qupada

I think they’ve advertised 4 years OS / 6 years security for 2025’s models.

I fully agree with you it was terrible previously, in fact as low as 2/2 at one point.

They did, but I honestly preferred the old version. I swapped recently from a 1ii (21:9) to 1vii (19.5:9).

I now can’t reliably use the phone one-handed and reach the entire way across the display with my thumb, which feels like a much bigger usability issue. Being unable to reach the top was mitigated by side-of-screen gestures that allowed access to the notification bar without reaching to the top of the display, so it was never actually a problem.

While I can indeed now reach the top of the screen with my thumb, the phone is wide enough that I can’t firmly hold it while doing so, which really isn’t an improvement if I’m liable to drop the damn thing.

And to be clear, this is with a very small real-world difference in size. If you look at GSM Arena’s size comparison tool, the actual difference is only 3.1mm (1.9%) shorter, and 2.9mm (4.1%) wider: https://www.gsmarena.com/size-compare-3d.php3?idPhone1=13843&idPhone2=10096

The other thing I can also no longer do is watch a video and use another app at the same time; previously you could have a full-screen-width 16:9 video at the top of the screen, an app with an actually usable amount of height in the middle and the keyboard at the bottom and interact with everything. There’s just not enough room for all three with the shorter aspect, the video always getting scrolled halfway off the screen when opening the keyboard.

Curiously, have you actually owned one of the earlier 21:9 models? Because I’ve noticed the absolutely overwhelming majority of “complaints” come from people who’ve never actually tried it, but my experience is you hand someone your (21:9) phone and every time they make a positive comment about it.

Losing these “unique” features is also the thing that is probable to kill Sony phones for good. Without some point of differentiation they’ll become another “also-ran”, selling devices that are otherwise similar to their competitors but cost more. That isn’t sustainable long term. Just ask LG, HTC, or any other non-Samsung Android manufacturer who’s no longer with us.

(also Xperia weirdo, checking in)

This year’s 1vii - which I did unfortunately pay said $1500 for - still has all of those. Hole-puch free display, SD card slot, headphone jack.

It’s lost the dedicated notification LED, but - aside from the change from a 21:9 to 19:9 display which I don’t love, but is far from a deal-breaker - that’s the only other outward change from the 1ii I had before.

Still the best waterproofing in the industry too, absolutely can’t fault Sony there.

Curiously, why on the back?

I always found that a worse location than phones that had it on the side (usually paired with the power button), as you can’t unlock your phone if it’s lying flat on a table without picking it up.

(Also the way I typically hold my phone, the usually top centre sensor is absolutely nowhere near where any of my fingers naturally sit, and requires awkward bending to reach it)

I know a lot of people like it, but I’ve never been able to figure out what it was about it.

When I got my new phone recently, I asked of it what is by a wide margin my most common voice task; setting a timer for something I was cooking.

It presented a UI suggesting it had understood the assignment, but utterly failed to actually set the timer.

It was at that point I reverted to Assistant and forgot it existed.

This feels par for the course though; a bunch of effort spent on a few “hard” tasks to make it seem impressive, but zero on maintaining existing functionality that normal people actually use on a regular basis.

Yes, but you shouldn’t.

After a reboot, a lot of phones can only use the device’s default keyboard app for entering the unlock pin/password.

If you’ve removed or disabled it, you can get into a situation where you have no keyboard at all, and a delightful chicken-and-egg situation of needing a keyboard you don’t have until after unlocking the device to enter the code to unlock the device.

(A USB keyboard will let you escape this, for what that’s worth)

Generally, you just need to export the pool with zpool export zfspool1, then import again with zpool import -d /dev/disk/by-id zfspool1.

I believe it should stick after that.

Whether that will apply in its current degrated state I couldn’t say.

While I have a personal general rule against backing electronics on Kickstarter and would likely wait for it to be available at retail, I wouldn’t necessarily immediately discount this one.

It’s probably worth noting - mentioned in Jeff Geerling’s video - they had a MOQ of 1500 on the metal case, which likely forced them to be significantly further through the process than a lot of Kickstarters are at launch.