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Something must be wrong with me. I just don't use my phone for much other than as a telephone, for ssh, and for browsing the news so that I don't have to make eye contact with strangers in public. For those purposes, the cheapest android phones you can find these days work just fine.
2022-02-13 16:43 from IGnatius T Foobar
My phone is more than three years old and starting to get a bit long in
the tooth. I'm going to try factory erasing it to see if that makes it
faster -- I bet it will.
But since it's an old phone that I don't mind wrecking, now is the
time to try something I've wanted to try for a long time: keeping it
without a case.
I've always had phones in cases, and I'm wondering whether it's really
necessary.
I don't mind the scuffs and dings from normal use, since I keep my
phones way past their ability to resell. All I really care about is
that I don't break it or crack the screen.
What say you, fellow humans? Case or no case?
I am non-case user here. I am of the opinion that a phone should be survivable enough with no case for the get go. A lot of people has cased phones and they are in no worse state than the phones I care for.
That said, I only have a smartphone for one of my jogs. The rest of the time I use a Nokia feature phone. The Nokia has survived falling into a pool of horse pee, being grabbed and shaken by horse mouths, and dropping every now and then. I also threw it against a wall in a rage and the thing shows no significant damage.
Meanwhile, my last caseless smartphone has a non-dangerous crack on its screen for a single drop.
I calculate a smartphone to be suposed to last 4 years. A smartphone dies faster from obsolescence than from accidents, so it does not make much sense to get a case for it imo. I refuse to fund the case scam when phone companies should be making tough devices, instead of devices you have to toughen up.
Mine is mostly a music player and a convenient camera, that also can go online for texting to the wife.
Also is nice as a WAP, if i need to get into work or something. ( which is rare )
Mon Feb 14 2022 08:45:14 AM EST from zelgomerI buy cheap phones. On the one occassion that I did drop one on concrete and shatteted the screen, I didn't cry, continued to use it for another 6 months, and finally when part of the touchscreen started acting flakey I bought a new cheapo.
Something must be wrong with me. I just don't use my phone for much other than as a telephone, for ssh, and for browsing the news so that I don't have to make eye contact with strangers in public. For those purposes, the cheapest android phones you can find these days work just fine.
I've got expensive phones, I'm very cautious - I keep a smaller rubber bumper case and a regular screen protector. I've never cracked a screen - ever...
Yet.
Mon Feb 14 2022 08:45:14 EST from zelgomerI buy cheap phones. On the one occassion that I did drop one on concrete and shatteted the screen, I didn't cry, continued to use it for another 6 months, and finally when part of the touchscreen started acting flakey I bought a new cheapo.
Something must be wrong with me. I just don't use my phone for much other than as a telephone, for ssh, and for browsing the news so that I don't have to make eye contact with strangers in public. For those purposes, the cheapest android phones you can find these days work just fine.
I am quite frugal with money when it comes to computers/phones (no difference these days LOL). Cheap phone, all my laptop/desktop computers are secondhand (or third or fourth hand for all I know) and run Linux or BSD (Windows runs like a snail on them, not a problem since I don't care for Windows anyway).
Which is why they now build in planned destruction in devices ( like non-user removable batteries.. or things that just 'magically die' in a couple of years )
Thu Jun 02 2022 09:12:34 AM EDT from IGnatius T FoobarThat's the nice thing about where we are with technology right now -- for the most part you can be perfectly happy with cheap/old stuff if you're only doing generic stuff with it. I'm typing this message on a ten year old laptop and will save it to a server that is just as old.
It stopped working because of planned obsolescence. Damn these tech companies.
I miss planned obsolescence. I first read about it fifty years ago in dusty old reprints of MAD Magazine. Now we have forced obsolescence.
A few savvy people have caught on to the fact that they overrun the LED emitters so that they have an artificially limited service life. And then there's the "Dubai Lamp" which is only available in Dubai, because the government contracted out to have it built, which operates the LED emitters within their specified current range and temperature so it lasts practically forever. Now we've got people outside of Dubai opening up light bulbs and changing the resistor values to make them last longer.
Are they? I have 2 LED replacement bulbs that have run continuously for ~10 years now. The only time they go off is when we lose power due to storms. Used to be florescent bulbs in there and they did NOT last long
Perhaps they are before this started happening?
Sat Jan 07 2023 09:53:46 AM EST from IGnatius T FoobarHow about LED light bulbs? Is that planned obsolescence or forced obsolescence?
A few savvy people have caught on to the fact that they overrun the LED emitters so that they have an artificially limited service life. And then there's the "Dubai Lamp" which is only available in Dubai, because the government contracted out to have it built, which operates the LED emitters within their specified current range and temperature so it lasts practically forever. Now we've got people outside of Dubai opening up light bulbs and changing the resistor values to make them last longer.
Your 10 year old bulbs probably have heat sinks and vents. If so, they were built to last. Compare to your typical $2 CheapChinese bulb in stores everywhere today, which has no heat sink, is built with all plastic, and overruns the emitters. It will last longer than an incandescent, but only long enough for you to say "well it lasted longer than an incandescent so it was worth it".
Light fixtures with built-in LEDs are set up to run somewhat longer. If you can get ten years out of it, chances are you're either ok with replacing it or the receipt and warranty are long gone. I have such a fixture in my living room and I never run it at full power. And that's the trick -- buy something too bright, and dim it, either by putting a dimmer on it or by changing out the resistors.
And always, always, find a way to let it breathe.
I might pick up a new one sometime, take a peek inside. but wont break open what i have :)
Not had to buy any for years, so i may have just got 'ahead of the bad curve'
I forget where this was being discussed:
Dropping native mobile apps for size responsive web apps and the question was how hard would it be to add a home screen icon on phones. Seems for both android and apple, its a single step now.. so anyone can do it, it takes zero 'tech knowledge' to do it.
So really, why bother with native apps if they need data, since they wont work off-line anyway?
Native apps would run faster than any webapp, and use less memory doing so.
Thu Jan 19 2023 18:36:19 EST from Nurb432I forget where this was being discussed:
Dropping native mobile apps for size responsive web apps and the question was how hard would it be to add a home screen icon on phones. Seems for both android and apple, its a single step now.. so anyone can do it, it takes zero 'tech knowledge' to do it.
So really, why bother with native apps if they need data, since they wont work off-line anyway?
True, but if you use web-apps, its only one code base to support not 2 ( or 3 since there is that Samsung OS out there too, and "threats" from google to migrate from android someday, and you got Linux phones coming, slowly ), No playing catch-up with OS releases when the APIs change on you, or dealing with stupid/oppressive app stores, both due to rules and monetary kickbacks.. ( now i remember what the original thread was about, it was about threats of twitter's app getting banned after musk took over and what they could do about it.. )
Thu Jan 19 2023 08:52:36 PM EST from LadySerenaKittyNative apps would run faster than any webapp, and use less memory doing so.
, and "threats" from google to migrate from android someday,
Google makes noises from time to time whenever they have a research project that could turn into a phone OS, but at this point they're probably tied to Android, specifically Android with its Linux underpinnings, as much as Apple and M$ are tied to their existing platforms. They'd probably make some effort to run existing Android apps but it would consume so much of the phone's resources that people would feel free to move to another platform at that point.
There are cross-platform development kits like Xamarin (may they rot in hell forever -- this one is personal) but in the end we all know that maximizing what the browser can do is the proper way to make a universal mobile app ecosystem. And I think developers know that this is eventually where it goes.
In the early morning, my father awoke to that creepy EAS tone emanating from his phone. It was a tornado warning.
Seriously, that tone is creepy.