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Your ideal smartphone in 2019?
As evidenced by recent topics, most people are unhappy with the direction the smartphone industry has taken in recent years. As more unnecessary features and sacrifices are made with each passing generation of handsets, what components are essential in your ideal smartphone? Create one in the comments.
Here is mine, in no particular order:
- Optimized Stock Android
- Gesture-based navigation (think iPhone X)
- Removable matte black plastic back
- 2:1 Aspect ratio, 5.6" diagonal AMOLED display
- Dual front-facing speakers in top and bottom bezel
- Dual front facing cameras (Wide Angle and Standard)
- Bezel-less sides
- Dual back cameras, with OIS (Wide Angle and Standard)
- USB-C
- 3700 mAh removable battery with Fast Charging+Qi
- Snapdragon 855
- Apple-esque Face Unlock
- ~$750 price tag
For me, a large concern is where the phone is produced.
That's not just related to what I work with, but concerns regarding the global intelligence war that's happening through hardware.
Can you elaborate? Are you concerned about the ethics of production, sustainability, or something else?
Sounds more as though they're concerned with hardware backdoors or surveillance devices potentially being inserted by foreign governments trying to bolster espionage efforts. Which, with the ubiquity of internet connectivity and ever plummeting cost and size of hardware, is a valid and growing concern. And even if the governments spying on you have no conceivable means of asserting authority over you, backdoors represent another avenue of attack for more traditional hacking.
Largely that.
There's also the ethics of cobalt-production in Congo.
They produce around half of the world's cobalt and we use cobalt for everything that has modern batteries.
Like lithium, the ethics of the raw materials are huge, and then there's the whole same deal for workers up the supply chain.
Yeah, difficult to find ethical products with supply chains as long as smartphones in a world engaged in a global race to the bottom. I think fairphone was trying to achieve that, but no US carrier support.
Ah okay, I didn't catch your meaning at first. I can definitely see this as a genuine concern. Thank you for sharing!
I think @nacho is worried about China (or another country) doing this again. It's a very real concern, and China has shown us it's already possible to do it.
When I receive a Librem 5, I will immediately sell my other phones. I expect it to be shitty - battery life, camera quality, etc. But it's a lifestyle change that I've wanted to make for awhile (being less dependent on my phone) combined with a philosophy I believe in wholeheartedly (the free software movement).
I share most of your sentiment; my ideal phone for 2019 is also the Librem 5.
However I don't expect it to be, uhh, "shitty", lol. It's not going to be super refined, and it's going to have many rough edges, but what the smooth and refined elegance of current android/iphone devices are hiding are a hideously insecure and compromised device.
My ideal phone [for any year] has a baseband which is isolated from the main application CPU, so that there isn't a proprietary device connected to the phone network/internet with DMA access to my phone, all a phone-call away from any government agency willing to pay/threaten qualcomm enough to hand over the keys.
So yeah, the Librem 5 will check all of my boxes quite nicely.
Sorry, shitty is an unfair word to use, especially since the Purism folks are putting in so much effort to make this project a success. I met with Todd Weaver earlier this year, and he's more enthusiastic about free software than I could have imagined - it's incredible. We should have him to an AMA here perhaps!
What I meant to say, is that I expect the quality of third-party apps to be lower than usual (at least for a time), and I expect the same of hardware quality. Not bad, just different - as long as it's functionally a phone I'll be enthused.
Oh don't worry, given the context I actually think shitty is a good word to use. It kinda places emphasis on the point of the phone which should actually matter to people; the openness and security. All of the other 'features' everyone is clamouring for are bullshit in comparison, when the underlying platform is so horribly abusive to the user.
No it's not derived from Android, it's their own OS called PureOS. See their FAQ:
No, they are effectively running pure GNU/Linux. The same software which runs on a desktop computer, but with a new interface optimized for use on a small touch screen.
Initially, programs which currently are available for linux should be able to be built for this device, with possibly some changes for the new interface. Firefox almost certainly will be available, and signal shouldn't take too much work to get running.
This looks really interesting. I might be buying in as well. Have you placed a pre order yet? If so, how is customer recognition?
Be aware that it's not shipping with support for US carriers, and won't be able to get it without a modem swap.
Thanks for letting me know.
