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Comment by oliwarner | Hacker News Reader

There are a few ways of looking at this. Most of the more engineery-types are pointing out the inevitability of failure, the challenges trying to find a good enough substrate to mount a touchscreen stack on, and trying to protect an exposed external hinge from impact, and all that material engineering science stuff that's really clever... But well besides the point.

I can't even rationalise why anybody wants a folding screen.

This seems like a gimmick searching for a market, not an answer to demand. And if this was the lowest hanging fruit for R&D to develop the next generation of phones, I think we're finally facing real stagnation in the phone market. Screen pixel density exceeds eyesight. Battery density limits are as far as known science can push them. Storage is beyond what we can reasonably use. 4G is fast enough. They've made every size of phone between a stamp and a tablet. There's nothing left to do. Phones are as dead as the PC.

What's next?

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Uh... removable batteries?!

I jest, but my best hope for a stagnant market is competition on merits that we really want, and less so for the whizz-bang features that attract attention without improving our lives.

I've got a used Nexus 6P with a dying battery. I don't know of any improvements in newer phones I need (except security updates!) but I'm torn whether I want to learn how to replace the battery and risk damage, or shell out some bucks for a local repair shop to do it.

Let new phones come out that are "as good as" the current phones, but reintroduce features we had to "give up" to get them this good. Batteries, useful I/O ports, comfortable shapes to fit our faces...

Why did batteries stop being replaceable again?

I'm guessing it makes the design of the phone circuitry easier? You don't have to make the case removable?

The idea that it forces you to buy a new phone never seemed like a good reason to me.

Phone batteries are replaceable. Just not directly by end-users (well, not most end-users).

There are design tradeoffs to make the batteries user-replaceable. E.g., the batteries are going to need a casing and socket that make them OK for users to handle and replace. The phone's going to need additional casing pieces, latches, and seals, etc. The phone's going to be a little bigger, heavier and more expensive. Maybe not a great tradeoff for something needed once every 2-3 years.

I just looked up and Apple is charging $50-$70 to replace your battery, depending on the model. So ~$25-$45 more expensive than a cheap DIY kit from amazon. Considering the various risks of DIY, that's really not that bad to do once every 2-3 years, IMO.

What you call "design tradeoffs" is what consumers call "basic features". I can't think of a single phone before the iPhone that had non-replaceable batteries. Samsung and LG had replacement slots on their flagships all the way up to 2014/15. You had someone a 2014 LG G3 today, and I doubt anyone would complain about the weight or the size, especially when the top-line iPhone has a 6.5 inch screen.

> Maybe not a great tradeoff for something needed once every 2-3 years.

The use case for a replaceable battery is for emergency situations, not just when the original stops holding a charge. I would much rather go back to that time when I could discreetly slip in a replacement than have to use a phone attached to a giant brick with a flimsy USB cable.

> ...what consumers call "basic features"

Consumers are the ones who have insisted — with their wallets — that they prefer phones without user-swappable batteries.

Consumers have "insisted" on that in the same way they've insisted on having more hormones, preservatives and color treatments in their food.

Companies have switched to non-replaceable batteries because it's good for their bottom line. It's definitely market forces that are in play, but not the ones in the textbooks where consumers hold all the cards.

Yeah. A lot of "voting with your wallet" boils down to "Buy this crap and kvetch about it ...or, I guess, have nothing?"

This is correct, at face value. However, the comparison is usually this:

Option 1:

- has a removable battery, headphone jack and/or stereo speakers

- security / OS updates stop in 6 months (or never happen or are years behind)

- camera is OK

- getting kind of slow

- proprietary version of Android with bloatware

Option 2:

- no removable battery, headphone jack or stereo speakers

- security / OS updates for 2-3 years

- camera is better in low light

- it's fast right now

It's like evolution, except there aren't enough options and the timeline is too short and bad features are too coupled with good features.

I think that's a stretch. I don't think that consumers insisted on this at all. I think that they were simply willing to put up with it.

> Maybe not a great tradeoff for something needed once every 2-3 years.

The case for user-replaceable batteries isn't just to be able to replace them when they wear out. It's also to be able to carry a spare or two for when you want to use the device for an extended period of time. (No, external power banks don't really address this use case).

> external power banks don't really address this use case

Can you elaborate on why not? For me they address it far better than swapping out the internal battery, since you don't have to interrupt that extended use by powering down the phone to make the switch. They're also way easier to recharge simultaneously, without needing a bank of dummy phones.

