feels fast, battery lasts for ages. It's an almost perfect phone. Just one problem: it's too big.
Not by that much, but it definitely is. It's too big to use well one-handed, and it doesn't fit comfortably in a lot of pockets, especially since the corners are pointy.
The perfect phone form factor - and this must surely have been plain to anyone who ever held one - was the Nokia Lumia 620, a Windows phone with 3.8" screen and a curvy back with exchangable double-shot plastic covers. It was a bit like an iPhone 3GS in shape but lighter and with a marginally bigger screen. The phone itself was a bit crap in various ways, but how strange that we should collectively ignore the obvious rightness of this design and go on making them worse and worse for years afterwards. (I'm being flippant, but somewhere in my head I am puzzled by it all)
XZ1 Compact dimensions with an edge to edge screen makes a lot of sense to me. I need some screen real estate to read stuff. For you maybe a Nokia N9 with edge to edge screen would work because it's smaller. I read and wrote this from Opera on XZ1C.
I don't know. All I want is an Android between 5 inch and 6 inch, something the size of a 2016 iPhone SE.
But all I see is either gigantic phones, or 3 inches phones like this one so tiny they're barely usable as a smartphone. At that point why not just buy a dumb phone?
There are smart-dumbphones with features like hotspots. The Nokia 8810 has WhatsApp, 4g and WiFi hotspots, as well as lots of other features previously only found in low end bonafide smartphones. Added bonus with the Nokia I mention is that KaiOS (formerly Firefox OS) probably doesn't ship telemetry to Google.
> All I want is an Android between 5 inch and 6 inch, something the size of a 2016 iPhone SE.
That's much larger than the SE (4" screen, 125x60x7.5 mm, 110 g compared to 5" screen, 140x70x7.5 mm, 150 g for the 2020 SE). Which is a really nice form factor, and well suited for apps, but not so good for web browsing.
The Samsung Galaxy S10e is almost exactly the same size and thickness as the iPhone 10 (5.6" x 2.75"). I always thought of the iPhone 10 as "huge", coming from the relatively tiny BlackBerries, but part of that was the bezel-less design that made it seem bigger than it is. Still too big for my preferences, but it's probably the best "small" Android phone out there. Samsung have also made some great design choices that make one-handed use much easier, and the screen doesn't curve around the sides like the regular S10.
It's a one year old phone, but at the moment it's on the latest version of Android. Plus it has a headphone jack.
But like the iPhone, it's a greased piece of glass, so it definitely needs some sort of case.
The phone was released in 2018. I have one and I've never met anyone else who has one, nor even talked to anyone online who has one. People in real life who see my phone are amused, but have no idea what the device is. So unfortunately, I think the market is small (although I also think they fucked it up by releasing it as a locked down "companion device" and only walking back on that half a year later).
For me the IPhone 7 was the perfect size at 4.7, my only wish is that they made it a bit fatter so it will be easy to grasp and not slippery and that also would increase the battery capacity.
I think this is new, at least compared to the one they originally released. The page says that it's carrier unlocked, whereas the original one was locked to Verizon (via a primary big phone).
They could afford to make this a bit thicker and more rounded. At this size, its ability to fit snugly into your palm (no pun intended) is more important than any perceived benefit of thinness. I personally believe such "egg-shaped" devices will become the dominant hand-held form factor, with tablets as supplementary devices.
John Gruber prefers the feel of the 2.31” classic width iPhones [1]:
> Feel matters. And to me, the classic 4-inch display form factor shared by the iPhones 5, 5S, and now SE [1st Gen] feels the best in hand. This is obviously highly subjective, but in my mind it’s not even a close call. There are obvious reasons to prefer the larger 4.7- and 5.5-inch models, but how they feel in your hand isn’t one of them.
The ultra-mobile Palm is 2” wide with a 16:9 720p screen and almost half the weight of the 1st Gen iPhone SE (63g vs 113g) but half the battery capacity.
no (edit: yes, of course they own the rights to the name, otherwise they wouldn't be able to call it a Palm. As far as I know it's otherwise unrelated).
> Back in 1996, Palm released the PalmPilot and forever changed the mobile handheld game. Today Palm is back—same name but a whole new company. We’re a small San Francisco-based start up harnessing that same innovative spirit to help bring people out of their tech and into their lives.
When I saw the headline, I had a moment of hope they did something minimal, efficient, privacy-respecting, and secure, looking a lot like touchscreen PalmOS.
I found a bunch of old cellphones, and the smaller form factor was really a delight (also the inherent sturdiness due to less complex design and less glass).
Good on them to try.
ps: also for the non young and average person, android is just a bit too deep
It's weird that for a product whose main selling point is its size that you have to scroll way down the page to get a clear image that shows its scale relative to something recognizable, and even then it's not super clear.
The first image on desktop shows it next to a credit card[0], but the credit card is mostly hidden so it's hard to notice unless you check the text blurb (literally "About the size of a credit card.")
Android 8.1 was released in August, 2017, so it's very old. Although, it did have it's latest update just one month ago, so hopefully the security would be alright, even if it doesn't have the latest features.
But my guess is that the target market for Palm doesn't really care about the latest features, they care about gear that works and fits normally in a hand. So probably not a big issue really.
The device was released in Oct 2018 though, so at the time it was the newest Android version (9 was just released, probably too late in the Palm dev cycle).
The $280 price tag is a biggest show-stopper IMO (and according to the Palm website that's a "sale" from the $400 price tag, although I never quite trust that). I paid $70 for my basic Android device (Samsung Core A2) and that works just fine as well (with some minor caveats/limitations of Android Go, such as the screen not lighting up when there's a notification).
Would a phone this cheap even have the hardware for secure face unlock or is it just a 2D system? Would it work in low light conditions like modern face unlock systems? In the post Covid/mask wearing era this would be the perfect time for a reversion back to finger print sensors.
Even the Apple Watch has better battery life when used stand a line for a run. Heck my old Garmin GPS watch from 2011 had better battery life.
You are indeed stuck on 8.1. Android devices all seem to have this problem because Google can't figure out how to let users control the OS, unlike what every other OS developer (even GNU/Linux) has done. You just have to hope you get stuck on a version that is tolerable (or continuously buy new phones?).
>Face Unlock
It is not the only method. You can lock and unlock it like a regular Android device. I've never used face unlock before.
>The size
It's fantastic.
>GPS
It would definitely not last you a 12 hour bikeride.
> You are indeed stuck on 8.1. Android devices all seem to have this problem because Google can't figure out how to let users control the OS, unlike what every other OS developer (even GNU/Linux) has done.
This has little to do with Google.
One major issue is carriers. Many demanded that they have control over the OS: "certifying" every new major version for every handset, and then installing their own apps. Google needed carriers to push Android, so they allowed these agreements to persist.
On the hardware support side, that's an issue with drivers. Google could and should set standards for drivers, which is a lesson Microsoft learned the hard way with Windows. Finally, Microsoft did set those standards for Vista, and they were rewarded with an explosion of hatred over bad drivers that they didn't write and didn't want to spend money supporting anymore.
At this point, it's mostly up to manufacturers to keep drivers updated. If they won't, then there are communities like LineageOS who try (and sometimes succeed quite well).
If LineageOS can "try" Google has the resources to do it in the OS. They have the leverage over phone manufacturers now, and it's one place they should actually be using their leverage. But for whatever reason, they do not care.
If Google does it, they'll end up like Microsoft: encouraging device manufacturers to produce crappy drivers. It's mostly a money pit with no upside for Google that can justify the cost.
Really nice concept the size should rejoice people looking for a practical, streamlined and small smartphone...
BUT
Why on earth did they have to rippoff both original iPhone design and the watchOS appscreen??? I hope for them that Apple have learn yet that it's not worth the energy suing a small player. But still it's maddening that they can't thing of something else than such obvious copy-paste approach. Next time hire some designers to produce something more original for the love of earth!
Because back in the day, iPhone have ripped off both home screen and Today application's designs (which was a very useful third party tool which provides an overview of your day with relevant notifications) from PalmOS.
In other words, design goes both ways. There's no ripoff from my point of view.
