- cross-posted to:
- android@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- android@lemmy.world
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The 90s kid in me yearns for a phone with Fm radio, headphone jack, IR blaster, stylus, memory card slot, slide out keyboard and one of those click on projectors the Motorola phones used to have. I would call it the Donatello and it would be radical.
And a translucent purple case!
I’ve refused to buy these “flagship” phones that don’t have a headphone jack. The 90s kid in me will live on, damnit!
Same I use wired earbuds everyday at work and I refuse to buy a phone without one
I recently bought Bluetooth large headphones and I feel like they’re a massive improvement. However, when it comes to earbuds (which I still use a lot when big ones are inconvenient), I would never buy wireless ones. I am afraid that in a lot of them, battery is not easily replaceable (while in my big ones it can be accessed by unscrewing a cover), and the small things would get lost fairly easily.
Also you have to spend a lot more for good bluetooth ear buds compared to wired. Like, you can get a pair of KZ ZSN Pros for 20 bucks or so. They sound great, have nice material quality (they got metal bits on em!), good quality cable, great sounding mic… you get the idea. To get bluetooth ear buds that sound just as good you’d probably have to spend like 80 bucks? And they’d be made of plastic and not have the mic quality anywhere near the KZs. It’s just so much easier to get good audio quality with a wire.
I do have a pair of Bluetooth headphones and I use them from time to time. I tend to revert to my wired m50x pretty often just out of personal preference
I have some wired headphones for when I am gaming on the computer, but anything else I use Bluetooth earbuds, and I can’t imagine going back to wired ones, never getting the cable caught on things is so freeing. They also have active noise canceling and hear thru which both come in real handy on work sites.
If there was a decent phone with FM radio and an IR blaster, I might pick it over a lot of other ones.
I miss having an IR blaster so much, I was always finding new uses for it. Now I’ve got little remotes everywhere again
Same, including an IR led is such a simple thing, why did this ever go away. Though I’m pretty sure most Chinese phones still have them, Xiaomi phones do for sure
Basically all the phones with headphone jacks now have abysmal long-term support. Even the fair phone got rid of the headphone jack so they could sell their bullshit wireless headphones
This is why I love Sony phones.
There’s a lot more capability with USB-C audio though. Even entirely discounting Bluetooth, there are plenty of high quality USB-C headphones out there that blow the pants off of what you could do with a 3.5mm jack.
No lol. It all gets converted to an analog signal to drive the headphones. There’s no difference in fidelity between 1/8" and USB-C. It’s literally the exact same signal.
Except you’re not limited to the phones hardware and space constraints with USB. You can put the DAC, you know the thing that does that conversion, in the headphone end now, whereas you couldn’t with 3.5mm because you can push power over USB. Meaning you have the ability to get headphones with a much better DAC, which will provide better audio quality.
It also frees up space in the phone for more battery, different radios, and other things.
It’s a tradeoff of convenience. I want the jack because it’s a universal standard that doesn’t require external batteries or the right alignment of the stars for proper functionality. Quality has been fine since the dawn of the smartphone, IMO, at least for earbuds. You’re still free to use a USB DAC if there’s a jack!
DACs in phones these days are totally fine these days. There really isn’t any need for an external one unless you need to drive higher impedance cans. Quality-wise, they’re totally fine.
Where’s our different radios and other things? They just keep adding more camera lenses, and MORE MEGAPIXELS.
Nothing innovative or useful, and now we’re forced to buy more shit (adapters) to make other things we already have, work with our phones.
I’ll stick with my “mid grade” phone that does all of the same things, but also connects to 3.5mm
PS. This mid grade phone also has USB C if I really wanted a custom DAC, and alternatively I can also charge and listen to things at the same time, with no extra cost
Uh, since Apple removed it they’ve added the mmWave antenna, the ultrawideband chip, the satellite antenna, and a thread radio.
Fair point about Apple. They did also remove the home button and optimized their display further to accommodate that though.
If only it wasn’t so proprietary, I could get on the apple train. Still mad about my headphones jacks though.
Just use Bluetooth
Why? You can just hire a dude to sing to you as you walk around. Just use a bard, bro.
…Is that a serious offer?
I’m sure that you can find one on craigslist or whatever hell site people use for that these days.