Yeah, I want one bad, but that's a total dealbreaker. In the dev kit, the modem appears to be swappable, but if that even makes it to the final release, I still don't imagine it's going to be easy to find a replacement with driver support.
FYI the above is not true - there are plans for shipping the Purism with a modem appropriate to where you live. One for US carriers, another for Europe (initially).
I have pre-ordered, and I've been following their blog - they're very active and transparent about their progress on the phone.
Have you got a source on that? The only info I was ever able to find on their choice of modem, which is linked below, had them using one without support for North American LTE bands.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180810144019/https://puri.sm/posts/librem5-progress-report-17/
I'm having trouble locating a source on this, any help?
Purism's Librem Phone FAQ is ambiguous:
The September 2018 hardware report mentions the swappable modem modules but no specifics on carriers/countries.
Came up during the one of the previous discussions about the Librem 5 here, link. The TL;DR is that you'd get 2G on GSM networks for the one year or so before they're shut down, and maybe some spotty HSPA on AT&T. As of yet, I've heard nothing about any other available modems, but it's definitely something I'll be keeping an eye out for. Hopefully that was just a test modem or one they'll only use for European customers, but I'm a little leery since it's still ridiculously common for these otherwise awesome niche phones to have awful LTE support.
Wait, I thought the US was Purism's primary market?
It is, no worries.
I just want stock Android, easy root access (seriously, I get the need to stop the average person from doing something stupid, but at least let me have an easy toggle), decent hardware, replaceable battery, and a price that isn't outrageous. I want to be able to do things like modify a hosts file or use a terminal with standard terminal commands and capabilities without needing to risk bricking my device.
In general, I just want something that's power-user friendly, has decent capabilities, and can be kept for a decently long period of time without needing a full phone replacement.
Root access is #1 on my list so I can install stock android with zero bloat and make minor tweaks to the UI and hosts file for blocking ads. It's stupid how difficult it is to find phones like this nowadays and when you do they are usually $800+
Hell, I'd just like to be able to modify my hosts file for the sake of web development. It's kind of a pain trying to test code that's dependent on subdomain presence if you can't add a hosts entry.
Even when you do find them, half the time nobody's bothered to develop any ROMs. My phone's been out for years and shipped with an unlockable bootloader, but there's not even an up to date release of lineage, let alone all the other ROMs out there. Whereas the Verizon Galaxy S3, which required software exploits to unlock, was getting ROM updates at least through marshmallow.
Typing from a note 3. A note 3 with upgraded hardware. Open source it. Make it locally. If I had a billion that's one way to spend it.
At some point I feel that power-user friendly smartphones' place can be filled by PCs. No professional is doing graphic design, video editing, programming or presenting on a phone. On top of that, I feel that all the "power-user" phones thus far, like the Note, tend to have unnecessary features for an equally silly price.
I understand why you want it, but does it make sense to add the customization you are suggesting? Keep in mind that the majority of users will never touch that level of control, possibly making it cost-ineffective to roll out officially.
That's about it.
Sounds like you could go for a Motorola device, especially the budget models. They tend to have 4000mAh+ batteries, standard bezels, headphone jacks and lightly skinned Android.
Can confirm, running a Moto e4 and it's been really nice. Only problem is I own the phone yet Sprint installs bloatware anyway. Really pisses me off.
Indeed! Not OP, but these are the reasons I currently purchase budget Motorola devices.
I'd just like to see a phone really push the limits on what it is. I'd like to see experimentation like trying to fit a thermal imaging camera in a phone. Otherwise phones vary so little in terms of functionality, performance, and appearance they might as well be the same product.
https://www.catphones.com/en-us/cat-s61-smartphone/
Have fun. :)
Wow, who would have guessed CAT would be the ones making smartphones more useful. Even though it's niche, I do think it sounds like a nice phone and is totally where things should be headed.
Give me that with a better SoC, screen, and RAM, and I'll pay whatever they ask. It's a shame the basics on there are so poor, the stuff you can't get anywhere else is pretty interesting.
I am deeply frustrated by the wired connectivity issues that you experience if you're in the Apple ecosystem at the moment. Carrying dongles around isn't fun—I nearly lost mine in a cafe while on vacation about a month ago, and by luck managed to find it after it had slipped down the back of the chair upholstery I was sitting on.
The price isn't fun either: NZ$79 for a USB-C to SD card adapter makes my blood boil, as does the lack of included USB-C to Lightning cable in either the MacBooks or the iPhone.
