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Opinion: I'd rather have a headphone jack and a microSD slot than AI in my phone

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Re: Opinion: I'd rather have a headphone jack and a microSD slot than AI in my phone

#81

Post by xethos »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #68
craftkiller wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My librem 5 has about 3.5mm of dust on it because the phone is unusable. I appreciate that they made a linux phone, but they didn't make a phone people would actually want to use. Abysmal battery life where "carry a 2nd battery" is actual advice for every-day use. Very slow user interface. So large and heavy that I could murder someone with it. Questionable cellular support where the modem randomly disconnecting in t…

The battery lasts up to a single day, which is short but enough for me. I recognize that it's not a phone for everyone and it has its quirks, but "unusable" is not how I'd describe it after daily driving it for years. Overall I see more advantages than disadvantages when compared to mainstream devices, which is why I continue to use it. > where the modem randomly disconnecting in the middle of a phone call can happen…

Well, that bug has been squashed. The one I run into more often [0] has not. I own a L5, I daily drive a Pinephone Pro. I agree with you, though - I only switch back to my previous phone because I miss the keyboard every other year or so, in a "grass is always greener" kind of way.

[0] https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/OS-issues/-/issues/328

Re: Opinion: I'd rather have a headphone jack and a microSD slot than AI in my phone

#82

Post by paulmd »

jemmyw wrote: post #35

I've got a Sony Xperia phone from last year. It's got a headphone jack and sdcard slot, waterproof, latest chipset etc. Plus a very close to vanilla Android. Yet they sold so few that Sony are pulling out of the US phone market. It seems to me that folks who say they want those things don't actually want them that much.

Nobody wants a high-end android cameraphone where the camera firmware self-destructs when you unlock the bootloader.

For better or for worse, the android world is reliant on custom roms if you want long-term software support. Wiping the camera firmware is unacceptable given that reality.

Again, the whole custom rom thing is a bandaid patch on a shitty, user-hostile OS model that makes it nearly impossible to perform a vital function of the computing system (updates). The inability to deliver updates effectively is itself a symptom of a product defect here. It would be better if we could require all companies to provide useful first-party support lifecycles for the products they release.

But sony is deliberately gutting the device’s functionality to prevent you from unlocking it and that’s unacceptable even among android devices. If you’re going to do this shitty custom rom model, vendors that decide to kill even the ability to try and use that bandaid are going to suffer poor sales.

I would love a high-end cameraphone, the Xperia lineup was a serious consideration when I bought my last phone. But I could never get over the hump of buying a device that would have less than 2 years of updates by the time I got it, and that would deliberately self-destruct if I attempted to extend it beyond that.

I got an iPhone instead. Much less user-hostile. Forcing me to use a custom rom is already user-hostile, but to then punish me for doing it is unconscionable.

Oddly enough, there’s not nearly as much emphasis on banging the EU’s door down to stop that kind of waste and really honestly intentional/malicious damage, as there is about whatever apple thing people are whining about this week. Oh no the pelican case full of oem phone repair tooling that apple lets you rent (or buy) is too big/heavy… or Sony phones deliberately self-destruct themselves when you unlock the bootloader… somehow the “we can do both!” reply-guys never get around to doing both. Curious.

Re: Opinion: I'd rather have a headphone jack and a microSD slot than AI in my phone

#83

Post by rbits »

jemmyw wrote: post #35

I've got a Sony Xperia phone from last year. It's got a headphone jack and sdcard slot, waterproof, latest chipset etc. Plus a very close to vanilla Android. Yet they sold so few that Sony are pulling out of the US phone market. It seems to me that folks who say they want those things don't actually want them that much.

I definitely do, I have never bought a phone without a headphone jack. I feel like that will end soon though, as the line of phones I'm using seems to be dying, and it's the last of its kind.

Re: Opinion: I'd rather have a headphone jack and a microSD slot than AI in my phone

#84

Post by kingbiz »

rchaud wrote: post #45

3.5mm jack, microSD and removable batteries is the holy grail. The only reason these aren't included anymore on flagship phones is because companies think they can upsell you on BT headphones, cloud storage plans and extended warranties. They're building for shareholder value, not the customer. Plenty of midrange and low end phones still come with the jack and microSD, but removable batteries seem to be extinct.

Sony is making high end phones that have all these features, like the xperia line. The UI is a little wonky, and you have to degoogle the phone, but after that its pretty solid.

Re: Opinion: I'd rather have a headphone jack and a microSD slot than AI in my phone

#85

Post by sumuyuda »

paulmd wrote: post #82
jemmyw wrote: post #35

I've got a Sony Xperia phone from last year. It's got a headphone jack and sdcard slot, waterproof, latest chipset etc. Plus a very close to vanilla Android. Yet they sold so few that Sony are pulling out of the US phone market. It seems to me that folks who say they want those things don't actually want them that much.

Nobody wants a high-end android cameraphone where the camera firmware self-destructs when you unlock the bootloader. For better or for worse, the android world is reliant on custom roms if you want long-term software support. Wiping the camera firmware is unacceptable given that reality. Again, the whole custom rom thing is a bandaid patch on a shitty, user-hostile OS model that makes it nearly impossible to perform…

> I got an iPhone instead. Much less user-hostile.

