Ricki Yasha TarrTech companies, please stop making things smaller and thinner, it's not 1998. We want longer battery life and our things to be repairable, instead of replaceable. If you can't think of any actual innovations, stop wasting resources!
isotope239 🥸💻🇺🇦😣@RickiTarr I would still be happily thumb-typing away on my Palm Treo if I could've replaced the battery and had any other trouble repaired. I don't need tiny and skinny, I don't give a flying fig if I don't look cool. I want reliability, longevity, and usability. <sigh>
Pepperbike@isotope239 @RickiTarr i was talking to a someone today that could not believe me when I said I did not like apple products like watches and telephones. The last decent apple project was the iPod circa 2006. Simple, elegant, lots of storage for songs, and good battery life. I've upgraded several of those over the years and still use them today.
Dan Neuman 🇨🇦@isotope239 @RickiTarr I get ads for a Minimal phone with a keyboard, an e-ink display, and longer battery life. It’s pretty tempting, though it’s a tossup if it will actually ship.
Random Weirdo
Scary Pumpkin Lantern 🎃 @RickiTarr
tech company enters the room from the back with a basket full of AI 😀
hears speech
*oh.* 😐 leaves silently through the back again
tech company enters the room from the back with a basket full of AI 😀
hears speech
*oh.* 😐 leaves silently through the back again
Lance (Thank you for 11 Views)@RickiTarr They're also too busy pushing AI to pay much attention to what consumers actually want from tech.
Aaron O@RickiTarr I would take a non huge phone, with a replaceable battery with expandable storage, but... No one makes it.
liber
@m750 Right! I'd take a bigger phone/computer for longer lasting and replaceable batteries
Daniele@m750 @RickiTarr fairphone 5?
Estarriol, Terrorist Dragon@m750 @RickiTarr I have that (except the memory bit), but then my mobile is not a smart phone and was made in 2007.
HerrHerrmann@m750 @RickiTarr As other people mentioned, there’s #FairPhone who are building great repairable phones. There’s also Shift (https://www.shift.eco/en/) for phones, and Framework (https://frame.work/de/de) is building repairable upgradeable laptops. 👌
AlexandI just want my Startac to work on LTE or 5G…my carrier disabled non-TDMA or CDMA bands in about 2002 and forced me to put this into a desk drawer. Anyone know a way to convert the radio?
Oliver Pfleiderer 🇬🇱@m750 @RickiTarr
What do you mean by non-big?
The fairphone is too big?
BlueWinds@m750 @RickiTarr I'm pretty happy with the Teracube - https://myteracube.com/pages/teracube-2e.
Removable battery was a non-negotiable feature for me, so I did some research and this is what I came up with!
Works pretty well, no complaints so far after 18 months of years of ownership.
Samsung xcover 6 pro..
WhatTheChel@RickiTarr I sooo miss my Samsung with the replaceable battery! I always walked with a spare and would just swap them when one died. I'm still hanging on to an older model that allows me a 1TB SD card, but whenever this finally dies I'll be lost.
TeflonTrout 
he/him@WhatTheChel @RickiTarr mmm...not quite at the "swap battery on the go" level, but at least this one is built to be repaired by its owners
https://murena.com/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-fairphone-4-eu/
Sean Kleefeld@WhatTheChel @RickiTarr You can still get phones with replaceable batteries but they are few and far between. About two months ago, I got a Samsung Galaxy XCover6 Pro with a replaceable battery. It doesn't have all the bells & whistles but a replaceable battery more than makes up for that IMO. My previous phone was a Galaxy J3, which I used for 7-8 years replacing the battery multiple times.
@WhatTheChel @RickiTarr When this Note dies I'm probably gonna get one
Loki_the_Halbgott@WhatTheChel @RickiTarr what is wrong with xcover 7 or 6 pro devices by samsung?
@loki_the_halbgott I'd never heard of them since they're not offered by my carrier (and I need it not to be unlocked), but they don't have nearly enough storage for me anyway. I'll cross that proverbial bridge when I get to it...
@WhatTheChel alright yeah 128gb might be limiting but at least they support up to 1tb micro sd card.
Not sure about the vendor/carrier but you should be able to get them by amazon or others etc aswell.
Not sure about the vendor/carrier but you should be able to get them by amazon or others etc aswell.
@loki_the_halbgott My problem is that while I like my carrier, I cannot get the voicemail app if it's not locked to them. (Trust me, I found that out the hard way. 🥴) So then I'd have to 3rd-party work around that also, and honestly, I might some day. But for now, my phone works so I'll kick that can down the road... But thanks for the info! I hadn't seen it before.
@WhatTheChel That sounds awfull like verizon type bs... But actually there should be a way to load the carriers os onto the device.. but I am not to familiar with warranty and support stuff on that side.. but if the app is preinstalled on the os there should exists an apk non the less and with that you should be able to sideload it. I mean if you found out the hard way I cannot say I know it better but it would be interesting to learn why and how they reach that limitation. It seems limiting ngl
@loki_the_halbgott Ha! Yup... We'll see when the time comes what I end up doing. I really don't want to have to invest too much time and energy, though.
