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I think this may be the last iteration of the design pioneered by the iPhone 5S. We may see in 2019 what amounts to an "iPhone X writ small" that has a 4.7" edge-to-edge screen but is physically only a little bigger than the iPhone SE.

So almost like what Sony has been doing for years.

Given the size of the bezel on the Sony, it would probably be possible to make it the same height as the current SE with a 4.7" screen, but it would probably gain a little in the width.

If the iPhone Were Designed by a Democracy

Your information is several years out of date. On "newer" versions of Android (basically any phone made in the past 3-4 years)

Let's correct a common misconception to help open a few eyes; there's a few grim reasons for the "out of date" statement... it's not that out of date. Here's the gist of what turned out to be a long post:
"Android has had granular permissions for a while" only affects people on Android 6 (Nov 2015) and newer. It's just December 2017. Most people repeating the factoid also don't tend to consider that there's only a near-coinflip chance (46 versus 54 per hundred) that their Android-wielding listener lacks that assumed protection due to grim realities in Android version penetration issues.

To see why Android usage is an important part of smartphone versions, here are some numbers. Smartphones make up about 35+ % of site visits with some projections from 2016 estimating 2017 ownership at close to 5 billion around the globe. Though /.ers have known that Apple had a commendable granular permissions setup for a long while, about 85% of those worldwide smartphones are on Android.

I can't find numbers on whether Android phones for most non-tech folks are OEM-upgraded flagships phones. Apparently Apple and Samsung (and HTC) dominate the vast majority of phone purchases, so perhaps things aren't too bad given the first 2 are known for expensive flagships. Flagships are important because other phones in Android land usually get stuck with no updates, and even dare ship with the Android version from a year or two PRIOR to their release date.

Version SIX is where all the touted granular permissions came out for Android.. That it was a new feature back in 2015 is discussed on paragraph 3 of this read for a beta of what was released some months later in 2015. This other read is more useful but puts up an anti-popup warning)

I bought an LG G3 phone in May 2015, (it had been LG's newest flagship 12 months earlier and had already been phased out by the G4 when I bought it). It runs a version 4.4 build that I did not bother upgrading to v5. Apparently version 6 did get released over the air for my carrier, but today is first I've heard of it. That release was in May 2016. Marshmallow, Android version 6 came out in November 2015.

We're STILL in 2017. This permissions empowerment is slightly over 2 years "new", not 4. The number TWO is also associated with the years a US contract lasts out there*. There are probably a thousands of US consumers out there that are still tied to that contract with a phone built with the old all-or-nothing permissions model, or just got a new phone with that model, living under 2 years of app tyranny.

Versions 6 and 7 of Android have this model, but only make up 46 percent of Android phones as of September, but this leaves a whopping 54% of Android users in the all-or-nothing world. Here's a chart from Sept 2017

It feels good denying random crap to apps. Maps wants "Contacts" "Location" "Phone" and "Storage". It freezes when I deny it location access, but the funny thing is, it then lies about this:
"This app won't work properly unless you allow Google play services' request to access" Calendar, Camera, Contacts, Microphone, Body Sensors, SMS, Storage. Notice that even with the new model, that shows a clear, dubious discrepancy be

Based on supplier-estimates, so perhaps not the most precise way to measure potential sales:

https://www.phonearena.com/news/Going-strong-the-Apple-Watch-is-en-route-to-set-another-sales-record-in-2018_id100638

You forgot the speaker problems
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/several-iphone-x-owners-experiencing-crackling-or-buzzing-sounds-from-earpiece-speaker.2087816/
and faceid fails
https://www.phonearena.com/news/Security-firm-beats-Face-ID-with-a-mask_id99744

apple taking others tech and making it better; isnt that the standard apple worshippers position

An awful time meeting demand when talking about single-digit millions of devices when real manufacturers are involved usually either means you made something too complex to actually manufacture (yield issues), supply chain constraints, or availability is being artificially kept low (they don't want to manufacture more than they are).

Also, since when is just over 1 million phones reason to celebrate? HTC is getting death knell articles written about them with 14 million phones shipped in 2016.

A million phones isn't nothing - it's exactly a million more than I've shipped. But let's not act like they are burning up the market here. The iPhone X isn't even available yet, and they still have a 6+ week backlog of orders even with it's ridiculous price meant to limit demand.

