If anything, this thread kind of shows how much people fail to get informed about their smartphone before they buy one.
Literally every single one of these features is available on the market. Most of those phones are actually the quality stuff, like the German produced Gigaset/Volla, or the Dutch (assembled?) Fairphone. But no, you have to go out of your way to get the bottom of the barrel Iphone and Samsung made in China.
Less of a feature and more of a design, but I miss phones being small. The iPhone 4S was the perfect physical size IMO and that thing looks tiny compared to my fuckhuge S23U. The physical bloat of the past 5 Galaxys is why I’ve decided not to go with Samsung for my next mobile
Seconding this. I can appreciate a large screen but it has limits, if I can’t use my phone with one hand because my fingers can’t reach half the screen while palm holding it the design sucks. Sent from my unwieldy modern smart phone force using both hands.
I’m on an iPhone 13 Mini — probably the last Mini model ever.
I like the form factor, but you really do notice the smaller battery. Most days, I’m at 20% by bedtime. If I run anything even semi-intensive throughout the day, I need a pit stop. I miss not worrying about it.
Main reason I stopped buying Motorola was the ever increasing screen size. I have bad elbows and extended phone use causes pain. A few ounces really does make a difference. A sub-5-inch phone with decent specs would be awesome.
Yep. I’ve been looking for my next phone for when my pixel 5 eventually goes and looking at Asus as it’s the only current high end phone that’s not bigger that 5".
I do not want a 6"-7" display. I want a 4"-5" display I can easy get in and out of my pocket, and be able to hold and use with one hand. Even a 5" screen is to big for my thumb to reach about 1/4 of the screen without moving my hand.
If you have access to an iPhone 4S, then try to use it for as couple of minutes, and then see if you still consider that 3.5 inch screen perfect size.
If you want a tiny phone, then why use the biggest one available? It’s like saying I wish I could get a small economic car, and then drive a Humvee.
Apparently when it comes down to it, you don’t really want a tiny phone.
Because the biggest are often the top models and at the time that I bought this one, my job required a powerful mobile. The battery bypass feature, exclusive to the S23U, alone made it a non-choice.
You’re making a lot of assumptions in your comment about me, what my workload on a mobile is, and my own tastes.
Try to read it again, I make zero assumptions, apart from the 2 you have stated yourself. You want a phone the size of an iPhone 4s but use a S23 Ultra. I’m just pointing out that those two are contradictory.
If I were to make an assumption, it would be that it seems you want a flagship phone the size of an iPhone 4s. Which you kind of can with a foldable.
Battery bypass is not exclusive to the S23 Ultra, the entire S22 and S23 series have it:
Battery bypass is not exclusive to the S23U, it’s on other recent Samsungs and it wasn’t even first introduced on Samsung phones, it’s been on multiple Sony and Asus phones. So yeah, people are gonna make assumptions when you’re complaining about how big phones have gotten while owning one of the largest phones on the market.
Kinda surprised that no one has mentioned the FM tuner. For reasons I never really understood, a lot of companies continued to build the hardware into phones but then wall it off with firmware.
My first MP3 player had one, my TV had one, there were even watches and lots of other devices that had one. People still listen to radio, so why don’t they give us a tuner?
Are you sure the hardware is still there? I only ask because given the number of hackers out there, I’m surprised someone hasn’t come out with a patch or something to make it more ubiquitous.
It’s not strictly there as a separate feature. Modern radio chips in phones are universal programmable radios, they can catch and process any wavelengths if you install correct code into them and plug a correct antenna. The same radio chip processes your 5G, Bluetooth, WiFi and everything else.
What phones are missing are FM antennas and radio firmware with FM support. This FM support is a paid feature for phone makers, so they don’t add it.
i think I recall that the Bluetooth hardware is essentially an FM tuner. Just needed a wired headphone to use as an antenna. My Moto Stylus 2022 still has it.
Mostly because they needed a wired headset to act as the FM antenna since it needs a decent length to capture FM compared to the much higher UHF and GHz frequencies that the mobile network uses.
Mostly because they needed a wired headset to act as the FM antenna since it needs a decent length to capture FM compared to the much higher UHF and GHz frequencies that the mobile network uses.
