The Minimal Phone is now shipping (E Ink phone with a QWERTY keyboard)
  • bruhbeans@lemmy.ml
    6·
    5 hours ago

    If they had worked with GrapheneOS to enable their security requirements, I’d be all over this

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
    6·
    5 hours ago

    This is neat, but it suffers the first problem Jobs identified with then-existing smart-phones: keyboard can’t be changed for other languages. I’m happy someone made this, but it has a limited reach. I still hope it succeeds.

  • atrielienz@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    6 hours ago

    I actually like e-ink for some apps. Unfortunately, on my device, dark mode UI doesn’t do as good a job as I would like (serious ghosting is a problem even when setting the auto refresh to a much higher rate). I do miss qwerty keyboards but I think I would rather have a device like this with a fold out/slide out keyboard (I would buy a sidekick with android and a larger screen tomorrow if they offered it, and if they offered it with wink, I’d still seriously consider it with some reservations).

    I’ve seen devices that have both an e-ink display and an OLED display and I like the idea but the design is often just not what I’m looking for.

    But writing and note apps, RSS apps and note taking apps are really really good on e-ink. I have even used Lemmy (boost) on an e-ink device and it’s not the greatest experience but I do like it quite a lot. Music and podcasts work so long as you’re not using the animations in those apps. And I really like using the web browser, but mostly I think that’s down to the way I browse the web.

    My main problem is that niche devices like this don’t have the same ROM support and configurability that more well known phone brands and models have.

  • superkret@feddit.org
    5·
    6 hours ago

    If this turns out to be good, it would be exactly what I’ve been waiting for, since…smartphones and e-readers were a thing.

  • rbn
    7·
    8 hours ago

    I feel like using such a phone with regular Android apps doesn’t make too much sense. The big advantage of eInk is that it only consumes power if the content changes. But if every letter you type and every second the progress bar of your media player require a refresh of the screen, then you don’t really benefit from that feature. Or do I oversee something here?

    • ThisIsNotHimEnglish
      12·
      6 hours ago

      Those actions may not require refreshing the entire display.

      E-Ink is viewable in sunlight without a backlight. A huge chunk of power for regular displays is the backlight. Here you only need a backlight in darkness, and it can be quite low.

    • JohnEdwa
      1·
      4 hours ago

      Almost certainly performant enough for an e-ink screen, which will run at a few frames per second at best anyway.

  • paequ2@lemmy.todayEnglish
    17·
    2 hours ago

    I don need it… I don need it… I definitely don need it…

    Uh… I wonder what the reviews will be like… this is definitely up my ally alley… Dang it, Lemmy.

    Update: fixed spelling.

  • IllNess@infosec.pub
    71·
    12 hours ago

    I get this is a little pricey but it has expandable storage, a physical keyboard, a headphone jack, dual speakers, dual sim card tray, and a promise of 5 years of security updates.

    Those bezels suck though. Either make the screen bigger while keeping the device dimensions or make the device more compact.

    • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      11 hours ago

      It’s very pricey for what it is.

      But I’m sympathetic. It’s fairly bespoke, a lot of care clearly went into creating it, and it’s not a mass-market item. It’d be impossible to manufacture cheaply.

      Overpriced in terms of what the market is willing to pay for a device like this, but likely not in terms of markup over design/manufacturing costs.

  • Alphane Moon@lemmy.worldOPM
    8·
    13 hours ago

    I wonder how well Android 14 works with an e-ink device; specifically the animations.

    I personally think this is a very stylish device, albeit this could be nostalgia on my part.

    • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
      11·
      13 hours ago

      https://old.reddit.com/r/motorola/comments/10ru0lz/disable_animations_for_a_much_faster_experience/

      Disable animations for a much faster experience

      Make sure developer options are enabled. If they’re not, go to Settings > About phone, then tap on Build number several times to enable it

      Go to Settings > Developer options, and scroll down to Window animation scale, Transition animation scale, and Animator duration scale.

      Tap on each of the animation options and turn them off.

      • Alphane Moon@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
        4·
        13 hours ago

        I am assuming this has already been configured by the OEM.

        But there are other factors as well beyond “cosmetic” animations. For example the UX around search functions in the OS (e.g. in settings) or certain launcher configuration settings. For example, for an e-ink device, I am assuming you would want to disable folder functionality on your home screen, only allowing individual app icons (“opening” a folder with apps would be slow).