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I don't care. Make the processor more efficient, make the screen more efficient and it really becomes a non-issue. LG could have put in more battery in the Nexu
by quink 13y ago
I don't care. Make the processor more efficient, make the screen more efficient and it really becomes a non-issue. LG could have put in more battery in the Nexus 4 had they really wanted to, probably 20% more. Remember Nokias with four or five week battery lives? Well, with re-thinking on the other sides of this, like ubiquitous MicroUSB, battery life beyond two days became a bit of a non-issue. Completely. Sure, some phones might be constrained because of battery life, but they're not in the majority. It's just a standard component of a rectangular shape and thickness they put in these days and it's good enough.
What am I really going to do with, what, 20% more battery life, if it already lasts 2 days? And how about the possibility of each of these components adding more than one functionality? Who is to says that a GPU component can't also add a battery? I wouldn't mind having a phone with two batteries. And no one is saying that everything in the phone should be modularised out. How about a module just called 'mainboard' that contains everything but the battery and the antenna, and of course the screen? You could then override or enhance functions on this mainboard with additional modules. And it would be easy to replace. The concept of these connectors and all wasting space becomes a bit of a weird thought if you actually might hold it in your hand an realise that it's a good size, it has good performance, it has good battery life, it has a good screen and there might only be two or three modules in the eight module slots available. And that's doable. Saying that there's wasted space in a phone like that becomes, instead of a criticism, it becomes a justification for buying new modules.
All in all, the wasted space in this is not going to outweigh the "wasted space" (if you can call it that) in the majority of smart phones out there by a substantial amount.
In fact, it gives manufacturers an incentive to cram every single cubic millimetre they're given with as much functionality as possible, or at least sensible, because their revenue will depend on this utterly in a freer market. Has that been the case so far? I've repaired my Nexus 4. There are plenty of cubic millimetres of space being used that, strictly speaking, don't really need to be. Most of what's happening here is that these structural cubic millimetres are being shifted to a different and sure, a bit less efficient shape.
The only outcome that matters coming out of all of this will be that it might cost $15 more. Or $5. Or some small integer dollars to pay for all the connectors. But if I can use at least half of it twice as long, that's an amount that doesn't much matter.
Here's a secret: The Nexus 4 is already full of spring loaded connectors anyway. I counted. It has about 5 going to the back cover. And one for the speaker. Add the SIM and that's another one. Then add the two connectors for antennas... and arrive at about 9. If you count the battery, which uses sprung pins in addition to two screws, that's 10. This thing has eight visible at the back, add a SIM and you arrive at 9, and add maybe another one or two at the front. Ten, maybe eleven. So, really, the only big difference is that these connectors are now more easily user accessible and the aluminium frame is a bit of a different shape. There's already plenty of internal plastic to surround individual components in a Nexus 4 anyway, so just make it a bit thicker on the outside. Not a big leap, people.
"But everything is moving towards integration"
Well, that hardly precludes it from moving in this direction as well. The CPU being on the same silicon as some mesaure of GPU is hardly going to be fundamentally affected by this, is it now?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- scott_karana 13y agoThe Nokia phones with four or five week battery lives used a single backlight for a 120x120 or so pixel monochromatic LCD screen. Don't get me wrong, I love the one that I have and still use as an alarm clock, but it'll never replace a high pixel density colour screen in anyone's books.
- pekk 13y agoPlenty of people don't really care about watching movies on their phones, so I wouldn't say "anyone".
- kayoone 13y agoIn my world, almost everyone cares about consuming content (maybe not movies) on their smartphones, heck they use their smartphone more than their PC/TV.
- scott_karana 13y agoI wasn't saying that such a phone had no use. I said it wouldn't replace high density screens for anyone.
- koffiezet 13y agoSorry, but a few things in phones are in my opinion important: - Weight - Size - Battery life Any modular design impacts all 3 of these things. And there are a lot more downsides to it than just that. To be really modular, you would need some sort of 'interconnect' bus, to tell the 'main cpu' of the phone exactly what modules are installed. This means that EACH module needs a chip that handles communication on this centralized bus. One of the reasons cellphones become smaller, thinner and have a longer battery life is due to the integration of all those little chips into just a few. Each chip requires a minimum of power to run, and if you have some sort of intelligent on-chip power management you can easily shut down parts that you don't need. Sure, some clever scheme to power down individual modules based on use can be engineered, but this would still be far from efficient. Also - this 'central bus' will be limited to today's technology. Will it still be sufficient for next-gen hardware? What if in a few years, 'integrated' phones have full 4k-resolution recording? Will the this bus still have sufficient bandwidth? Current phone development is moving FAST. Why? No necessary constraints and reliance on aged technology, they can develop and adapt things as much as they want. Better placement of the microphones? Flash further away from the lens gives better results? Sensors integrated in the display? Front camera upgrade? That are things that are going to be ver tricky in a modular phone. Modularity will also require more logic to be separated. Good example are camera's, most of the 'heavy lifting' is done on the main CPU's silicon somewhere. To have a 'better' camera, it's not sufficient to just replace the sensor and be done with it. You need an extra chip on the camera module, draining more power, wasting more space, unless you want to make serious trade offs regarding speed, battery life, ... The trend is 'all in one' for a reason. Also the 'recycling' argument is bullshit. Normal people will just throw away old 'blocks' in the normal garbage can without much thought. And then you have the software mess. This is going to be great! Now instead of Android apps having an already immensely fragmented target platform, you just increased that exponentially. Minimum requirements for this game? Well 2gb of ram, this GPU, this CPU, ... Oh and you need at least this module for sensor Y. Oh and if you happen to have module M, you should remove this before running this app, there are compatibility issues with the current driver your system downloaded automagically (I hope). Every modular concept has trade offs, in some cases them being perfectly acceptable, see expansion cards in normal desktop pc's - where size isn't a problem. A modular phone on the other hand has to make trade-offs in areas that are simply not acceptable.