Poll: Which abandoned Android phone features do you miss the most?
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What do you need root for these days??
For anything related to cleaning up the device. Who needs samsung internet? Who needs uninstallable garbage you never use. Perhaps I want to back up my wifi config so when I transfer to a new device I can do so in a manner that doesn't bring old problems with me. What do I need root for? Because I know how to do things that secure my device against the manufacturer.
I have to settle for package disabler pro. At least I can lock off that stupid intrusive AI shit.
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Across the board, in product survey after product survey, consumers agree with you every time about thin phones. At best nobody cares beyond being briefly conceptually impressed (in a way that doesn't translate into sales), at worst people actively hate how fragile it looks (or actually is). They always would rather have more battery life than a thinner phone, and actually below a certain weight most consumers prefer a phone to be heavier.
So why do companies keep racing to make the thinnest phones?
I honestly have no idea. This isn't one of those things where I pose a rhetorical question and then answer it. The planned obsolescence of the battery seems plausible, but a thinner battery doesn't really correspond to a shorter lifespan, just a shorter duty cycle. Maybe it's just a vanity thing, like a competition between companies, but the bean-counters don't usually let that sort of thing keep going if it doesn't sell. Maybe it's marketing, but that never really succeeds either. I really don't know.
So why do companies keep racing to make the thinnest phones?
Because Steve Jobs' ghost still haunts and demands all designs to be as anti consumer as possible
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There used to be a one-click root option in older phones (I don't remember which one)
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Nexus 5 had the best finger print reader i've ever used. I still miss it to this day.
Do you mean Pixel 5? The Nexus 5 didn't have a fingerprint scanner.
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Ability to automatically turn wifi on and off with screen.
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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.
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HEADPHONE JACK - I scream into the void
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HEADPHONE JACK - I scream into the void
HEADPHONE JACK - I scream into the void
Then buy phones with them. They exist.
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no headphone jack is shitty but god i fucking loathe typing on a touchscreen keyboard
T9 (the old number keyboard) was the best layout: compact yet VERY usable. And with physical keyboards you could text someone blindly.
I just installed Traditional T9 to replace whatever that MS keyboard was (the swipe feature was nice, but I'm not sure it can beat T9).
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The feature where you can hold the phone comfortably in one hand and without having to do any gymnastics to reach the top corner.
Don't know if all androids have it, but if I swipe down near the bottom, it'll pull down the top for "one-handed mode".
I was able to trigger it multiple times until I figured out how I actually did it
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For anything related to cleaning up the device. Who needs samsung internet? Who needs uninstallable garbage you never use. Perhaps I want to back up my wifi config so when I transfer to a new device I can do so in a manner that doesn't bring old problems with me. What do I need root for? Because I know how to do things that secure my device against the manufacturer.
I have to settle for package disabler pro. At least I can lock off that stupid intrusive AI shit.
I always just used custom ROMs without root
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It's the under-screen fingerprint sensor. It's kind of flaky, and it shines the sensor area of the screen at what's gotta be greater than normal max screen brightness. It's blinding at night.
It's also much less reliable than the back reader in my old pixel 2, though it's gotten better with software updates. It was barely functional when the 6 first came out.
at whatās gotta be greater than normal max screen brightness.
I love misplacing my finger and getting flash-banged by my phone!
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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.
Idk what phone you're using but I can do it no problem on my older S21 Ultra and my new Fairphone 6 by just clicking on the notification
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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)
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T9 (the old number keyboard) was the best layout: compact yet VERY usable. And with physical keyboards you could text someone blindly.
I just installed Traditional T9 to replace whatever that MS keyboard was (the swipe feature was nice, but I'm not sure it can beat T9).
Not sure how you can want a layout that takes 3-4 button presses to type some characters but sure I guess.
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You know you can plug your PC into the TV right?
You ain't need swing out monitor
Oh Iām well aware! The TV actually has a dedicated PC connected to it thatās hidden behind the wall. Iām going to move that PC out of there to a desktop for my kid, but I digress.
I mentioned the family context because thatās what makes the swing-out monitor awesome. We can be watching a movie or even playing a game together on the TV, but in my field of view I have the monitor floating off to the side of the TV. Itās like playing on a phone, but it doesnāt occupy my hands, it has a 27 inch 144Hz screen, and itās a proper open platform thatās running linux.
Plus having my monitor in addition to the TV means that thereās already a 2-player LAN ready to go at all times. If itās something cross platform where my kid can use phone or tablet (like Roblox which seems to have great cross platform support) then itās 3-4 players with their own screens.
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So why do companies keep racing to make the thinnest phones?
Because Steve Jobs' ghost still haunts and demands all designs to be as anti consumer as possible
Anti-consumer for the sake of the bottom line is to be expected, but they're burning millions of dollars on this.
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I thought I'd be okay without a headphone jack but I'm now learning that USB-C to headphone adapters will enter a power save mode after a few seconds of silence, and quiet moments in shows or music can cause that, then it takes a split second to power back up, so the end result is choppy sound if it isn't constant. Maybe it's better with a better adapter, but also how the heck do you search for such things on Amazon and the like? It's not exactly a specification they list...
Not a universal solution for Android, but maybe it could lead your thoughts toward something useful. I know that Kodi has a toggle in the settings to stop that from happening. It works by constantly playing an inaudible low-frequency noise. Kodi runs on pretty much any OS, including Android, but since it's HTPC software, the UX is not optimal on a small touchscreen in my experience, though there are some skins and/or skin settings to optimise the UI for touch-based navigation.
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I always just used custom ROMs without root
I've never ran a custom rom that didn't have root.
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HEADPHONE JACK - I scream into the void
Then buy phones with them. They exist.
wrote last edited by [email protected]The holy grail / unicorn of a phone would have:
- no notch / punch hole
- a headphone jack
- an sd card slot
- nfc
- a proximity sensor
This currently results in Sony phones and one Ulefone one with outdated Android and a lack of updates. Sony's phone branch is currently dying and it's very much possible there won't be any new phones next year. They released a single flagship this year which they recalled because of issues.
Next year phones might get a bit more interesting because of the new EU regulations coming into effect this June but almost no phones have been released just since then.I have no idea what I'll get but for now my current phone (Asus Zenfone 6, from 2019) just refuses to die.