Worse quality audio, vastly more expensive, easier to lose pieces, yet another device I need to think about charging, will need replaced after a while as the batteries swell/die, extra e-waste, occasional pairing problems (especially on PC), etc.
And guess what, if all of that sounds good or doesn’t matter to you, you can still use Bluetooth on phones with 3.5mm ports!
As a solution for me, I grabbed a fiio brt3k. Supports the highres Bluetooth codecs and can totally be used as a usbc dac. I got a pair of the samsung beans with my last phone and just hate them, this lets me use any pair of wired headphones I want.
I still want a proper on board dac and a headphone jack but it’s what I have to work with
How pray tell would Bluetooth help with having FM radio? The headphone cable is used as the antenna for phones.
Cables doesn’t consume battery not get affected by radio interference.
Cables doesn’t consume battery
When you plug earbuds into your phone, your phone is literally powering the earbuds. The cables transmit an electrical signal; they consume battery. The consumption is fairly negligible, of course, but so is modern Bluetooth.
I believe they meant that bluetooth headphones need to be charged, while wired ones just run off the phone’s battery. Sure, the amount of power consumed might not be that different (though bluetooth will still be more), but its easier for the user to just charge one device.
The consumption is fairly negligible, of course, but so is modern Bluetooth.
Sure, that should be why using BT my phone headphones, battery lasts 30-40% less 🤦🏻
Either your phone is straight up broken or your anecdotal measurements are way off. There is effectively no difference in battery life on a phone between using wired headphones and Bluetooth.
I used to swear by wired headphones.
The audio quality, not needing batteries, the simplicity.
But then I got a decent pair of Bluetooth headphones and I discovered how much wires got in my way. I discovered that the audio quality coming out of phones were garbage regardless of connection type, and the headphones I got would last weeks of daily use on one charge.
Plus I would get a more water proof phone, and I would never have to worry about the headphone jack breaking inside of the port, or my headphones going flying off because I walked past a knob of whatever at just the right height to ruin my day.
I still want phones to have the ports, but on mobile devices I’ll never use them. I just want others to be happy too.
I have inside pockets added so that I can deal with the wire issue. Makes for a better place to carry the phone anyway.
My old Moto G3 was the only real waterproof phone, whatever you have I bet you take it out of your pocket to swim, and guess what, it had a headphone jack.
I’ve an Armor 21, it has the radio, headphone jack, IR blaster and the memory card slot, plus a loud and clear speaker, actual night vision and is rugged as fuck. Base price sub-$250, upcharge for an attachable endoscope.
Hell yes, just jumped on the ulefone train myself!
Just checked it out, this thing looks sick. But it also looks ugly as shit. Is it as ugly as it looks in person? Specifically not a fan of the RGB LED ring thing on the back?
Honest criticisms: It’s a bit of a brick for sure. I turned the RGB ring off. The multi-function button isn’t as usable as I’d hoped, mostly just a flashlight/screenshot button. The headphone jack and USB port are behind a protected rubber flap, so I keep opening/closing it frequently, but that’s to help with being waterproof. While the optional case functions as a good stand for horizontal viewing and for holding, it is inadequate for vertical, and it just would’ve needed a small internal brace to fix that. The case also blocks their wireless charging connectors, if you were planning to use a dock for that. Attaching the endoscope requires removing a tiny screw. The lack of a bottom button bar has taken some getting used to but I’m fine with it now, the side fingerprint scanner is similar.
Overall I am happy with it. The battery lasts a whole day with high use, it has decent internals for games, the screen and included protector are appropriately unobtrusive, it isn’t running a very outdated version of Android. Perhaps most importantly, it should survive my child who likes to throw my phone and my dumbass who left it in my pocket getting in a pool.
You’ll be happy to know that I bribed my kids into watching the 1990 TMNT live action movie this weekend. The younger one loved it, but the preteen was full of critical commentary the whole time. Go figure. But hey, I won one of them over to the TMNT side.
how do you know someone was born in the 80s? they’ll fucking tell you. you can just like stuff without referencing your stupid metal lunchbox all the time.
I was born in the early 70s. We didn’t have anything cool.
There are gaming phones, phones with crazy cameras, and iPhones where the lack of features is a feature. What I wish to have is a phone with as many features and functionality as possible.
