Comment by existencebox | Hacker News Reader

Comment by existencebox | Hacker News Reader

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I both disagree with your assertion, and find it sad that michaelmior is being downvoted.

My wife uses the moto G Play. <150USD for a perfectly functional phone, and frankly I'd even call it "far from minimal," (it has features that many flagships unfortunately don't support any more, e.g. sd cards, removable batteries, and headphone jacks) and for years have looked for an even more commodity platform myself since I have no need for apps or beefy hardware. (GPS, text, html only browser, email, with barely enough horsepower to run the above + a beefy battery would be the pipedream, and sounds _not too far_ from the brick phones I used ~20 years back)

As I told a coworker when I saw this post: Either our expectations of "minimal" or the english language has gotten entirely out of wack, because 350 pounds for a smartphone is so far from minimal as to be laughable. Maybe a "minimal flagship" (and this is where I'm inclined to think the gap between your view on this and mine is, where you said 'if you find good specs cheaper'. Perhaps my view on "good" is a much lower bar, but I'm perfectly happy with my 60$, 5 year old Lumia, and find it to be _far more minimal_, while directly challenging your "break down sooner or later" assertion; I've had droid flagships that didn't last as long.)

I guess you're right we have complete perception of minimal. I wrote somewhere else our aim was to be exactly between Flagship smartphones and complete detox options like litephone or an old refurbished nokia, I think you're more looking for those options.

You're probably right re: how we're looking at minimalism, and if that range was your aim, your price point seems much more fair.

The mental dissonance came for me simply from my perception of the word "minimal;" I have a wonderful moment of "Oh man someone's finally making the phone I wish I could buy" whenever I see a thread with this or similar verbiage, then the sad realization that I'm apparently too far to the 'throw out everything but your matress' side of minimal.

I was simply surprised to have not seen other feedback along this vein, and moreso when the other commenter was going grey for advocating what I thought were some good examples of models in that range.

Anyway, I'd want to cap this with a friendly "good luck"; Don't take my jaded disappointment as anything more than the whinging of someone tilting at the windmills of eternally larger and more expensive phones. (Although if you DO ever get the chance to advocate for a truly bare-bones-minimalism in a future product, here's a hearty nudge nudge from this curmudgeon.)

thanks a lot and sure I def. got your point and I think our target is different than you (you should checkout the other products like lite & punkt). The tag - minimalist was written by the OP and not us, we barely use (and stopping more often) the term minimalism esp. that closely to our brand / product. our html title is "back to the root" and our slogan is "people first" (printed on the packaging & on the back of the phone) as it better describes our mission.

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