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Manufacturers should have to support smart phones for five years? What have you been smoking, buddy? And can you pass me some? The hardware itself (screen, casing, battery, etc.) of most phones does not last 5 years - why should the software?

My phone is a Samsung Galaxy SII. I bought it when it was newly launched. It is now four years old. My previous phone was a T-Mobile G1, also sold as the HTC Dream, the first retail Android phone, which I also bought when it was newly launched. I still have it and it actually still works, but we replaced it in part because of application problems from being limited to Android 2.3.

Just because you replace your technology frequently doesn't mean that the rest of us do. Frankly I'd rather spend my money on other pursuits rather than re-buying the same theoretically-durable goods all of the time.

They took a good company with a generally excellent history and reputation, and, after beating it half to death

Actually, they hired Elop when shit was hitting the fan HARD. See the graph which shows the clear picture. Elop didn't help the company but it's not his decision making that sunk it.

http://blog.gsmarena.com/a/sho...

Now let's hope the rumors that Nokia will begin producing Android smartphones in 2016 are true.

My backup/travel phone is a Motorola VE66. It's a solid slider, being made out of a significant amount of metal. Technically it's a smartphone because it runs MotoMagx. It will run Quake II and ScummVM (among other various other things), but it has the long battery life and quick response of a dumbphone.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is a single handset among many that they offer. My Wife as the Samsung Galaxy Core LTE, which is much newer than the S4 (November 2014) and still doesn't have an update to Lollipop. So, while some handsets from some manufacturers get updates, I haven't seen an Android handset manufacturer that updates all their devices in a timely manner for 2 years.

The whole idea of a "smart TV" is retarded because it ignores a fundamental truth, which is 1.- "Smart"devices that are successful are in markets with high turnover so the consumer is able to run the latest apps, for example smart phones and tablets, while 2.- TVs are devices that are typically kept by the consumer for 5-10 years which means the "Smart" part will quickly become as outdated and useless as a Palm Pilot.

Since FirefoxOS hasn't been out long enough lets use Android as an example, lets say you bought your smart TV 6 years ago, right around the time I bought my mother her new set (which is still working great and will probably last at least a couple more years if not more) that would put you on on Android 1.5, AKA Cupcake...now how many apps today can run on Cupcake? Very damned few. What about the hardware, could it have been updated? Since I had one of the early 1.6 (AKA Donut) I can tell you that while you MIGHT have been able to go to 2.0 it would have been painful to use, as the average device then was similar to these specs, a 530Mhz ARM11 with just 192Mb of RAM and 512Mb of flash...now remember that most smart TVs have lower specs than your average phone so how long do you think it would take before it was just painful to use?

At the end of the day I think that other than malware targets these things are gonna quickly become irrelevant, the OS will go out of date looong before the TV dies, making for a security nightmare as vulnerabilities in both the OS and the apps won't be able to be patched as the hardware will just be too weak to run anything newer, and for the consumer the apps will lose support and using the ones that come with it will be about as pleasant as trying to surf modern sites on the phone I listed above. So other than a checkbox on the side of the box? IMHO this is just fucking stupid any way you cut it.

Assuming we already have the tech to do it, it makes even less sense that we wouldn't.

There already are Intel Atom based phones

Sure it's a myth. There are bugs in open source products that have been sitting there out in the open for YEARS without anyone recognizing them until they're exploited. Shellshock and Hearbleed (OpenSSL library - you can't get much more critical than that) prove once again that the "many eyes" that are not bothering to look because they all have something else to do (like scratching their own itch) proves that you also have to wait for a malicious attacker to find the vulnerabilities before they're fixed.

It's simply not a "better practice" - just different - and the myth leaves people open to exercising less caution out of an erroneous feeling that someone out there is going over the code to fix it just because it's open source. We all know that debugging and fixing code is a lot less attractive to people than writing new code, and that's simply not going to change, because it's human nature. Most programmers simply do not like to do code maintenance, which is why proprietary software with revenue streams have both an incentive and the means to PAY people to do the maintenance.

Which I guess is why the Windows kernel is now more secure than either the Linux or BSD kernels. So, citation provided :-)

Am I happy about it? No, but that's the reality of it, and denying it is being willfully negligent.

http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_dream-2665.php/ The first Android phone, a design now hard to find.

They got it right from the first. If anyone knows a phone with the same design but more power, please let me know here.
G1, G1 clone, G1clone, 5row keyboard, Android Keyboard Phone.

Sounds like my HTC Desire A8181 from five years ago:

Size - 4.0 inches (~61.3% screen-to-body ratio)
  Resolution - 480 x 800 pixels (~233 ppi pixel density)
  OS - Android OS, v4.2.2 (Jelly Bean)
  Chipset - Mediatek MT6572
  Internal - 4 GB ROM, 512 MB RAM
  CAMERA -2 MP, 1600 x 1200 pixels
  BATTERY - Li-Ion 1300 mAh battery

vs

Size - 3.7 inches (~54.6% screen-to-body ratio)
Resolution - 480 x 800 pixels (~252 ppi pixel density)
Chipset Qualcomm QSD8250 Snapdragon (1 GHz Scorpion CPU, Adreno 200)
Card slot - microSD, up to 32 GB, 4 GB included
Internal - 576 MB RAM; 512 MB ROM
Camera - 5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
Battery - Li-Ion 1400 mAh battery

http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_de...

Pretty common, apparently. May be you're just not loooking for it?

I had two Android phones that drove me nuts before I finally bought a Blu Win HD, which is a Windows phone. I love it. It doesn't have all of the lag, odd system resource use and various other annoying things that Android does. Unlike other smartphones, it works like an actual device.

I break it down like this: If you want a smartphone that is a pocket computer, with all of the flexibility and headaches, get an Android phone. If you want a smartphone that is a device, with stability and consistency, get a Windows phone. If you just want something cheap to talk or text with, get a $20 dumbphone.

