Techie Ramblings

Category: Tech

  • Smartphones – A hot take

    In a world that’s currently going mad I came across a post a couple of days ago that got me thinking. It was a group of Apple users actually panicking about these US import tariffs and what it could potentially do to the next generation of iPhone pricing. There was one user in particular that was outraged at the prospect that he might have to keep his iPhone 16 Pro Max for longer than a year. He had obviously become so accustomed to upgrading his phone ever 12 months that the mere idea that he would have to keep it for longer than this enraged him.

    Smartphones are a relatively mature tech segment nowadays, I’ve written about it at length but innovation has ground to a halt and upgrades are very small and incremental year on year. Back in 2012 we were seeing differences between yearly models that would be comparable to 5 years worth of revisions today. Stagnant would be an appropriate description but I’d argue it’s not a bad thing, for the end user of the products at least.

    You DO NOT need to upgrade your phone every year. In fact, I’d go as far as saying don’t need to upgrade your phone unless it’s broken. I’m saying this as much to myself as I am you readers, and I’m aware that the average person not interested in the tech space is not guilty of this. As tech enthusiasts we need to realise that the days of rapid developments and innovating features are gone from the smartphone segment. The excitement is dead.

    A better way of thinking of smartphones would be the same way the majority of us think of laptops. You use a laptop for as long as it works, if possible you replace the battery when it needs it and would only consider replacing the device when it no longer functions as you need it to. Unless you’re in a very small minority that still gets excited over new models of laptops, they are just tools. We need to shift our way of thinking about smartphones to this same philosophy.

    If all you’ve clicked on this article for was to find out my hot take you can stop reading now. TLDR: If you’re smartphone was made on or after 2020 and was a reasonable spec at the time, you don’t need a new one. Keep using it, stop looking at the new releases and save your money!

    A large part of what spurred me to write this post was my recent experience with an iPhone 11 Pro. I acquired the device after my terrible experience with the Samsung S25 to find out if iOS suited my current requirements better, as I’d tried a lot of recent Android devices and wasn’t happy. In short it did. But the unexpected discovery I made was that a device released in 2019; 6 years old was fast, did everything we would reasonably expect from a 2025 smartphone and with a replacement battery lasted me a couple of days between charges.

    It has a great set of cameras, has NFC for contactless payments, it’s design holds up well, the screen is very clear and has great colours and it runs the latest version of iOS therefor there would be no apps that are incompatible with this device. For 99% of iPhone users this phone has everything they need. Nobody needs the car crash that is Apple “Intelligence”, and you could live without a 120hz refresh rate. Aside from those two, which are arguably not even features there have been no meaningful additions to iPhones in the past 6 years.

    Comparing an older Android to now is a bit more difficult. Up until very recently Android phone manufacturers were not updating their phones past 3 years as a maximum. However a device that released in 2019 would’ve shipped with Android 10, and with 3 years of updates would’ve been updated to Android 13. Almost every app on the play store is still compatible with Android 13, so using a device from then would still be possible. The Pixel 4, Galaxy S10 and the Oneplus 7 were all released this year, and while none of them are officially supported by their manufacturers anymore they are still very usable today. Even Android version updates have become minimal to the point where I would struggle to tell the difference between Android 13 and Android 15 without delving into the device settings. Using the Galaxy S10 as an example; you get a high resolution OLED screen, 3 cameras, WIFI 6, wireless charging and a CPU that still gives todays mid range devices a run for their money. With most major Android manufacturers now promising 7 years of updates there should be nothing stopping us using one for a decade.

    With all the self justification in the world there is nothing stopping any one of us using a device until it is at least 5 years old. The battery will most likely want replacing at around the 3 year mark, but that’s not a hard job for the handy and an inexpensive repair for those that aren’t. I gather that a lot of people replace their devices when the battery no longer lasts as long as they need it to, and perhaps in 2027 when the EU mandate of user replaceable batteries comes in that will change.

    I purchased my iPhone 16e with the intention of following my own advice. Yes I could’ve continued using the iPhone 11 Pro for a little longer, but realistically iOS 18 is the last update it will receive. I am sick of setting up new devices so I wanted a device that I could keep for a long time, and I intend to do just that. The iPhone 11 Pro was gifted to a family member who was still using an iPhone 10R. The iPhone XR got treated to a battery replacement and was then given to a colleague who’s iPhone X had succumb to water damage, so even at or beyond the end of their life cycle these devices are still serving people well.

    The average replacement cycle of a phone globally is 2.5 years. At least in the UK, due to the ever increasing prices of the handsets the contracts are being stretched out to 3 years, so I imagine this will increase the average somewhat.

    A lot of average users are hesitant to sell their old devices, due to not being able to back up their data or concerns about a bad actor getting hold of their data. So rather than getting a second life they just sit collecting dust until they’re too old to be useful and then discarded. Arguably this is a worst case scenario for a smartphone, and these people in particular are the ones that should be encouraged to keep their devices for longer.

    I think what we’re seeing from phone manufacturers currently is desperation. They know they’re not innovating, and that the reason to buy a new smartphone regularly is diminishing. So they’re turning to marketing, relying on software features and gimmicks that could easily have been a software update on their existing models to sell phones. This won’t last forever though, I would hope that the average consumer will start to see through this veil and realise that there are not enough meaningful differences between a phone sold 5 years ago and now to justify the exorbitant cost that manufacturers are demanding.

