Nokia 2.2 Brings Back the Removable Battery (arstechnica.com) 150
HMD is bringing the latest version of the Nokia 2, called the "Nokia 2.2," to the U.S. For $139, it features a notched camera design, a plastic body, and a removable battery. Ars Technica reports: HMD is delivering a good package for the price, with a fairly modern design, the latest version of Android, and a killer update package with two years of major OS updates and three years of security updates. On the front, you have a 5.71-inch, 1520x720 IPS LCD with a flagship-emulating notch design and rounded corners. There's a sizable bezel on the bottom with a big "Nokia" logo on it, but it's hard to complain about that for $140.
This is a cheap phone, so don't expect a ton in the specs department. Powering the Nokia 2.2 is a MediaTek Helio A22 SoC, which is just four Cortex A53 cores at 2GHz. The U.S. version gets 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage version with an option to add a MicroSD card. The back and sides are plastic, and on the side you'll find an extra physical button, which will summon the Google Assistant. The back actually comes off, and -- get this -- you can remove the 3000mAh battery! Speaking of unnecessarily removed smartphone features from the past, there's also a headphone jack. Unfortunately, it's missing some key features to keep the price down. There's a microUSB port instead of a USB-C port, no fingerprint reader, and cameras that have low expectations.
Since it is a GSM phone, it will be supported by T-Mobile and AT&T networks, along with all their MVNOs.
This is a cheap phone, so don't expect a ton in the specs department. Powering the Nokia 2.2 is a MediaTek Helio A22 SoC, which is just four Cortex A53 cores at 2GHz. The U.S. version gets 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage version with an option to add a MicroSD card. The back and sides are plastic, and on the side you'll find an extra physical button, which will summon the Google Assistant. The back actually comes off, and -- get this -- you can remove the 3000mAh battery! Speaking of unnecessarily removed smartphone features from the past, there's also a headphone jack. Unfortunately, it's missing some key features to keep the price down. There's a microUSB port instead of a USB-C port, no fingerprint reader, and cameras that have low expectations.
Since it is a GSM phone, it will be supported by T-Mobile and AT&T networks, along with all their MVNOs.
Good. Now somebody make a flagship phone like that (Score:5, Interesting)
I have an LG V20 that I'm apparently never going to let go because it's the last phone to have both SD card and replaceable battery. It has a respectable set of cameras and I often use it to take video, an area where it excels while my both my DSLR and Micro 4/3rds camera are less capable.
i know the state of the industry suggests that consumers would rather have waterproofing and of course removable storage leads to uneven user experiences because cards fail or people buy slow cards, but surely somebody has to realize that removable batteries make a lot more sense that tethering to an external battery, and swapping storage cards makes a lot more sense than buying phones with a half-terabyte or more of internal storage.
I can't be the only one who wants those things, especially not both at the same time.
Re: (Score:2)
Have you considered that you might just be unbelievably cheap? OMG over a hundred dollars for a handheld device with more computing power than a $1500 laptop of not that long ago and a battery that lasts multiple days and has constant connection to a global network.
All product design has tradeoffs. If you want your perfect device, it's going to cost more than you are willing to pay. Think of a triangle with each corner labeled one of the following:
Good
Fast
Cheap
Then pick a side. You can have Good and Fas
Re: (Score:2)
Good phone, although the screen was a little big for my tastes.
You're right about the camera and video, very nice quality. I gave it to a friend's teenager and she's stoked with it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:SD cards and batteries (Score:5, Insightful)
While I can't comment on the camera aspect. Every smartphone I've owned had a 3.5mm jack, sdcard, and removable battery. With every phone I used the 3.5mm jack and sdcard right out of the box and used the removable battery to extend the life of my phone at least by an extra year. If you've every destroyed your phone by dropping in on concrete or in water you'll be glad to have all your important videos, images, and files on an sd card.
SD cards don't make sense in phones (Score:2)
Every smartphone I've owned had a 3.5mm jack, sdcard, and removable battery.