If you ask me, they've applied the paradigm in a pretty neat way, which was Palm's strong point back in the day.
1. If it is shipping with Android 8 - an old version of Android. What are the chances that it will ever see any updates?
2. My wife would have been the target audience for this form factor - pre Apple Watch. Her phone is her least favorite device. She will leave it in the car in a heartbeat. She won’t think twice if she leaves at home.
But now, she has a cellular Apple Watch and AirPods with a third party ear clip. She doesn’t have to carry any phone.
3. The battery life is atrocious. Even the Apple Watch has better battery life for normal day to day use.
4. I seriously doubt it has 16GB of memory - the cellular Apple Watch does. That’s more than enough for local music playback without using cellular.
5. This is the Zune of phones to me. But, yes I realize that the cheapest entry point to our setup - phone + Watch is $800 if we did get A cheaper headset. With AirPods it would be $959.
The Zune came out with a 30GB hard drive player when the world had moved on to flash based smaller players and three months before the iPhone
The flash based Zunes similar to the Nanos came out at the same time as the second generation iPod Touch.
The Zune HD came out with no apps around the end of 2009. Peak iPod - including the Touch - was 4th quarter 2008. The iPod was already losing steam and even then it was being propped up by the iPod Touch.
<sarcasm>
If you’re criticizing the Zune because it is brown, you’re a racist piece of crap. You should be Doxxed and reported to your employer
</sarcasm>
These are all true, but the Zune was still awesome... Video support, awesome customizations, and a very fun interface. I had all 3 of the Zunes you mentioned. My least favorite was the original, because the spinning disc would sometimes hit buffering issues, but the rest of the device family was practically perfect.
No it’s not a generational thing - it’s you. That’s like the old Slashdot meme - “I haven’t owned a TV in 10 years Do people still watch TV?”. Seeing that my first computer was an Apple //e in 86, I’m definitely not a young buck.
it's not just him, there is a sizeable contingent of people who focus on just these apps for all their uses, and I think it would be much bigger if mobile didn't promote separate apps for everything.
Our customer base skews older and you wouldn't believe how many customer service tickets we field where they don't know what their apple account password is because they have literally never installed an app on their phone before. And these are people with brand new, most recent model iPhones that get a new one every few years.
The Zune 30, the first Zune, and the only 30gb Zune player you could be speaking about, was released in Nov 2005. By comparison, Apple's flash offerings in 2005 included the 1G Shuffle (1gb) and the 1G Nano (4gb). These were not large and complex enough devices to be considered competitors to the Zune 30; Apple's competitor to the Zune 30 was the 5G Classic, which came in 30/60/80gb hard drive sizes.
I'm not sure how you got "three months before the iPhone" when the Zune 30 was released in Nov 2005 and the iPhone was released in June 2007. That's not 3 months, that's 19 months.
It didn’t matter if they were “competitive”. The market had already spoken. People preferred the flash based smaller players to the larger players. MS went after the smallest part of the market.
Lol. I had a Zune HD. Opening the calculator app took half a minute... and that was pretty much the only app available. It was a cool device but there’s no surprise it got trampled by iPod Touch.
Loved the Zune. Not sure which I had. It wasn’t HD or anything though. It was also a launchpad for me to begin enjoying streaming and tracking things. I began tracking music listens with Last.fm and I used Microsoft’s music streaming service at the time. Usually (or always?) you’d download music onto your device and have to renew it every 30 days or so.
I am not aware of any official numbers. But security and basic compatibility should be covered for a few more years; based on how long previous versions continued to receive support/updates.
For sake of argument, the most important thing is app support, not the operating system. I’d happily run Windows 7 or Mac OS X Snow Leopard if I could still access all the apps I use now.
Not entirely related to phones, but it is nice that my iPad that I bought in 2016 has gotten operating system support for external hard drives, Ethernet (long story), good support for external pointing devices, better multitasking support, etc.
My wife’s iPad that is a year newer will get much better operating system wide support for the Pencil.
It is not ok, but that is how telecommunications industry has ever worked, "want updates? get a new phone".
Even on Symbian best days, you would be lucky to get at very least one time update, and Symbian was the exception, as no else every provided any kind of updates.
I agree it is very stupid, but if Google prefers to have Android in every piece of mobile CPU without arm wrestling OEMs, that is never going to change.
Note that while Project Treble has actually turned Linux into a pseudo microkernel, where standard Linux drivers are "legacy" and everything else runs on their own process with Android IPC, the situation has hardly changed, because Google is still leaving to the OEMs the responsibility for the update process.
On a side note, any of my Windows Phones has gotten more updates than all my Android devices combined.
But as I mention in another thread today, iDevices aren't for price sensitive pre-pay customers that use the devices until they die or get stolen. The majority of the world isn't US with free exchange programs every two years.
In some locations, the hard paied for unknown brand Android device is the first computer many people manage to own, so they aren't even on Apple's target demographic.
It is not ok, but that is how telecommunications industry has ever worked, "want updates? get a new phone".
It hasn’t work that way since the iPhone came out - in 2007.
I agree it is very stupid, but if Google prefers to have Android in every piece of mobile CPU without arm wrestling OEMs, that is never going to change.
Yet and still not only can I update my Windows PCs directly from Microsoft without having to wait on the OEMs, I was also able to stick a Windows 7 DVD in my 2006 era Core Duo Mac Mini, install it and it recognized all of my hardware flawlessly. Apple abandoned it years ago, I could still run a supported version of Windows through the beginning of this year.
Microsoft figures this out on PCs over 15 years ago with WinHEC and plug and play.
Apple is the exception, as they don't rely on 3rd party OEMs.
It would be 100% like everyone else had Apple allowed for iOS based OEM devices.
Indeed, but that is only thanks to IBM's failure to close back the PC and only applies to desktop and server devices.
Even Microsoft isn't able to do much regarding laptops and Windows tablets, and was forced to start their own Surface line.
But yes, they still do much better than Google, because Google just doesn't care.
Project Trent would have been the opportunity to change contracts for accessing Google services, and they just kept everything regarding OEMs as before.
The proof that they don't really care is the support for their own Pixel devices.
However as mentioned before, not everyone on this planet can afford to be an Apple customer and OS updates aren't certainly on their daily worries.
Apple is the exception, as they don't rely on 3rd party OEMs.
Microsoft however does allow 3rd party OEMs for Windows and PCs don’t have that issue. MS makes sure the most popular or even some obscure hardware is supported.
Even Microsoft isn't able to do much regarding laptops and Windows tablets, and was forced to start their own Surface line.
I have an 11 year old Dell E6500 Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz running Windows 10 perfectly.
My 2007 Toshiba laptop recently died (not sure why, I'm gonna let the old dog die gracefully). It had been upgraded over the years with more RAM and an SSD and it ran beautifully on Windows 10 for the last few years.
I'm not sure why people don't admit that Windows does backwards compatibility well. Windows has many issues, but running well on old hardware isn't one of them.
I have an Asus laptop from 2009 sold with Windows 7 and running Windows 10 currently, except it has an additional cooling fan running all the time, because only the original customized Windows 7 with Asus drivers does the power management properly.
Any other Windows 7 version, or more recent versions, the internal fan is not able to make for the generated heat due to missing power management settings.
So I just got used to the noise of having two fans running all the time when I need to do something with that laptop, which has long lost the laptop capability, but hey it runs Windows 10.
Lucky you, I have had several laptops that don't work without OEM drivers and require the explicit Windows version that was sold with the laptop.
As an example, the webcam drivers and power management settings that without OEM drivers will just fry the CPU until the security takes over and forces a hard shutdown.
The main concern for me is not the feature difference between Android 8.1 and 9, but the security updates. As long as those are shipping I think it's okay.
So, to turn the question around, assuming this is your stance, why is it not okay?
I think it would be ok if the older version gets e.g. much better battery life out of the device
This as an argument I heard for using older android versions for low end phones around 50$, because newer versions run horrible on them.