This is why I only buy Nexus devices, and immediately root and install a ROM of my choosing. Currently I'm on Cyanogenmod for my N4 and N7, previously I was on ParanoidAndroid for my N4.
 
If you just got a Droid Maxx, why not send it back and get a Nexus 5 Cheaper, better processor (including gfx), smaller, higher quality screen (arguable; Higher PPI vs AMOLED tech), optical stabilisation for camera, not carrier-locked or filled with bloatware, faster LTE speeds, latest Gorilla Glass (vs 1st gen)... The only area the Maxx beats the N5 hands-down is the battery: 3500mAh vs 2300mAh for double the standby time (manufacturers specs), and the Maxx is splash-resistant.

Tech moves fast.

In two years this sort of phone will be on par with mine, an HTC Desire HD. It's 3.5 years old and does all I could ever want from a Phone. Appart from being a little sluggish at times maybe. But that's hardly an issue, given that it is very sturdy and has a replaceable battery - which most modern phones don't.

When robots have advanced far enough into manufacturing, we'll have the equivalent of iPhone 6es come out of vending machines and the likes, for prices simular to that of this model. The predecessor to my current phone was a Blackberry Curve 8310. The superiour keyboard and battery runtime aside, the entire device seems way outdated and strangely anachronistic to me, like from a different era - and it's only 7 years old!

It's actually quite realistic when Google claims that they want to put the second half of humanity on to the internet within the next 5 years.

Except that it only has 2 gig, and comes stock running Android KitKat.

Of course, if this is just going to be thrown onto the MX4-core, an older phone that has been around for a couple of years, and uses the Exynos chipset mentioned in the article, and not the MX4's MediaTek MT6595, then you get 1 gig of ram.

Except that it only has 2 gig, and comes stock running Android KitKat.

Of course, if this is just going to be thrown onto the MX4-core, an older phone that has been around for a couple of years, and uses the Exynos chipset mentioned in the article, and not the MX4's MediaTek MT6595, then you get 1 gig of ram.

Can we get this in perspective please?

How many phones does Samsung and Google sell every time there is a new Android phone?

Well it's hard to look at all the numbers together but if we take Samsung's S5 and Note 3 which would be somewhat equivalent to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. The S5 was at 10 million in its first 25 days and the Note 3 got 5 million sales in its first month so they don't seem to be that far behind and given that Samsung - while the most popular - is far from the only Android handset maker, comparing iOS to Android sales of new devices it would seem Android would probably win out.

That report is a bit misleading, given it ignores the first two weeks after launch where sales are always highest. Samsung sold 10 million phones in first 25 days

Gee, that's funny, because Samsung's official images of the S4 clearly show the camera protrusion from the side: http://www.gsmarena.com/samsun... And Apple shows their phone from both sides, so in those with the lens on the near side, it should be even more evident. But it's not. It's clear case of iLying.

Compare to the SGS3. http://m.gsmarena.com/samsung_...

No discussion on one point, though: the slide keyboard made it more vulnerable and eventually it broke down on me, after intensive use. On the other hand: its 512 MB internal memory was also becoming a hurdle, so one year later I would have needed to replace it anyway.

I want a variation on the Nokia E70, best design I've ever had the pleasure of using.

http://cdn2.gsmarena.com/vv/pi...

Unfortunately, the best is probably the Blackberry Q10. I haven't used it myself, but it is well-received in reviews, has decent specs and I guess the new version of Blackberry OS is pretty nice. Apparently it is pretty easy to load Android apps on it, so you are not limited to the rather small app store.

On the Android side, the LG Optimus F3Q from the summary is the only one I could find that is currently produced. Even though it's older, the Galaxy S Relay 4G is probably a better option if you can find one used. This is my personal phone. The CPU and RAM are still decent, though the screen and camera are mediocre. The stock Android build is quite terrible, but it has a fully-supported Cyanogenmod build, which makes it feel like a whole new device. I think only Android 4.3 is stable on it, with 4.4 in a beta state. Still, at least it's not loaded with Samsung crapware.

It's a pretty sorry state for QWERTY enthusiasts, but at least they haven't disappeared entirely.

Unfortunately, the best is probably the Blackberry Q10. I haven't used it myself, but it is well-received in reviews, has decent specs and I guess the new version of Blackberry OS is pretty nice. Apparently it is pretty easy to load Android apps on it, so you are not limited to the rather small app store.

On the Android side, the LG Optimus F3Q from the summary is the only one I could find that is currently produced. Even though it's older, the Galaxy S Relay 4G is probably a better option if you can find one used. This is my personal phone. The CPU and RAM are still decent, though the screen and camera are mediocre. The stock Android build is quite terrible, but it has a fully-supported Cyanogenmod build, which makes it feel like a whole new device. I think only Android 4.3 is stable on it, with 4.4 in a beta state. Still, at least it's not loaded with Samsung crapware.

It's a pretty sorry state for QWERTY enthusiasts, but at least they haven't disappeared entirely.

Its important to remember that Microsoft is only losing about 5% of its non-Nokia jobs. That makes these cuts have far less impact to the company as a whole. I work in a small consulting company of about 40 people, so this would be the same as us letting go two members of our staff because of a restructuring. That wouldn't be insignificant, but it obviously wouldn't be a major shift for our company.

As I see it Microsoft really only has one major problem, and that is to find a way to capitalize on their R&D budget. They have the fifth largest R&D budget of any private company in the world. This far surpases companies like Apple and Google which are far better commonly known for their innovative products than Microsoft. If they could actually make use of this R&D Microsoft would be in great shape regardless of what eventually happens to Windows, Office, or XBox.

Microsoft engineers are clearly being funded well enough to help Microsoft grow in the future, they just need better leadership to take advantage of their work instead of just writing salary checks.

"... blaming 'weak' sales of low- and medium-end smartphones."