Nothing wrong with those features. I'm just dubious you actually need the later two at all and the jack is demonstrably an optional preference. If you like the 3.5mm jack I get it but it's not actually necessary and is a separate discussion. The battery and SD card are features you would only actually need for some fairly unusual corner cases which few people actually ever experience.
With every phone I used the 3.5mm jack and sdcard right out of the box and used the removable battery to extend the life of my phone at least by an extra year.
The only reason to have a user replaceable battery is if the user is going to actually replace it on a routine basis (like
Re: SD cards and batteries (Score:1)
Every single iPhone user always has a near dead battery. They thirst for external batteries. Why wouldn't you want a removeable battery instead of some 3rd party solution that is obviously filling a need?
Re: (Score:2)
Not an iPhone user.
I still have an external battery. I use it with other things than my phone. External batteries have multiple uses, where a replaceable battery on a phone is only useable by that phone.
There may be other aspects here you haven't considered.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
With fast charging, swapping the battery is pretty much unnecessary. Most phones will last the whole day anyway, even if used a lot, and even if they don't, if you find 20 minutes to plug it in throughout the day, you can gain a considerable amount of charge. There's also the option of carrying around an extra battery pack and just charging your phone off of that.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure. Let me just plug in this 30,000 mAh battery to my phone first and I'll record far more than that. And then when I don't need all that juice available, I'll leave it in my bag and have a lightweight device that can withstand an accident.
What was your point again?
Re: (Score:2)
So you're constantly tethered to a power source, thereby restricting your freedom of movement and greatly limiting your choice of attire and/or the amount of gear you carry, all because you can't be bothered to take 15 seconds to pop the back of a case off and reboot your phone? I don't see any advantage to your suggested workflow.
Re: (Score:2)
Here's one that is 32,000 mAh: https://www.amazon.com/Portabl... [amazon.com]
Next question?
Re: (Score:2)
And seriously how often do you actually swap the battery and/or the SD card?
Myself I have a high capacity 10k mAh battery so massive it comes with a custom case. Always take it with me whenever I'm out of town for work or vacation.
Witnessed numerous friends and family with phone battery issues. People hunting for chargers and plugging in constantly. Having to go to an Apple store to have batteries replaced. Issues across a range of vendors and platforms (iOS, WP, Android, feature phones) The idea batteries are good enough or last long enough without deteriorating into uselessne
SD card solve what problem? (Score:2)
Buying phones with large amounts of internal storage costs way more than buying SD cards and none of them have anywhere near capacity of SD.
Several thoughts. 1) There are phones available with storage capacities approximately identical to any SD card currently on the market. (Samsung recently announced 1TB capacity production started) It is unlikely that SD capacities are going to exceed smartphone capacities significantly in the future either. 2) SD chips do not cost less than the (basically same) chips for internal storage for smartphones. Your phone maker might charge more (looking at your Apple) but the actual cost to make them won't b
Re: (Score:2)
Re:SD cards and batteries (Score:5, Insightful)
And seriously how often do you actually swap the battery and/or the SD card?
I only have to swap those things once to get full value from it. The frequency doesn't matter as long as it is non-zero.
You're acting as if swapping the SD card/battery only occurs rarely then it has less value; that isn't true - it has full value the first time you do it.
Re: (Score:2)
The best thing about the SD Card is really just the price. Sure EMMC is faster, but you can't beat the cost effectiveness of getting a phone with a respectable 32 GB storage, and then upgrading the phone for an extra $20 to get 128 GB (or $40 for 256GB) of more storage for photos, music, and videos. The apps live on the phone storage for faster access, but the photos, music, and videos are just fine on an SD card.
Sure, if cost were no issue. I would just buy a phone with 256 GB of internal storage, but any
Re: (Score:2)
To respond: I swap the battery regularly, roughly every other day. I have keep two on my person and a third in my car. The one I swap goes on a universal charger that I also use for camcorder and camera batteries.
