5 ms·

This is my greatest concern. So many small players will be wiped out. Consolidation is assured. Always great for consumers to be under the thumb of increasingly

This is my greatest concern. So many small players will be wiped out. Consolidation is assured. Always great for consumers to be under the thumb of increasingly large companies.

pseudohadamard 7mo ago
Will it be such a big deal though? Currently people are swapping out their phones for another model that's exactly the same but with a different number at the end of the name every 12 months. This could just mean that the unnecessary churn dies down a bit, and companies taking advantage of it have to find a new line of business.
- lelanthran 7mo ago
  > Will it be such a big deal though? Currently people are swapping out their phones for another model that's exactly the same but with a different number at the end of the name every 12 months. I don't think they do that at the low-end (nor the high-end, though that doesn't matter here - higher-end manufacturers have a small margin they can eat into). People on the low-end phones want a new phone, they just cannot afford it!
  - jeffreygoesto 7mo ago
    But why? I just replaced my Huawei P20 after eight years and only because nobody cares about app sizes and compatibility.
    - crote 7mo ago
      You just answered your own question. There's also the issue of phones occasionally getting broken, of course.
    - pseudohadamard 7mo ago
      And would you consider yourself representative of the phone-buying public in general? My desktop PC is from 2008 but I'd never consider this to represent anything like common usage. In fact it's so unusual that I get to point it out in posts like this.
    - Aerroon 7mo ago
      Because the phones stop working well? I write part of a post, open another tab to go look up some information, come back to the post and what I've written is gone, because the memory got dumped. That's the reality of using an old cheap phone.
    - wolvoleo 7mo ago
      It is pretty insane to have an 800MB app where you need to create an account, just to be able to change two settings on a DJI microphone.
  - einpoklum 7mo ago
    Even in the mid-end: If you buy a phone which you find to be decent, but affordable, and are not out for chasing the latest gimmick - there is no reason it would not last you 6 or 8 years easily - before applications start assuming the presence of better hardware, or a newer Android version than you have etc. Naturally you will have to protect it from physical damage, and maybe replace a battery at some point.
- throwaway2037 7mo ago
  This comment makes no sense to me. I exclusively use very low-end phones from Xiaomi. I buy a new one roughly every two years. Each new phone has a better screen, camera, CPU/GPU, charging, and sometimes more RAM/storage.
  - michaelt 7mo ago
    Take a look at a comparison of the iphone 17 and the iphone 12 https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?modelList=iphone-17,iphone-12 https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?modelList=iphone-17,ip... Is the newer model better? Sure! But it had 4k 60fps video, optical image stabilisation, a "super retina display" etc five generations ago. The specs have kept improving, but it's not a quantum leap in performance.
    - kasabali 7mo ago
      iPhone 12 wasn't low end
      - nandomrumber 7mo ago
        The same applies at the low end, the grand parent comment even agrees. You buy a new phone every two years, it comes with a camera, a cpu, a gpu, a host of sensors. Same as phones did two years ago, and ten years before that. I don’t use my current smart phone in any ways that are different to the iMate PDA2K I had twenty years so. https://www.gsmarena.com/i_mate_pda2k-962.php https://www.gsmarena.com/i_mate_pda2k-962.php
        Aerroon 7mo ago
        How often does your browser freeze up when you open a webpage? How often does your phone browser dump its memory when you switch to another tab and then switch back? Eg if you were writing a post and opened another tab to go check some fact then the post in the original tab gets deleted. Because that's what happens if you use an old cheap phone in the modern day. I even had a phone that would occasionally just crash when on a heavy website and the onscreen keyboard popped up. That was not at all infuriating!!! Especially when it would crash when I try to refine a Google search.
yread 7mo ago
Are there really that many small players? Aren't they all just subbrands of Xiaomi, Lenovo and Oppo?
- muvlon 7mo ago
  There are a bunch of subbrands but there are also a lot of genuine small Android phone companies, especially in China. Some of these serve some interesting niches that might now disappear due to this DRAM supply issue, e.g. Unihertz for extra small phones or CAT for extra durable worksite phones.
  - kjs3 7mo ago
    Is there any 'guide' to this ecosystem...because 'odd niche communications gear' is always interesting.
- inemesitaffia 7mo ago
  Transsion
- pfannkuchen 7mo ago
  Is it a coincidence that Oppo sounds a lot like how Chinese people sound when they say Apple?

