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Comment by simjnd

5 months ago

New Linux phone drops

Looks inside

Still the good old A76 and A55 cores (they're 8 years old at this point)

29 comments

simjnd

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numpad0  5 months ago

That used to mean couple SI prefixes worse than current gen processors, which was why old equalled useless. Not anymore, so okay.

  • MarsIronPI  5 months ago

    Well, the CPU is OK for mobile, but the GPU/GPU-driver situation is not. Just look at the Pinephone to see a device with fine CPU performance that struggles with UI. Though, in fairness, some of this could be fixed with more optimized software.

    Also still waiting for more userspace tools to support the v4l2-requests API for hardware video decoding.

spaqin  5 months ago

As much as I admire the FOSS nature, it's always the problem of underspeccing and overpricing the tech at the same time.

  • hackrmn  5 months ago

    And don't forget _overdimensioning_. Vendors love this because volume scales cubically with increase in any one of width, height and depth -- they're not the ones carrying the phone, but they can pack more features into one, quite literally. FOSS vendors more so since they need more ground to compete on (hardware being older and price being high enough because of economy of scale).

    • nine_k  5 months ago

      Standard-size phone screens are easier to procure. This determines the dimensions. Same for batteries.

    • zamadatix  5 months ago

      FOSS mobile hardware vendors already have a hard enough niche to target, "people who say they want small phones" is just fuel to the already burning fire for them. Each niche they add does not add the user base together, it multiplies the userbase percentages.

  • varispeed  5 months ago

    If you are small, there is no way around it if you want to grow.

    "overpricing" is often higher cost of parts at lower quantity, future R&D and other costs that are much higher than for big corporation.

  • unsungNovelty  5 months ago

    Its not the OSS nature. Any product from scratch will be expensive to start with and reduce in price eventually. There is a reason why Tesla didn't start with Model Y first.

    Underspeccing is specific to mobile industry. But I agree with you here. Going for premium specs is a better way to start. But they'll have to pick a specs that works for them the company and can reach maximum people. So I also acknowledge that it's tough.