My first Android phone was the HTC One M8. I got it because at the time it made my iPhone 5 look like a chump. Bigger screen, unrivaled stereo front speakers, much more internal storage you name it.
I also got the LG G series after that because I loved that the battery was removable (I ended up with an enormous aftermarket battery pack that lasted 3.5 days of constant use) and the buttons were all on the back of the phone.
I got the Essential PH1 because the ceramic body was nice and the promise of the 2 pin magnetic accessory port was really neat (only a 360 camera was released for it but still).
I got a Pixel 4a because every Android phone at that point was a 6 inch rectangle with side buttons and a fingerprint reader but at least it was cheap and still had a headphone jack.
I’m glad to see flip phones returning because I think it is giving Android back what has always been its biggest advantage to me which is unique hardware features.
Personally, the HTC M8 speakers with the button layout of the LG G4 would be an intsa-buy for me to this day.
What kind of hardware features have you guys fallen in love with over the years and what do you value or would like to see return?
Here’s a short list of things I personally want
The fact that the whole phone is a unit is both absurd and stupid. It makes it nearly impossible to repair or replace anything but the screen. I cannot even remember how many phones I have been forced to recycle due to the fact that the battery no longer hold charge over time.
Storage might not be a big thing, most of us probably use cloud storage, but I don’t want cloud storage with a subscription fee, when it would be easier (and cheaper) to have storage directly in my phone.
I’m going to say it - fuck bluetooth! Every day it’s: will it connect? Do I have to re-pair? Is the sound really coming out of my headphones only or do everyone around me here what I hear?
Counter argument: I get frustrated when people complain about the lack of SD card and headphone jack on every phone that doesn’t have those. I get it some people really want those features but do they really expect manufacturers to add them after they’ve gone? Sony’s the only manufacturer that changed course and they only did it because they’re a niche brand with an audience that appreciates those features.
I feel it’s foolish to expect someone like Google to suddenly change their mind because someone on the internet said they wouldn’t buy their phones without those features. They’ve not had expendable storage on any Nexus or Pixel phone except for the Nexus One and the jack has been gone since the Pixel 2. I know the A series had it longer but it’s been two generations since it’s disappeared from there as well.
For whatever it’s worth, I would like to have the headphone jack personally but it’s not a dealbreaker if it’s not there. Don’t care about the SD card and wouldn’t use it anyways since it’s extremely slow compared to internal storage and I’ve had a bad experience when I’ve used it on previous phones when it got corrupted and I lost a significant amount of pictures. Didn’t use it for apps because I knew it would result in slower load times so was really disappointed when it got corrupted. I’m not the only one who thinks this way, app developers hate the SD card too. Linus Sebastian also said that someone in the industry said it has gone away because of performance concerns.
Note: this isn’t aimed at you, it’s just a rant against the “no SD card, no 3.5 mm, no buy” crowd that always posts those comments whenever some phone doesn’t have it.
I like expandable storage, as I usually keep the SD card as a secondary partition. If my phone dies for whatever reason, I just pull that card out and stick it into a new phone.
From my experience it’s been the opposite, the phones have survived but the SD cards have died twice. Haven’t cared about it since then.
@Positronic well, anything dies on this world. But you know the saying: never put all the eggs in the same basket.
Well yeah NAND has a certain amount of read/write cycles but it’s always going to be an issue with SD cards because they’re using the cheapest form of NAND. As a result of that they’re not going to get some of the complex safety mechanisms that are built into internal NAND. So I think we’ll have to disagree here.
I’m not against expandable storage at all, I wish more phones did have it as an option to be clear.
I am curious what exactly is going on these SD cards that everyone wants though. I personally haven’t gotten close to my storage limit since the default internal memory was 32GB.
@xyguy Yea, tbh, 32 GB is the minimum usable on a phone in 2023 imo (if you play no games). But for this you need an SD Card.
And yea, it’s always better to have the ability to add extra storage imo, even if that would make you a data hoarder 😁
I travel quite a bit, both for work and because I like going places. Often, internet is somewhere between unavailable and shitty. I keep a mess of music, movies, and tv shows synced/cached from Plex (which keeps fresh content via downloaded smart playlists that update as I watch episodes, etc.) and usually a couple of audiobooks in case I find myself making a long drive.
That’s not really a counter argument, you’re just complaining about people talking about hardware features they want in a thread about…hardware features we want.
A counter argument would elaborate on why these features aren’t relevant anymore, but you didn’t include that. A counter argument would offer superior alternatives that should be used instead of SD cards or 3.5mm jacks, but you didn’t include any of those. A counter argument would have addressed the initial arguments of cloud storage being an unnecessary expense and a wired jack being more reliable than Bluetooth, yet you didn’t do that either.
Every thread about hardware has at least one guy bitching that phones should still have 3.5mm jacks and expandable storage, but the guy whining about him is just as consistent. Congratulations, you’re a different layer of the exact problem you’re complaining about.
RE: OP, 3.5mm jack and SD card, of course.
My comment mentioned why the SD card was removed. To paraphrase Linus, they’re the cheapest form of NAND storage and are extremely unreliable. When they fail, the average consumer blames the phone and not the cheap SD card they put into it. I’m not a fan of cloud storage but most people do not need anything other than the base variant now since it comes with 128 GB out of the box. Some manufacturers are even offering 256 GB.
