I have a OnePlus 7T Pro, and I love the pop-up front camera. I don’t have an annoying notch or hole in the screen, and the screen is the full height of the phone. I’ve never had any issues with reliability.
They only used it on the 7 range, and moved to a hole punch camera for subsequent models. I’m holding out as long as I can before upgrading phones because of it.
On my motorola: quick shake side to side to enable flashlight. So easy to use, it’s become second nature. I’ll have to find a way to replicate that on the next phone I get.
Easily notification light.
People always say “oh, it’s totally obsolete with always on displays”.
But with a notification light I could focus on other stuff and the blinking light got my attention better. With the AOD, I always catch myself glancing at my phone.
Also, the light’s color clearly indicated which app caused the notification. I had White for calls, Green for Whatsapp, Yellow for the ebay app, Red for GMail and so on.
“You can do all that with an OLED screen! It only lights up the pixels that-”
Can you, though? All apps that I tried were utter garbage. Buggy performance, very battery hungry and very cumbersome to configure. I don’t know if custom firmwares actually have that feature in a usable state nowadays, as I cannot root my phone anymore without losing core functionalities like online banking.
Yeah, everything tends to go to shit with time. I miss my Galaxy S2.
Can’t believe I forgot all about this. It was the one thing I was sad to lose when I upgraded from my Nexus 5 to the Google Pixel. So simple but so useful.
Material You. I wondered why they wasted resources for … colors. But it’s so nice to have a consistently colored UI across apps and across dark/light modes, and I wished that more apps would support it. Also, those pastel colors are less stressful for the eyes than the previous grey/blue.
I know it’s not everyone’s taste but I really like it.
Over on /r/Android there was a very vocal crowd that saw it not only as a gimmick but actively detested it. In their opinion an UI is only good when it has an AMOLED black background (and 0 px padding between UI elements, but that’s a different topic).
I have to respectfully disagree here. I would like to be able to choose what that color is. I HATE when I use a picture of my orange cat for a background and all my apps are brown.
If there’s some way to override it and choose your own color, I haven’t found it.
My old LG phones had power and volume controls on the back, rather than the side. Great for picking up the phone with either hand, and it was easier to mount in a phone holder (no buttons to accidentally mash).
I had an LG G2 back in the days, a great phone and the button on the back made for a really clean phone when put down on a table. It was very neat for the time to unlock and lock the phone only by using the touchscreen.
Not so much a gimmick, as much as something that seemingly went extinct that I miss: rear fingerprint sensors. I loved them on my Nexus/Pixels, and the in-screen one on my 6a is way less consistent and convenient.
Also it flashbangs me when I try to unlock my phone at night.
I had a side/power button fingerprint sensor on my S10e. The S22’s in-screen one is cool and all, but I really miss how my phone would be unlocked before it even came out of my pocket.
Pixel 2 XL here, the rear fingerprint scanner on this is the only fingerprint scanner on any of my devices that works flawlessly, every time. Why on earth would they remove this???
Power button fingerprint sensors. I had one on my S10e, and I loved it - with the way I held the phone, my thumb naturally rested on the power button, so it was pretty much auto-unlocked.
Now they seem to have fallen by the wayside in favor of in-screen sensors - which are cool, but ever-so-slightly more cumbersome. Ah well, still better than facial recognition.
Same. I keep a USB IR blaster on my keychain for the same purpose. Isn’t quite as nice since I have to carry it around, but it gets the job done in a pinch
If you look around enough, you might be able to find it cheaper too. They’re basically all the same thing. I bought one, and it used the app “Zaza remote” and I really liked that app. You could read a remote and save the IR codes from remotes not in the database to make custom remotes. That one also basically seemed to be “unlocked” in a sense it seemed I could use it with a lot of apps. However, it got lost at some point from my keychain holder, so I bought a few more. Unfortunately, they used a different app called “Ocrustar” and I couldn’t use it with any other app. The packaging and the blaster are identical, and there’s probably no good way to tell from the listing. But the new one still works, the app just isn’t as good. I can still turn down the really loud TV in the waiting rooms pretty discretely.