    We’re seeing a similar issue to what has happened to the car market. Buyers have got so used to buying their cars on finance that the actual selling cost is irrelevant to them, as long as they can afford the monthly bill they’re happy, regardless of the clauses or the duration of the contract. With this, people are now spending eye watering monthly sums of up to £1000 on cars they really can’t afford to put fuel in, let alone maintain, and while the cars are still selling the manufacturers will keep raising the prices.

    For most it would be unthinkable to spend £1500 outright on a smartphone, but for around £40 a month for 3 years that suddenly seems a lot more palatable. Add in the SIM part of the contract and it’s not uncommon to see £100 a month phone bills. If customers can start breaking out of these contracts, and only have to pay for their data, minutes and texts for less than £10 a month I doubt many of them would want to go back to their big bills, especially in the economic climate we face today.

    This is wishful thinking, but a major turn like this in customer spending might just force smartphone manufacturers to drop their prices, and potentially move away from annual or even biannual release cycles.

  • MacOS and iOS – How it’s going

    I did not expect to find what I was looking for in Apple products. We all hear of the “ecosystem” and the “walled garden”, and tend to mock and jest that the users are stuck in there forever from the other side of the fence.

    Certainly that is true for some, and they may want to move away from Apple but cannot because they’ve become too invested in Apple’s products. For myself however I’m currently very happy using these products, and if I were to buy more Apple products it would be precisely because I want more of the same.

    As I’ve mentioned before I’ve been feeling fairly burnt out recently when it comes to tech. I’m sick to death of advertising, marketing and telemetry. I no longer want to spend hours of my precious time messing with settings and customising a device to get it how I like it. I don’t want to spend hours poring through files and maintaining my devices. I simply want my tech to work for me, and I want it to do that with the least friction possible. So far that’s exactly what I’ve experienced using my Mac mini and iPhone 16e. There has been no intrusive requests for my data, no bloatware and the entire platform seems to be designed as a functional product rather than a means to gather user data (I’m looking at you Microsoft and Google!).

    I made the decision very early on not to go all in on Apple. I’ve opted out of anything to do with iCloud, and I have continued using my cross platform password manager. I still have a gaming PC running Linux, and a Google Pixel Tablet running CalyxOS. My earbuds are from Soundcore and CMF. I wear a mechanical wristwatch. Unlike people I know I’ve only allowed a portion of my tech armoury to be produced by Apple, and I’m happy with that level. There is enough integration to be convenient: I can airdrop files between my phone and PC. I can easily sync my music library, photos and perform device backups. I can send and receive SMS messages on my Mac mini. What I want to make sure of though is that I don’t allow these products to completely take over and become so reliant on them that I couldn’t buy a product from another brand.

    I’ve used iOS on and off since the iPhone 5s, so adjusting to the phone was a non issue. I thought I’d miss being able to side load apps, but with my use case for my phone it hasn’t been an issue at all. I just do all those things on my tablet now. The main friction I initially experienced was MacOS.

    I’ve been a Windows user since Windows ’95, and a Linux user for at least a decade. MacOS however, I have had no major experience with. At first I felt completely lost, amplified by the fact the last time I actually used a Mac was many OS versions ago. The basics are simple, compared to using a Windows or Linux machine the contrast is striking. App installations are a breeze, just dragging them to the application folder feels like cheating! The system seems to need seemingly no maintenance to run smoothly. With the latest version windows snap to corners, which makes working with a single screen much easier than I remember it used to be. I like that there’s a fully functional terminal, and I’ve already made use of “brew” to install a couple of useful tools.

    There are only a couple of things I’ve struggled with: I don’t fully understand how to use Finder. There doesn’t seem to be an easily accessible folder structure, for example if I want the “Pictures” directory, I can’t browse to it. I have to click “go” at the top, into my user area and access through there. It feels like there should be a better way of doing that. Using a normal mouse doesn’t feel great. I’ve not managed to get all of my additional buttons doing what they should, and the scrolling feels horrible. I also have to get used to a whole different set of keyboard shortcuts. Everything that was a “CTRL +” is now the Windows key instead, which isn’t a big problem but it catches me out a lot.

    Overall though the more I use it the more I’m enjoying it. I’m slowly managing to accept that I can use a system that I don’t fully understand, most people do that on a daily basis! I will pick up more as I use it but for now I’m able to do everything I need to do on this Mac very easily. I’m no longer wasting time fixing issues, performing updates and trying to find workarounds but instead I’m able to switch on the PC, do whatever it is I need to do and then switch it off. The same goes for the phone. It’s caused me absolutely zero issues. Everything on it works flawlessly, and I have not managed to find a single thing I don’t like about it.

    I don’t want to jinx a good thing, but this setup seems to be exactly what I’ve been after for quite a long time now.

  • Smartphone addiction or social media addiction?

    We see it all the time. People are at war with their own screen time. Or not. I’d argue some people don’t even know they have a problem. It’s very telling though when both of the major smartphone operating systems have built in methods to help limit screen time and use their devices in more productive ways. Would they actually want you to use your smartphone less though? Obviously not, but there is enough of a demand that they need to be seen trying at least.

