Meizu ditched hole-free phone because it was 'just the marketing team messing about', not because no one really gave a toss China's Meizu has disowned its crowdfunded project to create a button-less and port-less smartphone as a daft publicity stunt. The "Meizu zero" was intended to create "the first holeless and seamless smartphone", according to its Indiegogo page, which sought $100,000 funding in January. The zero would have had no USB port, no …
Yep. The idea of a single cable from the Cube to monitor that carries power, video, audio and usb for mouse and keyboard has taken a long time to come around again. It the solution to a clear problem, one vocalised by my father thus: "Won't someone rid me of this fucking snakes' nest behind my desk?!"
Convection cooling too is a good concept.
Richard Sapper, designer if the first ThinkPads, also designed an articulated desk lamp. Unfortunately it was found that some users might rest the head of the lamp against papers on tnekrcdesk, and the lamp being Halogen (no white LEDs in the 1980s of course) and hot there was a clear fire risk. So the manufacturers were forced to add a little stalk to the lamp head to prevent it touching things. Why do I mention this?
Well, the flat top of the G4 Cube was just too tempting a place for some people to place a paper document or cup of coffee. Users, hey? I guess the Trashcan Mac Pro's shape - also built around convection assisted cooling - discourages people placing folders on top of it, but might look like a nice place to keep ones coffee warm!
Steve Jobs had previously sold two other cube shaped computers, both designed by Esslinger (of Wega, Sony, and Frog Design), but they were aimed at brain surgeons (Pixar Image Computer) or whoever the hell the NeXT was aimed at. And all we got was Toy Story, the World Wide Web and iD Software's Doom.
I think it's a tiny but vocal minority that insist on an earphone and replaceable battery. They have use cases that demand them, but most don't. The first tough phone I got had rubber plugs on most orifices, which were a nuisance but with bluetooth earpieces and wireless charging a design could be completely sealed at least against low-pressure water.
However, most phones I see in use seem to have cracked screens. Perhaps the users really, really want to get inside. It seems fairly pointless making them fully waterproof while screens remain fragile and expensive to replace.
My phone looks like it has a cracked screen, but it's merely the replaceable glass screen protector. Assuming the protector has similar mechanical properties as the screen proper, it's saved me the cost of several new screens - i.e the original cost of the phone. Not to mention the drops in puddles, the bath and a stream which would have killed phones of old.
Someone recently lent me a wearable thing with a wireless charging cradle. One thing I can say is that plugging in the charging cradle does a truly excellent job of completely killing my DAB reception (even through a brick wall), and presumably putting a dent in the wifi as well, although I haven't checked it yet.
I solved the problem by loosely wrapping the charger in foil, which seems less than ideal, but will have to do for now.
You could try putting the wireless pad in or underneath a biscuit tin, maybe. An aluminium foil disposable baking tray also might suit. Don't do anything leading to electric shock.
The LED light bulb, hmm, metal lamp shade? (prob not a good idea to get creative with the aluminium foil)
But some Moto phones do have swappable (and hot-swappable at that!) batteries via their Moto Mod system.
I can't help but think that if every poster here who cries out for swappable batteries actually bought said handsets, Moto would be selling a lot more phones.
As it is, one gets the impression that posters here just want a cheap way to keep using old phones. That is sensible and indeed laudable. However, it should be fairly clear to them why phone vendors aren't designing phones with their wishes in mind.
You're asking for OS and firmware updates for 3 years *from launch*. I bought my Moto-X about 4 1/2 years ago and it hasn't been getting updates for about 3 years. Probably more. I'm ready to replace it in the next year or so, probably 2.
I shouldn't have to put up with an insecure device for most of the time I own it.
Totally with you on the big battery thing. I mean, they gave this pos a curved back so it can't lie flat. I have to hold it. Just make it rectangular! Fill the gaps with cells!
I've never had a need for the low resolution front-facing camera either. It's totally pointless. Nobody uses cyberpunk video phones anyway.
I used to think this myself, but then discovered that my wife has been video chatting with our 5-year-old niece while away on business trips. Both of them love it.
I have perforce been overruled and all future phones we get will have front-facing cameras.
(Can't say I'm too miffed about it, at least they're not using it for selfies, I suppose.)
The Qi standard alone might not supply enough power for that use case. Individual vendors such as Samsung and Google have wireless charging solutions that can supply more power than the Qi baseline but you need to research which charging mat first. Example: to fast charge a Samsung phone wirelessly you need a compatible charging mat fed by a compatible power source.
Just to say: there are 3rd party charging mats/docks that can wirelessly fast charge Samsung phones other than the overpriced Samsung ones. But research first.
Google got flak because their Pixel phones would only fast charge wirelessly if the mat gave the right DRM handshake.
Wirelessly charging a phone which is already in a potentially hot place (a car dashboard) isn't a great idea.
Consider making an old phone or cheap 7" tablet a dedicated car GPS, even without a data subscription it can get live traffic dsta from your primary phone. This way you don't have the faff of plugging in your phone, you don't care about high temperatures reducing your battery life, and in the case of the tablet you have a bigger display.
Good point about old phones but beware - batteries and high temperatures may not matter too much, but the one I used to use, an old LG G4, had a tendency to lose GPS when it got hot. This despite being placed well away from direct sunlight and air vents.
It would be useful, I think, if people reported their experience with different phones as satnavs. The usual testing doesn't tell you but surely nowadays it's one of the commonest uses for phones?
...I think this is quite a sweet idea. Yes, it's non-expandable, unfixable and becomes basically a disposable device (with all the bad karma inherent in the throwaway culture we have), but it sounds - well, elegant.
Of course, as the proud user of a Motorola V235 (with extras for when it fails) I'm hardly the main audience.
"While a hole-less, port-less, slot-less phone is certainly feasible in 2019, it's not something many people want"
I'd suggest there is actually a huge market for such a device - if the price was right. If I was a betting man I'd put money on the next iPhone having such a version, with QI charging, AirPods and Apple Sim
That would be clever as once you're over 70C, your lithium battery may decide to run away thermally (depending on its excess temperature over surroundings), the glue that holds things together goes soft below 100C, and consumer grade electronics doesn't usually like a non-operating case temperature over 110C.
Even switched off 80C will do for most lithium batteries.
I wasn't thinking of heat as the sterilisation method, but rather UV or chemical - there would be no nooks or crannies for microbes and viruses to hide in.
However heat could (though maybe not should) still be used without damaging the battery, since to sterilise it is only necessary to heat the exterior to a high temperature. If the temperature is high enough the duration of heating can be so low as to not raise the temperature of the phone's interior appreciably. That said, I can't see any advantages of using heat over say a quick dunk in peroacetic acid.
An awful lot of organic acids attack plastics. Back in the day we had a small armoury of them for disassembling moulded products as part of quality management.
The gpp mentioned autoclaving. That normally entails around 121C for 15-20 minutes, hence the numbers I mentioned. Flash surface heating has its own problems - aluminium is a very good conductor so heating enough to kill spores on glass might have no effect on any spores on the aluminium surface.
Having said all that, given the use of phones in a medical environment, I suspect alcohol wipe would be adequate. Unless you have a forgetful surgeon who sometimes sews his up inside patients.
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