As someone who worked in a large OEM company releasing tons of smartphones, I'm actually impressed it only took 100 people to getting this out. I presume there was an incredible amount of sleepless nights, as this is no easy task.
To be fair though, Sprint is one of the easier carriers to work with after T-Mobile. I can't imagine them releasing a phone on AT&T or Verizon, as their process is grueling. I guess since they're selling an unlockcked version of their phone, it doesn't really matter to power users. However, most sales for smartphones are from contracts sold directly from carriers so it'll be interesting to see how they'll do in the market with their current strategy (similar to One Plus One).
Props to them though. It's not just about carrier certification. Releasing a smartphone is a long complex process. Some engineers at Sprint were briefly talking about how great the phone was, so I have high hopes.
Pretty sure they used Sharp as a partner, so it isn't like they started from scratch. That guess is based on this Sharp phone looking mighty familiar (http://www.gsmarena.com/sharp_aquos_s2_taken_apart_a_bezelle...) and Rubin having worked with Sharp extensively during the Danger days. (most of the Sidekicks were made by Sharp)
I'm kinda sort interested in this device, but honestly I'm in the sit and wait given that Sharp isn't exactly a name brand anymore.
Sharp for some reason refuses to sell their smartphones outside of Japan. When I lived there I had a Sharp phone - and it was amazing. Smoothest non-stock android experience I've had. Recently they were selling [did this finally happen?] off their phone business to foxconn because it was falling behind.
Man, if you actually tried to sell your phones, Sharp, they might have sold? Funny concept.
If this phone is indeed a Sharp creation, I'm all over it.
> Man, if you actually tried to sell your phones, Sharp, they might have sold? Funny concept.
Smartphones are a brutal business to be in, especially in North America, where Apple and Samsung have basically locked up the high end of the market and everyone else is fighting for the scraps (and usually losing tons of money in the process). Probably Sharp just realized there was really no way to break in, especially considering they'd have to start from scratch with channels like carrier partnerships, retail presence, and advertising.
Meh, I bought my first OnePlus phone a few months ago and while the phone itself is great, I've been thoroughly unimpressed with their support and unavailability of most accessories, both from OnePlus and 3rd parties. It's a huge turn off and I won't buy another one.
Some of the bloatware (minimal as it may be) is very intrusive, including ads sent as notifications through system apps that can not be blocked or silenced. Their support gaslights you about topics like that.
That's another annoying thing. OnePlus uses a specific type of charger, the Dash(tm) charger, so you can't just buy any random USB charging unit, or else it will take all day to charge. And the chargers are expensive. The other problem is that the screen is not flat, so you need to buy a curved screen protector. For the OnePlus 3, they've been sold out for months, and have no plans to restock them. Furthermore, there are no good 3rd party screen protectors. So if you have a OnePlus 3, you just have to use it without a screen protector.
These problems are not acceptable for a modern phone company.
I can only agree with the dash charger, I've had no problems getting what turned out to be better screen protectors than the official from Amazon for my one plus three.
On the plus side I plug my dash charger in and forty minutes later I've got a charge that will last the day.
But agreed that if I forget to bring it on overnight trips it's annoying.
Hmm I charge it overnight with a slow charger, that feels like it's better for battery life time, on the other hand, when I need it quickly recharged, it's over half full in 30 min. That really changes they way you deal with charging and is worth some annoyances (which I personally don't experience) to me.
Also, the phone came with a screen protector which is still on after 1 year of use.
Well I can assure you from personal experience, which is the oneplus three without a screen protector that I'm typing on right now, that the plastic protector that came with the phone started peeling off and getting dirt trapped between it and the screen in less than a month after purchase.
I recently contacted OnePlus support for the first time last month after I dropped my phone and shattered the screen. The whole process was extremely fast and smooth. Quick reply from OnePlus, they organized shipping to my nearest repair center and even the actual repair was quick.
I bought a OnePlus 3 this year to replace my Nexus 5 after catastrophic hardware failure. :(
The phone is great in every way except ergonomics. It's so fat that holding it hurts my hand. Apparently they had a smaller model for the generation before the 3, but the OnePlus 5 is absurdly fat only; I'm not going to be able to keep buying their phones.
