Why does it seem as though only high end Android devices get any attention on this forum? Everything Android is virtually identical, save for the select readers sold by large retailers. There's the Android SDK to back that up; the differences being internally (memory, processors, etc.). I'm looking to try and enroll in Android App Dev in school next semester, and if someone needs to fill in that gap, I'll try since I have taken a peek and wrote a few small programs as well.
(And yes, I am almost expecting to get bruised for this question...this forum is severely misrepresented by, I'd say, 75% a-holes who think they are awesome because they have over ten posts and can root a phone with software rather than by hand or flash their rom with a rom manager! Do keep it easy, and do NOT take my honesty for granted. To assume will make an ass of you before me.)
The low end android devices suck !
Its the simple fact that the high end device users are more likely to be enthusiasts who want to tinker with their phones, whereas those who buy a lower end device are probably less likely to be rooting and ROMing (unless they're buying low end devices as secondary "tinker" phones for fun).
So that alone leads to a smaller user base of the low end phones. Not to mention that for an individual device, the low end phones don't push the number of sales as the superphones. You're not seeing a $49 on contract Android device selling 20 million units like the SGSII.
Also keep in mind that not all high end devices are well supported on XDA. There are a lot of phones that just don't get big developer uptake on them. Whether its because of the niche carrier its on, or a locked bootloader, or whatever -- just because its "high end" doesn't guarantee a big development base.
Hope that can put some perspective on it.
That may be true, that low end devices suck. But history has taught us that low end devices will prove something useful in the future or that something will come along and breathe new life into the "suck" devices. There is such thing as too powerful for a particular task.
Even if it is just to show someone the workings of an Android device is beneficial to someone who hasn't used an Android device.
Anything else, other than "Because they suck"?
martonikaj thanks for the reply, i had to have been writing my reply as you typed yours, lol.
It seems logical that someone would want to buy a small cheap device to test on a get a feel for. This way if something breaks, it's not a huge loss, as opposed to buying an expensive device and running the risk on bricking it. Should it happen to be bricked, most companies won't replace it once they find out it's been tampered with.
trym1234 said:
martonikaj thanks for the reply, i had to have been writing my reply as you typed yours, lol.
It seems logical that someone would want to buy a small cheap device to test on a get a feel for. This way if something breaks, it's not a huge loss, as opposed to buying an expensive device and running the risk on bricking it. Should it happen to be bricked, most companies won't replace it once they find out it's been tampered with.
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I'd say that's probably true, but you don't see it happen that often. Many people are rooting and ROMing their daily driver devices, and don't have 2 phones w/ one being the dedicated "hacking" device.
Truth be told its pretty hard to brick a device if you know what you're doing.
True but let's be honest...how many post have you seen where someone bought that trillion dollar phone only to try and root it, and guess what; they're here asking for help to get it off that boot loop (lol)
trym1234 said:
True but let's be honest...how many post have you seen where someone bought that trillion dollar phone only to try and root it, and guess what; they're here asking for help to get it off that boot loop (lol)
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Lots of people for sure. They need to learn how to read before starting their root process lol. But that's just a boot loop, at worst a soft brick. I very rarely see a hard brick of a device.
well, low ends do get some attention in here, i mean im owning a lg p500 , witch in my opinion is pretty low end ... the low ends arent completley without attention, just less atentionn, the reason is as some1 said before, the owners of low end devices dont usually try to root, change roms etc
Hello
Just thinking that i started with a Nokia N95. one of my favourite phones ever, then an iPhone2G (wich sucks), and then, an Xperia X8 (wich I loved)... Now i am on great words (LT15i), an Arc, and thinking of buying an Xperia S when it will be released on my country
If you're an enthusiast you're probably gonna get a high end phone. Also, higher-end phones are more visible in popularity; that is to say there's a higher number of people coming here saying "i own the Samsung Galaxy SII" than "I own some $49 phone no one's ever heard of", which in turn drives devs who are looking for an audience.
