Things I don't particularly care about in a phone:
- Bezel size
- Weight
- Thickness
- Manufacturer-specific apps and skins
- Screen resolution beyond that of my eyes
- Fastest possible processor
Things I care about in a phone:
- Ability to make calls
- Battery life
- Replaceable battery
- Fits in my pocket
- Expandable storage
- Durable
- Decent camera
- Inexpensive
- Gets security updates
And what do the latest phones feature? Super-thin, super-light phones with consequently small batteries that are overburdened by enormous screens and processors that could run a laptop, and screens that would also fit a laptop. They cost $600 and more, when nearly-equivalent technology can bring the cost down to less than half that.
At least we're getting better cameras (though this would be easier with thicker phones) and waterproofing for durability. Wireless charging also seems to help with the longevity of the ports.
Sounds like you'd be fine with a flip phone from 10 years ago and a small high quality camera. You don't seem to be the target audience for the latest smartphones.
About 4 years ago, Sony Ericsson made an Android 2.3 phone called the Xperia Ray. It had a 3.7" 960x480 screen. I used it for 2 years (and again for another year after I broke the Huawei P6 I replaced it with). By the end of that time, it was really past its useable life. Not on account of build quality, battery life, or screen realestate. In all those respects it was fantastic, and still perfectly functional as a feature phone.
It started life as a perfectly servicable Android phone. A little on the slow side, but not drastically so. The main problem was its 384MB of backing store. By 2015, very few Android apps supported installing to the SD card, and Google Play Services managed to eat almost all of the available storage.
Ideally, I'd like a modern phone with the same size and build quality of the Xperia Ray, the phone that fits unnoticably into my pocket and survived countless falls onto hard floors. I don't think it even needs to be super fast. Just with enough backing store to function as a modern Android device.
And knowing that such devices are possible is the reason I don't agree with the "you'd probably be fine with a feature phone" answer.
At the moment, I'm using a Z5 Compact. It's a great phone with solid build quality, but it's still too big IMO.
Quite a lot of people have asked me about a small but powerful Android phone, and there are none!
It's incredible, but all companies go in the same direction. In the very few instances when they do innovate, they go in really odd directions (curve displays, in-built projectors), but they don't address basic stuff like size or physical keyboard.
I switched to iOS for this reason - the iPhone 5/SE form factor is smaller than every Android currently on the market (and running a relatively recent version of Android).
My SE is 124 mm x 57 mm x 7.6 mm. My previous phone, a Moto E, was 125 mm x 65 mm x 12.3 mm. The Xperia X Compact mentioned in another comment is 129 mm x 65 mm x 9.5 mm.
I'm considering buying an Xperia X Compact. It's about the size I think I'd be happy with, Sony devices tend to have great development communities, and Sony itself provides a means to unlock the phone's bootloader, and to compile AOSP for the device.
Of course, it fails in the "cheap" dimension, and also on "size" and "replaceable battery" ones. Still, as far as things that would be considered compact in the current smartphone market, it looks like close to the only option.
I recommended the Xperia Compact line to a coworker, and she says it's still too big. She wants it to fit comfortably on a woman's pocket. Something Motorola Razr-sized (about 20% smaller than the Xperia compact).
I can see that being a problem. Anyone that has tiny pockets and doesn't want to carry around a separate bag is mostly up a creek these days, even with phones that the market considers tiny.
You know they make a few slick Android flip-phones, right? The newest generation of the Samsung Galaxy Folder was announced a few weeks ago. LG also offers one, the Wine Smart.
Personally, I fit your description to a tee. My phone is a Samsung Convoy 2 (the 3 and 4 are inferior) from ~5 years ago. My camera is a small Canon EOS 1200D/Rebel T5. Even the cheapo 18-55mm kit lens that comes with the camera takes better pictures than an iPhone 7.
The cheap camera paired with a cheap prime lens (I paid $90 for a CEF 50mm f/1.8 STM lens) results in jaw-dropping clarity and dreamy depth of field blurs that no phone will ever match--until we overcome the physical limitations of current camera technology requiring light to shine onto a sensor.
The Convoy 2 packs a camera equivalent to an iPhone 3G. It gets the job done fine in daylight, and is passable in dark settings. The LED flash is almost excessively bright.
Personally, I have no problem carrying both with me. The only time I'm surprised by something I'd like to take a high-quality picture of is of another car I see while driving. So even if I had a 2016-level smart phone, the picture's still going to mostly be of a dirty windshield and my car's A-pillar. (Plus, you know, the whole dangerous and illegal caveats.)
