For me it’s the notification light you used to find on older phones, was particularly good to know if your phone was charged without picking it up
Absolutely the damn LED. I would love to trade the stupid never-being-used selfie-cam for a damn 5 cent LED.
And swappable batteries. And a headphone-jack. And root by default (imagine you winpc came with no admin-pwd. Lol)… And…
I used to love customising the notification colour on my old phones, so good.
I miss my headphone jack so damn much, I’m over Bluetooth earbuds breaking constantly and being so damn expensive and low quality.
Then buy phones with headphone jacks. Mine has one, I dont buy ones without it.
If it matters for you to have it, dont buy phones that cut it. If models with it keep selling, theyre less likely to ditch it.
Swappable batteries in mobile phones.
It will most likely come back due to EU legislation.
Not really. EU legislation is about the right to repair, not about swappable batteries on the run
How does one safely repair a lithium-ion battery without just swapping it for a working one?
It’s the difference between sitting down for 20 minutes unscrewing various components to get to the damaged battery you need to replace, vs. popping off the back cover and simply swapping out one dead battery for a charged one anytime you run out of power. The former is replaceable. The latter is swappable.
This. Like ten years ago, when Samsungs had swappable batteries, they were super proud of it. They would advertise it as a feature that Apple doesn’t have.
When I was at a festival, Samsung had an activation where you could tweet at them with your phone model and location and they would send someone with a full battery to trade you for yours. It was an amazing free service that I used so many times, and every time, the jealousy on the faces of all the iPhone people was palpable. Then one year, they quietly removed the swappability from their new phones.
Swappable batteries are such a huge feature that most people don’t even know that they want.
3.5mm headphone jack
There are often enterprise versions that still have it. Like the S10E for example.
Yes, and I’m thinking my next phone will be one of those.
I have a much better time with wired earbuds than with bluetooth.
Forgot my bluetooth headphones the other day on a long trip and the 3.5mm jack saved my rear end.
Just needed to stop at a shop briefly for some cheap plug-in buds and I was no longer listening to babies screaming on the journey. As a bonus, it also didn’t interfere with me charging my phone
I’d like bluetooth earbuds a lot more if I could find some that aren’t “smart.” If I put on a beanie, I bump them. If I remove one earbud to converse, I bump it. I’ve not once intentionally used a gesture-based control on an earbud for anything else other than undoing the situation I’ve caused by bumping them. Otherwise, I control everything with my phone. If I’m working out, I just select my playlist, mute notifications, and I don’t have to touch anything after that. Gesture-based earbuds are not for me.
I really don’t think there are dumb bluetooth earbuds, though. At least, I haven’t been able to find any.
I have a pair of cheap Skullcandy’s that have physical buttons instead of touch sensors. The buttons are basically impossible to use without smooshing the earbud into your ear trying to click it, but it also means it’s really hard to accidentally click them. Probably as close as you can get to dumb Bluetooth earbuds.
I don’t even understand why someone would want controls on their earbuds, much less for it to be such a widespread issue, but honestly I’m just going to make sure my next phone has a 3.5mm jack