I'm not enough into mobile phones to judge whether this is true, but OS version is a tradeoff I would be willing to make dependent on what I'm looking for
For context, back when I bought a Dell laptop running Vista but after Windows 7 had been announced, but not released, Dell guaranteed Windows 7 compatibility and made free upgrades available.
How long is the Windows beta available for major updates to give the ecosystem a chance to test for compatibility. Google just doesn’t know how to handle an ecosystem.
Well, seeing that the update you cited in the article allowed the phone to continue working at a slower speed instead of shutting down entirely when the battery was old - yes.
I never said that Apple could defy the laws of physics and prevent battery degradation.
Also, if I bought a brand new phone that was released in 2018 and even if it did have an old operating system - but a new battery, I could update to the newest OS. If it was a used phone with an old battery - I could replace the battery for $70.
My son just replaced an iPhone 6S that I bought in 2015 late last year. I replaced the battery before giving it to him. It was and still can run the latest OS version. It will be running the latest OS until at least September 2021.
It may be news to you but Android manufacturers are generally not as honest as their intent, follow through and track record of providing up to date security patches for their phones, let alone OS updates.
I switched to an Android from iPhone when Galaxy Note 1 came out.
Apple did not have the audacity or innovation to release a phone with a large screen. Over time, every Android manufacturer except Google and BlackBerry proceeded to let me down with out of date security patches, if any at all.
Samsung makes some of the very best devices, but pushing 6 month old patches as a current update doesn’t fly. Projects like LineageOS have made inroads too.
I'd buy a Galaxy Note in a heartbeat if it ran Android One.
My hope is every manufacturer uses Android One distribution, Android has come far enough that the UI modifications/customizations aren’t as critical as they used to be. I’ll only consider a Pixel or Android One device moving forward if I don't end up on an iPhone.
Still, I’m typing this on an iPad, and have been on Mac for over a decade.. maybe it is time to look at an iPhone again. Part of me is exploring leaving Mac and head to Ubuntu. A palm phone with a great camera could be interesting if lineage might work on it.
The other thing to realize is that android phones are tied to a kernel version and that is never updated except minor revisions. Apple products get regular kernel updates.
As far as I'm concerned UI mods, custom launchers, etc; were never neccesary. My first android ran cupcake & I had no problem finding a good alternative launcher on the play store. It was one of the first apps I installed & still is Every time I've gotten a new phone. I don't want anything preinstalled on my phone that isn't a core part of android itself. That kind of bloat does nothing but take away valuable space for apps I actually use. Google owns some of the blame, because they actually made the promise that there would be zero bloat on android,& presented that as a selling point, but they never even attempted to follow through on that promise.
I pretty much refuse to support Samsung for any consumer device at this point.
Their TVs are loaded with spyware and push notifications, full screen ads, menu ads, all unremovable. You pay thousands for the privilege of this garbage.
All of their phones have unremovable bloatware and spyware. They push vulnerable, ancient, forked AOSP software like "samsung browser" and send full screen image ads via push notifications, unremovable Bixby stuff, unremovable Samsung Store. And the US versions can't be unlocked to install Lineage or stock android.
Neither would I want to do that on a phone the size of the Palm. The entire idea of this phone was initially to be a companion phone just for simple things.
Email isn’t really used that often anymore for personal, immediate communications. If someone is emailing you, culturally it’s really not considered urgent.
Read articles on the go? Sure you can read news snippets on the Watch using the News app, but if she is leaving her phone behind, it’s specifically in a context where she doesn’t want to be distracted but does want to be able to communicate with people.
I have an Apple Watch just because, but I really don’t get that much usefulness out of it. I work from home now. I haven’t gone inside a gym in years where the idea of having a phone with me all of the time was irritating - I have a fully equipped workout room at home. Besides, women often wear clothes without pockets. Men usually don’t - except maybe at the gym or while running.
As far as texts. Siri’s voice recognition works surprisingly well for responding to them.
The Palm Phone does work as a standalone device (except maybe on Verizon). Swipe text is a little less accurate, but overall still plenty usable. Honestly not sure why they wanted it to be a "companion" device so much. One of the huge benefits of using the Palm Phone is not carrying a gigantic brick in your pocket.
This was introduced at a time when there was both exhaustion at increasingly larger phones and people started complaining about “screen time” and distractions. This was suppose to address both of those issues.
Right, I get the main reasons for the Palm Phone. I'm one of the few people in the world who has one lol.
I just think the "companion" aspect was always dumb. You would have to manage two devices and keep them with you anyway, all that would do is increase personal toil. It only became viable for me once I could replace my larger phone with it entirely.
> If it is shipping with Android 8 - an old version of Android
Blame Qualcomm. If you’re a OEM with comparatively low volumes there is very little leverage you have to get your SOC vendor to give you the latest updates. When I worked on Android HW, Qualcomm were basically a year behind whatever the latest Android was, because our volume was so small we weren’t a priority.
Again, this is a solved problem with Windows - Microsoft writes drivers for popular hardware. Like I said below - Windows 7 supported my 2006 Mac Mini hardware - USB, FireWire, gigabit Ethernet, and it even recognized the IR sensor for the remote. I couldn’t find a way to use it.
If you as a PC OEM, no matter how small, if you used popular components, Windows would support it.
I mean if random people on XDA Developers can figure out how to port AOSP or Lineage to everything, often in the span of a few days then surely you'd think device manufacturers could too without relying on Qualcomm to do it for them.
Microsoft has a vested interest in getting Windows to run on hardware going as far back as possible, within reason. They mainly sell the OS and legacy support is a huge selling point.
Phone manufacturers are at the other end of the spectrum. They sell the hardware and it's their vested interest to sell as much as they can. Making it obsolete by not offering software updates and taking advantage of the free work from XDA works perfectly for them. Being able to blame Qualcomm is even better since it's a "boogieman" that doesn't need to look good for consumers.
I’m not blaming the phone manufacturers - I am blaming Google. Apple definitely didn’t go out of its way to make sure that my 2006 era Mac Mini worked with Windows. But since back then, Apple used mostly standard PC components, MS supported it.
> I’m not blaming the phone manufacturers - I am blaming Google. Apple definitely didn’t go out of its way to make sure that my 2006 era Mac Mini worked with Windows. But since back then, Apple used mostly standard PC components, MS supported it.
But Google doesn't control the hardware in the same way that Apple does. It seems odd to blame Google for the lack of hardware support when the target platforms are not homogenous and have no single entity controlling the platform.
Microsoft doesn't control hardware, neither does the Linux community, yet I can run Windows and Linux on all sorts of random PC configurations. You can absolutely give Google/Android shit for this.
Actually they do. Microsoft maintains a well-defined standard and certification tests that define whether a machine is Windows compatible. The current one is the Windows HLK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Hardware_Lab_Kit. FOSS operating systems simply ride on the coattails of that.
Microsoft doesn’t control the hardware either. They solved the problem in 1995. Even my old DX/2-66 DOS Compatibility Card created by Apple installed in my PowerMac 6100/60 that shipped with Windows 3.1 could run Windows 95 on release day. Apple never released new drivers for it.
If Windows ran on something that esoteric 25 years ago, why can’t Google solve the problem now?
Because they don't care, and it is curious how in Google's case their SV fans are so fast blaming the OEMs, as if poor Google wasn't capable to enforce it, if they really cared.
And that can be blamed back to users. Average Joe couldn't care less if his phone won't get updated so often or at all after some time.
They should, but they don't. Can be said about many aspects of our lives generally, humans are on average not that clever. Voting with wallet is something companies understand very well, I don't see any other fix (maybe EU could force them into something, till they find a way to skip it).
That's victim blaming. Companies are the ones who shaped this situation and they managed to because each intrinsically acts as a unified entity with a unified goal and a lot of power behind it. People may be many but have little to no individual power, and they don't act in any coordinated fashion.
Users accept this because they can't really imagine it differently. Many of them never saw it working any other way. And phones never had the same kind of flexibility and repairability that PCs offer so people unwittingly assume this is normal and not even give it a second though.
Exactly. Plenty of users care, they're just powerless to do anything about. The OEM's are so big A LOT of people would have to outright boycott them to make any difference, but even then where are the going to go? ALL OEMs do this, so customers really have no choice in the matter.
