The new home of /r/Android on Lemmy and the Fediverse!
Android news, reviews, tips, and discussions about rooting, tutorials, and apps.
πUniversal Link: !android@lemdro.id
π‘Content Philosophy:
Content which benefits the community (news, rumours, and discussions) is generally allowed and is valued over content which benefits only the individual (technical questions, help buying/selling, rants, self-promotion, etc.) which will be removed if it's in violation of the rules.
Support, technical, or app related questions belong in: !askandroid@lemdro.id
For fresh communities, lemmy apps, and instance updates: !lemdroid@lemdro.id
π¬Matrix Chat
π°Our communities below
Stay on topic: All posts should be related to the Android OS or ecosystem.
No support questions, recommendation requests, rants, or bug reports: Posts must benefit the community rather than the individual. Please post to !askandroid@lemdro.id.
Describe images/videos, no memes: Please include a text description when sharing images or videos. Post memes to !androidmemes@lemdro.id.
No self-promotion spam: Active community members can post their apps if they answer any questions in the comments. Please do not post links to your own website, YouTube, blog content, or communities.
No reposts or rehosted content: Share only the original source of an article, unless it's not available in English or requires logging in (like Twitter). Avoid reposting the same topic from other sources.
No editorializing titles: You can add the author or website's name if helpful, but keep article titles unchanged.
No piracy or unverified APKs: Do not share links or direct people to pirated content or unverified APKs, which may contain malicious code.
No unauthorized polls, bots, or giveaways: Do not create polls, use bots, or organize giveaways without first contacting mods for approval.
No offensive or low-effort content: Don't post offensive or unhelpful content. Keep it civil and friendly!
No affiliate links: Posting affiliate links is not allowed.
Our Communities
Lemmy App List
Chat and More
I wish TCL would stop referring to it as electronic paper, it's a matte LCD with some desaturated modes for eye comfort.
for me, the major selling point of a true e-paper display is sunlight readability, if your "electronic paper" LCD cant match e-ink, then it's not good enough.
The main E-ink patents are due to expire in 2026, so we should see some rapid development after that.
the major selling point of a true e-paper display is sunlight readability
Yeah, the whole "It behaves like an actual paper page for all relevant purposes" is kinda important to an e-ink display.
I recently bought a Boox Palma, which is a phone-size Android device with a real E-Ink display.
It's not a phone (WiFi/Bluetooth only, no mobile radio), and with 4-bit greyscale it's definitely an adjustment to use with a lot of apps (it has per-app DPI & contrast controls to help), but they've done a lot of work on the refresh rate to make it feel responsive.
It even has midrange-phone specs (SD 6xx series CPU, 6GB RAM, 4Ah battery), with full Google Play, so it's a quite usable Android device overall. Like most modern E-Ink devices, has a CCT warm-to-cool frontlight, so great for night-time use.
Now would I want to use it as my only, everyday device (if it was a phone too)? Probably not. Could I? Almost certainly.
Colour E-Ink is still quite limited (in contrast, and resolution), but I expect the patents on that are quite a bit newer and we won't be seeing so much movement in that area so soon.
I really wanted YotaPhone to succeed. Both a normal screen and a very very battery friendly e-ink for reading etc for hours...
I love my Boox Note 3. It's am older device but still gets updates lots of tweaks for tuning the display on a per app basis, runs Google apps etc. I use it mainly as a reader for books and manga but also for drawing notes and browsing the Web.
Ooh, looks interesting. Though the size would be a disadvantage to meβI can imagine some situations where using an ereader is acceptable where a phone would not be, and other people won't be able to tell them apart this way.
Honestly if the Palma would have cellular radio it would check all my phone need boxes.
Colour eink is still very limited, but can't they make eink (semi-)transparent? Just put eink above the usual LCD/oled and enable/disable them as needed?
Nevermind that, an approach like what Sharp and the old PDAs did with transflective displays would be pretty neat too. But I suspect what'll happen is that they'll be called out for not providing "rich colours and deep blacks".
OLED over transflective, do you get all the bright colors but it can go transparent and use the sunlight readable and low power screen when that makes sense
Transflexive displays can work, but they arent as easy on the eyes as e-paper and they have poor contrast in direct sunlight.
For me the main selling point of epaper is that the device can write to it then turn entirely off, for potentially multiple weeks of battery on a charge.
For me the biggest selling point of e-ink is for reading late at night. Since it's not backlit it's better for sleep, I think? Easier on the eyes, anyways.
What I dislike about phones these days is notches in the screen and my hands cramping up from the huge screen size combined with how slim the device is.
I just want to be able to hold my phone in one hand and control it that way like I could do with an iphone 4s, though would prefer an android phone.
You should check out the Sony lineup. They still do phones without notches and the size is pretty comfortable for one hand usage.
How's the ROM support on them?
