Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

In my view mobile devices in general have regressed in a lot of major ways even though I still enjoy using them.

• Battery Life - There has been some improvement in this area as of recently but in general battery life is pretty terrible on modern smartphones.
• Cameras - Most smartphones have pretty basic cameras. Most smartphones only have a single led flash, some don't even have a flash. Dual led flashes are little bit better but nothing compares to a true xenon flash when it comes to low light performance. It can also be nice to have both led and xenon flashes and to have the ability to switch between either a xenon or led flash. The size of camera lenses haven't really gotten bigger and have in fact gotten smaller while megapixels have increased. Camera lense covers are even rarer than the other mentioned features. Shutter buttons are a real time saver and most phones simply don't have them unfortunately. True optical zoom is also very rare on smartphones, optical zoom preserves quality as one zooms. Nokia pureview devices while better than most devices lack optical zoom and lense covers. In my view the best camera phone was the Sony Ericsson Satio which took great pictures and had all the features I mentioned, maybe one day Sony will release an Android based successor. Some Android devices from Samsung and polaroid check all the necessary boxes like the Galaxy Camera but have limited availability. Tablets almost universally have bad cameras with no flashes and the lowest possible quality, a camera on a tablet can be useful when no other devices are with you or for taking notes during class. I do realize that not everyone desires those features but many people do desire those features. Even though imaging has gotten worse video recording is much better than used to be in terms of both quality and resolution. Having a good camera on either a tablet or a phone is useful so you don't carry an extra device and dedicated are easily forgetable.
• Os performance - Modern Mobile oses are real hogs when it comes to performance and usage of computing resources. Whenever I use an Android device, almost half of the ram is used by the os and the Android os takes up about as much space as a install of desktop linux. You can still get bad performance even on the most modern of devices. Older oses ran very well on very limited hardware and reaped the full benefits of performance increases, Windows mobile 6.5 (not phone!) ran really well of 1st generation snapdragons as well as older devices and Symbian ran really well on the omap 3 platform as well ad older devices. Ubuntu touch runs well in real world use but has very high system requirements. Windows 8 runs well on smaller tablets but in practice uses almost all the built in storage. BlackBerry 10 is overall the best in terms of both real world performance and optimization of performance in my experience. Even though modern oses are more resource hungry they aren't much more functional than older oses.
• Desktop Syncing - This feature is terribly implemented by all mobile oses and it is one of the most ultra basic. With every Android device I have owned I have errors simply transferring files becomes a choor because of issues detecting my device, I have had problems of multiple versions of Android and on Windows, linux, and mac. On macs Android devices simply won't show up in many cases. On linux Android devices show up when connected but can have errors like it suddenly not working. With iPhones itunes is generally a terrible program with alternatives available. BlackBerry 10 devices are the worst and will allow file transfers on linux if you connect a bb10 device as a SMB device. Windows Mobile devices and Palm os devoces implemented this feature perfectly, they each had their own desktop suites with available alternatives thst could manage everything on your device such as contacts, emails and what have you. Palm os and Windows Mobile generally didn't have errors with file transfers. I don't get why such a basic feature is so poorly implemented.
• SD Card Support - Most devices come with a sd card slot but software wise the feature is poorly implemented. The apps 2 sd feature has been enabled and disabled many times by google with various versions of Android with overall software level support in general being basic. Some apps on Android can be put on the SD card, but many can't and in some cases apps can't even read data from the SD card. Newer versions of Android habe partially addressed this but it remains a problem. SD cards are especially useful with large games and media files. The implementation is similar with Windows Phone 8 and BlackBerry 10 which is to say inconsistent and limited. Windows Mobile 6.5 or older implemented the feature very well, in general all apps could be installed on either the internal or external storage and one could choose during installation. This is not really a hardware but a software problem.
• TV Out - There is very little standardization here and there are often scaling issues due to significant differences between the resolution and aspect ratios of tvs and mobile devices. There are many competing standards such as mhl, Samsungs own standard, micro hdmi, mini hdmi, proprietary port to hdmi and in some rare cases full hdmi.
• Stylus support - On a software level there are many great applications for both Windows and Android that take advantage of a stylus or digitizer but the number of devices available with it are limited, I always make a tablet buying decision based on whether a stylus. Hopefully more devices in the future have it.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

I have to dissagree with your thread and with that wall of text. Did you know how phones worked, 10 or 20 years ago? :D

The only one I could partly agree with you in this thread is the battery life. But the screen was so small back then so...