    If you use a smartphone, take a look at your screen time in the settings of your device. If this isn’t something you’re mindful of you may be surprised at just how much time you spend staring at it every day. Secondly take a look at the breakdown by application, if you have any form of social media installed on the device I’d bet with fairly high confidence that the social media application is at the top of the list.

    The argument I’d like to make is that when we hear people talking about smartphone addictions, with people regularly hitting 10 hours or more a day on their phone (which is frankly insane!) they’re actually incorrect. I think what most people are describing is a social media addiction, the reason that the smartphone is blamed as the culprit it because it enhances the problem due to it’s convenience and portability.

    Have you ever noticed that neither Windows or Mac computers have settings to limit screen time? They simply don’t need it. When we use a computer it’s more intentional. Generally we perform the task we set out to complete and then we switch it off again. In my case I primarily use a desktop computer, to use it I have to sit at my desk and if I’m not at my desk any task I need to perform on the computer would have to wait until I’m there. The 27″ monitor I have can display information at a much larger size, I can type at 80 words per minute on it’s full sized keyboard, and I can select things and operate much more accurately with a proper mouse. Considering this and many more reasons, using my desktop computer is the most efficient and productive way for me to interface with the digital world. Yet if I wasn’t mindful of my usage I would be sat on the sofa trying to do these things on my phone. Why? Because it’s more convenient.

    Yes you can use social media on a computer, in a web browser but I doubt many people do this, especially those that aren’t mindful of their social media consumption. The majority of people will use social media on their mobile device, with a dedicated app that can send notifications to them at any time, and that’s when social media can become a problem.

    A smartphone, when used intentionally can be a very powerful productivity tool. It provides a way to interface with the digital form in a portable form factor. You can access and manage your finances. You have the entirety of human knowledge at your fingertips through its web browser. You can take photos, record videos, play them back or send them to friends and family. You can take and store an almost infinite number of notes. It can be your alarm clock, timer or stopwatch. You can read books or watch films on it. It can also replace your wallet. Obviously it’s also a phone! This is really only scratching the surface of the near endless functionality of a smartphone. Looking back only a few years having a modern smartphone in your pocket would be the equivalent of having access to a pocketable super computer. Is it the most productive form factor? Absolutely not. A relatively small touch screen as the only input and display is not a particularly ergonomic or effective way of using a computer, but considering it has to fit in our pocket the options are quite limited.

    I argue strongly that it is not the smartphone that should be demonised, for it’s merely a tool it is in fact the social media apps that have completely hijacked our smartphones that is the problem.

    Don’t believe me? Don’t take my word for it. Take part in my challenge. But before you do anything I’d like you to record some data as a baseline. For 7 days, at the end of each day, write down your total screen time for the day.

    Once you’ve done that delete every single social media app from your mobile phone, and block access to their web versions from your web browser (depending on your device the steps for that will be different but the information is easily found on popular search engines). You don’t need to delete your social media accounts, and you can still access the accounts on a desktop, laptop or even a tablet as often as you like but just not your smartphone. Do this for 14 days, and at the end of each day write down your total screen usage.

    I’ve done exactly as I described above, however I went one step further. I also completely deleted the accounts. The only account I still have is Youtube and I limit my usage of that to my tablet.

    The first couple of days you’ll find your screen time is still high, however it will be slightly lower than before. You’ll find yourself unlocking your smartphone regularly out of sheer habit, but because the allure of social media is gone from it you’ll probably swipe through the Home Screen for a minute or so before putting it back in your pocket. Try your best not to replace scrolling social media with mindless web browsing. By the end of this challenge I am almost certain that (unless you’re involved in multiple group chats that you participate heavily in) your screen time will have at least halved. You’ll find that when you do use your smartphone it will be to complete a task that you decided upon before you unlocked the screen, and once that task is completed the screen will be switched off.

    If you have taken part in this challenge, please share your results in the comments if you’re comfortable doing so. What I’d also be interested to know is that at the end of the challenge will you be reinstalling the apps or are you going to continue to keep them off your smartphone?

    For me personally I enjoy being intentional with my consumption of media, and I like to be present when I’m spending time with friends or family. A face to face conversation is much richer and more fulfilling than anything I could ever see on my smartphone so I prioritise that. I spend less than an hour a day on my smartphone now, and yet I still listen to music, I still use my GPS, I keep in touch with people, I do mobile banking and I keep on top of email. My device can go almost a week between charges because unless I need the phone for something, it’s not being used.

    To conclude and summarise: When you next hear the term “smartphone addiction”, consider correcting it to “social media addiction”. It’s nigh on impossible to be addicted to a tool. To put it crudely; a drug user is not addicted to a syringe, but the drugs they administer through it. Used correctly a syringe is a powerful tool that can be used to saved lives, but it can also be misused to devastating effect.

  • iPhone 16e – I guess I was wrong

    I am humble enough to admit when I was wrong, and I’m not someone who tries to cover my tracks and pretend things happened. When the iPhone 16e was announced I made this post: https://blog.sm1th.uk/index.php/2025/02/20/iphone-16e-reality-check-needed/

    A lot of what I wrote holds true, the GPU does have one less core and the £599 price point is arguably too high, this also is absolutely not a continuation of the “SE” line however it does draw similarities to it. However what doesn’t appear to be justified was my concern about the C1 modem. It has held up to testing to be just as good as the Qualcomm modem it replaced, and the efficiency claims seem justified.

