•  xep   ( @xep@fedia.io ) 
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    21 days ago

    Premium phones make little sense, based on what I’ve seen everyone puts them in cases anyway. “Premium materials” are slippery and “premium thinness” results in insufficient battery capacity so accessories like phone rings get put on them, and people carry around external battery packs.

    Why not just make a grippy, practical phone that I can use as a tool, with removable batteries, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and expandable memory?

  • FINALLY someone gets this. I don’t care about the “premium look” whatever that means, I just don’t want my phone to break when I accidentally drop it. Which is why I always put a case on my phone

    In fact, I’m pretty sure phone manufacturers started putting glass on the back of phones specifically to make them less durable so that customers buy a new phone sooner

    • Nah, it’s mostly because all the tech reviewers trashed phones with plastic backs saying they felt cheap. If you look at any of those reviews they always talk about the premium feel.

      It also changed from aluminium to glass backs mostly for wireless charging.

      Plastic backs are better, but the tech reviewers did a lot of damage there. If they’d tried to influence people and explained why particular made sense instead of trashing it we may have more plastic phones.

  • “Glass is glass, and glass breaks” I want a metal back phone. I don’t care about wireless charging.

    • 8GB ram
    • 250 GB memory
    • “>6000 mah” battery. Thickness doesn’t matter.
    • Fast charging
    • 120hz display

    Can anyone suggest me an Android that has all these?

    • I want a metal back phone

      Steve Jobs did too, they still needed a plastic window for some antennae on the OG iPhone, then went to full plastic. It has become worse now, the back isn’t just for wireless charging. It is also for NFC, UWB, and often cellular/gps/wifi/bluetooth may share antenna connections through the back.

      Right there with you though. NFC could probably be packed in a band at the top of a phone. UWB seems of dubious value thus far.

    • I went with the lenovo/motorola thinkphone. Kind of an oddball choice, but it has a kevlar back instead of glass, and has most of your points.

      The battery is ‘only’ 5000mah, but i get multiple days of use per charge.

      There were some pretty good sales on it because it didn’t sell as well as they had hoped.

  • I find the cheap phones are often the “premium” ones.

    Those are the ones with plastic backs, headphone jacks, multiple SIMs, smaller size, lighter weight, good physical fingerprint readers, etc.

  •  wia   ( @oxideseven@lemmy.ca ) 
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    920 days ago

    I’ve been saying this for years. Use nice textured recycled plastic. The amount of cool textured and nice feeling materials out there is insane.

    Gimme a plastic screen too. If someone is concerned about scratches they can add a glass protector. Those people already do anyway. There are even plastics that could be used that would resist scratches incredibly well.

    Then my whole phone is flexible and nearly unbreakable.

  • I certainly would prefer a plastic backing than a glass one. Why the fuck does every phone have to be encased entirely in glass? It breaks and it’s slippery as fuck, making it more prone to slip out of your hand and break. It’s so ubiquitous and universally fucking stupid that I am convinced it’s purposely designed so you will drop and break it so you have to pay to fix or replace it.

    Every heavy duty aftermarket phone case is mostly plastic and rubberized silicone. Because that shit is 1000 times more durable and shock resistant than glass. Glass’s great only for being scratch resistant. There’s no reason that every phone couldn’t have an otter box-like outer shell built in.

    •  Flax   ( @Flax_vert@feddit.uk ) 
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      319 days ago

      It is actually better for durability if the outer shell is removable as well. Eg, having a durable phone case on a midrange phone is better than a rugged phone. Simply being as you can easily swap the case

      I’m going off of hearsay here from a video I saw years ago, but it was comparing a decently durable android in a rugged case with a purpose built rugged android phone. Both sustained similar damage but at least the one with the case could be fixed by a case swap. Other one would need a full on repair.

  • I have never once thought that. The fact I have always wrapped my smartphones in an S view style leather case means I could give less than one shit about what the back of my phone has been made of. I watched knuckleheads freeballing their phones, dropping them, cracking the screens, and noped the fuck out of that noise before I even owned my first smart phone. Been doing the leather envelope style case ever since. Knock on wood, never cracked a screen, not tryin to win any beauty contests, just keep my thousand dollar pocket mini computer up and runnin.

    •  lemmyng   ( @lemmyng@lemmy.ca ) 
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      821 days ago

      When I was younger and more naïve, I used to think a case was useless. I kept my phones in my pocket most of the time, and didn’t feel particularly clumsy or reckless. Then I got a phone that happened to have a glass back, and it broke not because I fumbled it, but because it slid out of my pocket onto time floor while I was sitting down. Glass backs on phones are bullshit.

  • nah phones aint premium until the price is lower f*cking phone costs so you dont have to spend half a months salary just to not have it become junk in 3 years and not be a buggy mess at launch premium is not paying an arm and a leg and not having your every move tracked and sold to the highest bidder