If you have some new devices I can trade it for some old ones if you prefer it. ;)

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

I gotta agree, the modern mobile device world has turned into a monoculture. Ten years ago, there were simple cellphones, "smart" phones, PIMs, MP3 players, hand-held PCs, and all manner of other varied machines. Now, everything is either an iPhone, or an iPhone-wannabe.

I suppose it is nice to have a decent all-in-one device, but man, I don't want it at the cost of losing all the specialized devices. :( The iPhone is a jack of all trades, but master of none...

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

I fully agree with you on the battery life. My last smartphone before my N900 lasted 9-10 days on a single charge, with heavy daily use. It was powered by Palm OS, as yet unsurpassed by anything in terms of user friendliness, maturity, stability and, above all, battery life. It was lightning-fast, with no slowdowns at all. All with a 144 MHz CPU and 24 MB memory, shared between RAM and storage. Why are "modern" phones such resource hogs?

Which brings me the thing I find the most sucky about modern IT, desktops or mobiles alike. Why does it take a 3.2 GHz octa-core CPU with 16 GB RAM to do the task I did in 1995 on a 40 MHz CPU with 4 MB RAM? That's the configuration I used then for desktop publishing. The mobile phone I use to type this reply on has a 25x faster CPU, 250x more RAM, and even a slightly better screen than my desktop publishing setup from 1995. So achieving the same job should be a doddle. Why is it not?

EDIT 1
I nearly forgot to mention: Palm OS was also the last one to nail the desktop sync Just Right. Everything I used ever since has/had some issues. Duplicated, deleted or overwritten contacts, lost messages, you name it. Come on, industry, you have a prime example how to do it. Why do you need to keep inventing new things that just Don't Work?

EDIT 2
A special addition for Dave: guess when this marvel of technology I am on about was released? In 2004, a bit over 10 years ago :p

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

I think android is getting better, ie lollypop.. more native support.
I'm still on my N900 but have a tablet with android.. not sure when or if I'd switch to it.

Re, SD, TV out... I'm thankfull it's even there.. and paid extra for it

Desktop sync'ing.. pay for an app, that's not really a core feature of a phone IMO.

Battery life is managable, being able to replace a battery myself is not optional for me, I need to know I can do it!

Camera, IMO, having a good camera/flash is a bonus but I don't pick a phone just for it's camera.

Stylus, hmmm.. with the size/res of new phones, I don't think a stylus is reallly needed... not like N900 where you do.

I'm still using my N900 mostly because:
Linux OS
Physical keyboard
little extras: 32g, SD, GPS, FM, camera etc

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

multitasking, background apps.
Your phone is doing more now then what your PC did 20 years ago.

If your having battery issues, uninstall apps or at least remove them from running in the background and set the phone to battery saving mode, ie no pretty animations :D

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

I don't buy that. Computers in 1995 were multitasking too. Neither Unix nor Windows were written last week. The real problem is IMO that even the "lightest" background task running on phone now takes more resources than a fully-blown destop application did 20 years ago.

And that will let me use my Jolla for a week of a heavy daily use on a single charge? I did not even bother to take my charger with me when I went on holiday or business for a week. Now I keep one charger at home and one at work. Because I have to.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

Seven posts in and not one mention of the corporate culture surronding modern phones? Step your game up, OP!

I find it unfair on the consumer for people to be forced to buy new phones just to keep up with the latest-and-greatest. While that also rests on the customer's habits and how much of that culture they wanna be a part of, it still ain't right IMHO.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

Quick reply...

Sony Ericsson Satio does not have optical zoom, or does it?
There are add-on optical zoom lenses for mobiles-digicams.

I have got to agree, sometimes I want to be able to design an operating system from scratch, to be able to understand every little piece of it, and make sure it is lean and fast.

Best wishes.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

You know what else sucks about modern phones?

Durability.

Ever been out-and-about for a case to make sure your phone can survive a 10ft fall to hard ground? Think about that.

And now we have *conspicuously unnamed phones* bending. Alrighty then.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

Quick reply...

Also, replace-ability of parts. I am not speaking of hi-tech LCD panels and touch-screens, oh no; I am speaking of simple, plain screws. Why do they have to have special, black-colour, large-flat-hat screws, which are difficult to find, when simple silver-ish-colour, small-hat screws are cheaper and sold in hundreds (for eyeglasses repair or something)?