    After my recent terrible experience with the Samsung S25 my affinity towards Android as a whole took a massive hit. At this point I feel like the only reason exists any more is to harvest user data. The Android device you buy doesn’t matter, nor how you use it. My post on bootloader unlocking (read here) highlights this; the manufacturers and Google are desperate to keep you using their software, to collect your data. Say what you will about Apple but they are more careful with user data than Google, and their recent run in with the UK government only reinforces this fact.

    I’m also at a point in my life where free time is limited. I don’t want to spend my time configuring devices, resolving issues, customising layouts and finding apps to solve problem. I’ve lost what was a passion for smartphones, and with that my desire to get the new release year on year has gone with it. I just want a device that’s easy to setup, reliable and that will last a long time. So with that in mind I went cap in hand back to Apple.

    Initially I bought a new, sealed box iPhone 16e from eBay. However upon unboxing this phone it was MDM locked and quite clearly stolen, so I immediately returned it and decided that I would only buy new from a trusted retailer. My options for a new iPhone were last years iPhone 15, the iPhone 16e, the base 16, 16 plus or Pro/Pro max. With longevity in mind and the 15 already being locked out of features that was off the cards immediately. The Pro/Pro max were also quickly discarded as options due to their pricing and functionality that is overkill to my use case. Comparing the iPhone 16e and iPhone 16 was a little more difficult. The benefits of the iPhone 16 that are notable are an ultra wide camera, Magsafe, an extra GPU core and the dynamic island. None of these are particularly important features to me, and the better battery life of the 16e was a more important feature. With that decided I ordered the white iPhone 16e with 128GB storage.

    Setup was what I’d expect from an iPhone, very simple and easy. Within about 10 minutes I had the phone setup as I needed it. I was particularly impressed with the native support for CalDAV and CardDav, meaning I could sync my calendar and contacts directly from my Nextcloud installation. Aside from my cross platform notes and banking apps there was very little I needed to install that wasn’t already on the device. Apple still provides alternatives to using it’s iCloud service for everything, I can backup the device directly to my Mac Mini, and photos can be imported and then backed up to my external drive.

    The battery claims I’ve seen floating around in forums are justified. Apple devices have always been great at standby usage but this one didn’t even lose 1% overnight. Coupled with it using very little during screen on time and I’m very impressed. Being plugged into my car twice a day for carplay may actually give it enough charge that I never need to additionally charge it up.

    Performance is also as I’d expect. It’s fluid, keeps recent apps in memory for far longer than I’d have ever expected and needs next to no user input to maintain this performance long term. I’ve only had limited testing of the camera, and this was outdoors in good lighting but the photos and videos it has produced so far are excellent. Playing back one of these videos I was amazed at the quality of the audio, the microphone and speakers on this device are fantastic.

    People have said this is the phone Steve Jobs would’ve made if he was still alive. While I don’t know if that’s true the design is certainly nicer than the other recent releases from Apple. The one camera and lack of a stove top looking arrangement lends itself to a minimalistic look that we haven’t seen for almost a decade. The matte glass back in white, and silver matte aluminium frame make this a very appealing device that feels great in the hand.

    Another welcome benefit is the aftermarket support. I had a wealth of high quality cases to choose from, and the screen protector choices were endless thanks to it sharing a screen with the iPhone 14.

    I did not expect to find a device that I’d be so happy with, and that will be my long term primary device in something that I was initially so critical of. It just goes to show that we should stay open to new information and opinions even when we think our mind is set.

  • Why I’m giving MacOS another go.

    I have no control over what operating system I use for work. Well technically that’s incorrect, I do have a choice but I’d spend half of my time in a Windows VM to use specific applications and troubleshooting. So doing so would make my life unnecessarily difficult.

    I do however have a choice over what operating system I use at home. Currently my powerful PC runs ubuntu. It works seamlessly with any Android dev stuff I’m doing, and gaming works surprisingly well either using Steam proton, or Lutrix/Wine. I generally get just as good performance as I do on a Windows mahcine, and emulators generally work even better. However this article isn’t about that machine. It’s about my general use machine.

    I have a secondary PC at my desk, and a KVM. The secondary machine is currently a Lenovo SFF PC running a LTSC version of Windows 10. I absolutely detest Windows 11 and couldn’t bring myself to use it in my own time. Even Windows 10 has changed into something unrecognisable from when it first released. The confusion between “Settings” and the traditional control panel is infuriating. The telemetry has been gradually increasing. The integrated bloatware is unavoidable and the constant notifications drive me mad. I generally get about a year out of a Windows installation before issues start occuring, be that random driver problems, system slowdowns, strange amounts of space becoming unaccounted for a number of other problems.

    As an IT professional the last thing I want to be doing when I get home is diagnosing problems. I want a system that works long term, without fuss and to have faith that when I press that power button the system is going to start without fault. Unfortunately my main PC fails on that requirement list because being Linux nothing aside from installing apps from the default repository is straight forward; config files need editing, research needs to be done for almost everything and niche software generally doesn’t have a linux version meaning either workarounds are needed or it simply can’t be ran. The Lenovo fails on the reliability, Windows will do updates at the most inconvenient times that cannot be postponed, and the system can have a fault at seemingly any time.