My point is that any sort of radio would be immediately drowned out by the massive amounts of EM interference as soon as you tried to charge.
In fact, professional audio devices often have to take extra precautions to avoid their power cables from becoming accidental antennas; Anyone who used a cheap set of computer speakers back in the 2000’s and 2010’s will know the distinct buzzing pattern that preceded a text message or phone call. That’s because cheap speakers would use unshielded power sources, and simple circuitry which didn’t bother to isolate the amplifier from the power.
Nobody needs bazillion cameras, a range finder, laser focuses and shit that’s needs to be in a professional camera hardware in a phone. You just need total of 2 cameras and a decent hardware. I don’t want to pay for a extra N cameras in a phone.
Also what the fuck happened to changeable batteries. I had a Samsung note 4 and used that shit until 2019 when I broke it ( had some anger issues that year). Waterproof dust proof excuses can go have an intercourse with their phones. I used that phone in 6 different countries and all kind of weather nothing happened to it.
Um, like 85% of my work and 40% of my hobbies utilize those features extensively so, yes, people do need those things. Literally for science. Them being baked into base design keeps costs down on tiny budgets. It also helps out students and citizen scientists who don’t have to go buy specialized gear- it’s already on whatever they have.
And that translate to us normal plebs in what way? And how much of a population you/your job/your requirements representative of the general population?
It seems my logical comment cause some of you camera junkies to get butt hurt. Good to know why even a below 200$ smartphone is coming with 5 different cameras.
Do you think users actually have to pick the camera and select rangefinder before taking a photo?
For the average user, which doesn’t mean teen social media user, the added cameras let them take better pictures. My mother in law doesn’t know or care how many cameras her phone has. It takes a good picture of her grandchildren.
That’s all that matters. The extra cameras and rangefinder is what makes that possible without her needing to know anything. The extra cameras are completely transparent to the end user. They don’t have to know or care.
Let’s see my old ass Samsung note 4 took the same quality of pictures with one camera module. Without the need of the range finder, laser focuses and bazillion extra cameras with different lenses. Somehow it managed.
Yes the average plebes like me doesn’t choose the fucking range finder and you don’t need bazillion cameras on your phone to took a decent picture. Your subjective experience with your in-laws doesn’t change the fact that you don’t need those extra bells and whistles.
Those extra cameras doesn’t bring ease of use or better picture quality neither your arguments in this discussion.
Let’s see my old ass Samsung note 4 took the same quality of pictures with one camera module.
Same quality as what? Because there are objective, reproducible tests that I can show where my Pixel 7 pro outperforms the Samsung note 4.
The note 4 has no optical zoom, where my Pixel has a 5x optical zoom. This gave me good photos of my son on stage in orchestra which would be a few pixel blur on a Samsung note 4.
The note 4 has no wide angle camera so getting that Christmas dinner table photo with everyone in the photo was an easy pinch zoom-out instead of attempting to stand in the far corner of the room and still missing some people.
Average users want their phones to take a good photo. I linked proof of that in the other reply. Average users don’t care what goes on behind the scenes for that to happen.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s one camera or 5. It doesn’t matter whether there is a rangefinder. What matters is the photo.
You claim to be an average user yet your obsession on how a good quality photo should be achieved, rather than how it is currently done is something only a technical user would care about.
Thank you for proving me right. Thank you for useless arguments and thank you for thinking that 24% of android users are a proof that 100% of android phones should have unnecessary camera tech. And thank you for letting me know why we have so many cameras on our phones.
It must be nice to have such an amazingly ignorant and stubborn mentality to just respond to what you think it’s instead of the reality. I wish you a happy new year and never to be came across in this world with you.
I actually use the rangefinding and other cameras quite a lot and im not anywhere near professional. The other day I took some measurements of my bike all through my camera without having to figure out weird geometries with a tape measurer. I can also use it to measure rooms to see if furniture will fit and conversely i can measure furniture on the fly. I had my doubts about using it at first but its suprisingly accurate
I don’t use them and I’m pretty sure overwhelming percentage of the user base doesn’t use them either. Because I’ve yet to see an argument I’m buying this phone because it has a range finder. All these extra cameras hardware are forced onto us because of the social media/selfie craze. As for your personal usage case I can understand you’re using range finder and measuring options but they are not utilizing different cameras. They are using phone sensors like gyroscope, acceleration, gps and algorithms not your different cameras.
