I went through my late teens as the initial smart phone boom was happening. I had a Motorola q that could get TV channels and had a keyboard. I had the enV that flipped open. And many androids/blackberries that I loved for their unique form factor and functionality.
I have never balked at spending money on a phone and for a long time i felt locked into generic flagship devices. With the debut of folding screens I feel like my appetite for unique devices rekindled. I think the power of android lies in its diversity of implementation.
So what features and functionalities would you choose over the next flagship release?
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A fucking headphone jack
How did we end up in a world where this is a niche feature. 😭😭
I feel like I wouldn’t mind the lack of headphone jack so much if they just gave us another USB-C port on the bottom instead so you can charge and listen to music without a dongle.
I’ve really tried hard with these usb-c headphones / adapters and they just don’t work very well for me. They function mostly, but much more often come unplugged or slightly ajar.
Because the audio jack is the perfect connector for its purpose: It’s omnidirectional, the connection is as wide as it comes, and it locks the plug. The point for using a USB-C connector would be that it’s more versatile as you can use it for data transfer and power as well.
I miss having a notification LED. It used to be super common to have a “breathing” effect with a given color when an app had sent a notification.
So a Snapchat for example would show the breathing as yellow, etc. Super convenient to check for messages without going and grabbing the phone.
Yea I only ever had this on a Samsung S9 and I did find it helpful. Snapchat as you said did a good job using it.
Apparently most of my requirements/desires fit this. I require an unlocked bootloader, because I need root to not throw my phone through a window. An amazing camera would be needed as well.
I REALLY, REALLY would like a removable battery, IR blaster, small form function, a headphone jack, and a rear fingerprint reader.
I miss the IR blaster on my Galaxy S4. I remember when I finally upgraded to the S8, I was using it for several months before realizing it was gone. I tried to change the channel on the TV at work only to find out that they removed that feature from their Galaxy line pretty much right after the S4. Needless to say, I was disappointed, but it makes sense to remove a super niche feature from their mass-marketed device line.
HEADPHONE JACK.
GIVE ME THE GOD DAMN HEADPHONE JACK BACK
Hit the road, bc Jack won’t come back home no more
I second that
Ironically enough the headphone jack is more common on cheaper phones. Honestly though the mid grade phones are so good now that I can’t see myself buying a flagship device unless there’s some incentive.
lol yeah the last phone I bought was the Pixel 5A because of that.
…But they better keep it that way >:(
The pixel 6a doesn’t have a headphone jack unfortunately.
Pixel 3a FTW!!!
Headset jack and let me replace my damn battery. Also default option to uninstall non-OEM apps
You’re in luck for the battery thing. It’s basically going to be mandatory in the EU which should hopefully help push change everywhere
I really hate that it is becoming mandatory. I would have preferred the option to either have a reasonably priced service to replace the battery or have it user replaceable. Forcing one solution just seems not very consumer friendly.
I don’t like the compromises they have to make to make them easily replaceable and I never had a battery fail on me.
Well, what we’ve seen this far is not making it mandatory just means that the battery will not be user-replaceable on 99% of devices, because that’s the most profitable way of doing it even if it results in a lot of extra waste
Would that be so bad if there was a cheap way to get it replaced? I mean you are going to do it every few years at worst, just make it so the manufacturer has to offer that option at a decent price or open it up to your local repair shop (or make it replaceable).
sideloading is a requirement for me and unlockable bootloader, otherwise, some things like an IR blaster, headphone jack, removable battery (thx EU), RGB notification LED, front facing speakers would make a “good” phone become “great”
Add on an SD slot and you and I have an identical list.
Man, I forgot all about notification LEDs. My list is practically identical to yours.
I’d like a phone with no camera facing me, and physical hardware switches to completely disable the mic, camera, battery, and entire modem. Not some software interrupt and lock. I mean, the switch is circuit ground for these circuit blocks. When I select OFF, it means real world “this thing does not exist any more ever” until I turn it back on.
It would be interesting to have a modular rear camera with a removable lens, removable IR filter, along with public documentation and the full API for the sensor. This would open up an enormous range of applications. I would mostly mess with astrophotography more.