They make much smaller cameras than mine that still take great pictures. I suppose someone out there really does drag around both devices with them. I'd expect that number to increase somewhat as mirror-less interchangeable lens tech continues to rapidly improve.
There seems to be an implication that the poster still wants to run apps with a moderately sized touch screen, which you can't do with a flip phone. Also, no one wants to carry around two devices.
Huh, how did you conclude that?! Also who exactly is the target audience for modern smart phones? How do you determine that and why are millions of users around the world treated like they're a single demographic with uniform wishes?
The target audience are people who aren't looking at replaceable batteries and upgradeable storage as deal breakers. Especially since there are better/popular alternatives for both i.e. powerbanks and wireless drives/internet. And the people who make that choice are the manufacturers who base their decisions on the general public i.e. product research.
So maybe you, the OP etc just need to understand that your requirements are niche and unlikely to ever be met in the more popular phones.
I ran with a flip phone for a while. I found the following downsides:
- No built-in mobile hotspot functionality, and no 4G/LTE
- No ability to use messaging systems other than SMS (Google Hangouts, Slack, etc.) except for maybe a few whitelisted ones
- No mobile maps
None of these would have been a dealbreaker 10 years ago, since no phones supported mobile hotspots or 4G or LTE, people either used SMS or some IM system that your phone did support (e.g., AIM - although AIM also had a pretty good SMS bridge, back in the day), and nobody expected you to have maps on your phone. Today all of those expectations are different.
With Android there is such a huge choice of different phones that you can find one close to the one you'd like. Many people would like a thin high resolution display and don't care about many of the things you care about. They can buy different phones to you.
This honestly in general has me leery of Android as an ecosystem in general. I also don't like iOS's approach in other realms either. So it's essentially stuck between a rock and a hard place.
In general avoid obscure models, more popular hardware generally have much better community support and development. Having an unlockable bootloader is a bonus but not essential in all cases.
That's why I bought a Motorola flagship phone when they were owned by Google, with very few custom OS changes beyond ASOP... I've been bitten at least once by most mfgs at this point, HTC, Motorola, Samsung.
The hardware is great, especially given the price, but I've never seen so many weird bugs and glitches (it's my first Android phone, funny enough). I've repeatedly had photos not saved, or corrupted, or otherwise other stuff fail randomly (my favorite is "Unfortunately, Android System has stopped"). The karate chop motion for the flashlight is brilliant, but triggers very randomly. Overall you just get an annoying feeling that you can't rely on this phone. My next phone will most likely be running iOS again.
Totally with you. Easily the best phone I've had. Unbelievably durable (I cracked 2 HTC and 1 iphone screen before this), waterproof, does the job I need it to do. Not ugly. Inexpensive. Reliable. Hope it lasts forever. It's so durable, it might.
> With Android there is such a huge choice of different phones that you can find one close to the one you'd like.
Except that that variety seems to be disappearing. The smallest Androids on the market are larger than the iPhone 5 / SE. The only Android currently on the market with a keyboard is the BlackBerry Priv, which is pretty high-end (and awkwardly sized). There are very few phones with removable batteries. And so forth.
Can you tell me what is a practical use of a replaceable battery, I've had iPhones for many years and battery does not go bad. Also if in 2+ years you decide to change a battery I doubt you can find an original batter, and will end up with a cheap knockoff which might not work at all.
> "weight"
Heavier phones directly impact usability and even handling in your pocket, holding it while reading will tire your arm sooner, handling it in a pocket will make it look ridiculous by pulling your pants down
> I've had iPhones for many years and battery does not go bad. Also if in 2+ years you decide to change a battery I doubt you can find an original batter, and will end up with a cheap knockoff which might not work at all.
All batteries go bad. Science
I always go over the 2 years and for $20 I can buy a Duracell Battery that gets me back to the original life. Lithium Batteries Apple or not ALL Lithium batteries last about 300 to 500 charges.
"Rechargeable Lithium-Ion batteries have a limited life and will gradually lose their capacity to hold a charge. This loss of capacity (aging) is irreversible. As the battery loses capacity, the length of time it will power the product (run time) decreases."
http://www.newark.com/pdfs/techarticles/tektronix/LIBMG.pdf
Yep. I have a mid-2011 MacBook Air and the battery still lasts 3-4 hours, which is reasonably close to the original specs, especially considering 5 years of constant, everyday use.
