Note that the G4 is lightyears beyond the Bharat 2 (which is reviewed in @PranavDixit's article):
https://www.gsmarena.com/micromax_bharat_2+-8917.php …
Let's dig into the Bharat 2 a bit (thread!)...https://twitter.com/tomtaylor/status/1018163423627145220 …
It's an in-order, 32-bit chip and Micromax had to play the usual thermal games; Spreadtrum says it's a 1.3ghz chip, but it's clocked 20% slower for power reasons.
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It's good this is 32bit because Android's base memory use is *abysmal*. 64 bit is a disaster in the 512mb-1gb segment.
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Let's compare this to my recommended "baseline" device, 2016's Moto G4: https://m.gsmarena.com/motorola_moto_g4-8103.php …
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High-level comparison: https://m.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=8103&idPhone2=8917 …
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The G4 has twice the memory, double the number of cores, fab'd on the same process.
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The Bharat also "features" half the base storage (8gb), meaning these users are *highly* likely to hit storage limits in its serviceable lifetime
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The base model only has 4gb of storage. That might be fine for a Chromebook, but Android isn't built to function on this sort of diet:https://www.flipkart.com/micromax-bharat-2-champ-4-gb/p/itmetfzcskkwpfg2?lid=LSTMOBETFZCEHZNZDMKQUCKY6&pid=MOBETFZCEHZNZDMK …
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This is why smartphone ASPs continue to fall. The Bharat 2 buyer couldn't afford the G4.
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By volume, phones aren't getting faster, they're getting cheaper and will continue to do so until NBU markets saturate the way established markets did in '12.
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2014's phone never went away. It's still with us and in ever greater numbers. THESE ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS AND USERS.
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Think they're not? The second largest market for cheap Android devices is the US. Let that really sink in.https://www.androidauthority.com/android-go-usa-market-773723/ …
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It's great to see some press around how tough these devices are, but the framing is misleading: this isn't an NBU thing. It's everywhere. 2014's undead tech is in the hands of your users.
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Outlets like
@CNET,@verge, and@TechCrunch have totally, utterly, entirely failed at this beat. People you know and care about have been failed badly as a result. And no, it's not improving (@PranavDixit's piece being a rare and therefore notable exception)Show this thread -
No outrage, no opinion pieces calling out the vendors like
@Qualcomm,@SamsungSemiUS, and@MediaTek who continue to pump out crappy, underpowered chips on ancient process nodes because "budget segment".Show this thread -
This is paired with a lack of honest, detail-oriented coverage of the lived experience of most user's devices. It's abdication of journalism's one legit calling: holding the powerful to account.
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And if you're a web developer, the takeaway is suuuuuper simple: "modern", JS-heavy frontend doesn't work for most of your users; at least not without serious discipline and infrastructure. DIY front-end infra ISN'T WORKING.
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The only serious options I know of today are Preact CLI and Polymer PWA Starter Kit. Vue sadly leaves this as an exercise to the reader: https://router.vuejs.org/guide/advanced/lazy-loading.html#grouping-components-in-the-same-chunk … Honourable mention to Svelte for just being so darned small, delaying the onset of the problem.
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Let's be super specific about this: if your team or project stated with "just the framework" and a hand-me-down webpack config that you're bolting onto, you're probably failing. Not maybe, very probably with high confidence.
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You literally cannot afford today's "best-practice" popular frameworks unless you're making websites exclusively for Gucci or Porsche. They literally set you up to fail.
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End of conversation
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Named PWAs w/
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of a chip, differing only in memory and stock Android version (neither being up to date):