Because with power banks, you either have to keep it attached to the power bank during use or wait for the bank to recharge your phone.

The best solution to this I've found is the moto Z series of phones. Integrated battery and an external battery that attaches to the back with magnets. I don't really use the other mods but there's a battery attached to the back of my phone all the time and a spare in my bag.

Replacing dead batteries is different than the UX of being able to swap empty batteries with fully charged ones so your phone is never left charging on a charger for hours, only one of multiple batteries are. Plus when travelling or away from the charger you could carry multiple with you in a bag.

But I get what you’re saying otherwise.

I get what you're saying, but most modern chargers solve this problem.

I plug my phone into a usb-c charger for 10 minutes and I've got 2~3 hours of charge.

If I really need to be away for a long period, a portable battery pack works just fine (still only needs to be plugged in for a few minutes to get me hours of charge).

I don't really have problems with my battery dying during normal use. I DO have problems with gradually reduced battery life as the battery degrades.

> Why did batteries stop being replaceable again?

Because it reduces the cost of production.

For a few reasons:

1. There is an industry drive to make phones thinner, and one way to do that is to minimize the casing that a battery requires.

2. Waterproofing is a desirable feature, which is much harder to do when you have an accessible battery, especially in conjunction with 1.

3. Very few customers ever replace their battery.

4. Phones held together with adhesive and made from glass/metal feel and look better than plastic that snaps together. When marketing a premium product it has to look and feel premium.

Save up for a replacement. My 6P just started the boot loop of death. I was using it for navigation, closed the screen and put it down for an hour, picked it back up and it was boot looping. I had that 6P for 2.5 years and even replaced the battery. I just spent a lot of money on a vacation so I wasn't really ready to drop a bunch of money on another flagship-type device. I ended up buying a Moto G7 Power. It's almost the same specs as the 6P which is fine for me, I don't do much intensive stuff on there anyway, but it does have a massive 5000mAh battery which I think I'm going to love above all else.

As for battery replacement, I had a university electronics lab at my disposal. I used a heatgun to heat the top and bottom panels on the back. It wasn't the easiest but the guides online are thorough. One thing I would recommend is letting the phone cool in a bag with some silica gel packets before sticking the back glass panel on. I had some moisture develop inside the camera lens which led to some water spots. It didn't ruin the camera but picture quality degraded a little bit.

Security updates and finite battery lives seem to have a convenient crossover. I'm fairly sure if we could keep a device alive indefinitely, people would use them much longer.

I don't think you can safely have replaceable batteries without first making sure the devices' software are user serviceable. Completely flip the development model to something much more like a Linux distribution and get the onus on updating away from the people plugging bits of electronic-Lego together.

I would like a folding screen for the same reason as everybody else. You can put it in your jeans pocket. Want to watch a move on the train? Pull out your fold and you have a pretty decent size tv. Same for everything else.

Only if it doesn't break of course.

> I would like a folding screen

Just slap on a VR headset.

What's a good pocket-sized VR headset you'd recommend?

A folding one

Do you have any particular models in mind?

It's a tablet that fits in your pocket. Of course people want it.

However I remember comments like this one about the original iPad in the first place... because I was thinking the same thing at the time. So if you still don't get the appeal of tablets, then a folding phone also won't appeal to you.

>> They've made every size of phone between a stamp and a tablet. There's nothing left to do.

Really? My dream phone doesn't exist yet. I want a phone that is reliable, that lasts more than a few days on a single charge. I want one with two USB connections. I want one with a proper headphone jack, and a speaker that is loud enough to hear properly while driving (without a mount). For these features I am willing to trade size/weight. This phone doesn't exist yet. Until it does there remains room for improvement.

Why do you want your phone charge to last more than a day? Can't you just charge it while you sleep?

Sleeping in the middle of nowhere to enjoy some stargazing perhaps?

Stuck in an airport overnight?

Long term local power outage?

There are nice things about long lasting batteries.

And for all of those things, external battery packs exist that you can carry with you.

To anyone who complains that they won't be happy until the perfect device exists that meets all their needs and nothing they don't and doesn't need adapters or dongles to do it: I still use serial cables at least once a month. Do you hear me complaining that I can't find a laptop that includes a serial port? No. Because I recognize that my need is niche and adapters exist to fulfill that need. It doesn't need to be baked into a mass-market device. I'm an adult and can solve my own problems with readily-available tools.