Connecting these devices together has now become an art:
These are painful, painful tradeoffs that Apple should've considered a lot better before going all in on this connectivity change. I get that USB-C is at great, but at the same time it's also an intensely convoluted specification that not even large companies have created ideal products for yet. For example, there remains no good USB-C hub that has 1 output from, say, 4 inputs. In fact, the best USB-C hub may in fact be the LG Ultrafine 5K Display, which does just that—which is fucking insane.
Is this somehow Apple-specific? Did you mean lightning-to-SD-card? USB-C-male to USB-A-female adapters are very cheap, and the USB-C SD card reader I recently bought, which was by no means the cheapest, was less than US$15. Is it an availability problem in NZ?
That plus
A $329 price tag on repairing a shattered screen is enormously anti-consumer for $1099 phone.
Include a fast charger and USB-C to 3.5mm Jack dongle in the box while you're at it.
USB Type-C on Macs, USB Type-C on iPads, only thing left are iPhones.
I can't wait to be able to share/borrow cords regardless of where/who I'm with. Once iPhones get USB Type-C, it'll be everywhere.
Same as what OP posted, but I'd ask them to add a finger print sensor on the back, and add a few additional sensor types that have been talked about for years now, like a spectrometer and a thermal imaging camera like someone else above said.
But honestly, I'd be happy even if we just got more actual new software improvements and innovations rather than just battery and time-wasting garbage "features" like a poop emoji that maps to a facial animation capture in real-time.
What kind of software improvements are you looking for? I think universal theming capability built into Android would be great.
More hard-to-do but less flashy features that involve machine learning / AI / nearby-device cluster processing. I know there is some of this in the works, and Google seems to be doing the best job tackling it, but I want more.
For example, I liked Google I/O's recent focus on the Google Assistant being able to make calls and appointments, and potentially screen calls. Having the on-board assistant actually do the sort of higher-level tasks an actual human assistant might do effectively seems like a really fantastic feature.
Perhaps machine-learning assisted tasks like audio quality cleanup / reconstruction on poorly captured phone voicemails, or motion blur reduction on photos that you took accidentally under low light while moving the device too much, etc.
I can agree to a point. The camera and audio features sound fantastic, and I feel Google is on its way with their camera software thus far. However, your stance on Google's machine learning advancements has to be the same as your stance on privacy. At this point, I do feel that everyone who uses Google Assistant to its full potential have accepted the privacy risks.
In this order.
I would kill for a high end phone with a physical keyboard. The one thing I truly miss from my Blackberries.
Well KEY2 is pretty high end AFAIK, and KEYOne is still pretty good, the 4GB RAM revision especially.
I was eyeballing the KEY2 when it was announced and almost switched from an iPhone, but the specs are a bit underwhelming, especially considering its introductory price ($650). I keep my phones for 3 or 4 years so I really try to future proof when looking at replacements. I did type on one and almost bought it though, wonderful build quality.
What did you think about the devices BlackBerry has been releasing the past few years? And if not BlackBerry, what company would you have the most confidence in developing such a device?
I've got KEYOne, it's the best phone I had since my Photon Q died, and it's pretty good for what it is - I am not judging it in comparison to a full QWERY slider, because in that case it wouldn't hold up, but on itself it's a solid keyboard, very nice build quality, good grip, feels nice, the firmware is not bloated and packed with useful features like keyboard shortcuts - I'd say it's the KEY models from BlackBerry are the only phones for me in current market.
Ideally I would love to see a new QWERTY phone from Nokia, since the best experience with a keyboard phone I had was N900, but these days are long gone, and from the phones that Nokia goes after these days I'd say it's unlikely we'll see another keyboard from them. However both Sony and Motorola can still do it well I think, I had both Xperia Pro and Milestone phones, and they were really well made, both slider and keyboard, really solid experience. I never had a pre-android BlackBerry, because their previous platform was proprietary, and they always had these vertical keyboards without sliders, same thing they've done with KEYOne - I just prefer horizontal sliders, because they still can use touch keyboard for one hand when you need it and you don't sacrifice any of screen space while having a superior keyboard for typing. It's just a different experience, I definitely don't hate it.
