Opinion: I'd rather have a headphone jack and a microSD slot than AI in my phone
Curious how others feel about this.
> The Galaxy S5 is very good about reminding you close your charger door snugly and make sure your battery cover is snapped on COMPLETELY before continuing. This is a message you shouldn’t dismiss (although it allows you to) because the reminder is a good one. I can say with confidence that during both water tests my phone back cover and battery port were completely secured.
> Somehow, though, water snuck its way into my battery.
The only wired headphones I own are high-impedance """audiophile""" headphones, that a phone couldn't really drive in the first place.
As for storage, I don't do a whole lot on my phone except for messaging and looking things up on-the-go, none of which needs much in terms of storage space. I've had my current phone (iPhone SE3, 128GB) for over 2 years, and I've never even had to delete anything (and when the day comes, I'll transfer the contents of the photo gallery over to external storage).
On the contrary, we do. There's just not enough of us.
For better or for worse, the android world is reliant on custom roms if you want long-term software support. Wiping the camera firmware is unacceptable given that reality.
Again, the whole custom rom thing is a bandaid patch on a shitty, user-hostile OS model that makes it nearly impossible to perform a vital function of the computing system (updates). The inability to deliver updates effectively is itself a symptom of a product defect here. It would be better if we could require all companies to provide useful first-party support lifecycles for the products they release.
But sony is deliberately gutting the device’s functionality to prevent you from unlocking it and that’s unacceptable even among android devices. If you’re going to do this shitty custom rom model, vendors that decide to kill even the ability to try and use that bandaid are going to suffer poor sales.
I would love a high-end cameraphone, the Xperia lineup was a serious consideration when I bought my last phone. But I could never get over the hump of buying a device that would have less than 2 years of updates by the time I got it, and that would deliberately self-destruct if I attempted to extend it beyond that.
I got an iPhone instead. Much less user-hostile. Forcing me to use a custom rom is already user-hostile, but to then punish me for doing it is unconscionable.
Oddly enough, there’s not nearly as much emphasis on banging the EU’s door down to stop that kind of waste and really honestly intentional/malicious damage, as there is about whatever apple thing people are whining about this week. Oh no the pelican case full of oem phone repair tooling that apple lets you rent (or buy) is too big/heavy… or Sony phones deliberately self-destruct themselves when you unlock the bootloader… somehow the “we can do both!” reply-guys never get around to doing both. Curious.
Umm, that’s backwards. You can’t install your own software or unlock the boot loader. As soon as Apple decides the phone is e-waste, you can’t do anything about it unless there is a jailbreak. It just so happens that Apple offers software updates slightly longer than competitors, but this could easily change, as we have seen on macOS where 6 year old Intel macs no longer receive OS support. That is the pinnacle of user hostile.
It is something that shouldn’t even be required in the first place, the android support model is incredibly user-hostile at the best of times. So if you punish me for trying to keep my device up to date after your shitty 2 year support window expires then I’m not going to buy it. And I know a few brands have adopted longer lifespans but most android phones sold are not from those brands.
Moreover, I think this is a perfect example of the way the anti-apple crowd has glommed onto all the terminology and appropriated it as solely meaning the things that favor their brand. There’s more to right to repair than component-level replacement for example - oem parts availability and OS support lifespans are key factors in waste generation too.
You don’t get to tell me what I find user-hostile or not, and user-hostility certainly isn’t a phenomenon that is only restricted to brands that whatever group of fanboys like or not. There are many user-hostile aspects of the whole android package and distribution model despite the fact you can sideload or install a rom (maybe, if the vendor doesn’t delete the firmware while you do it).
Even in the narrowest possible sense of “treating the user as an attacker”, I’d feel pretty damn attacked if my phone deleted its camera firmware because it thought I unlocked the bootloader! But that doesn’t count of course, because user-hostility is narrowly defined to only happen on platforms that android people don’t like. It’s all just very tedious, and when I hear endlessly about the battery throttle (that you can turn off!) but not the android phones that delete their own firmware when the user wants to unlock the bootloader it’s hard to view the whole “user-hostility” thing and right-to-repair more generally as being anything other than a bad-faith ploy. There are actually important issues there that get lost in the sea of brand warriorism and financially-interested parties.
