Random thoughts and finds...

It was a 650 for me. I also quite liked it. A feature that i really miss is that in literally every app, you had the option to toggle labels for buttons on. Now on Android, I have too many apps with icon-only buttons that are completely cryptic to me and the only way to find out what they do, is to press them and see what happens.

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Lumia mentioned
I used to have a 520 - so the lowest model of them all I think. It didn’t even have an LED flash :sweat_smile:
It was great tho, my first proper smart phone. I liked the system quite a bit, although the app support was rather poor. In a way it’s similar to Linux - some great apps were missing, while there were still Windows-Phone-only apps that I liked a lot.
I still occasionally hear people praise 1040 for its camera - while lacking some software features, it’s said to be some of the best of its era, and even kind of competitive today

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  • Have the power button fall out, and break the screen during the repair (Pixel, repair not economical, replacement Fairphone bought)
  • Have Google brick the battery with a firmware update (Pixel, complicated repair)
  • Drop them onto cobblestones, on vacation (Pixel, repair impossible, replacement Pixel bought)
  • Phone no longer supported by Google, twice (Pixel, replacement Pixel bought)
  • Drop them onto tile in the bathroom (Pixel, costly repair)
  • Break the charging port through too much use (Pixel, easy repair)
  • Have Android updates eat ever more RAM until the phone is no longer usable, twice (Fairphone 2, busted, replacement Pixel bought)
  • Break the headphone port through too much use (Fairphone 2, trivial repair)
  • Drop them onto metal radiators, on vacation (Fairphone 2, trivial repair)

That’s all the ones I can remember of roughly the last decade. And yes, we do use protective cases, but nothing can save a phone if it lands on radiator fins or cobblestones screen-first. Well, my wife is using protective cases. I instead don’t drop my phone.

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I use a glass screen protector as well, and I’ve shattered quite a few of those, but it has always protected the screen and kept it from being broken. I drop my phone a good bit too, but we don’t have cobble stone nor radiators really here in this part of America.

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Well, there’s some skill involved, too :upside_down_face:.

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I have been lucky so far in the sense that my phones have rarely met their demise through physical exterior damage. Still, none of mine have ever met max lifespan, some shorter than others.

I guess you need to do throw, fall and impact tests with your wife’s phone, with various types of cases.

I have accidentally thrown the phone too many times. Ha ha, I do not know how that happens.

Yes, it is eminently usable, and I can (and did) remove everything I do not want, loaded it up with good stuff from Fdroid, and it is working great.

The ~150eur smarphone market is pretty amazing now (~100eur if you wait for a sale). Yes, companies want you to get flagships since that’s where the margin is, but in this segment you now get dual SIM/eSIM, NFC, 5G, reasonably bright screen and an OK camera for snapshots. What more could I want?

For me it is unclear why I would spend more on a device I hate using; as a computer it sucks because it does not have a keyboard and the screen is too small, as a camera it sucks because it lacks controls and the native focal length is very far from what I would prefer.

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Same here. I can count on one hand, one finger actually, the times I’ve actually broken a phone – And that was in a rare moment of anger when I slammed it down on a desk (the display did not survive). I’ve had a battery replaced one additional time . That’s been it. Maybe it’s because I see a phone as a pocket computer, not a disposable / replaceable appliance. Not saying others here do, just the way I see it.

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I broke the back of my OP6 by dropping it, and that was the only phone I had with a glass back (which, IMO, is a completely stupid material to make the back out of to begin with). Never broke a screen. I’ll occasionally butterfinger the thing so there’ll be dings and scratches, especially on the corners, but so far, no screen.

Yet.

Probably just jinxed it.

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Sorry to interrupt the phone-discussion for an important announcement. My wife today texted me the words every husband wants to read: ā€œI like how clean and well organized your workshop isā€ . Had to share this honor :smiley: .

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I find it strange that some of these Tamrons on MPB are sold with the €120 original tripod collar without any significant price increase, sometimes even at regular price for the condition

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I had a severe GAS attack today: I’ve been eyeing the new, smaller Fujifilm XF 16-55 II for a while. But it wasn’t available anywhere, so there was no pressure. Well, it’s available now, and my GAS flared up.

In general, I’m quite happy with my 16-80, but how much happier could I get with even more expensive glass? Crucially, however, I’d lose 25 whole millimeters. Could the 16-55 compensate for those mm with greater sharpness? These questions literally keep me up at night. Silliness.

I realized last night, however, that I can actually test this without spending any (more) money: I can just stop down my 50/2 and crop it to 80mm, then compare that to the 16-80 at 80mm. And shock and horror, at first it looked like the cropped 50 was actually sharper! But thankfully it was merely user error and motion blur. Reshooting with less caffeine and a higher shutter speed rectified the situation. Native 80mm are actually sharper than a cropped 50. Phew, GAS attack averted.

I also learned that I need to zoom in to a quite unhealthy degree to be able to see the 16-80’s alleged softness. Zoomed out, neither my 27" 4K screen, nor my A3 printer come close to showing such detail. And I also learned that my sharpening regimen in Darktable left quite something to be desired. Both my DoS and Capture Sharpening auto-presets needed tweaking for optimal performance.

So, overall, a productive Saturday. In a way.

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Tell me something… I’m looking at K&F mini RGB lights thinking whether it’s worth it for macro lighting :sweat_smile: And then I was like - hmm, perhaps I should finally upgrade my class 10 SD card? Get a tripod for the lights? A power bank? Aaaand here we go again…

Here’s the link if anyone wants to take a look.

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I have a rule: if I desire a thing, but during the research I get sidetracked into many other unrelated desirable things, that’s a signal I’m just seeking retail therapy, and am not actually interested in the thing.

That said, continuous lights need to be ridiculously bright to be useful for macro. I’d take a flash and a diffuser instead.

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The thing is, most of my use for them would be indoors actually. Outdoor I prefer natural light, but yeah, a flash would be great there

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Way more happier is the obvious answer!

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Back to phones for a sec…

I haven’t noticed anyone expressing concerns about end of support for Android versions. It’s been a loooong time since I’ve needed to replace a phone due to damage or a weakened battery. But when my phone will no longer run a supported Android version, I don’t like the idea of not getting security fixes any more, and the shopping begins.

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At that point I start looking in to ROMs again.

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Most manufacturers have an explicit support duration for updates these days. Eg Samsung promises 4 years from release, 7 for flagship models, other manufacturers are pretty similar.

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I only use darktable and never really look at other softwares but, oh boy, I stumbled on this video about noise reduction with DXO Photolab and it is impressive.
I stopped caring about ISO after this

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