To start with, China bad.

However, if they are willing to inject money into European companies and their influence on those companies is kept in check meaning they are never allowed to solely control those companies, then I think that’s fine. They make some money and EU companies get some investment that they hopefully use to be more competitive. Maybe there is information I don’t know but sounds like how Pirelli is managing it is good. In the case of Pirelli, going further would just be placating the US which we need to stop doing all the time in my view.

This should not be allowed for all companies (military, IT security, other sensitive stuff…) and I think the unbalanced competitive landscape in China itself makes things unfair too. But it’s not something the EU can practically change. We don’t have many carrots/sticks we can use to stop dumping their products and stealing IP.

I don’t know much about designing a phone motherboard but it’s my understanding that it’s not price of the materials for the traces themselves that adds cost but actually integrating it with the design as a whole. Smartphone PCBs are crazy complex so if not including 3.0 speeds meant the board was easier to design for them and thus cheaper then that’s fine for me. Ultimately they have made the phone cheaper at launch than last gen so they have managed to do that somehow.

I’m a photographer and I don’t find SD card slow for photos and video storage/transfer at all. Obviously they aren’t great for running applications off of but they work very well for transfering files.

Obviously, I can’t seem to convince you that the other benefits fairphone bring outway the fact that they don’t offer usb 3.0 speeds. It is a bummer and weird they had it on the last gen but I would give it up in a heart beat to be able to replace the battery, screen, usb-c port, etc. of my own device on my own with very little hassle. We can agree to disagree on this one

Same, I wish they did a pro model with a proper flagship processor. I’d happily pay much more for that option though they probably don’t have the resources to do 2 phones at the same time. The one in the FP6 seems decent but I’m concerned if it can actually last 8+ years with how bloated apps seem to keep getting. I’m not a power user but my current phone (S20 FE) is inconsistent with loading things and is supposedly on par with FP6’s processor. Hopefully more reviews come out that give more insight into this

They mentioned they did it to save cost. It seems to have worked cause the phone is cheaper at launch than the fairphone 5 was which surprised me. Not aware of many follow-up phones that where cheaper than the previous model.

You do you but for me dead easy battery replacement is far more important than a desktop mode that I personally never found that useful on my S20 FE. Since FP6 has an SD card slot you can always transfer lots of files quickly that way even if it’s a bit more cumbersom requiring a microSDxc card reader

Sure, it doesn’t happen super often but I wouldn’t say it’s ‘not that hard’. For most phones you need a heat gun + suction cup and you do have to be quite careful. Jerryrigerything does takedowns for a living but will still occasionally shatter a glass back. Not saying it’s impossible but most people will never even consider it cause you gotta buy the tools and be very careful. Paying someone to do it is fine but if it’s super easy to do then anyone can actually do it.

Not saying fairphone is for everyone but I do think the tech comunity underestimates how nice it is to be able to easily change a battery yourself.

Samsung has had Dex for years now and it hasn’t changed how people use their phone (for vast majority anyway). Maybe having it built into android will increase adoption but given that Dex is still not that practical or robust, it will be a while until Google’s implementation will be robust. Obviously, it’s a shame the feature won’t be available on fair phone but the phone isn’t that fast or have lots of ram anyway so I doubt desktop mode would truelly be that useful. It’s a shame but, for me, it would not impact my buying decision

It is a downgrade for sure but if it’s not something you use then what does it matter. Fairphone is a tiny company and they felt this was a good place to cut on costs

So do you not care about easily replaceable batteries? If these features are more important than that then unfortunately fairphone doesn’t work for you

I understand it’s not great as it doesn’t future proof the phone but how often are you transfering lots of data or actually going to use android desktop which is completely unproven? If you do transfer lots of data over a cable (I guess backing up videos?) then I’m sure this will hurt but if you do it like once a month then it’s not much of a ball ache. Also, the phone does support microSDXC so you just need to use a different method to do the same thing. Android desktop would be cool but it will take a while before it’s actually robust. Even if it was, you would have to think how you integrate it into your life and if you would genuinely do that.

I currently have an S20 FE and looking to replace it and I hardly ever transfer over usb or use Dex. I personally don’t believe these are deal breakers. For me, a deal breaker is a phone that you can’t easily replace a battery without cutting through adhesive

Disregarding the idea of base load is crazy. Sure, wind and solar can provide enough energy but their supply is still not as consistent and a powerplant. We also don’t have battery technology good enough to store the exces and release it when needed. We saw in spain that if your power system is too reliant on wind/solar and there is a sudden change in the supply/demand that it can cause the system to fuck up. We need base load it fill in those gaps of low supply.

Of course there are alternatives. Pumped storage is the most reliable energy storage system. Could use geothermal too. But both require the geography. Nuclear just needs a big body of water which the UK has.

Another thing to consider is the security risks offshore wind/solar have. The Russians could decide to cut the power cables leading from a big wind farm and that could fuck up the power system until it’s fixed. If we had base load in the form of nuclear then the impact such an attach could have may be minimise.

Is nuclear perfect, fuck no. But the technology is well understood and until hydrogen or nuclear fusion are realised, we can be building something that can replace fossil fuel base load

Agreed, we need to replace any fossil fuel baseload we currently have with something and nuclear is a good (though not perfect) option

Sure, we could buy lots of solar and wind but we need to diversify our energy supply. If we only had wind and solar and one day all of a sudden there happens to be not enough wind and solar that could cause huge energy instability. Or, what if the Russians cut a cable that brings energy from a large offshore wind/solar farm leading to power uncertainty in the country.

Obviously those scenarios are unlikely but that doesn’t mean they can’t happen. Having solid, reliable energy is one of the most important things a country needs to be prosperous. Is nuclear perfect? Fuck no, but it’s way better than coal, LNG, or any other fossil fuel energy source that we currently use. I believe having more nuclear power stations to provide a solid fallback option is always beneficial even if they are expensive and are imperfect

I don’t understand half the stuff they say but sounds like they’ve managed to sort one problem. Now just need to get the fusion process itself to be viable and then maybe anll our energy needs will be sorted?

Agreed, I’m more cautiously optimistic (cause you never know how it’ll go) but IO do have a good track record. Hopefully they give themselves time to cook and make it excellent!

Given the number of windows machines that exist, isn’t it already an addiction?

That makes 2 at least

Hopefully FSR 4 becomes a standard feature like dlss has become

This is Valve time we are taking about so who knows

I’d heard about reMarkable but not sure if it’s exactly a kindle competitor. Also uses e-ink but it heard more towards taking notes. Far as I can tell it created the segment that the kinda Scribe competes in.

Not used one so interested to hear a user’s take.

Damn, could have sworn it was