SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Nokia has announced one of the first budget Android smartphones designed to be repaired at home allowing users to swap out the battery in under five minutes in partnership with iFixit.
Launched before Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Saturday, the Nokia G22 has a removable back and internal design that allows components to be easily unscrewed and swapped out including the battery, screen and charging port.
Nokia phones manufacturer HMD Global will make "quick fix" repair guides and genuine parts available for five years via specialists iFixit, in addition to affordable professional repair options.
[...] HMD Global hopes to ride the wave of increasing consumer desire for longer-lasting and more repairable devices. It follows in the footsteps of pioneers such as the Dutch manufacturer Fairphone, but at more affordable prices and with far simpler processes than Apple's recent DIY repair programmes.
The Nokia G22 will cost from £149.99 shipping on 8 March with replacement parts costing £18.99 for a charging port, £22.99 for a battery and £44.99 for a screen.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday February 27, @08:10PM (6 children)
Interesting, thanks. USAian here, tried to search for G22 on Nokia's website and result is nothing. As too often, the site auto-detects my location and gives me what they think I want (rather than letting _me_ decide. Sigh.)
Pure speculation: it doesn't seem to have 5G bands, and 5G is all the craze here, so maybe that's why we're not seeing it in USA?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27, @08:20PM (3 children)
> it doesn't seem to have 5G bands
I did see that and wondered the same.
For a bunch of reasons I don't have a smart phone, but my better half is constantly bugging me about it. One of my reasons is the built-in obsolesce. Anything I buy now will see little use, and I'd like to be able to keep it for 8-10 years before replacement. Replaceable batteries (which in my experience age-out, as well as cycle-out) and possibly a few other parts is encouraging.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday February 27, @08:49PM (2 children)
> For a bunch of reasons I don't have a smart phone
I resisted it, but a few years ago I got several (in succession) for basically free, from people I know who wanted the latest and greatest and passed me their old ones.
A couple were 3G only so got deprecated, then a couple more got "obsoleted" by the idiots at AT&T who decided my phone wasn't "compatible" with VoLTE, when in fact the one phone I really liked definitely has VoLTE, and gave me "HD Audio" / VoLTE for several weeks until AT&T decided to put it on the poop list and remotely disabled voice functionality.
Long story short I bought a slightly used Samsung S10e last summer and it's been pretty good. I don't use much "smart" functionality though. Very occasionally browse the web, and check one email, but no e-commerce, banking, etc., at all ever.
> my better half is constantly bugging me about it.
I'm curious as to why? Does he/she/it think a smartphone will help he/she/it keep better track of your location? :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27, @10:52PM (1 child)
> I'm curious as to why?
When I go shopping and don't find what's on the list, my normal response is to not buy anything (unless I'm really certain of the substitution). In that case she wants me to call and discuss options, take a picture of the ingredients for her to read, and so on.
To answer your question, me having a smart phone would be for her convenience, not trust issues. Also, I had a cell phone many years ago, damn thing didn't work right and I returned it, and seem to have been doing fine without one since then.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday February 28, @12:05AM
Ah, okay then, makes perfect sense. I incorrectly presumed you were referring to having a "dumb" cellphone, of which many are still available, rather than a "smart" phone.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 27, @08:22PM (1 child)
VPNs aren't the end-all and be-all in online security, but it does allow you to step across geofences pretty easily. I'm mostly in Canada these days, for reasons - but I can disconnect and reconnect from China, Japan, Russia, France, UK, Argentina, or whatever I choose in about 15 or 20 seconds. Which can create it's own problems, sometimes. I wanted to order some garden seeds recently. Walked all through the selection, then most of the checkout process, but when I entered my shipping address, it barfed all over me. "We are sorry, but we cannot ship these items to your location due to customs and agricultural restrictions." I've seen similar messages for electronics. "We cannot ship our fancy-nancy modular cell phone outside of the European Union." That one was quite a long while ago, maybe I could get a phone today - or not. But, online content doesn't have to be shipped, so it won't be a problem.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday February 27, @08:39PM
I rarely use proxy / VPN, but I don't have land-based 'net- I use my phone in WiFi hotspot and it's been working very well. However it's interesting to see where various websites think I am (when they report their intrusive location detection). Mostly on the US coasts, up and down, and I'm neither. But I'm okay with them having difficulty figuring it out.
I frequently "airplane mode" the phone, if not full reboot. That forces it to get a new IP address, which is sometimes IPv6. Screw them and their attempt to track me.