I have a daily driver large SD card for music and podcasts, but I swap it out for photo or video projects. I like having single use card per project and I've for 8 or 16GB is about perfect for the amount of shooting I do. I do not want 900 photos from a single event sitting on my phone's internal s
Re: (Score:2)
Just to comment on the camera thing:
DSLRs need a moment to focus on a subject. This is simply an aspect of the mechanical nature of their optics. That's fine if you're acting as a dedicated videographer, but if you're trying to act as a still photographer AND a videographer, it's too much to try to keep a subject in focus and keep a still subject in your viewfinder. You can't do both at the same time.
As a photographer, I've found that I work best with a short lens with a high crop factor (Micro 4/3) to do w
Mirrorless cameras (Score:2)
DSLRs need a moment to focus on a subject. This is simply an aspect of the mechanical nature of their optics. That's fine if you're acting as a dedicated videographer, but if you're trying to act as a still photographer AND a videographer, it's too much to try to keep a subject in focus and keep a still subject in your viewfinder. You can't do both at the same time.
You really should check out Sony's real time eye autofocus [sony.com] if you aren't familiar. The autofocus features on the latest DSLM (mirrorless) cameras (A9, A7R4, A73, etc) is nothing short of amazing. Works in both video and still photography.
As for focusing speed, every camera takes some time to acquire focus so I'm not really sure what you are on about there.
Someone with more money than I have could carry a mirrorless camera body for that, or I can just use the phone I already have, which also has multiple lenses and and good tech for handling motion tracking and focus.
Phones have multiple small lenses and small sensors and they are good for basic videography but they definitely do NOT (in general) handle motion tracki
I call shenanigans - no phone competes with a DSLR (Score:2)
It has a respectable set of cameras and I often use it to take video, an area where it excels while my both my DSLR and Micro 4/3rds camera are less capable.
I am sure your phone is nice, but your statement above is wrong. Unless you are using a very ancient camera, a real camera will always take better pictures. Learn how to use it and you will see that for yourself. I take a lot of photos both with a Pixel 3 and a Canon 6D Mark 2. There is NO comparison in quality, especially indoors.
I am sick of that statement. Your phone may take good enough photos for you and if you never view it on anything but your LG V20, you may never notice the difference. View
Re: (Score:2)
It's not about quality, it's about the camera's ability to focus given limited ability to attend to that focus. Get a mirrorless camera. You can basically tell it to follow a subject and it will. The DSLR will always have a delay because of the mechanical aspect of its optics. If you want good looking video and you can't spend all your time concentrating on keeping a subject in focus, it's a lot easier to do on a mirrorless camera or a phone than on a DSLR. That's just a difference in their operation. It's
Re: (Score:1)
Small form factor which I like, full sensors and I have unlocked and rooted it.
I'll be pissed when the next round of "apps" aka "software" require a better SoC - the old SII was just fine..
Re: (Score:2)
How is LG on software updates? The first and only LG I had Never got an upgrade to Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich), even though It was released 6 months before they released it, and I was only able to get to 2.3 (Gingerbread) because I side loaded firmware from another carrier.
Even the newer phones I looked at from LG seem to rarely update their phones. The V series and Thin series seem to get updates, but other phones like the Stylo and X Power seem to never get updates. I was interested in the Stylo for t
Re: (Score:2)
The good news is that if you have a phone that shipped a lot of units, you have a pretty good chance of being able to find a 3rd party ROM that continues it's useful life. This is usually a known quantity before the phone is end-of-sale.
Don't be bleeding edge and you don't get cut. If the manufacturer decides that they don't need to produce security updates any more, unlock the bootloader and reimage it with something that will.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You hit the nail on the head, and there are a number of other compelling reasons for both the removable battery and the storage cards, so more nails to hit.