I'd suggest that their weak sales has something to do with the fact that their phones are ridiculously overpriced. Samsung seems to think that they're the 'Apple' of Android phones and that they can price their offerings accordingly. Look at their Galaxy S4 Mini and just announced S5 Mini models: mid-range devices (both have only 1.5GB RAM) with flagship prices.

Then there's Samsung's "budget" phones. They also just announced the Galaxy Ace 4. The most obvious difference from last year's Ace 3? They cut the RAM in half, from 1GB to 512MB. That's right, they actually made the specs worse. Maybe we should thank them for not making the processor slower, too (they both have 1GHz dual-cores).

Meanwhile, we've hit the point of having very decent Android phones from the competition available for $100 or less purchased outright (see LG Optimus F6). The S4 Mini, now a year old, is still running $300+ purchased outright. Why would the average buyer spend an extra $200 for incremental upgrades like an 8MP camera vs 5MP, 1.5GB of RAM instead of 1GB?

Samsung's had a great run, but I think we're seeing the beginning of the end, with the competition nipping at their ankles.

"... blaming 'weak' sales of low- and medium-end smartphones."

I'd suggest that their weak sales has something to do with the fact that their phones are ridiculously overpriced. Samsung seems to think that they're the 'Apple' of Android phones and that they can price their offerings accordingly. Look at their Galaxy S4 Mini and just announced S5 Mini models: mid-range devices (both have only 1.5GB RAM) with flagship prices.

Then there's Samsung's "budget" phones. They also just announced the Galaxy Ace 4. The most obvious difference from last year's Ace 3? They cut the RAM in half, from 1GB to 512MB. That's right, they actually made the specs worse. Maybe we should thank them for not making the processor slower, too (they both have 1GHz dual-cores).

Meanwhile, we've hit the point of having very decent Android phones from the competition available for $100 or less purchased outright (see LG Optimus F6). The S4 Mini, now a year old, is still running $300+ purchased outright. Why would the average buyer spend an extra $200 for incremental upgrades like an 8MP camera vs 5MP, 1.5GB of RAM instead of 1GB?

Samsung's had a great run, but I think we're seeing the beginning of the end, with the competition nipping at their ankles.

You appear not to have bothered to read about the new battery results
http://bgr.com/2014/06/09/lg-g...

Screen contrast is down, indeed, though it went from the brightest smart phone to merely middle of the pack, which is a shame.
http://www.gsmarena.com/lg_g3-...
I'll admit I never really worry about black levels on a phone as long as they are dark-enough, though, since I never use it for critical cinematic viewing and suspect most of the population is with me on that. The loss of max brightness is, imho, the biggest downgrade, though the minimum brightness is lower, which is nice for night-time viewing.

Can't argue about too many pixels, though as long as it doesn't kill the battery life I'm okay with it. It could be 8k if it didn't slow the phone down or deplete the battery - who cares?

Hard to believe that a faster CPU and faster GPU is a "downgrade", but I guess if "faster" means "slower" to you...

It is bigger, though less so than the increase in screen size would suggest. Size is a personal thing for a phone. At least with the G3 you can carry a spare battery (or two) if you need exceptional endurance and can't stand external batteries.

The iPhone because Apple has enough clout to force all carriers to sell the same model phone. (Only the CDMA model is different.) Consequently, that model works around the world. With most other phones, the carriers have the upper hand and get the manufacturer to make a version customized to their frequencies.

The Nexus 5 because Google did the same thing. There are two versions - a North American version which supports CDMA and LTE bands commonly used in the U.S., and a world version which doesn't support CDMA but adds LTE bands more common throughout the world.

Those are the two I know of for sure. There may be some others too. e.g. The newer Samsung models support both GSM and CDMA for voice, but only a limited number of LTE bands. Find the GSM and LTE frequencies used by your U.S. carrier and in the UK/Scotland, then browse the gsmarena website to find phones which work in both.

The iPhone because Apple has enough clout to force all carriers to sell the same model phone. (Only the CDMA model is different.) Consequently, that model works around the world. With most other phones, the carriers have the upper hand and get the manufacturer to make a version customized to their frequencies.

The Nexus 5 because Google did the same thing. There are two versions - a North American version which supports CDMA and LTE bands commonly used in the U.S., and a world version which doesn't support CDMA but adds LTE bands more common throughout the world.

Those are the two I know of for sure. There may be some others too. e.g. The newer Samsung models support both GSM and CDMA for voice, but only a limited number of LTE bands. Find the GSM and LTE frequencies used by your U.S. carrier and in the UK/Scotland, then browse the gsmarena website to find phones which work in both.

I've been looking for myself, and one that stood out was the Xperia Z1 compact from sony. My primary issue was the battery endurance, but it seems to be able to get all the frequencies required by 4G..
http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_x...

2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1700 / 1900 / 2100
4G Network LTE 800 / 850 / 900 / 1700 / 1800 / 1900 / 2100 / 2600

I have it as well. It's compact, although an iPhone 5 is still a bit smaller. I really like the camera button. Press it long, and the camera opens without having to unlock the phone. It's fast, sound is good, even the loudspeaker. Waterproof! But that camera is a killer feature. Camera itself is not as good as a Nokia, but that button makes a real difference compared to other Android phones or the iPhone. 4G speed is great! In the Netherlands one provider has countrywide coverage and where 3G does not work, 4G does.

Hi,
I've been looking for myself, and one that stood out was the Xperia Z1 compact from sony. My primary issue was the battery endurance, but it seems to be able to get all the frequencies required by 4G.. http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_x...

I have - all my old colleagues who had those old blackberries - looks pants, but held carefully in both hands, their thumbs whizzed about the little keyboard. They looked happy too.

And then we used to have ancient windows mobile devices, pretty shit and I used to laugh at the on-call engineers who had to carry them, but they all chose the fat ones with slide-out full keyboards (like the htc desire z) and they would tap out mails quite happily.

