I’m writing this on an iPad, and my iPhone goes with me almost everywhere. I read books on my phone - can’t remember the last time I read a paper book. I check the weather, communicate with my family, on and on it goes. For better or worse I can’t imagine life without the convenience it brings. I don’t do social media tho on any platform, and in saying all that I still work, game, watch movies with the kids, etc on real PC’s so mobile tech hasn’t replaced anything on that front. I just use tech more thanks to mobile.

I have no smartphone, pad or the like.

I have a GSM phone and a Sony Walkman. I make calls on the phone and use the Walkman for music, they do not interest me as much as desktop PCs. As you might guess I do not update to newer mobile devices often.

Yep, iPhone 8 and Surface 4 Pro user here. Couldn’t survive without them.

I’m extremely impressed with the performance of ARM processors. The A12 in the iPhone XS has Skylake level IPC and consumes something like 2 watts. Even my iPhone 8, with its A11 CPU, feels just as quick as my surface 4 on the internet!

Skyscraper wrote:

I have no smartphone, pad or the like.

I have a GSM phone and a Sony Walkman. I make calls on the phone and uses the Walkman for music, they do not interest me as much as desktop PCs. As you might guess I do not update to newer mobile devices often.

Interesting, is it a choice cause you may not like how the mobile tech evolved or just you don't need more?
From time to time I also go back to use gsm only or last feature phones with most basic functions but I like to change from devices to devices actually trying some very old smart phones with android. But at the end I can still be happy with a feature phone.

I've got mixed feelings. I experience a bit of a dejavue currently: 😕
Back in the 90s I had a little calculator/LCD handheld collection, while later -in the early 2000s- I had several PDAs, cell phones, etc.
All of which I was very happy with (I installed SDKs, PalmOS emulators, etc., tried mobile Java apps). These all were mobile devices, too.
But no one really cared about them (except for that SMS/cell phone hype or "boom" of the early 2000s or following iPod/MP3 player craze).

So to me, this makes the whole smartphone era somwewhat surreal. I used to be excited about this tech back then, but now it's just bores me.
And to some degree this results in a bit of irony, too, since *exactly now* every one else seems to be soo proud of the advent of the smartphone,
as if it was humanity's greatest archivement ever (as if the iconic Nokia Communicator from ~1996 never existed). 😉

In fact, when I see certain old "retro" futuristic technology, it makes me way more excited. Not sure exactly why, though.
There's nostalgia, sure, but that's not all of it. I'm also willing to learn about new technology, like the newest micro controllers, CPUs, flash media, etc.
But in the end, I find that some nifty old relay circuit is more fascinating than, say, an Raspberry Pi-based cluster.
On the other hand, a truely historic piece of tech, like a model steam engine doesn't interest me that much. Life is weird..

My girlfriend has a tablet. It's useful but has very poor usability.

I haven't updated my mobile tech since 2007, but for software devving I'm considering.

^I gave away my tablet. It was a horrible 7" single-core tablet with Android 4.0.4..
To be fair, though, it was useful for a while. It ran Cut The Rope. 😁
And helped me learning for HAM license when I was traveling by train. So it was indeed useful, albeit really slow.
ebook readers with hires monochrome e-ink displays and PDF support are also cool mobile inventions of today, IMHO.

I'm all in (except for smart watches).
Especially getting Exult to run on iOS was great. Same for getting the DOSBox port, too. And the way these things get more and more powerful is awesome for doing these things.
I keep up to date with the know how and what's available.

Jo22 wrote:

I've got mixed feelings. I experience a bit of a dejavue currently: :confused: Back in the 90s I had a little calculator/LCD h […]
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I've got mixed feelings. I experience a bit of a dejavue currently: 😕
Back in the 90s I had a little calculator/LCD handheld collection, while later -in the early 2000s- I had several PDAs, cell phones, etc.
All of which I was very happy with (I installed SDKs, PalmOS emulators, etc., tried mobile Java apps). These all were mobile devices, too.
But no one really cared about them (except for that SMS/cell phone hype or "boom" of the early 2000s or following iPod/MP3 player craze).

So to me, this makes the whole smartphone era somwewhat surreal. I used to be excited about this tech back then, but now it's just bores me.
And to some degree this results in a bit of irony, too, since *exactly now* every one else seems to be soo proud of the advent of the smartphone,
as if it was humanity's greatest archivement ever (as if the iconic Nokia Communicator from ~1996 never existed). 😉

In fact, when I see certain old "retro" futuristic technology, it makes me way more excited. Not sure exactly why, though.
There's nostalgia, sure, but that's not all of it. I'm also willing to learn about new technology, like the newest micro controllers, CPUs, flash media, etc.
But in the end, I find that some nifty old relay circuit is more fascinating than, say, an Raspberry Pi-based cluster.
On the other hand, a truely historic piece of tech, like a model steam engine doesn't interest me that much. Life is weird..

I understand your point. Back in the early 2000 I really liked the smartphone concept. Installing applications, games on a mobile device seems great but after Symbian it seems clear that market goal was becoming selling services more than improving (and selling) hardware. And maybe I am old but all these app/social/services I don't really need. I am still interested on mobile cpu and how they improve anyway.

Well i am really considering buying a new Nokia 8110 4G and replacing my Galaxy S7.

Cyberdyne wrote:

Well i am really considering buying a new Nokia 8110 4G and replacing my Galaxy S7.

Considering the cpu inside, a dual core above 1Ghz Cortex A7 with 512Mb of ram, it's probably one of the most advanced "feature phones with keyboard" and I was thinking about it too, but maybe I think I still prefer the Nokia 216 DS even if MUCH less advanced in the processor department (ARM7 cpu probably around 300-400Mhz) and in the online/multimedia capabilities (server rendering based browser, vga camera, 2.5G radio vs HTML5, 2MP camera and 4G of the 8110); but I think it's a well built phone with a nicer keyboard and without that plastic on the buttons you've to slide everytime you need to check something on the phone. Also the 216 ""os"" seems programmed more low-level and quiet fast considering the low end hardware.

Smart phones are OK but it's killing my eyes. With my current contract up I'd like to get a "dumb phone"/tablet package, using the tablet for online stuff but to my limited knowledge most tabs use wifi to get online which sucks cuz I live out in the boondocks with no cable.

I have a semi-dumb mobile phone. It can run Java apps/games but has practically no internet connectivity. Its battery and housing have been replaced since.
Besides that I was gifted an iPad mini 3 when it was new. Immediately traded it in for a 64GB version instead of the basic 16GB. It is now jailbroken (untethered), and "iTools" for Windows allows uploading content to it. Most white themed interfaces have been changed to darker colors. I use it for ebooks, music, games as well as its camera. It can connect to wired ethernet with an adapter. The only problem is; I would like security updates but don't want to lose the jailbreak, which is very IOS-version specific.