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?
I like expandable storage, as I usually keep the SD card as a secondary partition. If my phone dies for whatever reason, I just pull that card out and stick it into a new phone.
From my experience it’s been the opposite, the phones have survived but the SD cards have died twice. Haven’t cared about it since then.
@Positronic well, anything dies on this world. But you know the saying: never put all the eggs in the same basket.
Well yeah NAND has a certain amount of read/write cycles but it’s always going to be an issue with SD cards because they’re using the cheapest form of NAND. As a result of that they’re not going to get some of the complex safety mechanisms that are built into internal NAND. So I think we’ll have to disagree here.
I’m not against expandable storage at all, I wish more phones did have it as an option to be clear.
I am curious what exactly is going on these SD cards that everyone wants though. I personally haven’t gotten close to my storage limit since the default internal memory was 32GB.
I travel quite a bit, both for work and because I like going places. Often, internet is somewhere between unavailable and shitty. I keep a mess of music, movies, and tv shows synced/cached from Plex (which keeps fresh content via downloaded smart playlists that update as I watch episodes, etc.) and usually a couple of audiobooks in case I find myself making a long drive.
@xyguy Yea, tbh, 32 GB is the minimum usable on a phone in 2023 imo (if you play no games). But for this you need an SD Card.
And yea, it’s always better to have the ability to add extra storage imo, even if that would make you a data hoarder 😁