Hacker News Reader

Comment by jlg23 | Hacker News Reader

> I could be wrong, but I recall in many developing countries phones there are many teenagers who code on their phone because laptops (even tablets) are prohibitively costly.

Yes, I see that a lot here in the far south of Morocco.

> They might be wiring their phones up to some cheap keyboards, which is technically possible but I don't know if they're doing that.

They do. Adapters are about $2.

View on HN

Why do that when bluetooth keyboards are cheap these days too? For like $11 you can get a bluetooth keyboard, which would most likely just work...

I could also see some of them using a cheap tablet for the larger screen, but I've also run into teens who use their phones exclusively.

It may be $11 here in the US, but it might be harder to get and more costly in a developing nation. In which case, if it is easier to get that $2 adapter and an e-waste keyboard, that likely makes sense for them

Sure, I don't discount that, I guess my real point was that bluetooth might still be viable depending on country.

Pretty sure the people who have to choose between eating and a $2 adapter and not eating and a Bluetooth keyboard have a better understanding of the trade offs and what’s viable than you do. Not sure what real point you’re trying to make here

$2 makes sense if they have a computer already and a keyboard for said computer, otherwise it doesn't make much sense to me.

You can get bluetooth keyboards on aliexpress for under £2.

If dealing with that type of budget then scavenging is probably the better route especially as online payments may also be out of reach.

In general, as a frugal person, buying "converter" type hardware is rarely a win because mass produced things are so much cheaper than more trivial but niche things.

However, converter type things are often unused clutter someone would happily give away. Just yesterday I came across some ps2 to usb converters. I can't imagine ever needing one again...but imagine the horror of not having one if you did! I probably didn't need to keep two though...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com