My first Android phone was the HTC One M8. I got it because at the time it made my iPhone 5 look like a chump. Bigger screen, unrivaled stereo front speakers, much more internal storage you name it.

I also got the LG G series after that because I loved that the battery was removable (I ended up with an enormous aftermarket battery pack that lasted 3.5 days of constant use) and the buttons were all on the back of the phone.

I got the Essential PH1 because the ceramic body was nice and the promise of the 2 pin magnetic accessory port was really neat (only a 360 camera was released for it but still).

I got a Pixel 4a because every Android phone at that point was a 6 inch rectangle with side buttons and a fingerprint reader but at least it was cheap and still had a headphone jack.

I’m glad to see flip phones returning because I think it is giving Android back what has always been its biggest advantage to me which is unique hardware features.

Personally, the HTC M8 speakers with the button layout of the LG G4 would be an intsa-buy for me to this day.

What kind of hardware features have you guys fallen in love with over the years and what do you value or would like to see return?

  • quirzle@kbin.social
    3·
    10 months ago

    My comment mentioned why the SD card was removed. To paraphrase Linus, they’re the cheapest form of NAND storage and are extremely unreliable.

    Your comment mentioned why you personally don’t like using SD cards, though I disagree that it’s a reason to remove the functionality completely, which is why I wouldn’t buy a phone without a slot. If you’re having such reliability issues, you should buy a higher quality SD card. They’re objectively more reliable than cloud storage though, should you ever go somewhere where network connectivity is an issue. And 128 GB is almost nothing, kinda proving my point that this is more of a use case point than an argument against the feature.

    Also if they hadn’t removed the jack I doubt we would have seen as much progress with truly wireless earbuds.

    Given that they’re still using Bluetooth, which is still terrible with any interference, low bandwidth, and has the same tedious connectivity problems it’s had for the past decade…I’d argue we have yet to see that progress where it matters.

    the market has moved on.

    If that were true, there wouldn’t be so many people vocally expressing why new products aren’t adequate without these basic features.