Someology

In the USA, you can’t even use a landline or a office voip phone. Must use an active cell phone number.

One of the first things I do on a new Samsung phone is disable Chrome and install Firefox. You’ve just saved me from ever buying a Redmi.

Here I am, 9 days past the listed date, and my factory unlocked S22 Ultra just got the October security patch. sigh Unlocked model owners always left until last.

Only the USA Snapdragons are locked down like this, I believe.

But the other federated instance is essentially mirroring it. Another instances users are not using Lemmy.world directly, they are viewing mirrored content, and then if they reply, they are doing it elsewhere, and it is getting passed on to L.W.

How was this handled for Usenet? I think it was just assumed that if you were propagating Usenet Content, you knew that implied diversity positive and negative.

This is a good point, as long as people make sure to buy versions with unlocked bootloaders.

If you like lots of customization options out of the box, then Samsung. If you like using a pen to write (or convert handwriting to text) or draw, then Samsung. If you want barebones Google and don’t want extra features or customizations, then Pixel. It depends what you like.

You should try both in person before deciding.

Folding Phones Vs. Flip Phones:

Folding screen phones like the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, Motorola Razr, etc. are not “flip phones” in the traditional sense. They are smartphones with a folding screen. If you actually want “simplicity and nostalgia”, then that is a traditional flip phone (which are not smartphones), which is a separate category of device from folding screen phones.

Folding screen phones take all the complexity of any smartphone and add the complexity and fragility of a folding screen mechanism. They are far more fragile than “regular” slab smartphones at this point in their development.

Flip Phones:

The Nokia 2760 is sorta one of these (still comes with a few things like Facebook/Whatsapp/Youtube installed). Samsung is not currently making one. There are a number of other super cheap flip phones running a stripped down version of Android. These are painful to use, as they don’t default to T9 typing, and navigating Android with a keypad and no touchscreen is kinda torture. You can get some decent 3g flip phones still, but very few 4g/5g options exist, and 3g flip phones (or 4G phones that don’t do VOLTE) are now useless on American carriers. The NUU 4L Flip Phone works on 4g and does VOLTE, but the crippled Android interface and default terrible auto capitalization typing mode make it somewhat painful to use.

Some actual still-working-on-VOLTE flip phones:

• Nuu 4L Flip
• Kyocera’s DuraXV Extreme
• Nokia 2760
• Cat S22 Flip (Likely only on T-Mobile. Some claim an APN change can make an unlocked one work on Verizon, but many others have failed to get anything other than text messages to work.)

I just get “Sorry, the page you requested can not be found:(”.

In many cases, because manufacturers refuse to allow unlocking of bootloaders. In other cases, because manufacturers refuse to share drivers for proprietary hardware.

Oh, yes, I’d love to try one on someone else’s dime. Meanwhile, I’ll just give the tech a few more years to become more robust.

Love the idea. The durability vs price ratio has not yet put this tech into an actually realistic space yet. Too much money for something too easy to break.

So, I use a file manager app called “Solid Explorer”. I can set up most popular cloud drive, my website’s FTP server, an SMB network share in my house, whatever, as a storage item, and after that, I can just copy to any one of those like I’m copying to another folder inside the app. Much prefer that to using the individual apps. You can WebDAV to Nextcloud that is self hosted, too.

If you have a web host, depending on your contract/plan, you can run nextcloud there on your webserver space, and access it from wherever. This avoids the dangers of possibly opening up your home network to outside world dangers. Just make sure your hosting plan includes enough space/bandwidth to suit your needs.

When I click “Subscribed” at the top, nothing happens.

Thanks for sharing this one. It sounds really useful!

Thanks

No, the need for security updates is real. The part where manufacturers stop providing them is the planned obsolescence part. Luckily, you should be able to install Lineage OS on a Pixel device and keep getting security updates for some time to come.

Install LineageOS on it, and keep using it (or have it as a spare backup phone).

Often, refurbished phones have had the battery replaced. Good idea to check the seller’s details if possible.

They could steal all of your logins. This includes things like bank accounts. Your phone could be used as part of a botnet to commit criminal acts. They could shorten your battery life and use up your data plan by mining crypto in the background. You know, just like any other compromised computer.