I replaced my Nexus 5 with a OnePlus 2, great phone, but apart from some speed boosts and camera upgrade I kinda really miss my Nexus 5.
The NFC, it being super light, small, wireless charging, great design, fast updates. No idea what phone to get next. Nothing I've seen really matches the Nexus 5. :(
There's a huge difference between "successful" enough to keep the company going and "successful" in the Apple/Samsung way of sales dominance in the market.
Yeah, Foxconn bought Sharp last year. One interesting thing I heard (from words of mouth) was Gou decided to follow through with the purchase after Sharp reduced the price by 35%. Gou was mighty proud of the acquisition for awhile until the Japanese Yen devalued considerably, leading him to speculate foul play from the Japanese in the original deal.
They already sell the Aquos Crystal phones on Sprint, which are really nice phones for the price point. When I borrowed my buddy's on Sprint, I was able to pull over 100mbps down when we were out boating on Lake Washington. AT&T could only hit 15mbps and T-Mobile was sitting around 40Mbps comparatively.
One of the things that made me mad was that they only brought the aquos crystal over, which is a gimmick phone. It's a pretty good mid-range phone, but I saw reviews slam it on specs, implying that Sharp couldn't compete. Sharp had much more powerful phones available at the time, but not in the US.
The problem with the US market is that reviewers look for any superficial reason to slam you.
Can confirm, the Sharp phone I owned in Japan had an absolutely fabulous screen, 1080p in 4.5" (I long for compact flagships), vivid colour with customisable profiles, including an electronically switchable privacy filter (using the toggle buttons in the notification shade) with 3 designs! The OS had been optimised to run smooth as butter, even with crapware. Too bad it also had to have all the docomo apps.
There's a physical layer of the screen between the touch glass and the LCD that can be turned on, reducing the viewing angle. Anyone looking from the side will instead see a floral pattern, butterfly pattern, or something else I forget (stars?), depending on your setting. (You can't pick beyond these three because each pattern is physically its own layer it looks like)
This is classic Japanese market electronics. Rather than increase bottom line, add loads of niceties to compete.
My phone was a smartphone, a mobile wallet (osaifu-keitai, tap-to-pay), my train pass (osaifu-keitai is different hardware to android pay, as it works on turnstiles, even when the phone is dead/off, and has been a thing since 2004), a television (over the air!), an answering machine (no messages stored by carrier; the phone picks up if you don't answer and records it to the SD card), had those privacy filter things, and a really responsive camera.
Sadly, it has a non-replaceable battery and refuses to update android unless it can connect to a docomo tower (I think docomo hosts it's phone's system updates on internal network only, not internet). I had to retire the phone long before the hardware gave out.
I'm pretty much stuck with the phone's stock android because A) It's sharp, so the android hacking community hasn't heard of it. and B) I don't think any ROM would have drivers for any of the galapagos features. (especially I need osaifu-keitai, which as well as being a wallet and my train pass, has all of my arcade top scores associated with it (whenever I go, I just tap the phone and the arcade machine looks me up - unlocks all the bonuses I've achieved and my prefs))
> There's a physical layer of the screen between the touch glass and the LCD that can be turned on, reducing the viewing angle.
Oh, wow.
> Anyone looking from the side will instead see a floral pattern, butterfly pattern, or something else I forget (stars?), depending on your setting.
Wow.
> (You can't pick beyond these three because each pattern is physically its own layer it looks like)
I see.
> This is classic Japanese market electronics. Rather than increase bottom line, add loads of niceties to compete.
TIL the Japanese are still ahead of us with stuff that's really nice, and the rest of the world succumbed to being flooded out with high-fructose corn syrup laden toy electronics that hack our attention spans.
> My phone was a smartphone, a mobile wallet (osaifu-keitai, tap-to-pay), my train pass (osaifu-keitai is different hardware to android pay, as it works on turnstiles, even when the phone is dead/off, and has been a thing since 2004), a television (over the air!), an answering machine (no messages stored by carrier; the phone picks up if you don't answer and records it to the SD card), had those privacy filter things, and a really responsive camera.
Wow.