That includes (but not limited to): IR blaster Headphone jack MicroSD card slot FM Radio RGB Notification/Status LED
Rather than a slim phone with a glossy finish that will pick up scratches right away unless wrapped in a phone case, the outer cover of the phone should be rugged and replaceable. Like with old Nokia phones. I don’t care about few extra grams, or another millimeter of thickness. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.
I was hopeful about the Fairphone at first, but they started removing features as well.
When I changed in my iPhone 3g for an original Galaxy S, with barometer, I thought that by the iPhone/Galaxy 10 we would all be rocking tricorders. What kind of crazy sensors would they jam in by then? Zero. Here we are at generation 15 with no additional cool sensors.
FOUR cameras, however!
My guess is that eventually the back of the phone will be completely covered by cameras.
It’s intentional. They’d like to drop features to cut on design and manufacture costs, while taking out features most of the target audience doesn’t really care about. Some of these are just greedy. Phones used to rely on microSD expansion, but once you drop this option you could charge for additional space much more than what the equivalent microSD card would cost. You can also stop shipping phones with chargers because most people have them anyway. This is pure profit as the customer is paying the same price, but doesn’t get a charger.
As for other features, they probably dropped them because people just didn’t care enough.
It seems to be incredibly difficult to design a phone from scratch, and that’s why we only see a handful of manufacturers, with the small endeavors being able to make something that looks obsolete by the time it rolls out and even then it takes a few months to overcome all the bugs and glitches. Fairphone is the closest we’ve got, but it’s still far off and strays further with each generation.
“You don’t need practical capabilities, you need to be an obedient consumer.”
—OEMs
Disappointed Moto Mods didn’t catch on. The obvious approach of “skinny phone with minimal features but you can slap whatever you like onto the back (radios, projectors, beefy batteries, gamepad, etc)” - just makes sense for me. I loved my old Moto Z.
Still have my force 2 with the click on battery, loved that phone.
I actually meant to reply to your comment but replied to the main thread by mistake, I had the same frustrations with modern phones losing features, and even fairphone dropping the 3.5mm jack was a wtf decision to me. See my comment on the ulephone 18t, it had virutally everything I wanted in a phone.
That includes (but not limited to): IR blaster Headphone jack MicroSD card slot FM Radio RGB Notification/Status LED
My Poco F2 Pro has all of those but microSD slot (none of my recent phones have had it, and I’m starting to miss it right now with 128 gb of base storage) and the IR blaster has saved my ass more than once!
I still have my LG v20 because of this. I’d love to upgrade but nothing that’s come out since even comes close.
I still have my V10 and v20. My v60 is better though. Definitely some trade-offs but I will argue that v60 is better
Yea, I wasn’t ready to upgrade yet when the v60 came out. I guess I should have said “nothing I looked at to upgrade has come close” looking at it now though the non removable battery is a deal breaker.
Still have stacks of batteries for my V10 and v20. I thought it would be a deal-breaker too but it’s not as bad as I thought. The huge battery they put in the v60s really been lasting. I do admit I prefer to wirelessly charge slowly which possibly helps.
V60 was the best phone ever, represent!
The v60 is the best phone ever.
All the features, very fast, 2 screens.
My v35 was on par and had the back fingerprint, but otherwise the v60 was the ultimate phone.
Non removable battery is a pretty big deal breaker IMO especially in an era where every subsequent phone is more and more stripped down.
No, the v60 was truly incredible, and the battery especially.
I upgraded to a zfold 3 and the battery life is garbage now.
But when the battery wears out you’re fucked if you can’t find an upgrade. I’m on my 3rd battery on my V20 because I can always just pick up a new one (or at least as long as someone makes them). I’m not saying the v60 wasn’t a nice phone. Just I don’t want one that’s lifespan is limited by the battery. That is a big deal to me.
I’ve come to the realization that the phone I want is a Nokia 3310 “brick”.
- Infinite battery life
- compact size
- headphone jack
- indestructible
- no spyware
- no social media
- T9 texting
- no software updates
- Snake
- Brick Breaker
You can buy one right now.
You mean like a 20 year old one? Would it even work?
Yeah. It’d probably still have charge too.
I found one in the back of a drawer a few weeks ago, it turned on straight away. I didn’t have the right size SIM card to try and use it fully sadly.
Come the apocalypse there will just be cockroaches and old Nokias.
Wasn’t it like 2g cellular?
