radio
In the US, carriers colluded to disable phone radios to sell more data.
damn, that’s messed up.
• pressure sensitive pens on non-flagship models
At this time, the 3.5mm jack is top with 27%
It always surprises me that so many people still want this. I know it’s representative of the anti-choice homogenisation of phones in general, but something like removable batteries or expandable storage seems so much more important than a dedicated old headphone connector.
I personally hate how annoying headphone wires are, but even if you like them then is it so inconvenient to leave an adapter connected to your headphones? And a splitter as well if you’re desperate to charge simultaneously?
USB-C ports get damaged over time by excessive unplug/replug in that use case
There’s a reason it’s still the top requested feature in the poll.
More so than they would from charging?
I charge my phone once a day.
I use my jack 3-4 times a day on average.
Fair enough, though would you be happy if there were significant improvements made to usb-c port build quality?
Audio jack is still better, as someone else said in another comment: https://feddit.uk/post/33629763/19026566
It is inconvenient to leave an adapter connected to my headphones, because I want to use the same pair of headphones for my tablet, computer, and Switch, all of which have a real headphone jack. I also need to buy an extra adapter for the aux cable in the car and constantly have to debug if it is the audio cable or adapter that is going bad.
Wired does not mean “old”, it means faster, more reliable, better for the environment and cheaper too! In the time that some very affordable studio headphones last me, I’d have to buy about 5 or so similarly priced BT headphones or 10 pairs of true wireless ear buds. Turns out adding complexity to a device and powering it with a non replaceable battery makes it way less reliable and worse for the environment. On top of that, wireless almost always implies audio compression. (but in fairness that won’t be noticeable for everyone) Imho a headphone jack should still be a “must have” for smartphones.
That and there was no reason to kill it other than to sell BT headphones (constantly).
Somehow we had enough space and all back when phones were 4" at most. But now that theyre 6"+ somehow we just don’t have room…
Open bootloaders, ir blaster, 3.5mm jack, sd card slot, replaceable batteries. The list goes on.
Is any of that an android feature? It’s mostly hardware, I think you can still get devices that have some combination of those (maybe not the IR blaser).
Title says “android phone”, not just Android
Most manufacturers dropped all or most of those features.
Don’t forget the notification light.
Isn’t having an OLED display and using it as an “always on display” the replacement for this?
yeah but not every device is oled.
Yeah, and unless it’s only activating a few pixels at a time it’s not the same.
This is more or less how oled works iirc
It’s how it can work, which doesn’t necessarily mean the firmware is set up to use it that way.
The most bullshit thing ever. I have a Moto 5g Ace, I was sad it didn’t have a light, used it for a couple years before putting LineageOS on it. Low and behold it actually has a notification light that was disabled in the stock ROM! WTF
The notification light for me was never all that useful, i have unique ringtones for everything but i do agree they are an awesome feature for folks in spaces where their phones need to be quiet
The flash pattern and frequency were set different for email, sms and other. On mine at least. It was really handy not needing to turn the screen on at all.
I liked them, if not just because there’s no reason not to have it. It was always subtle and functional.
Why can’t the camera “flash” be used for this? IOS has settings for it in accessibility features.
.
Motorola G series has 3.5mm + SD card slot
Hmmm, that’s deffo a contender for my next device, we’ll see how many years i get out of my zf9 before getting one though lol
OnePlus make phones that still have many of those features
3 way tie between 3.5mm jack, easily removable, and now that microSD Express is finally becoming mainstream, a microSD Express card slot. It’d be nice to see in a flagship or at least a Mediatek mid range chip like the dimensity 8400
I’d forgotten all about the notification LED. I wonder, could you flash a small part of an OLED display to achieve something similar while still being low power?
I loved it. I set up all these different colors to tell me what the priority was for checking. SMS was green, email was yellow or something, and FB (so cool back then) was blue. I really miss that, could just glance at it and know if it was worth risking pulling out your phone in school
Miss this too. And you could customize the number of flashes so 3 rapid green flashes was so-and-so’s WhatsApp message.
Samsung S21 absolutely has a multicolour notification LED, but the only time it gets used is POST.
The physical fingerprint reader on the back of the phone.
Curiously, why on the back?
I always found that a worse location than phones that had it on the side (usually paired with the power button), as you can’t unlock your phone if it’s lying flat on a table without picking it up.
(Also the way I typically hold my phone, the usually top centre sensor is absolutely nowhere near where any of my fingers naturally sit, and requires awkward bending to reach it)
I know a lot of people like it, but I’ve never been able to figure out what it was about it.
I hold my screen facing me so my hands are already resting on the back.
I’d pull it out of my pocket with my finger naturally on the back side and it would be unlocked by the time I viewed the screen.
Im not OP, bit i loved my old phone with a rear fingerprint scanner. It was perfectly positioned to unlock with my index finger AS I was pulling it out of my pocket. And you could scroll up/down with it.
I do not like the power button fingerprint reader.
- Cases need a notch to expose the power button.
- Can’t use the power button to lock the screen while fingerprint unlock is enabled, because it immediately unlocks itself with the fingerprint.
- Accidentally unlocks itself way often when putting it in my pocket than with the back reader.
My eldest’s phone has this. Your second point is valid and a pain in the ass.
Cases need a notch to expose the power button
I don’t see why that’s a problem.
Can’t use the power button to lock the screen while fingerprint unlock is enabled, because it immediately unlocks itself with the fingerprint.