I’m close to done caring about smartphones; this is coming from someone who was effectively on 2 year upgrade cycle for the last decade. I went from an iPhone 3G → 4 → 6 Plus → 7 Plus → XS. The XS was the first upgrade I purchased where the changes felt diagonal, wrt increases in quality and quantity. The OLED screen for one is a bit of a sideways movement from the 7’s IPS LCD.
I’d be hard pressed to upgrade in the next 2 years. Apple will need to release something very compelling for this to be the case. I’m far more interested in newer form factors which can offer increased health and life integration—the sort of unexplored domains that smartphones can’t cover.
Take the Apple Watch, and AirPods. Both offer meaningful new gestures and possibilities for technology to be integrated into your life. Thanks to the former, thanks to the Apple Watch I now have high-quality activity data tracking back over an entire year. All my runs, hikes, walks, cycling, and rowing is recorded. My heart rate data is recorded: resting, peak activity, light walking. My VO2max is recorded, and thanks to the addition of a Withings née Nokia née Withings scale, so is my weight, BMI, water content, muscle content, and fat content.
These are the sorts of new products I'm looking forward to. Sorry my reply is a bit off topic.
This is a unique response. How would you feel about cybernetic implants or cellular tattoos as smartphone replacements? I've heard of both in different stages of development, but there are the obvious risks.
Hmm. I think there's a time and place for everything, if I'm honest. Just like how you looked socially stupid for wearing wired headphones around the turn of the millennium, until it caught on, or carrying a (very large) portable phone with you years before that.
Bleeding edge, but not necessarily compelling. I'm not someone who'd sign up for a first generational product, put it that way. Some things catch on, others don't (3D TVs, for example). That being said it's usually fairly obvious what is game changing and what is a niche, too.
You have all of this data, and so does anybody else willing to pay Apple for access, or capable of breaking in and taking it. If you think that will never happen, just wait.
I highly doubt it. Furthermore, this specific use of data is not a big concern of mine. Apple's commitment to privacy satisfies me—they make enough money that selling data is not a high priority; and their existing on-device security policies are—pragmatically—already better than what any competitors offer.
Please check out page 33 of Apple's iOS 12 Security Guide PDF.
Furthermore:
Given privacy is becoming a larger and larger talking point; Apple is selling privacy as a feature. It's something to be proud of, and currently something no other consumer electronics company matches.
Cynicism is cool and all but ultimately it gives way to the reality of business objectives. Apple makes money by selling devices, not data. Selling data would hinder their ability to sell devices.
I like where the Galaxy S10 is headed. Underglass fingerprint reader, microSD support, 128GB base storage, headphone jack, no bezels. I like the “gimmicks” Samsung offers on top of Stock Android, and early next year they're getting a re-design with One UI, which is supposed to make the phone more reachable. I also hope it comes with an unlockable bootloader. That and Project Treble compatibility should make it easier to have an official LineageOS ROM for it.
My main complain would be the ugly huge camera hole on the screen corner. That and there being not two but three phone variants (lite, standard, and plus), which will force you to get the most expensive one if you want all the features (I guess it's good that we have options, but I don't like the fragmentation).
I doubt I will get one. For once, because I suspect if I wait until 2020, then we will have cameras below the screen with no ugly holes or notches. And maybe even the whole screen (or a huge portion of it) can work as a fingerprint reader (which I'd love, because I hate back FP readers). Plus, it should have good stereo speakers by then and easily three times the RAM in my computer (I have a shitty computer). The one thing it might not have would be the headphone jack, finally gone by that time. But I mostly use BT speakers anyway, and I wouldn't mind just permanently attaching a dongle to my only pair of wired earphones.
So, basically, I'll just keep babying my current phone for a couple more years. And then upgrade to the S or Note 11. Maybe the 12th if they don't manage to get rid of the camera “hole” by then.
How do you feel about Bixby?
Mostly positively.
Even though I don't use it, (since the last time I checked, it couldn't do the things I wanted an assistant to do) I love that Google's got some competence. I think it's healthy for the market and the consumer.
And I'd consider every phone without an extra button a downgrade in usability. I remapped the Bixby button and use it constantly. That already is enough for me to like Bixby.
My ideal phone in almost all ways is the iPhone SE that I currently have (11.3.1 jailbroken), but with a few changes
ro.sf.lcd_densitywith Android, effectively allowing you to fake a higher resolution / shrink the hell out of the UIMost of this is software. Hardware-wise I couldn't be happier. I've got big hands, but I aim to use my phone as little as possible.