The modular rear camera idea makes a lot of sense when you consider that camera bumps have become an industry standard.
physical hardware switches to completely disable the mic, camera, battery, and entire modem
There is one, the Librem 5.
Warning: Usability is not great last I heard. Runs on a linux distro so no android apps.
Edit: nvm don’t bother checking it. They just raised the price to $1299 and it’s 32 gb storage with 3gb ram. I mean at this point, just get a google pixel and slap on graphene os.
I know some phones had already did this, but I always liked the idea of support for using your phone as a TV remote. The phone has replaced so many pieces of hardware that it feels silly that TV remotes haven’t been replaced yet.
I also specifically wish Chrome supported extensions on mobile. Firefox does it. Why can’t the biggest browser do it?
I miss the innovation of early 2010s phones. Using the IR blaster to mess around with bar TVs was a ton of fun. Not to mention headphone jacks, SD card slots, and removable batteries.
I wish Firefox mobile supported desktop extensions. I know its doable with Nightly builds, but that’s a pain to set up.
Through wifi. They used to have IR blasters that work just like the real remote
Xiaomi phones usually still have IR blasters at least.
An open bootloader and a removable battery.
I was looking into smaller form factor phones awhile back, and an interesting feature I noticed some of them had was a programmable button.
I don’t know that programmable buttons on phones are that niche, but it’s certainly not common either so far as I’m aware, so this super simple feature would be wicked imo. I’d also really like if more phones just stole Motorola’s gesture interactions (e.g. quick twist for camera, firm double-shake for flashlight, etc.).
Also, uh…Speaking of small form factor phones, I don’t know if that counts as a feature, but it’s one detail I’d like to see come back, or flip phones with separate screens (clunky, sure, but better than the screen eventually creasing imo).
A good well implemented button anywhere is a joy and I think there would be a lot of interest in smaller phones with interesting features.
Dedicated media playback buttons might also be nice.
Headphone socket. They are taking away what was a universal feature and replacing it with inconvenient crap.
There are some niche phones with a thermal camera, would love to see more of that. Thermal modules are getting smaller, cheaper and better all the time and the main producers like infiray or guide are offering modules that seem to be clearly targeted at the smartphone market.
I’m still discovering new uses for my thermal camera and I wish I could have it in my pocket all the time. The obvious uses are finding gaps in your house’s thermal insulation or finding devices that draw a lot of standby energy. But you can also use it to find studs in your walls, find things that have recently been used, like cars in a parking lot or chairs in an office.
Thermal cameras are also really handy for electronics repair and spotting invisible water leaks in ceilings.
Whenever I buy a phone there’s two function I look for that is getting phased out: LED indicator and a 3.5mm audio jack. It’s why I have a Sony Xperia. The thing is there’s no user configuration for the LED indicator. You either need to pay for a third party app or unlock the bootloader and install a custom firmware. I would love if a flagship phone had an LED Indicstor that was customizable. i.e. Blue for a text, Red for an email, Green for battery at 80%+, etc.
I was actually writing up a big thing about how I’d gone out of my way to get a used Note 9 with the headphone jack, which also has the LED indicator, and how you could set the LED colors for individual apps. But after spending about 20 minutes Googling and looking for the settings in my phone, I’m not sure it’s actually possible. Maybe it was my Note 8 that had LED indicator options? Or maybe I just imagined it entirely. Hmm
I feel like OLED screens partly replace this, since they could have a small indicator on the screen without needing to power a backlight etc
Modular everything. I really wanted Project Ara to come to market.
Man I really go hard for the module projects as well. After all the failed attempts I just don’t believe it’s possible any more =/
I hear ya.
I’d even take the Moto Z series back at this point.
I want a Galaxy Fold style phone, but the external screen is eInk. Have it set to always show the book I am reading. This will let me read in bite sized pieces.
That would be awesome, although it might make the camera experience worse since you usually use the camera folded. I saw a prototype for a phone a while back that had a regular screen on one side and e-ink on the other, I always thought that was cool.