At 1000 cycles my 2 year old Note4 battery probably still held 80% of it's charge, but it's my go to internet/entertainment device and I charge it 2 or 3 times daily. All the sudden 1000 cycles isn't that many cycles- but who cares when the battery is replacable? This phone should be good for 2 more years so long as I don't drop it in the toilet.
> I've had iPhones for many years and battery does not go bad.
Sometimes it's not about going bad, it's about quick recharge. You can have a backup battery charged and ready for a quick swap. There are portable batteries that charge your main one now though, so the need for this is somewhat mitigated.
Since his comment mentioned that he does not care about weight and thickness then batter cases is a perfect solution for that, it's easier to purchase a battery case then an original replacement batttery
Well, in fairness, I think the original comment was meant more to imply that small changes to make it slightly faster, lighter and thinner weren't that important (but a few iterations of that can add up, so I think it's important, even if I don't always opt for that in my new purchases), not that they didn't matter at all. That said, a battery charger is superior to a replacement battery in that it doesn't require a restart, it may be large enough to recharge more than once, it can charge many types of phones/devices, and it can have a nonstandard shape. It's inferior in some ways as well, since it requires being attached for some period to charge the original phone (which can be impractical or annoying in some circumstances).
Also, another important aspect of a removable battery is that some people like it for privacy. If you can't remove your battery, you can't really assume your phone is truly "off". Even if you can, if you really care about that, you would wait a while to make sure any small internal batteries/transistors have used what power they could hold. Other than that, I'm not sure of a way to ensure the baseband processor isn't on[1].
No. Batteries cost next to nothing. Back in the days I had three additional batteries for my Galaxy S 2 and it was amazing. Others in my team frequently needed time at a charger while I could go from 0% to 100% in a minute while on the go.
The batteries came with a charger and were around 10 Euro each.
So you carried those three additional batteries with you all the time? Honestly how many times a day do you charge your phone? Most phones last full day and I dont have a problem plugging it in at the end of the day to the outlet, instead of carrying a set of batteries with me.
I carried a G1 with two spare batteries when doing documentary work. It was lovely. I didn't have to hunt for outlets or deal with using the phone while plugged into a battery pack.
If the phone is a widely used model, it's often not difficult to find new-old stock for a while.
I gave this list of "not cares" a several year window of context. It's pretty obvious OP doesn't want a bag-phone, but might be perfectly happy with the form factor of an iphone 4/5. Not a novel complaint.
You can buy a portable charger, not as convenient but also designed for carrying around unlike batteries (honestly carrying around an unprecedented fully charged battery in pockets (bag or clothes) sounds dangerous)
Your personal needs are vastly different from the actual market; otherwise what you desire would be more aligned with what manufacturers are making.
It's easy to think manufacturers ignore what the market wants but this is rarely the case. The phones being offered are more or less what people are asking for.
Talking about "market", when you only a choice few similar phones for each platform is kind of pointless. To have a normal market that responds to customer wishes, you first need to have customer choice for them to vote with the wallet.
Mobile phone market isn't that - modern platform lockin makes switching platforms extremely hard, forcing customers to give up major benefits if they want to "vote with the wallet". For example, if you're an Apple platform user, you have a choice of a few form factors which are very similar. Swithing to another platform will cost you a lot of money (rebuying apps, rebuying connected hardware like Apple TVs and similar to retain functionality) and cause you significant hassle. For that people aren't going to just switch to another device/platform just because some properties are annoying them. Platform lock-in does its job well.
Talking about market in these conditions is not really realistic, since "the market" can't respond to product features like capitalism demands for best customer satisfation.
I am pretty sure the market wants more battery life than "no bezel design", if they thought rationally, and was made to choose only one.
It's rather because of the return on investment. From a company's point of view they want to invest as little effort as possible to generate as much effect as possible. Going from 8 hour battery life to 10 hour wouldn't turn the needle for most people, but having a sexy design or a cool new feature would.
So even if they make a breakthrough making a thinner battery, they would rather use that space to pack something else in, instead of making the battery last longer.
People do want longer lasting batteries. In an ideal world the companies may make that happen, but in a real world where there's competition, that's not easy.
This is clearly a different issue from "what the market wants". In reality, you don't always get what you want.
> So even if they make a breakthrough making a thinner battery, they would rather use that space to pack something else in, instead of making the battery last longer.
This is exactly what happens in the laptop market. We used to have 6 cell batteries, but because battery density has increased so much, we now only have 3 cell batteries. (Well, actually, we don't as they are more shaped to fit super thin chassis now.) Nevertheless, we the consumer have not benefited in battery life due to the increases in battery density. We have benefited from more efficient chipsets and screens, though.
