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Comment by nicpottier | Hacker News Reader

The big surprise for me was that they nixed the rear LED flash. Not because anybody would take pictures with that camera, but for a phone made for the developing world not having a "flashlight" is a huge knock against it.

Seriously, flashlights are a big selling point even on simple dumb phones here in Rwanda, and I just can't imagine having a phone without it When the power goes out a few times a week, having a source of light on you is a big boon. (and no the screen doesn't count!)

Seems like a misstep to me.

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Flashlights on mobile phones are like the 'Leatherman' of the underprivileged. I've seen almost every technician / handyman put it to good use to illuminate a dark nook of your home while doing his job.

I think that they're just following Nokia's lead. Nokia released the Lumia 520 without a LED flash and it has been their best seller, especially in emerging markets. The big difference, however, is that the Lumia costs half as much as the new Motorola.

> Lumia costs half as much as the new Motorola

You are mixing carrier subsidy. Price is in the same ballpark.

> big difference, however

Lumia 520 is far behind in features. It has single SIM, no Gorilla glass, smaller screen, smaller battery, half the RAM (although double internal storage)

Battery life on the 520 is pretty great. Lasts 3 days easy.

The dual-sim 630 just came out in India [0], but the price appears to be closer to $200. It has a 4.5" gorilla glass screen, but keeps the 512MB of RAM, and has no LTE support (that's in the coming-soon 635).

See my other comment on this thread for thoughts on how a 512MB WP device might provide a better long-term experience than a 1GB Android device in some ways.

I find this low-end market fascinating. Personally I use and prefer a Nexus 5, but as a WP developer it's eye-opening to see that fully 50% of our active WP8 user sessions are on a 512MB WP device (and almost half of those are 520/521).

[0] http://www.ibtimes.co.in/nokia-lumia-630-india-price-reveale...

> Battery life on the 520 is pretty great

That's not my point. You are getting better specs (higher mAh) on Moto E for the same price. That's all. Which one will last longer per charge will be out soon.

The Lumia 520 costs $70 in the USA without a carrier subsidy and without a contract. I know this because I own one and because I just checked a few online retailers to see if they had increased the price.

And for that price difference the differences in features become irrelevant, especially when you take into account the surprisingly good build quality of the device and the fact that WP runs very well on low spec devices.

The AT&T version is actually $59 [0]. I think the advantage the 520 has going for it is that MS and WP app developers have realized that the vast majority of WP users are on 512MB devices like the 520.

So, MS has committed to excellent support. Even these low-end WP8 devices are getting the 8.1 update, and it runs really well on them. MS has every reason to support these devices throughout the complete WP8.x lifecycle.

And MS is heavily pushing for developers to make sure their apps work there. This was a huge focus at the recent MS Build conference.

Contrast this with the Moto E, which is only promised "at least one update" to another version of Android. My original Nexus 7 became quite sluggish after a couple of OS updates.

Of course, I'd rather own an Android phone than a WP phone, and app availability is just a totally different ballpark. But for a "basic" smartphone, given the price, performance, and support, I think the 520 might win for a ton of users.

[0] http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/No-Contr...

> The Lumia 520 costs $70 in the USA without a carrier subsidy and without a contract. I know this because I own one and because I just checked a few online retailers to see if they had increased the price.

Prepaid carriers often still discount phones to prices that would not be workable without the expectation of the phone being used on their network. Similar things have happened with the Moto G, which retailed for ~180 in the US, but is readily available from prepaid carriers for ~100.

Time will tell, but I expect that some will retail the Moto E for <80 once it goes on sale here.

Can you point to a reliable retailer that's selling an unlocked Lumia 520 for $70 ?

The MSRP on Lumia 520 > MSRP on Moto E. It's possible that some e-tailers might give you a good discount on 520 because it's more than a year old. The price on unlocked Lumia 520 that I see is $110. http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-Lumia-Unlocked-Windows-Phone/dp/...

> Lumia 520 is far behind in features

Yes but to be fair the Lumia 520 is also over a year old at this point (went on sale in April 2013).

Not having gorilla glass / less RAM / smaller battery has less to do with being a year old. Nokia has always skimped on RAM for Lumia series (even for 620 & 720). Many popular games won't run on them. They have Gorilla glass on models 720 & upwards. Similar story with battery capacity. I'm not shooting down Nokia, just saying that Moto E is more value for money.

It's not only for developing world. Everywhere. It's one of 10 top features.

I agree it isn't ideal, but hitting that price point isn't easy. And a Moto E and a flashlight is still quite a bit cheaper than a Moto G, so I understand why they might have made that cut.

You really think that a flashlight adds more than $1-2 to the production cost of a mobile phone? They are doing this to attract more people to their premium models... The key selling point of Nokia 1100 was strongest flashlight on the market and the low price... I bought it for its flashlight phone as working as technician few years back...