<satire> I still use PDAs when I need a portable computer. Do you hear me complaining about that? No. Because I recognize that my need is niche and PDAs exist to fulfill my need. It doesn't need to be baked into a mass market device. I'm an adult that can bring both a phone and a PDA. </satire>

> To anyone who complains that they won't be happy until the perfect device exists that meets all their needs and nothing they don't and doesn't need adapters or dongles to do it

I think the point of frustration is that phones used to address most or all of these needs, and now they don't. So it can clearly be done.

Yes, phones used to satisfy the multi-day battery life needs. Smartphones never did, at least not mass-market smartphones. There were some smartphones that offered massive battery life but they didn't sell well enough to make it profitable to keep making them.

Same with two USB connections. Maybe one existed, but it wasn't a big seller so it was discontinued. Headphone jacks still exist, but phones without them aren't really selling worse so who knows what the future holds.

You know what sells? Mass market phones that meet everyone's needs and accessories that meet everyone's desires. Want longer battery life? Get any off-the-shelf mass market phone and pair it with a portable battery pack. Done. Want louder speakers? Get any off-the-shelf mass market phone and pair it with a Bluetooth speaker. Want a serial port? Buy any mass-market off-the-shelf laptop and a serial port adapter.

Because the next stop after "I demand a phone with loud speakers, multi-day battery life, and a headphone jack" is "no, that one is too expensive" or "no that one is running the wrong OS" or "no that one doesn't have a big enough screen" or "no that one charges with the wrong cable". The next stop is the millions of reasons to not buy exactly what you asked for. People here demand every product be exactly perfectly tailored to their own desires and no one else's and get offended when a device fits their needs but misses one or two of their desires, but also get offended when a product is released that fits someone else's needs and desires because it doesn't perfectly fit their own needs and desires.

"It can clearly be done" so why aren't you using a Moto G7 Power with its massive battery? Because this reason and that reason and the other reason because there is no way to make a device that satisfies every one of your desires. So why are you pretending that there aren't accessories available to satisfy every one of your desires... unless one of your desires is to just endlessly complain about modern technology?

> You know what sells? Mass market phones that meet everyone's needs

Yes, but as of late, those don't exist. At least, none that meet many of my needs.

> why aren't you using a Moto G7 Power with its massive battery?

The battery is an important issue, but not the most important to me. I could compromise on battery life for devices that met my other needs.

I've also decided to bail on commercial smartphones entirely and build my own. I could no longer find a commercial smartphone that was an acceptable compromise for me, and I'm also very much looking forward to no longer having to deal with the Android OS.

As a Motorola lover, multi-day charge is awesome.

Sometimes you forget to charge your phone. No problem! Battery's good until you get to a charger sometime the following day.

Also, an oversized battery / efficient chip means I can power-use my phone for a full day without worrying about battery.

And finally, because as your battery loses capacity over time, your phone drifts back to one-day charge, not sub-day charge.

My Huawei Mate 20 Lite lasts about 2-3 days. Pretty common for new phones I think.

i only charge my iPhone XR every 2-2.5 days. but i don't commute, and i sit at my desk 4-5 hours/day. when i charge (wirelessly), the phone's right in front of me.

I was spoiled by a Droid Turbo. Now I can't buy anything with less than 3500mAh of battery, which severely limits my options. Too bad Motorola phones never get software updates and are super locked down

Not to mention the latest offerings by Motorola have been lackluster.

I, too, loved my Droid Turbo. When I first got it, I remember driving from San Diego to the north edge of the Los Angeles metro area over about four hours using Waze. 4 hours of screen and GPS time and it only used about 40% of the battery. But after 3 years, 1 hour of Waze would consume 25% of the battery. The battery would barely last me a day, and if I was somewhere where I wanted to take a decent number of pictures, it wouldn't last more than a couple hours. I bought a replacement battery, but even though the battery was new, it was built years ago and was still slightly degraded.

I ended up buying a Pixel 3. The battery is only 3,000 mAh IIRC, but it's quite efficient. I usually finish my day with about 30-50% of the battery left depending on my usage. Of course, it'll be a different story in 2-3 years.

My Droid Turbo didn't lose much battery capacity, but it was four years old, and everyday apps barely functioned, and random things killed the battery in the background.