Actually it's more like 50:50 between improved energy density in batteries and "other stuff" - most importantly "better" CPUs and smarter power management in other hard/software.
The battery in the laptop used to write this comment could power most "ultrabooks" (or it's direct successors) for >24 hours (that is, from the claimed battery life of the newer devices)
Is that true? The way I see phones being sold aren't because people are choosing one feature over another, it's they have to live with the best "set of features". Usually this means they are stuck choosing the less-terrible phone, rather than a phone that they actually want.
Kind of. Manufacturers make what the market wants, weighted by price. It's harder to justify a high margin on a smaller phone. A phone without a replaceable battery, or one that gets damaged more easily, brings in revenue.
The point of small bezel is that you can fit a bigger screen onto the same form factor, which is a definite win.
I agree that battery life is underappreciated, but not about the replaceable battery - again, nonreplaceable means you can squeeze in a bigger battery in the same FF.
I personally don't play mobile games, and I feel that outside of gaming the demand for faster CPU and more ram has basically plateau'd. My perfect phone would be bezelless, big power efficient screen, huge nonreplaceable battery, midrange power-efficient SOC, and tweaked software to give even more battery life. The camera should be good enough for taking pictures of typed text but is otherwise an afterthought.
The latest flagship phones feature those things. You are more a MotoG, perhaps Experia compact type of person. No problem, just ignore the flagships and get on with your life.
I can vouch for Xperia compact, and my needs are similar to his. Decent battery life (almost as good as with old dumb phones), not much crapware (compared to Samsung that is), android support for older phones. I think X3 just lost its updates (with X6 available).
I'm calling shenanigans on these. Lots of people talk about not caring about these things but in my experience absolutely everyone appreciates larger screens, thinner and lighter devices and more capable processors.
Not all people. Windows phone used to be a great example of needing only a decidedly mediocre processor to do fantastic things. It used to be great for the "use it and then put it back in pocket asap" sort of lifestyle that I try to adopt. Until they shat all over it.
I'm not saying you can't do fantastic things with a mediocre processor. I'm saying there are fantastic things you can't do with a mediocre processor and people appreciate those whether they connect the experiences to the processor or not. Opening websites faster is something everyone appreciates.
you should probably have a look at xiamoi phones then, they dont really go for the super thin, super expensive phone. the redmi note pro 3 is approx $150, has a 4000mah battery, decent processor, good camera, average screensize and you can run cyanogenmod to ensure security updates.
no wireless charging or waterproofing as yet but it does come with an inbuilt IR blaster which helps if you have many remote controls which go missing from time to time.
I agree that bezel size matters but not for the reason you mentioned. When I hold a phone or tablet in landscape mode I need a place to comfortably be able to have a portion of my hand touch without interacting with the screen. The iPhone, iPad and now Google Pixel all have larger bezels at the top and bottom which are perfect for having your thumbs or another part of the hand touch without interacting with the app you are using. This can make reaches into the interactive area a little larger but I think it's worth it to avoid accidental presses which software has been pretty bad about detecting so far.
The iPad Pro is a different beast entirely than the iPhone or the iPad or iPad Mini. I think the use cases are fairly significantly different and so it can make more sense to change bezel sizes and other things about it. That being said I don't find the iPad Pro, in my admittedly somewhat limited use, to be particularly good at detecting accidental presses and so the majority of my use has been with it on a surface.
Since no one mentioned it before; you might want to give the Fairphone 2 a try. Granted; it's not exactly inexpensive. But at least it's a premium paid for social and environmental benefits. It's built to last, to be repaired and does all you'd expect from a phone.
- replaceable battery
- expandable storage
- decent camera (I've never had phone camera that wasn't good enough so assuming my decent is below your decent)
Desires differ. Data sample of one is meaningless. What is your point in posting your very individual ones? Are you claiming some sort of universal set?
> Desires differ. Data sample of one is meaningless. What is your point in posting your very individual ones? Are you claiming some sort of universal set?
Perhaps the fact that the market consolidated to the point where it doesn't offer any choice to the consumers so they could vote with their wallets.
Also he never claimed any of the things you're asking him O.o
I'm not sure where Samsung and Xiaomi are with this, but software can be used to accurately evaluate whether touches near the bezel are intended as UI events (vs simply holding or picking up the phone).
Presumably, that would fail "Screen resolution beyond that of my eyes". I think that they're saying that the screen matters, but that FHD/QHD isn't a requirement. Of course, I'm looking through the lens of what I'd like in a phone.