It's like keys in a laptop keyboard: the keyboards are different, the keys are different, so if one or two keys break... Ok, there is http://www.laptopkey.com/ for that. Still, if you go to extreme and calculate price of all the keys in your laptop's keyboard, it will be comparable with price of laptop: they have to have their profit from that.

About falls [Nokia N900]: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=37609

Best wishes.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

TRUE!!! It's so funny how the little things are always skimmed over/messed up. Screws seem like superficial little things...until you need extras.

I've had a similar experience, but with a "gaming keyboard." An Adesso EasyTouch135. A cheap little thing that did the job alright, I suppose. Got it because it looked alright. I was playing Zork in DOSbox, and the "O" key popped off. An attempt to put it back on resulted in a broken latch. I called my friend to help me replace the latch, since, being the filthy little cheapskake I am, I didn't want to shop for a superior keyboard.

You know how much he said I needed just to replace the latch? $8. I gave him the keyboard and dusted my old-beater Logitech BT keyboard off.

J1000. My Samsung Flash didn't even survive a 4' fall onto tile without the screen developing a battle scar streching from bezel-to-bezel!

You too! ;)

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

Another one I will add to the list.
Phone Calls - This isn't necessarily a smartphone exclusive but modern feature phones and smartphones really aren't that great when it comes to call quality and reception/signal.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

Eh. A very broad generalization that I'm strongly inclined to disagree with. For older revisions of various flagship phones and other cheapy phones, I'm inclined to agree with you, but that's about it.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

http://pocketnow.com/2013/08/16/call-quality-sucks
This covers issue well.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

Holy truth! The old "dumb" phone did the job of being phones perfectly. In the new "smart" phones, the phone feature looks like an after-thought. "Let's build this cool new device that can do 200 different things" - then, two weeks before the release, "Oh sh*t, we forgot that people may also want to make phone calls with it, we need to bash something together quickly!"

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

I have used both newer and older dumb phones and I find that older dumb phones generally have better call quality in terms of both reception and audio. I still use a dumb phone and call quality is lacking. This is not a smartphone exclusive problem.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

IMO, the things are as they are because 10-15-20 years ago those devices were made for specific market and potntial buyers knew exactly what they are buying, why they are buying it and most important, how to use them. Now, those are just mass market devices for everyone and development goes only in the direction that marketing can sell.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

The real issue lies with the expected core use cases, 10 years ago the primary use for PDAs/Phones was for accessing local content with the occasional syphoning of low bandwidth data for terminal access or email. Sure you could surf the web a bit and search and if you are concerned about that I'd suggest you fire up the wayback machine to remind yourself about what web content was 10 years ago. Once you closed the app or service the radios would all shut down until the next email push/pull or the user asked to go on-line. Battery life was great and idle meant idle.

That has now been flipped with the expectation that _everything_ is constantly sucked down a high bandwidth pipe. The processors and RAM in most of these modern mobile devices are primarily specified to provide an adequate web experience which today means lots of media and lots of scripting and those just eat memory.

Once this is considered it is a waste not to use that processing power in other applications so the bloat continues especially as desktop levels of performance approaches. This becomes the norm.

Then the issue of idle radios, sadly users hate waiting for the next poll cycle to let them know that a new kitten must be liked on Facebook, they want that alert _now_ so the radios can't be turned off.

18 years ago I had a PC with 8MB of RAM and a 60MHz processor, it ran Linux just fine. 14 years ago I was working on a 3G phone that was close in terms of specification and ran on a battery for days, that said the phone UI was limited and tailored for a 96x120 colour screen where as the PC would multi-task a full desktop. Neither device would be considered usable today.

I look at the devices I worked on over between 2000-2012 and the leaps in performance over the years were astonishing. The pace has not stopped since I moved on from working on mobile phones. The drive has now shifted to how close devices can get to a traditional "Desktop experience" without necessarily considering if that is the correct approach. It does make life easier for application developers migrating from PCs, they are used to vast quantities of RAM, processing power and bandwidth.

It reminds me of the adage "All software sucks" but at least there is software.

(now using a Nokia 8800 Arte since the USB port on the N9 died, guess that covers hardware reliability too...)

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

Actually, I would disagree on this point. :) Ten years ago, I had the luxury of acquiring an HP Journada handheld PC. The keyboard was just big enough to touch-type on, and the screen just wide enough to comfortably read text; thus, I was able to use the device very much like a traditional laptop machine. But, the handheld PC concept has apparently died out.