    This has left me thinking about Macs again. I’ve owned a couple of Macbook’s in the past but generally I prefer my computers in the desktop format. I don’t like hunching over for a low down screen, I don’t like little low travel keyboards or trackpads, I don’t like the lack of ports and I certainly don’t like worrying about batteries and charging. If I need to do things on the go I’ll use my phone or tablet in a pinch. I do have a laptop too but I’m not particularly fond of it and it’s just there as a backup.

    I’ve had previous experience with the M1 chip, and found a good deal for a Mac Mini M1 on the used market. Admittedly it’s only the 8GB RAM version which I’m sure will stir fury in some people but my reasoning is that Lenovo only had 8GB too and that ran Windows 10 so this should be perfectly sufficient for my usage.

    Now just to wait for it to arrive so I can get started!

  • HMD 105 – Incremental upgrades

    From time to time I feel myself getting overwhelmed with technology. I’m very mindful and aware of my behavioral trait to be sucked into things to the point of obsession. Mobile games, social media, even just scrolling news can become unhealthy time sinks for me. I manage this in a few ways; I don’t do social media full stop, I only play games on my tablet which is too big and unwieldy to use at a moments notice or to leave the house, I disable the default apps and news scrollers that come with my devices and try to avoid browsing the websites.

    Even with these self imposed rules from time to time I sometimes start to feel like I’m spending too much time on my phone. Other times I feel like I’m just becoming too reliant on it. Most recently I felt like the Samsung S25 was so over the top with it’s data collection I was completely uncomfortable using it. When these things happen I like to spend some time using what’s referred to nowadays as a “Dumbphone”. I’d estimate I generally end up doing this once or twice a year, and do it for between a couple of weeks and a month. However in the past through Covid I did it for 6 months solid.

    My first purposeful dumbphone was a Nokia 105 that looked like the below:

    This phone still works perfectly fine to this day, but unfortunately 2G reception is getting worse and worse in my area and can’t be relied on.

    I then got the Nokia 110 4G 2023 model:

    This saw me through my last “Digital detox” but had some real flaws that lead me to end it prematurely out of sheer frustration. The keyboard seemingly just ignored about 20% of my button presses. This made typing a nightmare, more than going back to T9 predictive already was.

    So a few days ago when I decided I needed a break from smartphones and put my SIM in this phone again I was quickly reminded of it’s downfalls. Being seemingly one of the only people that don’t hold a grudge against HMD for using the Nokia brand I took a look at their now HMD branded web store and came across the HMD 105 4G, and HMD 110 4G. These are very clearly a continuation of the Nokia counterparts with the same naming convention. The differences between the two models are slim; the 110 has a 0.1MP camera and a ceramic coated shell, the 105 does not. I certainly wasn’t going to spend extra money on either of these features so opted for the 105.

    As can be seen below (unfortunately the old 105 can’t be compared as I lent it to a colleague for a detox of his own) the sizes between the Nokia 110 and HMD 105 are very similar, with the HMD 105 being slight bigger, but having bigger, more pronounced buttons and a much bigger screen:

    Aside from the lack of a camera on the 105 there aren’t really any differences, so I think a comparison is still fair.

    If you own a Nokia 110 4G 2023, and aren’t having any troubles with your keypad this probably isn’t a worthwhile upgrade. It’s very much an incremental upgrade, and lets be honest there’s only so much that can be done with the S30 operating system.

    That being said there are some differences. Texts on the HMD are now threaded, so makes for much easier tracking of conversations. The screen being bigger helps with basic web browsing and reading. Icons on the screen can now be rearranged, unfortunately still not removable though. The entire operating system has had a bit of a spruce up, with new settings, higher resolution and a less budget feel.

    There are some things that I would consider downgrades too: The auto power off/on has been removed. The weather app is gone. The unlock combination has become more awkward, with you now having to reach for the * key.

    Overall though I’m impressed. It’s everything I want from a “Dumbphone”. It allows me to call and text when I need to. It has a select few “tool” applications, a couple of very simple games (snake and blackjack) ignoring the trials and very little else.

    More importantly it doesn’t ask much of me. There was next to no setup of the device to be done, absolutely no accounts to sign into and other than calls, texts and alarms the phone cannot start sending me notifications. I can’t get invested into this device enough that it becomes invaluable to me, because it’s so simple. I know that “burner” phone has bad connotations, but this truly is that. It’s a tool. Other than your contacts (which you should have backed up elsewhere) if you lost this device other than your SIM card you wouldn’t really have lost anything of value. You wouldn’t be fearful that someone may find it and gain access to your entire life and all your secrets. And that is very refreshing.

    On a side note, this phone uses the BL-L5H batteries that have been used in previous models too. These are readily available online, and cheaply so the dream of having multiple spare batteries and being able to stay away from a charger for weeks is an achievable reality now!

    UPDATE: After some more real world usage I have noticed a couple of things that have annoyed me. The first is that ringer and ringtones, there are only 4 ringtones to choose from and none of them are attention grabbing. I missed 3 calls over the weekend, even with the phone on max volume in my bag I didn’t hear the phone while walking. The 2nd and this is not specific to this phone, it seems to apply to all recent button bound phones and this is the emergency dialler. If the phone is locked, screen off and in a pocket it only takes catching the 9 key to begin dialling. 3 accidental presses of this button and you will begin to call the emergency services. This essentially means the phone is unsafe to keep in a pocket. I would not want to put additional stress on the emergency services or get in trouble for accidentally dialling them. We are nearing double digits on the amount of times I’ve pulled the phone out of my pocket to find that the screen is on with a 9 already in the dialling screen.

