Ask Lemmy

Yup, still rocking my oneplus 5t from 2018 and will keep using that bad boy until it literally breaks.

I think smart phones started going downhill for me in excitement once they started removing hardware features like sd card, audio jack, and user swappable batteries.

Also, trended with cost of phones going up and companies like Google being seen as more and more untrustworthy so that for some they have a reason to use custom roms again.

I miss my Nexus 5X. Probably still be using it if it hadn't gradually destroyed itself.

Cars peaked before 2020 for sure.

The mid 2010s. I miss my old LG G5, the ability to customize the hardware with the USB c port and hesdphone jack being a simple replacement was a gamechanger for me. The LG G6 was a downgrade from nearly all the features of it's papa besides the better internal chip and camera but you still lost all manual control button use with the upgrade sicne that was an attachment mod as well as the DAC.

I generally cite mid-2010s (e.g. 2015ish) as when society peaked technologically. This is before the rampant enshitiffication of everything. Most new tech "advances" are of marginal use to the average person and are only beneficial to corpos and govs.

I'd say the main exception to this is medical tech. Those advancements do present real benefits, at least to those who can afford it.

idk, i kinda think that nokia's smartphones were peak technology (the og nokia, not what came after with microsoft buying them)

Some of them had linux before it was cool. I also kinda miss the formfactor of a smartphone with a keyboard.

Modern smartphones really lack in variability. Basically now, when choosing between comparable models of diferent vendors, you just choose whether you want qualcom or mediatek soc, and which vendor's bloat you tolerate more. I really miss all the wacky experiments with formfactors and OSes

Not so much peaked, but plateaued.

They are getting more powerful, but the difference between an 8MP and 16MP camera was a lot more obvious than the last 5 years worth of changes.

The peak was like 2014. The inception of social media and the ad industry is what ruined smartphones.

I got a new phone in 2020.

I haven't seen a compelling or interesting device since then. Even then, I was barely convinced I actually wanted the upgrade in 2020, but I spent a lot of 2020 in a poor mental state and made some less than sound decisions.

I kinda want a folding phone? But not really. Like if you handed me one I'd be happy, but if you asked me to pay even $300 for one I don't think I would.

I like my Xperia, you can even use it onehanded. "Normal" phones look like phablets nowadays.

Well firstly since about 2020 everything has basically doubled in price due to inflation, so that's more or less your camera point. As someone who also takes pictures, they're certainly still innovating, it's just money is worth less now.

The phone thing is more down to the product category maturing. 5-10 years ago there were still obvious improvements to be made to the hardware and software. Now we've effectively perfected the black rectangle for the current tech available, so the only stuff they can do to differentiate now is bloat. Also, as above, everything is more expensive, so if they get some commercial partnerships attached to that bloat they can keep the prices a bit more constant than stuff like pro cameras (which just have to get more expensive because bloat like that wouldn't be tolerated for pro gear)

Tech peaked when I was 15 year old and had an iPod nano that clipped to my jeans

I haven't been excited about a new smartphone since LG V20. What ever is "new" in our current flagships doesn't really interest me that much.

yes but 2014.

I just upgraded from an over 10 year old Samsung S8 to a pixel 10.

I prefer the old phone. There are maybe two features on the pixel that are an improvement, otherwise, I'd rather have the S8.

more likely 2015. 5G turned out to be a waste of time.

I think peak design of various aspects happened at different times.

• peak mobile OS design was Palm OS from PDA's
• peak device design was Blackberry handhelds with physical buttons

Those two things combined today with a polished Linux base and a decent camera would become the new peak.

I'm still using a phone from 2020. It's fine. If I got something new, it would probably be bigger and lack a headphone jack.

A new phone would have a better camera than my old one, but it would not be as good a camera as my Olympus, which I use when I care about the result.

Honestly the only device I find compelling nowadays is the Poco X7 Pro, everything else kinda looks dumb by comparison, and before that I was looking exclusively at the Poco X6 because it was the last Poco with a headphone jack - I have since bought a USB-C cable for my KZ IEMs. And I'm only looking to get a new phone cause mine (Moto G62 5G) is on Android 13 and I absolutely loathe this OS constantly killing my apps if I move away from them for 15 seconds. I was thinking of installing a different OS but I don't want to work through the hassle of backing up everything.

Cameras and stuff, meh. Cordless charging and NTN (satellite) messaging are kinda cool. Also the Micro USB connector sucked. USB C is much better.

Software has mostly regressed, I think.

I think the hardware continues to improve. Unfortunately, Android hit its peak around then and Google has been systematically crippling it ever since. They stopped allowing users control of their own devices. All of the customization and automation utilities that used to make it great have been shut down or limited to the point where they are not longer really useful. But Google is making more money, so I guess that's all okay.

I'm not sure Google has made a single good decision in the last decade.

It’s true for all technology. Incremental improvements. I can’t think of a quantum leap in tech since 2015, no new device which is Earth shattering.