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Comment by userbinator | Hacker News Reader

A bit sad and amusing that a physical jack is actually considered a feature now... what's next, removable battery? Expandable storage?

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My personal opinion: Of course it is a feature! I can use cheap generic headphones (Blackberry headset user here) and charge at the same time. I can use the same headphones with my computer. I can also switch between phone and computer in about a second, no pairing no BS and it works reliably all the time.

I care less about the removable battery - in every phone I had I was able to change it myself, tools are cheap, the only thing you need is to watch some tutorials and calm down to have your hands steady.

Expandable storage is also great. I mean, how can it even be considered "not a feature"? You can very cheaply expand your storage - e.g. in situations you run out of storage. I don't get it, what's not to like? Honest question.

The point made by GP is that it's sad how phone makers remove things that were expected stock characteristics from all phones, and are now threatened with extinction. Almost all android phones used to have a microSD slot to add storage, and for most of them, you could also open up the phone and just slide in a new battery. Now this requires specialty tools and great care, or paying someone to do it for you...

Oh, I see. Thanks for pointing it out.

It's funny how the brain can interpret the text based on your mood and bias. Feels kinda like those optical illusions that seem to rotate in one direction, until you change your perception somehow, and then it rotates the other direction.

Notification LED.

A boy can dream, can’t he?

They're all popular enough features for Samsung to keep making the Galaxy XCover phones.

no tracking :)

Stylus and physical keyboard.

no one claimed it was a feature. it has a jack, some phones don't, so they state it does. this does not mean 'feature.'

it's a part of the spec, so they list it. it's not sad or bad or good -it just is.

for me, i want just usb-c, and no headphone port is a plus. same for sd card, same for removable battery. i thought all of those were important to me, until i realized i haven't actually used any of this in 10 years. yes, a headphone port adds just a tiny bit of thickness and weight. so does the removable battery. so does an sd reader. it all adds up, and adds a little cost. for things i don't want.

so not a feature, not advertized as one, and for a lot of people, not something they want. you do, so get the phone that suits you.

> no one claimed it was a feature. it has a jack, some phones don't, so they state it does. this does not mean 'feature.'

I wonder what you believe the word "feature" means.

well, clearly you believe on a car, the part of the spec that says 'axles: 2' is a feature. along with everything else in the spec.

Yes, and it is a good feature. I don't really want a car with 1 axles. And tires are expensive enough, so I don't want one with three axles. Just because it is not an awesome, whiz bang feature, doesn't mean it isn't a feature

It's a feature, just one you're apparently not interested in.

You should google the definition of feature

why would i google it for you -do it yourself if you don't know instead if asking people to do it for you.

hint: it does not mean 'spec.' for example, on a phone, lcd screen is not a feature. oled screen is a feature.

now, what is not a feature for most people may be a feature for you. just like if you like tap water, a restaurant filling your glass from the faucet may be a feature for you. which does not make it a feature.

edit: since the snowflake replying disabled replies.. no. it's more like claiming 'lcd screen' in the spec is a feature in the world of oled phones. so not a feature.

(Bluetooth) vs (Bluetooth, AUX) supported connection methods for different phones sure sounds like feature disparity to me.

Your analogy is more akin to something like a glass back vs a hard plastic back on a phone, so maybe re-assess that.

Note: you can’t disable replies here. The system does it automatically when a thread gets too deep too fast to prevent flame wars. You can reply if you just wait a few minutes.

Anything that adds thickness is a feature to me at this point. It's already awkward enough to use phones as phones.

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