Most people get what they're told to have by the media. Its got a 200 megapixel camera, and so they want one, even though they only take pictures of themselves looking gormless or shots of their kids taken at a wonky angle. I would like one manufacturer to stop chasing the idea of being the number 1, and instead settle for making the different phone for people who want that kind of thing. The homogeneity of phones is not something to be proud of.

Wrong quarter you fool.

http://www.gsmarena.com/lg_q1_...

I would imagine Nvidia are very uncomfortable with the way their market has been contracting over the last couple of years.

At some point enough x86/x64 patents will expire that Nvidia will be able license the remaining ones and so an x64 chip of their own.

Or alternatively they could sell Arm+GPU SOCs instead - arguably Arm+GPU is a better bet than x64+GPU because the sales of phones and tablets will exceed the sales of x64 PCs. Of course the margins are likely to be thinner because there's a lot of competition in the Arm SOC market - Apple and Samsung have their own in house designs and outside that it looks like Qualcomm have most of the rest of the market.

Still it's not like AMD is doing very well competing with Intel. And the reason Qualcomm do so well is because they design their own Arm microarchitectures - Scorpion and Krait were both designed in house and were higher performance than the best Arm designed microarchitecture. So I guess NVidia could be aimed to compete with Qualcomm since Denver is in house too.

Actually Apple A6 and A7 chips are like this too. Apple have an Arm license but the chips are designed in house. So it seems like of the Arm SOCs that actually sell well only Samsung is using Arm's designs and only in some markets

E.g.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Galaxy S4 models use of one of two processors, depending on the region and network compatibility. The S4 version for North America, most of Europe, parts of Asia, and other countries contains Qualcomm's Snapdragon 600 system-on-chip, containing a quad-core 1.9 GHz Krait 300 CPU and an Adreno 320 GPU. The chip also contains a modem which supports LTE. Other models include Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa system-on-chip with a heterogeneous CPU. The octa-core CPU comprises a 1.6 GHz quad-core Cortex-A15 cluster and a 1.2 GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 cluster. The chip can dynamically switch between the two clusters of cores based on CPU usage; the chip switches to the A15 cores when more processing power is needed, and stays on the A7 cores to conserve energy on lighter loads

So there are two versions. A Qualcomm Snapdragon one for the US and Europe and an Exynos one for Asia. The Exynos one uses Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A7 in a BIG.little configuration.

Unfortunately they fucked up the big.LITTLE configuration

http://www.anandtech.com/show/...

The Exynos 5410 saw limited use, appearing in some international versions of the Galaxy S 4 and nothing else. Part of the problem with the design was a broken implementation of the CCI-400 coherent bus interface that connect the two CPU islands to the rest of the SoC. In the case of the 5410, the bus was functional but coherency was broken and manually disabled on the Galaxy S 4. The implications are serious from a power consumption (and performance) standpoint. With all caches being flushed out to main memory upon a switch between CPU islands. Neither ARM nor Samsung LSI will talk about the bug publicly, and Samsung didn't fess up to the problem at first either - leaving end users to discover it on their own.

You can see the results here

http://www.gsmarena.com/samsun...

The Qualcomm one has much better talk time - almost twice as much.

You have to wonder what the hell has happened to Arm to be honest. It seems like Apple (A6, A7) and Qualcomm (Scorpion, Krait) do a much better job at Arm core design than Arm/Samsung.

It'll be interesting to see battery life tests on the Snapdragon 801 and Exynos 5422 versions of the S5 to see if Samsung have got big.LITTLE working like it is supposed to. Actually I wonder whether big.LITTLE is even necessary - it seems like it would be much easier to just

Asus Padfone is for you then

Nokia was still making well-designed phones with full keyboards up until fairly recently, with the last holdouts in their Asha line. The X2 was very low-end but a good design (rugged as heck but tragically low onboard memory, slow processor, low-resolution camera, & no WIFI/3G), despite lackluster stats. Usability, ruggedness, & things other than "can it play [latest ad-revenue/money-harvesting game]?" or "does it [make money for] google?" is what's key.

As nice as keyboard slider phones can be, I personally think the best design is the Blackberry-style full-QWERTY bar phone with a d-pad (& a screen which can have the touch-functionality switched on & off (capacitive touchscreens can be *too* sensitive)). NEC *tried* to make an Android phone meeting some of these specs, but I understand it fell far short of expectations. I had high hopes.

The new Blackberries, & the NEC Terrain, both have full QWERTY, but lacked any other meaningful inputs than the touchscreen, like the ever-useful d-pad, which is also lacking in the HTC ChaCha/Status. Nokia made the last good phone design with their E6 (or N950/E7), but that was underpowered & had numerous flaws. So I've (personally) settled on what I consider to be the least worst phone around still, a Nokia E73. I still see people with them out & about in the world, & it works quite well for me, as my primary mobile. I can do most anything on it that I need to: I can use various social media/internet functionalities (whatsapp (which is amazing how a major company designs their software to be accessible on most device platforms, not just iDevices & Android!), facebook, synctxt, okc, goodsearch - an enlightened alternative to google, twitter, etc.) & have access to an excellent email client, Citrix support, FM radio built-in (lucky me, I live near Good radio stations), & an amazing GPS. The camera's decent, too. Sure, it's carrier-locked (T-Mobile) but it has better stats than the E72, has built-in WIFI calling & has better data/radio frequencies. It has an older processor & low ram, but I have a 64gb microSD card & if I offload messages semi-regularly it's great for intense everyday use. I have destroyed many mobiles with what I consider "normal" everyday use, so real durability is important, & lacking as a design consideration in most mobiles.