As a side note you yourself admit that it’s not something you needed but found out and did even trust it.
Because I’ve yet to see an argument I’m buying this phone because it has a range finder.
No one looks for a rangefinder because they don’t need to care about the technical details. They only know that one phone takes better photos than another. That it’s because the phone has a laser rangefinder doesn’t matter.
No one looks for one because they don’t need it. Companies adding extras doesn’t mean it’s better for the end user nor they need it in case they are your in-laws and what good picturs of their grandchildren… Neither your bullshit argument about people don’t look for range finders because it’s already in the product.
WOW… 24% you don’t say!!! It must mean that remaining 76% doesn’t give a fuck and paying extra for the shit they don’t use or don’t need… How am I so blinded by my ignorance to see this!
24% of Android authority users. 24% of the most technical users in the world still pick the camera as the only important feature they look at in a new phone.
Did you even read the fucking page you’re sharing you ignorant dumbell? There are 4565 votes are cast at the time of my reading in that linked articles pool. Out of that 61% said they don’t care about the camera. 39% said it’s most important. In what way this is about most technical users or majority of the users you lying ignorant bastard? Let’s say this subjective pool is exactly representative of all the fucking smart phone users. How come 39% is the majority of the users? Your whole argument started with average users needing many cameras to have good pictures and turned into 24% of most technical users are wanting a good camera. Which is your argument you ignorant fuck?
How hard it’s to say that you like having many cameras and be done with that instead of giving these bullshit arguments and trying to prove something that’s only true to your subjective case and hoping that I’m an idiot like yourself and can’t see the difference between your bullshit and the reality?
Why the fuck are you arguing about wide lenses, different lenses while they are different camera modules with different optics and they all have different specs and pixels counts. You talk about technical necessities yet you have no clue about what the fuck you’re talking about. Most technical users my ass…
Just arguing with you is making me lose IQ points. Please I beg of you kindly fuck off.
In what way this is about most technical users or majority of the users you lying ignorant bastard?
iPhone users represent the majority of US phone users. How many iPhone users are going to read and reply to an Androidpolice poll?
Why the fuck are you arguing about wide lenses
You claimed your Note 4, with a single sensor and lens system on the back, is better. You claimed you didn’t see a need for multiple cameras. I explained, (and can offer objective test results) how the 3 cameras on the back of my phone are better than the single Note 4 camera.
The reason for all the lens’s on the back is technical. They can’t put a regular camera lens so they use multiple ones each with different focus ranges.
Even using a regular DSLR you need to swap lenses for different situations.
They are not interchangeable lens’s though are they? They are literally different camera modules with different optics. When you’re talking about a camera (not a phone) that makes sense. I’m not buying a camera am I? I’m buying a phone so all those optics and camera modules are forced on me to purchase when buying a smart phone. That’s the state of today’s smart phone market.
They can’t be large DSLR style interchangeable lenses because of the form factor. Nor can a single tiny lens even have the range of a compact digital camera because of the form factor. But by adding extra lenses to cover different focus ranges, a smart phone can replace the compact digital camera device. They can’t be as good as a DSLR, but I haven’t needed anything but my phone and DSLR in years where before I bought a new compact digital camera every few years.
You are either incompetent to understand what’s written or you’re deliberately trying to start a straw man style argument instead of coming up with a counter argument to what I’m saying. Since you took the time to wrote same bullshit under 3 different comments I’m guessing you’re an incompetent ignorant ass who doesn’t understand what’s being said but argue about what they understand.
First extra lenses are a very rare on smartphone/mobile phone cameras. it seems your ignorant ass thinks that all those came modules are different lenses… Secondly cameras on a phone is the result of social media and selfie craze not because people wanted to have good pictures of their grandchildren it their family. And lastly I don’t care if they are as good as professional cameras because it’s a fucking phone. I don’t need it to have a fucking professional camera experience nor I want professional camera hardware on a fucking phone! Because it doesn’t need that to function as a phone!!! Which part is this so hard for you to understand?