This is my greatest concern. So many small players will be wiped out. Consolidation is assured. Always great for consumers to be under the thumb of increasingly large companies.

pseudohadamard 7mo ago

Will it be such a big deal though? Currently people are swapping out their phones for another model that's exactly the same but with a different number at the end of the name every 12 months. This could just mean that the unnecessary churn dies down a bit, and companies taking advantage of it have to find a new line of business.

lelanthran 7mo ago
> Will it be such a big deal though? Currently people are swapping out their phones for another model that's exactly the same but with a different number at the end of the name every 12 months. I don't think they do that at the low-end (nor the high-end, though that doesn't matter here - higher-end manufacturers have a small margin they can eat into). People on the low-end phones want a new phone, they just cannot afford it!
- jeffreygoesto 7mo ago
  But why? I just replaced my Huawei P20 after eight years and only because nobody cares about app sizes and compatibility.
  - crote 7mo ago
    You just answered your own question. There's also the issue of phones occasionally getting broken, of course.
  - pseudohadamard 7mo ago
    And would you consider yourself representative of the phone-buying public in general? My desktop PC is from 2008 but I'd never consider this to represent anything like common usage. In fact it's so unusual that I get to point it out in posts like this.
  - Aerroon 7mo ago
    Because the phones stop working well? I write part of a post, open another tab to go look up some information, come back to the post and what I've written is gone, because the memory got dumped. That's the reality of using an old cheap phone.
  - wolvoleo 7mo ago
    It is pretty insane to have an 800MB app where you need to create an account, just to be able to change two settings on a DJI microphone.
- einpoklum 7mo ago
  Even in the mid-end: If you buy a phone which you find to be decent, but affordable, and are not out for chasing the latest gimmick - there is no reason it would not last you 6 or 8 years easily - before applications start assuming the presence of better hardware, or a newer Android version than you have etc. Naturally you will have to protect it from physical damage, and maybe replace a battery at some point.
throwaway2037 7mo ago
This comment makes no sense to me. I exclusively use very low-end phones from Xiaomi. I buy a new one roughly every two years. Each new phone has a better screen, camera, CPU/GPU, charging, and sometimes more RAM/storage.
- michaelt 7mo ago
  Take a look at a comparison of the iphone 17 and the iphone 12 https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?modelList=iphone-17,iphone-12 https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?modelList=iphone-17,ip... Is the newer model better? Sure! But it had 4k 60fps video, optical image stabilisation, a "super retina display" etc five generations ago. The specs have kept improving, but it's not a quantum leap in performance.
  - kasabali 7mo ago
    iPhone 12 wasn't low end
    - nandomrumber 7mo ago
      The same applies at the low end, the grand parent comment even agrees. You buy a new phone every two years, it comes with a camera, a cpu, a gpu, a host of sensors. Same as phones did two years ago, and ten years before that. I don’t use my current smart phone in any ways that are different to the iMate PDA2K I had twenty years so. https://www.gsmarena.com/i_mate_pda2k-962.php https://www.gsmarena.com/i_mate_pda2k-962.php
      - Aerroon 7mo ago
        How often does your browser freeze up when you open a webpage? How often does your phone browser dump its memory when you switch to another tab and then switch back? Eg if you were writing a post and opened another tab to go check some fact then the post in the original tab gets deleted. Because that's what happens if you use an old cheap phone in the modern day. I even had a phone that would occasionally just crash when on a heavy website and the onscreen keyboard popped up. That was not at all infuriating!!! Especially when it would crash when I try to refine a Google search.

yread 7mo ago

Are there really that many small players? Aren't they all just subbrands of Xiaomi, Lenovo and Oppo?

muvlon 7mo ago
There are a bunch of subbrands but there are also a lot of genuine small Android phone companies, especially in China. Some of these serve some interesting niches that might now disappear due to this DRAM supply issue, e.g. Unihertz for extra small phones or CAT for extra durable worksite phones.
- kjs3 7mo ago
  Is there any 'guide' to this ecosystem...because 'odd niche communications gear' is always interesting.
inemesitaffia 7mo ago
Transsion
pfannkuchen 7mo ago
Is it a coincidence that Oppo sounds a lot like how Chinese people sound when they say Apple?