Related
I don't know what the heck is going on, but I don't this is is normal. People are buying an excellent device and far from enjoying it, they spend all the time trying to find a defect, whatever it may. It sounds to me like mass hysteria fueled by unrealistically high expectations and highly polarized opinions and advices from false experts.
Not only people complain about behavior that it's perfectly normal and within the acceptable parameters, but also show surprise to design issues that they should very well know way in advance before purchasing the device: no FM radio, no notification LED, no 4G bands, etc. Or about application failing under a new Version ofnthe OS.
It could be me, but it seems this is getting to a level of paroxysm that is not healthy. I don't usually agree with Steve Jobs but I have to admit he was right when he allegedly say: it's just a phone!
I risk sounding like an old man, but I'm going to go on a limb and say that XDA did not sound like that during the windows mobile days, and those devices were horrible by today's standards. What's happened?
I so agree with you I'm coming from an iphone now on the S n 4 was the shi but even that had to be tweaked so much to actually get it to its best ability n ppl still had complains, I think first of ppl who really dont know how to take a phone to its full potential or know how to find a work around for what they are missing or they are just miserable complain about the phone. I paid the full price but I did do my research n knew what I was buying. Since day one I have been happy with my S and after putting Modoca Rom n a few apps n other tweaks n widgets my phone is perfect for me. Ppl want perfect from an electronic device, contradicting to what I said but perfect isnt attainable but the S comes close. Return the phone if u want to complain about these lil issuse or do more research next time before you.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
Probably something to do with the increased cost of devices and people expecting more for their money and rightly so IMO.
If I fork out premium money I expect a premium device and not one with defects.
It may well be just a phone to some but it's also many other things to many people. If I buy a sat nav I expect it to be fully functional with no defects, likewise if I buy a media player, a camera, a games machine, an internet tablet etc etc... should we not expect the same of a convergence device?
This thread has the potential to get ugly...
Short answer to your question is YES, IT'S NORMAL. Normal in that it's common across the internet, not just on the NS, but on anything (smartphones, cars, computers, etc).
Outside of the development sections of a forum like this, most people who are just happy and loving their device aren't going to come and post about it, so there's a natural negative skew on most forums dedicated to a product. People usually find the forum because they looked for someplace to talk about the problems or dissatisfaction with the device.
No opinion on whether it's healthy or not; for some it's cathartic to vent in public...
distortedloop said:
This thread has the potential to get ugly...
Short answer to your question is YES, IT'S NORMAL. Normal in that it's common across the internet, not just on the NS, but on anything (smartphones, cars, computers, etc).
Outside of the development sections of a forum like this, most people who are just happy and loving their device aren't going to come and post about it, so there's a natural negative skew on most forums dedicated to a product. People usually find the forum because they looked for someplace to talk about the problems or dissatisfaction with the device.
No opinion on whether it's healthy or not; for some it's cathartic to vent in public...
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Agreed. You have to be somewhat flexible when it comes to issues such as these. For some, spending $500 for a phone equates to months of saving, so yes, they want it to be perfect, or darn close to it. But stuff happens, and you just have to roll with the punches sometimes. If it's defective, exchange it for another one. I purchased an Asus G73 gaming Laptop (high end laptop) and had a ton pf problems with it. I exchanged it and had a problem with the replacement. I returned it and purchased an HP Envy 17 Beats Edition instead, and everything is right in the world again. It is what it is. I'm extremely happy with my Nexus S and my Hp Envy 17. Life is good.
Alright, I'm a bit curious as to why some tablets are bang and some tablets are bust in the XDA community.
I've heard the nook color had a lot of popularity in the dev world, and there already seems to be a stir on the Kindle Fire.
The only real thing that makes the the kindle fire a deal breaker for me as a possible mod friendly tablet is the lack of an SD card option.
I don't "like" the lack of features, but besides the sd card nothing is a deal breaker, it still seems to be getting a good bit of attention and will probably be a really popular tablet with people who like modding.
