You will have to pry my Galaxy S10 from my cold dead hands
Seems like in this day and age, the cheaper the phone the more features you get … you can get a cheapo phone (100-150 euro) with a huge 2-day battery, two physical SIM slots AND an SD card slot, headphone jack, ok-ish cameras … usually they’re huge, 6.5" or more …
I still have it and still use it
My $200 Motorola has one, I don’t see the issue here. If headphone jacks are important to you, find a phone that has one. I’ve never had a smartphone without a jack.
Well, if you want something with good cameras and/or a future-proofed CPU for the next 10+ years, you can’t buy a phone with “legacy” features. That’s why I was holding onto my Redmi 4X until recently. Now I have a Redmi K90 without a headphone connector, SDcard slot or an unlockable bootloader - because capitalism. At least it could run a Browser decently - unlike the older one.
My plan is to use the new phone for the next 10 - 12 years (or more if I can still use a web browser decently). Could a ~150€ Redmi shitbox do this? - From my experience: if you like waiting 10 mins for a simple website to load.
At least throwing money at the problem mitigates it somewhat.
This was my annoyed rant. Enjoy.
Also: The new phone doesn’t even support analog audio output (for some stupid reason) and I have to buy a 10€ DAC to have a decent wired audio. Spending money makes you spend more money. Great.
I am running CrDroid on a €150 Redmi shitbox and I don’t have any trouble opening websites. I don’t even look at processing power when picking a phone, all I need is headphone jack, fingerprint unlock, e-sim: whoop, filtered 1000 phones down to 2.
But using a phone for 10 years? You’ve used yours since 2016? Or do you mean that no phone ever lasted for 10 years, but this next one surely will?
on a €150 Redmi shitbox and I don’t have any trouble opening websites. I don’t even look at processing power when picking a phone, all I need is headphone jack, fingerprint unlock, e-sim: whoop, filtered
Well, the old Redmi (from early 2017 - almost 10 years - if it had a slightly better CPU, it would have been fine - static websites run tolerable, but I do need web-apps relatively often) still fully works (after replacing the battery) - so the (edit: new) phone will probably last at least 10 years, but will it do things I need decently fast - fuck knows, it will probably be way better than the lowest performance device I could find.
I used the Redmi since around 2022, but it was used by my dad since 2017. So it could be relatively fine this time.
Also the phone:
Let’s not forget our dearly departed SD Card slot.
I stillhave it
I wanted to add more space to my stuff, too.
last year almost checked out a phone without jack at the carrier’s store, noticed on time, turned around and got a model with lower specs but had a jack
The Clicks Communicator BB clone looks to have a Jack. It’s in the running!!
Clicks Communicator BB clone
What I miss about Blackberry is the trackball. Touchscreens are fine for what they are, but the BB trackball allowed pixel-perfect precision pointing – it was worth it having to clean the lint out of it every so often.
I don’t miss the 16-bit graphics, though.
I feel like the only people who crave the physical keyboard on a phone are the ones that still refuse to use a Swype style keyboard on a touch screen.
When they were first released it was pretty good and now it’s basically perfect.
I have not had a physical keyboard since my palm pre died and have not felt the need to go back.
The physical keyboard meant you could type under the table at a meeting, text in complete darkness, or type while watching something else. They nailed the keyshapes so that your fingers knew they key positions.
Swipe was great like 6 years ago. In the last five at least it’s been steadily getting worse, and it’s gotten significantly worse since they replaced whatever existing algorithm with their AI bullshit. Now my keyboard tries to put in slurs because the prediction is based on the internet. You delete them from the dictionary and they just pop right back up. It misspells commonly misspelled words now too.
Trash everytime In your issuing Thurs shoot us and exerciser inn frustratinglyYah Everton I use thistle shot of an exerciser on gridironYah everytime I use this shot is an exerciser in frustration
Close enough
You know that you can change keyboards right? Futo swipe texting works great.
Swipe gang rise up
Why use swype keyboards when you can use thumb-key ?
I mean, unless your hand are such that you can type using 10 fingers while holding your phone, using a typewriter machine’s keyboard (so that the branches don’t mix if you type too fast?) is a total non-sens!