Honestly, the users are right here - look at the history of this one, there's millions of dated Android devices out there lacking years of security patches, but do they get exploited?
Not in any significant number certainly, there haven't been any wildly successful Android worms like we've seen on Windows even in recent years.
The nature of sitting behind NATs, implementation of modern exploit mitigations in even older versions of Android, the diversity of devices, installation only via a marketplace, sandboxing and being able to rapidly update apps like browsers and email clients that do interact with network services makes those big OS-level exploits almost entirely unimportant.
The Average Joe has limited reason to care even if they stop getting security updates.
In 2020, I’m kind of amazed to hear you say that NAT is a mitigation for security exploits. “NAT is not a firewall” has been a mantra for at least 20 years.
This is just one exploit that can’t be patched by the app level and is dependent on the OEM.
The problem is that a lot of those ports are using old kernels and various hacks that a) OEM wouldn’t want to support since it can produce unreliable results and b) may quite likely be in violation of whichever agreement they have signed with the SoC manufacturer.
That said the larger OEMs could easily provide updates since they can simply compel Qualcomm to support newer kernels heck some of them like Samsung even produce their own SoCs.
They don’t want too, planned obsolescence has pretty much been integrated into the android ecosystem.
This is why I left it, OnePlus One was my last Android phone, iPhone 6S was my first iOS phone (I had an iPad and a iPod touch before but didn’t really used them, these were gifts and a raffle win).
The iPhone 6S will still get iOS 14 this year.
Overall I could sum up my Android experience as - lost weekends of tinkering with ROMs and kernels trying to get my phones in-line with new releases.
Not to mention the worst shit they cam up with and that was when updates were linked to carriers so sometimes you had to wait a year to get an update if you didn’t want to risk bricking your phone by applying an update form a different region.
Honestly if there was a $300 iPhone coming out each year I don’t think Android would have gotten above single digit percentage in the west.
And while I’ll probably get flack here for saying this but Android is the biggest piece of shit out there not because the OS is bad but because even Google cant get their asses out of their head long enough to provide support for more than a couple of years to their own devices.
And the worse thing about this is that because of how utterly garbage the Android ecosystem is we are somehow supposed to pat Apple on the back for supporting devices for 5 years.
No. Apple supports the iPhone 6S from 2015 with the latest OS until at least September of 2021.
Apple also released a point update to correct bugs in devices going back to the 2011 iPhone 4s last July. Apple supported a phone that was 8 years old.
I don't think its that Microsoft writes drivers for popular hardware. It's more so that Windows has a stable binary driver abi. Windows 7 drivers will still generally work on Windows 10. In contrast the Linux kernel will happily break any binary drivers between releases.
Depends on the Zune I think. If it was a V1, there is a lot to hate. Also, try using it today - this guy did and it seems like he seriously struggled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG3Jud-829A
They seem to be selling an always on battery saving mode as a quality of life feature. Which is fine for me having do not disturb activated 90% of time on my phone.
All the smartphones I had in recent years I had to charge overnight. Not because they were depleted completely, but enough so that they usually run out some point the next day. And I prefer to just plug the devices in at home insted of carrying around cables and charging banks.
And related question: How well does the apple or other smart watches do with audio interactions only? I have been playing with the tought of instead of having a phone, using a smart pocket watch. So not even wearing on the wrist. But just take it out once in a while and use headphones, for things like accepting call, dictate messages/notes and chose spotify playlist.
That "pocket watch" idea is kinda neat. Maybe someone could bring back the pocket watch form factor. Come to think of it, that's how I used my phone before I got a smart watch.
Third party reviews have said that it could last 18-24 hours
All the smartphones I had in recent years I had to charge overnight. Not because they were depleted completely, but enough so that they usually run out some point the next day. And I prefer to just plug the devices in at home insted of carrying around cables and charging banks.
That’s the same reason I bought my iPhone 8 Plus. At the time it had the best battery life of any iPhone.
Now the iPhone 11 Pro Max can easily last two days on a charge but that phone is ridiculously large.
How well does the apple or other smart watches do with audio interactions only?
We tested ours when we first got them. I had my watch on, arms down, no headphones and we couldn’t tell that you weren’t on a phone. Of course with a headphones you couldn’t tell the difference. Apple Music works well with voice interaction. I’m not sure if Spotify has been updated to take advantage of the new APIs and Siri integration Apple introduced last year. Text messaging using voice only works well. But, if I know my wife is out and about. I try to ask simple questions in text where she can just use a quick reply - yes, no, etc.
I have one. I charge it every night or two. Sometimes it runs out of battery but I don't care much. Web browsing, emailing, calling for a rideshare, and other straightforward stuff is fine. If you're using Google Maps for turn by turn GPS continuously in a car without a way to charge your phone via USB, you'll run out of battery in a couple hours. If you play a bunch of graphically games, I imagine it wouldn't be super great.
I've been using one of these for the past 6 months (they were going for ~$70 on eBay when I got mine).
I don't use the "Life Mode" feature, and the battery doesn't even come close to lasting all day. When using the phone with screen on you can watch the battery percentage tick down ~1% a minute, and listening to streaming music over Bluetooth with screen off give you about 3 hours of life total.
In practice I find myself leaving the phone plugged in, disconnecting it only to change location or leave the house. On excursions a battery pack is an absolute must-have.
This is something I've given a lot of thought about in the past few months. I almost bought one of these palm phones but ultimately the drawbacks mentioned here and on reviews sort of dissuaded me from getting one. Your smart pocket watch reminds me of the runcible, which was really cool and I wish I had gotten one but didn't have the funds at the time.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/runcible-circular-open-so...
Good point about the Apple Watch being the truly minimal "phone."
I also very frequently now leave my iPhone at home. This takes a little planning in the form of having an audio book and a few podcasts on the watch.
Apple Watch + AirPods makes me feel set free when I am hiking or out of the house with family and friends. It is so easy to ignore the light vibration notification for incoming text messages or emails, and easy to ignore calls.
Yes, but streaming over cellular is mostly limited to support from Apple apps, not third party apps. Spotify might be the kind exception for that right now.
The API was added last year to allow third parties to stream and a Siri intent was added for third party music apps to work as well as Apple Music. After years of whining, Spotify took (has taken?) forever taking advantage of it.
It's just streaming from the phone though, not actually over cell? I know they don't have offline, which is the main reason I've held off buying a watch and airpods for running: I only need a few hours of music, GPS, and HR, and it feels like this should be a good combo.
Apple Music could stream over cellular over the watch when the first Apple Watch with cellular was introduced. They added support for third parties last year.
Apple Music and maybe Spotify will work off line. The cellular Apple Watch has 16GB of storage.
Minor clarification: GPS is always included. Only cellular is optional. I know what you mean, but your wording makes it sound as if GPS was a paid feature.
I really like the idea of the watch instead of a phone, but it seems like they've explicitly designed it so that it will never be a stand-alone device.
I don't mind buying the watch and the airpods, but having to buy a phone AND two data subscriptions (thanks Canada telecoms)? Not worth it.
In day to day use, you never need the phone if you have the watch. Just for the initial setup and to pair with your data plan. But as far as cost you’re right - even with T-Mobile I pay $40 plan and $10 for the Watch data plan.
I began rambling since I’m trying to have same practices as your wife. Moved my questions to top of comment;
Which Apple Watch cell version does she have. Do you happen to know the third party ear clip? I hadn’t thought of getting that. I just ordered AirPods arriving today.
—
This is the perfect post for me to see. I am in my second deep dive in trying to make the Apple Watch a major priority, possibly upgrading to a cellular Watch if this proves to go well. Your wife is another key point for me to push this attempt.
I fit the same demo where a minimalist sort of phone like this would have been right for me. But there is no perfect and the Watch is as good or better than any other option. Especially with my lack of passive phone usage discipline.
Another time I might waste a lot of time contemplating getting something like this. But I’ve finally gotten over a few remaining “needs” for always having phone on me:
(1) detailed location history logging —- don’t think there’s an alternative to this. Won’t have it without a phone.
