maemo.org - Talk - Are you Ready? F(x)tec Pro 1 HW Keyboard Phone

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Re: Are you Ready? Fx HW Keyboard Phone

[QUOTE=Macros;1551958
I think discussion about hardware and features is good as long as it is civil and maybe even backed up by facts.[/QUOTE]

100% agreement

Sure Chen will develop the phone and can't change the screen size anymore I suppose, but discussion keeps this place busy, keeps interest in the development and may bring up interesting ideas or concepts for follow up devices. /QUOTE]

I'm quite sure Chen CAN change the screen size. Anyway I hope he don't do that. Even so I'm not really pleased with 6", it's what Chen's development based on. Changing screen size would mean changing a lot more. And that would lead to delays. And the later the device comes the more outdated the hardware would be on start. And that further on would lead probably to not being successful. And i think we all hope that Chen is successful.

Re: Are you Ready? Fx HW Keyboard Phone

6 inch device with keyboard. well its definitely not a small screen and i wonder if it is easy to hold the device in landscape mode with keyboard. i am using a crapdroid with 6 inch full view screen and i can't hold it easily when i tilt it (with my small t-rex hands). but i am sure that maker has some tricks up his sleeves and figured something out.

Re: Are you Ready? Fx HW Keyboard Phone

With regards to screen size, one of the reasons that pushed me towards a bigger screen was the specs in general. Of all the big brands in the Android space, the only device manufacture that offered a worthy smaller screen device was Sony. At the time, OnePlus 3T era haven't checked lately, they would shrink the screen, reduce battery and that was it. Processor, storage, RAM, camera... All were left the same.

Now, Chen has to target where they feel they will get the most sales. If successful with this device, and possibly a follow up, and cash reserves build up, then they can experiment. That being said, although the screen may suit more mainstream audience, form factor may be more suited to us. You could make it ultra targeted at one demographic but then limit sales.

Unfortunately, like many, I can't commit to this until I see it actually released. I don't have the funds at the moment to say one way or the other as to if I will get one

Re: Are you Ready? Fx HW Keyboard Phone

Quote:

Originally Posted by Android_808 (Post 1551963)

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Unfortunately, like many, I can't commit to this until I see it actually released. I don't have the funds at the moment to say one way or the other as to if I will get one

How do you actually commit to this? As far as I can tell there has been no request go funding. Just asking...

Re: Are you Ready? Fx HW Keyboard Phone

Quote:

Originally Posted by pichlo (Post 1551947)

It looks like we are not quite on the same wavelength. I realize that the word "applications" may have an ambiguous meaning in this day and age of mobile computing. I am not referring to what is more commonly known as "apps". Rather, I mean the original meaning of the word "application", i.e. "use for a given purpose".

I do not know about you (or indeed about "most people"), but for me, the most common use cases for a mobile phone are, in the descending order of frequency:

reading/writing emails
reading/writing SMS
navigation
playing music (organized by a directory structure, not by tags)
making/receiving phone calls
web browsing
using the clock and calendar
taking (still) photos
other, mostly niche uses like reading books and/or documents attached in emails, source code editing, using the terminal...

On my home and work PCs, the situation is not that much different:

source code editing
debugging
web browsing
reading/writing emails

In all of these applications (use cases), even a refresh rate of half a second is no big deal. True, Sailfish with its swipe interface may interfere with it slightly but not so much that one could not get used to it. I would happily trade that for a battery life measured in weeks rather than hours.

You may notice that watching or taking videos does not feature on my list. It would be because I use them very rarely. And I do not play games at all (not that there are any marvelous games for Maemo or Sailfish anyway).

Your mileage may vary, but please do not assume that everyone is like you. I did not, which is why I said (even tried to emphasize that, but perhaps I was too subtle) that I would pay extra for the option. That means, if there was a device X on the market in variants a, b, c and d and one of them had an e-ink screen, I would buy that one, even if it were the most expensive one. I did not call for e-ink as the default, let alone the only option.

