So I can use my pair of headphones for everything. They work in my phone, my DJ mixer, my computer, and the broadcast board at the radio station. They never have technical malfunctions, there is no interference, and never run out of power.
Bluetooth it’s oh so perfect, it sounds like god playing the music himself and nothing ever takes too long to pair. I threw away my vinyl and CDs to listen to Spotify on low setting like the musicians intended
There are no flights over 30 hours long, so it’s irrelevant. You also cannot listen to music non stop for so long and you can charge them while you sleep on your flight.
The four biggest advantages for a wired headphone when compared to Bluetooth are
Headphones are cheaper
No lag to receive audio
Headphones don’t need to be charged
Easier to connect/disconnect.
This doesn’t even touch the preference stuff, like some people prefer having a wire to avoid losing headphones, and others like wireless. Or quality, which is a can of worms I don’t want to even touch.
I can get over most of the modern crap, but I refuse to give up the 3.5mm port. Bluetooth headphones are too much of a downgrade, and adapter dongles are just something else to lose.
I used to have a similar problem - even if well reviewed, budget and midrange bluetooth earbuds would not last while budget-midrange wired earphones would last forever.
Think it’s just build quality for bluetooth buds. I got a set of Galaxy buds, 1st gen, roughly 3+ years and still running strong to this day. Was not cheap though.
All Most of the ones you can get nowadays actually have a sound chip inside the cable (in the flat part behind the USB-C). So they’re pretty much a USB-C soundcard with just a headphone out. So it’s worth shopping around to find one that has a good soundcard built in.
A good alternative is getting a decent portable Bluetooth audio receiver to plug your regular headphones into. Can get a better headphone amp that way.
There are phones that output analog audio over type C so you can have a type c to jack adapter with no dac inside, just wires. That is possible through Audio Adapter Accessory Alternate Mode.
My huawei tablet works with such an adapter, but when I try it with the samsung s10e which has a jack, it gives an error and doesn’t work.
Type C alternate modes are cool, too bad they are not advertised, they should be clearly labled and easily distinguishable. Type C has so many features yet it’s so hard to know what’s available without actually having the devices and connecting them. It’s both a blessing and a curse.
Thanks for the correction. I had thought that only some of the early Motorolas had that feature, but it looks like there are quite a few more phones that support analog audio out via USB-C.
And that why you’ll never get it back. You’re clinging to brand loyalty and hung up on arbitrary crap rather than just trying competing phones. Have you actually used any of those “suck” phones, or are you just going with the usual iPhone/high end android circlejerk?
As I mentioned in another comment, if you’d bothered to read it, I have particular needs that mean I can’t really replace my phone with something else right now. I have absolutely no loyalty to brands, and I’m not clinging to something arbitrary.
What I don’t understand is why the notification LED was removed in the first place? It can easily be put under the screen.
The LED was so helpful, and it’s so annoying when I don’t see an important message for hours, because I haven’t used my phone.
Yet there are often warnings that even with OLED AOD eats a lot of battery, not so with a notification LED.
The absolute newest OLED that can do 1Hz refresh are better. But that doesn’t change that the removal of the notification LED was detrimental to the functionality of the smartphone.
Someone else posted an app that gives the feature back. If you turn off other aid features and just use the app it won’t use more battery than a notification led.
it won’t use more battery than a notification led.
If the screen has 60hz or higher refresh, I’m pretty sure it will. The screen itself may not use much, but the DAC will still use power.
I haven’t seen this actually tested, but many claim the difference in battery life is noticeable. I don’t think it matters much what app you use, many phones come with an AOD app, and I seriously doubt a third party app is better.
If the screen has 60hz or higher refresh, I’m pretty sure it will.
It’s supposed to drop down to 1hz. The CPU refreshing a pixel of an OLED screen or a notification led is the same power usage. That is even if you have a notification led, the CPU could still be stuck refreshing it at 60 hz.
AH ok that makes a lot more sense. ;) As I understand it, it’s only the newest top displays that can go down to 1 Hz. Or maybe it’s just when in use they can’t for some reason. I find the 1Hz capability to be extremely cool, so it would be great if it’s a more general feature of AOD.
OLED AoD eats a lot of battery because there’s still quite a lot of information(and thus, pixels turned on) shown on the AoD. A single pixel blinking on and off would at most use the same power as a dedicated notification led.
I used to have a custom ROM that would allow me to change the color based on which app had the most recent notification: FB was Blue, SMS was Green. Let me be prepared ahead of time if it was going to be important or not.
Ironically I was grateful for a custom rom to turn off the light. It was useful but I hated it at night because at least on my phone it was stupidly bright
I used to have a custom ROM that would allow me to change the color based on which app had the most recent notification
Even more than that, in early versions of Android this setting was baked in. I had colors set based on text messages, emails, etc. I think around 2.x was when the option was removed.