Four years ago, I picked up a Nokia N900. Of course, it's a very small form-factor, but still it had the resistive screen that could be used accurately with a stylus, and a Linux distribution capable of running desktop software. And so, I was still able to edit text files in the same manner as on my desktop, which was a luxury.

The current common hardware set for mobile devices is indeed powerful, but they've dropped every useful input method available. No keyboards any more. Almost nothing with a stylus. Low-accuracy capacitive screens. Completely closed operating systems.

These are not personal computers any more. They are nothing but content-consumption toys. Personally, I would _love_ to see a return to a more traditional "desktop experience", just to have a device that was more capable for use in doing real work...

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

Excellent points, being able to develop on the N900 for the N900 is a very liberating experience and completely fits with the full desktop experience as you describe. I would like to completely retract the blatant inaccuracy I tried to put forward that mobile devices are converging on a desktop experience (-:

You have nailed the point on media consumption.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

I think even Nokia used to define a smartphone as being a "convergent device", meaning it would be usable for consumption and for production of content.

I think the N900 is the last "phone" (even if it's not primarily a phone) having the ability to produce content. The rest are "toys", in the sense that they can only be used for listening and/or viewing content.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

http://www.ruggedpcreview.com/mt/arc...the_iphon.html
Things are getting better on the stylus front though.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

Another problem is microUSB for everything : charging, connecting to PC, video output via MHL. So in many smartphone models, the microUSB port is prone to break more easily than some years ago, when charging and video output was done with diferent connectors.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

Well, I don't see the problem there. That means I don't have to keep a bunch of different cords for their respective devices.

I'm cheating though. I couldn't get rid of all my uUSB cords if I tried.

Now having the standard for the majority of smartphones while other smartphones have their own proprietary connectors (e.g. iPhone)? That's annoying.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

MicroUSB is good for USB connection but really lousy for charging the device. As it happens you need to charge modern phones almost daily so the connector is subject to extra wear and possible bending/breaking...

A while back I learned that repair shops have a list price for repairing damaged microUSB ports, as it seems to be the top contestant for repair, the other being of course fixing broken iPhone displays :D

What I'd like to see is a sturdy enough connector for charging only, standardized for all handhelds, or wireless charging.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

Quick reply...

Wireless charging is here: but where do you connect it to? Same, micro-USB port. I am speaking about third-party Qi-charging. Unless you have Qi-charging built-in by manufacturer, of course.

Nokia tried to have standard charging connector: 2mm. Round. Small. Probably sturdy. Not manufacturing such phones anymore, though.

Best wishes.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

My bigggest gripe with the N900. I still find it hard to believe that owning a N900 does not allow one to sync ones Evolution email with Modest email. Funambol and what not are not an alternative. These are work-arounds and not a very elegant one at that.

http://213.128.137.28/showthread.php?t=58058

Missed chance for Nokia to get the basics right. That being said: I still use the N900 on a daily basis. :D

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

speaking of reality that we not might even aware of...
David Miller's 10hr seminar which is directly related not just technology but entire future.
Here is part when he speaks of mobile device (cellphone) that now in existence and way mobile industry will go......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgcW6Hzn46w&t=59m25s

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

I know I like to give my Windows Phone a hard time, but this is an area where it deserves credit.

After years of wear-and-tear, that uUSB port is working like Day 1. There seems to be nothing I could do that can break it.

Anecdotal? Yes.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

I will add some more.