I also have an N900, & bought a spare for when I can buy the Neo900 upgrade. I think that is still too slow (1ghz processor, 1gb ram (but a good sight better than the old specs (which still work decently well)), & the 3-row QWERTY is a setback, but I can do a lot with it, & it's an amazing device in essentially every other regard (admittedly, it's not my primary mobile). The N900/Maemo was/is too touch-driven, interface-wise, &, at least in theory, a Moto Droid or some other 4+ row QWERTY slider phone (Android seems to be the only option, as I don't think anyone's making non-Bluetooth (seriously, why waste even more battery with that when you can make a battery hutch/slide-out keyboard that plugs into the microUSB port (or Lightning port on i

Nokia was still making well-designed phones with full keyboards up until fairly recently, with the last holdouts in their Asha line. The X2 was very low-end but a good design (rugged as heck but tragically low onboard memory, slow processor, low-resolution camera, & no WIFI/3G), despite lackluster stats. Usability, ruggedness, & things other than "can it play [latest ad-revenue/money-harvesting game]?" or "does it [make money for] google?" is what's key.

As nice as keyboard slider phones can be, I personally think the best design is the Blackberry-style full-QWERTY bar phone with a d-pad (& a screen which can have the touch-functionality switched on & off (capacitive touchscreens can be *too* sensitive)). NEC *tried* to make an Android phone meeting some of these specs, but I understand it fell far short of expectations. I had high hopes.

The new Blackberries, & the NEC Terrain, both have full QWERTY, but lacked any other meaningful inputs than the touchscreen, like the ever-useful d-pad, which is also lacking in the HTC ChaCha/Status. Nokia made the last good phone design with their E6 (or N950/E7), but that was underpowered & had numerous flaws. So I've (personally) settled on what I consider to be the least worst phone around still, a Nokia E73. I still see people with them out & about in the world, & it works quite well for me, as my primary mobile. I can do most anything on it that I need to: I can use various social media/internet functionalities (whatsapp (which is amazing how a major company designs their software to be accessible on most device platforms, not just iDevices & Android!), facebook, synctxt, okc, goodsearch - an enlightened alternative to google, twitter, etc.) & have access to an excellent email client, Citrix support, FM radio built-in (lucky me, I live near Good radio stations), & an amazing GPS. The camera's decent, too. Sure, it's carrier-locked (T-Mobile) but it has better stats than the E72, has built-in WIFI calling & has better data/radio frequencies. It has an older processor & low ram, but I have a 64gb microSD card & if I offload messages semi-regularly it's great for intense everyday use. I have destroyed many mobiles with what I consider "normal" everyday use, so real durability is important, & lacking as a design consideration in most mobiles.

I also have an N900, & bought a spare for when I can buy the Neo900 upgrade. I think that is still too slow (1ghz processor, 1gb ram (but a good sight better than the old specs (which still work decently well)), & the 3-row QWERTY is a setback, but I can do a lot with it, & it's an amazing device in essentially every other regard (admittedly, it's not my primary mobile). The N900/Maemo was/is too touch-driven, interface-wise, &, at least in theory, a Moto Droid or some other 4+ row QWERTY slider phone (Android seems to be the only option, as I don't think anyone's making non-Bluetooth (seriously, why waste even more battery with that when you can make a battery hutch/slide-out keyboard that plugs into the microUSB port (or Lightning port on i

Nokia was still making well-designed phones with full keyboards up until fairly recently, with the last holdouts in their Asha line. The X2 was very low-end but a good design (rugged as heck but tragically low onboard memory, slow processor, low-resolution camera, & no WIFI/3G), despite lackluster stats. Usability, ruggedness, & things other than "can it play [latest ad-revenue/money-harvesting game]?" or "does it [make money for] google?" is what's key.

As nice as keyboard slider phones can be, I personally think the best design is the Blackberry-style full-QWERTY bar phone with a d-pad (& a screen which can have the touch-functionality switched on & off (capacitive touchscreens can be *too* sensitive)). NEC *tried* to make an Android phone meeting some of these specs, but I understand it fell far short of expectations. I had high hopes.

The new Blackberries, & the NEC Terrain, both have full QWERTY, but lacked any other meaningful inputs than the touchscreen, like the ever-useful d-pad, which is also lacking in the HTC ChaCha/Status. Nokia made the last good phone design with their E6 (or N950/E7), but that was underpowered & had numerous flaws. So I've (personally) settled on what I consider to be the least worst phone around still, a Nokia E73. I still see people with them out & about in the world, & it works quite well for me, as my primary mobile. I can do most anything on it that I need to: I can use various social media/internet functionalities (whatsapp (which is amazing how a major company designs their software to be accessible on most device platforms, not just iDevices & Android!), facebook, synctxt, okc, goodsearch - an enlightened alternative to google, twitter, etc.) & have access to an excellent email client, Citrix support, FM radio built-in (lucky me, I live near Good radio stations), & an amazing GPS. The camera's decent, too. Sure, it's carrier-locked (T-Mobile) but it has better stats than the E72, has built-in WIFI calling & has better data/radio frequencies. It has an older processor & low ram, but I have a 64gb microSD card & if I offload messages semi-regularly it's great for intense everyday use. I have destroyed many mobiles with what I consider "normal" everyday use, so real durability is important, & lacking as a design consideration in most mobiles.

I also have an N900, & bought a spare for when I can buy the Neo900 upgrade. I think that is still too slow (1ghz processor, 1gb ram (but a good sight better than the old specs (which still work decently well)), & the 3-row QWERTY is a setback, but I can do a lot with it, & it's an amazing device in essentially every other regard (admittedly, it's not my primary mobile). The N900/Maemo was/is too touch-driven, interface-wise, &, at least in theory, a Moto Droid or some other 4+ row QWERTY slider phone (Android seems to be the only option, as I don't think anyone's making non-Bluetooth (seriously, why waste even more battery with that when you can make a battery hutch/slide-out keyboard that plugs into the microUSB port (or Lightning port on i

Nokia was still making well-designed phones with full keyboards up until fairly recently, with the last holdouts in their Asha line. The X2 was very low-end but a good design (rugged as heck but tragically low onboard memory, slow processor, low-resolution camera, & no WIFI/3G), despite lackluster stats. Usability, ruggedness, & things other than "can it play [latest ad-revenue/money-harvesting game]?" or "does it [make money for] google?" is what's key.

