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How is that a "premium" or "flagship" phone, beyond price? I mean, midrange, sure. Mid-upper, maybe. Flaghsip... nnnnaah.
I get it, man, if you're not monetizing data you have to charge full price for the hardware, particularly on small runs. You don't need to misrepresent the spec to make that case. It's a tradeoff.
Flagship of their range
People forget this is a miniaturized advanced personal computer that fits in your pocket with lots of extra features. Plus, there's a lot of work behind the software.
Not to mention, they probably don't benefit from having the same manufacturing scale and power as Samsung, Google, or Apple. Or the same deals for parts.
It is absolutely insane the amount of computing you can buy these days for 300 bucks in the form factor of half a packet of cigarrettes. Screw jetpacks, man, that's some future tech.
I'm just frustrated with the framing here. If they think they want to go after premium clients with tons of disposable income they should be less ashamed of being overpriced and go for broke. Look at boutique PC handheld manufacturers. They're making computers to order for 2000+ bucks now with zero shame and doing alright.
Oh, you want to cram a AI MAX+ 395 in a shell that makes no sense for a AI-focused productivity APU and use it to play AAA games poorly? We got you, bro. It'll be 2.5 grand and we'll get back to you in a year or so. Here's our Indiegogo.
Samsung is out there selling foldables in that price range that will all be broken in two years and everyone is cool with it. Apple and Samsung both make dumbed-down phones just to make them look thin and charge premium money for them. Embrace the consumerism, man.
But it isn't future tech it's current tech even kind of dated phones have been out for decades at this point.
What even constitutes a "premium" phone these days? Like, what specific features other than price?
Theres a difference between 'premium' and 'flagship'. The price alone is enough to call it premium (with some asterisks). But its just not flagship hardware. The SOC is more than enough for my needs. But performancewise its somewhere near a 3,5 year old flagship Snapdragon and is itself 2 years old. Also if you give a fuck about these specs because of gaming/emulation or misusing(loaded statement i know)it as a desktop substitute Mediatek SOCs still lag behind in support/compatibility to Qualcomm.
But then there are some unpremium telltales like that third backside macro camera with undisclosed megapixels. That instantly tells me that it probably sports a 2mp unuseable tiny sensor. Its only there to trick the consumer in believing that its more premium then it is. Its not an useful tele like on a Iphone Pro but the design suggest it.
They also dont specify what kind of USB connection they provide. So its most likely USB 2.0 with no displayout.
Other things on their official spec sheet:
_Primary camera aperture | 2 Megapixel _ its just typo tbf but still, lmao.
Headphones jack | TYPE-C DAC digital headphone Just 'no' would be more honest but i just wouldnt mention it at all and everybody who cares gets it.
I'm all in with MudMans assertion that they should just own it instead of tiptoeing around the truth. As he said its a solid device with enough unique selling points. But sadly it feels(!) like they try to deceive me here and there with their messaging. Which is soooo unnecessary.
Edit: It kinda suggests to me(!) that it probably is a badge engineered phone of a chinese company which provides semi customizeable barebone devices. Just a guess by me(!). But that would be unpremium as fuck. And dont get at me how stupid that whole pReMiuM talk is. I'm fully aware of that. But thats the bullshit you need to deal with if you start using these terms. I didnt start it.
Performance.
Which Mediatek ain't.
That's a wrong misconception. Mediatek produces Socs at all performance level. Their dimensity 9000 series chips can rival and even surpass snapdragon 8 series chipset especially in GPU performance.
The dimensity 8400-max has superb power efficiency compared to most chipsets.
So is a $200 phone, but that doesn't mean $1200 would be a good price for it.
Modern cars are a marvel of engineering, but I still wouldn't spend $500,000 on a Toyota Corolla.
The problem is, if a newcomer gets on the market to sell a car and doesn't benefit from the scale of the other mass manufacturers, they unfortunately have no choice but to sell at a high price.
That's why buying local is often more expensive. But in the end, I think it's worth it for everybody for many reasons.
People don't forget any of that, they just don't care.
It is premium in a way trump phone is premium to some people, but for smart people. People who don't see privacy as a tradeoff and tech specs as be all, end all requirement.
Sounds pretty good, but pricey as fuck.
From the linked article:
The HIROH phone is expected to have an β¬1199 retail price, but folks who pre-order one now for β¬99 will get a coupon good for β¬299 off the retail price, bringing the full cost down to β¬899.
That's still very expensive.
Well as it's billed as a "Premium Smartphone" and is priced comparably to flagship phones of the main brands, it's not unexpected though.
In a way, but I would also expect the specs to reflect that.
