• Elektrotechnik@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Easily notification light. People always say “oh, it’s totally obsolete with always on displays”. But with a notification light I could focus on other stuff and the blinking light got my attention better. With the AOD, I always catch myself glancing at my phone. Also, the light’s color clearly indicated which app caused the notification. I had White for calls, Green for Whatsapp, Yellow for the ebay app, Red for GMail and so on. “You can do all that with an OLED screen! It only lights up the pixels that-” Can you, though? All apps that I tried were utter garbage. Buggy performance, very battery hungry and very cumbersome to configure. I don’t know if custom firmwares actually have that feature in a usable state nowadays, as I cannot root my phone anymore without losing core functionalities like online banking.

    Yeah, everything tends to go to shit with time. I miss my Galaxy S2.

    • holoyolo@partizle.com
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      1 year ago

      Can’t believe I forgot all about this. It was the one thing I was sad to lose when I upgraded from my Nexus 5 to the Google Pixel. So simple but so useful.

    • noneabove1182@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      even going from my xperia 1 iv to xperia 1 v, i’m so sad I don’t have a notification LED anymore, when it’s plugged in to charge I have no idea if it’s charging, fully charged, or what… without enabling my AOD which I don’t want to do, i have no way of knowing if there are any notifications without turning on my display

    • phx@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Can you, though

      You can. The technology is good but like many things the implementations are often kinda shyte

  • trubedour@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Not so much a gimmick, as much as something that seemingly went extinct that I miss: rear fingerprint sensors. I loved them on my Nexus/Pixels, and the in-screen one on my 6a is way less consistent and convenient.

    Also it flashbangs me when I try to unlock my phone at night.

    • colonial@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I had a side/power button fingerprint sensor on my S10e. The S22’s in-screen one is cool and all, but I really miss how my phone would be unlocked before it even came out of my pocket.

    • Dasnap@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I use a phone case with a cover so rear scanners were a pain for me.

    • limelight79@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      My Samsung Galaxy S9 had that, at least until something happened to the sensor. It was in my phone holder in the car, and the holder fell while I was driving. It’s possible my dog hit it with his claws, I don’t know what actually killed it, but it definitely happened during that drive.

      I got a new sensor but never installed it, because I never got around to getting the double sided tape I would need. Then I cracked the screen…

  • Zebov@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Apparently nearly everything I look for in a phone. Others have said IR blaster, side squeeze, notification light, and pop-up front camera, all of which were amazing.

    I’d add an unlocked bootloader (I bought it, it’s my phone to do what I want with), removable battery (hello instant charging), and a small form factor (so sick of needing two hands to do anything).

    • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      Not a gimmick. It was great to control TVs, air conditioners, audio receivers, and even electronics projects using something like an arduino and an IR sensor. Such a shame that our smartphones have been stripped of so many features as companies have run out of good ideas to increase demand.

      • phx@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I feel like the implementation was a bit gimmicky. I first used an IR transceiver as a remote on a late-model palm and the interface was much better than most apps I found on Android.

        I wonder if it would be possible to pack that functionality into a smart-watch

    • Magister@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I have one on my PoCo F3 (not old, 2021, a bomb phone when it went out, powerful as a S21 but half the price. It is still way faster than dozens of new cellphones.)

      I’m using the IR blaster for my AV receiver 🙂

      • Frankelton@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        They don’t seem to exist much anymore, so must be a gimmick, right? Useful and popular features surely wouldn’t get removed

        • Omega@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I get your sarcasm. But I’d like to point out that the claim would be that it’s outdated tech, not gimmicky.

          It’s still a lie, though.

          • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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            1 year ago

            In reality the manufacturers don’t have any new good ideas so they have to resort to cost cutting in order to increase profit. They’ll just slap a 13th camera lens on the back and tailor their marketing material to make people think they need more lenses over anything else.

  • ryan213@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s been gone for a while now, but I really liked the IR blaster to use as a secondary remote when you can’t find the remote because your toddler was playing with it. Dammit Susie!

  • Klaymore@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Idk if this is a gimmick but I love swiping on the rear fingerprint scanner to pull up/down the notifications and quick settings. I also got an app that lets me swipe left/right on the sensor to adjust the brightness.

    • epygots@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Adjusting the brightness with the fingerprint scanner sounds super practical, how’s that app called?

  • sab@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    On my motorola: quick shake side to side to enable flashlight. So easy to use, it’s become second nature. I’ll have to find a way to replicate that on the next phone I get.

  • UESPA_Sputnik@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Material You. I wondered why they wasted resources for … colors. But it’s so nice to have a consistently colored UI across apps and across dark/light modes, and I wished that more apps would support it. Also, those pastel colors are less stressful for the eyes than the previous grey/blue.

    I know it’s not everyone’s taste but I really like it.

    • I have to respectfully disagree here. I would like to be able to choose what that color is. I HATE when I use a picture of my orange cat for a background and all my apps are brown.

      If there’s some way to override it and choose your own color, I haven’t found it.

      • UESPA_Sputnik@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You can choose from several colors, not just your background colors.

        Go to Wallpaper & Style > Basic colors. (on a Pixel; it might be slightly different on other phones)

        • Thanks for the tip! Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s an option in OxygenOS. I think I’ve tried LWP+ before and it didn’t work. I might give it another shot, though.

