I'm currently considering getting a new (old/refurbished) smartphone.
I use my smartphone occasionally as a phone, but primarily to listen to audio, including the stream of Artisan Radio. Many of the older, used or refurbished smartphones, will accept micro SD cards, which can greatly expand the available storage. I personally use a 1TB card, and it contains my entire music library (including audiobooks), admittedly compressed to Opus. Newer smartphones have moved away from expansion storage cards, as the manufacturers want you to use their cloud services to obtain extra storage (for a monthly fee, of course).
You can stream your station either via WiFi (at home), or your data plan (anywhere there's cell service) and when I can I usually route the stream to my car radio via bluetooth. Your broadcast range is then effectively unlimited. The only limitation is your mobile data plan, and even then it may not be an issue if your stream is low bitrate (i.e., 64kbps mono as is Artisan Radio). Most providers in Canada don't just stop your data at your plan's limit, and allow you to go over but at much slower speeds (mine caps at 128kpbs, still able to handle the Artisan Radio stream).
I use the Android app Foobar2000 to stream, and play music. But many others will also do it, including VLC. Both Foobar and VLC support Opus - a lot of older software doesn't (a bit of a concern since the newer apps that do sometimes won't run on older versions of Android). And if you have an Apple phone, you're pretty much stuck with mp3 and/or AAC. Actually, with Apple phones you're stuck with a lot of things that Apple wants you to do, regardless of your wants.
Anyway, back to the original theme of this post. I use Android smart flip phones, generally not available in North America. I like the form factor, as well as the size and convenience of answering calls by flipping the phone open. Plus, they're just cool looking.
My current flip phone is the Samsung SM-G9198, which runs Android Lollipop, and has the full Google suite. But I'm upset with Google and their plans to censor news in Canada. This phone also has some issues with battery life (running its HD dual screens combined with the older Android version, which had problems with battery use).
So, I likely will upgrade to the Samsung SM-G9298, which is not Google certified. You can still sideload any apps you want, either via the phone or PC tools such as ADB. Not only do I get rid of Google, but also limit the invading of my privacy - it's kind of unsettling to know that Google monitors literally everything you do (and yet they don't hesitate to censor when it suits their needs). You can't get rid of Google fully on most phones unless you root them (which is not for the faint of heart).
I don't use any Meta products, so that's not a concern for me.
This new phone will run Android Marshmallow (which fixes a lot of the Android energy usage problems), has slightly larger HD dual screens, has a slightly larger battery and probably most importantly, contains a much more energy efficient CPU and GPU. Theoretically all these factors should contribute to much better battery life. Theoretically, anyway.
Smartphones are broadcast equipment.
This information comes at exactly the right time for me, as I am finally accepting the reality that living without a mobile phone can be problematic. For example if the car breaks down and service needs to be contacted, I've determined by a little survey that there are no public phones which leaves a person at sea without a life preserver. Or if you're out somewhere without a car and need to call Uber, you need a phone. Based on what Artisan wrote I now know to find a refurbished phone to have that storage-card advantage, as I'd prefer not to be herded into a Cloud service. It may seem like nonsense to say 'stop screaming and start streaming', but it makes sense to me.
@carl-blare I will never have a smartphone. I have a home PC for regular stuff and another for broadcasting with Zara and a home phone which hardly is used... BUT....I do have a basic little flip phone that my brother gave me for just that .. emergencies.. like if you need car service and you can't walk 3 miles to a house in a snowstorm to call CAA or AAA and he has the extra on his plan. It's never on, unless I ever need it, it sits in the glove compartment, you don't stare at it, it's not an addiction and emits no micro wave radiation. They have some good use but that's the extent of it in my opinion. The rest is insanity!
And if I move somewhere where it's not wired for a land line I will have a basic dumb flip phone turned off most of the time except for an emergency. I have a computer and email for whatever else. Need a phone just to have a phone number as if you buy something on line or whatever you need to give a number.
Right, Mark. I want what you have. Just an emergency phone for those times when I'm out somewhere and don't want to beg strangers for a courtesy phone call. Wherever you go in our modern world you see everybody walking around looking at their hand. Of course they're holding a Smartphone and live inside the tiny screen with no life out here in the world of air and ground. I don't want to be one of those people. And you know from our past conversations I am one of those alarmists who staunchly believes too much radiation exposure can be harmful to human health. If I sound a little bit like I don't know what I'm talking about it's because I don't know much yet about the kinds of cell phone services available. I'll watch more YouTube videos and ask better questions.
A smartphone is a tool, much like the so-called dumb phone, wi-fi networks, etc.
I don't particularly think walking around with a cell phone like a zombie, with it continuously on your ear, or in your hands watching a video, etc. is a good thing. But that doesn't mean that it can't be a valuable tool, and when used in the right way, no more harmful than anything else (including driving your car, with all the electronic hash in there). You use the tool, you don't let the tool use you.
As I stated previously, I use smartphones sometimes for phone calls, but mostly for streaming Artisan Radio. That stream (and countless other data) is already present, passing through your body and everywhere else. Not to mention broadcast radio and TV signals, even cosmic rays. What you want to avoid as much as possible is transmitting radio waves extremely close to body parts - bluetooth is absolutely minimal, particularly if the target is another radio some distance away.
A lot of the studies dealing with the harmful effects of cell phone radiation were done when transmission was analog. Digital transmission, combined with smart power utilization, reduces the radiation significantly. And even with the new studies, it takes a lot (and I do mean a lot) of use to make any sort of difference. With a choice of crossing the road and using a cell phone, in terms of safety, I'd take the cell phone any time (as long as I wasn't looking at it while crossing).
All that being said, I turn off everything in the phone that causes unwanted data transmission, and try not to carry the phone around in a pocket. Most of the time it sits on my desk, or in the center console of my car.
Blanket statements that smartphones cause harm are just not accurate, without taking into account what you're doing with them.
If you really want total safety, you'd have to live in absolute isolation, off the grid, sufficiently far away from any human electromagnetic activity. Oh, and have a lead-lined roof to stop that pesky cosmic radiation. But wait, lead is bad for you as well....
I think we are getting outside of the topic of broadcast equipment and the scope of this forum topic which was a smartphone as a broadcast tool which was the original subject in this thread, myself included to blame also.
Artisan had a good point that if you are streaming you can, with a smartphone, have your station everywhere you go all the time in answer to my reasons why I won't stream. But I spend 2/3rds on my life at home or outside in my area. I have my station on all the time with the radio and don't need it with me everywhere I go. It's on and I will hear it when I get back. I don't need Bluetooth either. I transmit RF to a radio. What we do is a special talent and takes some know how. To create a mini radio station with processing and automation to sound like commercial stations with jingles, promos, programs etc so when you turn on a radio you sound like another station on the air that you created. Anyone can just load a pile of songs and use a phone like an MP3 player and use Bluetooth to pair it to a speaker. Or get an App like Spotify and do the same thing.