I understand the sale on the touchpad was a big plus.. but, I'd be worried about the discontinuing of the line meaning a very limited support life, so even if hp does make a few more.. I would hesitate to buy.
Just seems like a lot of options get looked over here in the mod world. Maybe I'm jumping the gun, But I'm worried the A1 for lenovo won't get much support, the Elocity tab for 250$ (with a tegra 2) doesn't seem to have any support..
It just seems like it is really "hit or miss" and I can't help but wonder why?
What makes tablets really appealing around here, and then other tablets spec'd close or higher, don't seem to get a second glance at the same price?
Those are great questions, probably all comes down to user preference though???
smccue said:
Those are great questions, probably all comes down to user preference though???
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I thought about that.. But, I'm not entirely sure it holds up...
I will admit, before I seriously consider a phone or tab, I check dev support to make sure in 2 months if the OEM decides "we don't want to upgrade, so our newer model sells better." I can get the latest updates from devs at least.
Just seems like there would be a rhyme or reason to the tabs that get dev support here.
user preference also Goal, like which market they are aiming for
the smartphone is easy, because the Goal is to "be a phone", everything else is just fancy extra
but as a Tablet, the focus is no longer the same, and unless they know who they are trying to sell to, they will be just shooting in the dark, with random spec, random audience, random targets, random everything.
so if ANY manufacturer or some one who has control in any of the big companies making android tablet and reading this...
it'll be in your best interest to only develop to 2 audiences only:
- Gamers
- Webers (netbook replacement, your regular consumer that don't really know what they want)
now there's a potential for a 3rd audience (not a good time yet, too ripe)
- Work... but as we all well know, currently there are not enough productive Apps that is worth swaying people over, specially in the market mainly dominated by MAC or PC applications such as Photoshop, AutoCad, etc, etc
If a tablet can wow a Gamer, it will easily gain fly time in the web blogs and news, easily subject to reviews and benchmarks
which all translates into ease sales, with enough hypes.
obviously to get such hypes you must really have good tech packaged into the tablet
currently the only tablets worth buying are the ones made by Samsung, everything else are just meh... not quite there yet, or missing this or missing that
Hm.
Interesting points.
As someone who is a bit of a hardware junkie.. I am only just very recently beginning to feel like the tablets are being placed properly in the market.
I hope that the trend continues, just hoping that we see more support by devs. I mean as a gadget enthusiast.. I do admit even now the tabs leave a lot to be desired.. but, the lenovo A1 has my attention.. Especially if it gets a healthy dose of rooted ICS.
When it comes to android, you know that you have an outstanding range of hardware. From the low-end Optimus T/S to the titans of the OS such as the Galaxy S2, and everything imaginable in between. These days, you can even find generic china phones running an, often dated, android. Every carrier has it, they come in all price ranges, and they're available on demand. The question I pose to you, "Is android's key selling point the hardware?"
I understand that numerous XDA members and even some outsiders enjoy the limitless customization options made readily available in android and that's awesome. However, the general consumer is happy to end customization at setting their own ringtone. It's not a breaking factor for the majority that you can swap out kernels. Overall, android is a decent enough platform, but for the masses, I see little that it offers, hardware aside, that it's competitors don't.
Here recently, a thread was posted regarding the ASUS Transformer 2, a pentacore processor in a tablet. Now, most people have yet to exhaust the resources on their dual core phones. A penta-core device seems to be pushing the limits. Considering that it is running a mobile OS, by the time those cores could be utilized, wouldn't the tablet be long outdated? However, I know it will sell well because the word "Penta-core" sounds too awesome for the masses to pass up.
Another occurrence I've seen, having worked in retail shops for some time. A lot of customers, when asked about what OS their phone is running, will reply, "HTC" or, "Samsung." A lot of them have no idea what our little green friend is. Another point towards my personal opinion that the hardware is a huge selling factor.
Overall, android is a very complete platform. It is not my daily driver, but I do enjoy it whenever I have time to tinker. I am inquiring about this matter to get your opinions, what sells? Hardware or software?
