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Author Topic: Smartphones et al. and their software, batteries and keyboards  (Read 6962 times)

peter.s

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Call me conservative; up to very recently I used two Nokia 9210i - why?

I

Two reasons, not at all related to each other, but equally important:

- I want a physical keyboard (ok, the Nokia kb is really bad, so this criterion is highly debatable), so the only other current alternatives would have been either other old smartphones (used ones), or that RIM stuff (changed their name but you know what I mean)

- I bought lots of expensive sw for those phones, and most readers will know that, it's smartphone sw developers who very early succeeded in forcing hardware linking (or what is it called?) to users: any mobile phone has got an IMEI number, and almost any (from my experience, 99 p.c. or more) sw for smartphones traditionally has been coupled to the IMEI in question: No (legal) chance even to de-install sw from phone 1 and THEN only install it to another phone: When your phone breaks, your expensive sw is dead.

I suppose this is also true for iPhones and Android (in fact I don't know), but the big difference is, there's a plethora of (also quite prof.) sw for both systems, costing between 2 and 15 bucks, when really useful smartphones-of-the-old-days sw came with prices much higher, and even into the 3 figures.

This being said, for sw developers, smartphones of the old days were a dream come true; it's just MS who today insist upon your sw licence being broken, together with your hardware, whilst decent sw-for-pc developers all allow for re-install when you change your hardware.

II

Now for batteries. As you will have guessed, I cannot use my (virtually "unbreakable": good old quality from the ancient times) Nokia phones anymore since I naïvely thought batteries would not become a problem, those "Communicators" having been sold by "millions", in very high numbers at the very least.

Well, I was wrong: Currently, they sell USED "Communicator" batteries for 3 figures, and my own little stock had come to an end, BEFORE I had figured out I should buy some additional supplies (and then, you cannot store "batteries" / cells (rechargebable or not) forever).

Ok, they now sell big batteries (and with quintupled capacity), with various adapters, even for those "Communicators", but buyer beware: Even if you're willing to use a smartphone connected with some crazy cable to some heavy battery in your pocket (well, in the old days a simple mobile phone was about 10 or 12 kg), this is not a solution since all (???) of these (= from their respective advertizing, not one will have the needed additional functionality indeed) will only work if you have got a healthy regular battery in your smartphone, too; in other words, the external battery can spice up your internal one, not replace it. Why do I know or think I now? (Perhaps I'm even mistaken???)

Now for the difference with many (all???) notebooks: I never had the slightest problem to connect my (over the years, multiple) notebooks to the current, and have them work fine, as long as the respective mains/power adapter was working correctly, long after the internal battery working and/or being available.

The same does not seem to be true with smartphones in general (???); at the very least, it's not true for my "Communicators":

It makes no difference if I have got a worn-out battery in the Nokia, or if I leave it out: Just connecting it to the power adapter (which in turn is connected to the mains of course, I'm not that a lunatic) will NOT do anything in order to my being able to start the phone, it remains just dead, and the same is true if I put the phone into its (equally expensive) "desk stand" (which in turn is connected to the power adapter). And since I've got two Nokias, several (worn-out) batteries, several power adapters, several desk stands, and know about permutations, I'm positive that my problems don't come from some broken smartphone.

In other words, my Nokias need a working internal battery in order to be able to take advantage from any external power supply, and from their respective ads, I suppose those external batteries will not make any difference; my question is, is this behavior typical for smartphones, or is it just typical for the dumbness of Nokia staff? (As we all know, Nokia is gone.)

If it's typical for mobile phones and / or smartphones in general, beware of investing too much into (even a well-sold) smartphone: Once you won't get any more batteries for that, all your investments in that phone will have been flushed.

III

So what I do for the time being? Went back to a combi of Nokia 6300 (har, har, batteries available as for now) and my old sub-notebook (with an internal umts card, reverting to "sleep state" in-between, and as long as the third-party cell will be alive) I hadn't really used any more for a long time:

Since those sub-notebooks are total crap: A regularly-sized notebook is difficult enough to type on (with 10 fingers, nor just 2 or 3) when in the office, you do right and use some decent, regular keybord, so it's obviously a very smart idea to buy some lightweight notebook for the road, but which has got a KB OF REGULAR SIZE (if not shape) - and don't forget the oh-so-useful (both for digit entering as for macroing!) dedicated keypad, and trust me about that; any sub-notebook (incl. those immensely pretty Sony sub-sub-notebooks that weren't continued though and now are available, used, for quadruple their price new) will be a constant and real pain-in-the-you-know-where: It's weight, not size that counts*, believe me, I'm judging from enough unpleasant first-hand experience.

IV

I just read, "Nikon kills third-party battery support", i.e. they probably put some additional electronics in their reflex camera preventing third-party battery makers from creating battery compatible cells: Another (for the consumer: very bad) "highly interesting" "development".


Your respective experiences / solutions would be very welcome.


*= this rule does not also apply in inter-human intimacy
When the wise points to the moon, the moron just looks at his pointer. China.

eleman

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Re: Smartphones et al. and their software, batteries and keyboards
« Reply #1 on: February 03, 2015, 09:05 AM »
Buy a new phone with a large enough screen. In 5+ inch screens the on screen keyboard is a bearable burden. Won't match a physical keyboard, but bearable. You can use bluetooth keyboards if that's a road you like to take.

The apps thingie: They are connected to your account, and not your phone. So you have a google account (for android phones) or apple account (if you have problems storing large amounts of money, so you have to dispose of it quickly), or microsoft account (if you are into crippled ecosystems), and all software belongs to it, not the phone.