Nope it looks like is is a piece of shit apple phone; typical. The security of apple products is a lie.
https://www.phonearena.com/news/No-updates-hackers-may-have-compromised-White-House-staff-chiefs-iPhone-camera-and-mic_id98735

It takes Courage (tm) and money -- lots of money -- for Apple to steal competitor-developed innovations like edge-to-edge screens (Samsung 2014), splash resistance (Sony 2006), HDR displays in a mobile form factor (Sony 2017), and OLED screens in phones (Nokia 2008)... not to mention wireless Qi charging (Nokia 2012)

It's only fair for Apple to charge more than Android devices to deliver the kind of inventions that they umm, borrow.

Either Entrope's tongue is firmly in cheek or...

Some people go on foreign vacation for that long and don't use their phone.

huh? I don't think I've ever seen anyone go on vacation without using their phone. WiFi, and local SIM cards are so incredibly prevalent that unless you're climbing Mt Everest you're probably likely to not only take your phone on vacation but likely use it too.

errr. Nope I was wrong. Looks like using your phone on Mt Everest isn't a problem either

It costs me $3 / minute to talk on my cell when I'm out of country. The question is if Google identifies a phone based on SIM information.

Some people go on foreign vacation for that long and don't use their phone.

huh? I don't think I've ever seen anyone go on vacation without using their phone. WiFi, and local SIM cards are so incredibly prevalent that unless you're climbing Mt Everest you're probably likely to not only take your phone on vacation but likely use it too.

errr. Nope I was wrong. Looks like using your phone on Mt Everest isn't a problem either

All of these patents serve to keep US cell prices very high compared to rest of the world.

Actually, the same phone is substantially cheaper in the US than in other markets.

Surprise! Lower-quality, shitty phones are being manufactured in China, exclusively for the Chinese market, that likely wouldn't be popular or even pass inspection in first-world countries. The same can be said about lower-quality shitty milk products or lower-quality shitty toys. Even the ones that do come over to the US, Blu or whatever, are usable but clearly inferior to an iPhone. And if you use your phone a lot, and own it for years, and you're not poor, why cheap out on a lower-quality phone? A phone might dollar cost average out to a dollar a day, it's a bargain!

Cell phone development and innovation is primarily a US thing. Patent legislation may be hurting this innovation, but you drastically over-state your case, with disingenuous statements.

"Quite close" seems like an understatement when I remember this http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Motorola-ATRIX-4G-Laptop-Dock-Review_id2667 from 20011/12.

Maybe things have changed but Sprint at least used to make it impossible to bring non-sprint phones to their network.

If that's still the case, change your "Psst" to "Pffft" and keep walking.

This could be because Spring uses LTE bands that basically nobody else uses. It then depends on your phone model supporting those bands. It may have nothing to do with Sprint being evil, and more to do with the fact that their frequency allocation is different from everyone else.

The Samsung Note7 wasn't released until about 2 months AFTER this crash... However, we do know that iPhones have been burning since 2015, well before this crash.

Is Samsung being unfairly further beat up here because of the laser of media attention on it now?

Yes.

What do the objective facts say.

The public i don't think is privy to much in the way of real stats.
But anecdotally...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

http://www.phonearena.com/news...

http://www.windowscentral.com/...

http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobile...

From which we can objectively say that other phones catch fire too.

And I wouldn't worry about the J5 too much... it looks like a cut down version of the S5. Hardly cutting edge or pushing any boundaries. It came out in June 2015. So 18 months... one handset. People are definitely just attaching it to the samsung hype.

The one with the curved edge to edge display could be called the iPhone 8 Edge They could increase the screen to phone size ratio by making the home button shorter

I've even got a mock-up for them: here

How about the iPhone S 8 Edge v2 Turbo Pure Edition with Siri2? That has a nice ring to it.
And I don't know how crabapple haven't increased the screen to body ratio on devices that are so universally lauded for their designs. Their phones are still way bigger than they need to be, and ports aren't the problem. You only need to go so thin, but wasted space around the screen should be minimized.

The one with the curved edge to edge display could be called the iPhone 8 Edge
They could increase the screen to phone size ratio by making the home button shorter

I've even got a mock-up for them: here

Dramatically understating the scope of the problem does not make for "safety":

http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/te...
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com...
http://www.nydailynews.com/new...
http://www.phonearena.com/news...
http://www.bbc.com/news/techno...
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/new...

And that's just the citations I could find from a 30-second Google search that didn't even glance beyond the second page of search results. Many (perhaps even most) of those phones were not being charged at the time of the incident.

Oculus Rift is 461 PPI. Pixel phone is 441 PPI.

Note that 4K is a pixel count, not a resolution. A 4K 24" monitor has a different resolution than a 4K 50" monitor.

The iPhone 7 is 7.1mm thick

The LG G5 is 7.3mm thick (according to http://www.phonearena.com/). And it has a removeable battery.