That looks interesting but I’m kinda turned off that it’s made by an authoritarian propagandist. And yes I know he made Lemmy too, and he’s also why so many instances block ml.
If yo prefer a non-free option, made by a profit oriented company, “message ease” offer a similar system…
Also, using a qwerty keyboard doesn’t force you to love neither Remington nor Mr Sholes…
Oh i know it’s a nonsense position to take and I’m probably gonna check out the keyboard anyway, I just don’t like that guy’s values.
I haven’t checked them, but I think I am banned from at least some .ml things ; I am not sure if I can still see them.
Honestly it’s because I never felt the need to change. Looks interesting though.
Using a mixture of the suggestions, swipe, and thumb typing on a touch qwerty I can write faster than I could on a keyboard, it’s super easy. Even when I was practicing touch typing on a physical qwerty, my brain couldn’t manage more than average 40wpm I don’t think. Which is slow, if I remember. Much faster using a mixture of input styles depending on the word I am about to input. My mind pretty much instinctively knows which is gonna be the fastest method of the 3 at this point. I don’t think limiting one’s self to a single input style would make people like me any faster.
I’m glad my current phone has this. Earphones with the cable seems to handle calling while bicycling better ✨
I refurbished my old iPod, new motherboard, new screen, new battery and SD card mod. Given the phone sizes today it feels super light in comparison. Plus battery last much longer now. I’d rather have a headphone jack but it’s actually cool to rock an iPod in 2026.
Still have it on all of my Windows 10 Mobile phones.
I can live without the headphone jack, no micro SD card is the bigger sin, limiting you to your phones built in storage for no reason other than pure greed is infuriating
This was solely, and I mean completely solely, done out of greed to make more money by massive up charges to the phone model with more storage, and to push users into using their cloud based storage systems that would lock you into their ecosystem and and make a subscription based profit.
I haven’t needed the extra storage of the micro SD since what feels like forever. My current phone has 128GB, I’m only using half of it and I have hardly deleted anything from it in something like 2 years.
I also had what appeared be too much storage.
Then I got 2 cats.
Now it says 99% full.
Ok so you got a ton of photos of your cats but you’re not sharing any. I see how it is.
She came to inspect what you were complaining about 😅
No cat taxation without cat representation.
Doesn’t matter if you don’t have a use for larger hot swappable storage, many others do, otherwise all these phone companies wouldn’t sell higher storage models for absurdly high markup
I have broken 4 micro SDs in the last 2 years. Thsnkfully, “broken” means set to read-only mods, so i could recover it. But yeah. I use it a lot.
This shows just shitty SD cards are for storage that’s used a lot. Even the expensive ones for high intensity use burn out really fast.
I only recently learned that when they die they (usually) go read-only and you can very easily
ddto a new SD and carry-on.Would have saved me a lot of headaches over the years.
And that’s why I stopped giving a shit about SD card slots. I’ve never had a micro SD that didn’t break within a few years at most. It’s annoying and since you have to keep buying new cards it’s not even cheaper than just buying a phone with “enough” storage. I’d rather spend the money up front on a phone with a higher storage tier and have it actually work worry-free for the entire five plus years I’m using it.
Some people actually take pictures and videos. Or if you’re a phone gamer, some games will take up over 20 gigs themselves. … But good for you?
I’ve been self-hosting my own storage backup with Immich, and it’s been a game changer for me. It’s been an improvement over swapping out microsd cards and keeping track of what is stored where.
I mean, yes but also Android has no idea how to properly use MicroSD cards and that is fucking annoying.
lol what are you talking about considering Android is the only mobile OS that even lets you access the file system unlike apple
I mean how I can’t just put an SD card in and the system just treats it as part of the file system. There is all this stupid juggling of apps needed and something “can’t be installed on the SD Card” for reasons I can only imagine are “dumb.”
It should be, if I stick a 128gb card in a 64gb phone, the phone just shows “196gb of memory”.
There is a feature in Android called Adoptable storage that does what you described, but not all phone manufacturers support it directly, and it’s mostly been phased out over the years for a few reasons.
