Blackphone Update Bricking Non-genuine, Grey Market Phones
Evaristo Nicholls
However, "brick" has more recently been applied to older phone models in general, including non-bar form factors (flip, slider, swivel, etc.), and even early touchscreen phones as well, due to their size and relative lack of functionality compared to current models on the market.[3][4][5]
The term "brick" has also expanded beyond smartphones to include most non-working consumer electronics, including a game console, router, or other device, that, due to a serious misconfiguration, corrupted firmware, or a hardware problem, can no longer function, hence, is as technologically useful as a brick.[6] The term derives from the vaguely cuboid shape of many electronic devices (and their detachable power supplies) and the suggestion that the device can function only as a lifeless, square object, paperweight or doorstop. This term is commonly used as a verb. For example, "I bricked my MP3 player when I tried to modify its firmware." It can also be used as a noun, for example, "If it's corrupted and you apply using fastboot, your device is a brick." In the common usage of the term, "bricking" suggests that the damage is so serious as to have rendered the device permanently unusable.[7]
Clamshell came to be used as generic for this form factor. Flip phone referred to phones that opened on the vertical axis. As clamshells disappeared from the market, the terms again became disambiguated.
This whole thing comes down to once again the victim, FTDI being blamed by end user who was ripped off by some grey market profiteer. Come on, people tried to save a couple of $ by purchasing cloned crap from eBay and got stung.
Coming into the event, Nokia was the platform I knew least about. Though Nokia sells oodles of handsets around the globe, in the North American market their smartphone penetration is still pretty non-existent. Being unfamiliar with the devices, I had no preconceived notions. And after getting to know the devices and spend some time on them, I definitely leave the Round Robin with a better appreciation for what Nokia has done to date with their smartphones, but I'm still really sort of lost as to where they fit into the current landscape (especially in NA) and can't help but wonder what they're going to have to do in order to get some sort of piece of consumer mindshare and momentum. Read on for more Nokia thoughts!
When it comes to selling handsets, Nokia's approach is to try and blanket the market. They build handsets targeted at everybody in every segment. What do you want? You want a multimedia phone? A web phone? A crappy little feature phone? A smartphone? Something for fun? Something for work? Nokia builds a device that fits the bill. With so many phones out there, they've also found themselves in a position of having some fragmentation on the software side of things. For the Round Robin we checked out two of Nokia's smartphones -- the Nokia N97 Mini and Nokia N900 -- and sure enough even among these two devices there are two different software platforms present. The N97 Mini is using more of the Symbian legacy software (S60 5th edition as it's apparently called) while the N900 is actually using a Linux-based OS called Maemo that was really developed for tablets, and in the N900 has been greatly shrunk down into phone form. Maemo definitely has some gusto and is likely to be the future of Nokia's high-end devices, while the S60 software might be in for more of a struggle at this point.
The Moto G launched in 2013 wanting to do something that other smartphones didn't do - bring all that power to emerging markets. The Moto G started a trend, wanting to wipe out feature phones and put Android in the pockets of those who previously couldn't afford to own a smartphone. It kick-started a great family of Moto phones that are still running today - and in many cases, still offers a great experience at the affordable end of the market.
Great article... You really went out of your way on this one!
I work in IT support and do service work on servers. I also do some support for Blackberry phones in a business environment.
I am aware about the importance of proper specifications, and the safety aspects for chargers. I have had to deal with people who had their phone damaged from using aftermarket chargers.