• Devices Keep Getting Bigger - This isn't exclusive smartphones at all. My Samsung :) feature phone is thicker, wider, and taller than my previous Motorola Razr. The Tablet I currently own is a Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 which I bought for the form factor, Ir blaster and Active Digitizer pen as a replacement for my HTC Flyer. The HTC Flyer was getting old in terms of both hardware and software features being stuck on Honeycomb, but there were no real replacements as 7" tablets had been relegated to the low end and the 7" offerings were low end at best. If I wanted the stylus and the high end features simply put there were no real choices. The HTC Flyer I owned I bought as a replacement for my Archos 5. The Archos 5 became outdated from an OS perspective being stuck on Android 1.6 cupcake and the LCD got damaged so I looked for a replacement. I liked the Archos 5 for the resistive touchscreen enabling stylus use, having Android plus linux in the form of angstrom, high storage capacity, and not having to buy it on contract or buying something that was 400+ dollars unlocked. When I looked to replace my Archos 5 there were no replacements, 5" tablets/UMPCS/MIDS died as a product category and phones became 5" and tablets became 7". So my only real choice was as a replacement was a 7" tablet. Now 8" are being relegated to the low end and being replaced by 8 - 9". I won't use any tablet larger than 8" as 8" is the maximum of pocketable. The trend is similar with laptops. 7-10" Laptops used to be the very low end being netbooks, 11.6 -12.5" laptops being ultraportables, 13 - 14" being mainstream with some higher performance options, 15.6" - 17" being very high end performance. Now 10" or smaller netbooks have disappeared, 11.6" laptops have been relegated to the low end replacing netbooks, 12.5 -14" is now the ultraportable form factor with fewer higher performance options, 15.6" has become the mainstream form factor with some higher performance options and 17" has become a niche. The smallest ultraportable is now 12.5" or a 12.1" or smaller tablet with a core i5. In short each generation of devices I have has gotten an inch or two bigger with each generation. I might just keep my Core i5 Acer v5-171 running Ubuntu and My Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 for as long they can last, I have no reason to replace either technology wise (until the next processor architecture change any ways), both devices are in reasonable shape and nothing has come out that can truly replace either in terms of both form factor or functionality. The problem is that even though laptops, tablet, and phones are thinner they are footprint wise bigger and are thus less portable. Device manufactures seems to forget the importance of portability.
• User Interfaces - I guess this is subjective but I am not a fan of these newer minimalist interfaces. They lack depth in terms of color and shape. The use of minimalist interfaces is one of the reasons I switched to Ubuntu, I found the color schemes and shapes of Unity of KDE more visually pleasing.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

Devil's advocate reporting in. Color schemes and desktops certainly aren't exclusive to a distribution. That seems like an odd reason to pick one distro over another. I do like Ubuntu's color scheme and highlights, which is why I chose that kind of theming for my MATE desktop.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

Slightly off topic:

Anyone else here, that had the feeling that Gnome3 somewhat resembles the way Hildon-desktop works?

I used to dislike the whole new "idiom", beit Unity, Gnome3 or whatever. So I stuck to Gnome2 and Awesome, untill last month, when I finally made the switch to Gnome Shell.

After a week or so, it dawned to me, that the way we go to applications and multitask-view on the N900 is very similar to the procedure in Gnome3. You press a "hotspot" once (top-left) and it will bring you to your opened applications, press it twice it'll bring you your applications list.

I suppose Unity also resembles that, but Hildon is part of Gnome, if I'm not mistaken, so it made me wonder to what extent, if any, Hildon influenced or inspired Gnome3.

Anyone else with Gnome3 experience and thoughts on it?

/off topic

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

Am tempted to buy the surface pro, stick ubuntu on and put gnome 3 onto it, thats a win right there.

to answer the ques ton

battery life, its terrible, especially with the 720p and up screens. Don't tell me to uninstall things and turn my radios off, because what the hell is the point of having them if i cant use them.

Multitasking is also annoying as **** to get right, even Jolla aren't perfect.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

Hmm. I'm not so sure about that combination. The thing that won me over for Gnome3, the same thing I had overlooked when I first disgarded it, is the use of keyboard shortcuts. It makes operating the desktop amazingly quick, to the point it can compete with something like a well configured E16 (Enlightenment) desktop. I have trouble seeing how a virtual keyboard would give me that experience.

That being said, lots of people seem to enjoy keyboardless devices, so my judgement holds no more value than that: I'd find it difficult to work with, I guess.

I have an Archos tablet idly laying around because of it.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

for me it was the erie N900 like multitasking. But am sure a bluetooth keyboard could be hooked up

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

What really sucks about most modern devices is the desire to be thin and unergonomic, often at the expense of battery life. Often I see people holding a clunky portable charger under their phone whilst they're using it, so it kind of defeats the purpose of skimping on battery to keep the bloody phone thin :mad:

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

You guys totally missed the ball.

What is truly sad is that people have these beautiful devices and their clad with ugly and fat cases....most of the time it doesn't even offer an imimprovement in function or form.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

No, Kangal. Stupidity of their users is about the only thing that is not the devices' fault.

Re: Things That Kinda Suck About Modern Mobile Devices
 

Be very careful about which version you buy if you choose to try,
the versions have different driver requirements.
x
The other excruciatingly discouraging thing is the one-USB -port.
-
The phrase brain-dead does not do any justice at all
to the situation of a single USB port which doubles as the
charging port. All the Mscrap is like that.
I know how bad this is after putting up with it for months
of trying to hack linux onto an Acer W4 which has exactly
the same ****** design.