HMD is bringing its repairable phone initiative to the US with the Nokia G310, a $186 smartphone that’ll be available from T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile on August 24th. This is technically the third smartphone HMD has released with a design that makes it easier to replace commonly broken components like its battery and display, but its previous Nokia G22 and Nokia G42 were focused on European markets.
As with its previous repairable phones, HMD is partnering with iFixit to supply spare parts and repair guides for the G310.
I can’t seem to find an answer for this particular phone, but they usually seem to only provide 2 major android versions and another year of security updates.
To me that kind of defeats many of the upsides this repairability provides.
I’d just put Graphene or Lineage on it anyway.
HMD still doesn’t allow bootloader unlocking (officially) so even if you wanted to, you couldn’t.
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That’s just not true. Convenience and support matter.
That’s definitely an option. But to me that is somewhat of the equivalent to an easily removable battery vs having to fight through a bunch of glue first.
Yes you can definitely do it, but it just makes things less accessible.
Graphene only supports Pixel devices
Hmmm not really though. Depends on how you currently use phones. I have the bottom end last year’s model galaxy phone. My annual insurance costs as much as this phone not counting what I actually still pay monthly for the phone. Something like this is WAY cheaper and even if you have to replace it in 2 years you can upgrade and still spend a FRACTION of what I did for this phone. It’s very cost effective, and with the added benefit of being repairable these are welcome in my eyes. There IS a market for this even if you do have to eventually replace the phone, as all phones need eventually anyways.
Yes, it saves you money, but does nothing to address the toxic e-waste created by modern tech companies.
On this point I have to concede. That is not beneficial.
I didn’t say that it takes away all advantages. And I am definitely with you that overall it is a net positive for the consumer and there is a market.
But this limited update policy puts an unnecessary timer on the useful lifetime of the device. And while eventually it will need replacement, a repairable device like this has the expectation to last significantly longer than 3 years.
Say the phone would otherwise be good to use for 6 years with repairs like a battery swap. At that point it would have gone 2/3 of his lifetime without major software update and 1/2 without security updates.
Unless ofc it would be flashed with a different OS, but that goes against the ease of repairability it is going for.
No custom ROMs = bad phone.
I have no idea why there is a notch when it has a big chin.
So they can push the screen up as much as they can.
It has a chin because that’s where the cables are, and afaik manufacturing the display so that this doesn’t have to be done is more expensive.
And if you turn it around (and put the chin on top), you can get a weird scrolling effect, some Oneplus phones had it
Headphone Jack?
According to Android Authority
HMD is also offering welcome extras like microSD support, a 3.5mm port, an IP52 rating, and a dedicated Google Assistant button. We’re glad to see microSD support and a headphone jack in particular as these features are rare on modern phones.
At first I was also obsessed with a 3.5mm audio jack, then I bought a phone with only USB-C, and guess what, a simple adapter that was in the box, or available for $1 in dollar store, basically does the job. The USB-C plug has 4 wires for gnd/left/right/mic and I can plug any 3.5mm headset on my phone. The adapter is on my headphone for months and it makes no difference me plugging an audio jack or a usb-c plug.
I assume you don’t use your headphones with other gear; that’s when it gets messy.
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For the price it’s ok, it would be nice to have a better version with a Snapdragon 8+ Gen1 or something.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
This is technically the third smartphone HMD has released with a design that makes it easier to replace commonly broken components like its battery and display, but its previous Nokia G22 and Nokia G42 were focused on European markets.
The company’s press release doesn’t offer too many details on how exactly the phone is easy to repair, but previous repairable Nokia-branded handsets have included design features like rear cases that can be unclipped by hand to reveal easily accessible screws and batteries that can be lifted out using pull tabs (though they’re not fully user-removable like Nokia feature phones of old).
Beyond its repairable element, the Nokia G310 has the specs of a relatively entry-level smartphone.
Around front there’s a 6.56-inch display with a limited 720p resolution, but at least it offers a relatively snappy 90Hz refresh rate.
On the back there’s technically a triple-camera setup, but beyond the main 50-megapixel camera the two additional sensors for depth and macro are only 2 megapixels in resolution.
The phone has an 8-megapixel selfie camera, and relies on a side-mounted fingerprint sensor for biometric security.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Too bad they don’t offer anything above the lower midrange anymore.
I hope Google dusts off Project Ara one day. That looked like a cool concept that’s only now being made into a reality to some extent.
I’m never going to give Google more money after their Web API and their willingness to kill adblocking forever
Project ara is an overkill. I mean look at those blocks its not going to last. It can easily damaged. What we need is a phone with screws not glue Fairphone is best you can get today but its not available globally.
