World to make 1.37 billion smartphones in 2021 says IDC – about one for every six humans 1.37 billion smartphones will ship in 2021, says analyst firm IDC, and 570 million of them will be 5G-ready. The company's latest Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker predicts growth of 7.4 per cent to reach that colossal number, but also notes "2021 shipments have managed to display minimal growth compared to 2019 (pre- …
I know that most of us have been in lockdown for getting on 18 months now but people are starting to venture out into the big bad world even though Covid is still rampant in most of blighty.
That's when 5G might just possibly be useful.
That said, I can't see myself getting a 5G phone for a couple of years.
I didn't have reception throughout almost my entire commute in London (not even 4G) and at home I barely get one bar.
To me 5G sounds like as if shoe companies were selling moon shoes as space travel "is just around the corner", but only experience with the moon you could get is through your uncle's moonshine.
Is anyone twisting your arm and making you upgrade? If your current phone works for you, by all means keep using it. If it needs to replaced, shouldn't you replace it with something that's relatively up to date so when you replace that one it won't be due to obsolescence?
> Is anyone twisting your arm and making you upgrade?
AT&T is sending me incessant texts saying 3G/4G will be EOLed by February and I need a new phone.
I don't know how true that is, and I also don't know if this is spam because I have no way of confirming the number is indeed AT&T. I have marked them as spam, though.
but am going to have to get a newer one when 3G is switched off in a couple of years time.
I suppose that it is about more than mobile 'phones, but I do wonder how it will fare in places like rural Wales where I was recently - when even a 2G/3G signal was hard to get.
Places with a 2G/3G signal will have their towers upgraded to LTE/5G (which can coexist and use the same bands) LTE/5G actually has a slightly longer range at the same frequency than GSM, so there might even be a slight upgrade in coverage in some cases.
Worst case, the places where a 2G/3G signal is hard to find are now places where a LTE/5G signal is hard to find. Same problem, but at least if you are driving in and out of coverage when you hit a spot with coverage you'll be able to move a lot of data in those few precious seconds!
I've been looking for a smartphone for a few months now and what's on the market is quite underwhelming.
The real choice is between Samsung and Sony if you don't want to support Winnie the Pooh and his comrades.
Samsung is great, but they put their own inferior CPU in the UK version and the design looks cheap, no headphone jack and no SD card slot.
Sony seems to have poor camera software (except manual mode, but who has time for that) and is quite expensive. They were including an expensive pair of headphones as a sweetener, but now that is no longer available and price has not changed.
Other problem is that you don't know if call recording works until you actually buy the phone, which is one of the most important features in the phone (record your call with elderly relatives, your doctor and any company you have to deal with in case they lie later on).
And finally, none of those phones seem to have an official way to install Linux on them or even stock Android (that you could compile and verify yourself).
By the looks of it, I am still going to rock my 2018 flagship for a foreseeable future.
Up voted for your Winnie the Pooh and his comrades reference. My wife and daughter are pleased with their Samsung phones, my Winnie the Pooh and his comrades, Motorola special is much older, but I see no reason to change as it still sort of works. Though for part of my morning dog walk it thought I was cycling...
Because an "official way to install Linux or stock Android on them that you compile yourself" is such a tiny niche market it isn't worth them caring about.
Also, it doesn't matter if you install an OS you have personally verified, because the cellular modem's baseband software is not accessible to you and if someone wants to spy on you that's how they'll get in. Only fix for that is to not to use a cell phone at all, because 100% of them have that issue, even feature phones. You are being paranoid about the wrong things.
is such a tiny niche market it isn't worth them caring about.
No, it's one of those things that companies have to be forced by law to care about. Being able to install your own operating system, should reduce e-waste for starters when manufacturer stops supporting the device. Market is also "niche" because it is currently very difficult to do for most people. When this gets officially supported, change of operating system shouldn't be much different than installing an app for non tech user, but should also allow "power users" or companies to develop their own flavours.
because the cellular modem's baseband software is not accessible
That's fine. If you know about it, you can go around it. If you assume that the modem is compromised, you just need to feed any data to it already encrypted, so if anyone is going to look into it, they'll just see a stream of random data.
Sure, some phones will go to the second-hand market, and the phones displaced by the "new used" will go to a tertiary market, and so on. But there will still be a bunch of phones that are absolutely obsolete, broken, or otherwise have no place to go but ... where? Landfill? Oceans? Technological improvements and new whiz-bangery are great, but it would be really helpful if the creators were to have practical and easily achievable end-of-life plans for when their latest shiny-shiny gets retired. Happy to be corrected if there are such plans in place, but in my corner of the world there are only a few "urban recycler" efforts (repairing and reselling what can be repaired, breaking the remaining units down to salvageable parts/ materials) that do the best they can with the funding they get until the funding runs out.
A lot of comments about old tech.
I maintain iPhones 3GS and a 4 as music players on dock speakers (plus their default apps are useful around the home), a 5S as a sat nav on my bike, a 7 as a backup and two 8’s for everyday use (personal and work). The 7 and one of the 8’s are 256 GB to boot so store all my stuff.
Plus with an iPod nano I use as a wristwatch (Animal face!), an iPod touch for playing music in the car and two iPads, a mini and an Air, I feel tooled up as much as I think I need to be, and all for a few PAYG SIM’s.
I think people get obsessed with the ‘latest and greatest’ when the ‘older and retired’ are just fine.
Actually, that just about sums *me* up! :-D
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