    Feature phones of the time didn’t have this problem, why do we have it now? What is the point of a key lock if it doesn’t apply to one of the keys?!

  • OneUI 7 – Privacy hell

    My initial experience with the Samsung S25 hasn’t been what I’d define as smooth.

    On a hardware front I cannot fault it. The battery life is relentless and even with performance mode on light, and power saver on the phone is far faster than I actually require. The camera produces nice results, especially with the AI enhancements minimized too.

    My problem is with the software. When OneUI 6 was the latest version of Samsung’s mobile OS I would’ve told anyone that asked that it was, in my opinion the best Android skin on the market. The level of refinement, while still giving lots of room for flexibility and customization was unmatched.

    The flexibility and customization points still stand true, but I feel the refinement has taken a knock. Unfortunately the whole OS is starting to feel like one big advertisement platform, not far from how Facebook felt the last time I used it.

    I must’ve factory reset the device 3 or 4 times before I felt like I had the device setup properly. Immediately from the first power on you are absolutely bombarded with requests to give permission for anything and everything. The phone then takes it upon itself to install 10-15 bloatware apps, whether you agree to it or not. Previously this was a quirk only reserved for budget phones, but it seems to have made it’s way into Flagships! Once you get past that the phone will pester you to turn on multiple AI features, each with a disclaimer that this will be in exchange for your personal data. If you don’t agree with this you’re just locked out of entire menu items, when tapped you’re brought right back to the request again.

    The telemetry and data collection has just got out of control, and due to EU regulations that permission must be granted to do this, Samsung just absolutely bombard you with requests, hoping that you’ll cave in.

    This has left me feeling very uncomfortable using the device. On my initial setup attempts I tried using the “Universal Android Debloater” to remove the majority of this, hoping I’d feel more comfortable using the device knowing these apps were gone. Where I’ve had success with this on other devices, this one was a disaster. The device simply refused to work. A couple of times this even soft bricked the device, just showing a black screen until I factory reset it from recovery. Bear in mind I wasn’t disabling anything important like knox or the dialler, just random 3rd party apps that should never have been on the device in the first place.

    I made a journal entry yesterday, stating that I had a strange urge to go back to using a dumbphone for a while. I didn’t really understand why though, my screen time is low, and I haven’t been excessively browsing the web or playing games on the device. It was a persistent feeling though, so I obliged, popping my SIM into my Nokia 110 4G. I used it for the remainder of yesterday and the entirety of today, relegating the S25 to being switched off in my bag.

    Honestly it felt like a weight had lifted, and I still wasn’t sure why. It was only after journalling again this evening that I realized the subconscious motivation for wanting to do this. It’s the S25, more so OneUI 7.

    I deleted all of my social media accounts a long time ago, for the simple reason that their blatant data collection, and the fact you feel like a product made me uncomfortable, a strange unclean feeling that’s hard to describe. That’s exactly the feeling I get when I use the S25. The data collection, and desperation to be given permission to harvest that data is so blatant and relentless it completely tarnishes the experience of using the device.

    I imagine that for someone that simply doesn’t care about this the experience of using the device would be excellent. The AI features are so baked into the operating system that it’s near impossible to avoid using them, each of the notices you agree to would surely add some convenience to the user experience. But knowing how valuable this data is, the sheer amount that is being collected and the number of companies it’s being sold too makes the device feel like an enemy rather than an ally.

    Just a week into owning the device I already dread when I have to turn it on for a task I can’t accomplish on the Nokia. I know the second it connects to a network it will be contacting an eye watering amount of servers, relaying whatever it’s managed to scrape from my usage, be that location, usage patterns, interests, search history, nearby devices or even microphone and camera data. We already know that Samsung send themselves actual screenshots of your display on their smart TV’s at an average of 1 FPS, so is that such a stretch?

    I knew Samsung were greedy when it came to user data in the past, but this really has reached new levels. I see average users raving about their new Samsung devices, showing off the features they’ve happily agreed to, completely oblivious to what they’ve signed away in exchange. In some ways I’m jealous of them, ignorance is bliss as they say. Unfortunately I can’t just turn a blind eye to it.

    I’m going to cross my fingers, and just hold out for a Lineage release for the device. After all the bootloader is still unlockable, which is the only redeeming feature for this device at the moment in my mind. In the meantime I may even just reset the device and put it back in it’s box, it really does creep me out that much.

  • Consumerism – is the 2nd hand market making our buying habits worse?

    Picture the time before the internet made it’s way into all of our homes. When you decided you didn’t need or want something you owned anymore you had only a handful of options:

    You either gave it away or sold it to someone you knew, donated it to charity/disposed/recycled it, or you sold it at a car boot/garage sale. The most likely fate for most things was the bin, or just keep using it due to it either being undesirable to others or the effort to sell being too high. With the internet came a different option. Easy resale.