Well it is a Nokia so…
No. I don’t know of anywhere that a 2G network is still available to use. Some still operate it for emergency calls but that’s it.
It’s anybody’s guess but if the battery hasn’t crapped out it probably would.
I have a bunch of old Nokia’s whose batteries puffed up and I can’t use them anymore but I also have some that are still ok.
Oh and they’d have to also find the charger for it.
Everyone talks about how great Nokia bricks are, but you actually do have to be careful not to drop them or you might damage the floor.
T9, back when you could text and drive without ever taking your eyes off the road.
Some of these I get, but I don’t get the T9 thing. T9 was so bad! It took ages to type many words. Today’s predictive keyboards are miles better.
Also, no software updates? Sure, every now and then there’s a shitty update, but most updates are great. New features and especially bug fixes are amazing. Used to be that if something had a bug, you just had to deal with it. There’s no guarantees it’ll be fixed today, but many companies do fix their bugs at least eventually. The ability to iteratively develop is huge for software quality. These days, unless you’re developing something that absolutely cannot fail (like a mars prober or radiation therapy machine), it’s widely agreed upon that iterative design is superior to “waterfall” design of trying to plan it out all ahead of time. Part of why is so you can get feedback continuously instead of only after you’ve committed to months of tech debt.
Dr Who vs Daleks. I think it’s krobot on linux.
Why? Have you heard radio? Every station is just a glorified shitty playlist that they cycle through a dozen times a day
Maybe if you live somewhere with good radio stations… the radio is pretty much dead here. Nothing but Christian talk and static.
Then you’d need to include a headphone jack since the headphones acted as the antenna.
Good.
It’s funny how the few who’re totally sold on Bluetooth go “ugh, but then you’d need a headphone jack” as if it isn’t an upgrade for others which wouldn’t affect their ability to use Bluetooth at all.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. You can still use Bluetooth even when your phone has a headphone jack, and headphone jacks can be IP67 rated so it’s not a concern for waterproofing.
How did I say that like it’s a bad thing?
Why is it limited to 67? It should be easier than the USB port right?
I mean, the only other rating above that is IP68, and that would require them to specify the depth and time that the phone can be submerged. Most manufacturers only go for IP67 because it’s much cheaper to test.
That I know but I was wondering why you specifically mentioned 67. I guess I misread that as a limit.
Nah, not a limit. It’s just a cost/benefit trade off. Manufacturers don’t typically push for IP68 unless they’re specifically marketing the device for underwater use, and believe users will be willing to accept the higher resulting cost.
I wonder if wired USB-C Headphones could work the same?
Yes. But it would also drain more power.
i remember old ipods could listen to the radio using the headphones as an antenna and i thought it was the coolest thing in the world. listening to a live feed like that is so much more…viscerally satisfying than just streaming a song or even listening to internet radio, where it could easily be just a computer. it’s nice knowing someone is actually creating a show for you in real time
Sadly 95% of the shows are just computers with a pre-loaded playlist. Still fun to know though that you are listening with a lot of other people together.
The shows don’t really exist anymore. At least not in my area. Well over a decade ago they were all replaced by playlists and commercials.
You could check out NTS Radio - so many shows from a very wide variety of genres, and they have an archive of every episode
Only a couple of the final pod nanos had built-in radio, the other iPods all required additional hardware to be plugged in. I found that the hard way with an iPod classic… Even my shitty flip phone had built-in radio with an earpiece connected lol.
Uh, no. It entirely depends on the station. My wife has radio stations in her car that sound almost 100% prerecorded and edited together - I can never tell if someone is actually talking now or if it’s just a snippet from a previous recording. However, if I listen to a very specific radio station from my home country, which I can only get via internet stream, it still feels like listening to the radio. The way of listening has nothing to do with it, it’s all in the station’s programming.
I’m going to chime in here to plug the ulefone power armor 18t I just got. I was pretty nervous to get a chinese phone as I’ve only had samsung and lg phones before, but this thing legit blows me away. Not only does it fully support every band that my carrier uses (rare even for phones made for the US market), but it has:
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Replaceable battery that lasts 3+ days between recharges
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Extremely rugged, IP69 waterproof and designed for underwater photography (physical shutter button and diving camera app)
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3.5mm jack, sd card slot, FM radio (with built in antenna - no headphones need to be plugged in), and an RGB notification led
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Dimensity 900 chipset that beats a lot of the snapdragon chips on the market.