At the very low end, $1-2 is a lot in terms of the production cost of a mobile phone. I'd wager that's why Nokia dropped it from the 520 as well, since they're at $70 off contract now.

"power goes out a few times a week"..

I'm going to think about this today as I reflect upon my own #firstworldproblems

When my sister-in-law spent three months in Tanzania it was pretty much guaranteed that that power would go out every day. They spent more time without power than with it.

"First world"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis

I think that reinforces his point. That crisis involved only a small number of blackouts (four periods of 1-2 days of blackouts over the course of a year, according to that page), and this was still considered bad enough to make headlines and be labeled a "crisis".

The difference is, third world countries have these 'crisis' on a daily basis and it's a part of life. That's not a real crisis anymore for them.

Turn screen brightness to max and turn all pixels white.

Now you have a flashlight.

For the 2010 earthquake (which was at 3:30 AM) electicity went off in the whole city and I didn't have a flashlight handy in the room I was living in. The only luminous thing I had handy was my cell phone screen, and no, it doesn't help very much in complete darkness in a room scattered with debris and fallen-down furniture. I'd rather have had a flashlight.

For some definition of flashlight. I use the LED on my phone for a flashlight several times a week and a white screen just doesn't cut it.

* Your hike took a bit longer than expected and now you're coming back down the trail after dusk.

* There's a rustling noise in the bushes, is it a raccoon or a burgler?

etc.

This. I used mine on a long run into the mountains last year on holiday, left super early (5am) before the sun rose and it got unbearably hot. No lights on the dirt path we were running along so the iPhone flash worked a treat.

That's a mode on Smart Tools' torch

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kr.aboy.tools

a led flashlight isn't so expensive. if you could afford $120 for a smartphone, I think there's some room for a flashlight. I admit that led flashlight don't come with a rechargeable battery, but they last long.

and a white screen is a good substitute.

it's still a $120 device that allows you to go on the internet.

> a led flashlight isn't so expensive. if you could afford $120 for a smartphone, I think there's some room for a flashlight.

It's not about the price. It's about not having to put an extra thing in your pocket all the time.

In India, at one point of time Nokia phones sold like hot cakes for just having this one feature.

Power cuts are very frequent here. So when there is a power cut in the night and its all dark. All you needed to do was to turn on that flash light in your phone, till you could find a candle.

These days UPS have gotten cheaper and you can have a UPS at home for some thing like 17K(High end smart phones are 20K+), which will give decent back up for a ceiling fan and lighting for some hours.

But yes, a flash light would be really helpful.

noob question: why is the power always going out? Are the generating stations not making enough electricity, or is the grid in a state of poor repair?

India's overall infrastructure is pretty shoddy and there have been problems with coal shortages for the past few years. A quick Googling will turn up some good articles in The Economist and India Times about it.

Even the US has its own power issues what with major blackouts over the years, rolling blackouts in major areas like California, etc. Heck, we lost all power in our whole neighborhood in NYC for a week during the summer several years ago when the feeder lines all burned out (barely maintained by ConEd for 50 years). And we regularly have explosions of underground transformers that occasionally catch cars on fire. One of the many joys of living in NYC. Still, it's NOTHING compared to what my colleagues deal with in India.

Rolling blackouts in CA had nothing to do with infrastructure - it was a ploy by Enron to raise the price of electricity by artificially reducing supply during periods of high demand.

I live in a Boston suburb, and haven't been affected by a power outage lasting more than 30 seconds in the 8 years I've lived here. Those have always been caused by lines being hit by trees during wind storms, and supply is always restored by backup lines within seconds.

The US has a remarkably robust, high quality power grid. The biggest problem with it is that during peak demand we need to turn on coal fired power plants to supplement renewables and natural gas.

Maybe Boston has a decent power grid. It varies quite a bit from city to city. NYC is aging fast. Hence our feeder lines blowing out several years ago taking out a chunk of Queens for over a week (fun fact: ALL of our ice cream shops went out of business as a result).

Then there was Sandy that took out all of lower Manhattan when the power station near my old apartment flooded and blew up. We'll likely get hit with more of these as NYC will be more prone to flooding due to climate degradation.

Don't forget the great northeast blackout of 2003, either. Living in a 12th floor walkup with completely dark stairwells and minimal/no running water for multiple days wasn't fun.

Having lived there: basically both. Entire towns would lose power regularly due to cables being damaged, and many parts of India have rolling blackouts due to not enough power being generated.

a led flashlight isn't so expensive

That's exactly the reason why it's strange; the components needed to add one to a phone cost <$1 in the quantities they sell these at. If Motorola could afford to sell these at $120, they could afford to put one in.