    Currently we’re spoilt for choice for options. We have eBay, Vinted, Gumtree, Craigslist, Amazon, Depop etc, we also have hundreds upon thousands of companies that offer easy to use services that will buy your goods for a fixed price. These companies will then either refurbish the product and sell it on, or simply resell it with a warranty.

    With that in mind, surely this would be a success story of the internet in the name of sustainability, extending the lifespan of pre-owned devices thus preventing landfill and reducing the demand for new products? Not so fast. In classic capitalist fashion, this has only served to benefit companies and boost profits even more.

    Take a look on eBay, Vinted, or any company selling refurbished or used products and you will see the market is absolutely flooded, in particular the tech space. Phones, laptops, wearables, cameras are available refurbished and used by the boatload. Obviously there is a market for them but clearly the demand does not match the supply from the sheer number of these products for sale.

    How then is this serving companies and driving ever increasing profits? The answer is quite simple, and easier explained with an example. A person buys an iPhone 16 Pro Max for £1500. After a year this phone may still be worth £1200 in good condition on the used market, the person sells their phone for that amount, resulting in a total cost of ownership for the year of £300. That person then goes out and buys an iPhone 17 Pro Max for £1600, confident in the knowledge they’ll be able to resell it for a good price in another years time. Apple would still make £3100 on the sale of these two devices, and of course they would rather have two people buy brand new phones than one of them buying used but one sale is still better than none, and thanks to the used market that initial customer is more likely to make another purchase sooner.

    On a smaller point for sustainability we also have to consider the resources needed to keep shipping these devices to their new owners. Using iPhone as an example again, if an iPhone has an average lifespan of 6 years it’s feasible that the first owner might keep it a year, the 2nd for 2 years, the 3rd for 3 years then it might be sent to a recycler and sold for parts. That’s 4 times the device has been shipped, maybe even into double figures when broken down for parts, potentially cross country or internationally. Items in their original packaging fetch more value too, so consumers are increasing the package size and weight in turn requiring more resources to ship.

    This almost guaranteed resale value depends heavily on condition though, with pristine devices fetching much more than ones with signs of heavy use. This leads consumers to buy cases and screen protectors, which in turn consume more resources with most cases being produced with by-products from the oil industry and glass requiring lots of resources to run the furnaces.

    If these second hand markets didn’t exist what would happen to that iPhone 16 Pro Max? Well for starters the consumer may have not purchased it in the first place. Knowing that the device would cost £1500 with no return may put the consumer off, pushing them towards a more budget oriented option. Assuming it didn’t though, the consumer would be much more likely to keep the device for a longer period of time. When they were finished with the device it would most likely be handed down to a family member, requiring no courier to move it. The condition wouldn’t be as much of a consideration either as it wouldn’t be a monetary transaction.

    With this in mind, and companies now offering up to 7 years of updates to their devices, do we really think they’re hoping for people to keep using their devices for this length of time without making another purchase? Absolutely not. They’re offering this to increase buyer confidence that their devices will hold better value on the 2nd hand market, encouraging them to upgrade even more often.

    Companies often claim to be acting in the name of sustainability, however sometimes it requires more analysis to get to the true motives. A shareholder owned company will only ever act for one of two reasons; the potential for more profits or government legislation forcing them to do so.

    Personally I’m not guilty of buying new devices, but I am guilty of enabling the people that do by purchasing the 2nd hand devices. I’m also guilty of buying cases and screen protectors to keep the device pristine to preserve the resale value onto it’s third owner. Considering the first owner most likely purchased these accessories too the footprint of these devices just keeps growing.

    Can we actually break this cycle? Probably not. It would be a step backwards to stop the resale of devices, and would be very anti-consumer. What’s needed is a change in mentality, only spend what you are willing to spend without the promise of money back. We also need to make conscious effort to keep our devices for longer periods of time. The most environmentally and financially friendly thing we can do is to not buy anything at all. Obviously that’s not realistic, so interpret it as buy as little as possible whether that be new, used or refurbished.

  • The war on bootloader unlocking

    As someone who likes to mess around with my electronics I’ve unlocked my fair share of bootloaders on Android smartphones over the years. I don’t know if this was commonplace but on the first Android phone I had (Samsung Galaxy Y) I’m not even sure it had a locked bootloader, I certainly didn’t need to unlock it to root and install custom ROMs!

    A locked bootloader has it’s place, and it’s purpose originally was to ensure that the operating system and other partitions were running signed code, giving you the security of knowing that your system was as the manufacturer intended and hadn’t been tampered with.

    Previously this could be unlocked easily, usually simply with a toggle in the system settings, followed by a fastboot command.

    In 2025 this is now somewhat of a rarity. Google, Samsung, Nothing and maybe a couple of other smaller manufacturers still offer an easy unlock process with no strings attached. Increasingly though we’re seeing more and more manufacturers put hurdles in the way of you unlocking the bootloader, assuming that they aren’t blocking it entirely.

    Xiaomi and Motorola insist on having to go through hoops on their website, waiting for periods of time and submitting codes before being granted the ability to unlock. HMD, Oppo, Honor, Asus and more make it completely impossible to unlock your bootloader. Full details of this can be seen on the “Bootloader wall of shame” here.