I went for the Pixel 2XL, for the battery and for the software updates. Can plug in my phone for an hour here and there at random times, and no longer leave it plugged in at night. I can go out or visit family with battery at 50% and not worry about my phone dying.

Google's fast charging also seems to be more variable and "smart" than motorola's, and doesn't seem to overheat my phone as much

My OnePlus 6 lasts about four days, with each charging cycle containing a few hours of speaking, checking random stuff on the web, and using instant messaging and occasional photo shooting. I really, really don't miss the era of early smartphones that barely made it through the day and when their charge went low they died pretty quickly.

I've gone to bed several times with less than 10% battery left, woke up with 2-3% left in the morning, realised the battery is dying and put it charging during breakfast. Back to at least 80-90% when I'm leaving and thus good for another three days.

I would love a phone that I didn't have to charge every day. My life is too full of stuff that I have to remember to charge frequently as it is. Less of that would be great.

Im in the military. Sometimes I sleep places that dont have charge points.

I'm sure you've realized your dream phone will never exist, it sounds more like an older ultrabook than a phone. What's the reason for a USB port, much less two of them? Every new vehicle the past few years has bluetooth, so why a loud speaker?

I have yet to see a bicycle with bluetooth. (electric bike is not the same thing). My car doesn't have bluetooth - it is only 13 years/250000 miles out so it has plenty of life left (most people replace their cars long before they are worn out, I drive mine into the ground). I haven't seen a leaf rake with bluetooth either, and most lawn mowers still don't have it either.

I'm well aware that the dream phone may never exist. That doesn't mean I don't want it.

You can get a Bluetooth speaker that'll clamp onto your bike for $20, or some earbuds. Expecting a phone to blast out high-decibel music that you can hear while mowing the lawn seems like an insane ask.

My 2010 car didn’t come with Bluetooth either.

I fixed it by replacing the head unit with one that supports Bluetooth and CarPlay. An easy DIY project or you can pay a small fee to have it done for you by an installer.

Right, or I can just get a phone with a loud enough speakers in the first place. I've outlined a number of situations where I want loud noise from my phone. Having the phone solve the problem is more convenient than fixing it in each situation separately.

I don't know if it is possible for the phone to provide this, but it is on my want list.

Slightly off topic, but for power tool work / lawnmowers I can heartily recommend 3M Worktunes. It's like $50 bucks and you get decent bluetooth speakers with ear protection, and the battery lasts all day.

(I assumed they just meant two USB-C or micro-USB ports, not big desktop-style ones)

Two USB sockets is like two SIMs. It sounds crazy to most people who’ve never had them, but for a lot of other people they are / would be amazingly useful.

Bluetooth is not always an option. I often travel/work (military) where i must keep it in airplane mode. Wireless headphones also arent an option. 2 usb ports means when one snaps the phone isnt bricked.

You can definitely use bluetooth on airplane mode

Can I ask what the dual USB is used for? Charge + USB OTG device?

For some, it would be charge + speaker, charge + headphones, or charge + TV.

>charge + headphones

I forgot about the hellscape we're living in where this is a thing.

I do see advantages for those other uses. Also, copying data between USB drives seems handy too!

Charge+something, but also because when one breaks im not screwed.

Why do you need a loud enough speaker to hear it while driving? Can't you just tie your phone into your car's audio system? Bluetooth, Aux Cable, or otherwise??

an aside: i'm always amazed at the number of people in new/late-model cars driving while holding their phone to their face.

why aren't these people connecting to their car? if they care enough to drive and hold a phone up, it seems likely they know about bluetooth.

I've got a recent Corolla and the Bluetooth integration is buggy, frustrating, the microphone's bad enough people struggle to hear me, and it doesn't much like deciding between multiple phones in the same car.

Avenir manufactures a variety of devices (licensed under the Energizer brand) that might intrigue you: https://www.energizeyourdevice.com/en/mobiles/catalog/ . I think they're only sold in EU markets, though.

Wow, those phones look good. Do you know how easy it is to root those phones?

No idea, unfortunately.

My iPhone SE (refreshed version) hits all of this, except the 2 USB connections -- which is a very specific request, but w/e, I don't judge.

In my mind still is one of the top 5 smartphones available, even if it hasn't refreshed in a few years.

I actually stopped optimizing my app for your screen size. I have no idea if it even works. Surprised there are people out there still using these!