The link I sent above seems to be one of the “Ocrustar” ones based on the images in the description. And the original one I bought was no longer being sold, so I couldn’t just buy from that listing again otherwise I would have. The same ones are also available from Amazon for 3x the price
I cannot recall which phone it was, but going to sports bars in college and changing the channel on the TV to the games I wanted to watch was so cool. Probably pissed a whole lotta people off, but I was a young college shithead and didn’t really register that at the time.
IR blaster, removable battery, MicroSD slot, analog headphone jack, unlocked bootloader, stylus. The Note 3 was the peak of android phone design. I’m using an S22 Ultra nowadays because of all those features I’m a huge slut for the S-Pen, even to the point of sacrificing all of the others… But I’d love for the rest of those to make a comeback.
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I have a OnePlus 7T Pro, and I love the pop-up front camera. I don’t have an annoying notch or hole in the screen, and the screen is the full height of the phone. I’ve never had any issues with reliability.
They only used it on the 7 range, and moved to a hole punch camera for subsequent models. I’m holding out as long as I can before upgrading phones because of it.
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Removable battery, micro SD, sim slot etc
Were those ever considered gimmicks?
They don’t seem to exist much anymore, so must be a gimmick, right? Useful and popular features surely wouldn’t get removed
I get your sarcasm. But I’d like to point out that the claim would be that it’s outdated tech, not gimmicky.
It’s still a lie, though.
My new Nokia G22 would say otherwise. Who has a Nokia in 2023? Me!
On my motorola: quick shake side to side to enable flashlight. So easy to use, it’s become second nature. I’ll have to find a way to replicate that on the next phone I get.
Holy crap, I forgot about that feature from my dark-ages G4. That thing was a piece of crap, but I do miss that (and the twist to open camera.)
Gosh remember how that phone didn’t have a compass
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.arlosoft.macrodroid
MacroDroid! I love my Pixel6a but losing the flashlight motion was rough. Pretty easy to set up with MacroDroid.
Easily notification light. People always say “oh, it’s totally obsolete with always on displays”. But with a notification light I could focus on other stuff and the blinking light got my attention better. With the AOD, I always catch myself glancing at my phone. Also, the light’s color clearly indicated which app caused the notification. I had White for calls, Green for Whatsapp, Yellow for the ebay app, Red for GMail and so on. “You can do all that with an OLED screen! It only lights up the pixels that-” Can you, though? All apps that I tried were utter garbage. Buggy performance, very battery hungry and very cumbersome to configure. I don’t know if custom firmwares actually have that feature in a usable state nowadays, as I cannot root my phone anymore without losing core functionalities like online banking.
Yeah, everything tends to go to shit with time. I miss my Galaxy S2.
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Can’t believe I forgot all about this. It was the one thing I was sad to lose when I upgraded from my Nexus 5 to the Google Pixel. So simple but so useful.
To show how old I am, a phone without a physical keyboard.
Which is, like, every smartphone?
now
Material You. I wondered why they wasted resources for … colors. But it’s so nice to have a consistently colored UI across apps and across dark/light modes, and I wished that more apps would support it. Also, those pastel colors are less stressful for the eyes than the previous grey/blue.
I know it’s not everyone’s taste but I really like it.
I love it, glad Jerboa uses it
Didn’t know some see it as a gimmick. It’s very good
Over on /r/Android there was a very vocal crowd that saw it not only as a gimmick but actively detested it. In their opinion an UI is only good when it has an AMOLED black background (and 0 px padding between UI elements, but that’s a different topic).
I have to respectfully disagree here. I would like to be able to choose what that color is. I HATE when I use a picture of my orange cat for a background and all my apps are brown.
If there’s some way to override it and choose your own color, I haven’t found it.
Look into the app Repainter. It isn’t free and needs root or Shizuku access but does the trick.
Hey man, I know it’s been 3 months and idk why I’m only just now seeing this, but you’re a lifesaver. Thanks for the tip. It worked!
