They removed 3 ways water could get inside the phone
Personally, water damage on the phones I had always was a rare edge case. The only time I ever water damaged my phone was when I accidentally put it in the washing machine and Iām sure no phone would have survived that.
plastics dont break, are cheap to replace, donāt get hot or cold with weather, donāt interfere with wireless charging, have much more grip, and can be made into any texture (matt or glassy).
I donāt understand why anyone would prefer metal/glass phone besides for the reason ālook at me, ma, my phone is prettyā.
Who tf used an IR blaster? And what sane person misses the flimsy plastic back on phones with removable batteries? They didnāt cut a hole in your screen, they removed a half inch of dead useless space at the top and bottom and gave you more usable real estate while also cranking the resolution and refresh rate to 11. Buttons? WHAT BUTTONS EXACTLY? The single enormous one that ate up nearly 25% of the phone and all it did was GO BACK?! And donāt even mention the cameras. Your five cameras you didnāt ask for are why you can film yourself in 4K doing whatever brain dead tiktok fad you saw on your enormous HD screen, and why you can pretend you had front row seats to a concert you sat in the nosebleeds for.
Headphone jack is fair, no argument. I use Bluetooth headphones but I get the rationale. Everything else is stupid.
Iāve been trying to acclimate my Dad to digital stuff-- get him reading the news online for when the local rag finally goes weekly or closes.
He would have an easier time with a device with 5% less screen, but always-present physical home/back/menu buttons.
Iām not sure what the ideal device would be for him; Iāve set him up with a Kindle Fire with the Play store and a handful of prevetted apps because I had it handy and it seemed more approachable than a 6" phone or a laptop with keyboard and trackpoint. But Iām all but sure the right device is NOT a new phone.
Your argument against removable batteries is that they had a āflimsy plastic backā? seriously prefer being unable to change the battery when its capacity decreases, being unable to carry a spare battery around, and having to pay dumb service fees, all just to not have a back that you barely even notice is made of plastic?
Also removable storage is extremely useful as well, not only for being able to cheaply increase space when needed, but also to minimize the effort of swapping devices or sharing large files more quickly.
Modular is always better. The only good argument against it is shareholder profits.
It doesnāt even need to be plastic. The battery could slot into the side of the phone on a tray with a gasket to try and seal it.
Personally I donāt think the battery needs to be as easily replaced if it lasts longer. Lithium ion cells degrade too quickly but a lithium iron phosphate cold last for 10 years before dropping below 85% charge capacity.
The only drawback is they have about 30% less energy density but imo making the battery 30% larger is not a big deal. Phones have obsessed with being pointlessly thin for so long. Basically just remove the dumb camera bump.
While Iām all about options because everyone has different use cases, Iāve found that over the years as these features have been removed, I havenāt really missed them
I must be a fkn weirdo because I just donāt care about any of these things.
Replaceable battery is an exception - but thatās coming back anyway.
I donāt have any devices that use infra red
I donāt need a microsd because the on board memory is so much I donāt even have to think about capacity any more
I much prefer bluetooth
I much prefer a larger screen instead of buttons.
They didnāt really cut a hole in my screen, they expanded my screen around my front facing camera. You can disable that expanded portion of the screen on most phones ?
I use the rear camera on my phone all. the. time.
I love it when uninformed troglodytes complain about a hole in the screen. They didnāt add a hold in the screen. The hole was already there. They just wrapped your screen around it for more screen. š