I think for me its a little bit of both. I like the fact that the hardware is there in my 3d when I need to push the system really hard. Its not often I do, but its good that when I do, it executes the tasks with ease.
On the same hand there are huge software benefits for me. I love the UI and that I can set swype gestures to open particular apps or settings. It makes multi tasking tthat much easier and fluid for me.
Also, at least from what I have seen with iOS5 (my girl has the 4s) is that android seems to be ahead in certain areas of functionality. For example it is not an innovative thing (to me anyways, being an android user) to be able to back up your device without the use of a computer... I have been doing wireless backups and internal backups since I bought my first android phone.
I think one thing you mentioned before... I think it was you, anyways... was pretty much right on when you said that android is capable of meeting so many different needs in the sense that you have a wide range in variety of devices to choose from and at different costs. There are high end phones available such that perform to today's standards in the mobile world, and there are lower end ones available that are more cost effective.
I feel if you yourself are innovative and creative, you are way more capable of taking an android phone and building the UI to what you want/need. I don't sacrifice functionality for speed, ever. In the end it is still just a phone, but I prefer this platform because it caters to that need I have to customize my phone the way I want it to be, not what somebody else feels it should be.
---------- Post added at 02:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:13 AM ----------
And to address your comment about the bajjillion core tab....
Seems the hardware is way ahead of the software in this case... therefore, I am not impressed by it.
I have a Motorola xoom and it has plenty of power to do what I need it to do. I will not be taking it back to simply have two more cores under the hood. And somebody else mentioned the new kal el device only has 1gb of ram? In my opinion that is really disappointing for a device with that kind of processing power.
i buy phones based on hardware specs
the OS is optional
I prefer to load my OS of choice
just like my PCs / Laptops
z33dev33l said:
When it comes to android, you know that you have an outstanding range of hardware. From the low-end Optimus T/S to the titans of the OS such as the Galaxy S2, and everything imaginable in between. These days, you can even find generic china phones running an, often dated, android. Every carrier has it, they come in all price ranges, and they're available on demand. The question I pose to you, "Is android's key selling point the hardware?"
I understand that numerous XDA members and even some outsiders enjoy the limitless customization options made readily available in android and that's awesome. However, the general consumer is happy to end customization at setting their own ringtone. It's not a breaking factor for the majority that you can swap out kernels. Overall, android is a decent enough platform, but for the masses, I see little that it offers, hardware aside, that it's competitors don't.
Here recently, a thread was posted regarding the ASUS Transformer 2, a pentacore processor in a tablet. Now, most people have yet to exhaust the resources on their dual core phones. A penta-core device seems to be pushing the limits. Considering that it is running a mobile OS, by the time those cores could be utilized, wouldn't the tablet be long outdated? However, I know it will sell well because the word "Penta-core" sounds too awesome for the masses to pass up.
Another occurrence I've seen, having worked in retail shops for some time. A lot of customers, when asked about what OS their phone is running, will reply, "HTC" or, "Samsung." A lot of them have no idea what our little green friend is. Another point towards my personal opinion that the hardware is a huge selling factor.
Overall, android is a very complete platform. It is not my daily driver, but I do enjoy it whenever I have time to tinker. I am inquiring about this matter to get your opinions, what sells? Hardware or software?
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First time I have to agree with you pal.BUT:
i)Those guys/gals whose customisation needs end with setting the ringtone are the ones who won't care or even won't realize if the OS is different between an iPhone and an Android device.
ii)Android offers most(if not all) of the things other OSes offer,plus the infinite customisation capabilities no other OS has.Now this is what matters for those of us who can do more than changing the ringtone.
Other than these two things,I generally agree.In the end,though,it's user preference that matters.And people's idiocy in fact.Hell,many people buy their phones depending on how many megapixels their camera can do!
AllGamer said:
I prefer to load my OS of choice
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I'd prefer that too, but mobile hardware is pretty much completely closed, so this is not really possible in practice, except maybe on very very few models.