One of the things that I've always found odd about most of the big smartphone brands is their feature set - especially for basic things like a removable battery, SD card slot, camera, dual SIM, and now LED flash. It seems like you can't get a model that has all these features; there's always something missing. Meanwhile, the lesser-known Chinese brands are selling full-featured smartphones at similar prices or less, so it makes me wonder about the true cost of adding those features.

the BOM cost is just one element of the true cost of any feature. Every feature adds:

-potential IP licensing costs

-the cost of sourcing, integrating, testing (both initial engineering testing and QA in manufacturing)...and let's not forget that every single component has the ability to affect the RF performance in wacky and unexpected ways. Which means more testing.

-another bit of complexity to the supply chain

Not to mention other costs not included in the overall BOM for software, marketing, logistics, legal, localization, customer support etc.

And on the other side, the $120 Motorola sells it for doesn't all go to Motorola. Much of that goes to distributors and retailers.

maybe it's not just the price of the component, maybe there are other costs of putting such a led. anyhow, I agree that it's a nice feature to have, but I would not complain as the price is already quite nice.

What do you mean that flash is needed only in developing world? Is it somehow not needed in developed countries, cause days lasts longer and Sun is shinier?

I believe he meant this...

> When the power goes out a few times a week

I know when I visit my parents in India that candles have a very different purpose than they do here in California.

So the base feature of phone torches is backup for power blackouts. I always thought it was to be able to just use the phone for a few seconds when the light in the building switch off while you are at the stairs. Or to quickly read some note outside in the not so light place. Using phone LED instead of real battery is really poor bad, since it drains battery very quickly.

not to mention most phones have a note that says something along the lines of "extended use will damage your phone" those little LED's will still heat up if they are left on long enough, hopefully they have good thermal management.. when i took apart my S3 this weekend after it took a bath in the toilet there was nothing around the LED for the flash at all in the way of heat syncs...

What I meant was that power outages in India are much more common; sometimes scheduled.

The utility of having a flashlight on you is an order of magnitude higher in places where the electricity goes out on a frequent basis. Even if you only use it to find a candle.

Actually California doesn't have the best track record in power reliability!

You have no idea how hard it is to resist posting a snarky comment here. For the love of McCarthy's parentheses, there's at least an order of magnitude of difference in terms of duration between the two!

Turns out there is a lot of variability in California, depending on the provider - here are some hard SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration) numbers.

California ranges from 60 minutes of outages (SDGE) to 931 minutes of outages (Pacificorp)

http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/energy/ElectricSR/Reliability/ann...

In this slide, http://desismartgrid.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Towards-..., for North delhi power limited (NDPL), they improved their SAIDI from 56 to 47 minutes.

So, (very ironically) - you are correct - it's not unreasonable to say that there are parts of California that are one order of magnitude worse than areas of India.

I realize that's not the point you were trying to make, but I always find it interesting to chase the data and see what it has to say.

From a bigger picture, though - California really does have notoriously bad power quality in terms of outages, not even including the rolling blackouts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis) we had back in 2000/2001 (and justified me being allowed to purchase about $500K worth of generators, Diesel Belly tanks, and UPS systems for our server room)

On my walk to work, at least once a month in the morning, I hear all of the buildings in Redwood City firing up their generators to do their monthly tests - nobody "relies" on PG&E Power for critical services, they plan for the outages.

Just as a comparison - I'm in Singapore right now, and their SAIDI is .53 minutes/year. I've yet to see a generator being tested outside of Critical Facilities like data centers/emergency facilities.

Tamil Nadu. Look at Tamil Nadu, one of the most prosperous states. Many areas there have outages longer than they have power. Chennai has shorter scheduled outages but because of the immense shortage of generation, this results in the rest of the state suffering.

New Delhi is the capital. The north has less of a shortage, but capitals (like Chennai) are usually more insulated from blackouts anyway so looking at them alone will give you a poor idea.

Also, do your figures include planned outages? Many places in TN, India have daily planned outages called load shedding.

> it's not unreasonable to say that there are parts of California that are one order of magnitude worse than areas of India.

OP was talking about Rwanda, not India. 60 minutes per year, as disastrous as it sounds for California, is hardly comparable with the outages of several hours per week they have there.

I get it, I get it, California life is hard, but seriously...

Pacific Corp serves relatively rural northern California (most of their customers are in adjoining states). Infrastructure cost per customer is high there (and a sparse layout creates situations where redundancy doesn't make a lot of sense).

Your Indian company is a quasi-government entity (or government influenced entity, I didn't dig into it very far) intended to improve quality of service in the the capital city of the country.

Wikipedia says the SAIDI for the U.S. is ~1.5 hours, so NDPL should anyway survive comparison to some more relevant U.S. providers (but I speculate that you have not found an average provider for India).

You are comparing power failure of hours/day vs minutes/year.

Grumpy today, huh? Quote: "but for a phone made for the developing world not having a "flashlight" is a huge knock against it".

He didn't said that developed countries don't need a flash; he can't understand why phone made for developing countries lacks essential feature.

Presumably, among other things, the electricity that powers the lights in the developed world is more reliable than in the developing world.

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