When I had a Samsung S3 it had terrible battery length. So having an extra battery was essential. When I got my LG G4, it had a good battery, so I use it less. However still nice to have when traveling, or camping, or when you just want the convenience of going from 0% to 100% in a few seconds. However another big selling point is that eventually batteri
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
HMD Global's main office is literally on the other side of the street from Nokia Corp.
https://www.google.com/maps/pl... [google.com]
Many in the know speculate that this is basically Nokia's "toe in the water" for coming back to mobile phone market, using a separate corporate entity to avoid brand problems should it fail.
Re: (Score:2)
A link on slashdot which can be clicked on without worrying??? What is this world coming to??
On a more serious note, are Foxconn dealing with the software (will we need to worry about reports back to China...) or is Nokia handling this?
Underpowered? (Score:4, Funny)
Four cores running at 2Ghz? Is this what kids are calling underpowered these days?
Re:Do you really NEED USB C?? (Score:5, Interesting)
I was wondering this myself. I use my phone USB port for charging - and that's it. MicroUSB is perfectly fine, and all of the cables I currently have will work just fine. I don't need a super awesome mega camera on my phone. I have an actual camera for taking high quality pictures.
Headphone jack? Great, happy to see it. I'll use it. Removable battery? Fantastic. They make sense. How's the quality of the audio? Is it reliable with the towers in my area? For $139 this seems like a perfect replacement if my current phone bites the dust.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, because why would you want to have improving and advancing standards. Let's continue using shitty old crap with limited data transfer speeds and proprietary nonsense like Lightning which is an ugly hack put in place because USB-C didn't exist yet so we can carry around 4 or 5 different cables for all the other shit you bring with you that needs faster data rates or higher charging amperage than MicroUSB is rated for.
Or as an industry we could coalesce around one standard and let everything interopera
Re: (Score:2)
"Yeah, because why would you want to have improving and advancing standards."
Improving standards is good, but not at the cost of financial accessibility. If all we built were Mercedes-Benz, 4,000 sq. ft. mansions, gold plated iPhone [insert next gen version name here], Intel i9 9900K, and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, then our minimum standards would have greatly increased, but they would all be out of reach of the vast majority of the market.
Improved quality and capability of the bleeding edge should be
Re: (Score:2)
Why do you think USB-C costs any more than MicroUSB? They're all part of the USB spec. I mean, are you talking about the connector cost difference of pennies? Or the cable included in the box?
Your "bleeding edge" argument makes absolutely no sense, especially since USB-C has been a thing for like 3+ years now.
Re: (Score:1)
very apropos, from Bunny himself (if you have not heard of him, you should not be making comments about USB and stuff like that anyway): https://people.kernel.org/bleu... [kernel.org]
Re: (Score:2)
No, but if your old phone is a Samsung S5 like in my case, you won't jump ship to a slower phone, even though much newer.
Re: (Score:2)
When everything is javascript and compiled just in time within the browser. When every one of those sites links to 15 different CDNs for their ads and you waste cycles either running them or running a program to block them. When the entire OS is engineered to pester you with alerts to asinine shit and then track everything it can and beam it back to homebase..........Yeah 4 cores at 2Ghz is not enough.
Its at this point I'd like to remind everyone that there was a time when you could have a full GUI with 3d
Re: (Score:2)
Because the RPMs an engine runs at dictates peak horsepower and torque, amirite?
Lots of useless clock cycles per second is still underpowered. See: Pentium 4.
Re: (Score:3)
Upgrades no one will bother with (Score:3)
They'll sell plenty in poorer countries outside the US, say Eastern Europe and wealthier parts of LatAm.
They'll sell a handful of them - probably in the hundreds of thousands, maybe a few million at the high end if they are lucky. Compared to the number of iPhones it will be a rounding error. Not saying it is bad for them to do it but this isn't something pretty much any reader of slashdot is going to buy or care about.
t's not a question of nostalgia for me
If the Nokia name plate is something that matters to the buyer then it very much is about nostalgia for them. It's a brand of handset that died years ago. It had a good following for good r
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There is no faster way to get going again when your battery goes flat than to switch out the battery with one thats already charged up.