    Okay, so manufacturers want to stop us unlocking the bootloader, what’s the problem you might ask? The problem is a fundamental one, and let me ask a question in response: If we buy a product, do we own it entirely? If you answered yes then we should be able to do whatever we please with it. Applying this logic to a desktop computer, you would not be happy if your newly purchased Dell or HP desktop was locked down so that you couldn’t install an operating system of your choice, would you?

    In my eyes phone makers are preventing bootloader unlocks for one of two reasons:

    1. They want to prevent you from updating the device to more recent versions of Android than they released, therefore forcing you to buy a new phone (hopefully from them).
    2. They want to keep you using THEIR operating system.

    I have a feeling that the 2nd option is most likely. With extended update promises now reaching 7 years in most cases I don’t really think that phone makers care if you buy a new phone from them or not, they just want you using their operating system. The reason for this, data collection. I have a feeling, based on facts of smartphone telemetry that far more money is made from our personal data than is ever made from the purchase price of the device.

    Imagine a stalker giving his victim a mobile phone as a gift. The person might be happy to receive a new phone, but the stalker will be even more happy that their victim is using it. They will now be able to track location, maybe listen to the microphone, look through the camera, see what the victim is searching. At this point the stalker wouldn’t even care about how much they spent on the phone, because the data they gain on the victim is more valuable to them.

    While this sounds extreme this is exactly the same dynamic that we have with tech companies, only we as users get a worse deal because we have to pay for the device initially!

    Don’t believe me? As I always say, don’t take my word for it and do your own research, I only wish to get you thinking. Take a look at some of the default permissions of the inbuilt apps on your phone. Go one step further and log the network traffic leaving your phone on a regular basis. It’s truly alarming just how many domains a smartphone will contact on a near constant basis even without user input.

    Unfortunately I can’t put a value on the data collected from a user over a devices lifetime because we don’t know in full exactly how much data is being collected on us. However, the lengths manufacturers go to to prevent us removing their software gives me a good idea.

    Android is going down a slippery slope currently. The allure of Android has always been it’s freedom, especially when compared to iOS, but slowly we’re seeing that freedom be eroded. Piece by piece our abilities to do as we wish with our devices is being removed. Currently even if we are able to install an operating system of our choice it will be with strings attached. Google now bake a “Play Integrity” API into their operating system for apps to utilize. Essentially this interrogates the device, and if it detects an unlocked bootloader, custom rom or root access it allows developers to block access to their application. The most common application of this API is with banking apps. Will you really go to the length of playing with Magisk modules and potentially even owning a second device for banking just to use a custom ROM? For the majority the answer is no.

    It used to be easy to get around these checks, but it’s getting harder and harder by the day. At this point less people with bother unlocking their devices even if they have the ability to. With my current Samsung S25 I have every option to unlock the bootloader, root and install a custom ROM if I wish, but in doing that the device would burn a physical fuse, locking the device out of all of the Knox features, other features of the phone will only work under Samsung OneUI. This would essentially destroy the resale value of the device, and the features I’d lose would make using the phone difficult.

    With my current device I will have it for 7 years, but I have a bad feeling that when I come to upgrade the landscape of privacy and freedom over the devices we buy will be even worse than it is now.

  • Samsung S25

    I didn’t expect to be adding to this series so soon, but with a family holiday coming up where I would like to capture a lot of photos and videos (there are reasons for this I won’t go into) the need for a capable handy camera became more pressing.

    The S25 256GB retails for £849 in the UK, which seems like a lot of money but then I suppose it’s probably the cheapest phone for sale with the Snapdragon 8 Elite. For whatever reason these are selling new, sealed in the box on eBay for around £510 for the 128GB version. I was able to get mine which is the 256GB version, unused with the seal broken for £540. With over £300 off the retail price this pricing is only £40 more than the upcoming Samsung A56 which seems like an excellent deal.

    This phone ticks a lot of boxes for me:

    • It is a compact device by 2025 standards.
    • It has a set of very capable cameras for photo and video.
    • It has the Snapdragon 8 Elite which is the most powerful chipset currently available.
    • It’s very power efficient giving great battery life and excellent standby time even though the battery is only 4000mAh.
    • Samsung are offering 7 years of updates with this phone so I can keep it for a long time.

    To help the last point I’ve opted for a case and screen protector this time around. I don’t fancy paying for an OLED screen replacement any time soon!

    The strange thing is that other than the cameras which were the driving force behind the purchase, the S25 serves to highlight just how good a deal the HMD Pulse is. Yes the screen, haptics, build quality and speakers are better on the S25, but at it’s core the HMD can do the majority of what the S25 can, at least in my use case: I don’t use AI, I have no need for it and would rather not trade additional privacy to have it. I don’t do any mobile gaming on my phone, I have devices better suited to gaming. None of my tasks are particularly intensive either.

    One thing I have missed and I’m glad to have back is OneUI. Regardless of my opinion on Samsung’s practices, their greed and other issues they really have nailed their operating system. It manages to be more feature rich and customizable than any other Android skin, while still being a very well organised, intuitive experience. I may only feel this way because it’s the mobile OS I’ve spent the most time with.

    While I don’t regret this purchase at all, because it was a good deal and I needed it, I do still need to get my impulse buying under control. I didn’t spend much time thinking about this purchase and when I came across the deal I bought it immediately. Following some tips online I’ve implemented a purchasing delay, something I’ll write about separately but I think it’s something that could help a lot of us be more intentional with how we spend our money.