The first game is much creepier than the second, I think due to a combination of the character designs, the writing and the general plot. The second game feels more akin to Danganronpa, in that the characters and setting are a bit surreal. Because it was a 3DS game, it also uses cartoony 3D models that make everything a bit lighter and less gritty than the original game. I haven’t played the third one yet (still need to get around to 100% completing the second game).

I found 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors to be very unsettling. I played it in bed at night with headphones on and it totally sucked me in. I guess this is a different type of horror to many of the games suggested here, which I personally don’t find scary.

I don’t really see the point (for consumers). The original foldable designs were trying to achieve the combination of a smartphone and tablet. That’s why they were taller and narrower, because when folded out they were supposed to reflect the shape of a tablet in portrait mode. Then manufacturers started changing the dimensions of the outer display to make it look more like a normal phone, which affected the inner display’s ability to mimic a 16:9 tablet. The inner displays on newer foldables have weird aspect ratios that don’t really suit anything particularly well and this tri-fold design seems to retain a similar ratio for the second of the three display modes. My question is: why would anyone ever use their phone in that second display mode when they can fold it out into a proper 16:9 display? Why would you choose the weird aspect ratio that only exists due to design limitations when you can choose a proper one that will be natively supported by everything?

It might not be your thing, but there is also a minimalist phone from a startup shipping later this year that has a physical keyboard. And there is also the Clicks keyboard case, which currently only supports iPhones but may release for some Android phones in the future.

Android 11 is still capable of updating some core system components through Project Mainline, as opposed to Android 8 which is completely dead. But yeah I agree that it’s probably not worth “upgrading” to those Unihertz devices. I was sharing more so it would be on your radar if they ever release a newer model.

E-waste isn’t the only problem associated with smartphone manufacturing.

While the energy required to power our devices remains significant, for devices like smartphones, tablets, and PCs, the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions now comes from the manufacturing phase. Devices have become more energy-efficient due in part to the shift to mobile platforms, as well as more complex, which increases the amount of energy required to produce each one. Life-cycle assessments of smartphones, tablets and PCs have consistently found that the production phase, including resource extraction and processing, component manufacturing, and assembly, contributes the most to total greenhouse gas emissions, in some cases as much as 80%.

Smartphones and other electronic devices are among the most resource intensive by weight on the planet–miners must dig through more than 30 kilos of rock to obtain the 100 or so grams of minerals used in a smartphone. Industrial mining scars the Earth permanently, leaving behind toxic wastewater and soil, and rehabilitation of mining areas is uncommon.

From Greenpeace’s 2017 Guide to Greener Electronics.

Rollies? Can I smoke them?

Unihertz sells a couple of Android 11 phones with physical keyboards.

I don’t really see any downsides to annual phone releases. For those people who want to upgrade every year, they can

You really can’t see any downside in upgrading your phone every single year? I’ll give you a clue, it starts with an E and ends with a T and it is constantly being degraded by the mining and manufacturing required to flood the market with annual releases that are barely an improvement on the previous iteration.

I do not see why everyone wants to deny this and trust big tech.

This is the exact same logic conspiracy theorists use with aliens - “everyone wants to deny they exists and trusts the government, are you guys brainwashed!!!”.

Where is your proof this technology exists and is currently being used? The 404 media articles are not proof of either of these things. They are proof that CMG has some marketing slides and a former web page claiming that they have the capability to do this. They are proof that CMG has contacted at least one other company and tried to sell them this alleged service. They are not proof that the technology is being used, or that it even exists.

It’s so ironic that you claim we are the brainwashed ones for demanding proof, yet you naively assume that CMG must really have developed this technology and employed it worldwide just because they said so. No one would ever lie about the capabilities of their company to inflate its worth and make more money! Only bad big tech lies, everyone else in the world is 100% honest!

Why would anyone believe you? You have provided zero evidence to support anything you’ve said here.

404 are investigative journalists, they don’t just report 'news" - they actually go out and find it. When they published the original story they asked for people to contact them with further information, as investigative journalists do. This isn’t reporting the exact same story again, it’s an update to the original story based on new information they’ve acquired.

Yes, that is a more rational take. Though it is from last year, based on the original 404 Media article (not the update from this year which OP’s article is piggybacking off). I would encourage people to just read the 404 Media articles or, if they can’t do that, listen to the 404 team discuss them on their podcast. When you get away from all the clickbait headlines from people trying to make money off 404’s reporting and actually listen to what is being said by the people who know more about this story than anyone else, it becomes pretty clear that this isn’t the slam dunk so many privacy illiterate people on social media would have you think it is.

Yeah, I guess my point is that they all come under that A bracket now so it’s a bit harder to distinguish between the good ones and the not-so-good ones if you don’t understand the differences/haven’t done any research. For example, some people might think an A05s is somewhat comparable to an A55 because of the similar naming structure and design, but there is massive gap in quality between those two phones. The A55 is a great device that would be suitable for almost anyone (ignoring specific complaints like no headphone jack or the size) whereas the A05s would barely meet anyone’s minimum standards. The price difference is an indicator of course, but this was all made easier when there was a J series that was clearly designated for Samsung’s most basic smartphones.

As a reminder, this entire story is still only based on the reporting from 404 Media who themselves have been unable to confirm whether any of this technology actually exists or is in use. The journalists investigating this story (not the outlets republishing it with clickbait headlines) are not convinced themselves and have suggested it could also be a case of CMG tech bros trying to hype their company by shipping around proof of concept marketing material to other tech companies. Ford has patented similar technology but again, there is no proof that this is actually being used currently.

I have seen this shit reposted multiple times all over Lemmy as “dEfiNiTiVe pRoOf” but seemingly none of the people who share it or comment have actually read the original articles themselves or listened to anything the 404 Media journalists have said about it. This is not proof, this is a developing story which requires proof for the conspiracy theory to be confirmed as real.

The A series has a lot of variance within it now. Personally I think anything from the A2x up is pretty good (the A25 had an Exynos chip, a 120 Hz AMOLED display and 5 years of security updates) but those beneath are more akin to what the J series used to be.

Comment on the YouTube video review:

It has a 60Hz refresh rate and USB 2.0, just like an $800 iPhone 16. What’s not to like?

I haven’t had too many issues with mLauncher, only the occasional freeze and crash. But it is a pretty lightweight launcher. Kvaesitso, which is a lot heavier, has had more issues for me. Is stability a common problem for third-party launchers? Even very popular ones like Nova?

Not saying it’s not valid (we all want longer software support!), but wtf does length of software support have to do with rating the UX? They are completely separate things.

Yeah unfortunately their inclusion of that kind of renders the whole list pointless. This was actually just a list of manufacturers ranked by their update policies.

It’s actually 4 years now. Still terrible for the price, of course.