The killer feature of the iPhone SE (and its predecessors) is that it can be comfortably operated with just one hand and fits in every pocket. That‘s why many people will continue to use it until it breaks, or Apple decides to release smaller phones again (unlikely at this point).

Apple was selling them brand new until a few months ago. Of course people are still using them.

Isn’t there some sort of analytics you could add to your app to learn the screen size of your users?

> I can't even rationalise why anybody wants a folding screen

Look atbhow thick it is when folded. At that size, a normal screen, with a huge battery and a sliding hardware keyboard would much better. For me, it would be an instant buy.

I want a folding screen because it will make every part of using phones a nicer experience. There's a reason tablets exist: tablets provide a superior user experience. The foldable form factor lets you put a tablet in your pocket. Nobody understood the need for the iPad when it came out either.

I dispute that tablets are a superior user experience. They’re great for some things, but in general phones are better. Phones crush tablets in both sales and usage, and most people have a big phone rather than a small phone and a big tablet.

I would say phones crush tablets in sales because you can't put a tablet in your pocket. The folding phone changes this, and that's why its so interesting.

The first good folding phone might change that.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but aren't tablets a niche and have been for a while?

Not sure how accurate this graph is:

http://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobi...

but it seems like tablet use is dwarfed by both desktop and mobile (not sure where laptops fit into the scheme of things) by a factor of 10.

But now it's 2019 and the line between tablets and laptops is blurred. However, I still don't want or need one. It's too big to fit in any pocket and too small to use as your main productivity screen. And only marginally better for watching movies than a flagship phone (which in itself is not a high bar, compared to watching a movie on a big screen TV)

"There's nothing left to do. Phones are as dead as the PC."

My toilet has a cistern, u bend, and all the features of a toilet of 100 years ago. Never the less toilets are far from dead.

What you are describing is a mature product, not a dead product.

My toilet is dramatically different, better ceramic and less of it, lighter. It's a close-coupled cistern doing away with some piping. It's dual flush, uses much less water; it even has a redesigned ball-cock (float shut-off valve). It has a soft-close removeable seat/lid.

It's actually surprising the amount of new tech in a regular toilet - even compared to 20 years ago. And that's not a complex automated toilet, just a standard UK crapper.

I'm assuming you don't buy a new toilet every 3 years or so. And therein lies the problem.

I've never weighed a toilet ?! So I cant comment on that.

Close coupled cisterns have been around for over a century.

The ball cock redesign is a result of the dual flush arrangement (I thought?). But yes that is a change.

Having never come across a soft close lid on a toilet I can't agree they're anything close to standard, I'm sure they exist though. (I'm British also btw, so our experience should somewhat match)

So that's one change mandated by law?

You raise a good point about Japanese toilets though.

>Close coupled cisterns have been around for over a century //

That's interesting, high cisterns (with a chain!) were still common, when I was younger (80s) these were replaced by low cisterns with a pipe between. In the last 2 decades in the UK these have been replaced by close-coupled systems IME.

Re weight, firing is costly, you can improve the shape to reduce the mass of clay which reduces firing costs considerably. I've taken out 50 yr old toilets and fitted new ones.

All the recent commercial fittings (ie in businesses, or in domestic settings done by plumbers) I've seen have been soft close & removeable. There's still a bug IMO, they need some sort of arrangement to make them lift quickly but lower slowly, or soft close only at the extremes of travel (soft close drawers have it, so I guess it'll come; probably a price issue).

The toilet cistern ball cock has changed twice AFAIK, once to accommodate the dual flush (central column), and again to alter the hinging to improve the pressure applied at the valve and reduce leaks.

What were we talking about again ...

Samsung's DeX software on the Galaxy S10 and Tab S4 lets you run an Ubuntu ARM installation when the phone is connected to an external monitor. I could definitely see the use for a phone that unfolds into a tablet for work stuff, without requiring the extra peripherals.

I'd much rather carry a single device that can do it all, but a 7.3 inch screen isn't going to get me there. I'm more interested in the Huawei Mate X, that has an 8-inch screen when unfolded.

I still use my 7" tablet for watching and reading stuff and my 5" phone for phone stuff. The thought of having 1 device instead of 2 is pretty nice. We don't appear to be at that point yet, but if it worked I would use it.

anti-phone peripherals. Now that phones are the ubiquitous computers everyone has, we need a next tier down for persisting contact with less addiction!

watches, wireless earbuds.

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