As nice as keyboard slider phones can be, I personally think the best design is the Blackberry-style full-QWERTY bar phone with a d-pad (& a screen which can have the touch-functionality switched on & off (capacitive touchscreens can be *too* sensitive)). NEC *tried* to make an Android phone meeting some of these specs, but I understand it fell far short of expectations. I had high hopes.

The new Blackberries, & the NEC Terrain, both have full QWERTY, but lacked any other meaningful inputs than the touchscreen, like the ever-useful d-pad, which is also lacking in the HTC ChaCha/Status. Nokia made the last good phone design with their E6 (or N950/E7), but that was underpowered & had numerous flaws. So I've (personally) settled on what I consider to be the least worst phone around still, a Nokia E73. I still see people with them out & about in the world, & it works quite well for me, as my primary mobile. I can do most anything on it that I need to: I can use various social media/internet functionalities (whatsapp (which is amazing how a major company designs their software to be accessible on most device platforms, not just iDevices & Android!), facebook, synctxt, okc, goodsearch - an enlightened alternative to google, twitter, etc.) & have access to an excellent email client, Citrix support, FM radio built-in (lucky me, I live near Good radio stations), & an amazing GPS. The camera's decent, too. Sure, it's carrier-locked (T-Mobile) but it has better stats than the E72, has built-in WIFI calling & has better data/radio frequencies. It has an older processor & low ram, but I have a 64gb microSD card & if I offload messages semi-regularly it's great for intense everyday use. I have destroyed many mobiles with what I consider "normal" everyday use, so real durability is important, & lacking as a design consideration in most mobiles.

I also have an N900, & bought a spare for when I can buy the Neo900 upgrade. I think that is still too slow (1ghz processor, 1gb ram (but a good sight better than the old specs (which still work decently well)), & the 3-row QWERTY is a setback, but I can do a lot with it, & it's an amazing device in essentially every other regard (admittedly, it's not my primary mobile). The N900/Maemo was/is too touch-driven, interface-wise, &, at least in theory, a Moto Droid or some other 4+ row QWERTY slider phone (Android seems to be the only option, as I don't think anyone's making non-Bluetooth (seriously, why waste even more battery with that when you can make a battery hutch/slide-out keyboard that plugs into the microUSB port (or Lightning port on i

Nokia was still making well-designed phones with full keyboards up until fairly recently, with the last holdouts in their Asha line. The X2 was very low-end but a good design (rugged as heck but tragically low onboard memory, slow processor, low-resolution camera, & no WIFI/3G), despite lackluster stats. Usability, ruggedness, & things other than "can it play [latest ad-revenue/money-harvesting game]?" or "does it [make money for] google?" is what's key.

As nice as keyboard slider phones can be, I personally think the best design is the Blackberry-style full-QWERTY bar phone with a d-pad (& a screen which can have the touch-functionality switched on & off (capacitive touchscreens can be *too* sensitive)). NEC *tried* to make an Android phone meeting some of these specs, but I understand it fell far short of expectations. I had high hopes.

The new Blackberries, & the NEC Terrain, both have full QWERTY, but lacked any other meaningful inputs than the touchscreen, like the ever-useful d-pad, which is also lacking in the HTC ChaCha/Status. Nokia made the last good phone design with their E6 (or N950/E7), but that was underpowered & had numerous flaws. So I've (personally) settled on what I consider to be the least worst phone around still, a Nokia E73. I still see people with them out & about in the world, & it works quite well for me, as my primary mobile. I can do most anything on it that I need to: I can use various social media/internet functionalities (whatsapp (which is amazing how a major company designs their software to be accessible on most device platforms, not just iDevices & Android!), facebook, synctxt, okc, goodsearch - an enlightened alternative to google, twitter, etc.) & have access to an excellent email client, Citrix support, FM radio built-in (lucky me, I live near Good radio stations), & an amazing GPS. The camera's decent, too. Sure, it's carrier-locked (T-Mobile) but it has better stats than the E72, has built-in WIFI calling & has better data/radio frequencies. It has an older processor & low ram, but I have a 64gb microSD card & if I offload messages semi-regularly it's great for intense everyday use. I have destroyed many mobiles with what I consider "normal" everyday use, so real durability is important, & lacking as a design consideration in most mobiles.

I also have an N900, & bought a spare for when I can buy the Neo900 upgrade. I think that is still too slow (1ghz processor, 1gb ram (but a good sight better than the old specs (which still work decently well)), & the 3-row QWERTY is a setback, but I can do a lot with it, & it's an amazing device in essentially every other regard (admittedly, it's not my primary mobile). The N900/Maemo was/is too touch-driven, interface-wise, &, at least in theory, a Moto Droid or some other 4+ row QWERTY slider phone (Android seems to be the only option, as I don't think anyone's making non-Bluetooth (seriously, why waste even more battery with that when you can make a battery hutch/slide-out keyboard that plugs into the microUSB port (or Lightning port on i

Nokia was still making well-designed phones with full keyboards up until fairly recently, with the last holdouts in their Asha line. The X2 was very low-end but a good design (rugged as heck but tragically low onboard memory, slow processor, low-resolution camera, & no WIFI/3G), despite lackluster stats. Usability, ruggedness, & things other than "can it play [latest ad-revenue/money-harvesting game]?" or "does it [make money for] google?" is what's key.

As nice as keyboard slider phones can be, I personally think the best design is the Blackberry-style full-QWERTY bar phone with a d-pad (& a screen which can have the touch-functionality switched on & off (capacitive touchscreens can be *too* sensitive)). NEC *tried* to make an Android phone meeting some of these specs, but I understand it fell far short of expectations. I had high hopes.

