We’re like 10+ years past the point where new smartphone features were worth something. Now we’re back to buying new phones because the last one finally died, not to upgrade.
Some Chinese phones are interesting. I particularly like the ones with lofic camera sensors, or crazy attachable lens modules, but there are all sorts of niche devices.
What made them boring is the homogeneity. Like aliens designed them, have no idea what an actual human would want, but know they have to build one bland universal thing for everyone.
I want the Xaomi 18 Pro Max pretty hard. I record a fair bit of selfie video so being able to use the back camera for that with the preview screen would be dope.
The LG Wing is also my favorite phone of all time. I like fun phones. Unfortunately, fun phones don’t really seem to sell very well.
…This is better than the results we got for the current leader in terms of dynamic range, the ARRI Alexa 35 (and, there is a factor of 100x in price between the two).
That, plus a gimble, means its basically better than any near-term phone. I’d already have one, but… TBH, I don’t really do selfies.
The specific weird use case is making a quick short vertical video on my walk that I just upload without editing from my phone while still on the walk. They’re companions containing BTS and whatnot to my high-effort long-form videos where I do use different cameras. The whole point is that it’s low effort and low friction for me.
Gimbal cams (and many mirrorless cameras these days) auto-transfer recordings to the phone, so
it should be nearly as frictionless as a phone recording.
And gimbals are great for walking in particular, as they stabilize footage in a way a phone (and most ILCs) simply can’t.
Yeahhhh, but auto-transfer would be annoying when I record 1TB+ of footage for a long-form video. I’d have to manually transfer, which is an extra step, and I’m not interested in that haha.
No, when I’m filming the long format videos I get TBs on my cameras. I have an Insta360 Ace Pro II and X4. If I had them automatically dumping to my phone for the daily walks I record, I’d have to turn that feature off for the long form stuff so it doesn’t fill up my phone’s storage. If I got one of them famcy gimbal cameras, I’d definitely want to use it for the long-form stuff as well 'cause I know they can look really damn good.
Xaomi 18 Pro Max, while with a really weird name looks really beautiful & sleek, it’s like the optimistic future frutiger aero phone, if I HAD to pick a smart phone & I had a thousand pounds to spare it would probably be that.
But I don’t find the LG Wing appealing personally based on a glance, the screen thing just feels bloaty, I don’t see the milage you can get out of it.
As for the Wing, I don’t think another phone (aside from foldables) allows you to run 3 apps at once. It’s great for multitasking. I often watch a video on one screen while texting on another. It’s just great.
That’s what Apple does. I think the funniest was Apple Pay. Like almost 4 years late to the game. They’re not an innovation company anymore like back in the glory days.
My phone was 5 years old when I got it second hand. What really would a new one give at this point? Just look for the supported device list on calyx/graphene/etc and pick one that fits your budget that you can get second hand.
I’m currently using a Samsung Galaxy phone that’s old enough to still have an SD card slot. I’m dreading the day that it dies and I have to pay 10x the amount for 1/2 the storage capacity.
It’s not really anything that I need to keep, it’s more principal than anything. I could probably delete a couple hundred gigs of photos, music & memes and never notice it was gone. The fact that I can have a couple hundred gigs of frivolous data that I carry everywhere is just a flex, lol.
My wife gets the “your iPhone storage is full” message about every 3 months and has to go on a deleting spree; I have photos saved from a decade ago just because I can.
I have a USB C flash drive that I bought to put SteamOS on my steam deck when I upgraded the drive, so I have the ability to move stuff off my phone, I just don’t have to, so I don’t.
I see my PC (or home network as a whole?) as my primary device, phone just happens to be one I can easily carry away from the LAN to use offline for a while. Or with minimal 5G data for memes. 3GB/£5 a month.
honestly just get whatever phone and buy a proper digital camera, you’ll save money. i did this with music, cancelled spotify, got an mp3 player, now i dont really care whether my phone has a headphone jack for my iems.
My reason would be: I don’t want to carry multiple devices around. Sure, there are also upsides; if I drop my camera while hiking I still have a phone. But so far I am happier with everything on this single point of failure. Often I don’t need anything besides my phone at all. I can communicate, navigate, film, photograph, listen to music, pay, and soon even identify myself (once my ID and drivers license are in a digital wallet).
I already have a full frame DSLR but the phone camera is usually up there for any purpose I take pictures for, not to mention the massive zoom range. Unlike the big, bulky camera I actually have the phone with me all the time.
I suggest the opposite: spend the money on one device instead of 2. I was also at the exact position of the other person with the S20 being the last galaxy with SD. Sucks that they squeeze users so much and they just take it.
If you keep it long enough till it wont work on newer networks, your carrier might offer you one for free. I got my Pixel 6 pro for free because my old Galaxy didn’t support the 5g networks. I was forced to upgrade so they gave me the phone.