That depends on how much of a premium you place on de-googling and privacy kill switches. Those seem to be the primary selling points of this phone.
It'd be nice if it had everything, but then it'd probably fetch an even higher price.
Definitely pricy. For comparison, with the coupon it's still more than a Samsung Galaxy S25 and an IPhone 17 Pro.
Maybe it doesn't have up to date prices, but GSM Arena lists the 17 Pro at β¬1300, so well over the coupon price, and over the non-coupon price as well. It's more comparable to the S25 Ultra, though, for non-coupon price, and the S25+ for coupon price.
I was looking at manufacturer prices, but I also just realized I was converting the wrong currency.
I'm terrible at math so I really shouldn't have commented lol
Their timing couldn't have been worse tbh.
So, basically a Librem 5 with /e/OS and cloned as an iphone 14 lookalike for β¬1200... I wouldn't call that flagship, except for the price.
Edit: typed the price wrong.
Edit 2: I'm not negating the benefits of this phone or even of having this phone in the available market. Only that calling it a flagship is, imo, false advertising.
Technically they can call whatever they want a flagship
Lol yes. Technically they could, couldn't they
Why is the Settings icon looking directly at me
- A hardware kill switch that physically disconnects the mic & camera circuits, making them unusable
- A software kill switch that disables WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, and cellular radios
I guess thatβs not what I was expecting by βkill switchβ but it sounds good
It will ship with a version of /e/OS based on Android 16 and should receive at least 5 years of software and security updates.
That was one of my questions. Do the updates come directly from /e/OS or do buyers need to rely on the company to provide them?
Updates come from /e/OS directly.
Out of curiosity, what did you expect from the kill switch?
The camera/mic kill switch sounds legit.
The radio "kill switch" is just airplane mode. (Or rather, airplane mode as it used to be, since now it doesn't actually turn off wi-fi or bluetooth by default in AOSP. But it's still possible to turn off all the radios on any phone, so it's weird to promote this as a special feature.)
I suspect it is not possible to implement a physical kill switch on radios with off-the-shelf SOCs since the radios are integrated (I think).
make a switch to cut off the antenna or something
Yeah, antennas are connected with cables, so that should be possible.
I don't know how effective it would be, though. I wonder if it would still get a very weak signal even without the external antenna.
Radios can still work without an antenna - the range will just be measured in inches. If you're like me and use multiple phones (work, personal, testing, etc), and keep at least two in one pocket... A cut antenna won't do you much good.
A real kill switch should cut power to the radio entirely. Which may be exactly what the software switch is doing. The radio controller may just be too integrated into the SoC to have a hardware kill switch.
Phablet sized device. :(
Fucking christ, I'm so sick of hearing this. Literally every phone nowadays is "phablet" sized. The original Galaxy Note (the OG "phablet") was not much bigger than the current "standard" iPhone.
LOL.
It would be great if there were more options for phone sizes. Not everyone wants a device they needs ro use both hands just to type message or even the most basic task of reaching the top of the screen without adjusting the grip.
So yeah, most phones are phablet sized. :p
Did it stop being a pain in the ass when it became common?
IDK about you, but I've wanted a "do it all" device since I was a kid, so the "phablet" form factor appealed to me immediately. I can manage my entire home network from my Pixel 9 Pro XL, including SSH, Dockers, and remoting into VMs.
That, and look what size most phones are these days. Most people want the bigger models.
Yeah, but the vocal minority would rather all phones conform to their preferences instead.
Realistically, though, there should definitely be more variety in the market... but capitalism hates variety, so it doesn't happen.
I don't disagree with you there. Except Apple already tried it by making the iPhone Mini with the same specs as the standard model, yet few people actually bought it. Same with Sony. Those sizes just aren't popular anymore, and very few hardware makers are going to build a device for a small but vocal group.
It was never a problem to begin with. Bigger screens are alwaybetter; you can do so much more at once with a larger screen (especially if you actually bother to go into developer options and increase the "minimum width" setting)!
I'll never understand Lemmy's obsession with small screens. Phones are thinner than ever, so you can't even use the "bulky brick" argument anymore! Options are nice, but a large screen is not the end of the world.
It may never have been a problem for you but some of us donβt want or need to carry 6β+ and 200g around everyday. The old iPhone 1x Mini is just about the perfect form factor for me.
The sweet spot is about 6-7 inches for me
I also hate phones without bezels
The most common complaint I hear is not about thickness or weight, but length and height making it impossible for people with smaller hands to use the device one-handed. I'm so glad this isn't a problem for you personally. Just thrilled for you. Absolutely tickled pink.
Fucking THANK YOU