When you are playing with language and narrowly defining things to mean only the things that don’t happen on your platform, you aren’t being serious, you’re being a fanboy.
There should be a word that conveys the problems that induces in a discourse! It’s literally… something!
;)
Again: I consider a phone deleting its firmware when it thinks I’m unlocking the bootloader to be pretty damn user-hostile too! I think if you’re saying that’s the diametric opposite of user-hostile the only reasonable explanation is you’ve got something seriously wrong with either your language or your sense of reason is being drastically affected by your parasocial attachment to the issue. Because that’s literally so far from reason that we are talking terms like “Orwellian”, yeah.
It’s a shame the word is so loaded that it has lost its ability to be (correctly) used in less-loaded situations but there it is.
Maybe that’s more than you meant to imply by objecting to my point about android’s user-hostility, saying that I had it “backwards” and that apple is the “pinnacle” of user hostility instead but yeah, absolutely imploding the firmware to keep the user from unlocking the bootloader is extremely user hostile, there is very little reason to disagree with that statement except some kind of abject processing error or malicious ploy in the discussion.
Of course in this scenario it’s probably people echoing carefully focus-grouped strategies from google. “Right to repair” cleverly avoids talking about other e-waste issues like phones with self-destructing bootloaders and pathetic OS support lifecycles etc. Google focus-grouped that every bit as much as their RCS and so on (which they care so deeply about that they still haven’t implemented it themselves in google voice even 15 year on!). They know what resonates with you guys, and there is a kernel of truth to it - right to repair is an admirable goal, and who could oppose reducing e-waste? Which is why it’s selected as a marketing strategy!
But that doesn’t make it not Orwellian either. At this stage of the game, if you disagree that self-destructing firmware isn’t user-hostile and that it’s actually the opposite and apple is really the pinnacle of user-hostility… it’s working, it’s successfully reshaped your language processing, and your thought processes have followed. They successfully redefined user hostile to mean “only apple” for you.
I absolutely do not have that kind of money
I'm happy to pay a bit more, I use my phone all the time. I would like a folding phone but I don't consider those ready yet, but I'm not posting that all phones should be folding for $200 because they can do it in that model for 1800
The only reason these aren't included anymore on flagship phones is because companies think they can upsell you on BT headphones, cloud storage plans and extended warranties. They're building for shareholder value, not the customer.
Plenty of midrange and low end phones still come with the jack and microSD, but removable batteries seem to be extinct.
you start your brand new phone and a pop up appears:
Would you like to remove google and all the other bloatware to start with a blank phone and choose to install exactly what you need and want.
Please click here.
I would then seriously consider buying a new phone instead of slightly older phones I can install custom roms on.
now that would be a thing.
In a perfect world
I have an old Samsung S4 2013 (android 11) and an old Motorola G3 (android 11). I keep the G3 to listen to FM radio as modern phones dont have the FMradio.
My main phone is a onplus 5T with android 14. A superb phone, 8 years old and still runs better than any modern phone my friends own. Cost me £75
I carry a media player, like an iPod. 500GB sd card, balanced and unbalanced headphone outs, and actual physical buttons and knobs for control.
Phones can do everything, but there are too many compromises. Ebook readers, and media players do one thing very well.
You also get a lot of peace when you disconnect from apps, scrolling and notifications and just enjoy your music out in the world.
https://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?nYearMin=2024&chk35mm=...
(you can click REFINE to change the options)
:(
> where the modem randomly disconnecting in the middle of a phone call can happen
Fixed 1.5 years ago. It's a fun story BTW: https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-3200-univ...
But I want a smartphone with a removable battery. Same with laptops.
Let me kill the power. Let me replace the batteries easily.
Give me thicker devices!
I would rather have none of these things, but if I had to choose, AI sounds more useful.