(2) Siri isn’t very good at dictation on the Watch —- just have to deal with it
(3) Not enough apps on the Watch —- same pattern of just deal with it. I am starting to use a few apps to put stuff into and later I can organize the info. Drafts App and Things are two main ones. Some chat/messaging apps lack proper/any Watch support. Again deal with it :p.
I think having the latest Android version is overrated. I'm using an enterprise Android 7 device that, afaik, has never gotten any firmware updates.
It now sells with 8.1, but I haven't been able to find any option to upgrade on their site.
All the apps I want to use are still available, F-Droid works great, I have the latest Chrome (which I use as Bromium). I've been able to disable most of Google apps, though I'm a bit sore that most of the OS breaks down when I disable Chrome.
Hey man I had both a Zune and a ZuneHD. The Zune was fun and funky right when the iPod was starting to turn into a serious gadget used by Wall Street traders. I had the brown one!
Now, the ZuneHD that was a sexy piece of hardware. And the screen was brilliant!
I think the ZuneHD was Microsoft starting to finally get hardware right. But of course the software was terrible. Well, the client was. The “twisted” interface for the ZuneHD was actually much easier to use than music app or Spotify even today.
It's only 3cm taller, the battery will last you a week and it has no distractions, oh and it's 34 quid.
More classic Nokia options here: https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_gb/classic-phones I've had a Nokia 208 for 7 years, I take it rock climbing all the time, it's been crushed and battered countless times and dropped from 60m - battery only lasts a few days now so time to get a new one (a new battery not a new phone).
These phones are great for sports because they are so rugged and they are cheap anyway so you can forget about them and focus on what you are doing. The stick phone form factor is also better for fitting into a pocket without restricting movement - I don't always want to take it on route but sometimes forget it's in my pocket.
As a minimalist, I can't deny the utility of digital maps, it's the most useful thing smart phones provide, and I would love to add it to an otherwise dumb phone...
For the same form factor and other benefits but at about twice the price the 8110 runs kaiOS which includes google maps among other things - it's a different ecosystem and you wont find all the same kinds of apps that you get on android but there are some big ones in there like whatsapp.
I've been looking for dumb phones with just talk, text, and GPS in the US for years (at least two) now. The closest thing I've found is blackberry. I just want a phone that 1. can get me to my destination if I'm lost and 2. doesn't give me the opportunity to distract myself in other ways. I don't want to be beholden to my willpower - I don't want to be able to download apps at all.
To give context to nailer's succinct answer: some of fitness technology covered by DCRainmaker [1] works well with iOS/Android apps like Garmin Connect or Fitbit. This covers both continuous trackers that do not have GPS as well as the very large ecosystem of BLE sensors for runners/bikers/hikers.
I also need/want a device capable of 911 emergency calls for both away-from-home and electricity/Internet-outage scenarios. I have a laptop and/or tablet and when I'm away from a WiFi hotspot I am almost always active or my hands are engaged.
Fair enough, I think we are talking about different types of people - some people, like me, want a dumb phone for basic communication only, so they can get out to have some adventure without still being hooked up to the machine - we don't want the distraction.
But I understand others (mainly exercise enthusiasts) want to be hooked up because their drive is to track progress. In that case they really want a small smart phone which is what this palm thing is.
As someone who has a Palm Phone, this isn't really the same market. With that giant keypad, that device is optimized for something I almost never use (the phone feature), and it takes up a lot of real estate for what I might actually need (typing things I need to look up, seeing the results of what I want to look up). It wouldn't be able to function as my sole device.
I would agree with you if the battery life wasn't so terrible. I used it for a few months as my primary phone and have tried going back to it a few times. I really want to switch but the battery life is brutal.
Buy this phone if you like getting stranded at bars at 2am and asking friends to call you an Uber to get home.
Most of my phone usage when I am out is when I have an audiovisual notification of some sort. But keeping my phone on silent combined with the Palm phone never reacting to any program while the screen is locked, means I just use it less. So while occasionally it still runs out of battery when I'm out, in practice it doesn't do it any more than any of my previous phones.
That one was an interesting design and aesthetic, but having also owned one for about a year in 2006 I have to say it was pretty terrible for usability of basic phone calls and texts (which is all I want).
As a minimalist and an athlete I find myself not wanting to do either of those things in the middle of the forest climbing something trying not to be distracted by technology... I guess we have different interpretations of the target audience.
There's still quite a range of "dumb" phones available. A concern of mine is always: can I sync it to my computer. As far as my research went, you don't get that, at least with entry level phones from Nokia (105/106). That's especially annoying as it wouldn't require much effort.
On a pretty different note, I'm surprised nobody ever mentioned Punkt phones [1,2] on HN. From a design standpoint, also taking durability into account, it looks as if they're worth a try. They're outrageously expensive but I still like the fact they've been built at all.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 335 ms ] threadSeriously though, most of the reasons I need a phone are covered by a tiny device. NFC pay, music, camera, phone calls, oncall alerts...
> Yep, this phone, which is called "Palm" and from the company "Palm" (so the Palm Palm?) is a newly formed zombie brand made from the ashes of the legendary Palm Inc, the very same company that created the Palm Pilot, the Palm Treo, and WebOS. After bombing out in the smartphone market circa 2010 and selling to HP, Chinese firm TCL bought the rights to Palm back in 2014 and announced plans to resurrect the company in 2015. The corpse of Palm remained still for several years, but the right combination of a full moon, or lightning strike, or something roused the company back to life just last month.
[0]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/palm-phone-review-fu...
I seem to remember the logo, even.
However, saying that I think the challenge with this phone might be the battery life. It comes with a free phone case with a battery pack(making the size waaay chunkier than without the case), and the specifications don't mention mAh, just 'battery life' (which from my experience is rarely accurate).
According to https://www.gsmarena.com/palm_palm-pictures-9290.php it's only 800mAh, and from the images it's clear that they're making the screen look much larger than it actually is. Hmm.
I really dig the concept though.
Another indicator is that all battery life examples are for activities that typically have the display switched off.
So, I guess you are right. I like the size :)
About the same time of ownership; battery health is 91%
I run mine with default apps, couch to 5k, nutracheck, YouTube, eBay, Santander, OS maps, prime video, Netflix, slack, PayPal, Uber eats, duo mobile TOTP and that’s it. No social crap.
I’ve been using a iPhone SE as my primary phone since summer 2016.
If I recall, my original new iPhone SE had great battery life. It was first on iOS 9.
Up Until iOS 12, Battery life was fine on it. With iOS 12, had to get a extended battery case; that held up As a workable solution until iOS 13.
At the end of last year, after iOS 13 came out I replaced that iPhone SE with a brand new one I bought on fire sale.
That had an accident this week, which I replaced with another new iPhone SE.
For it, I set it up as a new device, without any apps, and not restoring from any backup, I still have the same battery life.
I’m going to chalk it up to iOS background process bloat and third party background app refresh, etc.
It will be I nteresting to see how iOS 14 Holds up on the iPhone SE 2016.
What can I say, I refuse to use a phone without flat sides, no headphone jack and not of a reasonable size. I could take a few of those exceptions but all three has been a no go for me. Really the new “meh” battery life is the only complaint I have about this device.
Really excited for the rumored iPhone 12 5.4 inch since it may be about the same size as the old SE; with flat sides.
This. I’ve noticed my 6s is frequently warm, indicating heavy activity.
Top suspicion is Photos processing faces/recognition/etc.
I want this to be true but I doubt it very much.
The gen 11s have rather good battery life (I rarely dip below 50% at day's end even though I use my phone a lot) — though some folks have apparently reported drain issues — but they have almost double the battery capacity of an '8.
Doubt it would last the entire work day on a single charge with casual usage (playing music, making some notes).
It feels like more of a companion than a phone replacement. I feel like it'd be just another gadget after a few days sitting in my drawer, never to be used again.
But the Palm doesn't solve any of those issues. No fingerprint scanner. Only 800mAh battery (Jelly 2 has 2000). Much lower specs, 28nm SoC. Single SIM. Just nope.
Scrolling through forums, I don't think they ever fixed that. Hopefully on the Jelly 2?