I don't want to get involved in a quote war so I will just answer to the e-mails example (but this can be extended to all similar use cases). Writing anything with an e-ink display is a torture. I mean, it really is. Have you tried?

I love e-ink displays, they are amazing for what they are made for, like reading static content, but they are excruciatingly painful for anything that requires even the slightest form of interaction. Displaying the camera feed, scrolling, refreshing, displaying the one character you just typed half a second before. The input lag and the experience are like having a video conversation with your mother in law while she is sitting on the moon and using GPRS.

The OH I wanted the most for my Jolla 1 was the e-ink prototype by Kimoli. This was by far my most anticipated OH. I wanted it for notifications and ebook reading. However, I would never have traded the main screen of my Jolla for an e-ink one, even though I would have been frustrated to say no to an e-ink display. Yet, it seems that you and I use our phones for roughly the same applications and tasks.

Don't forget that we would increase battery life with e-ink only, but we would certainly not go from hours to weeks. Unlike ebook/epub devices, a smartphone could not go into sleep mode after each refresh, the OS behind is much more complex and demands more power, and the CPU and network chips are still eating massive amounts of power while the screen is off, especially if some tasks are running (like music, browser, etc.).

I understand that your mileage may vary, but having the same use cases for my phone, I find it very surprising that you think an e-ink display would be the right horse. Then again I might be wrong, maybe you know exactly what are the downsides and have confirmed that you can live with them for one to two days of extra battery life. I am no one to debate such choice, but this would certainly be an unusual one given the measurable flaws of e-ink displays.

Re: Are you Ready? Fx HW Keyboard Phone

Quote:

Originally Posted by hardy_magnus (Post 1551961)

It’s very easy. Because I have big hands using 5,8 inch device and reach the slider in top in Portrait mode.

Just want highlight that 6 inch sounds cool to some.

I would like to have 8 inch just to see how the other half lives...

Yes it was a joke. Funny. Ha Ha ha..sorry: Ho Ho Ho

Re: Are you Ready? Fx HW Keyboard Phone

As a video is better than a long description, here is what debian looks like on a Eink screen (Kobo reader) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rkoHcJGo18 (I tried it, it was fun to use, but you quickly get mad of the flicker).
There are some other people who tried similar things, with great success like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob67Fgd_ZgE. You can see there is less flicker, as they are using a trick to reduce the full redraws of the screen, but that create ghosting and at some point you still need to do the full redrawing cycle to see something (full white, full black, full white, then only display what you want) which is hard on the eyes. It is ok for readers, when you have only a redraw each time your turn a page, not on something dynamic like typing a mail at a decent rate.
That is not from the latest Eink tech, but I didn't heard they solved this so far.

Re: Are you Ready? Fx HW Keyboard Phone

Waiting for Q1 2019/this phone to release makes me wish for a nuclear winter.

Re: Are you Ready? Fx HW Keyboard Phone

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasmachinemann-NL (Post 1551978)

Waiting for Q1 2019/this phone to release makes me wish for a nuclear winter.

There is absolutely nothing that indicates that you will get this phone Q1. I would assume a few selected will get it first and not a Big Bang.

This is me speculating but it would take way the fun of the release. All or nothing would be the best FIFO delivery.

But I would assume Q1 2020 is more likely.

You get Global warming instead.

Re: Are you Ready? Fx HW Keyboard Phone

Quote:

Originally Posted by Macros (Post 1551958)

I stand pleasantly corrected!
I looked it up and the display supports 64 colors which is quite good and it even has good refresh rates.
For pleasant web browsing I suppose 4096 colors would be the minimum. For Images we want much more.

Just a quick comment:
AFAIK, Pebble does not have an e-ink display (no Pebble variation had it, be it color or b&w). Some website may simplify it as such (also could be good marketing of Pebble, calling it "e-paper"), but it is an LCD display.

See:
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Pebb...n/13319#s45410
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Pebb...Teardown/42382