I would rather spend £1k on something else. My phone was £500 new, but I paid £200 or so as it was second hand. Came with a 5 year warranty from when I bought it still, though I expect all k would get is store credit.
Depending on what google do over the coming years I may just go back to a brick phone and get a small cheap laptop with Linux on it to carry around for anything fun. Backpack with a power bank for mains voltage perhaps? Some low spec laptops have pretty low power requirements though.
There’s pocket PCs like the Mecha Comet coming out nowadays. I’m not the early adopter type, but it’s an interesting alternative to consider in the future to me.
I solved this problem with a GPD Win Max 2, which is just a regular computer that folds up to about the size of a small hardcover book. You can run regular (i.e. PC compatible) operating systems and programs on it. It has a closed source UEFI firmware to my knowledge, but there’s still nothing stopping you from running Linux on it. The current version is the 3 and is alas not cheap, probably due to the whole RAMpocalypse thing.
Possibly with the aid of an external monitor, you could easily use the thing as your only computer. It just so happens to also fit in the pocket of your JNCOs.
For what it’s worth it also charges via USB power delivery, so the same battery brick I use to extend my Steam Frame’s run time will happily charge my Win Max as well, although I have no real world use case for that capability whatsoever.
We’re like 10+ years past the point where new smartphone features were worth something. Now we’re back to buying new phones because the last one finally died, not to upgrade.
i really just wish we had some options for “old” features. like a slide-out keyboard
Some Chinese phones are interesting. I particularly like the ones with lofic camera sensors, or crazy attachable lens modules, but there are all sorts of niche devices.
What made them boring is the homogeneity. Like aliens designed them, have no idea what an actual human would want, but know they have to build one bland universal thing for everyone.
I want the Xaomi 18 Pro Max pretty hard. I record a fair bit of selfie video so being able to use the back camera for that with the preview screen would be dope.
The LG Wing is also my favorite phone of all time. I like fun phones. Unfortunately, fun phones don’t really seem to sell very well.
For selfies, have you considered a pocketable gimbal cam instead?
They’re getting ridiclously good. The DJI 4P in particular has more dynamic range than most cinema cameras: https://www.cined.com/dji-osmo-pocket-4p-lab-test-rolling-shutter-dynamic-range-and-exposure-latitude/
That, plus a gimble, means its basically better than any near-term phone. I’d already have one, but… TBH, I don’t really do selfies.
How big are your pockets?
The specific weird use case is making a quick short vertical video on my walk that I just upload without editing from my phone while still on the walk. They’re companions containing BTS and whatnot to my high-effort long-form videos where I do use different cameras. The whole point is that it’s low effort and low friction for me.
Gimbal cams (and many mirrorless cameras these days) auto-transfer recordings to the phone, so it should be nearly as frictionless as a phone recording.
And gimbals are great for walking in particular, as they stabilize footage in a way a phone (and most ILCs) simply can’t.
It does sound like it’d be overkill though.
Yeahhhh, but auto-transfer would be annoying when I record 1TB+ of footage for a long-form video. I’d have to manually transfer, which is an extra step, and I’m not interested in that haha.
…You record 1TB+ of footage on your phone?
Well, IDK about your workload then, heh. But those pocket cams do record to microSD cards, FYI.
No, when I’m filming the long format videos I get TBs on my cameras. I have an Insta360 Ace Pro II and X4. If I had them automatically dumping to my phone for the daily walks I record, I’d have to turn that feature off for the long form stuff so it doesn’t fill up my phone’s storage. If I got one of them famcy gimbal cameras, I’d definitely want to use it for the long-form stuff as well 'cause I know they can look really damn good.
Xaomi 18 Pro Max, while with a really weird name looks really beautiful & sleek, it’s like the optimistic future frutiger aero phone, if I HAD to pick a smart phone & I had a thousand pounds to spare it would probably be that.
But I don’t find the LG Wing appealing personally based on a glance, the screen thing just feels bloaty, I don’t see the milage you can get out of it.
As for the Wing, I don’t think another phone (aside from foldables) allows you to run 3 apps at once. It’s great for multitasking. I often watch a video on one screen while texting on another. It’s just great.
Oh that actually sounds really useful.
Squints.
…I thought that looked silly at first, but that’s actually not a bad design. Its way more practical than Apple’s foldable for sure.
Calling it Apples foldable when foldables have been made for years is weird but yeah. It was great.
That’s what Apple does. I think the funniest was Apple Pay. Like almost 4 years late to the game. They’re not an innovation company anymore like back in the glory days.
I hadn’t seen apple pay used as a kleenex style brand name for tap to pay but I believe it haha.
My phone was 5 years old when I got it second hand. What really would a new one give at this point? Just look for the supported device list on calyx/graphene/etc and pick one that fits your budget that you can get second hand.