I'd have more gripes without the jailbreak. Having a system-wide EQ is a high priority for me, and these Anker Soundcore 2s need it (heavy in the ~500hz - 1000hz range). Also with the jailbreak I can fake my way around a smaller UI, like shrinking icons, etc.
Having dual front-facing speakers in top and bottom bezel would be killer -- especially with a little kickstand.
Jailbreaking just seemed to feed my customization addiction when I owned Apple products. I'm on Android now and it's not helping things. Have you considered looking for Anker's app to play to both speakers at once? I know a lot of modern bluetooth speakers have companion apps.
oh man, customization addiction is real! A few months ago I realized that I only own a few things that I haven't modified (tech-wise.) I've got a modified iPod 5.5 (takes 4x micro-SDs, 2000mAh battery, Rockbox), alternative firmware on nearly everything, a cheap-o Chromebook running a modified xubuntu, ... and the list goes on.
One thing I really miss about Android is hopping around ROMs. The last Android phone I had was the Galaxy S3, which had a really healthy ROM community. On paper that phone was perfect.
Oddly enough, I can't find an Anker app. As a last resort, I can go in with Filza and rename bluetooth devices. I emailed their support to suggest that they name their devices
Soundcore2followed by the last four characters of the MAC address. I've got three Pebble watches, and have loved the method ever since.I'm currently using a Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact. add the headphone jack and replace the software with a custom ROM with microG and bam, perfect smartphone.
You don't use phones as phones? Sounds like you want a Vtech.
Jesus fucking Christ, that's bad. And they're asking for $300! Who's going to buy that?
I wish I could do away with one.
Fairphone 3, except they go back to calling it just Fairphone and pledge to support it indefinitely with hardware and software updates. No obsolescence, one Fairphone forever.
No corporate monitoring of my activity. An operating system and apps that don't report my messages, my locations, my phone calls, my emails, my appointments, my every action to some massive database for analysis.
Headphone jack.
5.5" screen (slightly smaller than my current 5.7" screen).
Speakers sufficient to play music quietly.
A camera of reasonable quality.
No bloatware. Only apps I choose to install.
Single-control volume setting, so I can change the phone's volume profile with a single touch (rather than having to set the ringer volume and the media volume and the notifications volume separately).
Aluminium case (not glass).
No facial recognition. That's just creepy. And not actually secure.
Flip case! I really miss my old Motorola Razr. :(
No notch.
Also, no provider-added, non-removable apps.
I'm reasonably happy with my third hand (free) iphone on a second hand network that basically provides everything for <$40 US per month.
I was more happy with my Nokia Windows phone which was compatible with my tablet pc and work computer and cost me $50 brand new. At least I can still use it to browse the web on wifi, read books, listen to music and hold 64gb of documents on an SD card.
The same one I have now. Smartphones should last more than a year or two. And they should be easier to repair.
I don't want a phone larger than the 4s/5s/SE size.
I'd prefer iOS, but heck, I'd accept android too.
But I'm not going to get a new one that size.
I think I'm more or less the same on form factor being super important. That said, I'm happy with the size of my current phone (Essential PH-1), I just want this phone with new internals and a headphone jack. I'm even okay with the notch!
Having gotten used to a 5000 mAh battery, anything with less than 4100 mAh seems too little to me. For my use cases, any average phone works for me.
My ideal smartphone has a screen that always works and never breaks. I don't mind minor scratches. Sadly, it seems that this does not exist. I don't know whether that's a general issue or not, but in my experience smartphone screens are shit. I've had two Samsung (
Ssomething) and two iPhone 5's. The touch responsiveness is not good to start with, and when the screen eventually breaks it gets replaced with some "original" stuff (AFAIK there's no official by Apple in my country) and things go downhill. Everything else is fine by me.I sound like a Motorola marketer on this thread, but you should consider one of their phones. Lots of them have crack-proof plastic layers over the displays.
But do they still work? Aesthetics are not my main concern.
They are incredibly durable. And in my opinion, all modern android phones "work". I'd say that there is next to no difference between any $400+ phone for the average user, next to the camera. For someone with your preferences, something near that price might actually be best, because you won't have to worry about glass.