To answer the title question: I don't know about others, but for me it's definitely the OS. Android is the closest to Linux as I'll probably get on a phone, people are free to cook up their own ROMs (not completely free in many cases, there's closed components in every ROM, but oh well), vast customization capabilities, for getting software you're not limited to one store with draconian rules and sometimes arbitrary decisions.
Certainly a combination of software + hardware with a little bit of company preference.
But considering the range of manufacturers for android based phones, I find it hard to lag behind hardware wise.
1) I look for a device that I think will last me the three years of my contract or at least the majority of it
2) I look here on XDA and see what the dev community is like
3) I buy the phone
I would guess that for 80%+ of phone buyers the main factor is price. Sure they know about the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy devices, but for most those phohnes are out of their price bracket. So they find the device which has the same sort of idea but in a cheap package, which has helped Android no end since there are low end Android devices, and Apple have little interest in that.
For myself as a more techie person, I use Android becuase of the freedom to do what i want with my hardware. At least that's why i got into Android. Now I will continue to buy Android devices, but the major reason is I've invested in the app market, I have tens of pounds worth of apps for Android. To jump to anotehr platform now would mean having to start over with that. That's the power of these stores and markets, once you are invested changing platform is a lot more of a jump that just deciding which you like the most at the time.
countstex said:
I would guess that for 80%+ of phone buyers the main factor is price. Sure they know about the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy devices, but for most those phohnes are out of their price bracket. So they find the device which has the same sort of idea but in a cheap package, which has helped Android no end since there are low end Android devices, and Apple have little interest in that.
For myself as a more techie person, I use Android becuase of the freedom to do what i want with my hardware. At least that's why i got into Android. Now I will continue to buy Android devices, but the major reason is I've invested in the app market, I have tens of pounds worth of apps for Android. To jump to anotehr platform now would mean having to start over with that. That's the power of these stores and markets, once you are invested changing platform is a lot more of a jump that just deciding which you like the most at the time.
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I've seen the price comment being made multiple times but aren't these devices pretty close to each other in terms of price after a 2 yr contract? In fact if you shop around, you can find some of these highend units for nearly nothing from online stores such as amazon
As for me, overall package is what sold me to galaxy s2. Form factor, hardware specs, overall implementation of the OS (gpu acceleration various places), etc. Version number really doesn't really bother me (2.3.3 vs 2.3.4/5/6/7) as long as there aren't any key features missing in the current revision that exists in the newer revisions.
Gusar321 said:
I'd prefer that too, but mobile hardware is pretty much completely closed, so this is not really possible in practice, except maybe on very very few models.
To answer the title question: I don't know about others, but for me it's definitely the OS. Android is the closest to Linux as I'll probably get on a phone, people are free to cook up their own ROMs (not completely free in many cases, there's closed components in every ROM, but oh well), vast customization capabilities, for getting software you're not limited to one store with draconian rules and sometimes arbitrary decisions.
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Click to collapse
HD2 was a great example
then there are many other HTC devices that did the same
and a few Samsung devices as well
and there's the HP Touchpad
and...
For most people it's both.
They're attracted for the first time by the look and find the OS easy to use.
Despite people stating that the iphone is for people who just want to use a smartphone for the first time etc and Android is for techies and geeks to customise, if that were actually true then that would mean that there are a hell of a lot of geeks out there, which obviously isn't the case.
I would guess the majority of Android users' extent of customisation is changing the picture of their wallpaper, and that's the thing, with Android you can do that, it's easy to use, with the extra buttons it can seem more logical to new users compared with the single button on the iphone for instance.
It has the "apps and the wifis" that average users want, it looks good and you can make it look pretty much how you like.
Being able to just plug it into another computer and transfer files is a huge boon too, something a colleague was very disappointed with the iphone4 because of it's lack of ability.
