It's infuriating how fast we went from "if you have a computer because you can afford one at all" to "if you have a computer because you even bother to use one in the age of smartphones"
Laptop keyboards are, as someone said, like running barefoot on cement: you can do it for short periods, but if you do it for a long time you start feeling the effects. I need to use a full width keyboard to be confortable programming. And not any full width keyboard; I need the ones where the keys are sculpted and their curvature varies (like the inside of a sphere) depending of the position of the keyboard. That way I can have a good feedback of the position of my fingers, again, without needing to watch the keyboard. If I'm going to connect a full keyboard to a laptop, I may well get a full desktop computer.
Why a desktop:
if something craps out, is easier to change individual components in a desktop.
my current desk is overcrowded and also is not designed to house a laptop and an additional monitor
I despise using laptops for gaming and for anything that doesn't require mobility. My serious computing is static, not mobile. My work provides me a laptop, but I can easily work from home, and also they don't provide desktops. For my own machine, my choice is desktop, period.
I am a touch typist and laptop keyboards are fine. I haven't tried keyboards with weird curvatures but most desktop keyboards are too wide if you don't have big hands.
I can see the first point about repairability but it's not really something you can't do without and is the price to pay for mobility (which is something that could be considered essential). If you use a laptop with full peripherals, it can act as a desktop when there is no space but you can't do the opposite :p
I am a touch typist and laptop keyboards are fine.
Were in violent disagreement, then.
repairability [...] it's not really something you can't do without
Being able to disregard e-waste and discarding a whole machine when something fails is a privilege that not everyone has. If you leave in a wasteful country whose society benefits from the wealth produced by destroying other countries, I can understand the mental blindness.
is the price to pay for mobility (which is something that could be considered essential)
For whom? For me it's certainly not.
If you use a laptop with full peripherals, it can act as a desktop when there is no space
A laptop with many peripherals tends to occupy nor horizontal space, not less. And the fragile hubs needed for expansion are a frequent point of breakage.
@Blaze is right, that most people's personal computer scope of usage doesn't reach far beyond scrolling through Facebook and paying bills once a month. A phone is perfectly well fit for that. Tech-savvy nerds of Lemmy such as myself or you have more requirements and scenarios where they need a more comfortable, powerful and capable device.
While I didn't see anything promising from my quick search, you might be able to try something with Gadgetbridge and a custom entry. I found older posts talking about it, but I didn't search well enough to see if there's been progress
I think it might still be incompatible (I see a request to add it), but the play store version is a separate app based on the actual app one. The actual app isn't on the PlayStore
Yeah with permissions there is this stupid feature in Android and Google Play protect that keeps revoking permissions if you don't use an App for some time.
Also they are still constantly trying new ways to "figure out" what Apps should run in the background instead of giving the user any controll. I.m.o. there should just be a "Allow up to run background" permission you can turn on and off and which logs exactly when a app was running the background.
The short answer is that you can't without rooting. If ALL your apps use Google cloud backup, then it'll work great. But that's not very likely.
Here's what I do when I switch phones, without root:
Use Google cloud restore. This gets app data for supported apps.
Run the built-in backup and restore features for any apps that have them. A few examples of such apps off the top of my head are Lawnchair, Eternity for Lemmy, Relay for Reddit, and Signal.
Copy internal storage (like downloads, photos, etc.) using a USB cable with MTP or ADB. This gets non-app-specific files.
Your contacts app should have an export feature. If you're using your Google account to store contacts, then you don't need to bother with this.
That gets almost everything. Over the years I have mostly stopped using apps that lock data in protected locations with no way to export. The biggest problem is that there's no easy way to see which apps use Google backup. IIRC there's a way to check in your Google settings on the web but not directly on Android.
Edit: a little historical context in case you find outdated results in web searches: this used to be a lot easier. On older OSes, adb backup could pull ALL app data, and the were some user-friendly apps like Helium that used the same mechanism to back up and restore arbitrary app data. Google locked that down at some point (I forget when, maybe Android 10?) and it's not possible without root now.
Android has gotten really good at transfering all data via a normal move to a new phone. What I would do is plug your phone into a pc and backup everything you can see via file browser, that way if it somehow doesn't make it to the new phone you still have it. Plus you will still have the current phone to get things from if/when you need it.
The data sheet specifies that they do use NFC technology, so in principle it can be copied and transmitted from a smart phone. How to extract that data though? I’m not sure. That’s beyond my skills.
Their documentation also specifies that they may integrate smart card features that specifically prevent copying by using cryptographically secure handshakes. In that case, if your card uses such features, it would be practically impossible. It depends on exactly how they are using it and I’m not sure of that.
Think of it like how you can do NFC credit card payments, but you can’t trivially record and replay the communications. You would have to know the secrets embedded in the chip in the card. Depending on the features they use it might be impossible to clone it with consumer hardware. Even if you can speak NFC and technically replay the information.
If you want to keep a device that long, that I would personally suggest going for one of the new Pixels, as you would get longest possible software/replacement parts support.
Sure it won't have a headphone jack, but you can use a dongle (with a DAC) that will allow you to just hook up wired headphones. The only downside is that you cannot charge and listen at the same time.
You won't get 2 physical SIMs, and probably size will also be an issue.
I don't trust Xiaomi phones, sure they look good on paper but after hearing horror stories about their software from friends I'm not convinced it's worth the hassle.
I'm using Lawnchair because I wanted to change the default search engine in the search bar on the home screen. I might switch back to Pixel Launcher if they make it customizable.
I use Nova Launcher because I'm used to it and there's really nothing that still can replace it. There are plenty of similar launchers, but none that's as feature rich as Nova. People love to hate it because it has been acquired by an analytics company, but I have data disabled for Nova Launcher, so it can't really do anything. Even on other older phones that don't have the option to disable data for Nova Launcher, it hasn't sent a single KB of data in months. I don't think it's a problem.
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