Try to get a phone with a high battery capacity/screen size ratio, so that you won't run out of battery in the afternoon. When that phone gets old, get a new phone, and transfer all your apps to the new one.

Innuendo

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Re: Smartphones et al. and their software, batteries and keyboards
« Reply #2 on: February 04, 2015, 10:07 PM »
eleman beat me to it. I have purchased apps on the Google Play store once and have been able to use the purchases on both my phone and my tablet simultaneously. This is also how it works in the Amazon App Store for Android as well. I think there's some ridiculous limit like you are limited to 24 devices or something like that, but I think that's more than fair.

peter.s

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Re: Smartphones et al. and their software, batteries and keyboards
« Reply #3 on: February 05, 2015, 04:03 PM »
Eleman and Innuendo, thank you for replying, and I think you're right.

Also, I particularly appreciate, "or apple account (if you have problems storing large amounts of money, so you have to dispose of it quickly), or microsoft account (if you are into crippled ecosystems)" - very funny (and 100 p.c. what I think but didn't express in so delightful a way).

As said, sw was IMEI-bound and very expensive; when applics cost 2-10 dollars, even IMEI-coupling would have been "acceptable". But I'm quite astonished I would need a Google account? Say I've got a monthly contract with a typical mobile telephone provider, I always thought I bought the applics for the physical device, like in the old days: coupling to some additional Google (or Yahoo or whatever?? Or then, if it's Android, it's Google - period?!) account is very new to me! Don't people think that's ultimately intrusive on their part? (Well, I suppose they very closely monitor what your apps do? Well. That's why our governments have got other phones, costing real money.)

Well, I had mentioned two other details:

- Don't count on the availability of ("original" or even "third-party") batteries forever
- This implying, don't buy "exotic" devices (or only if they come with batteries compatible with the most common devices there are)
- And implying, don't buy any "used" or "classic" device (bec/of its alleged superior quality or something): You'll run out of batteries in too short a time

- And: do common current smartphones work, connected to the mains, but WITHOUT a battery in them (as notebooks do)?

Just for the record, and since as said, the Nokia 9210/9210i does NOT work then, I took out the battery from my Nokia 6300 and connected it to the mains (battery charger / mains adaptor), and it did not work then either, and finally I took the battery out of my Nokia 3300 (= very old, very robust!), connected it to the battery charger, itself connected to the mains, and it did NOT work.

So this could be Nokia specifics: No (?) Nokia works without a (working) battery in it; or then, phones and smartphones in general don't work in that situation, whilst all (? well, several Toshiba, Sony, IBM/whataretheycallednow do fine) do?

And yes, you're right, in theory, the physical keyboards are superior, but in real life, they are so bad (perhaps not so for a child's hand) that almost any virtual keyboard cannot be worse, given a minimum size of the screen.
When the wise points to the moon, the moron just looks at his pointer. China.

rjbull

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Re: Smartphones et al. and their software, batteries and keyboards
« Reply #4 on: February 09, 2015, 05:49 PM »
eleman beat me to it. I have purchased apps on the Google Play store once and have been able to use the purchases on both my phone and my tablet simultaneously.
Just to be perfectly clear; does that mean that if I uninstall a utility purchased through the Google Play Store, either through the Play Store itself or via Settings, I can come back at some later date and reinstall it without further payment?

Deozaan

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Re: Smartphones et al. and their software, batteries and keyboards
« Reply #5 on: February 09, 2015, 06:52 PM »
eleman beat me to it. I have purchased apps on the Google Play store once and have been able to use the purchases on both my phone and my tablet simultaneously.
Just to be perfectly clear; does that mean that if I uninstall a utility purchased through the Google Play Store, either through the Play Store itself or via Settings, I can come back at some later date and reinstall it without further payment?

Yup, once you buy something on the Play Store, it's yours forever.

There are some possible exceptions: Consumable in-app purchases (IAPs) and subscriptions (which I believe also count as a form of IAP).

rjbull

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Re: Smartphones et al. and their software, batteries and keyboards
« Reply #6 on: February 10, 2015, 04:07 PM »
Yup, once you buy something on the Play Store, it's yours forever.
Thanks for the confirmation!  :)

There are some possible exceptions: Consumable in-app purchases (IAPs)
Consumables?  Please can you give an example?

Deozaan

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Re: Smartphones et al. and their software, batteries and keyboards
« Reply #7 on: February 10, 2015, 05:02 PM »
Yup, once you buy something on the Play Store, it's yours forever.
Thanks for the confirmation!  :)

There are some possible exceptions: Consumable in-app purchases (IAPs)
Consumables?  Please can you give an example?

This is probably only a "feature" in games. For an example I'm making up as I go along: Some games let you pay $1 for 500 in-game gold coins. And you can keep paying $1 as many times as you want to get 500 more gold coins. Obviously, since you can spend the 500 gold coins in-game, you can't buy them once and keep them forever. They're not permanent, so they allow you to keep buying them repeatedly.

These consumables come in the form of in-game currency, temporary power-ups, and other similar things.

rjbull

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Re: Smartphones et al. and their software, batteries and keyboards
« Reply #8 on: February 11, 2015, 03:17 PM »
This is probably only a "feature" in games.
Virtual consumables paid for with real money?  I don't think I'll be going there!  :)  Thanks for clarifying.

Deozaan

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Re: Smartphones et al. and their software, batteries and keyboards
« Reply #9 on: February 12, 2015, 02:03 AM »
This is probably only a "feature" in games.
Virtual consumables paid for with real money?  I don't think I'll be going there!  :)  Thanks for clarifying.

Yes. And there are people who pay thousands of dollars on a single "free" app/game with these IAPs. It's lucrative madness.