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Comment by mikece | Hacker News Reader

While I really like the idea of a feature phone that can has some smarts, can function as a WiFi hotspot, and has battery life to allow charging only once a week, if there's no ability to write apps that are compiled to binary code then I have to wonder how much the JavaScript VM powering aps is going to drain the battery compared to an app that was written in C/C++.

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Given the target devices for KaiOS, wouldn't AOT compiled apps have the problem of not being sure which CPU will be supported? It's probably not as big of an issue today but at the inexpensive, low-power side of the spectrum there might be a diversity of CPUs within a year or two... is KaiOS going to host compiler services in the cloud to dynamically compile apps for the myriad possible CPUs out there? While consuming more battery, using JavaScript to power the apps not only lowers the barrier to entry for app developers but creates a common target for all hardware vendors to support. That said, I do like the idea of these devices having the ability to run native code as that would get more like from the battery.

Probably more like what happened on Symbian where the market fragmented but nobody cared as most apps weren’t very compelling.

Doesn't stop people from shipping native binaries on Android. Developers who care about the 0.1% of the market not using ARM just include multiple binaries.

There is always the option to JIT cache. It doesn't need to be always compiled from scratch.

Now if they bother with such optimization is another matter.

I'm very tempted to buy Nokia 8770, but I can't confirm it supports a WiFi hotspot.

Did you type the number wrong? I'm not finding an 8770. GSMArena.com is the place to look for specs, in my opinion.

https://www.gsmarena.com/res.php3?sSearch=nokia+8770

must be talking about the 8110

Yes

I just did a search on Ebay for the 8110 and found a shop in the UK asking more than €200 for it plus shipping. I guess the shop owner reads HN:).

you can buy them on amazon uk for around £50

The Ebay seller says they're "unlocked" for use in EU. My concern was that the cheaper ones were imported and wouldn't work on European GSM (I still use it) and 3/4G networks.

I was wrong. I meant the 8810 - The Banana phone.

Update: Found the manual online and it mentions wifi hotspot support: https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_lb/support/api/pdf/nokia-811... (Page 21)

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