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Minimal Phone 2

328 points · 262 comments · nashashmi

  1. ocd · · focus · HN ↗
    I just want BlackBerry back.

    Every single time one of these new "minimal", "dumb", "lightweight" phones comes up today it's just marketing wrapped around a kneecapped Android device. I am in the market for something simpler that does nothing more or little else than play local media/audio, read common document/text formats, ordinary SMS, current standard of telephony, and a different OS than Android. I have not seen anything like this yet.

    1. sourcecodeplz · · focus · HN ↗
      minorities are the loudest.

      truth is its quite difficult to function today without a smartphone.

      banks, uber, food etc etc

      edit: remember iphone mini? so "many" asked for it and apple finally made it. it was a flop.

      1. aczerepinski · · focus · HN ↗
        I think the iPhone mini sold 5-10 million units per year. I don't view that as a flop, and I don't think it merits sarcasm around how "many" people wanted it.
        1. Bolwin · · focus · HN ↗
          People often use this a argument against small phones like this wouldn't be amazing for any company outside apple or Samsung
          1. jkestner · · focus · HN ↗
            Bring back OS licensing, Apple!
          2. armadyl · · focus · HN ↗
            If small phones were a widely popular thing then there would be a company making them successfully or it would’ve been greater than 5% of iPhone sales. An individual company with zero brand power or presence wouldn’t have any decent sales. This is not even considering that the value proposition would be way worse than just buying a slightly bigger and significantly better phone with more R&D put behind it.

            The reality is 90% or more of people don’t care about that or even think about it, this sentiment only exists in online tech enthusiast spaces. If you’re in HN you’re as non-representative of the average consumer as one can get.

            1. aczerepinski · · focus · HN ↗
              5% of iPhone sales is an enormous amount of revenue. Billions right?
        2. whilenot-dev · · focus · HN ↗
          I think you should always include the iPhone SE in those numbers. It had similar dimensions, was cheaper and even more minimal. If it weren't for the SE, I would have picked a Mini right away.
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