So, tell me, why after the development of phone design over the past 20 years that has claimed to make them so robust e.g. Gorilla Glass, ceramic backs and the like are they so bloody fragile?
My Samsung Galaxy S8+ is actually cracked in 2 places on the front and the back has several cracks running the full length. I was quoted £250 to replace them but as it turns out to be an “International” version the company wouldn’t touch it. I’m not even aware of how it got so damaged. The only thing I can think of is that it came into contact with something else in my trouser pockets – possibly a key or possible a coin. I’ll admit to having dropped it a couple of times but on both occasions it has either been fine or been protected by the case I have had to purchase to protect it since it got cracked!!
This from Tom’s Guide – Phone Drop Test results 2018:
Good news: Chances are, your phone will survive a 6-foot fall onto wood and, if it’s lucky enough to land on its edge, withstand drops onto concrete with minimal damage.
Bad news: If you don’t have a screen protector, there’s a really good chance something’s going to break.
It seems that the Motorola Moto Z2 Force was the winner – in fact, Motorola guarantees that the screen on the Moto Z2 Force won’t crack – and in Tom’s test’s – it didn’t! – but the rest suffered in varying degrees. Sadly they aren’t planning on producing a Force version of the Moto Z3 – shame on you Lenovo!
So what else is happening in the world of screens and screen protection – improving that area is absolutely key. Well the current leader in this area has to be Corning and their “Gorilla Glass” product which has been lauded around the globe by just about every phone manufacturer.
Visually stunning, incredibly tough Corning® Gorilla® Glass enables today’s sleekest smartphone and tablet designs, while providing exceptional damage resistance to the scratches and bumps of everyday use. Gorilla Glass is sensitive enough for today’s most sophisticated touch applications, and is available with an easy-to-clean coating.
Hmm the scratches and bumps of everyday use…I’d like to see their definition of that! As millions of phone owners will testify Gorilla Glass is about as robust as a paper bag! Samsung did announce in July 2018 that they’d developed a bendable and unbreakable screen – I’d settle for unbreakable – the folding phone is interesting but not essential – an unbreakable screen IS essential! and why do I say that? Well it should be obvious – just look at the sumptuous photo shots that are being used to sell us this year’s latest phone – just check out those curves – I mean phaaw, c’mon! Manufacturers have invested billions in designing “sexy”, “cool”, phones but sadly they also appear to have built in “built in obsolescence” as well. I shouldn’t really be surprised. However as the price of these phones skyrockets it is inevitable that replacement cycles will grow longer – so c’mon guys make the bloody things last better!
In some products’ life-cycle the manufacturers can make as much profit from marketing the accessories as they can from the main device itself but the ludicrously high cost of today’s phones (and no I don’t buy the precious metals argument I bit!) is such that it wouldn’t be worth the issues of product inventory management – lots of low value accessories is a real pain to manage!! And easy to get wrong!
So please, will someone get the cost of producing Micro-LED screens down so we can start using them, thus saving power (and therefore eliminating the current issue of running out of juice) and at the same time due to their power efficiency and increased brightness can we have plastic coating applied which stops them cracking so damned easily – please?
What are Micro-LEDs I hear you ask? Well this – thanks to Anroidpit.com for the words!
Micro LEDs is a new technology still in its infancy, but it has great potential to become the next big thing on the display market. Micro LED displays work similarly to OLED panels, but are even thinner. They consist of inorganic semiconductors, specifically a gallium-nitrite combination. Like OLEDs, these are light-emitting diodes, but they are much smaller.
Backlighting is not necessary with micro-LEDs, nor is a polarization filter required. The glass layer above the panel can also be slimmed even further. The brightness per watt, which simplifies the efficiency of the displays, is even better than that of OLED panels and beats LCD by far. With the same brightness, a micro-LED display requires only half as much energy as an OLED screen, in some cases even less. The extremely small diodes also allow higher resolutions on the same surface – a 4K smartwatch would be conceivable with micro LEDs. Last but not least, micro LED screens are not as susceptible to pixel burn-in as OLED displays.
And as wireless charging is the de facto standard these days let’s just make sure that the phone back will allow inductance charging, avoid unnecessary fingerprint smearing and oh yes – stop bloody cracking!!
So c’mon Lenovo, Samsung, OnePlus etc etc – let’s see all of this in the new Z4, S10, 7T etc etc- I know it’s CES time – so go for it guys!
I’m not sure if it’s because there’s tech all around us and we’ve had years and years of “plug and play” but I’d really like to understand the frustration I experience shortly after I get some new tech. I mean why does so much tech take so much effort to get it working properly? Well from research undertaken, whilst I was having my lunch, it appears that there are a range of factors/aggregation of said factors that can make human blood boil…
Stable connections
Too complex
Here’s a thought – have you seen just how much of your phone’s memory is taken up by your apps? I think you may be staggered to see that it’s a pretty big chunk of your total available memory! In fact have you noticed how big some of these apps are getting? Here’s just a selection of the “A” apps on my phone.
I wish….there’s another trend that is irritating and that’s the decision by some of the major device manufacturers to embed some apps into the OS – so you can never fully delete them, only stop them from functioning – they’ll still hog your memory though! I moved away from Apple ,many years ago because of their walled garden approach but Samsung you’re doing it too now!!
How do I opt out of receiving any leaflets or unaddressed promotional material?
Opting out from other unaddressed mail deliveries
Opting out of receiving charity appeal communications
So you have to fill in a form, every two years, that can only be posted – not completed online nor done over the phone….and on it the form has the following weasel words.
Oh really? I wonder what percentage of sites comply with that…5% maybe. There are plenty of sites that don’t give you the choice of whether a 3rd party can see your data – as there’s no option there end to switch that functionality off! And what about those emails that say it’ll take 10 days (or whatever) for this opt out to take effect. Why? Surely once the fact has been established that you don’t want what ever it was then that should be that…digital update of data and all that jazz!! It’s a bit like allowing a rapist a couple of weeks to process the fact that you’ve said “NO, No and thrice NO!” before you can say he’s committed an offence. It’s bloody stupid!
Dear Jack Clarke, Charlie Rostron, Nabil Patel and Jade Pritchard (they work for Dixons Carphone)…
From: 
So I shall be forwarding the details of this conversation onto the 
Well obviously the answer is yes – but let’s understand why that’s the case.
This is a bit like those irritating post GDPR cookie policies that don’t give you an option to refuse to accept them – see 
The third article points out the issue of people auto-filtering no-reply emails as spam in their inbox. This is something that I’m shortly going to be instigating. Personally I find it insulting, demeaning and dehumanising to receive a demand for money (a bill/invoice) from someone who is providing me with a service….yet clearly isn’t interested in customer service.
It’s true – think RyanAir’s boss man = Arrogant Twat, Virgin’s boss – Goofy, wacky but innovative, Scottish Power’s Linda Clayton – ah sorry she’s a figment of their imagination – even the image used for her LinkedIn “profile” is called “ghost-person” – I rest my case. A classic example of just how easy it is for a brand to go wrong – and then just ignore the fact and carry on regardless – doh!
And do you know what is the most worrying thing of all here? It’s the fact that it’s some appalling behaviour by no less a character than (yes you’ve guessed it!) Donald Trump that has pointed out the issue really is about perception.
Right at the end of the last millenium – yep you read that right – the last millenium, before we’d ever heard of “
He’s totally correct – there’s an elite at the top of business that live by the rules of the MBA or some other similar “method” – and they need to change their ways – pronto. The thing is – he’s saying stuff that was said 20 years ago.
Oh yes, so it was 🙂