Umm, that’s backwards. You can’t install your own software or unlock the boot loader. As soon as Apple decides the phone is e-waste, you can’t do anything about it unless there is a jailbreak. It just so happens that Apple offers software updates slightly longer than competitors, but this could easily change, as we have seen on macOS where 6 year old Intel macs no longer receive OS support. That is the pinnacle of user hostile.

Re: Opinion: I'd rather have a headphone jack and a microSD slot than AI in my phone

#86

Post by bags43 »

JadeNB wrote: post #70
bags43 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samsung Exynos 1380 is huge downgrade and cam offers no improvement.

Huh, the reviews I read seemed to say that the camera was a huge step up. (But maybe they were mostly comparing to the A53, which seemed uniformly to be regarded as a regression.) If not, then I feel quite stupid for paying the extra to "upgrade" to an A54, instead of an A52, from my A50. (Also, though it's easy for me to believe this random search result is dodgy, and with the understanding that benchmarks don't mea…

Raw performance is not only factor. There is heating, battery and image post processing optimizations which are miles ahead on SD.

Re: Opinion: I'd rather have a headphone jack and a microSD slot than AI in my phone

#87

Post by paulmd »

sumuyuda wrote: post #85
paulmd wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody wants a high-end android cameraphone where the camera firmware self-destructs when you unlock the bootloader. For better or for worse, the android world is reliant on custom roms if you want long-term software support. Wiping the camera firmware is unacceptable given that reality. Again, the whole custom rom thing is a bandaid patch on a shitty, user-hostile OS model that makes it nearly impossible to perform…

> I got an iPhone instead. Much less user-hostile. Umm, that’s backwards. You can’t install your own software or unlock the boot loader. As soon as Apple decides the phone is e-waste, you can’t do anything about it unless there is a jailbreak. It just so happens that Apple offers software updates slightly longer than competitors, but this could easily change, as we have seen on macOS where 6 year old Intel macs no lo…

No, I find the vendor deliberately self-destructing the firmware to be more user-hostile than having to set up altstore once.

It is something that shouldn’t even be required in the first place, the android support model is incredibly user-hostile at the best of times. So if you punish me for trying to keep my device up to date after your shitty 2 year support window expires then I’m not going to buy it. And I know a few brands have adopted longer lifespans but most android phones sold are not from those brands.

Moreover, I think this is a perfect example of the way the anti-apple crowd has glommed onto all the terminology and appropriated it as solely meaning the things that favor their brand. There’s more to right to repair than component-level replacement for example - oem parts availability and OS support lifespans are key factors in waste generation too.

You don’t get to tell me what I find user-hostile or not, and user-hostility certainly isn’t a phenomenon that is only restricted to brands that whatever group of fanboys like or not. There are many user-hostile aspects of the whole android package and distribution model despite the fact you can sideload or install a rom (maybe, if the vendor doesn’t delete the firmware while you do it).

Even in the narrowest possible sense of “treating the user as an attacker”, I’d feel pretty damn attacked if my phone deleted its camera firmware because it thought I unlocked the bootloader! But that doesn’t count of course, because user-hostility is narrowly defined to only happen on platforms that android people don’t like. It’s all just very tedious, and when I hear endlessly about the battery throttle (that you can turn off!) but not the android phones that delete their own firmware when the user wants to unlock the bootloader it’s hard to view the whole “user-hostility” thing and right-to-repair more generally as being anything other than a bad-faith ploy. There are actually important issues there that get lost in the sea of brand warriorism and financially-interested parties.

When you are playing with language and narrowly defining things to mean only the things that don’t happen on your platform, you aren’t being serious, you’re being a fanboy.

https://paulgraham.com/fh.html

Re: Opinion: I'd rather have a headphone jack and a microSD slot than AI in my phone

#88

Post by MyFedora »

This thread is the definition of people who want features that most people don't care about.

Headphone jack? Bluetooth.

Audiophile? DAC.

microSD slot? Cloud storage.

User-removable battery? Power bank.

FM radio? Internet.

Degoogled phone? Really?

Re: Opinion: I'd rather have a headphone jack and a microSD slot than AI in my phone

#90

Post by [deleted] »

sumuyuda wrote: post #85
paulmd wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody wants a high-end android cameraphone where the camera firmware self-destructs when you unlock the bootloader. For better or for worse, the android world is reliant on custom roms if you want long-term software support. Wiping the camera firmware is unacceptable given that reality. Again, the whole custom rom thing is a bandaid patch on a shitty, user-hostile OS model that makes it nearly impossible to perform…

> I got an iPhone instead. Much less user-hostile. Umm, that’s backwards. You can’t install your own software or unlock the boot loader. As soon as Apple decides the phone is e-waste, you can’t do anything about it unless there is a jailbreak. It just so happens that Apple offers software updates slightly longer than competitors, but this could easily change, as we have seen on macOS where 6 year old Intel macs no lo…

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