Samsung lost me as a customer when they removed the audio jack and SD card slot - I'm typing this on a S10+ that I've loved for years, but my next phone is going to be made by someone else, so they can shove the whole AI crap and yet another damn subscription so deep that it tickles their tonsils from the other side.
I think Sony is the only flagship phone left that still has minijack. IDK about SD
SD is not much of an issue IMO, with newer phones being available with 512 MB now, even in mid range.
You can get wired USB headphones, if it's because you want the wire to not lose them and to not need to charge headphones too. But I haven't tried it, it may suck.
Most of the phones I'm looking at max out at 256 Gb storage, minus whatever the OS uses. My next phone will almost certainly be a Sony because of the SD card slot. I do a lot of RAW photography, and travel in enough places without data service and/or sketchy cell access that large local storage is not negotiable.
I wanted the Sony, but they only give 2 years of security updates which is abysmal. That killed it for me
What really? Yes that sucks. It's not like they are super cheap either!
Yeah, it's not cool. However, the Xperia phones up to series iii all have LineageOS releases, which can extend the life, and I'm hoping it comes to the later series as those get to EOL. They absolutely should have better official support though.
Yes my Xperia 1V has the headphone jack and SD card slot. No I can't even fill up the internal storage (512GB) but it just feels good to have it.
Just to offer an alternative viewpoint, because I have come across these issues and ended up buying a Sony phone because I had such a bad time without the 3.5mm headphone socket.
Some people want more internal storage than even 512gb - I have a 400gb microSD in my phone because with the OS and apps getting bigger, even a large internal storage can fill up fast. Also, it's nice to have media collections, photos, and other files with you, rather than relying on data and cloud storage, and the cost is now very low for a large microSD. It's also easier to transfer large amounts of data between devices that way.
As for headphones, dongles are a pain and USB headphones have to have a (usually not great) DAC in them to work, plus many people already have great headphones they want to keep using. All of that said, the biggest issue with USB headphones IMO is that there is only one USB port - the wear and tear of using it for everything is significant. Also, USB-C plugs are much more breakable and harder to replace than a 3.5mm jack. Additionally, you cannot charge and listen at the same time without a dongle and many of those are bad (none of the ones I have tried have worked for more than a few weeks before connectivity issues started).
the cost is now very low for a large microSD.
Absolutely, most phones available with more storage cost way more extra than buying an SD card.
It’s also easier to transfer large amounts of data between devices that way.
I completely forgot I used to do that! Now I use USB2 becaue very few phones have USB3, and USB2 sucks for transferring large amounts of data.
USB headphones have to have a (usually not great) DAC in them to work,
Yes it's kind of infuriating when the Phone already has the DAC, it just doesn't have a connector.
They still have an SD slot but got rid of the notification LED.
I miss the notification LED so much, AOD is an impractical alternative IMO. Using AOD to just emulate a notification LED is overkill, using it for too much kills the battery.
If a good reasonably priced phone arrives with all these functions back, I'd buy that over anything currently on the market.
Some of ASUS's phone have headphones jacks too, notably the ROG phone line (excluding the 3 IIRC)
I'd have jumped on one of those if it had a microSD slot
Still rocking my note 10 plus which had a SD card slot, and my LG V60 which still has both. The V60 has some of the best audio recording for video which I suspect is due to the DAC built in with the mic array.
Note 9 has been the best phone I've owned. I'm glad they are least still out SD slots in their Tab line.
fuck this. spend a fortune on a phone, then, not only do you have to pay the carrier, you have to pay to use the functions of the phone. what a joke.
I've been mad since bloat ware and ads on PS3 xmb .
Wait, do we have ads on the PS3?
It has been a long time since I turned it on.
I remember scrolling my lovely neat xmb and big colour MLB splash screens and thumbnails showing up for downloading some app. Hated it.
Get people indoctrinated first so they start to rely on it, then charge them. This is the business model of all the Ai LLM's so far as I can tell.
Paying for bloatware? Well, that's a new thing for sure.
Bring all Fairphones to the US please! We need another option that isn't shit.
Convince the Framework company to cooperate with Fairphone as US distributor.
Unfortunately even if you could distribute them here last I checked they don't have the US band support and going through FCC certification process takes time and money
Please let there be a flagship-ish foss phone.
Im actually most hopeful in years.
Okay. I use AI for hobbies, like art and getting D&D campaign ideas, so I was waiiting to see what the S24 could bring. Being able to do it locally on my phone would be amazing instead of zipping it off to DALLE or whatever.
I will almost assuredly not be paying for something that should be able to run on the locally on the hardware.
I could be misinformed but that was the whole selling point of Snapdragon 8 gen 3 was its on board NPU, no?
It looks like only the language related functions work locally going by some reports. The picture related editing and the like are online.
Unless there have been some major advancements recently I don't think much of this is going to be running fully locally.
This is why I use a Pixel - sadly Google is gonna see this and say "great idea!" and charge for the Pixel AI features too now lol
Google is doing this for several years now already.
Go to Photos as and a lot of features are behind Google One or 1st year of Pixel purchase.
Samsung is just getting inspiration from likes of Google and Apple, and not the other way around.
I get constaly nagged to enable cloud backup.
Google. I have 15GB you gave me for free of which 7 or so are used by various stuff.
I don't even have the space to off-load to it.
And I have an on-site backup so F you.
From my understanding they didn't just get inspiration from Google, it's actually using their system and their help to build (both running on Google Gemini).
Ahh just enough time to get people dependend on your product so they have no choice but to pay for it afterwards, how delightfull
Jan 1st 2026.......To continue to enjoy our AI free experience it will now come will Ads.....or pay us 9.99 for an Ad free AI experience.
Love from Samsung
Oh wow, so generous. /s
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