There is 500+ android devices on the market globally, its the brand name and hardware specs that sell. Not the os.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
I'd rather say that that none of those sell the other: it's actually the price selling both, plus the "status symbol" factor thatbhas to do with Apple things. Androids are generally cheaper then both the iPhone and WP7 phones. This, plus the fact that most people don't seem to like WP7 tiled ui, basically because it doesn't "look like an iPhone" enough. That might sound harsh, like saying that most people are dumb, but it's not (only) that actually: people got used to icons since the day they got their first pc, no wonder they go for something that looks more familiar to them when they wanna buy a smartphone. Maybe Win8 will totally change the name of the game, but that's it for the moment (sadly enough I dare say).
I think we have to remember that 'most' people don't include the tiny fraction of the consumer market that are active on XDA. We make choices on a range of factors as we are better informed about both hardware and software. When we walk into a phone shop we want to assess the phone on build quality, size, Android version, display type, etc.
When the average punter walks into the same shop their buying choice usually boils down to no more than, 'Oh look, a shiny thing. I want that one'.
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Thread moved to Android. Would advise you to read forum rules and post in correct section.
Failure to comply with forum rules will result in an infraction and/or ban depending on severity of rule break.
Do you review the content of my threads before moving them or do you see my name and play pin the tail on the donkey with the final location of the thread?
Although the subject is rather troll like I hope I can do it in a non troll way.
There's a number of things that are really hacking me off about phones these days. I thought I'd have a major slam out to let off steam with the off-chance that someone might say "Ah but if you try X you can avoid that".
...some of the challenges in the mobile phone area these days...
1) Battery capacities aren't good enough as we all know. Getting through a single day is really the basics for me. Why not have hot swappable batteries? For me I expect to be able to go for 3-4 days. I don't know why... I just kind of expect that kind of efficiency.
2) Samsung Galaxy series... seems amazing but the batteries overheat, no?
3) So many people are ignorant of security to the point that most people are walking around with devices and apps that can just completely own you. Yeah there's sandboxing but it doesn't really work, it's been sidestepped. The iPhone just hides what's going on, rarely fixing the issues.
4) Licensing, all that stuff. Companies reinventing the wheel, fighting, all the rest. You can't buy a phone that does X and Y because company X won't license tech X to company Y
5) Trying to get everything perfect in one device... it's a bit of an ask but needed for portability. If things were separate we could have the better of most worlds, but that doesn't seem possible
6) Closed source. Just a bit irritating to see the inefficiency of it all in general. Bit of a hash moan but for those who can imagine better it seems like the dark ages in some areas still.
7) Closed source binary blobs. See Replicant on Samsung phones as the best we can do... the modem is arranged such messily and it's just not true a solution because of that. Kind of irritates me that there is no phone that can really guarantee it's not recording my phone numbers, conversations and credit cards because it's fully open source. Certainly an issue for companies. Companies in general are happy to rely on the word of Blackberry for thier integrity but for those of us who can imagine a solution that is secure by design it's not the best.
8) App whitelisting. Similar to the reactive rather than proactive security we tend to see as the trend in general. Manually checking all apps in the app store, trying to block and check them all.... doesn't seem the best. We've also had censorship. There are alternative stores, that's good.
9) Wakelocks. The Dalvik VM not managing or helping us track them down. Further, it's hard to tell if the app that you want to use is going to shaft your battery... once installed it's hard to tell if the app is ruining your battery too. It's messy.
10) IMEI security is a pain in the butt. It slows down the criminals but it also slows down everyone more so. In the case of Turkey it's another way to screw people with tax. Again, imperfect design.
11) As a man, if you have a phone at waist level that reduces your sperm count. Almost nobody notices or cares.
12) Just the usual society things... people looking at phones rather than each other. Can't really complain about that... the interface of looking at a screen is a bit basic. I've had speech recognition available to me... but I don't use it because there's always people around me and I'd rather be quiet... just one of those funny inventions
13) Screen don't work in bright sunlight still. We've got Motheye coming though which is great but we've had eink for ages and still no eink phone. Further, it can't be hacked onto an existing phone. Some of us aren't interested in games and movies and are focussed on getting stuff done. I feel Mirasol & PixelQi are being blocked or delayed as they try to slow things down until the point we've run out of ideas to make things better so only then does that tech get deployed.