The G5 is only 0.2mm thicker than an iPhone 7, about the thickness of 2 pages of copier paper...

So it's possible to make a phone with a removeable battery while keeping it thin.

Apple doesn't want a user replaceable battery, because Profits!

While I still agree that removing the jack is fucking retarded, it does make for an interesting opportunity for companies that have a bit of electronics design savvy to bring a fix to market: http://www.phonearena.com/news...

Most people are going to buy a case for their phone anyway. This one fixes a design flaw as well.

wah wah I must have my 8" screen!

Somebody makes a phone with an 8" screen? Can you cite the make/model? According to this, the largest smartphone on the planet has a 7" screen, but then the list is over a year old.

Microsoft has basically killed Windows Phone at this point with such extreme prejudice, I almost find it hard to believe they did so unintentionally. Not only is the staff skeletal at best now, with 7,800 fired last year even before the release of Windows Phone 10, another 1,850 this May and another 2,850 at the end of last month, they have discontinued the few pre-installed services that were interesting and split the already very weak ecosystem into two.

My last phone was the Lumia 1020, the one before that was the Galaxy S i9000. The two experiences could not have been more different. When I got my i9000, there were few good applications, but progressively their number increased and it became a very nice system to use indeed. The 1020, on the other hand, came with some nifty things out-of-the-box—I really enjoyed Photobeamer and the free 30GB OneDrive option—that Microsoft killed, while third-party support continued to dwindle over time. One got better, the other got worse.

They have a few nice ideas in Windows Phone 10, but none of them makeup for the certain doom the OS has been heading towards the past couple of years. It's a mediocre experience at best and doesn't offer anything worthwhile that iOS and Android cannot do better.

Microsoft has basically killed Windows Phone at this point with such extreme prejudice, I almost find it hard to believe they did so unintentionally. Not only is the staff skeletal at best now, with 7,800 fired last year even before the release of Windows Phone 10, another 1,850 this May and another 2,850 at the end of last month, they have discontinued the few pre-installed services that were interesting and split the already very weak ecosystem into two.

My last phone was the Lumia 1020, the one before that was the Galaxy S i9000. The two experiences could not have been more different. When I got my i9000, there were few good applications, but progressively their number increased and it became a very nice system to use indeed. The 1020, on the other hand, came with some nifty things out-of-the-box—I really enjoyed Photobeamer and the free 30GB OneDrive option—that Microsoft killed, while third-party support continued to dwindle over time. One got better, the other got worse.

They have a few nice ideas in Windows Phone 10, but none of them makeup for the certain doom the OS has been heading towards the past couple of years. It's a mediocre experience at best and doesn't offer anything worthwhile that iOS and Android cannot do better.

http://www.phonearena.com/revi...

FYI, it did not have the look and feel of the LG Prada, and the Prada was revealed just a couple of months before the iPhone.

Actually, the official reveal was a few days after the iPhone - but who's counting. http://www.phonearena.com/news/LG-Prada-phone-officially-announced_id1739

Windows is mainly still alive because of the network effect, that's why they can release every crap without fearing to lose market share.

They are losing market share.

That graph is of new shipments, while network effect comes from installed base.

It's not only a matter of first derivative. There's a parallel graph of retired devices, which is also fatter toward iOS and Android. Churn of disposable computers doesn't increase their OS market share.

Windows is mainly still alive because of the network effect, that's why they can release every crap without fearing to lose market share.

They are losing market share.

What? No. I can't speak to OnePlus, but basically everyone that isn't Apple or Samsung is losing their shirts.

http://www.phonearena.com/news...

Other companies performed so badly that Apple + Samsung account for 105% of the profits in mobile devices.

(Huawei has a business model that involves selling at cost and monetizing on services, so realistically, they shouldn't be considered in this equation.)

everyone's been sucked into the whirlpool of razor-thin profit margins, and nobody can afford the luxury of dedicating too many resources to after-sales care.

Hmmm. I know of at least ONE Cellphone OEM that hasn't fallen for the deadly "Race To The Bottom"...

Funny. That also happens to be the same OEM who has a (deserved) reputation for not only supporting the vast majority of their mobile devices for longer than pretty much everyone else, but also rolling-out most Security Updates in a very timely manner.

I wonder if they're on to something...?

I am still waiting on the announcement (one way or the other) that Android N will run on the N5. Comparing the specs, I don't think there's all that much separating it from the N5X. Same RAM. The N5X has 6 CPU cores to 4 for the N5, but a lower clock cycle.

gummy bears con costs you big

http://www.phonearena.com/news...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

And comparing an iPhone with an Android phone on specs is pointless. We all know that you can get more for cheaper with Android, but you won't get an iPhone.