Currently on a Unihertz Atom. Battery life is better but it's sealed like an iphone.
The Atom starts on Android 8.1 but get regular updates and it's v9 now.
Maybe Palm plans the same thing?
The Jelly 2 seems like an improvement over the Jelly 1, but still that resolution of 480x854 is hard to swallow. Although given that there will likely be no Palm Phone 2, I could see myself getting a Jelly 3 or 4 in a few years.
Not by that much, but it definitely is. It's too big to use well one-handed, and it doesn't fit comfortably in a lot of pockets, especially since the corners are pointy.
The perfect phone form factor - and this must surely have been plain to anyone who ever held one - was the Nokia Lumia 620, a Windows phone with 3.8" screen and a curvy back with exchangable double-shot plastic covers. It was a bit like an iPhone 3GS in shape but lighter and with a marginally bigger screen. The phone itself was a bit crap in various ways, but how strange that we should collectively ignore the obvious rightness of this design and go on making them worse and worse for years afterwards. (I'm being flippant, but somewhere in my head I am puzzled by it all)
But all I see is either gigantic phones, or 3 inches phones like this one so tiny they're barely usable as a smartphone. At that point why not just buy a dumb phone?
That's much larger than the SE (4" screen, 125x60x7.5 mm, 110 g compared to 5" screen, 140x70x7.5 mm, 150 g for the 2020 SE). Which is a really nice form factor, and well suited for apps, but not so good for web browsing.
Not necessarily if they're talking about the diagonal of the phone: the SE1 has a ~138mm diagonal, which is ~5.4".
At 156mm the SE2 is a bit above 6.1".
Though by that measure the Palm here is hardly "3 inches", it's 4.2".
It's a one year old phone, but at the moment it's on the latest version of Android. Plus it has a headphone jack.
But like the iPhone, it's a greased piece of glass, so it definitely needs some sort of case.
If so, reports are that the battery life is extremely short.
https://www.ogadget.com/x/jelly-2?
That Android does not work well with a device that small should remains as an issue, but at least the gesture controls it has now could help a bit.
https://knowtechie.com/?p=122471
If so, that’s too bad. I’d like one as my daily driver, but it sounds like it won’t cut it. I wonder if it could be underclocked or something.
Why can’t they make it even thicker?
> Feel matters. And to me, the classic 4-inch display form factor shared by the iPhones 5, 5S, and now SE [1st Gen] feels the best in hand. This is obviously highly subjective, but in my mind it’s not even a close call. There are obvious reasons to prefer the larger 4.7- and 5.5-inch models, but how they feel in your hand isn’t one of them.
The ultra-mobile Palm is 2” wide with a 16:9 720p screen and almost half the weight of the 1st Gen iPhone SE (63g vs 113g) but half the battery capacity.
[1] https://daringfireball.net/2016/03/the_iphone_se
I suspect I'd buy one of these if I could play with it in person first.
[edit: Looks like the answer is yes, TCL bought the Palm brand and is funding this]
> December 11, 2018
> Meet the new Palm
> Back in 1996, Palm released the PalmPilot and forever changed the mobile handheld game. Today Palm is back—same name but a whole new company. We’re a small San Francisco-based start up harnessing that same innovative spirit to help bring people out of their tech and into their lives.
It looks like they bought the rights to the name.
Might not be too bad if they managed to hire some veterans from PalmOS
Good on them to try.
ps: also for the non young and average person, android is just a bit too deep
The second comparison is also visible on desktop, but it's not a very obvious one, the CC size is kind of hidden, so could be better.
Weird to display different pictures for mobiles than for desktop, especially when the mobile picture is way better than the animation desktop sees.
[0] https://i.shgcdn.com/6796ca42-cd39-47de-855a-9a5bbb1aa92a/-/...
Write above-the-fold.
[1] https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0063/0613/6154/products/Pa...
Ops.
> Security: Face unlock
Hopefully not the only method.
> Dimensions: 50.6 X 96.6 X 7.4mm
Wonderful.
> Weight: 62.5 grams
More than wonderful.
> GPS Workout: Up to 4 hours and 45 minutes
My old Sony Xperia Compact records GPS all the day long. I used it to record a 8:00 to 20:30 bicycle ride one year ago. Sorry for the Palm.
But my guess is that the target market for Palm doesn't really care about the latest features, they care about gear that works and fits normally in a hand. So probably not a big issue really.
The $280 price tag is a biggest show-stopper IMO (and according to the Palm website that's a "sale" from the $400 price tag, although I never quite trust that). I paid $70 for my basic Android device (Samsung Core A2) and that works just fine as well (with some minor caveats/limitations of Android Go, such as the screen not lighting up when there's a notification).
Even the Apple Watch has better battery life when used stand a line for a run. Heck my old Garmin GPS watch from 2011 had better battery life.
>OS
You are indeed stuck on 8.1. Android devices all seem to have this problem because Google can't figure out how to let users control the OS, unlike what every other OS developer (even GNU/Linux) has done. You just have to hope you get stuck on a version that is tolerable (or continuously buy new phones?).
>Face Unlock
It is not the only method. You can lock and unlock it like a regular Android device. I've never used face unlock before.
>The size
It's fantastic.
>GPS
It would definitely not last you a 12 hour bikeride.
This has little to do with Google.
One major issue is carriers. Many demanded that they have control over the OS: "certifying" every new major version for every handset, and then installing their own apps. Google needed carriers to push Android, so they allowed these agreements to persist.
On the hardware support side, that's an issue with drivers. Google could and should set standards for drivers, which is a lesson Microsoft learned the hard way with Windows. Finally, Microsoft did set those standards for Vista, and they were rewarded with an explosion of hatred over bad drivers that they didn't write and didn't want to spend money supporting anymore.
At this point, it's mostly up to manufacturers to keep drivers updated. If they won't, then there are communities like LineageOS who try (and sometimes succeed quite well).
But if they keep the size, reduce the bezels, and bump the battery up they'll definitely have my money.
BUT
Why on earth did they have to rippoff both original iPhone design and the watchOS appscreen??? I hope for them that Apple have learn yet that it's not worth the energy suing a small player. But still it's maddening that they can't thing of something else than such obvious copy-paste approach. Next time hire some designers to produce something more original for the love of earth!
In other words, design goes both ways. There's no ripoff from my point of view.
If you ask me, they've applied the paradigm in a pretty neat way, which was Palm's strong point back in the day.
1. If it is shipping with Android 8 - an old version of Android. What are the chances that it will ever see any updates?
2. My wife would have been the target audience for this form factor - pre Apple Watch. Her phone is her least favorite device. She will leave it in the car in a heartbeat. She won’t think twice if she leaves at home.
But now, she has a cellular Apple Watch and AirPods with a third party ear clip. She doesn’t have to carry any phone.
3. The battery life is atrocious. Even the Apple Watch has better battery life for normal day to day use.
4. I seriously doubt it has 16GB of memory - the cellular Apple Watch does. That’s more than enough for local music playback without using cellular.
5. This is the Zune of phones to me. But, yes I realize that the cheapest entry point to our setup - phone + Watch is $800 if we did get A cheaper headset. With AirPods it would be $959.
The flash based Zunes similar to the Nanos came out at the same time as the second generation iPod Touch.
The Zune HD came out with no apps around the end of 2009. Peak iPod - including the Touch - was 4th quarter 2008. The iPod was already losing steam and even then it was being propped up by the iPod Touch.
Yes this was a real argument made at the time.
All I use: email, browser, maps, phone, txt, calendar, camera (non essential for me).
I'm not sure how you got "three months before the iPhone" when the Zune 30 was released in Nov 2005 and the iPhone was released in June 2007. That's not 3 months, that's 19 months.
It didn’t matter if they were “competitive”. The market had already spoken. People preferred the flash based smaller players to the larger players. MS went after the smallest part of the market.
https://youtu.be/iIj9W74Ju2E
Android 8.1 to be precise. As long as google is releasing security updates it should be okay.
https://developer.android.com/about/versions/oreo/android-8....
My wife’s iPad that is a year newer will get much better operating system wide support for the Pencil.
