Hacker News Reader

Comment by abraxas | Hacker News Reader

Ugh, the camera tumors are getting ever more bulky and protruding. Can we have a decent phone with a flat back again for those of us who don't use their phone as a camera?

View on HN

This Chinese made gaming phone is flat, has good design, and powerful specifications. I have no idea what its customized android is like or what their security and updates are like. But it is very cheap!

https://na.redmagic.gg/pages/redmagic-9-pro

The parent company is Nubia which in turn is part of ZTE (see the bits about FCC and EU): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZTE

Review here: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/redmagic-9-pro

It's a good looking phone but... it has a fan on it! That seriously puts me off of it unless the fan can be permanently disabled in settings or firmware.

My new 2023 Razr has cameras that barely protrude from the external screen. It's clearly doable, but perhaps more megapixels requires a physically larger camera module.

more megapixels/better pixels require bigger sensors, thus, the optics have to scale accordingly too.

There's plenty of phones like this available: just go look at the ~$50 Android phones. They're cheap and the cameras are barely adequate, and don't protrude from the case.

If you're not interested in using the camera feature of your phone, then high-end smartphones aren't for you. It's like buying a Ferrari and complaining about the fuel economy and lack of passenger space.

So you're saying that a powerful phone needs to be a good camera? Can you think of a counterfactual?

The only other reason I can see for a powerful phone is for playing video games.

If you're just using it for communications, you don't need a flagship phone; every phone works fine for that these days. There's tons of mid-grade phones now that have excellent large screens (even OLED) and plenty of power for normal tasks (including all but the most demanding games), and quite decent cameras, without cameras protruding far out of the case like on the the top-end flagships.

And this is why I stopped chasing newest, flagship phones. I mostly use phone for Whatsapp, email, and social media. My good old Pocophone F1 and Pixel 3 still handle my needs.

If I want a good camera, well I prefer something from Sony/Fuji, for example.

I take it you're senior management? The only technical requirements are always whatever you need for your daily life?

OP made reasonable points; not sure what your disagreement is. I think speaking in questions is detracting from your argument.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com