I can't find it now but I remember seeing a Japanese phone that had OTA TV, a GPS, and even a fingerprint reader on the back. I checked the date, and the thing was made in 2008. Shakes head
> Sadly, it has a non-replaceable battery and refuses to update android unless it can connect to a docomo tower (I think docomo hosts it's phone's system updates on internal network only, not internet). I had to retire the phone long before the hardware gave out.
Hah.
> I'm pretty much stuck with the phone's stock android because A) It's sharp, so the android hacking community hasn't heard of it. and B) I don't think any ROM would have drivers for any of the galapagos features.
Mmmm...
> (especially I need osaifu-keitai, which as well as being a wallet and my train pass, has all of my arcade top scores associated with it (whenever I go, I just tap the phone and the arcade machine looks me up - unlocks all the bonuses I've achieved and my prefs))
_wow_ that is absolutely awesome.
What's really sad is that if this sort of integration ever came to the US I know it'd be used in the most invasive ways possible :(
I wonder if there are any videos documenting any of this out there. I wouldn't mind seeing this stuff in action, especially the game console bit. That's awesome.
Any idea if they are planning to get this work with Project Fi service? I've always wondered what changes in hardware are required to get it compatible with Google's Fi service. Anyone knows?
I ordered Project Fi service recently, got my SIM card over 2 weeks ago and to this still still am unable to activate it and use the service. Their support has gone back and forth with me, and even escalated it to engineerse but nothing has been done to resolve the issue. Moreover they typically respond days later and ask me vague questions like whether or not I enabled Project Fi within Google Apps policy settings (I did that long before calling support). The whole thing has been a clusterfuck to be honest and I'm waiting one final response before I just cancel the whole effort outright and keep on keepin' on with AT&T. The sad part is that I purchased a 5X just for this.
(Reached maxdepth) the pixel 2 is likely coming out in a few months. From https://fi.google.com/about/faq/#supported-devices : """
Why is Project Fi only available on the Nexus 6P, Nexus 5X and Nexus 6, and Pixel devices?
These devices are the first smartphones that support our network of networks. They work with the Project Fi SIM card, which supports multiple cellular networks, and have a state-of-the-art cellular radio tuned to work across network types.
"""
The first part about SIM support seems much more relevant than the second part about their state-of-the-art radios. The Nexus 6 came out in November 2014. Carrier oligopolies are the reason for this as far as I can tell.
I currently use a Nexus 6, and I run into issues with the battery as well as general performance when the battery is low (despite turning off battery saver). Otherwise the phone is fine (if a bit too large and less sexy than an iPhone). I'm also becoming more concerned about privacy, and in that respect I think Apple will probably always care more than Google.
Just one man's opinion, but if you're looking for a quality phone for Project Fi, the Pixel is all-around very good, especially relative to the Nexus 6. I can't speak directly to the Pixel XL, but I've been more satisfied with my Pixel than any iPhone or Android device to date, and the general sentiment from tech reviewers seems to echo my opinion on it.
I switched from N6 to Pixel XL, and difference is very significant: no lags at all, I now don't know what more I would want from the phone.
For N6, I think they had some hardware bug in memory card controller, which degradated performance because of some data fragmentation.
>I'm actually impressed it only took 100 people to getting this out. I presume there was an incredible amount of sleepless nights, as this is no easy task.
There are 10 man companies in China making custom phones from reference designs. On my own memory, there was a company that managed to make a phone in under 3 month in 2011
> However, most sales for smartphones are from contracts sold directly from carriers so it'll be interesting to see how they'll do in the market with their current strategy
Is this still true? I just bought a new phone (on Verizon) and they didn't even have a contract subsidy option anymore. I know T-Mobile also dropped this a couple years ago.
To be fair though, Sprint is one of the easier carriers to work with after T-Mobile. I can't imagine them releasing a phone on AT&T or Verizon, as their process is grueling. I guess since they're selling an unlockcked version of their phone, it doesn't really matter to power users. However, most sales for smartphones are from contracts sold directly from carriers so it'll be interesting to see how they'll do in the market with their current strategy (similar to One Plus One).
Props to them though. It's not just about carrier certification. Releasing a smartphone is a long complex process. Some engineers at Sprint were briefly talking about how great the phone was, so I have high hopes.