phone posts

New phone: Minimal Phone

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I got a new phone, the Minimal Phone. It is an e-paper phone with physical keyboard, both rarities in current smartphones. My Samsung S24 is a bit over a year old, pretty much new for me, but I’ve been wanting an e-paper phone for a long time and the S24 was somewhat disappointing in some ways. I’m hoping the e-paper display will reduce eye fatigue, reduce screen time, and help with sleep issues. I haven’t switched over and won’t until I get a case for it, plus there are some issues that I’m hoping get fixed with an upcoming software update.

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Got a smartwatch: Bangle.js 2

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I bought a Bangle.js 2 smartwatch from Adafruit. I haven’t ever owned or played with a smartwatch, and haven’t even worn a dumb watch in 15 years or more. But I got to thinking that I look at my phone a lot for time and notifications, and this could reduce phone use and simplify that behavior at the same time. An e-paper screen could make it less like looking at a mini phone on my wrist. It also could do some other things like step counting, sleep monitoring, and heart rate monitoring that might be useful, and timers, alarms, and stopwatch so I don’t need to reach for my phone for those either. The Bangle is open source, lightweight, and seems feature filled enough to fit what I’m going for, cheap enough ($89) to not worry too much if I want more later.

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My main email app (Fastmail) on my phone logged me out without me noticing for two days. I’ve been trying to not pay as constant attention to my email as it is, so it just seemed nice, but I didn’t even really think about it in that period. Happened to have more than the usual amount of emails when I got back in, though luckily, nothing important. It’d be nice if I could have it only notify me immediately for email from certain addresses or something like that.

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Finally got the One UI 7 / Android 15 update on my phone (Samsung S24) today. 15’s been out on Pixel devices for six months, but it took Samsung a long time with this one. I had bought this phone in part because Samsung is supposed to be quick with releases. Hopefully, this doesn’t become the norm.

Not a lot has changed noticeably. My most liked change is that I can have most app icons match my chosen accent color (green) which makes my home screen and quick app drawer look much nicer. There’s also a feature which separates the notification drawer and quick settings slide down, where swiping down from the left shows one and from the right, the other. I’m still getting used to that but may find it results in less swipes. There are a few other aesthetic tweaks. I think there’s a bunch of AI stuff, but I’m not that interested in that.

New phone: Samsung S24

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Yesterday, I got a new phone, a Samsung Galaxy S24. Jade green, ordered from samsung.com because that was the only place to get green. I never got my Pixel 3a running again and my Moto X was just a little too broken, slow, poor network connecting, and unable to handle some apps. The S24 was my first Samsung and notably more expensive than any phone I’ve gotten before. But I justified it by its:

  • likely longevity with 7 years of updates, strong build, waterproofing
  • reasonable size
  • full features
  • 5G data
  • Dex desktop mode and USB video out

I’m still getting set up and getting used to it, but I think I’m happy with it.

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My Moto X phone, a stand-in for my non-functioning Pixel 3a, scared me by force shutting down and then getting stuck in a reboot loop for a bit. That’s too similar to the behavior of the Pixel. Luckily, plugging it into a different USB charger and giving it time, the problem resolved itself and it has been running fine for almost a full day. Hopefully, that keeps up, as I still haven’t gotten the Pixel going or figured out what I want for a new phone.