john01dav

Budget (including currency): US$2,000, but I seem to have what I need at roughly half that. Going way under is good since it saves money in case I need peripherals or something else later. Country: United States Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Compilation & Programming (mostly C++, Rust, and similar with Jetbrains) Other details: Draft: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/fFCDJy I have the needed peripherals (1x 4k@60hz displayport monitor, 1x180p@60hz hdmi monitor). This is a new computer for work, so no GPU needed as long as both display outputs can be driven. Needs to be good for programming, though, meaning a powerful CPU. Would rather not use intel's i9s since those guzzle 2x as much power for minimal benefit and I work from home so I pay for power. I intend to run Linux (Ubuntu and Fedora, might dual boot) on this. I am looking to buy as soon as feedback is complete here. Specific questions: How well will this WiFi chip in the Gigabyte motherboard work with Linux? I need both WiFi and Bluetooth to work. Recommendations for an alternative are welcome (either a PCIe card or another motherboard). I usually go with an Intel m.2 in a m.2 <-> PCIe adapter, but Intel's chips often don't work with Ryzen. Will the cooler be enough to tame this CPU with plenty of headroom? If not, what would be a better option?

What did I do wrong? I simply put the phone in the case, and then used it as I would without the case. This means that sometimes there's insulating material nearby (e.g. if it's in my pocket or sitting on top of, but not wrapped in, a blanket), but never anything severe.

I don't particularly mind some companies making this design flaw (a flawed design philosophy is a design flaw as far as I'm concerned, but this is just semantics), but I strongly object to it being damn-near the only option that is available to most people.

If I had found this when I got my pixel this thread would not exist. Thanks for the link!

What cases do you recommend? Every case I've tried is either too thin to be any good, or thick enough that it causes the phone to overheat (in one case, otterbox + LG G5, the battery exploded as a result of this heat, and the phone often got too hot to touch).

I'm aware. I want a lifetime warranty in case the screen protector's breakage isn't enough to protect the much more expensive screen. Buying a US$0-20 screen protector occasionally would be an acceptable evil.

This would be a great option if it had the ability to run modern android (I know that this specific phone has no way in hell of doing that, but I want an Android phone with a relatively similar design philosophy.). You got any recommendations there? I mainly use my phone for consuming video (1080p60hz screen is enough for this, no need for oled), phone calls, and a smattering of miscellaneous non-gaming apps (e.g. termux, navigation, looking up information, discord). I just want a simple, cheap, no frills device that will let me do this well indefinitely.

I honestly don't understand how one can say this and see it as a justification, and not simply as more explanation of the problem. More reasonable interpretations vary from seeing it as a fundamental flaw of capitalism, to just overly greedy companies that need to start caring about both social good and profit (many business owners take this viewpoint, just not any major players in the smart phone industry unfortunately).

The fact that these protection plans are so expensive tells you all you need to know about the phone market. It all but proves that the business model is to make phones that fall apart quickly so people are forced to buy more. This is a fundamentally immoral business model: it is too one-sided for the business's benefit over the consumer's, it causes significant environmental problems, and dealing with all this ewaste also creates serious health hazards for those who do so. As for ruggidized devices, feel free to recommend some and if they match what I want I'll probably get one. I want something with security updates for years to come, all common failure points being easily replaceable (e.g. screen's glass, usb port, and battery), Android or Linux, and a price point that isn't too much more than a pixel 4a (See my original post for why). As for the cost of good engineering. Yes, if you want to really do it well, it is more expensive, but doing the very simple things that I advocate for (namely trading off repairability for being small, and the profit that one gains from selling more and more phones) likely doesn't cost any more or less than the glorified kitkats that are already sold.

Being a piece of glass that breaks like a kitkat bar *is* a design flaw. All modern smart phones have design flaws, some more than others. It's not too hard to imagine a phone that has an easily replaceable piece of glass, though, protecting the more expensive screen in all common failure modes.

I got a screen protector for my 1st phone. And my second. And my third. Pixel 4a is #4 (I bought into the cell phone trend quite a bit later than most people). I was simply tired of having to pick a screen protector and case for each end every new phone. Would it have been better to have one? Sure. Should it be needed? Absolutely not. A phone that requires 3rd party modifications (albeit really simple ones in this case, but the point stands) With regard to your claim that I sound "stupid," consider this: if the screen protector really works, why should it quit working after some pre-defined period of time? If it's a good screen protector that truly prevents any real damage from taking place, then the manufacturer would have essentially no cost, and thus no reason, to not offer a lifetime warranty. Most people replace their phones constantly anyway, so in the off chance that it wasn't as good as they thought, the cost would still be minimal! All this even puts aside the morality of it.

