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Comment by microtonal | Hacker News Reader

GrapheneOS requirement of Pixel devices is a dependency on Google too.

They are currently working with an OEM to release a non-Pixel GrapheneOS phone in the future.

I hope and pray that is a Samsung S Ultra device. The built-in stylus transforms the whole user experience, I would not go back to a device that I must swipe my dirty fingers across.

I’m just imagining myself pulling out the stylus on the train/plane, dropping it, and watching it roll away forever.

They thought of that! The cutaway of the stylus is a rounded rectangle, comfortable in the fingers but does not roll.

In any case, replacement stylii are very cheap online. Less than a screen protector.

Good to know they’re cheap, I actually figured they’d be more like an expensive active stylus.

The Palm Pilot experience. But that stylus was required for operation. Fortunately, just a plastic stick, so 3-pack replacement were cheap.

Millions of owners of Samsung devices somehow manage to not do that every day.

I’ve never seen anyone in real life using the stylus on a Samsung phone so I always figured it was a somewhat unused feature of a very specific niche model in the lineup.

The ultra series MSRP is over $1400, I imagine at that price Samsung sells less than 5% of their volume with an integrated S Pen.

I saw one last week. I can't comment about the stylus (but I'm swiping with my thumb to write this message). I held it in my hands and it's a brick but most phones of the last years are bricks so I expect that they will deliver another nearly 7" 200 grams brick. We used to call them phablets. This is one of the models that defined the category in the early 2010s https://m.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_note_n7000-4135.php

It's almost lightweight nowadays and it's definitely small. I remember that we thought that it was insanely huge when pressed to a ear to talk.

as long as it is not fairphone. I am out. I don't want to have to choose between privacy and sustainability.

It won't be Fairphone. Fairphone is very far removed from the hardware requirements listed here https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices They don't seme to take security seriously at the moment, so the chance is low they are going to make the huge leap needed to meet the requirements. Fairphone heavily markets their sustainability but it's very relative. Fairphone doesn't give proper software support. They don't properly keep up with Android updates and also stop giving updates much more quickly than Google (8 years since Pixel 8) and iPhone. Giving proper software support is also part of what makes a device usable for a longer period of time and hence reduces the need to purchases a new device which has an environmental and climate impact. With regards to the hardware longetivity, Google has good repair programs for their Pixels. It's more difficult and less supported to do repairs yourself but it's certainly possible to repair your device.

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