The new Blackberries, & the NEC Terrain, both have full QWERTY, but lacked any other meaningful inputs than the touchscreen, like the ever-useful d-pad, which is also lacking in the HTC ChaCha/Status. Nokia made the last good phone design with their E6 (or N950/E7), but that was underpowered & had numerous flaws. So I've (personally) settled on what I consider to be the least worst phone around still, a Nokia E73. I still see people with them out & about in the world, & it works quite well for me, as my primary mobile. I can do most anything on it that I need to: I can use various social media/internet functionalities (whatsapp (which is amazing how a major company designs their software to be accessible on most device platforms, not just iDevices & Android!), facebook, synctxt, okc, goodsearch - an enlightened alternative to google, twitter, etc.) & have access to an excellent email client, Citrix support, FM radio built-in (lucky me, I live near Good radio stations), & an amazing GPS. The camera's decent, too. Sure, it's carrier-locked (T-Mobile) but it has better stats than the E72, has built-in WIFI calling & has better data/radio frequencies. It has an older processor & low ram, but I have a 64gb microSD card & if I offload messages semi-regularly it's great for intense everyday use. I have destroyed many mobiles with what I consider "normal" everyday use, so real durability is important, & lacking as a design consideration in most mobiles.

I also have an N900, & bought a spare for when I can buy the Neo900 upgrade. I think that is still too slow (1ghz processor, 1gb ram (but a good sight better than the old specs (which still work decently well)), & the 3-row QWERTY is a setback, but I can do a lot with it, & it's an amazing device in essentially every other regard (admittedly, it's not my primary mobile). The N900/Maemo was/is too touch-driven, interface-wise, &, at least in theory, a Moto Droid or some other 4+ row QWERTY slider phone (Android seems to be the only option, as I don't think anyone's making non-Bluetooth (seriously, why waste even more battery with that when you can make a battery hutch/slide-out keyboard that plugs into the microUSB port (or Lightning port on i

Nokia was still making well-designed phones with full keyboards up until fairly recently, with the last holdouts in their Asha line. The X2 was very low-end but a good design (rugged as heck but tragically low onboard memory, slow processor, low-resolution camera, & no WIFI/3G), despite lackluster stats. Usability, ruggedness, & things other than "can it play [latest ad-revenue/money-harvesting game]?" or "does it [make money for] google?" is what's key.

As nice as keyboard slider phones can be, I personally think the best design is the Blackberry-style full-QWERTY bar phone with a d-pad (& a screen which can have the touch-functionality switched on & off (capacitive touchscreens can be *too* sensitive)). NEC *tried* to make an Android phone meeting some of these specs, but I understand it fell far short of expectations. I had high hopes.

The new Blackberries, & the NEC Terrain, both have full QWERTY, but lacked any other meaningful inputs than the touchscreen, like the ever-useful d-pad, which is also lacking in the HTC ChaCha/Status. Nokia made the last good phone design with their E6 (or N950/E7), but that was underpowered & had numerous flaws. So I've (personally) settled on what I consider to be the least worst phone around still, a Nokia E73. I still see people with them out & about in the world, & it works quite well for me, as my primary mobile. I can do most anything on it that I need to: I can use various social media/internet functionalities (whatsapp (which is amazing how a major company designs their software to be accessible on most device platforms, not just iDevices & Android!), facebook, synctxt, okc, goodsearch - an enlightened alternative to google, twitter, etc.) & have access to an excellent email client, Citrix support, FM radio built-in (lucky me, I live near Good radio stations), & an amazing GPS. The camera's decent, too. Sure, it's carrier-locked (T-Mobile) but it has better stats than the E72, has built-in WIFI calling & has better data/radio frequencies. It has an older processor & low ram, but I have a 64gb microSD card & if I offload messages semi-regularly it's great for intense everyday use. I have destroyed many mobiles with what I consider "normal" everyday use, so real durability is important, & lacking as a design consideration in most mobiles.

I also have an N900, & bought a spare for when I can buy the Neo900 upgrade. I think that is still too slow (1ghz processor, 1gb ram (but a good sight better than the old specs (which still work decently well)), & the 3-row QWERTY is a setback, but I can do a lot with it, & it's an amazing device in essentially every other regard (admittedly, it's not my primary mobile). The N900/Maemo was/is too touch-driven, interface-wise, &, at least in theory, a Moto Droid or some other 4+ row QWERTY slider phone (Android seems to be the only option, as I don't think anyone's making non-Bluetooth (seriously, why waste even more battery with that when you can make a battery hutch/slide-out keyboard that plugs into the microUSB port (or Lightning port on i

Nokia was still making well-designed phones with full keyboards up until fairly recently, with the last holdouts in their Asha line. The X2 was very low-end but a good design (rugged as heck but tragically low onboard memory, slow processor, low-resolution camera, & no WIFI/3G), despite lackluster stats. Usability, ruggedness, & things other than "can it play [latest ad-revenue/money-harvesting game]?" or "does it [make money for] google?" is what's key.

As nice as keyboard slider phones can be, I personally think the best design is the Blackberry-style full-QWERTY bar phone with a d-pad (& a screen which can have the touch-functionality switched on & off (capacitive touchscreens can be *too* sensitive)). NEC *tried* to make an Android phone meeting some of these specs, but I understand it fell far short of expectations. I had high hopes.

The new Blackberries, & the NEC Terrain, both have full QWERTY, but lacked any other meaningful inputs than the touchscreen, like the ever-useful d-pad, which is also lacking in the HTC ChaCha/Status. Nokia made the last good phone design with their E6 (or N950/E7), but that was underpowered & had numerous flaws. So I've (personally) settled on what I consider to be the least worst phone around still, a Nokia E73. I still see people with them out & about in the world, & it works quite well for me, as my primary mobile. I can do most anything on it that I need to: I can use various social media/internet functionalities (whatsapp (which is amazing how a major company designs their software to be accessible on most device platforms, not just iDevices & Android!), facebook, synctxt, okc, goodsearch - an enlightened alternative to google, twitter, etc.) & have access to an excellent email client, Citrix support, FM radio built-in (lucky me, I live near Good radio stations), & an amazing GPS. The camera's decent, too. Sure, it's carrier-locked (T-Mobile) but it has better stats than the E72, has built-in WIFI calling & has better data/radio frequencies. It has an older processor & low ram, but I have a 64gb microSD card & if I offload messages semi-regularly it's great for intense everyday use. I have destroyed many mobiles with what I consider "normal" everyday use, so real durability is important, & lacking as a design consideration in most mobiles.