They seem to like waterproofing and wireless charging as well, and at least the charging isn't usually available on the old candy-bar phones.
Personally, I'd love something like a flagship-style phone, but with a 4.5" 720P screen. For the most part, such a beast doesn't exist, and the next question is "what can I compromise on to find a phone that actually exists?" The comment you responded to seems like they're trying to answer the same question and coming up with "null set". It's a frustrating situation to be in, when the market moves away from building the tool you'd like.
Yep, my Xperia Z5compact is the only device I've found that comes close, but even this one has some frustratingly annoying software bugs, camera issues and lack of updates :/
I said in another comment that I'm looking at an XC. Z3C is older than I want to go, and the common opinion about the Z5C seems to be that it was 2 steps forward and 1.5 backward. I'm encouraged by a lot of the community's work on Sony phones, and how Sony seems to embrace unlockable bootloaders. It gives me hope that I could provide support for my phone even after Sony abandons it.
Unlocking the bootloader means loosing the DRM keys forever which results in worse camera. Also binaries are the issue for custom ROM support - as usual for Android.
You're preaching to the choir. If I had a better option, I'd go for it, but I really want a phone with a screen smaller than 5" to be the next one I buy. A few years ago, I went from a Galaxy Nexus (4.65") to a Nexus 5 (4.95", and sharp edges), and the thing I wanted most at the time was the internals from the new phone in the chassis of the old one.
These look like my options:
- Go for the comfortable-sized Sony and eventually degrade the phone to keep up with security updates.
- Go for the Sony and eventually take the chance that someone exploits an unpatched security hole.
- Go for something like an S7 or Pixel that are a few mm larger than the Nexus 5, paying more for a device with worse size but (hopefully) better support.
I'm in a tiny minority, interested in an increasingly-niche category of hardware.
Yeah, I really liked the Z3C too as it was the only Android phone that wasn't big and I came from iPhone 5S. Now I bit the bullet, sold the Z3C and ordered a Xiaomi 3S (unlockable, supported monthly with security releases), so 5" phone again it is.
Too bad the SE didn't spark any competition in this area.
Sadly, due to late and lacking sales of Z5c in USA, the modding community is pretty dead. Also bootloader unlock breaks camera due to DRM so that's out :/
Yeah...I saw that they didn't have an official Cyanogenmod for it, while the Z3c does. I'll admit that my impressions of the Sony modding community probably date mostly from the Z3 era.
It seems like the camera just loses some low-light noise reduction functionality, right?
I recently bought a Samsung Edge for Samsung Gear development, and went abroad for a few weeks so ended up using it with the SIM card for that country while still keeping my phone alive.
Apart from the benefits of the edge "design" not being too relevant for me, the biggest issue I had was accidentally hitting notifications when I pulled the phone out of my pocket. At one point I somehow accidentally deleted an app, or something that resulted in the app being removed from the phone entirely. Granted I was travelling, doing a lot of hiking and so perhaps it was more aggressive handling than normal - but in general I found that not having an edge on the phone really hindered my ability to use it, and forced me to be extra careful in handling of the phone in regular use as well as when I pulled it out of my pocket or back in.
I've been seeing a lot of these "edge less" screens and a lot of other features that people don't really care about, with a move away from what customers actually want. Like removing the headphone port in the iPhone 7 or going in this direction with edge to edge screens and making the phone thinner and thinner but faster and faster (meaning less battery life, and spottier performance since the CPU needs to be throttled).
Smart phones have been a commodity for a bit now - and the important things are the incremental improvements in battery life, performance, screen resolutions and graphics, networking efficiency and most importantly the services that power the phone which is effectively a way to access the internet.
I had a similar issue with places Android phones typically place a standalone "back" button, the bottom right of a phone. When reaching across the phone with my thumb I would constantly bump this back button. The experience was so frustrating on a Galaxy S3 that I change to an iPhone.
I wondered if they have done enough user experience researching how people use the phone. I can't believe I'm the only person who ran into this issue. It's something I've come to admire with Apple products. They're very polished and I rarely run into experiences like what I had bumping the back button on my old S3.
That drove me crazy too - cap-sense buttons have been largely a customer experience fail, so not sure why it's gone on this long. I'm a big fan of the tactile "bump" feedback, and it's way too easy to do something by accident for even the most careful user.