          As for now, I’ve got a picture of my calico cat as my home screen wallpaper. She’s very white up front so it’s more bluish. I like it. My orange boy is my lock screen. So it works out.

          I honestly just want it all pitch black because menus on an OLED look fantastic when the background is black. I believe I already had everything blacked out before the update.

      • turbineBMW@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        That’s my problem with it. It’s nice but they wash the colors out and it feels truly impossible to get a good color out of it.

      • jerb@lemmy.croc.pw
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        1 year ago

        Look into the app Repainter. It isn’t free and needs root or Shizuku access but does the trick.

      • UESPA_Sputnik@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Over on /r/Android there was a very vocal crowd that saw it not only as a gimmick but actively detested it. In their opinion an UI is only good when it has an AMOLED black background (and 0 px padding between UI elements, but that’s a different topic).

  • TONKAHANAH@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Rear power and volume buttons.

    To this day my favorite phone remains the LG v10. It has nice metal rails on the side, a rubber removable back, sd card slot, aux port with a high end dac, wide(er) screen, and buttons on the back of the phones right where your indexed finger would rest when holding it.

    Figure print sensor on the button didn’t work all that well, but worked better than this shit on screen reader. The buttons being on the back meant your could just grab the phone in anyway with out worrying if you’re gonna Power the phone off, turn the vol down, take a screenshot, etc. This also meant getting it knot phone holders was almost never an issue.

    That was the closest an android phone got to perfection. After that they started trying to follow tends and phase out the good parts to the point of leaving the Android market entirely.

  • Dylpickles@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    That pop up camera on the OnePlus 7 pro.

    That thing was cool as fuck. My roommate got the phone and I was VERY jealous even though I had a OnePlus 8T at the time.

    • knifer@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      As a OnePlus 7 Pro owner, I absolutely love it. No front camera cutout was one of the reasons I bought it.

    • MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 year ago

      OP 7 Pro is my current phone, I don’t use the selfie cam often but it’s always neat looking at how they designed that feature

    • gaydarless@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      I just switched away from my OP7P after several years of owning and loving it, and I do miss that pop up camera. You never had to worry you were going to take a selfie you weren’t ready for. 😂

    • Sota4077@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I cannot recall which phone it was, but going to sports bars in college and changing the channel on the TV to the games I wanted to watch was so cool. Probably pissed a whole lotta people off, but I was a young college shithead and didn’t really register that at the time.

    • Bazoogle@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Same. I keep a USB IR blaster on my keychain for the same purpose. Isn’t quite as nice since I have to carry it around, but it gets the job done in a pinch

      • ted_pikul@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Tell me more about this USB IR blaster. What do you have? How do you control it? I a. Very interested in getting one of these.

        • Bazoogle@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It’s a little keychain USB-C IR blaster. There’s a few that work, but this one has a decent case: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804935230204.html

          If you look around enough, you might be able to find it cheaper too. They’re basically all the same thing. I bought one, and it used the app “Zaza remote” and I really liked that app. You could read a remote and save the IR codes from remotes not in the database to make custom remotes. That one also basically seemed to be “unlocked” in a sense it seemed I could use it with a lot of apps. However, it got lost at some point from my keychain holder, so I bought a few more. Unfortunately, they used a different app called “Ocrustar” and I couldn’t use it with any other app. The packaging and the blaster are identical, and there’s probably no good way to tell from the listing. But the new one still works, the app just isn’t as good. I can still turn down the really loud TV in the waiting rooms pretty discretely.

          The link I sent above seems to be one of the “Ocrustar” ones based on the images in the description. And the original one I bought was no longer being sold, so I couldn’t just buy from that listing again otherwise I would have. The same ones are also available from Amazon for 3x the price

      • gamermanh@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Mine has one too but I still miss when they were putting them on the back of phones

        Was just an easier spot to me

        • RandysGut@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Back of the phone was the best. I could pull my phone out of my pocket and unlock my phone in single motion and decent grip. Plus the swipe gestures for accessing the notifications bar…

        • RisingSwell@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Despite enjoying multiple models of the phone I currently have I won’t get a new model because the sensor is on the power button. Back of the phone supremacy under screen is OK if it works, power button sensor can burn in a hole.

        • JustARegularNerd@aussie.zone
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          1 year ago

          I am rocking a Pixel 4a and it still has the sensor on the back, I couldn’t possibly go back to the dodgy sensors on the phones like the Samsung Galaxy S5 or J7 Pro which had them on the skinny oval home button. Likewise I still have an iPhone SE and I hate the Touch ID on it, it’s so awkward to use.

          The back fingerprint sensor needs to stay, absolutely the most ergonomic way to unlock my phone I’ve ever had.

        • Atemu
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          1 year ago

          Power button is also nice and that’s a lot more common nowadays. I like it better than the inconsistent mess of under-screen sensors.

        • DontTreadOnBigfoot@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Same. The back sensor on my pixel 4a was positioned perfectly for me and didn’t leave one big thumbprint smudge like the in-screen on my 6.

          It was also much more responsive

      • Awesomejt@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I have a Pixel 6 with underscreen fingerprint reader and I love it. Only wish it was a tad faster and a little less prone to not recognising my thumb occasionally. Hopefully the tech is already better in newer models.

        • DigDoug@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          In case you haven’t already, I’ve found that adding the same fingerprint multiple times makes it a lot more reliable.