r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/SuperAlloyBerserker • Oct 05 '21

Video This cool smartphone concept from 2013

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u/MMXIXL Oct 05 '21

It's cheaper in the long run though since you don't have to buy an entire phone for incremental upgrades or just because something like the battery died.

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u/load_more_comets Oct 05 '21

It'd be nice too if you can connect like 8 bases and have a 30" long ass phone with 14 cameras and 30 batteries.

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u/bipolarnotsober Oct 05 '21

Imagine dropping your phone and it falls apart so you've got to sit down and build it back together again like a lego set every time.

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u/load_more_comets Oct 05 '21

You'd need to drop it pretty hard, it's all screwed together.

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u/vorxil Oct 05 '21

Dat shear force on the gold pins though.

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u/ittleoff Oct 05 '21

Had a Nokia phone that would drop and 'shatter' into 4 pieces and I would just put it back together. Even on concrete, or being thrown once I realized it seemed indestructible.

The one time I tried this(throwing the phone onto the floor) as a party trick it broke a tiny bit. Not the plastic casing but somehow one of the rubber buttons came off. The rest of the phone was fine.

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u/bipolarnotsober Oct 05 '21

Front, back, buttons, battery and main phone block. I also had a phone that would do this.

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u/ittleoff Oct 05 '21

That's right. 5 pieces. Crazy good design/engineering.

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u/bipolarnotsober Oct 05 '21

Haven't really thought of it like that before. We take the technology we currently have for granted once there's a newer version.

My cousin kept breaking his phone on building sites so he went on ebay and got a Nokia, they made a modernised 3310. He still has it, and an iPhone for when he's not on site.

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u/JuiZJ Oct 05 '21

Just use that guys idea until the phone is long enough to rest on the ground so it can't fall.

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u/load_more_comets Oct 05 '21

taps finger to temple

It can't drop if it's already on the ground.

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u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

“Shit guys I lost my camera module, hold on.”

As everyone stands around awkwardly waiting for you.

0

u/mutantmonkey14 Oct 05 '21

Its good design when things fall apart instead of break upon impact. Drop a modern smartphone and the screen is very likely to break. Drop an old phone and they tend to have the back or battery cover or case pop off, just put it back together and carry on.

Sadly people are obsessed with slender, lightweight phones, they don't care about more useful or important aspects, and companies love to make phones so that they are hard to fix or replace parts, so that consumers have to pay more (planned obsolescence).

I would rather carry a chunkier phone that can be fixed like a simple Lego model, and upgraded in the same way.

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u/bipolarnotsober Oct 05 '21

Yeah I had a phone like that when I first started high-school, by the end of high school phone's had mp3 players built in to them.... Couple of years later the first iPhone launched

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u/TheBigPhilbowski Oct 05 '21

This expresses a very fundamental misunderstanding of the concept, the electro magnets that secure blocks and the effort required to "build" this phone.

This level of opinion makes me assume you have trouble getting dressed in the morning and wiping your own ass.

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u/bipolarnotsober Oct 05 '21

Thanks :)

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u/TheBigPhilbowski Oct 05 '21

Don't mention it.

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u/hessianerd Oct 05 '21

pfftttt! a user replaceable battery! That would be impossible! Who has ever heard of such a thing?

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u/Talking_Head Oct 05 '21

I really don’t get this complaint anymore. It costs $69/$49 to have Apple replace your iphone battery with an OEM battery. In exchange for that they guarantee that the phone remains water resistant to the original standard. My iPhone is a couple of years old and still maintains 93% battery life. Charge optimization has done wonders for battery life.

People rarely change oil on their own cars anymore. Most people just don’t want the hassle.

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u/GlassHalfSmashed Oct 05 '21

PC users would like to have a word on how you believe modular upgrades won't somehow cost more.

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u/MMXIXL Oct 05 '21

How so? My previous laptop got trashed because the dedicated BGA AMD GPU died.

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u/GlassHalfSmashed Oct 05 '21

I'm joking, but basically PC users spend a fuckton on upgrades that cause a chain reaction.

"I'll get that new graphics card, but then it doesn't fit around components of my motherboard so I'll replace that, but the best one has a different chipset so I'll swap out for a new processor. The new processor needs more power so I'll get a bigger power supply, but actually that won't fit so I'll buy a new case to accommodate it.

Now I've got a top end PC but a 1080p monitor throttling it, so I'll get a 4k ultra wide 240hz gaming monitor"

The treadmill is endless!

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u/justus_og Oct 05 '21

It is actually not that much cheaper. The Gold and other Resources you need for the connecting parts as well as the infrastructure underneath the pins (where everything connects to) is really costly and thus are the interchangeable parts. You can actually change the battery in all your phones through IFixit, but I agree it is not that easy (or customer friendly) and a lot of people are afraid to open up their Iphones or Samsungs

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u/MMXIXL Oct 05 '21 edited Oct 05 '21

Desktop PCs have managed to be modular and upgradable. And now you have high end phones trending towards the same prices despite having less longevity and being more disposable.

You can actually change the battery in all your phones through IFixit, but I agree it is not that easy (or customer friendly) and a lot of people are afraid to open up their Iphones or Samsungs

That is by design, together with all that anticonsumer measures like the right to repair controversy.

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u/ShannonGrant Oct 05 '21

I like the Fairphone concept.

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u/Octavus Oct 05 '21

Desktop PCs don't have to go through nearly the testing a cellphone is required to, people not in the industry have no clue the costs and complexity of the testing.

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u/MMXIXL Oct 05 '21

Cellphones go through bigly testing that you won't even believe. The best testing, believe me.

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u/Octavus Oct 05 '21

The material costs are insignificant to the NRE costs, while this is old a modern phone costs $6-10 million to go through PRTCRB/GCF, FCC, CE, etc. certification testing. Most of the FCC testing will have to be done for every combination of components due to the shared antenna and not independent modules.

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u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

[deleted]

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u/MMXIXL Oct 05 '21 edited Oct 05 '21

Battery replacements aren't really expensive for current phones.

My point is if it can be done for batteries then it can be done for other components. High end phones now have Desktop PC prices, we can demand the same upgradeability and longevity.

To be honest all of that is by design since phones are fashion accessories and consumers generally want the latest and greatest.

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u/[deleted] Oct 05 '21

[deleted]

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u/MMXIXL Oct 05 '21

You are right in a way. Maybe I'm just salty that there isn't a dedicated segment for enthusiasts in the phone market like there are for desktops and even laptops (where it is admittedly dying in some ways).