For me the Galaxy Nexus was the peak of enthusiast phone joy. Notification LED was bright and colorful, replaceable battery (to be fair, this was necessary because battery life was so short), unlocked by default, slightly curved front glass made it a pleasure to use as a phone. I also liked the ceramic back of the Essential Phone. The back fingerprint sensors on most phone models were so much more practical than the in-screen options and provided a handy way to lower the notification tray. I miss the litltle touch navigation nubbin on my Droid Incredible, which was handy for scrolling around without touching the screen.
I also miss how open Android was; Google has been gradually cracking down on enthusiast use cases in the name of “security” like text backup no longer being possible for Play Store apps, email access locked down (requiring a security audit for apps to access GMail), scoped storage screwed up a lot of use cases as well.
I know most people here knock the always on display, but my Samsung has the option to only show if I tap the screen or a notification comes through. I also use the option that blinks a certain color light around the perimeter of the screen and/or the in screen camera so it effectively simulates that old led.
for what it’s worth, you can make your phone’s flashlight serve the same purpose as those old notification lights. more harsh and no colors, but it’ll get your attention
Not really, because to see that, you have to put your phone with the screen down on the table. That both ruin the quiet mode function, and increases risk of wear of the screen glass from hard surfaces.
For me it’s this (the color coded notification LED on phones) and while on the topic of phones I used to have a xiaomi phone several years ago that had an infrared face unlock feature so you could use face unlock in complete darkness. Haven’t had a phone with that before or after. It was awesome.
I don’t really miss 3.5mm, neither do I miss SD card slots. I don’t even miss replaceable batteries and all that stuff. But I do sincerely miss good devices with physical keyboards. Damn I wish Blackberry came back for a good flagship.
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.
Giving me annoying audible notifications that my battery is low. We moved to batteries that degrade when lower than ~40% and got rid of the notifications that let us know your battery is dead…
The battery is always on the bottom while the notifications are in the middle or the top. It’s charged if the bottom portion (or the portion closest to the USB cable) has a green icon on it.
Personally I would rather have the screen off a lot of times for various reasons. Why should i have to have the entire display on instead of having tge ability to just have a little notification light?
With OLED and especially LTPO OLED that’s not exactly an issue though, since it’s only the icons that make up the active parts of the display, while the whole black area of the display is literally off.
Except that my screen isn’t an OLED and I don’t want to leave the display on. It’s too distracting, it needs to be off especially at work. A little dot isn’t too intrusive as a notification.
LCD fanboys have lost the mobile space. Pretty much all the mid-range to flagship phones have an OLED screen by now and we start to see OLED on laptops and desktop monitors as well. Don’t you think it’s time to move on at this point?
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.
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