V_Mags_Fox 🏳️⚧️:3@RickiTarr This is why we all buy Brother laser printers. They forgot to “improve” them for so long, they slowly became the only ones that worked right.
Afferand@RickiTarr
Poor multibillion dollar companies will go hungry if we repair our own things.
Poor multibillion dollar companies will go hungry if we repair our own things.
ElectropictIt’s a long slow process but the aim of 100% inhalable technology creeps closer, product by product, year by year. VCs eyes are on the long term goal — extraction fees.
Mast0b1tRinging the 🛎️! Good points.
Alternatives:
@system76
Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈@RickiTarr "but what if the screen bent around the edges, isn't that some kind of ground breaking 'innovation?'"
I've not wanted a new phone in years, none of the new models appeal to me, for the reasons you've mentioned.
Once again the Tech Bros are forcing shit on us we haven't asked for.
@Lazarou I still wonder what they thought we would get out of that, they do get that we are all just get cases and screen covers.
Bee O'Problem 
@Lazarou @RickiTarr I'm not sure if it's Tech Bros or wannabe Jony Ive folks chasing some "beautiful" design to the detriment of actually being useful.
Both?
Andrew Wooldridge ⛰️
Winter TrabexIt used to be, old Chromebooks would allow you to work offline and later sync up with google docs when you came online again.
Now, they've put that feature behind a paywall so that you have to buy a more expensive edition of a Chromebook to get the same features you would have had years ago as a standard edition.
When I saw that, it was a big nope for me.
@trabex For real?!
I went shopping for one at Best Buy last month, that's what I saw. Might be able to find a Chromebook at a thrift store, but those won't last forever.
TransitBiker@RickiTarr no we definitely need everything just laminated together with a bunch of glue and a battery with no thermal management that can’t be replaced.
@TransitBiker For sure, I definitely want to buy something extra to cool my devices
@RickiTarr there’s a few options.
@RickiTarr something that has really stood out to me over the last couple of months researching electric vehicles of many different types is that portable device batteries do not have thermal management typically whereas an electric bike might have cooling fins on it or something along those lines and an electric car will have active heating and cooling either air or liquid-based. These high capacity batteries need thermal management to work properly especially over a long time.
Log 🪵@RickiTarr We would also like a form factor standard for laptop motherboards, displays, and peripherals. I don't care what it weighs any more. I just want to be able to insert DVD-Rs and SD cards and replace the keyboard and battery, in a case with only one kind of screw that is designed to be easily opened with a standard screwdriver, and nothing called a "spudger" or "case opening tool" or "warranty voiding knife".
@log OMG RIGHT
DoomsdaysCW@RickiTarr A nice bonus would be to have devices that don't instantly break when dropped too.
We shouldn't have to buy chonky protective cases to re-add the thickness the tech companies insist on removing.
LaberpferdI suggest you take a look at phones made by Caterpillar, they know what profeesionals need
Marty Fouts@RickiTarr Once upon a time I was a principal engineer at the world’s largest producer of mobile devices. Here is how we decided what size devices to sell: product management would explain the results of focus groups and surveys. Engineering would explain the trade off for various form factors. Marketing would discuss how all that impacted competition. Then we would build every form factor practical. Inevitably the market would pick smaller and lighter. /1
@RickiTarr Over time the market would vary a bit about preferred size but mainly we concentrated on smaller because most customers, no matter what they say, bought smaller rather than larger, even when we provided a wide range of sizes.
Violet@RickiTarr
My son was going to get rid of his old laptop. I told him I could use one, so he installed Linux on it and it works great after almost eight years. I can't play some of the games I play on my desktop, but that's a hardware limitation as much as an OS limitation.
But reusing an old machine means I'm not giving a tech company more money.
Lisa Melton
🇺🇸 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 🐧 🥦By "tech companies" you mean Apple. :-)
@Methylcobalamin I wish it was just them, because I don't use their products, but they are certainly the king of it lol
derptron@RickiTarr There are companies working on stuff like this. There's the Pine Phone for example. The big tech companies though are publicly traded so you'll NEVER see this come from them. They need to always be growing and making more money or their stock falls and they have to start firing people. Capitalism thrives on creating garbage you have to replace. The companies who are working on this are thus really small and socially oriented; and behind. Pine Phone isn't really for everyone.
@RickiTarr Also, there's only so much that can be made so you ca replace it. The Pine Phone for example, you can replace its motherboard and a few other independent things. But those motherboards and the devices on them can't be readily worked on and have to be custom produced. Cool thing is that you can download the spec and have it made if you have to--and there are PCP printing companies who'll do it without breaking the bank.
@crazyeddie I just want to replace the battery and have an SD card, I know they can do it already lol
@RickiTarr Yeah, I don't know why some phones don't have SD card ports. You should be able to replace most batteries but you have to pull your phone apart with like a heat gun and stuff. I don't do apple so I don't know about them--I don't because they lock so much stuff up. The rest though; you can do it but you have to have the skill or be really good at following directions. Really easy to just turn it into a shattered brick.
Probably mostly so you'll use their stupid cloud crap.
Tappin Lisa@RickiTarr
But also, please still keep making at least some models of phones small enough to fit in my limited pocket space.
But also, please still keep making at least some models of phones small enough to fit in my limited pocket space.