Even on Symbian best days, you would be lucky to get at very least one time update, and Symbian was the exception, as no else every provided any kind of updates.
I agree it is very stupid, but if Google prefers to have Android in every piece of mobile CPU without arm wrestling OEMs, that is never going to change.
Note that while Project Treble has actually turned Linux into a pseudo microkernel, where standard Linux drivers are "legacy" and everything else runs on their own process with Android IPC, the situation has hardly changed, because Google is still leaving to the OEMs the responsibility for the update process.
On a side note, any of my Windows Phones has gotten more updates than all my Android devices combined.
But as I mention in another thread today, iDevices aren't for price sensitive pre-pay customers that use the devices until they die or get stolen. The majority of the world isn't US with free exchange programs every two years.
In some locations, the hard paied for unknown brand Android device is the first computer many people manage to own, so they aren't even on Apple's target demographic.
It hasn’t work that way since the iPhone came out - in 2007.
I agree it is very stupid, but if Google prefers to have Android in every piece of mobile CPU without arm wrestling OEMs, that is never going to change.
Yet and still not only can I update my Windows PCs directly from Microsoft without having to wait on the OEMs, I was also able to stick a Windows 7 DVD in my 2006 era Core Duo Mac Mini, install it and it recognized all of my hardware flawlessly. Apple abandoned it years ago, I could still run a supported version of Windows through the beginning of this year.
Microsoft figures this out on PCs over 15 years ago with WinHEC and plug and play.
It would be 100% like everyone else had Apple allowed for iOS based OEM devices.
Indeed, but that is only thanks to IBM's failure to close back the PC and only applies to desktop and server devices.
Even Microsoft isn't able to do much regarding laptops and Windows tablets, and was forced to start their own Surface line.
But yes, they still do much better than Google, because Google just doesn't care.
Project Trent would have been the opportunity to change contracts for accessing Google services, and they just kept everything regarding OEMs as before.
The proof that they don't really care is the support for their own Pixel devices.
However as mentioned before, not everyone on this planet can afford to be an Apple customer and OS updates aren't certainly on their daily worries.
Microsoft however does allow 3rd party OEMs for Windows and PCs don’t have that issue. MS makes sure the most popular or even some obscure hardware is supported.
Even Microsoft isn't able to do much regarding laptops and Windows tablets, and was forced to start their own Surface line.
I have an 11 year old Dell E6500 Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz running Windows 10 perfectly.
I'm not sure why people don't admit that Windows does backwards compatibility well. Windows has many issues, but running well on old hardware isn't one of them.
Any other Windows 7 version, or more recent versions, the internal fan is not able to make for the generated heat due to missing power management settings.
So I just got used to the noise of having two fans running all the time when I need to do something with that laptop, which has long lost the laptop capability, but hey it runs Windows 10.
As an example, the webcam drivers and power management settings that without OEM drivers will just fry the CPU until the security takes over and forces a hard shutdown.
So, to turn the question around, assuming this is your stance, why is it not okay?
This as an argument I heard for using older android versions for low end phones around 50$, because newer versions run horrible on them.
I'm not enough into mobile phones to judge whether this is true, but OS version is a tradeoff I would be willing to make dependent on what I'm looking for
How long is the Windows beta available for major updates to give the ecosystem a chance to test for compatibility. Google just doesn’t know how to handle an ecosystem.
However, if I pick up a 2 year old Windows/Mac computer or iOS device, I can still run the latest OS.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-42615378
I never said that Apple could defy the laws of physics and prevent battery degradation.
Also, if I bought a brand new phone that was released in 2018 and even if it did have an old operating system - but a new battery, I could update to the newest OS. If it was a used phone with an old battery - I could replace the battery for $70.
My son just replaced an iPhone 6S that I bought in 2015 late last year. I replaced the battery before giving it to him. It was and still can run the latest OS version. It will be running the latest OS until at least September 2021.
I switched to an Android from iPhone when Galaxy Note 1 came out.
Apple did not have the audacity or innovation to release a phone with a large screen. Over time, every Android manufacturer except Google and BlackBerry proceeded to let me down with out of date security patches, if any at all.
Samsung makes some of the very best devices, but pushing 6 month old patches as a current update doesn’t fly. Projects like LineageOS have made inroads too.
I'd buy a Galaxy Note in a heartbeat if it ran Android One.
My hope is every manufacturer uses Android One distribution, Android has come far enough that the UI modifications/customizations aren’t as critical as they used to be. I’ll only consider a Pixel or Android One device moving forward if I don't end up on an iPhone.
Still, I’m typing this on an iPad, and have been on Mac for over a decade.. maybe it is time to look at an iPhone again. Part of me is exploring leaving Mac and head to Ubuntu. A palm phone with a great camera could be interesting if lineage might work on it.
Edit: Typos
Their TVs are loaded with spyware and push notifications, full screen ads, menu ads, all unremovable. You pay thousands for the privilege of this garbage.
All of their phones have unremovable bloatware and spyware. They push vulnerable, ancient, forked AOSP software like "samsung browser" and send full screen image ads via push notifications, unremovable Bixby stuff, unremovable Samsung Store. And the US versions can't be unlocked to install Lineage or stock android.
Did she use her phone to read articles on the go? If yes, how is she getting this done with this setup?
Email isn’t really used that often anymore for personal, immediate communications. If someone is emailing you, culturally it’s really not considered urgent.
Read articles on the go? Sure you can read news snippets on the Watch using the News app, but if she is leaving her phone behind, it’s specifically in a context where she doesn’t want to be distracted but does want to be able to communicate with people.
I have an Apple Watch just because, but I really don’t get that much usefulness out of it. I work from home now. I haven’t gone inside a gym in years where the idea of having a phone with me all of the time was irritating - I have a fully equipped workout room at home. Besides, women often wear clothes without pockets. Men usually don’t - except maybe at the gym or while running.
As far as texts. Siri’s voice recognition works surprisingly well for responding to them.
I just think the "companion" aspect was always dumb. You would have to manage two devices and keep them with you anyway, all that would do is increase personal toil. It only became viable for me once I could replace my larger phone with it entirely.
The Zune was a great device yo.
Why the delay? The chipset manufacturer only recently came out with the BSP for Android 9. So, cost.
Blame Qualcomm. If you’re a OEM with comparatively low volumes there is very little leverage you have to get your SOC vendor to give you the latest updates. When I worked on Android HW, Qualcomm were basically a year behind whatever the latest Android was, because our volume was so small we weren’t a priority.
If you as a PC OEM, no matter how small, if you used popular components, Windows would support it.
Phone manufacturers are at the other end of the spectrum. They sell the hardware and it's their vested interest to sell as much as they can. Making it obsolete by not offering software updates and taking advantage of the free work from XDA works perfectly for them. Being able to blame Qualcomm is even better since it's a "boogieman" that doesn't need to look good for consumers.
But Google doesn't control the hardware in the same way that Apple does. It seems odd to blame Google for the lack of hardware support when the target platforms are not homogenous and have no single entity controlling the platform.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_Plug_and_Play
If Windows ran on something that esoteric 25 years ago, why can’t Google solve the problem now?
They should, but they don't. Can be said about many aspects of our lives generally, humans are on average not that clever. Voting with wallet is something companies understand very well, I don't see any other fix (maybe EU could force them into something, till they find a way to skip it).
That's victim blaming. Companies are the ones who shaped this situation and they managed to because each intrinsically acts as a unified entity with a unified goal and a lot of power behind it. People may be many but have little to no individual power, and they don't act in any coordinated fashion.
Users accept this because they can't really imagine it differently. Many of them never saw it working any other way. And phones never had the same kind of flexibility and repairability that PCs offer so people unwittingly assume this is normal and not even give it a second though.
Not in any significant number certainly, there haven't been any wildly successful Android worms like we've seen on Windows even in recent years.
The nature of sitting behind NATs, implementation of modern exploit mitigations in even older versions of Android, the diversity of devices, installation only via a marketplace, sandboxing and being able to rapidly update apps like browsers and email clients that do interact with network services makes those big OS-level exploits almost entirely unimportant.