14) Networks interfering with phones. I always go prepay because it's cheaper if you do the maths in many countries and also it allows for freer trade. Networks are always trying to get thier fingers into the mobile phone pies. Thank you Samsung for helping get against that, and also custom ROMs.
15) Apple are great but it's not clear what's going on behind the scenes.
16) eink displays would help battery life. A NookTouch can last for a month. How much would that help a phone on standby? Yet no eink display or anything like that.
17) Great to see the back of proprietary connectors but they still come back sometimes.
18) I hate the way things are made to break. Watch out for this. There's usually one thing on a phone that is designed to break. Sometimes it's a moveable part, like a ribbon cable in a slide phone. Sometimes its the USB connector. You can't buy port savers. When they fail you're screwed. Mitigate against this if you can. Try to figure out what the weak spot on your phone is.
19) Lock in software. I have an old backup phone... but I still have to keep the sync software... bit annoying. One day it probably won't work on Windows9 or whatever. People say throw it away but that's just it, throw away society. No, fix it, get it to work and be in control.
All of these things can be mitigated against. But you have to think about these things when you select your new phone.
If the commercialisation of the industry, cut throat tactics and so on aren't good enough as they are for me one thing you can do is buy a slightly older, but popular phone. In my case I never buy a new phone and instead go for something that I already know is popular with the hacking community. I know you guys can give me an insight into what I'm really looking for in life. As an example my last phone was a Galaxy S i9000. Way out of date in a sense. That's the way I find the best way to go. Go with something popular. That way you have some real support like a real man able to handle things yourself, not AppleCare and a 1 year limit. A philosophy for life. You can't have it all but with a bit of thought you can do a lot to get a bit closer to it all.
IF motorola, samsung, and apple want to void our warranty and back door our phones at every oppurtunity, then why do we even keep buying them from them?
Has anyone bought a washer or dryer lately? Have you noticed that you only get 3 -6 years out of one of these new peices of junk while your grandma is still using the one she bought in 1969? Well a little group of folks got tired of the manufatures games, tired of them making crap that BREAKS so they could charge you again in a few years to replace it. This group of people designed and had manufatured a washer/dryer combo named ISE and they slapped a 30 year warranty on them.
WHY cant we do the same thing? Why cant we as a community, design the best damn phone ever made? Design it in such a way that its cusomtizable, Upgradable, expandable. We design lets say just 1 every 14 months. Instead of buying a new phone, when superamoled gets replaced by micro plasma... why dont you just buy a micro plasma screen for 140 bucks and slap in the new screen and firmware? all open source.
Id much rather invest 1000 bucks into something i can keep for 5 years, and upraged once a year for a few hundred bucks, than have to worry about some e-fuse popping or "not being allowed" to do what we want with our own property.
so here is my process.. I figure we need some hardware level guys to design the board, spec the chips, and somehow figure out how to make this thing upgradable .. ( im thinking 3 - 4 seperate "mother boards, that you would replace sections of like "modules" when the processor is out dated, replace the processor module, same for NFC Chip, video card, etc..)
then we need some software guys put us the best, fastest, most vanilla version of Android (with art) that we can get,
then we need someone to make it pretty.. Im a mechanical engineer, with access to 3d cad software, desiging the case, and plastic injection is NOT a problem. also making to upgrable to aluminum is not a problem.
last, we need business folks and web designers. someone to sell this project to the world and raise money the project, and maybe even get us a kick starter.
Its about time the big 3 worry about the 1.
That's a great idea, but manufacturing and distributing a device like a modern smart phone takes a sizable chunk of money. There was a crowd funding campaign for an Ubuntu phone last summer. The target price needed just for the thousands that supported the project was $32 million. There were even large contributors like Bloomberg that supported the project. At last, not even half of the goal was reached. (There was a few million though.)
I'm all for the project you're proposing, but we would need at least site-wide support.