I’m currently using a Samsung Galaxy phone that’s old enough to still have an SD card slot. I’m dreading the day that it dies and I have to pay 10x the amount for 1/2 the storage capacity.
How much do you need permanently on the phone? Could get a NAS or what ever you feel like really to keep it on. Obviously backed up if its important.
It’s not really anything that I need to keep, it’s more principal than anything. I could probably delete a couple hundred gigs of photos, music & memes and never notice it was gone. The fact that I can have a couple hundred gigs of frivolous data that I carry everywhere is just a flex, lol.
My wife gets the “your iPhone storage is full” message about every 3 months and has to go on a deleting spree; I have photos saved from a decade ago just because I can.
I have a USB C flash drive that I bought to put SteamOS on my steam deck when I upgraded the drive, so I have the ability to move stuff off my phone, I just don’t have to, so I don’t.
I see my PC (or home network as a whole?) as my primary device, phone just happens to be one I can easily carry away from the LAN to use offline for a while. Or with minimal 5G data for memes. 3GB/£5 a month.
honestly just get whatever phone and buy a proper digital camera, you’ll save money. i did this with music, cancelled spotify, got an mp3 player, now i dont really care whether my phone has a headphone jack for my iems.
My reason would be: I don’t want to carry multiple devices around. Sure, there are also upsides; if I drop my camera while hiking I still have a phone. But so far I am happier with everything on this single point of failure. Often I don’t need anything besides my phone at all. I can communicate, navigate, film, photograph, listen to music, pay, and soon even identify myself (once my ID and drivers license are in a digital wallet).
i hate having everything on one device. makes it one point of failure.
Same here. Add car key and house key as well.
I still carry my wallet around, but just as a backup, I don’t take it out of my pocket all day long.
I already have a full frame DSLR but the phone camera is usually up there for any purpose I take pictures for, not to mention the massive zoom range. Unlike the big, bulky camera I actually have the phone with me all the time.
I suggest the opposite: spend the money on one device instead of 2. I was also at the exact position of the other person with the S20 being the last galaxy with SD. Sucks that they squeeze users so much and they just take it.
i prefer many cheap devices to one expensive device
Cheap cameras are garbage. That was true even before smartphones destroyed that market, now it is not even the same ballpark.
it’s easy enough to find affordable vintage digital cameras
https://sesko.store/
what’s an example of a good digital camera these days?
If you keep it long enough till it wont work on newer networks, your carrier might offer you one for free. I got my Pixel 6 pro for free because my old Galaxy didn’t support the 5g networks. I was forced to upgrade so they gave me the phone.
Sprint made me buy a new phone to ditch my pixel 2a, then never turned off the 4g network where I live.
They tried to get me to buy a new one. I just kept ignoring them. Eventually they sent me a letter saying to come get a free one.
My phone is a couple years old, but is a flagship. I bought it because I love emulators and ROMs, and now GameNative opened up my whole steam library.
That, and the camera are the big selling points. An older, cheaper, phone would not have 16 gigs of RAM, or a processor that can handle any of that.
Whether that’s worth $1,000 to you is definitely a question.
The day gamenative supports civ v will be a very unproductive week for me.
I would rather spend £1k on something else. My phone was £500 new, but I paid £200 or so as it was second hand. Came with a 5 year warranty from when I bought it still, though I expect all k would get is store credit.
I bought a new smartphone because I wanted to escape US tech oligarchs. One could call that a feature as well I guess.
Depending on what google do over the coming years I may just go back to a brick phone and get a small cheap laptop with Linux on it to carry around for anything fun. Backpack with a power bank for mains voltage perhaps? Some low spec laptops have pretty low power requirements though.
There’s pocket PCs like the Mecha Comet coming out nowadays. I’m not the early adopter type, but it’s an interesting alternative to consider in the future to me.
Now that Factorio is on Arm I could consider it. Still kinda dislike the lack of a generic boot loader that just works across any device though.
I solved this problem with a GPD Win Max 2, which is just a regular computer that folds up to about the size of a small hardcover book. You can run regular (i.e. PC compatible) operating systems and programs on it. It has a closed source UEFI firmware to my knowledge, but there’s still nothing stopping you from running Linux on it. The current version is the 3 and is alas not cheap, probably due to the whole RAMpocalypse thing.
Possibly with the aid of an external monitor, you could easily use the thing as your only computer. It just so happens to also fit in the pocket of your JNCOs.
For what it’s worth it also charges via USB power delivery, so the same battery brick I use to extend my Steam Frame’s run time will happily charge my Win Max as well, although I have no real world use case for that capability whatsoever.
Ohhh very high spec there, does explain the high price though.
A power bank with mains voltage? For a laptop?
To plug its normal charger into. I guess you could get a 12v one instead though.
Same, the “best” features of my current phone is the user replaceable battery and certfied fair wages for employees involved with making this thing