• 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.

  • 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.

  • 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?

  • 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

  • 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!

  • 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.

  • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Can’t say I love the feature but the front facing camera getting “integrated” into the screen isn’t nearly as annoying as I thought it would be.

  • pory@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    IR blaster, removable battery, MicroSD slot, analog headphone jack, unlocked bootloader, stylus. The Note 3 was the peak of android phone design. I’m using an S22 Ultra nowadays because of all those features I’m a huge slut for the S-Pen, even to the point of sacrificing all of the others… But I’d love for the rest of those to make a comeback.

      • 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

        • 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

        • 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…

      • 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.

  • colonial@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Power button fingerprint sensors. I had one on my S10e, and I loved it - with the way I held the phone, my thumb naturally rested on the power button, so it was pretty much auto-unlocked.

    Now they seem to have fallen by the wayside in favor of in-screen sensors - which are cool, but ever-so-slightly more cumbersome. Ah well, still better than facial recognition.

  • 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.

    • Secret300@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Still to this day my favorite phone was the LG Leon. Cheap, durable, small, and the button were on the back!

  • T156@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    IR blasters. They were nice as a little pocket universal remote.

    The air gestures that Samsung put in the S5. It was a gimmick, but a useful one, since you could use it to control things without having to fiddle with the screen.

    Also the screen-off gestures on the Oneplus 5. It was great for turning the torch on or opening apps without having to faff about as much with the screen.

    • sriracha_no_big_deal@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I used to work in a call center that had some TVs placed sporadically throughout the call floor. It was up to the manager what they wanted to have play on the TV of their row. Some would play the generic company slideshow that showed random stats and quotes and corporate rah rah BS, but others were fine with normal TV like EPSN or whatever. My manager was the head of the department and said he was fine with us putting whatever we wanted on the TVs. Unfortunately, me and the people around me couldn’t see our row’s TV from our desk, but we could see the TV of the row next to us; however, that manager was a complete power-tripping asshole and only wanted the company slide-show.

      I would always use the IR blaster on my phone to change the TV to ESPN when his back was turned and see how long it took him to notice. Whenever he did notice, he’d walk around super mad trying to figure out who did it but he never suspected me. Eventually he just gave up and just let the TVs stay on ESPN.

      And that’s the story of how I used the IR blaster on my phone to slowly bully the asshole manager into being slightly less of an asshole.

  • WolfhoundRO@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Nokia N95 flipping both up and down. I really liked those music player buttons when flipping it down