I don’t know about the original, but I rocked a Droid 4 for the longest time. It’s probably my all time favorite phone. I really miss how quickly I could type and the extra screen space I got from not needing the software keyboard.
I’m guessing… they don’t want us deciding whether to engage with our phones, they want us looking at them more. If that means less convenience for us we can get fucked
I think you may have a point, It’s kind of weird how the first 10 years of smartphones, was an ever higher climb for better phones, driven by competition.
But now that everybody are dependent on the phones, they all agree on taking useful features away???
It’s probably also a little safer with only system apis accessing system hardware. If you look at how the camera assembly is one piece and apps basically access the whole thing securely.
Oh, in some cases the notification LED is physically there, but is disabled in software. At least I know that was the case with a bunch of Motorola phones, including my Moto G5s Plus.
I have no effing clue. Maybe to get us to actually look at the damn phone more often? Because of the people who’re drowning in spam? Makes not THAT much sense. Probably to save a cent in circuit-design, because only the nerds were using the stupid LED? I really would like to know too.
It’s very much a mid-range device but so was the price. It was still an easy decision since it is literally the only modern smartphone in existence that matched my minimum requirements. I’m coming from LG V20 so I still had to let go of FM-radio, optical image stabilization, IR blaster and the hi-fi DAC.
Of course not by default, that’d be dumb. Every app that wants it pops up a Y/N-dialogue. That’s how I want it. It’s my phone, goddamit. I might’ve phrased that a bit misleading :-)
Some Windows devices do come like that! Windows Home S is a stupid fucking thing that I am sick to death of family members bringing to me.
It’s free to bring it out but you need a Windows account to download the package to remove the S from the device to make it your own.
There was also the RT version like the Surface RT. Which was actually worse because I don’t remember there ever being a way to remove the RT and go to full Windows….
I wish there were smart phones with those little slide out keyboards like on some older phones, like a blackberry keyboard but slide out so it’s hidden unless you are actively wanting use it. And forward, back, play buttons for music and podcasts without having to eff around with the screen and unlocking and stuff.
My problem with the fingerprint reader in the display is that it just doesn’t work well. I’m on a pixel 7 pro, and more often than not it will try and fail a few times, then require a pin unlock. My pixel 5 with the fingerprint reader on the back was nearly flawless.
The one in my Galaxy S22 works great. There is a trick though to make it work even better: Register the same finger twice (and really get all angles). That usually makes the unlock much more reliable.
I love the Sony phones. If they sold the Xperia 5 V in my market (or even if the global version was compatible with my carrier’s G5 bands . . . ) I would probably buy it in a second. They seem to be deliberately betting on only releasing the 1 V in some wealthier markets though (likely because the 5 V would undercut demand) – but I refuse to spend 1 V prices with only a couple years of guaranteed updates.
Sony phones though are by far my favourite on the market these days, and it’s a shame that they aren’t more popular (or have enough developer interest to have LineageOS support).
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.
Seperate fingerprint sensors, which were fast, reliable, and accurate, in contrast to the shitty in screen sensors, which are slow, inaccurate, and sometimes just dont work. I would like to kill all people who were part of this shit
Varies wildly from phone to phone. I prefer the in screen detectors, since they work great when your phone is on your desk or in a phone dock/charger. They need to be implemented well though.
The one on my Huawei P30 was fantastic. The one on my Pixel 6 was ass, the one on my Pixel 8 is good.
The one on the 6 was ass even without a screen protector, the one on the 8 is good even with one.
Eh. First fingerprint sensors were useless, inconvenient, unreliable garbage. I hated the one on my galaxy s5 where you had to SLIDE your thumb over it just so for it to work. Then the tech was improved and we got nice sensors that work well. In-screen sensors are going through the same process. Once they’ve matured, they’ll be better than the separate fingerprint sensors.
They wont be, moreover in screen sensors are totally useless, and inconvenient things. I need to directly put my finger on it, while on my old phone the sensor was on the back side, where i naturally hold my phone! So i didn even need to think about unlocking my phone when i took it in my hand, to use it, ive unlocked it. This cant happen with screen sensors, as those arent there where you touch your phone, and the screen above it will always limit its capabilities.
Counter: I absolutely hate fingerprint sensors on the back and think that’s easily the worst place to put the sensor. They get thrown off by phone cases leaving them in a deep pit where finger contact can become unreliable, and they’re completely unusable when the phone’s lying on its back on a surface. I strongly disagree that the back of the phone is a more natural spot than where your thumb most naturally touches the screen.