If you do this that SD card becomes permanently bound to your phone, if you remove it and attach it to a computer it cannot be read anymore, which means if your phone dies that data cannot be recovered,
also most SD cards even the high end ones are drastically slower than the phones built in memory, so if you make the phone treat the SD card as part of the overall system, it will bottleneck the performance of the phone and make it slow and stuttering,
And the way SD cards are made they aren’t designed for constant fast read and writes, as that will burn out the card and cause it to fail early
If you drop your phone the SD card might jiggle a little and get disconnected from the for a tiny bit, ordinarily it wouldn’t matter but in this Adopted storage mode it would crash your phone and make it reboot.
Some of these reasons is why a lot of app developers force their apps to only be installed on the internal storage and not the SD card. SD cards are best for storing large media and static data like music, movies, photos,
Makes sense but a lot of that feels like something that could be overcome with some proper coding. Like add a trigger (similar to when you just plug it in a PC) that lets it disconnect during that drop jiggle
Or just mount it as a folder automatically when present, so it can just be a format that will work in the PC.
On the performance issue, it just kind of feels like something that is less likely a real issue with a decent memory card. Like at worst, oh no, it takes 2 seconds instead of 1 to open the app.
Oh that actually worked fine in Ice Cream Sandwich, they just removed it a bit later so you’d buy a new phone with more storage or something.
Not “196gb of memory” of course, that’d be stupid, it’s removable storage and you can’t put system files on it for example. But you could easily transfer apps to SD card, they’d just stop working when you changed cards.
I still use 3.5mm auxiliary cables on a daily basis. Not phased out quite yet.
Sony xPeria 6 user here still using aux for headphones
I leave a USB-C to headphone jack adapter attached to my headphones. I’ve had these headphones for 10+ years. They’re nice, sound superb, and don’t have batteries.
Yes, but they require to add an adaptator to charge the device while you use the headphone. So a good old jack would make the device better.
Should I choose between two devices and the only difference would be that one has the 3.5 jack, and the other doesn’t ; I would take the one with the jack…
I’ve had a Sony phone for my last 2 phones, so quite some time. Great units, WITH that delicious headphones jack AND microSD slot. Praying to the phone gods that this continues.
The Motorola Moto G (at least for now) also has both
I’ve own 3 Moto Gs. They are good budget bricks. But they do not age well as far as software goes.
Didn’t know there was anyone still doing that. I assume no removable battery? Any pre installed bloatware?
Hi mate, both Sony devices were fairly clear of bullshit software, but I used ADB to remove Facebook etc. Compared to Samsung Galaxy Tablet of the same year, the Sony is a clean dream. All my music is on the microSD card (almost all FLAC). Internal DAC is good too.
Lots of Chinese phones definitely do IR blaster, dual SIM and SD card. I don’t think the headphone jack is as common since it steals a lot of room for something that most people actually do not use or want.
mine is dual SIM. i don’t think i’ve ever used that slot since my cellphone telephone company moved to eSIMs. I’d rather have the microSD slot
I have only bad memories of jack headphones. There always were cable issues.
True, I switched to IEMs with replacable cables, so at least I can spend a little more on the headphones without fearing that a tiny crack will make them worthless. The cables I bought are pretty durable though, seems like the right twisted copper can survive going in a pocket after all.
Hey, that’s untrue!
Sometimes you just had the wrong 3.5mm jack on the headphones for the 3.5mm jack on your phone.
It’s why I don’t really miss it myself.
That’s crazy, hilarious that not all 3.5mm males & females were compatible. Hmm now that I put it that way, just like humans. Absolutely maddening.
Nope, my cable issues were that the cable kept breaking with regular use and constant replacement got expensive fast. All planned obsolescence.
I recently bought an MP3 player because I was so sick of Sonos fucking me around, messing with Bluetooth for a few minutes every time I wanted to play a song, losing or breaking my USBC to aux adaptors, no local storage for music, subscriptions, etc.
$100 and this thing has dual DAC chips, can be used as a desktop DAC, has a micro SD card slot, 3.5 AND 4.4mm aux output, and USBC rechargeable. (And Bluetooth but I’m not touching that.) It’s genuinely so good that I’m thinking about dumping all “smart” crap and just going full Y2K with my tech.
Does it play FLAC and OGG files? Make/Model please?
