I am generally dissatisfied with my phone options today. I want a phone that meets these requirements:

• microSD card slot
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• Unlockable bootloader without having to ask the manufacturer (i.e. fastboot oem unlock)
• Either LineageOS support or Android 8+
• Screen smaller than 6" (preferably smaller than 5.5")

I'd also prefer not to have a notch but it's not a dealbreaker. I don't really care much about having the thinnest phone, or the biggest screen, etc. I'd much prefer having more control over my device and the way I use it.

Does such a phone exist, or do I have my standards too high? I haven't seen a phone like this that came out 2017 or later.

I currently have a Nexus 6P whose battery dies at 35% and unfortunately nowadays with unreplaceable batteries, that means I have to replace the phone (sigh).

For my next phone, I'm seriously considering a CAT S61.

CATs (caterpillars) are a line of smartphones made for heavy-duty blue collar work. They're built to withstand shocks, drops, accidents and various intense situations. The S61 is a high end hybrid which pulls in USB-C, NFC and various other modernities. This makes it very tempting. The big pros for me are shock/drop resistance+waterproof and a headphone jack, microSD slot, no stupid notch, and a superb battery.

Where the CAT loses is on display resolution, camera quality and probably CPU/graphics card but having never owned one, I don't know how bad these are. It's also much thicker but that I really don't care about. It also doesn't seem to be compatible with lineageOS (and even if it were, I don't know that there's drivers for the various custom hardware bits such as the thermal imaging camera).

Before I drop $1k on one of these, anyone here got any hands-on experience with the CAT line?

If you've been following tech news somewhat recently, you've surely heard about Article 13- the one where the EU essentially requires all content hosts to have extremely strict copyright checking tools and have automated takedown of any potentially copyrighted works.

That got put on the backburner for a little bit, but now it's back with a vote being held in early 2019.

YouTube, being one of, if not the largest content hosts in the world, is greatly affected by this motion. In fact, they have a whole website designed to encourage their creators to talk about A13 in their videos. The page very subtly hints at massive service changes that will happen in the EU if this actually ends up passing.

The CEO of YouTube, Susan Wojcicki, has also written an op-ed for Financial times (linked to official YT blog since it's free there) about the issues facing YT if A13 passes.

I haven't heard anything from official sources, but I've heard on the rumor mill that YouTube will completely suspend creators in the EU, not allowing them to upload any content, and potentially even removing their existing content from YouTube.

What if this passes? YouTube is one of the biggest sources of free knowledge and entertainment we have today, and it's become engrained into the internet as it is today.

With all this, I simply ask, "what's next?"

Following on from the Tildes 0.5 year survey in which 72% of users stated they used an Android device, and 24% used an iOS device, I thought it'd be fun to ask people in a longform manner to talk about their current phone, and their dislikes & likes about it. What has your upgrade history been like?

I'm currently utilising an iPhone XS (no "Max") in 256GB. This is my first phone upgrade where I've felt like the changes are a step sideways rather than forwards from what I've previously experienced. The minimal bezels are very nice, and once you understand how the iOS experience fits into the overall vision for Apple's phone lineup, the notch becomes an immediately obvious choice—a design compromise for the time being until we can place the sensor array under the display.

Face ID is acceptable. It fails a bit more often than Touch ID ever did, but it fails in different situations, and also works better in others. For a first generation iteration it's acceptable; if it can get more diverse with time and work better in extreme sunlight and at wider angles, it'll become definitively better than a fingerprint scanner.

I talked a bit about the OLED display in the XS in this comment here, where I can distinguish the pentile crosshatching pattern, and again, I feel that the OLED is a case of better in some situations, worse in others. The inky blacks are fantastic, but the dark ghosting is a compromise I'm less happy with. Apple's IPS LCD panels are so good, they had a high bar to meet here.

The camera is again truly fantastic; not enough to ever make me consider selling my Sony mirrorless, but the computational photography aspects makes taking challenging photos more of a breeze than ever before.

Finally, after living with a plus-sized phone for the past 4 years, a step back to a smaller form factor with a similar sized screen is a breath of fresh air—I can finally tie my shoelaces up with my phone in my jean pockets again.

The watch & AirPods & continuity integrations will keep me happy in the Apple ecosystem for a while yet, but I'd need to see a very compelling new feature of aspect to a future phone to upgrade in the next 2 years at this point. Phones are lasting longer than ever before, as they should, and Apple knows this.

Previously I've owned

• iPhone 7 Plus, Jet Black 256GB. The Jet Black finish coupled with the weightier frame & thicker body definitely resulted in this feeling like the most polished iPhone 6-style design to date. Runner up for my favourite phone. Further more the P3-gamut display significantly improved image quality. I wasn't happy enough with the iPhone X to consider an upgrade.

• iPhone 6 Plus, Silver 128GB. Might be my least favourite phone of all time? Too thin, slippery, suffered from bendgate; and had display issues which gave it a bad rap. Touch ID was cool; however.

• iPhone 4, Black. Might be my favourite phone of all time, purely from a design standpoint? Utilising the steel frame around the edge of the phone as an antenna was completely unheard of back then and truly a fantastic design innovation. The sandwiched glass profile was both a fingerprint magnet and truly gorgeous; and the Retina display was breathtaking. I'd love to see a return to this design profile.

• iPhone 3G. My first phone. I distinctly remember jailbreaking this device to change the cellular provider name in the top left corner & enable some extremely low quality video recording; this was also the good old days of fantastic games like Tap Tap Revenge.

How about you?