You must be one of those idiots that wants smart TV, smart fridge, smart cattle, smart washing machine that doesn’t work without an internet connection… To think that a phone having all these camera hardware is normal. You’re just consuming what’s pushed down your throat and justifying it to a point not ask why a phone has this many cameras but thinking that it should.
And if you really that much into taking good pictures and photography than you’re not seen average user are you? It’s your own subjective needs that doesn’t representative of what’s a phone is… Like my need to have less cameras and removable/changeable batteries. So kindly please go have an intercourse with your DSLR capable many lensed camera phone and have a happy new year.
it seems your ignorant ass thinks that all those came modules are different lenses
A camera is made up of a lens and sensor. In phones, there is a 1:1 mapping between lens and sensor. For example my pixel 7 pro has 3 lenses on the back each with their own sensor. If you know of a phone that has multiple lens feeding one sensor or vice versa, please link.
Secondly cameras on a phone is the result of social media and selfie craze
That premise isn’t supported by demographics. Over 80% of the US population is either over 50 or under 10, neither of which represents significant social media selfie craze.
Furthermore, point and shoot cameras used to be multi billion dollar market before smartphones. That market is now dead shotkit.com/…/smartphones-have-wiped-out-97-of-th…
Regular people were buying cameras. They replaced their camera with a phone. Regular people, before there was social media, took lots of photos.
I don’t care if they are as good as professional cameras
I didn’t say anyone cared about professional results either. I specifically mentioned in an earlier post that phones replaced the compact digital camera market. Regular people bought new compact digital cameras every few years to take better photos despite no social media.
And if you really that much into taking good pictures and photography than you’re not seen average user are you?
I already linked a survey that only 10% of technical Android users do not care about camera quality when deciding on a new phone. Regular users want a good camera. Regular users used to buy new compact digital cameras to take photos before social media.
I think this is why AskReddit made their posts title only, with no pictures or texts. OP’s question was about gadgets, but then they included a picture of a smartphone and used the text to mention smartphones. It then brainwashed everyone else to misread the question.
Haha you’re right. I focused too much on the comments and had forgotten the title by the time I got this far. I had been convinced by them that phones were in fact the subject.
I switched to duck duck go who knows how many years ago. Haven’t looked back.
Can’t even remember when I started using Firefox, but that was probably around the time when Opera became popular. Before Crome existed, I was already on FF and never regretted staying there. At that point, I was already somewhat aware of privacy matters, so switching to Chrome seemed completely stupid to me.
Absolutely not. They’ll be less capacity, bring back the shitty flimsy back covers, and have the covers sliding off and on like it’s 2013.
It costs $15 plus the battery ($75 for official Google shit) and a half hour of time every three years to replace a battery.
I’ll take the integrated offering every time. Fuck the EU and this ineffective grandstanding. Everyone is still going to buy a new phone every two years.
I’ll be happy if phones don’t suck going back to removable but I won’t hold my breath.
I never had a problem with a “flimsy back cover” or it coming off when I didn’t want it to on any of the phones I had. I’m still using my LG V20 from 2016 and it’s fine. I can get a new battery $20 and do it myself in seconds. A big reason why I haven’t bough a new phone is because I’ve been able to do that and nothing that has come out since then has as many features while getting ever more expensive.
That was one of my favorite features of the Nexus one. Didn’t really need the track ball but being able to customize the color of notification light (I forget if that needed root or not) based on app was great. I’m guessing it must have been persistent blinking otherwise my current edge lighting notification would scratch the same itch, couldn’t be just nostalgia on my part…
An app called aodNotify brings this back for you if you don’t have an iPhone. May take a little tweaking to get everything how you want but it’s very customizable
I had an always on display that illuminated the outside of the display when I received a notification but otherwise stayed off, and I’m on iPhone, so I can’t imagine you don’t have more options on android than I did.
Wait they took that away? I have an S9 and I rely on this to know whos messaging me. Blue is textra, purple is whatsapp, white is insta, green is signal.
I had an S8 a couple years back and upgraded to an S10 when it first came out. The notification light went away and it was a huge bummer. I now have a Pixel 7 and it doesn’t have it either, so I’ve learned to live without it.
Add comment