> Anyway, your point reminds me that the my "dream smartphone" would be one with no cellular connectivity at all.

You mean a PDA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_digital_assistant)? Modern smartphones are basically a PDA with cellular connectivity (this is more obvious with early smartphones like the Treo 650), so if you take out the cellular connectivity, what you have is once again a PDA.

Personally what I want is a dumb flip phone which can act as a 4/5G hotspot for my 7" tablet.

When I'm on the internet, browing maps, reading books, I find a phone screen too small. But I don't want a massive phone.

A dumb flip phone that lasts a week on a charge so that I can camp with it, combined with a 7" tablet that I can throw in my bag, for when I want to read, but doesn't need cellular connectivity so that it lasts without spying on me.

I don't think this distinction makes any sense nowadays. A "smartphone without cellular connectivity" is a lot more than a "Personal Digital Assistant". Could a Palm Pilot stream music? Did it have an app store? GPS? Microphone? Could it make VoIP calls? Could it connect with an external modem so that it could work as a softphone?

If Palm were to create the Pilot in 2023, it would almost certainly be designed to support all those features, yes.

Yes, and it wouldn't be marketed as a PDA.

Then what would it be marketed as? It's personal, it's digital, and it's an assistant; those things don't go away from adding more features.

A tablet is personal It's digital. It's an assistant. But no one calls them "PDAs"

Aren't those usually USB sticks? E.g. stuff like this:

https://www.hardwareschotte.de/tests/Surfsticks

Sure, having wifi hotspots would be nice, but this way you don't have to worry about batteries.

If I had to plug a surf stick every time on the device to use it as a phone or to connect to the internet via 4G, then of course I'd rather have it integrated with the device already. Wireless connection is not a nice-to-have, it is the key feature.

Eh, getting the device out of my pocket, turning it on, activating the wireless connection, remembering to charge it every day vs. just plug it in. And on top of that my phone can already give me a hot spot (with bad battery life). Not quite sure I see any big advantage.

>turning it on, activating the wireless connection.

Can be managed by bluetooth LE.

> remembering to charge it every day

People do it for their smartwatches. Also, making it in a key fob format would lend itself naturally to some nice key holder accessory where you can charge it (wirelessly, even?) or it can have a spring-loaded usb port to charge in your car.

> justification

An odd term in this context. No-one has to 'justify' not selling their stuff to Americans.

They do if they're a normal corporation selling an easy-to-ship product in mass quantities.

Why? Do you suggest the US has intrinsic rights to the goods of other nations?

Not a right, and not more than those other nations have the same thing, but otherwise yes because markets.

Small entities can do whatever they want but big corporations should have justifications for not selling a thing.

Non-US corporations, of any size, have no duties towards US residents whatsoever. It's entirely their choice whether or not to enter foreign markets. Americans are not default humans, and they do not decide what products other nations' companies offer them.

Not a duty to the people buying, a duty to the owners of the company. To make a profit out of easy opportunities. Or justify not doing it, to the owners.

And the duty to owners is what you said yourself in your other comment, so I'm not sure why you seem to not understand what I'm saying.

You are making the exact blinkered US-centric assumptions I'm poking fun at. US companies may be duty bound to put increasing owner value above other considerations, but fortunately out here in most of the world, your law does not apply to us, and our laws are not modelled on yours.

I can assure you, for example, that in many nations companies can legally have many reasons for choosing not to export a product to a specific country that don't make any reference to profit. Again: all you know is your laws. Your laws are not our laws. It's a big world out here, not encompassed by the mores of the nation you just happen to come from.

I'm not talking about laws. I'm talking about the nature of a normal to large corporation: to sell things.

They don't have to maximize profit at the cost of other things. But if they want to ignore a huge sales venue, they should justify it.

Justifying isn't some huge bar. It's due diligence. If you have many reasons, then write them down.

Okay, have fun projecting so hard over a very simple claim that companies should have justifications for their actions.

You've been repeatedly arguing against a strawman where I want to force companies to make certain decisions. But that's not what I said at any point.

I think the point is that if a business is in the money making business. Then it seems kinda stupid not to make money.

Non-US companies have to justify all their decisions to their owners, but not to random foreign consumers.

A keychain-sized hotspot would have dismal battery life, though.

Hum, maybe I meant the size of a key fob? It could be a bit thicker, I'd guess it would hold something like ~2000mAh. For just the radio, and for something that would be used only while on the go (otherwise you can use your home/your job connection), why couldn't that work as long as a feature phone, which could go for a week in a single charge?

In my experience with hotspots on the go, it's having to maintain the WiFi AP that kills their battery fast. Maybe there's a better protocol to run between the hotspot and other devices, although you'd need one that would also allow for 5G speeds.

If I were serious about designing this, I'd try:

- Bluetooth for control/signaling.

- Bluetooth for voice audio.

- WiFi AP in super reduced Rx/Tx power mode when not charging. The only requirement here is that signal is strong within a 3ft radius from the hotspot, and acceptable on a 6ft radius. It really shouldn't need more than that.

- WiFi AP in normal mode when charging.

- WiFi AP completely shut-off when the paired device reports that they have access to any other trusted wifi network.

My idea here is that for me at least, mobile data is truly a connection of last resort. Almost anywhere I go there is WiFi available. And the places where there isn't, perhaps I simply don't need an always-on fast connection?