I also mentioned that I’d like having the jack but it’s not a dealbreaker that it’s gone. Also doubt we would have seen as much progress with truly wireless earbuds if more manufacturers did not remove the headphone jack. I know some people detest them and think they’re a cash grab but they’re a game changer when it comes to exercising and moving around. However I’ll agree that removing the jack also opened another revenue stream for manufacturers which could be construed as a cash grab.
Additionally I stated my point wasn’t directly at the OP but was a rant at the senseless “no jack, no SD card, DOA” comment which can be seen at the launch of a phone who’s manufacturer hasn’t included those features for 5 or more years. It’s just beating a dead horse at this point. It is like expecting CRT TVs to be the default instead of flat TVs. CRTs also had advantages but the market has moved on. Additionally I think it might be better to actually comment about a phone having a headphone jack or SD card slot or both of those since that’s a much more positive way of looking at things since not having them is the default now.
I remember I received a notification about a card that was about to fail or something, because it was too old. That was on an older Huawei phone but still. So I don’t think it’s this usual for people not to be aware that their SD cards would soon go away (instead of thinking they have a problem with their phones).
Not sure if all manufacturers do this, there are also instances where the user might set up the SD card as adoptable storage which would make it hard to differentiate between internal storage and the SD card.
@Positronic The system does explain every option when first inserting the card, though.
How many people are going to read that properly? We’re not just talking about enthusiasts, regular users will do it if they get the option and think they can store their apps on there.
Your comment mentioned why you personally don’t like using SD cards, though I disagree that it’s a reason to remove the functionality completely, which is why I wouldn’t buy a phone without a slot. If you’re having such reliability issues, you should buy a higher quality SD card. They’re objectively more reliable than cloud storage though, should you ever go somewhere where network connectivity is an issue. And 128 GB is almost nothing, kinda proving my point that this is more of a use case point than an argument against the feature.
Given that they’re still using Bluetooth, which is still terrible with any interference, low bandwidth, and has the same tedious connectivity problems it’s had for the past decade…I’d argue we have yet to see that progress where it matters.
If that were true, there wouldn’t be so many people vocally expressing why new products aren’t adequate without these basic features.
My initial comment also mentioned why developers hated the SD card slot. To quote Koush
The comments from Linus came from an industry insider he said he trusts. I would be inclined to believe him since he used to carry a Note9 and was a massive advocate of SD cards.
Also don’t think the reliability of the cards was an issue when I got them, they were high rated Samsung and Sandisk models.
You’re looking at this from the point of a power user and not the average person. Most normal people just get the base variant when they see it has 128 GB and are happy with it.
I mentioned I dislike cloud storage but with USB-C ports I can actually use my external SSD or a USB drive to backup my phone if I want to although it’s not something I do often.
When was the last time you used a Bluetooth headset? I had issues initially in 2018 and 2019 but things like the Galaxy Buds+ and newer generations of truly wireless earbuds have fixed the connectivity and interference issues. Some Bluetooth headphones support LDAC and LHDC codecs which allow for high bandwidth. LDAC is part of AOSP so it should be on every Android phone running Oreo or newer unless the OEM has removed it for some reason.
That’s because there are a small group of enthusiasts who are extremely vocal. Most people have moved on, they may want one or both features but they aren’t dealbreakers for them. Also wouldn’t say a bunch of enthusiasts complaining means it expresses the sentiments of everyone. Look at the outcry about the iPhone mini, it didn’t sell very well but online communities would have you believe it was the most popular device of that lineup.
You don’t need to pay a subscription fee for cloud storage when it’s super simple to host your own, and Android allows the mounting of different filesystems too.
SMB on a rasp pi + cheapo storage + Tailscale, all the way to paying £$€ for a dedicated NAS enclosure with as much storage as you can afford also with Tailscale?
Yup, fuck subscription fees.
You also can then use the corporate cloud storage providers like G/ProtonDrive etc to use their free offerings for off site backup of the most important data.
I’d love to see those features in phones today; all of those are basically dead in the US market (Xperia 1 V gets two out of three, Zenfone 10 at least gets the 3.5mm jack…might be some cheap Motorola something that still has a jack, as well?).
Me personally, I could even live with just the 3.5mm jack. The whole argument of “it’s for waterproofing/making the phone thinner/insert BS excuse here” falls flat when my Galaxy S9 has a 3.5mm jack and the same IP68 rating as the Pixel 8, yet manages to be thinner.
I have maintained for a while that if phones came with 2 USB ports instead of just 1 you could have your cake and eat it too. My biggest gripe with the lack of a headphone jack is that I can’t charge my phone and listen at the same time. 2 ports, one on each side for right and left handed people to pick their favorite charging location and you get a ton of other options for peripherals that way.
Amen! The only thing keeping me from upgrading from my Note 20 Ultra is the lack of options for SD card slots! The idea of having to pay a premium for storage each time I upgrade my device is insulting and terrible for personal finances. And with all the recent headlines about cloud storage being hacked, or how it was inaccessible, I wouldn’t trust it even if I always had access to an internet connection (which I don’t always have, especially when out and about).
Hell, they could upcharge this “feature” and have it available only on the Ultra models to help justify the exhorbitant cost and I would pay it.