Sounds like you just had a shitty phone, that shouldn’t happen.
Accidentally unlocks itself way often when putting it in my pocket than with the back reader.
Again, shitty phone. You’re supposed to actually push the button to unlock it. Don’t understand why your finger would be on the back of the phone when putting it in your pocket anyway.
Again, shitty phone. You’re supposed to actually push the button to unlock it. Don’t understand why your finger would be on the back of the phone when putting it in your pocket anyway.
This isn’t a “shitty phone” thing. Every phone I’ve owned with a side-mounted fingerprint reader has unlocked via touch (not press). It’s standard.
Yes it is. Once again, we were talking about on the back.
Again, we were talking about the back.
The 2nd and even 3rd point is not automatically true for every phone and setting. I have a combined fingerprint reader and power button on my Fairphone 5, and the 2nd thing has always worked just fine.
It also has the option to only enable the fingerprint reader if the display is on, which addresses your 3rd point completely. It means you can pick the phone up, including having a finger in the reader, and it won’t turn on or unlock. You need to press down in the button to trigger the screen, then it can be unlocked. That also means that when locking it and turning off the screen actively by pressing the power button with the phone on, it never re-unlocks. To be honest this part wasn’t a problem before the setting became available, as the locking would disable the fingerprint reader anyway, but letting your grip go slightly could trigger re-unlock.
Only activating the fingerprint reader when the screen is on is a regression compared to the rear reader. It means I need to squeeze the phone to unlock it, vs just placing my finger in the right spot. It also negates the purported advantage from the comment above mine about being able to easily unlock the phone while lying on a table.
I’m not arguing that the power button reader doesn’t work for anyone. I’m saying that it is qualitatively worse UX for me in particular.
Lots of android phones have a physical fingerprint reader
on the back of the phone.
On the side isn’t good enough?
Their preference was the back. So no.
To me it sounded like the main distinction they were trying to make was a dedicated fingerprint reader button rather than an in-screen finger print reader. This is a common preference because the hardware scanner you can activate by touch without working about proper placement, whereas the in-screen readers you have to look at the screen and carefully put your finger just in the on-screen circle showing where you have to precisely place your finger
Built in IR blaster
I’ve got a oneplus 12 which has it. Random thing for them to bring back but welcome
Open Bootloaders, 3.5mm jacks, SD Card readers.
project soli was so cool. I loved having mmwave radar in my phone
Android Beam
Fuck, the freedom. Root & custom ROM, running your damn device that you paid money for the way you want to. Imagine that. I stopped after rooting your phone killed Snapchat (because 3 idiots use Snap Pay or whatever), killed your tap pay wallet, killed Pokémon Go, etc etc etc. Then they tried telling people oh bro, just hide your root bro Majisk hide root. Like I need one more thing to do. 🙄 If I need to hide it, and most of the benefits of rooting have gone away/are incorporated into smartphones & no longer needed…I’m just going to stop rooting.
Then the microSD card expansion slot. Some try to say it’s for waterproofing purposes, but they can use the same pop-out slot as the SIM card & it’s nbd. Others say it’s because the storage can sometimes be “unstable” & glitch, but over the years I’ve only had problems twice: just once with a Samsung, and then constantly with a shitty Motorola smartphone but that’s on me because I bought a shitty Motorola smartphone. I think they killed it just because they could, because everybody else was killing it off & they knew they were going to get your money regardless. And then either pay a premium for extra on-board storage, or pay $10/mo for the rest of your life for “cloud” storage. Or both! Money, money, money, it’s all about the money.
These guys got rid of everything that made an Android an Android, and if I’ve got problems with mid-tier phones, to spend $1K+ on a flagship Android. For crying out loud, I’m not spending $1K on an Android that doesn’t even have microSD expansion, at that point you might as well buy an iPhone.
As someone who currently has a new phone with root and an sd-card slot, this was a fun read.
What phone is that?
Fairphone 6
killed Pokémon Go
I run CalyxOS and I tried again recently and it DOES work
How recently? In May Google changed everything about root detection so it may have changed again.
Plexus has a few people claiming it works from the last months though.
I was playing today
The ability to not have a lock screen.
mass storage mode
I really wish IR blasters would come back into style. They’re not even expensive to manufacture, and they’re small enough that they can be incorporated into any modern smartphone design pretty easily. And almost everybody with a smartphone has SOMETHING in their home that they control with an IR remote. There’s basically no reason to have stopped including them.
Ah yes, let me just pull out my phone, unlock, open remote app, switch to ‘my tv/air-conditioning manufacturer’ profile and press off.
The IR experience on a phone is not convenient for day to day, especially when (love it or hate it) most things can be controlled over WiFi without needing line of sight.Lock screen widgets are a thing now.
You really gonna put a tv remote on your lockscreen?
Yeah, that’s how I had my old HTC One M8 set up. I didn’t have a full numpad setup or anything; just power, volume, and channel. I had a separate widget for my ceiling fan, too.
Fair enough! That does actually sound perfectly serviceable.
Ah yes, let me scrounge around for the remote someone else in my ADHD household last had in their hand 45 minutes ago and has no idea what they did with it.
Meanwhile, my small child is coming downstairs for a glass of water while we’re watching Hereditary for the first time. The Roku app is a pile of garbage and won’t connect to my device fast enough, it just shows loading animations. So I just have to cut the power to the TV while I look for the remote.
Hypothetically, of course.
Just because you can’t imagine a scenario where it’s convenient doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