Well I'd say Apple gave itself a pretty damn huge bump here. It's hard to find benchmarks with the 5s, 6s and Sony Xperia Z5 compact (the only other mini-flagship, really) on one page but here and here and here combined gives some:

Basemark OS II:
iPhone 5s: 1180
Z5 compact: 1350
iPhone 6s: 2619

T-rex HD (offscreen):
iPhone 5s: 28.7
Z5 compact: ~55 (approximated from graph)
iPhone 6s: 80.3

Manhattan (offscreen):
iPhone 5s: 13.1
Z5 compact: ~25 (approximated from graph)
iPhone 6s: 40.1

Considering the 5se will have the same CPU, same GPU and hopefully same RAM as the 6s the 5se should be pretty close and that seems like an awful lot of power in a really small phone. Maybe even overkill to drive a 1136x640 display, but it should give applications a lot of leg room to work with and hopefully keep it performing well even on iOS 10-11-12 and unlike my low-end Android phone it'll actually get updates. Now there's rumors of a Samsung Galaxy S7 mini, but right now I'd say the iPhone 5SE looks to become the undisputed champion - if only in a particular niche. And for giving up the screen real estate a 5se is $150 cheaper than a 6s for the same storage, it's not cheap but it fits the lineup. Pretty sure this is my next phone...

http://www.phonearena.com/news...

The one where last year they had 8 cores and 3 GB RAM, obviously.

Standard???

The one where last year they had 8 cores and 3 GB RAM, obviously.

Most security updates aren't hardware specific.

But the system images are. That's kind of the point.

and then Google only promises updates for 18 months

Actually, that's:
- Three years from when the device first became available on the Google Store
- Or, 18 months after the device stopped being sold on the Google Store
For how long does Apple promise to support their handsets?

Apple is currently supporting every phone that has been released since 9/2011

While it is true that the oldest phone Google is directly releasing updates for (Nexus 4) was released on November 13, 2012, the HTC HD2, a Windows phone released in November 2009, has community-released ROMs of Lollipop. Does the iPhone have that? No, the iPhone can't have that. If you want to limit it to official vendor support of devices that originally shipped with Android, we're looking at support dating back to 2010.

http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/01/google-wont-fix-bug-hitting-60-percent-of-android-phones/

You do realize that the security hole in question is a bug in WebKit, which is more Apple's than Google's; Blink, which replaced WebKit in Android in 2013, is a fork of WebKit, and the issue has been patched there already. Google hasn't actively developed Apple's WebKit since it forked off Blink. Also, Google didn't say they wouldn't issue a patch, only that they wouldn't write one:

If the affected version [of WebView] is before 4.4, we generally do not develop the patches ourselves but do notify partners of the issue[...] If patches are provided with the report or put into AOSP we are happy to provide them to partners as well.

WebView 4.4 is where they replaced WebKit with Blink. They are no longer developing WebKit, so it is a reasonable position.

No less reasonable than Apple, at least. I do miss Snow Leopard.

Also, Google not writing their own patch for a 3rd-party library (WebKit) does not negate the 24hr turnaround I've seen on many issues since I've had a Nexus device; something, again, Apple and Microsoft literally never do.

All of that said, I do think Google screwed the pooch by allowing manufacturers to bake their own ROMs; that's why I own a Nexus in the first place. Android's ability to be customized to allow for quick access to apps and information (literally tap from the lock screen, then unlock) far surpasses that of iOS, which is why I prefer Android on the device I carry with me to pull out of my pocket when I want/need to access information quickly; it does lose that advantage on a tablet, which is typically only picked up to perform tasks (rather than the fetch information), which is why I also have an iPad.

Hmm, yeah, well the battery thing is fine on phones that allow it. My wife dropped her Nexus 6 in the toilet the other day. No removable battery. Power it off, shake the water out of the ports (USB and headphone) - shake very well for a long period, then place in a ziplock with either a desiccant or rice if you don't have a desiccant (we didn't). It came out fine two days later. Not screwed at all. Works fine.

Note that the Nexus 6 doesn't have a formal IP water resistance rating, but it is sold as being water resistant and in practice N6s do seem to survive brief dunkings or splashing with no harm, even without using a dessicant. http://www.phonearena.com/news...

Informal polling would tend to disagree with you.

http://www.phonearena.com/news...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
http://www.androidcentral.com/...
http://www.androidcentral.com/...
http://forums.androidcentral.c...
http://www.neowin.net/forum/to...
http://www.phonearena.com/news...