It's funny how Apple did the "no buttons thing" because they were responding to a tech ecosystem that had a button for everything at the cost of the user getting overwhelmed. However, now there's no sanity in the other direction - with people avoiding buttons and making things so streamlined that they're harder to use.
In every age there's an innovate response to a cliche, but ultimately this becomes a cliche in of itself :)
Same, even with a small and narrow android phone i have to consciously make a spider-like gesture to reach anything on the left side of the screen and sometimes trigger finds just by holding it by the edges because the screen is so close to the edges.
A phone with even less space around the screen would just drive me entirely mad.
And to think, just a few years ago with the E6-00 i had a phone that i could operate mostly blind. Nowadays i can't even take my phone out of the pocket without being careful and conscious about it.
Without the bezels, all our phones will look the same. We'll be holding a slab of pixels with some OS, with some voice-activated assistent, with some apps. More or less the same. Even more so than now.
Then honestly what's the point? You are going to sacrifice structural integrity and add cost and complexity.
A virtual bezel is about as "useful" as using virtual buttons on an Android device that has physical capacitive buttons, I never understood why people do that.
Why have whitespace in design? (Because it's aesthetically beautiful that's why which contributes to easier to read i.e. function)
Pro tip: Apple had been using software to analyze unintended edge touches and reduce the impact of thinner bezels since the first iPad mini. You'll get used to a non bezels pretty quickly (and Android is better for one-handed use than iOS)
Displaying information. A couple millimeters at the edge of the screen acting as display-only won't make much difference to your interaction, but you'dd be able to fit a larger display into a smaller chassis. That sounds like a win to me.
I had the Galaxy Note 7, an almost bezel-less phone, and did not encounter any issue with accidental touches. I expect bezels to continue diminishing. This will help create easier to hold devices (smaller) while keeping healthy sized screens (5").
First thing I do with any phone is put it in a case. Bezel-less is irrelevant to me, I'm going to put one in place.
'Thinnest phone ever' is similarly meaningless to me for the same reasons. I don't want a phone that feels like I'm going to snap it in half simply by using it.
iPhone user? Because I've never had the need to put a case on any of my Android phones, including me and my wife's $150 Moto G3s that get thrown around by our kids.
And I do get quite some amusement out of a product praised for it's premium design, materials and svelte features always being carried in a thick ugly plastic/silicon bumper case by essentially everyone.
That's a moot point seeing as there is a large demand for cases for all kinds of smartphones. Most people I know use a case. Last time I checked, it was something like >50% of all smartphone users.
> iPhone user? Because I've never had the need to put a case on any of my Android phones
I've had both, and cases go on both.
> product praised for it's premium design, materials and svelte features
Pretty sure I just said the svelte part meant nothing to me. I also really don't give a damn about the design of the phone beyond its size, I care about it's features and using it.
Except phones without bezels are tough to have a good case for since having a lip around the edge to protect from a screen down drop interferes with touch screen use.
That's what I wonder about as well. I suppose with some smarts, it might be possible to ignore touches along the edge when it is held a certain way, but why unnecessarily complicate things? Even a 4 mm bezel would be fine.
I'm not a fan either but Galaxy S Edge is quite popular and I think it has sides that are far more prone to unintended interactions. Yet, I never hear of anyone having that issue.
I have the Edge and frankly i hate this gimmick precisely for that reason. Never used cases on my previous phones, but will be looking for one this time. Love the extra large battery though, so it's not all bad.
I am having that issue with Samsung Galaxy S7 edge. Whenever the screen is unresponsive it is because you are accidentally touching some part of the screen with your palm.
I have an S6 edge and I regret that purchase pretty much every day, specifically because i can't pick up the phone without causing a touch event somehow.
Love the design though, so if they just made the side edges touch-free I would be happy.
I think machine learning can be employed to filter out accidental touches from the meaningful ones. It is already done in iPad Pro that allows to use Apple Pencil while holding your hand on the screen, and still detects meaningful touches.
That is less true in the west for now I think; I see enough difference in phones to recognize the different brands from a distance; however in China, it seems that all 'local' brands (most of which you never heard of) are all just making identically looking phones, mostly mirrored after the iPhone 6+/7+. With some interesting exceptions, I cannot really see the difference even from closer up with, outwardly, the same materials, same buttons in the same locations etc. It becomes even harder to see when people have a case around their phone.