The Average Joe has limited reason to care even if they stop getting security updates.
This is just one exploit that can’t be patched by the app level and is dependent on the OEM.
https://threatpost.com/mediatek-bug-actively-exploited-andro...
That said the larger OEMs could easily provide updates since they can simply compel Qualcomm to support newer kernels heck some of them like Samsung even produce their own SoCs.
They don’t want too, planned obsolescence has pretty much been integrated into the android ecosystem.
This is why I left it, OnePlus One was my last Android phone, iPhone 6S was my first iOS phone (I had an iPad and a iPod touch before but didn’t really used them, these were gifts and a raffle win).
The iPhone 6S will still get iOS 14 this year.
Overall I could sum up my Android experience as - lost weekends of tinkering with ROMs and kernels trying to get my phones in-line with new releases.
Not to mention the worst shit they cam up with and that was when updates were linked to carriers so sometimes you had to wait a year to get an update if you didn’t want to risk bricking your phone by applying an update form a different region.
Honestly if there was a $300 iPhone coming out each year I don’t think Android would have gotten above single digit percentage in the west.
And while I’ll probably get flack here for saying this but Android is the biggest piece of shit out there not because the OS is bad but because even Google cant get their asses out of their head long enough to provide support for more than a couple of years to their own devices.
And the worse thing about this is that because of how utterly garbage the Android ecosystem is we are somehow supposed to pat Apple on the back for supporting devices for 5 years.
Apple also released a point update to correct bugs in devices going back to the 2011 iPhone 4s last July. Apple supported a phone that was 8 years old.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-Android-One-program-is-a-s...
I do hope as Android One devices are easier for projects like LineageOS or Postmarket to support.
nobody who owned a zune would consider that a negative comparison
They seem to be selling an always on battery saving mode as a quality of life feature. Which is fine for me having do not disturb activated 90% of time on my phone.
All the smartphones I had in recent years I had to charge overnight. Not because they were depleted completely, but enough so that they usually run out some point the next day. And I prefer to just plug the devices in at home insted of carrying around cables and charging banks.
And related question: How well does the apple or other smart watches do with audio interactions only? I have been playing with the tought of instead of having a phone, using a smart pocket watch. So not even wearing on the wrist. But just take it out once in a while and use headphones, for things like accepting call, dictate messages/notes and chose spotify playlist.
Third party reviews have said that it could last 18-24 hours
All the smartphones I had in recent years I had to charge overnight. Not because they were depleted completely, but enough so that they usually run out some point the next day. And I prefer to just plug the devices in at home insted of carrying around cables and charging banks.
That’s the same reason I bought my iPhone 8 Plus. At the time it had the best battery life of any iPhone.
Now the iPhone 11 Pro Max can easily last two days on a charge but that phone is ridiculously large.
How well does the apple or other smart watches do with audio interactions only?
We tested ours when we first got them. I had my watch on, arms down, no headphones and we couldn’t tell that you weren’t on a phone. Of course with a headphones you couldn’t tell the difference. Apple Music works well with voice interaction. I’m not sure if Spotify has been updated to take advantage of the new APIs and Siri integration Apple introduced last year. Text messaging using voice only works well. But, if I know my wife is out and about. I try to ask simple questions in text where she can just use a quick reply - yes, no, etc.
I also very frequently now leave my iPhone at home. This takes a little planning in the form of having an audio book and a few podcasts on the watch.
Apple Watch + AirPods makes me feel set free when I am hiking or out of the house with family and friends. It is so easy to ignore the light vibration notification for incoming text messages or emails, and easy to ignore calls.
Oh ok - yes it does. And wi-fi !
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Watch
Apple Music and maybe Spotify will work off line. The cellular Apple Watch has 16GB of storage.
Shockingly, Pandora seems to have offline playback: https://9to5mac.com/2020/04/29/pandora-shows-spotify-how-to-..., so I'll chalk this one up to "Spotify spends all its time complaining instead of actually building the app"
I don't mind buying the watch and the airpods, but having to buy a phone AND two data subscriptions (thanks Canada telecoms)? Not worth it.
Which Apple Watch cell version does she have. Do you happen to know the third party ear clip? I hadn’t thought of getting that. I just ordered AirPods arriving today.
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This is the perfect post for me to see. I am in my second deep dive in trying to make the Apple Watch a major priority, possibly upgrading to a cellular Watch if this proves to go well. Your wife is another key point for me to push this attempt.
I fit the same demo where a minimalist sort of phone like this would have been right for me. But there is no perfect and the Watch is as good or better than any other option. Especially with my lack of passive phone usage discipline.
Another time I might waste a lot of time contemplating getting something like this. But I’ve finally gotten over a few remaining “needs” for always having phone on me:
(1) detailed location history logging —- don’t think there’s an alternative to this. Won’t have it without a phone.
(2) Siri isn’t very good at dictation on the Watch —- just have to deal with it
(3) Not enough apps on the Watch —- same pattern of just deal with it. I am starting to use a few apps to put stuff into and later I can organize the info. Drafts App and Things are two main ones. Some chat/messaging apps lack proper/any Watch support. Again deal with it :p.
https://www.amazon.com/New-EARBUDi-AirPods-Slides-Earhook-Am...
She uses them when she is teaching online fitness classes and they stay in her ear so they are pretty good.
If I were still an outdoor runner I would probably get the PowerBeats with the over the ear clips.
I haven’t had any problems with Siri doing decently well for voice dictation and I have a southern accent.
It now sells with 8.1, but I haven't been able to find any option to upgrade on their site.
All the apps I want to use are still available, F-Droid works great, I have the latest Chrome (which I use as Bromium). I've been able to disable most of Google apps, though I'm a bit sore that most of the OS breaks down when I disable Chrome.
Now, the ZuneHD that was a sexy piece of hardware. And the screen was brilliant!
I think the ZuneHD was Microsoft starting to finally get hardware right. But of course the software was terrible. Well, the client was. The “twisted” interface for the ZuneHD was actually much easier to use than music app or Spotify even today.
https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_gb/nokia-5310
It's only 3cm taller, the battery will last you a week and it has no distractions, oh and it's 34 quid.
More classic Nokia options here: https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_gb/classic-phones I've had a Nokia 208 for 7 years, I take it rock climbing all the time, it's been crushed and battered countless times and dropped from 60m - battery only lasts a few days now so time to get a new one (a new battery not a new phone).
These phones are great for sports because they are so rugged and they are cheap anyway so you can forget about them and focus on what you are doing. The stick phone form factor is also better for fitting into a pocket without restricting movement - I don't always want to take it on route but sometimes forget it's in my pocket.
For the same form factor and other benefits but at about twice the price the 8110 runs kaiOS which includes google maps among other things - it's a different ecosystem and you wont find all the same kinds of apps that you get on android but there are some big ones in there like whatsapp.
https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_gb/nokia-8110-4g
I might seriously upgrade to one of these at some point, feels like a good middle ground without going full distractophone.
[edit]
oh and of course you get to make infinite number of references to the matrix with this phone ;P
https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_us/classic-phones
I also need/want a device capable of 911 emergency calls for both away-from-home and electricity/Internet-outage scenarios. I have a laptop and/or tablet and when I'm away from a WiFi hotspot I am almost always active or my hands are engaged.
[1] https://www.dcrainmaker.com/
But I understand others (mainly exercise enthusiasts) want to be hooked up because their drive is to track progress. In that case they really want a small smart phone which is what this palm thing is.
Buy this phone if you like getting stranded at bars at 2am and asking friends to call you an Uber to get home.
I believe this was solved more elegantly by the MOTO FONE:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Fone
... which was a beautiful piece of design and minimalist functionality. I used this as my only phone from (roughly) 2014-2016.
On a pretty different note, I'm surprised nobody ever mentioned Punkt phones [1,2] on HN. From a design standpoint, also taking durability into account, it looks as if they're worth a try. They're outrageously expensive but I still like the fact they've been built at all.
1. https://www.punkt.ch/en/products/mp01-mobile-phone/ 2. https://www.punkt.ch/en/products/mp02-4g-mobile-phone/