It's amusing the the IBM Mainframe world still uses the word "storage" to describe RAM.
AI might seem useful - but sadly on a phone and prepackaged, I only see it becoming a minder in a short time - no thanks.
In regards of AI I find transcription, summarization, translation and predictive text to be very useful.
I miss 2010-2015 smartphone market, it was much more innovative than it's now :(
Thank God that the computer industry came of age before iOSsification began. Need to connect to wired headphones? Buy a dongle. Need more storage? Pay for iCloud. Want to program on your iPad? Jump through a million hoops and end up using a remote desktop solution.
You can use like 2 charges in a day easily and that a lifespan of one to 2 years.
For a lot if vendors it isn't a notable difference, for apple with the air pods it's MASSIVE
I'm not particularly price conscious, so I feel like Samsung lost out on an opportunity to sell me a flagship phone because those no longer have these features I care about. Luckily, this much cheaper phone still has the two that are most important to me. When they stop offering them at all, I'll be done with Samsung.
There is no alternative below 1000 EUR.
It's a great resource to find a new phone by feature set.
Even more filters...
It should have 4 years of updates too, which at $270 CAD is $5.63 per month of support.
And the price is around 1400 eur.
[1]: https://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_10_vi-review-2701p4.php
(Also, though it's easy for me to believe this random search result is dodgy, and with the understanding that benchmarks don't mean much, Googling around for a chip comparison turned up https://gadgetversus.com/processor/qualcomm-sm7125-snapdrago... , which seems to suggest that the Exynos 1380 in the A54 wins over the Snapdragon 720G in the A52 in many benchmarks.)
It's depressing that such functionality is missing from modern devices. Entertainment value aside, it can be a lifeline in times of crisis/emergencies.
MicroSD cards are fantastic & I'd want them anywhere. But man it's just so preposterous that they have so drastically outpaced phone's builtin storage. 0.5 or 1TB are basically unheard of on phones, but there's plenty of whole SSDs with far more components and cost selling for $50 or less. It's wild. What a supply side economics setup, so many companies all keeping the whole mobile market back, deliberately.
The utility gap between 4k and 8k video is tiny. I was eager to move from a giant 1080p TV to a giant 4k TV, but I have no desire to buy 8k.
Neither 8k TVs nor 8k monitors have occupied a meaningful amount of the market, and there appears to be not much demand for them. On the gaming side, the latest graphics cards still can't max out settings on most AAA games at 4k/60fps.
So yeah, I voted for this position with my dollars, and will continue to do so.
Any phone with mandatory AI crap is Hard Pass.
No ports is better.
I've yet to have a SIM fail on me, and I don't see why I would want to lose out on the convenience of removing the SIM from old phone, and inserting it into the new one. Moving an eSIM requires interaction with the carrier as I understand it.
What about and IR camera as one of the 3 cameras? I don't need a telephoto camera with 5x zoom on my smartphone. IR camera is super useful to see things like pets in the dark, see hot or cold spots in the house, e.t.c
What about integrated sub ghz 2 way radios? In busy areas like concerts or areas without cell reception, the phone is next to useless.
What about better lights? I don't want to burn battery with the flash led. Simple lower power led option means I can actually use the light for extended period of time.
What about laser distance measurment? Often times I find myself measuring distance. Can't do it accurately with camera to as high resolution as you can with a laser.
What about low power wifi hotspot mode? Just run the phone in hotspot mode, without taking up battery for screen or background processes.
There are also things they can do in software. For example, old phones are next to useless. There should be no reason why I can't install a linux distro on it, have it boot directly to that, without having to jump through hoops or deal with android, and have a mini server at home.
Plenty of features left to be implemented.
Headphone jack? Bluetooth.
Audiophile? DAC.
microSD slot? Cloud storage.
User-removable battery? Power bank.
FM radio? Internet.
Degoogled phone? Really?
In some ways it's better to just get a usb-c fob for this functionality...have a problem with your headphone jack or microSD slot? Throw it out and replace it.
I'd rather see TB+ storage on my phone.