Elzbach said:
That's a great idea, but manufacturing and distributing a device like a modern smart phone takes a sizable chunk of money. There was a crowd funding campaign for an Ubuntu phone last summer. The target price needed just for the thousands that supported the project was $32 million. There were even large contributors like Bloomberg that supported the project. At last, not even half of the goal was reached. (There was a few million though.)
I'm all for the project you're proposing, but we would need at least site-wide support.
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from a manufacturing standpoint..its doable. the money is all in the design. i feel 100% confident that the people on this site can make it happen. maybe a few outsiders if we dont have exactly the right people. that 32 million is absolutely RIDICULOUS.
design one off mother boad modules ( and im being more than extreme here ) prototypes 15k per module 4-5 modules per phone. lets say 5, thats 75k
display, buttons, jacks, connectors , 10k
molds for plastic container - 45k
im justing going to stop there because i think you can see how far it is away from 32million bucks. and thats all prototype stuff. mass production would be fractions of a penny on the dollar.
This is do-able. we just need the people willing to do it..
Your thinking just as much as project ARA is, hopefully we will get some kind of big nice warranty on one of these things. android might be open source but not everything is open sourced yet, i think these might be some of the reasons why we might not get a larger warranty span. people HAVE to have the best of the best phones and they will pay for these phones because america is stupid and we will continue to pay for the best, hopefully project ara wont be very complicated with swapping screens and battery's and i imagine CPU swapping will be even worse.
Trozzul said:
Your thinking just as much as project ARA is, hopefully we will get some kind of big nice warranty on one of these things. android might be open source but not everything is open sourced yet, i think these might be some of the reasons why we might not get a larger warranty span. people HAVE to have the best of the best phones and they will pay for these phones because america is stupid and we will continue to pay for the best, hopefully project ara wont be very complicated with swapping screens and battery's and i imagine CPU swapping will be even worse.
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project ara sounds exactly like what im talking about. id buy it.
Mad_Scientist_565 said:
project ara sounds exactly like what im talking about. id buy it.
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im sure we all would, and $50 just for a working base frame it makes the deal even better! if its going to run android (which i looks like it might im hoping google would be nice to let us put whatever version of android we want on it and get a Wider Rom range.) im sure its gonna be a huge success, too bad its next year
i can wait to see how they handle things like processor swaps. adding ram is one thing, changing a camera, no biggy.. but a swappable processor? .. i mean how do you just pull out a quad and drop in and octa and it "know" how to work.. lol this is why im a mechanical engineer and not a developer.
Mad_Scientist_565 said:
i can wait to see how they handle things like processor swaps. adding ram is one thing, changing a camera, no biggy.. but a swappable processor? .. i mean how do you just pull out a quad and drop in and octa and it "know" how to work.. lol this is why im a mechanical engineer and not a developer.
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im sure Swapping for more Ram or the cpu is gonna be one of our limits, im thinking we wont be able to since it looks like these guys wont be able too as well,
http://www.gizchina.com/2013/12/09/xiaomi-modular-phone-project-named-magic-cube/
for this thing we will be only to swap the camera and battery, so im thinking google is limited to this too.
Trozzul said:
im sure Swapping for more Ram or the cpu is gonna be one of our limits, im thinking we wont be able to since it looks like these guys wont be able too as well,
http://www.gizchina.com/2013/12/09/xiaomi-modular-phone-project-named-magic-cube/
for this thing we will be only to swap the camera and battery, so im thinking google is limited to this too.
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I like to think that wont be the case. I mean if you think about a desktop PC, you can change every component. I see no reason you wouldnt be able to in a smaller package.
Mad_Scientist_565 said:
I like to think that wont be the case. I mean if you think about a desktop PC, you can change every component. I see no reason you wouldnt be able to in a smaller package.
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its a little harder because phone cpus are made to fit into tiny places and not overheat (thats why we are able to overclock without worry of blowing our phone up) like if we had the option to put as much ram as we want and whatever cpu we would have to have sodering skills and most people dont have that.