I also have an N900, & bought a spare for when I can buy the Neo900 upgrade. I think that is still too slow (1ghz processor, 1gb ram (but a good sight better than the old specs (which still work decently well)), & the 3-row QWERTY is a setback, but I can do a lot with it, & it's an amazing device in essentially every other regard (admittedly, it's not my primary mobile). The N900/Maemo was/is too touch-driven, interface-wise, &, at least in theory, a Moto Droid or some other 4+ row QWERTY slider phone (Android seems to be the only option, as I don't think anyone's making non-Bluetooth (seriously, why waste even more battery with that when you can make a battery hutch/slide-out keyboard that plugs into the microUSB port (or Lightning port on i

Nokia was still making well-designed phones with full keyboards up until fairly recently, with the last holdouts in their Asha line. The X2 was very low-end but a good design (rugged as heck but tragically low onboard memory, slow processor, low-resolution camera, & no WIFI/3G), despite lackluster stats. Usability, ruggedness, & things other than "can it play [latest ad-revenue/money-harvesting game]?" or "does it [make money for] google?" is what's key.

As nice as keyboard slider phones can be, I personally think the best design is the Blackberry-style full-QWERTY bar phone with a d-pad (& a screen which can have the touch-functionality switched on & off (capacitive touchscreens can be *too* sensitive)). NEC *tried* to make an Android phone meeting some of these specs, but I understand it fell far short of expectations. I had high hopes.

The new Blackberries, & the NEC Terrain, both have full QWERTY, but lacked any other meaningful inputs than the touchscreen, like the ever-useful d-pad, which is also lacking in the HTC ChaCha/Status. Nokia made the last good phone design with their E6 (or N950/E7), but that was underpowered & had numerous flaws. So I've (personally) settled on what I consider to be the least worst phone around still, a Nokia E73. I still see people with them out & about in the world, & it works quite well for me, as my primary mobile. I can do most anything on it that I need to: I can use various social media/internet functionalities (whatsapp (which is amazing how a major company designs their software to be accessible on most device platforms, not just iDevices & Android!), facebook, synctxt, okc, goodsearch - an enlightened alternative to google, twitter, etc.) & have access to an excellent email client, Citrix support, FM radio built-in (lucky me, I live near Good radio stations), & an amazing GPS. The camera's decent, too. Sure, it's carrier-locked (T-Mobile) but it has better stats than the E72, has built-in WIFI calling & has better data/radio frequencies. It has an older processor & low ram, but I have a 64gb microSD card & if I offload messages semi-regularly it's great for intense everyday use. I have destroyed many mobiles with what I consider "normal" everyday use, so real durability is important, & lacking as a design consideration in most mobiles.

I also have an N900, & bought a spare for when I can buy the Neo900 upgrade. I think that is still too slow (1ghz processor, 1gb ram (but a good sight better than the old specs (which still work decently well)), & the 3-row QWERTY is a setback, but I can do a lot with it, & it's an amazing device in essentially every other regard (admittedly, it's not my primary mobile). The N900/Maemo was/is too touch-driven, interface-wise, &, at least in theory, a Moto Droid or some other 4+ row QWERTY slider phone (Android seems to be the only option, as I don't think anyone's making non-Bluetooth (seriously, why waste even more battery with that when you can make a battery hutch/slide-out keyboard that plugs into the microUSB port (or Lightning port on i

According to many websites such as this and this the LG Optimus F3Q has a sliding qwerty keyboard, a 4" 800x480 display, and Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean.

Interesting. It's slightly better hardware than Jolla for €100 less. But at least for now without Sailfish OS, of course.

Now the iPhone (not the iPad) was an innovative idea. Phones before the iPhone had external keyboards, at the expense of of screen size, or thickness. The idea of very few real buttons at the time was very foreign to us.

The 7710 says you're wrong. (As if being 2.5 years earlier wasn't enough, it had more pixels, too. And it's not as though that's some fluke that was promptly abandoned, as its descendants, while not as minimal as the iPhone, were definitely of a piece with the later iPhone/Android/WebOS/etc. "big screen, few buttons" concept. By the time the iPhone came out, the N800 was current, which while not a "phone" as it no longer contained a GSM radios (being made for tethering to a phone), was up to 800x480, and the non-screen elements on the front were down to 1 D-pad, a 3-button panel (back, home, and menu, equivalent to the capacitive buttons on most Android phones) and front-firing stereo speakers. The N810, in the works at the same time as the iPhone, and released some months after, reduced the front-face elements to the screen and a single, two-button rocker along one edge, as they moved the speakers to the sides, and the d-pad and other button to the new slide-out QWERTY.

And using gestures seemed almost impossible, as many early gesture systems had a lot of complicated gestures to get tasks done.

That's more true. The capacitive touch sensor was the big thing there, mainly because it permitted multitouch gestures -- previous touchscreen phones generally used single-touch resistive touch sensors which had a much more limited repertoire of simple gestures. Previous systems with similar capabilities to the capacitive touch sensor (mostly camera-based, and too bulky for use outside research) did have similarly useful and simple gesture sets, so IMO it was mainly an issue of hardware finally catching up to make decades-old innovation practical.

You do understand that the design is based on the original N900 design?

I don't think there even is an international version with an SD slot, at least not according to GSMarena. http://www.gsmarena.com/lg_g2-5543.php
It does support USB OTG, but I agree, SD slot or bust.