Not sure if it is fundamentally a bad thing; it'll push prices down and manufacturers who want to distinguish will try other forms. Like I said before, and some here seem to agree, please experiment with more battery, focusing less on the size or speed. At the electronics fair in Hong Kong last week a friend gave me a tablet which is so cheap that if you drop it you wouldn't even pick it up but just get a new one (his words, not mine) and it is fast enough for me to browse, play some games, chat and have fine battery life. More battery life for this that kind of thing matters to me personally more than screen size/resolution or speed as the latter is more than enough for most people anyway but at the same time people complain mostly about battery life.
If the sole purpose of a bezel becomes a place for displaying the logo of a maker or carrier, screw that I'll only consider phones without the wasted space.
I dont think you still get cool points anymore for showing everyone you have an iphone
Perhaps excited before it came out and the price was announced. Also The Verge != people.
It's a great Android phone, but since iPhone costs the same and they've upped the ante with i7 this year (stereo speakers, waterproofness), there's not much pro points toward the Pixel. Support stays the same, two years of update, one extra for security and then you're dead in the water, compared to 4-5 years with iPhone.
Unless you really love the Google bubble with AI and data collection.
> Unless you really love the Google bubble with AI and data collection.
I know this might come as a surprise but some people prefer Android to iOS. The Pixel seems to fare well compared to other Android phones, especially when you don't want any skins.
Everybody makes fun of the horrificly massive bottom bezel on the Pixel, it's really weird. The glass panel on the back is also perceived as quite pointless.
Other than the design it has been received quite good.
From what I've read online, the only positive reviews are from the tech blog reviewers who got them for free. Us common folk on forums took one look at that price and that uninspired design and said forget it. I'd rather have a OnePlus 3 for less than half the cost. A reskinning of Voice Search and a nice camera for nearly $950? please...
This gorgeous phone has a 2040x1080 17:9 6.4" 360ppi display. That's a new form factor I haven't seen anywhere else.
As long as the phone is not used for VR, 360ppi is plenty.
Regarding the front camera placement, that's somewhat inconvenient, on the other hand I don't use the front camera that much.
If Apple manages to integrate the home button into the display (as rumored) they could make the usable area even larger than 91.3%.
I agree - I think it looks really striking. The odd aspect ratio actually lets them have a standard 16x9 ratio screen above the software button row at the bottom.
I've been wondering when the bezel would disappear for good. I don't doubt that it adds the the appeal of the phone, but I also wonder if it has any downsides from a usability standpoint.
I've got a Sharp Aquos Crystal. If I use it without a case, it will frequently register touch events on the edges of the screen just from holding it. There's no way to hold it that will prevent this.
That's all really a software issue. The iPad Mini allows you to hold it even with your thumb touching the screen and it works perfectly fine, for example.
If google integrated that kind of thumb/holding hand rejetection to android (since most android manufacturers seem too incompetent to do it themselves) we could absolutely see an era of bezel-less devices that works fine.
I don't know, how "tightly coupled" is the glass of that screen with the rest of the device?
I have an iPad pro. When the screen grew a crack, I called to inquire about the cost of a replacement screen and was quoted at roughly 2/3 the price of a new device.
god bless the woman at Apple support who "pulled a string for me" and issued an RMA.
the replacement has also grown a hairline fracture despite what I would consider "careful use" (which I am fully aware makes it look like a PEBCAK issue, but I'm standing by my claim that I knew how lucky I was and have in no way tempted fate)
I'd happily trade a bezel-less design for one where the screen could be swapped for a fiver. (Or one that doesn't crack at all I guess!)
I'm curious to know if any phone is made like this. The Surface is also almost impossible to replace on your own and about the same cost as you mention.
No, a friend of mine works in the startup Elliptic Labs that is working with Xiaomi on this. Their tech replaces the usual IR sensor package above the phone screen with an ultrasound based sensor that can sit behind the display.
I see... Would like to know how they do the bezel less part construction wise. Sharp uses the topglass as a kind of lens. That lenseffect 'covers' the actual bezel beneath...
What a beautiful phone. I've wanted to get a Xiaomi phone to play around with for a long time. It's a shame they're so hard to get a hold of in North America. Need more friends in China...
It seems like a few get pretty close. The Dell U2417H and Benq EW2750ZL look nice, if small bezel is what you're looking for (24" and 27" respectively, but those are just examples).
I've read forums about hardcore gamers who remove the bezels on certain monitors in order to group them together for seamless FPS displays. You can probably find it by searching.
Yeah, this is my use case. I've seen a few of those setups and they're not bad. I want to max out the resolution on a single geforce 1080 (7680 x 4320) with 3 4k monitors in portrait mode.
