3 ms·

I am definitely an outlier but for me, I need those massive phones (well, their screens) since I am pretty tall and have big hands / thick fingers. Typing on sm

by jajko 2y ago

I am definitely an outlier but for me, I need those massive phones (well, their screens) since I am pretty tall and have big hands / thick fingers. Typing on smaller screen is just suffer fest due to many errors, and general usage sucks too regardless of brand (ie Apple mini 13 of my wife makes me wanna cry in 30s of using it). In terms of Samsung's phones, Galaxy S II was tiny and bad, S 22 ultra is OK, wouldn't want anything smaller. Cars are a different topic, but with 2 small kids, small cars are useless when transporting all of us. Very bad safety, storage too tiny and thus not usable for even weekend outdoorsy trips. Now I am not advocating for oversized US style SUVs, but some storage is required and making cars taller like crossovers or european style SUVs sucks for many reasons (high center of gravity and thus bad handling, higher consumption and maintenance costs, more permanent noise in higher speeds).

SoftTalker 2y ago
An estate/station wagon style body is great for this. Room like an SUV, handles much more like a saloon/sedan than an SUV or crossover. Used to be popular as a family car back in the 1970s, every automaker made them but there are not nearly as many choices these days.
- Vecr 2y ago
  Not very safe. Yeah, they could make it better, but then you're mostly back to a SUV anyway.
  - wing-_-nuts 2y ago
    Huh? Volvos are known for their wagons and their cars are among the safest in the industry.
- nradov 2y ago
  The Subaru Outback is quite popular and is basically a station wagon. But for regulatory purposes including CAFE it is classified as a "light truck", the same as any other SUV or crossover. A lot of this is regulatory arbitrage. The whole concept behind CAFE was idiotic from the start and recent tweaks to the rules haven't fixed the fundamental problem. If we want people to burn less fuel then just tax the fuel instead of distorting the free market by putting weird mandates on manufacturers. The station wagons available in the 1970s had some actual "utility" in that you could use one to carry a family of 5 plus dog and cargo, and tow a boat trailer down a rough dirt road to a lake. Now newer station wagon models have sacrificed that utility in a misguided pursuit of fuel efficiency and styling so they have become useless to a lot of American consumers.
  - wing-_-nuts 2y ago
    > just tax the fuel instead of distorting the free market by putting weird mandates on manufacturers. Unfortunately this is politically impossible when you've got people like Grover Norquist who will primary anyone he thinks had a hand in raising taxes. When you scare most of congress away from using the tool of higher taxes, what you wind up with is massive deficit spending and misguided 'carrot' incentives when the 'stick' of raised taxes is taken away.
JansjoFromIkea 2y ago
Assuming you're a decent outlier, does it make sense to you that someone with a hand that could be half the size of yours uses the same sized phone as you? Iirc Steve Jobs had a fixation that a user's thumb should be easily able to reach the entire screen without readjusting their grip and that makes a lot of sense to me. RE: Cars, I tend to think fair enough when kids are involved (although I think they could still be a lot more compact without actually losing much space inside, Japan seems to manage with much smaller vehicles) but it feels like virtually everyone of my parents generation has bought by far the largest car they ever had now that they're retired. I've one aunt who has a car she basically has to climb into, had quite a bad fall getting out of it one time and still doesn't want to downsize because she "wouldn't feel safe" driving something smaller.

by jajko 2y ago

SoftTalker 2y ago

An estate/station wagon style body is great for this. Room like an SUV, handles much more like a saloon/sedan than an SUV or crossover. Used to be popular as a family car back in the 1970s, every automaker made them but there are not nearly as many choices these days.

Vecr 2y ago
Not very safe. Yeah, they could make it better, but then you're mostly back to a SUV anyway.
- wing-_-nuts 2y ago
  Huh? Volvos are known for their wagons and their cars are among the safest in the industry.
nradov 2y ago
The Subaru Outback is quite popular and is basically a station wagon. But for regulatory purposes including CAFE it is classified as a "light truck", the same as any other SUV or crossover. A lot of this is regulatory arbitrage. The whole concept behind CAFE was idiotic from the start and recent tweaks to the rules haven't fixed the fundamental problem. If we want people to burn less fuel then just tax the fuel instead of distorting the free market by putting weird mandates on manufacturers. The station wagons available in the 1970s had some actual "utility" in that you could use one to carry a family of 5 plus dog and cargo, and tow a boat trailer down a rough dirt road to a lake. Now newer station wagon models have sacrificed that utility in a misguided pursuit of fuel efficiency and styling so they have become useless to a lot of American consumers.
- wing-_-nuts 2y ago
  > just tax the fuel instead of distorting the free market by putting weird mandates on manufacturers. Unfortunately this is politically impossible when you've got people like Grover Norquist who will primary anyone he thinks had a hand in raising taxes. When you scare most of congress away from using the tool of higher taxes, what you wind up with is massive deficit spending and misguided 'carrot' incentives when the 'stick' of raised taxes is taken away.

JansjoFromIkea 2y ago

Assuming you're a decent outlier, does it make sense to you that someone with a hand that could be half the size of yours uses the same sized phone as you? Iirc Steve Jobs had a fixation that a user's thumb should be easily able to reach the entire screen without readjusting their grip and that makes a lot of sense to me. RE: Cars, I tend to think fair enough when kids are involved (although I think they could still be a lot more compact without actually losing much space inside, Japan seems to manage with much smaller vehicles) but it feels like virtually everyone of my parents generation has bought by far the largest car they ever had now that they're retired. I've one aunt who has a car she basically has to climb into, had quite a bad fall getting out of it one time and still doesn't want to downsize because she "wouldn't feel safe" driving something smaller.