Well, other than to have a spare battery that you just plug in so that you have zero downtime, and it's also useful for other devices you may have with you that also need recharging.
Oh, but yes can I please buy a battery that only works with one device, which I can carry in addition to the battery I already have that charges all my stuff?
Re: (Score:1)
I'll call BS on that.
How many voices on
I'll buy it!!!! (Score:3)
My current phone is a Samsung Galaxy S5. That's the last Samsung phone that had a removable battery. Let's see:
This is a cheap phone, so don't expect a ton in the specs department...
But it is so much newer that it is probably fine! Let's compare:
CPU: Nokia 2 = 4 x Cortex A53 @ 2GHz Galaxy S5 = 4 x Cortex A15 @ 2.1Ghz + 4 x Cortex A7s @ 1.5Ghz. That's comparable!
RAM: Both have 3GB.
Storage: Both have 32GB storage + SD card.
Display: Nokia 2 = 720 IPS, S5 = 1080 OLED. Disappointing...but...fine, fine...
Camera: Nokia 2 = 13MP, S5 = 16MP camera. Tolerable, although there's more to a camera than megapixels.
Other: Both have MicroUSB, neither has a fingerprint reader.
Since it is a GSM phone, it will be supported by T-Mobile and AT&T networks
D'oh! No good in my area. :-(
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
oooh... good to know. ...searching... bah, looks inferior to the S5 in every spec. searching more... not sure about the duo specs ... Oh well, thanks for the info.
Re: (Score:2)
CPU: Nokia 2 = 4 x Cortex A53 @ 2GHz Galaxy S5 = 4 x Cortex A15 @ 2.1Ghz + 4 x Cortex A7s @ 1.5Ghz. That's comparable!
As I understand it despite being newer the A53 gets substantially lower performance per clock than the A15 because the A15 is an out of order core while the A53 is not.
Re: (Score:2)
As a fellow Samsung Galaxy S5 user looking to upgrade, I very deeply hate/love you for this post.
Essentially, I should stay put.
Re: (Score:2)
made pretty much useless by just having a power bank in your bag
When the battery gets old, a power bank won't help. Charging a bad battery just throws away energy.
The only real benefit of a "replaceable" battery ... is that if there is a defect with the battery, or it is outside of its useable lifetime, you can replace it easily
Every phone I've ever owned has needed a battery replacement. Heck - every battery-powered device I've owned has had a battery replacement. Batteries go bad over time, or through heavy use, or when left in a hot car for a while. I will not accept a small amount of extra battery power in exchange for cutting the life of the device in half or less. Both my wife and I have replaced the batteries in the last
I like it... (Score:2)
Might be a worthy replacement for my G4 Play if it ever dies.
Headphone jack means I can use $10 headphones, listen while charging, and connect it to old cars w/o Bluetooth.
SD card means I can stay cloudfree.
Removable battery means I can keep it for 4-5 years.
Seriously, love it :)
Re: (Score:2)
Great! (Score:3)
Love the idea. So here is the challenge, Nokia.... bring the replaceable battery to your higher end offerings (faster CPU, without removing the SD card or headphone jack) and I will probably leave the Moto G line...
Oh, for the love of whatever, companies, please stop it with moving any controls/sensors/readers on the BACK of the phone. Side or front ONLY please!