You can choose it, get a different colored cat
Front facing stereo speakers were nice.
This. I got a Xperia 1 III for the speakers and headphone jack.
The ringlight on the bottom of Xperia U.
My old LG phones had power and volume controls on the back, rather than the side. Great for picking up the phone with either hand, and it was easier to mount in a phone holder (no buttons to accidentally mash).
I had an LG G2 back in the days, a great phone and the button on the back made for a really clean phone when put down on a table. It was very neat for the time to unlock and lock the phone only by using the touchscreen.
Not so much a gimmick, as much as something that seemingly went extinct that I miss: rear fingerprint sensors. I loved them on my Nexus/Pixels, and the in-screen one on my 6a is way less consistent and convenient.
Also it flashbangs me when I try to unlock my phone at night.
I had a side/power button fingerprint sensor on my S10e. The S22’s in-screen one is cool and all, but I really miss how my phone would be unlocked before it even came out of my pocket.
My latest phone has a sensor on the power button and it’s not too bad but misreads happened way less often with a rear sensor.
I’m still on a pixel 4a, and I am terribly disappointed to hear that those have gone away.
Pixel 2 XL here, the rear fingerprint scanner on this is the only fingerprint scanner on any of my devices that works flawlessly, every time. Why on earth would they remove this???
[waves arms in the air] INNOVATION!
😭
Power button fingerprint sensors. I had one on my S10e, and I loved it - with the way I held the phone, my thumb naturally rested on the power button, so it was pretty much auto-unlocked.
Now they seem to have fallen by the wayside in favor of in-screen sensors - which are cool, but ever-so-slightly more cumbersome. Ah well, still better than facial recognition.
Samsung is using them still on the Folds. I’ve got one on my Fold 4. Love it.
This is why I loved the fingerprint sensor on the back of my pixel. I would be able to unlock it while taking it out of my pocket.
Can’t say I love the feature but the front facing camera getting “integrated” into the screen isn’t nearly as annoying as I thought it would be.
the IR Blaster, absolutely loved it and still do
Same. I keep a USB IR blaster on my keychain for the same purpose. Isn’t quite as nice since I have to carry it around, but it gets the job done in a pinch
Tell me more about this USB IR blaster. What do you have? How do you control it? I a. Very interested in getting one of these.
It’s a little keychain USB-C IR blaster. There’s a few that work, but this one has a decent case: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804935230204.html
If you look around enough, you might be able to find it cheaper too. They’re basically all the same thing. I bought one, and it used the app “Zaza remote” and I really liked that app. You could read a remote and save the IR codes from remotes not in the database to make custom remotes. That one also basically seemed to be “unlocked” in a sense it seemed I could use it with a lot of apps. However, it got lost at some point from my keychain holder, so I bought a few more. Unfortunately, they used a different app called “Ocrustar” and I couldn’t use it with any other app. The packaging and the blaster are identical, and there’s probably no good way to tell from the listing. But the new one still works, the app just isn’t as good. I can still turn down the really loud TV in the waiting rooms pretty discretely.
The link I sent above seems to be one of the “Ocrustar” ones based on the images in the description. And the original one I bought was no longer being sold, so I couldn’t just buy from that listing again otherwise I would have. The same ones are also available from Amazon for 3x the price
Thank you! This makes my day.
I cannot recall which phone it was, but going to sports bars in college and changing the channel on the TV to the games I wanted to watch was so cool. Probably pissed a whole lotta people off, but I was a young college shithead and didn’t really register that at the time.
Stadia, I had great internet and it worked great.
IR blaster, removable battery, MicroSD slot, analog headphone jack, unlocked bootloader, stylus. The Note 3 was the peak of android phone design. I’m using an S22 Ultra nowadays because of all those features I’m a huge slut for the S-Pen, even to the point of sacrificing all of the others… But I’d love for the rest of those to make a comeback.
Aw man, such a phone existed? Sounds like a dream at this point, honestly…