Yes, shit happens. I'm sick and tired of phones being designed as if we live in some fantasy world where no one ever drops them, batteries never wear out, and other such fictional nonsense. If a phone can't handle these events, it has no business being sold as a phone. At the *minimum* common failure points need to be easily replaceable (e.g. replace just the glass on the screen, a user replaceable battery, and the USB port being on its own board behind nothing but a few standard screws). People would rail against it, and rightly so, if the common failure points on a car were not replaceable — e.g. if one could not feasibly change tires or oil, yet it wouldn't be qualitatively different from the reality with phones right now. You'd buy a car, have it fully working for a few precious months, and then tolerate it failing and failing until after a few years you need a new one, even when a properly designed car can last for 20+ years. I drive a car that was manufactured in 1997, and it's still going strong. What wonders good engineering can do!

I'm very angry right now, so bullet points it is to get the point across: I bought a Pixel 4a in November, after a long string of phones that fell apart way too early, so I decided to take a chance on a higher end product. $300 is a lot of money for me to spend on a phone, as I was previously getting very old generations that still had some semblance of repairability in them, but of course all the software just can't keep working there (at a reasonable speed)! That would just make too much sense! It was alright, but not great, for awhile, about as I expected, but then I was sitting on a concrete bench and my phone shifted about 1 inch lower in my hand onto said concrete. ONE INCH. Cracks emanated up from the USB port across the screen. Obviously, a one inch "drop" (if it can even be called that, which it really can't, but I don't have a better word) is well within the scope of normal operations (really, all drops are for a device that one is to carry with them everywhere, as google's data collection makes a massive amount of money off of), and thus if a phone can't handle it is a severe engineering flaw. As such, I contacted Google and appraised them of the situation, and yet they refused to fix it, citing "physical damage" as a way to void a warranty EVEN THOUGH THEIR DESIGN FLAW CAUSED THIS PHYSICAL DAMAGE! I considered doing a repair myself, but of course they had to make that damn near impossible too. A new LCD assembly is over US$100! This is absurd, the price of a new phone!. Everyone knows that glass failure on a phone is a common failure point, so any company designing a phone to last (to not do so is planned obsolescence) would ensure that the repair in this failure mode is both cheap and easy, for example by facilitating replacing just the glass and not the much more expensive OLED panel. There are some guides for replacing just the glass, but they seem very, very risky. The cracks weren't huge, so I went on ignoring them for awhile, but then when I set my phone down on my counter, the upper-left corner shattered emanating out through the entire upper half of the screen (I strongly suspect that the original cracks somehow weakened the screen, but I have no way to know for sure.), and this corner was the first part to be set on the counter. There was no screen protector because this industry is just as rotten as the phone industry! I could not find even one screen protector brand at any price point that offers any sort of long-term (e.g. 5-10 years at a minimum, although really permanent would be best since there are very rarely compelling features on new phones that I want, it's just this planned obsolescence that is the only reason that I'm not on my galaxy s5 still) guarantee that if their protector fails they pay for whatever repairs are needed. As such, I ask, how can I force Google to support their damn product, take responsibility for their numerous design flaws, and ensure that I have access to a phone of the quality that I paid for? Failing that, what company will do this without any fuss at a reasonable price point? I am never paying Google one cent of my money ever again, after how thoroughly despicable they have been here. It'd be one thing if repairable, modular, upgradable, phones built to last were available at a reasonable price point for those of us who care, but not one company (that sells in the US, at least) makes these!

Tbh I'm in dense areas infrequently enough for some serious deprioritization there to not be a major issue, although perhaps a stated bandwidth limit in the most dense areas of the US would be preferable.

Some recent events have happened (I'll spare the details, but suffice it to say, it's vile) with Sprint, and I'm done with their shit. What US carriers aren't absolute shitbags? This means: unmetered data (technology to provide this has existed for at least a decade), proper live chat and phone support that will just fix whatever I have the misfortune to call about without breaking to the point of unusability, ping ponging me between different agents, and having people who are just script readers on nearly the same web interface that I can access on the website as opposed to people can actually fix anything (e.g. trained network engineers who have proper access to the infrastructure when calling about a technical issue), and a non-extortion-level price (e.g. a few percent profit margin, at most). A non-profit carrier would be great, but somehow I doubt that the US is enlightened enough to have one of those. (Non-profit "products" like Linux and Wikipedia tend to be leaps and bounds ahead of their for-profit counterparts in my experience.) I don't need anything fancy — just plain 4G is fine (meaning no 5G). Even 3G is probably fine. I just want a no fuss and cheap way to have phone call ability, text message ability, and unmetered mobile Internet at some usable speed to stream netflix, youtube, reddit, etc. (of course it can't depend on what websites I'm using, or engage in resolution downgrading nonsense — if I'm paying for 3.1mbps wherever the network can provide it, I expect that speed no matter what I'm using it for), tether to my computer if I find it useful, etc. Literally none of this is some brand new advancement, so there's no reason to pay a premium for it or deal with shitty support.