Re: "missing some key features" (Score:1)
My Samsung Galaxy J7 has a sealed-in battery. It has SD and headphone jack, but the battery is not removable. Great phone, but sealed in battery.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think they mean "GSM only"
https://www.gsmarena.com/nokia... [gsmarena.com]
says:
Technology
GSM / HSPA / LTE
2G bands GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 - SIM 1 & SIM 2 (Dual SIM model only)
GSM 900 / 1800 - India
3G bands HSDPA 850 / 900 / 2100 - APAC, EMEA, India
4G bands LTE band 1(2100), 3(1800), 5(850), 7(2600), 8(900), 20(800), 38(2600), 40(2300) - APAC, EMEA
LTE band 1(2100), 3(1800), 5(850), 40(2300), 41(2500) - India
Speed HSPA 42.2/5
Blood on my phone (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
His point was that you set a utopian standard and then proceeded to hold an entity that exists in real life accountable to this standard. That's not the way world works.
I.e. your very existence means mass murder of hundreds of thousands to millions of living beings every second. There's tremendous amount of blood on your hands.
Re: (Score:2)
Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sold.
"Unfortunately, it's missing some key features to keep the price down. There's a microUSB port instead of a USB-C port, no fingerprint reader, and cameras that have low expectations."
Seems like a bonus all round to me. Have never used a fingerprint reader on a phone (and wouldn't want to), all my cables for microUSB anyway (but if I desperately needed to upgrade, USB-C->micro adaptors are pence), and I use my camera precisely for "Oh, take a photo of that so I don't forget" in work, etc. That's it.
This is the phone we've been looking for.
Just a shame it had to come from Nokia! Come on, big players, realise where the sales are now that you've saturated to $1000 phone market.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I like passwords that I cannot give away without consent or extensive coercion.
A permanent, never changing password that I can be forced to give up without my knowledge or consent? No thank you.
Do I need to worry about this? In reality, probably not. I'm not a journalist and it's not like I'm protecting state secrets.
At the same time, most people don't need to lock their doors or phones at all. Statistically very few people are going to need any sort of protection. Anecdotally, I've never left my phone
Re: (Score:2)
A scan of my fingerprint is neither necessary nor sufficient to prove that I'm eligible and willing to unlock my mobile phone.
And *every* fingerprint reader has been defeated with primitive techniques.
And smartphone fingerprint readers aren't the same as, say, a fingerprint reader on a police computer identification device (which they do have!). Instead it merely reduces the fingerprint to a string of codepoints, sufficient that errors and slight changes are acceptable, and that string then unlocks an encr
"Killer Update Package" (Score:3)
the latest version of Android, and a killer update package with two years of major OS updates and three years of security updates
I appreciate what Nokia is doing here, but the fact that this is considered a "killer" update support plan really shows how low the bar is for manufacturer support of Android devices.
Underpowered (Score:3)
These exist, nobody even looks for them. (Score:2)
too little too late Nokia. (Score:1)
HMD should have done the thinking before starting to produce all of their crap devices that can not be trusted whatsoever.
Also made in china, i'm done with that.
Good. Now shut up (Score:2)
and take my money.
FYI, it's already on sale on Amazon (Score:2)
I RTFA, it's on Amazon, just search for "nokia 2.2".
I'll be getting one pretty quickly.
perfect phone (Score:2)
i don't see anything underpowered in those specs.
and yes it has a bezel, but have you seen the photo's on arstechnica? it's not horrible, in fact there is nothing wrong with it at all, a bit of a bezel is better imho.
and Nokia ships all their phones with Android One, that is also a big plus.
this phone is more premium than most premium phone in my book.
What I am waiting for (Score:2)
Is a battery with a removable phone and removable keyboard.
Re: BlackBerry brings back the keyboard (Score:1)
Some people like getting actual usefull features like keyboard, sd, minijack and removeable battery
Vs
paying overprice for a toy with the bygges selling point bring god damn POOP emojis
Re: (Score:1)
For those who don't know what he's talking about: in 1913, factory manager Leo Frank strangled 13-year-old worker Mary Phagan for rejecting his sexual advances. He was condemned to death, but it was commutated to life behind bars. So angry good men took the matter into their own hands - extracting him from the prison to perform justice.
Frank also happened to be the president of the Atlanta chapter of the B’nai B’rith - the Jewish organization from which the ADL was spun off.