Pretty good actually, though about as much support for the smaller phones as they represent in market share.
https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/#sony
Though I've become a fan of DivestOS recently because they enable you to run Google Services (well, MicroG) as a user app, so it doesn't have system permissions. Makes a good stepping stone to help my friends and family move away from Google.
Check out www.gsmarena.com and www.phonearena.com to find phones that meet your requirements. Their search tools are impressive. You can filter by all sorts of attributes.
SD cards and wired headphones too if that's your thing
Take a look at the Asus zenfone 10, I've got me eye on that when this 6t finally gives up the first
At the moment asus really is the last noteworthy manufacturer of phones that can be considered as small and even there were rumours they might stopβ¦
Makes me glad I bought my iPhone 13 mini when I did. Itβs the perfect size but sadly also the last of its kind.
Just looked, their smallest phone (Zenphone 9,if my search is worth anything) is slightly larger than a Pixel 5, (to be fair it's narrower and thinner, which can make a big difference, especially being narrower).
Granted the Pixel is 2 years older, but I'd bet that running Lineage very few people would know. I run a 2017 phone that with Lineage is faster than any phone in my circle. It's rather shocking to see the difference a leaner OS combined with some optimization can make (some kernel tweaks make it responsive while improving battery life over stock settings).
The Pixel is just under half the price of the Z9.
I keep trying to find a better phone than the Pixel, (smaller, more battery, more ram, something), but it's really hard to beat. Then again, my requirements aren't everyone's: camera just has to work, I prefer plastic over "nice" materials, don't need SD card, etc.
If I could run Android on iPhone hardware, an iPhone 6 would be awesome. Edit: wow the 13 mini is smaller than the six. Even better!
Yep. Iβve been on iPhone for years and the tininess of the mini just sealed the deal for the next 3-5 years (or however long itβll last)
The problem with this is that everyone has different hands. Personally, large phones sit in my hand better. The phone I felt the most comfortable holding was a note 20 ultra. I have really long fingers though, so it isn't for everyone, but I really don't want to see all phones go back to being small. They do need some small varieties though.
The problem I have is not so much how well they sit in my hand, but if I can reach everything on screen with one hand without having to shift the phone around or resting it somewhere. I have huge, way above average pianist hands (they make Xbox controllers look small). I canβt do it higher than ~6.5 inches, and itβs way easier under 6.2.
I believe there is an app that helps with that. From what I remember you could do some gesture to get a cursor in the top part of the screen so you could press that.
You are right. How could I forget about that.
I do wish I could have a phone that is comfortable but not unusable like those really tiny ones.
What I dislike is the constant stripping of features lately - between OEMs stripping stuff like SD card support, and box contents like ear buds and wallwarts; and Google stripping core features like the ability to cat system logs... It's getting fucking dumb.
It doesn't make sense to me to include earbuds and chargers in every box. That's wasteful, and everybody ends up of drawers full of unused shit.
My earbuds were replaced before the end of my phone's life. Also, my kids who just got phones for the first time now need to also shell out money for a wall wart and ear buds? Considering there seems to be $0.00 savings passed on to us from all the shit they've cut out, it's a bit ridiculous.
Maybe there should be a voucher for free earbuds and charger, but I think it's a waste for most people.
Lower clarity, contrast, sharpness. Thatβs roughly it.
And yet, owners of the high end Steam Decks love it because it makes the Deck more usable outside.
Then again there are people who donβt buy the higher end steam decks cause they want a fully gloss screen
Good that choice exists.
Pfftttsshttt.. Outside. Kids these days.
Hahahaha, take my upvote, dammit!
Been using matte screen protectors on my phones for the last 5+ years. I'm disgusted every time I have to touch a glossy screen with all those finger tracks on it. Matte feels better and looks better in bright environments. For dimmer environments the lack in brightness won't be much of a factor either. I highly recommend it.
Yes, same, this is the way to go! Way better than the screen itself being matte. Just get the matte screen ptotector.
Are there matte glass protectors? I ordered one for my P8 that is just a film one. It is actually arriving today
I've never seen one, so idk... what's good about glass? I've never understood using glass as a protection layer tbh.
Glass protects better than a thin layer of plastic against drops
Maybe for some models? IDK I haven't seen one but I've noticed there is a much smaller selection of matte protectors in general vs glossy.
I don't think there's any reason they can't.
All of that notwithstanding, I'd still prefer a matte display.
I wish there was a modern phone with an e-paper display on the back. E-paper is great for books and reading the newspaper.
Unfortunately, my eReader doesn't really support modern web browsers, so it can't do news articles....
It does though. Installing a matte screen protector was one of the very first things I did after I got it.
Put a matte screen protector on my iPad a few years ago to cut down on the glare and that was it, everything had to be that way from then on.
Downside is you do lose some image crispness but it's so very worth it for the huge reduction in glare.
Also matte protectors aren't nearly as popular so there's a lot smaller selection to chose from.
I'd take it.
Just buy a phone that is not shit instead and apply a matte glass screen protector.
Great, thanks!