Open bootloaders, ir blaster, 3.5mm jack, sd card slot, replaceable batteries. The list goes on.
The smaller size phones (I hate these Phablets,) 3.5mm jack and back finger print reader, (although my Pixel 4a5G has them, it will be the last,) replaceable batteries, and selfie camera that doesn’t take up screen real estate.
- Headphone jack.
- Removable batteries.
- Sidekick/Palmtop form factor with the full width keyboard.
- MicroSD Card slot, and OS support for executing software and accessing data on the card.
HEADPHONE JACK - I scream into the void
HEADPHONE JACK - I scream into the void
Then buy phones with them. They exist.
For people in the US (in 2025) the headphone jack is still in the newest releases of:
Motorola Moto G Power and Moto G Stylus
ASUS ROG Phone 9
ZTE Nubia Redmagic 10 Pro
TCL 60 XE Nxtpaper 5G
Various HMD smartphones, though they are pulling out of the US
https://www.androidauthority.com/hmd-global-leaves-us-market-3576404/
Not too many optionsThe 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This currently results in Sony phones and one Ulefone one with outdated Android and a lack of updates.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.
Every damn feature.
But most? Removable flipping batteries. Having a bomb in your pocket computer that you can’t remove, and shortens it’s effective life without often complex surgery is absolutely criminal.
Removable D batteries have existed since 1898. It was a staples feature of machines. Nobody wanted, needed, or desired the tech brah “disruption” of gluing lithium bombs into phones.
It’s because the U.S. Government can make it seem as if your phone is powered down, but it’s actually still on and spying on you, sending data to whatever alphabet agency wants it. Removing the battery is the only defense against that attack, so they ‘encouraged’ manufacturers to stop allowing it.
Sounds like a dumb conspiracy. Especially since Fairphone sells in the US.
More likely is that manufacturers want to make more money so they make their phones more difficult to repair so customers have to pay them to get a battery replaced.
I blame Apple
You can believe what you want. I didn’t hear it from a conspiracy theorist, I heard it from Edward Snowden, and this was actually old news when he mentioned it, but his revelation on national TV made it even more widely known. “Coincidentally” it was right around the time Snowden blew the whistle that Android manufacturers started switching over to non-replaceable batteries.
Yes Apple are greedy fucks and it’s obvious that forcing iPhone users to get their phones repaired by a ‘genius’ was a part of their strategy from the beginning. But Android manufacturers who didn’t have a repair store they could force their users to use and wouldn’t benefit from that were happy to continue letting users replace their own batteries, because it was a legitimate benefit for the consumer and way to differentiate themselves from Apple.
I’m sure that phone manufactures save a few pennies by forcing users to either buy a new phone or pay an expensive repair bill, but I’m pretty sure that isn’t the only reason it’s done.
Edit: Even if you ignore their ability to wiretap you when your phone is ‘powered off’, the fact remains that the government can and does track you by you cell phone and removing the battery is a great way to stop that.
Of course, it’s not the only way- If you feel like you don’t want to be tracked for any reason a Faraday bag is a decent option. It makes your phone less useful, but so would removing the battery.
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)
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.
Ability to automatically turn wifi on and off with screen.
Physical keyboards, easily removable backs and batteries
no headphone jack is shitty but god i fucking loathe typing on a touchscreen keyboard
Control over it.
Software festure, but I miss being able to turn on and off wifi and Bluetooth in the drop-down menu with one click. Latest android replaced it with another sub menu to select network or device, requiring another action to enable/disable.
you can supposedly change it back with systemUI tuner
The physical fingerprint reader on the back of the phone.
Lots of android phones have a physical fingerprint reader
on the back of the phone.
On the side isn’t good enough?
Their preference was the back. So no.
To me it sounded like the main distinction they were trying to make was a dedicated fingerprint reader button rather than an in-screen finger print reader. This is a common preference because the hardware scanner you can activate by touch without working about proper placement, whereas the in-screen readers you have to look at the screen and carefully put your finger just in the on-screen circle showing where you have to precisely place your finger
I just want the LG G5 back. It had a(n):
- Removable battery
- SD card slot
- Infrared blaster
- FM Radio
- 3.5mm jack
- Compass
- Barometer
- Gyro
- NFC
- Fingerprint reader
And a ton of other stuff. Truly the best android phone ever made
Closest I can find now is the Ulefone line (no removable battery) but I have no idea if they’re decent phones or not.
3.5mm jack, Compass, Barometer, Gyro
These things are still in most modern phones.–
You’d be surprised at how many phones don’t have enough accelerometers to know their full orientation in space. Compass, NFC, and barometer are also not givens.
I really wish IR blasters would come back into style. They’re not even expensive to manufacture, and they’re small enough that they can be incorporated into any modern smartphone design pretty easily. And almost everybody with a smartphone has SOMETHING in their home that they control with an IR remote. There’s basically no reason to have stopped including them.
Ah yes, let me just pull out my phone, unlock, open remote app, switch to ‘my tv/air-conditioning manufacturer’ profile and press off.
The IR experience on a phone is not convenient for day to day, especially when (love it or hate it) most things can be controlled over WiFi without needing line of sight.Lock screen widgets are a thing now.
You really gonna put a tv remote on your lockscreen?
Yeah, that’s how I had my old HTC One M8 set up. I didn’t have a full numpad setup or anything; just power, volume, and channel. I had a separate widget for my ceiling fan, too.
Fair enough! That does actually sound perfectly serviceable.
