HEADPHONE JACK - I scream into the void
I liked the little led light at the top that would blink for notification
The core apps (like messaging, and calendar) being free software and open source.
no headphone jack is shitty but god i fucking loathe typing on a touchscreen keyboard
- Headphone jack.
- Removable batteries.
- Sidekick/Palmtop form factor with the full width keyboard.
- MicroSD Card slot, and OS support for executing software and accessing data on the card.
IR transmitters
Miracast (in base open source Android, especially access to the ability to receive)
Scrolling notification text in the notification bar (seriously, that was sooooo much better than the obnoxious new default pop-up notifications)
A bunch of permissions that’s been too locked down (stuff used by Tasker, networking tools, etc)
Control over it.
Unimpeded root. You can still get it on maybe a handful of phones but apps are getting harder and harder to run with it enabled.
I really miss USB Mass Storage mode. Back then you could plug in your phone into your computer and it would just expose the internal storage and SD card as standard usb storage devices. Nowadays you have shitty MTP which works barely if ever, so you’re forced to use either internet or ADB for syncing files. Old way was better.
IIRC you can still enable it if you compile your own kernel but I wish more ROMs shipped with this feature by default.
Being smaller than a phablet in 2010s. Bring back 4 inch phones for fuck’s sake. You can price them at the same level as your gigantic six-inchers, I’ll happily pay for it as long as the insides of the phone are premium otherwise. I should know that my phone is in my pocket by putting my hands on it, not because it’s sticking out or making it impossible to sit down.
A 4" Pixel 9 Micro running GrapheneOS. I’d pay a thousand euros right now if such a thing existed.
But of course they have fucked up the UX of the operating system in such a way that a regular-sized phone like that cannot be practically used anymore. Oh well.
Open bootloaders, ir blaster, 3.5mm jack, sd card slot, replaceable batteries. The list goes on.
Don’t forget the notification light.
The most bullshit thing ever. I have a Moto 5g Ace, I was sad it didn’t have a light, used it for a couple years before putting LineageOS on it. Low and behold it actually has a notification light that was disabled in the stock ROM! WTF
Isn’t having an OLED display and using it as an “always on display” the replacement for this?
Yeah, and unless it’s only activating a few pixels at a time it’s not the same.
This is more or less how oled works iirc
It’s how it can work, which doesn’t necessarily mean the firmware is set up to use it that way.
yeah but not every device is oled.
The notification light for me was never all that useful, i have unique ringtones for everything but i do agree they are an awesome feature for folks in spaces where their phones need to be quiet
I liked them, if not just because there’s no reason not to have it. It was always subtle and functional.
Why can’t the camera “flash” be used for this? IOS has settings for it in accessibility features.
You know? That’s a good question. I wouldn’t think it would be very hard to just do a minor redesign of the flash LED to do that.
The flash pattern and frequency were set different for email, sms and other. On mine at least. It was really handy not needing to turn the screen on at all.
Motorola G series has 3.5mm + SD card slot
Hmmm, that’s deffo a contender for my next device, we’ll see how many years i get out of my zf9 before getting one though lol
Some chinese phones still have ir blasters
my xiaomi has an ir blaster and i love it
I was pleasantly surprised when my OnePlus 13 had an IR blaster.
OnePlus make phones that still have many of those features
Is any of that an android feature? It’s mostly hardware, I think you can still get devices that have some combination of those (maybe not the IR blaser).
Title says “android phone”, not just Android
Most manufacturers dropped all or most of those features.
I just want the LG G5 back. It had a(n):
- Removable battery
- SD card slot
- Infrared blaster
- FM Radio
- 3.5mm jack
- Compass
- Barometer
- Gyro
- NFC
- Fingerprint reader
And a ton of other stuff. Truly the best android phone ever made
Closest I can find now is the Ulefone line (no removable battery) but I have no idea if they’re decent phones or not.
Think I had a LG G3 I miss it. Wish they would of kept making phones.
Samsung xcover 6 pro
Had one of those, but it eventually died. Great phone.
3.5mm jack, Compass, Barometer, Gyro
These things are still in most modern phones.–
You’d be surprised at how many phones don’t have enough accelerometers to know their full orientation in space. Compass, NFC, and barometer are also not givens.
Physical keyboards, easily removable backs and batteries
Being able to take out the battery so that I can swap it with a pre-charged one. Those were great times. Then you can just throw the nearly-dead one on the charger.
This is identical to having the super power of being able to restart your phone to get a full battery charge.
Non-pastel colors. My phone used to be fire orange on black and i loved it!
Really just personalization in general.
