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The 90s kid in me yearns for a phone with Fm radio, headphone jack, IR blaster, stylus, memory card slot, slide out keyboard and one of those click on projectors the Motorola phones used to have. I would call it the Donatello and it would be radical.
There are gaming phones, phones with crazy cameras, and iPhones where the lack of features is a feature. What I wish to have is a phone with as many features and functionality as possible.
That includes (but not limited to): IR blaster Headphone jack MicroSD card slot FM Radio RGB Notification/Status LED
Rather than a slim phone with a glossy finish that will pick up scratches right away unless wrapped in a phone case, the outer cover of the phone should be rugged and replaceable. Like with old Nokia phones. I don’t care about few extra grams, or another millimeter of thickness. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.
I was hopeful about the Fairphone at first, but they started removing features as well.
“You don’t need practical capabilities, you need to be an obedient consumer.”
—OEMs
Disappointed Moto Mods didn’t catch on. The obvious approach of “skinny phone with minimal features but you can slap whatever you like onto the back (radios, projectors, beefy batteries, gamepad, etc)” - just makes sense for me. I loved my old Moto Z.
I’ve come to the realization that the phone I want is a Nokia 3310 “brick”.
- Infinite battery life
- compact size
- headphone jack
- indestructible
- no spyware
- no social media
- T9 texting
- no software updates
- Snake
- Brick Breaker
Some of these I get, but I don’t get the T9 thing. T9 was so bad! It took ages to type many words. Today’s predictive keyboards are miles better.
Also, no software updates? Sure, every now and then there’s a shitty update, but most updates are great. New features and especially bug fixes are amazing. Used to be that if something had a bug, you just had to deal with it. There’s no guarantees it’ll be fixed today, but many companies do fix their bugs at least eventually. The ability to iteratively develop is huge for software quality. These days, unless you’re developing something that absolutely cannot fail (like a mars prober or radiation therapy machine), it’s widely agreed upon that iterative design is superior to “waterfall” design of trying to plan it out all ahead of time. Part of why is so you can get feedback continuously instead of only after you’ve committed to months of tech debt.
When T9 was all we had, we got real good at it.
No software updates mean they have to get it right the first time, which they always seemed to manage.
For emergency purposes, mandate cell tower batteries with solar supplement.
And generators for bigger hubs.
Cellular internet is critical infrastructure now.
Same for ISPs. My internet wifi has battery backup, so as long as the ISP stays up we are good.
Cell towers nearby all went down during the last big power failure. I could hit one distant tower that still had power, but the signal was weak, and the tower was swamped. It could barely push data.
Next big earthquake will be a total shitshow if that’s not fixed.
No thanks. I listened to radio the other day (not in my car) and it was all ads and a shortened version of a song so they can do more ads.
I didn’t realize radio got so bad.
In 2017, Mexico passed regulation that required all smartphones with FM chips to enable them
Now I’ve got in my head “I’m on a Mexican, radio…”
Now I’ve got in my head “I’m on a Mexican, radio…”
The real question is, are you a racist, if you enjoy that song?
Am I?
Lol I don’t know, I was honestly asking.
…The song about listening to foreign radio stations by Wall of Voodoo?
Yes, I believe so.
I would think not, but these days, with hypersensitivity about racial prejudice I wasn’t sure, which is why I was asking.
That song, and “Illegal Alien” by Genesis, are the two that come to mind.
My phone has an FM radio.
I’ve listened to it in long international flights just to see how things change.
other than that it serves no purpose whatsoever.
I suppose it could be useful in an emergency but I’d bet just having cell seryqould fair better.