As long as the touch sensor is extents past the display, the bezel can be a very useful feature for touch-screen based devices. Having swipes that begin off screen for OS-level commands like pulling down the notification bar or switching apps is a very intuitive and logical gesture. Without a bezel, you have to go back to needing off-screen buttons for these actions.
I hope that bezel-less-ness race will result in irrelevance of hardware form. What I care the most is the software. Hardware now is mostly good enough. Than maybe they would go die and it would be just like PC-s. I just want to have something good enough with reasonably supported software.
Interesting that they're sticking with the Note brand. You'd think they'd want to distance themselves from that as people have already associated Note with phones that catch on fire. But perhaps their target market is focused enough that misinformation won't be an issue.
Given that this is a company who's product line is largely based on stealing stuff rather than native innovation, it's not surprising that they are still using the Note branding they stole from Samsung. Let's just hope hey don't steal the 'burst in to flames' feature too.
I once owned Xiaomi mi2 (their second phone) and the usb socket melted when charging. After I posted it on Chinese twitter they were quick to offer a refund.
I hope their quality has improved since then. I guess at least the battery didn't explode :D
I can't possibly be the only one that laments the fact that all smartphones look basically the same after the iPhone took off. Candybar slates with massive screens and questionable batteries and life. No sliders, no flips, nothing new or interesting in hardware. Now, only featureless slabs with barely a physical button in sight, differentiated more by the images they display on screen and less their components.
Eventually we'll wind up with a phone that's all screen and no bezel, and then where do we go?
You're not the only one. But most diversions from the norm failed :( and large companies are afraid to innovate. LG's attempts are weird.
My hope is now on Chinese companies like Xiaomi to do something different :)
Also, Google hinders innovation by preventing hardware buttons. I miss the Photo button from my old Nokias the most, but also to answer the phone and other functions.
How is Google preventing hardware buttons? Sony's most recent phones (Xperia X) have dedicated photo buttons; and that's a longstanding Xperia feature. I doubt they're the only ones.
Android defaults to on-screen bottom-row buttons (to reduce bezel size), but the OS supports off-screen buttons just fine, and phones with dedicated buttons exist.
I'm obviously mistaken then, sorry. I believe I read that at one time there were some rules or guidelines for hardware manufacturers that wanted to be Google certified (and have Play Store and all that). I'm trying to google that and coming up short, so I must have been confused.
It was always going to be that way -- the screen is an empty canvas that you can project anything. All other hardware is superfluous at best and finicky at worst.
This is the ultimate end result of phone evolution.
It was fine if you kept it in a case. That protects from the errant touch events I mentioned in another comment here, as well as making it so I don't have to look at the back cover.
Maybe unrelated, I've had the phone for probably two years (it supposedly came out two years ago as well - didn't think I bought a brand new phone but I guess I did). Recently (past month or so), it's started rebooting at random throughout the day. I'd do a factory reset if I didn't dread the thought of dealing with all of my 2FA stuff.
Xiaomi ships weekly updates on the developer ROM and monthly on the stable release. All phones are on current monthly security Android release.
They don't update all phones to newer Android versions, but they do backport MIUI and security patches to older ones. Which is perhaps even better, since older devices don't get bogged down with newer Android releases.
I have the Xiaomi Mi4C, which gets an OTA update every week. Most changes are cosmetic, but typically includes substantive android security updates at least monthly.
I got a xiaomi redmi note 3 about a month ago and received two updates already, the second one is miui 8, I have 7.5 right now, but I won't update until I know is stable enougth
I have had samsungs and motorolas, and updates were few and slow.
Yeah no software updates aye, I probably get a minor security fix once a fortnight and have had a major os upgrade within a week of my phone arriving (xiaomi redmi 3s). I have owned about 5 different China phones, thl had awesome build and occasionally update. Xiaomi has had the best update frequency tho.
- Bezel size
- Weight
- Thickness
- Manufacturer-specific apps and skins
- Screen resolution beyond that of my eyes
- Fastest possible processor
Things I care about in a phone:
- Ability to make calls
- Battery life
- Replaceable battery
- Fits in my pocket
- Expandable storage
- Durable
- Decent camera
- Inexpensive
- Gets security updates
And what do the latest phones feature? Super-thin, super-light phones with consequently small batteries that are overburdened by enormous screens and processors that could run a laptop, and screens that would also fit a laptop. They cost $600 and more, when nearly-equivalent technology can bring the cost down to less than half that.
At least we're getting better cameras (though this would be easier with thicker phones) and waterproofing for durability. Wireless charging also seems to help with the longevity of the ports.