Yep. I have .flacs .wav etc. Plays em all. They call em DAPs (Digital audio players) now instead of MP3 player because they can play most music formats.
Fiio Echo
Thanks for the pic and details! That’s a nice bit of kit there.
Dank
Ass
PlayerEDIT: Another highly recommend player is the HIFI WALKER H2. Some people are putting custom firmware on it, if you don’t like the stock.
This thing popped out in my feed in the last days and I was tempted, would you suggest it?
P.s. is that a KZ / KBear cable I see?
I’ve really been enjoying it, and it sounds great. I’ve been using the desktop DAC mode for gaming because it genuinely sounds so good.
The iems are actually Jade audio jh13 (also made by fiio). They were like $50 and probably have the best sound quality I’ve ever had in buds. And I used to have some expensive earbuds back in the iPod days.
A premium option for an MP3 player would be the Tangara. open hardware, open software and even has a wheel like the old iPods, plus the team is on the Fediverse
That might be an open source model, but it’s definitely not the premium option.
There are some very expensive models out there. Astell & Kern for one, even the brand I got my $100 DAP from has a model that’s a few thousand dollars
I would never touch a Sonos after what they did to the people with the first gen hardware.
It’s my biggest fear with cloud crap and then they went and confirmed it.
Yeah I have first gen Sonos. I heard they had bricked em before my app upgraded and I disconnected them from the internet before they got to mine. They’ve just been offline since, only used on the tv.
2025 Motorola 5g Stylus. Aux port and SD card slot. It’s fantastic. And Motorola supports grapheneOS
Graphene on that phone?
I haven’t done it yet. But they did an announcement that they are supporting it on more devices going forward. I think they have one device that is going to have Graphene by default
Not sold in Australia. I’ve had that issue a lot with smart phones over the years. The one time I bought one from a different retailer I spent $2k on the damn thing and the stock phone case shattered the glass body fresh out the box, and it stopped charging after 6 months. Asus refused to service it because it wasn’t covered by warranty in Australia, completely ignoring Australian consumer protection laws. Nothing came of my legal complaint either, they just took the fine they received. Never buying Asus again, or a model that isn’t covered in Australia.
Ah no, booo urns!
I want to buy something like this but two of the things I always look for with MP3 players are touch screen and Android so I can download Musicolet, or whatever other apps I want. Players like yours sometimes come with touch screen (sometimes not) but they never have Android.
And unfortunately the ones that fall within those parameters are a crap shoot. Just had one fail after one summer of light use (SD card slot). Previous one lasted a few years before failing (3.5mm jack).
They’re all made by companies with Chinese names with absolutely no online presence whatsoever other than the Amazon page they’re sold on.
The more premium models from Fiio are all touch screen with Android. I specifically didn’t want Android and they were out of my budget anyways. HiBy comes recommended too from the research I did and I think they are all touch screen with Android as well.
I bought an innioasys Y1 for similar reasons (I really wanted that old school iPod feel) and I love it. Running RockBox firmware and all my music fits on it. It feels nice to have something reliable and tactile (and also not the same device that accepts messages and other notifications that interrupt my music)
And this is why phones don’t need 3.5mm jacks.
If you really want it so bad just buy a DAC/DAP.
Wouldn’t need it if I could buy a phone with a jack and SD card slot. This is the problem smart phones were supposed to solve
Smartphones are supposed to be general purpose, not catering to a specific niche like audiophiles. Wireless and/or dongle works for most people.
It’s kinda like saying you wouldn’t need to buy a camera if only smartphones had interchangeable lenses.
I don’t need an audiophile smart phone. But the main draw back in the day was you could declutter your pockets. But then they removed functionality after everyone got rid of all the extra devices. Like the aux port, expandable storage, removable batteries etc.
In this case I bought one of the cheapest DAPs I could find. It just happens to also have noticeably great sound quality. I just wanted an aux port and enough storage to have my music stored locally so I wasn’t relying on the cloud or a subscription. I was sick of fucking around trying to get wireless stuff connected all the time. It never works right in my experience.
Bruh, I had a phone with an infrared blaster for television. The moment fairphone comes out with something that works with a graphene. I’m in.
They won’t, since they really don’t like the graphene guys and are in bed with their competitors who really enjoy harassing them.