Informal polling would tend to disagree with you.

http://www.phonearena.com/news...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
http://www.androidcentral.com/...
http://www.androidcentral.com/...
http://forums.androidcentral.c...
http://www.neowin.net/forum/to...
http://www.phonearena.com/news...

My phone does everything I want it to, it's five years old and is probably due a replacement battery since standby time is down to just shy of 100 hours.

(in case you don't want to click: it's an F930 that cost me £32.99 new on Three PAYG, it's still on Three and since they stopped doing all-you-can-eat data packages on PAYG last month, will probably get topped up by £10 a year now. The phone has an unspecified processor, quad band/HSPA (which means 3G@7Mbps yeah baby! Rare in 2010 for ANY phone), QVGA screen@167ppi (320x240, 2.4"), Bluetooth, MicroSDHC, standard headphone socket(!), standard MicroUSB charging/data/tether port (it will also tether over Bluetooth but 2MBit with lots of packet retransmission makes lag a pig to deal with) and that factory 1000mA battery which originally lasted a week and a half on standby).

ZTE Maven

Pros
Quad core processor
Fast mobile data support (4G)

Cons
Low pixel density screen (218 ppi)
Too little RAM memory (1024 MB RAM)
Battery is not user replaceable
Low-resolution camera (5 megapixels)
The camera lacks autofocus

GSM phone, works only on AT&T and T-Mobile. Other countries are mostly GSM.

Battery is not user replaceable: Throw away the phone if the battery is defective or at end of life? I would not buy a phone that won't allow a new battery.

If it is possible to carry extra batteries, fully charged, there are circumstances where that is convenient. For example, when hitchhiking through Europe, and staying a week or two in a city, it is possible to get a local SIM so that people you meet have a local number they can call.

head and shoulders above other flagships: http://www.phonearena.com/news...

Verizon's Iphone 5 is a GSM device. Are you sure it isn't connected to the GSM network? If you installed a nano-SIM in it then it's likely you are.

My current laptop, a Dell Precision M3800 has it all: light weight, powerful, reasonable (if not fantastic) battery life, 4K screen, and native support for Linux, out of the box but it's hard to figure out what something the same size would be like at 1/4 the weight.

But I'm agreeing with other comments: I'd rather have this exact weight laptop with 3 days of battery life.

A few years back, I bought the phone with the very best battery life and I don't regret it one minute. Now on its third year, the phone still easily powers through a day with 50% or so battery life, and never leaves me high and dry when flying commercially which is when battery life is most important.

My next phone will be the phone with the best battery life Now that I finally have a powerful laptop that isn't also dreadfully heavy, battery life will once again be #1 for my next purchase.

It looks too big and clunky to take significant market share

It's probably smaller than you think. It's shorter and narrower than all of the current "mini" and "compact" phones, and just slightly thicker than the tiniest qwerty smartphone I have ever seen. Here's a size comparison.

Well Asus is projecting 30 million sold this year.
So if you expect Apple & Samsung to each sell more than 300 million of the iPhone 6 & S6, then you might be right.

http://www.phonearena.com/news...

4K downsized to 1080P gives a great more detail, due to downsampling gives a higher detail, due to 1080P using 4 blocks with the same pixel, so 4k downsize, each 4 blocks are have a different pixel, its very noticeable. Chroma Sampling

H.264 supports 4:4:4 sampling (and so does even the old JPEG image format, for that matter), in other words, full chroma resolution. Obviously, this increases the bit rate required for the same quality, but not quite as much as encoding at 4K resolution and then throwing all the extra detail away.

I have a 27 inch 2560x1440 monitor, with youtube 4k and test 4k media, I can tell the difference with 1080P vs 4K. Its a very big difference.

4K downsized to 1080P gives a great more detail, due to downsampling gives a higher detail, due to 1080P using 4 blocks with the same pixel, so 4k downsize, each 4 blocks are have a different pixel, its very noticeable. Chroma Sampling

Plus 60fps over 30fps YT is very noticeable, so thats another technology I want to see take off.

Also have a HDTV that is a normal 1080P HD tv, works great, yet i can tell the difference due to the low encoding rate on movies and the much higher on sports. Sports look absolutely amazing, none, none of the HD Prime movie channels are selling true blue ray quality tv. Comcast is ripping people off.

So do I want 4k? Hell, I want as fine pixels per inch as you can get, with the bandwidth to push it. We are no where a 50 inch tv running a high PPI, going to be a few decades away,which is a shame.

Honestly, it's insane how ludicrously powerful phones are getting. I meant take this one article for example - 4K 120fps slow-motion video recording is coming to smartphones in 2016.

4K videoing at 120fps?! From a smartphone?

Isn't progress wonderful.