My last phone was in a very hard plastic sturdy case, to stand dropping when riding motorbike, but the fingerprint sensor on the back was in a 3 mm deep pit, it was no problem to touch it without thinking about touching the sensor. How can you use the phone on a surface? Even with face unlock, i barely can do anything with it if its not in my hand. You can hold and use the phone reliably, only by touching its back, so the fingerprint sensor if there is. I touch different parts of the screen, not that single point where the sensor is, also i need to hold itt differently, to make that crappy in screen sensor work. If it works at all, as since a month it barely does, sometimes it even disappears from the menus too. One of my friends just replaced his samsung s20 too as the fingerprint sensor was barely working, just as my huawei’s sensor. I also see many fingerprint sensor problem topics across the net, all phones mentioned have in screen sensors.
I sometimes think that mine is working alright, and then I try and use it in the dark and it fails 3 times in a row because it turns out it usually gives up and uses face recognition.
And this is a proper Google phone. What must the shit brands be like?
And the only advantage is that you have more screen space which is now covered with indicators for back, home, etc, because you can fuck off if you think I’m using gestures for that shit.
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.
I hate this. I'd be perfectly fine with network bullshit if it was a universal standardized profile so it actually worked (and I could build a programmable physical remote for it) . But the App Store is flooded with "android TV remotes" that maybe support one specific obscure (unlabeled) TV. I've never found one that works for anything I've owned.
Not trying to be snarky here, but what are you trying to do with your phone without opening your eyes? I sometimes snooze my morning alarm with the power button on the side without looking at it, but what did the home button do for you when you weren’t looking at the screen?
A simple way for any audio output device following the global standard used for the past 25 years to output sound directly from the device. Failure rate is one tenth that of any other external port. Use is so widespread in home audio that it’s absence is seen as a detractor.
The original Walkman has a 3.5mm jack. That’s how far back this standard has been in common use.
I can’t comprehend why anyone puts up with not having an audio jack.
A built-in scripting language. The TI-83 line of calculators have an app programming language that requires you to side-load code from another computer, but they also have TI-BASIC, which allows you to write a wide variety of scripts right on the calculator itself. This should be standard on all ‘smart’ devices. It’s so stupid to have gigahertz of computing power in your pocket and not be able to do anything without writing the app on another machine.
I know Termux for Android exists and that’s a good start, but I’d like to see something baked right into the OS that has access to all my device’s cool sensors and gizmos. The camera, the microphone, the aux port, the usb port, the accelerometer, the bluetooth antenna… all of those things should be exposed to the user. This would be a really good use case for ‘visual’ programming ala Scratch, since you could assemble a script right from a touch screen instead of having to plug in a keyboard.
Try Kustom Widget (KWGT). It’s a scripted mini app maker that exposes a lot of the phone internals, and it keeps expanding. The developer is really responsive to feature requests. I use it with my home weather station and a pi-based sensor network to monitor home security. When I get my solar installed, I’ll add in the status of that system. The major limitation is that KWGT is event driven, with a minimum update interval of once a second. This interval has a major impact on battery life, so the default is one minute.
A real keyboard and general tactile-oriented inputs. Touchscreens are okay as a supplement like in the DS or Samsung devices that have a pen, but touch-centered everything has never stopped being a frustrating user experience. Even worse is the way companies have embraced it for business use as well. Heavy industrial machinery should not come equipped with unintuitive little interfaces that are clearly an afterthought at best.
The other thing is the general desktop metaphors, and file/folder structure. The way that Android, and so many apps, hide the file system from the end user just leads to more confusion when the user needs to use a file manager to track down where those apps have actually stored data only to (maybe) find them in the most pointlessly obscure locations.
When I accidentally download a file on my phone, I actually have no idea where it went, it just kind of vanishes into the aether after the notification disappears
One thing I always liked about Blackberries aside from the physical keyboard was the scroll wheel. People joke about them but they worked really well and smoothly (before the actual ball got replaced with a bullshit push sensor round about 2009 or so) and you could dial in on a specific pixel easily - something you just can’t do with a touchscreen - which made the tiny screens a lot more practical than they otherwise would have been.
Rootable modable phones, with a 3.5mm headphone jack, SD card slot, and an ultrasonic fingerprint reader cherry on top. Maybe some heart rate monitor sprinkles if you are so inclined. My S10 that I still use checks all of the boxes minus root. It feels like I have a sundae with all the high quality toppings I could want… but no proper ice cream. And I want the whole custom sundae, which these days seems impossible to find.
It’s important to remember that even if a company did that and the customers who said they wanted it all went and bought one it would still likely be a tremendous waste of the manufacturer’s money. And then there are all the people that say it’s important to them while they only use it to point at while shouting at iPhone users despite not using their phones any differently.
These still exist, for now at least. Just not any flagship phones. My Oneplus nord n30 has all of this (well idk if the fingerprint sensor is ultrasonic, it’s on the side and fast though). And I’m pretty sure a lot of Motorola phones have these as well. Only downside is not the best processors or cameras, but are good enough for me at least.
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.
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