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12 fucking GB of RAM… yes, 12…
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Wifi 6(ax)
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Wireless charging and reverse charging
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A fucking 60x magnification microscope? (Why???)
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A FLIR thermal camera (Just because, why the fuck not)
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Runs mostly bloat free stock android
All that for under $600 (on aliexpress)
The only thing it’s missing is an IR blaster, otherwise this is the best phone I’ve ever had, bar none. It is a chonky beast though, be warned.
This has really changed my view on Chinese electronics, especially at a time when phones for the western world are losing features and functionality all the time (including stuff from South Korean). Turns out capitalism isn’t that great for innovation!
As a former fan of ulefones:
They’re great as long as they work, but I already had two ulefones where something broke internally physically and the IR-blaster blasted non-stop, even after the phone was off. Never had other significant problems, tho.
Damn, this seems like exactly what I’ve been looking for… Shame I’m finding it a year late.
One last really important point you didn’t mention is how long do they serve security updates for?
Yeah I’m not looking for Chinese spyware on my phone’s from a company that will no longer exist in 3 months.
Honestly this is amazing. If only it wasn’t so big…
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Wait, you guys don’t have FM radio on your phones?
Why? ClearChannel has all but ruined it.
For emergency purposes, mandate cell tower batteries with solar supplement.
And generators for bigger hubs.
Cellular internet is critical infrastructure now.
Same for ISPs. My internet wifi has battery backup, so as long as the ISP stays up we are good.
Cell towers nearby all went down during the last big power failure. I could hit one distant tower that still had power, but the signal was weak, and the tower was swamped. It could barely push data.
Next big earthquake will be a total shitshow if that’s not fixed.
high end ones dont even have headphone jacks for starters
Imagine if every American had a shortwave radio transmitter in their pocket. Endless September for hams
As a ham, ugh.
I dream of it being more common to have radios in everyone’s pocket, but it needs to be accompanied by some level of education on how to use it.
Maybe the price of the transceivers would go down, at least, lol. I have a general license and I just mess around with a Baofeng for the most part because I cannot justify buying a better radio. Tempted to get a QCX-mini or Pixie kit for a project… Unfortunately the like… $1000+ transceivers are just way out of budget for me, and I’m not sure I’d get enough use out of it to warrant the expense.
I hear you. I have a handful of HT’s, all are 2m/70cm, same as the baofeng’s… I have an alinco and an ailunce, plus two baofeng’s. I picked up a small 20W mobile unit for my car, around $100 or so, all told, plus an antenna. Maybe $150 for everything? A little less?
I’ve been looking at the software defined radios on Ali Express for HF stuff, all low power. I think less than 10W, but you can go global on 10W on the right band with the right conditions. They’re usually up for around $350 USD? They’re small too. Good for POTA. I think they can go from 6m up to 40m. Something from the big brands that can do that is usually in the 1200+ range. I think that’s similar to what you’re talking about. Someone local here that I’ve met has one and he’s been lighting up parks constantly with it.
I want to experiment with DMR more. My next project is to build a hot spot, since the closest DMR repeater tower is a bit too far to pick up. I can sometimes get it at the lakefront (it’s across Lake Ontario from me, in Toronto VE3WOO if I recall correctly), and I’m in the Niagara area.
I would like to get a DMR repeater in the area and I’ve been talking to a local club about it. So it may just be a matter of time. In any case I’m weird. I use FM a lot still since that’s what all the VHF and UHF stuff around here uses. There’s some fusion/dstar stuff but no DMR.
I’d imagine no phone would have transmission ability, or at most transmit like a Walkie talkie
There are some ham radio call phones that can transmit. They’re pretty specialized and not cheap, but they exist… around $1200 for what is essentially 3+ year old phone hardware (with software to match … Android 9-ish) with a built in transceiver… I like the idea, but I’m not paying that much for a very old phone because it happens to have a ham radio built in.
The current ideas with adding radios to phones is almost entirely to pick up broadcast radio, like am/FM. Nothing fancy.
A lot of posts in here complaining about shitty commercial radio. Do you all not have local radio stations? I love my local stations.
I’ve never bought a phone without FM radio. I regard it as an emergency tool.
