We're like 10+ years past the point where new smartphone features were worth something. Now we're back to buying new phones because the last one finally died, not to upgrade.
this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2026
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Some Chinese phones are interesting. I particularly like the ones with lofic camera sensors, or crazy attachable lens modules, but there are all sorts of niche devices.
What made them boring is the homogeneity. Like aliens designed them, have no idea what an actual human would want, but know they have to build one bland universal thing for everyone.
I want the Xaomi 18 Pro Max pretty hard. I record a fair bit of selfie video so being able to use the back camera for that with the preview screen would be dope.
The LG Wing is also my favorite phone of all time. I like fun phones. Unfortunately, fun phones don't really seem to sell very well.
For selfies, have you considered a pocketable gimbal cam instead?
They're getting ridiclously good. The DJI 4P in particular has more dynamic range than most cinema cameras: https://www.cined.com/dji-osmo-pocket-4p-lab-test-rolling-shutter-dynamic-range-and-exposure-latitude/
...This is better than the results we got for the current leader in terms of dynamic range, the ARRI Alexa 35 (and, there is a factor of 100x in price between the two).
That, plus a gimble, means its basically better than any near-term phone. I'd already have one, but... TBH, I don't really do selfies.
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My phone was 5 years old when I got it second hand. What really would a new one give at this point? Just look for the supported device list on calyx/graphene/etc and pick one that fits your budget that you can get second hand.
I'm currently using a Samsung Galaxy phone that's old enough to still have an SD card slot. I'm dreading the day that it dies and I have to pay 10x the amount for 1/2 the storage capacity.
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My phone is a couple years old, but is a flagship. I bought it because I love emulators and ROMs, and now GameNative opened up my whole steam library.
That, and the camera are the big selling points. An older, cheaper, phone would not have 16 gigs of RAM, or a processor that can handle any of that.
Whether that's worth $1,000 to you is definitely a question.
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I bought a new smartphone because I wanted to escape US tech oligarchs. One could call that a feature as well I guess.
Depending on what google do over the coming years I may just go back to a brick phone and get a small cheap laptop with Linux on it to carry around for anything fun. Backpack with a power bank for mains voltage perhaps? Some low spec laptops have pretty low power requirements though.
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I love the clamshell form factor, but it should be two screens, not one delicate one stretched such that it will always show a crease and will fail after a year...
Yeah, man. Look at how well-protected those screens are when you flip it closed! I don't care what version of Gorilla Glass+++ you have, no one's throwing a smartphone in a backpack or laptop bag without good screen protection...
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It's amazing isn't it that this product category has been around for nearly a decade and then apple come in with their version of the product and its back to generation 1. The whole point of Apple waiting around is so they can steal everybody else's innovations.
They made a “better” hinge. Apparently that’s what’s failing and breaks the screen.
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I just want a phone that I can comfortably reach all points on with one thumb without having to juggle it about.
So when foldables started getting attention i was hoping they’d make smaller phones that unfolded to have average sized screens.
Instead we got average sized phones that unfold in to a tablet. Even the vertical folding ones are too wide.
Drives me crazy how small phones died because "not enough demand" but a fragile gimmicky $2000 folding phone is perfectly commercially viable
All tech is killing off budget options because of the increasing percentage of wealth owned by the top 1% who will just buy the most expensive option without regard for features or practicality.
Small phones would be cheap and cheap phones break the illusion that 2000$ phones are normal.
It has nothing to do with demand, it's just that the bottom 99% isn't a profitable market segment anymore.
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Call me crazy but I miss 16:9 5"/5.5" standard smartphones(aka pre 2018) made it possible to comfortably 1-hand. Then they had to switch to doom-scroll long ratio sizes.
You want small? There you go: https://gadgetbond.com/bluefox-nx1-4-inch-compact-android-15-smartphone/
But yeah, it’s a shame there isn’t really a market with competition. Basically all serious phones are already too big for my taste. I have an iPhone 13 Mini and that is already slightly too big and I couldn’t even replace that with a similar sized one if I wanted to.
The Unihertz Titan 2 Elite is surprisingly small. The Minimal Phone 2 might be as well. And they have physical keyboards — yay.
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Man, I love the update to this classic.
I don't think I really get foldables. Instead of having a phone and a tablet, you can have one device that does a shit job of being either (the outer screen is usually a weird aspect ratio and not optimised for one handed use, and the inner screen is quite small as tablets go), but it also costs the same as just getting both. Oh and they're also very fragile.
I also can’t deal with the …. Texture? Of the screen. I want that screen to be hard hard hard. And a foldable… can’t be.
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Cause I want a phone for pocket fit, but I want the screen size of a tablet.
I don't really get the ones that are tablet sized but fold down to phone size, but I do love my regular sized phone that folds in half.
It fits in all my pockets, it's easier to carry in my hands, the folding in half is great for using the flashlight and the camera because you can be hands free, and while you could have this on a non folding phone I do really like the half screen on the back.
I did break mine eventually after a year, but that is honestly pretty par for the course for me - and it was fixable. In its defence I am officially clutzy and drop things regularly, and also it fell out of my pocket at one point and got driven over by an SUV (and it still worked for another month, I was impressed. I dropped it one last time a month later and the screen detached at the fold and the hinge went askew).
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Something that fits the pocket like a phone, with a larger screen you can read a book on is something very enticing.
But those things can't do either, and as you said, are expensive and unreliable.
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Bro and you would fucking SNAP that flip phone down to end a call. That's the only reason people talked on the phone in the day. So they could snap the phone down at the end. Once we traded slap for slab there was no reason to talk on the phone anymore which is why we just text now.
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My dream phone is a jailbroken iPhone 5, with all those old apps ported through time, with a flip-out keyboard.
…That’s it.
Everything since has been a downgrade for my usage.
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Apple iPhone duo != all foldable phones.
There's more out there, folks.
Impossible. Apple just came out with it. Others couldn't have copied Apple that fast. Stop lying.
This comic apparently comes out when the first foldable smartphone comes out, which have the similar issue.
The title of this comic (which is from 2019), is: "Galaxy Fold vs Flip Phone". OP unfortunately didn't include the title. Nor the bonus panel.
ah that phone went a week without charging, which has as much to do with how much we used phones back as with how fast smart phones deplete battery.
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As foretold in the ancient scripts.
Surely they at least thought about adding a thick border to prevent the screens from rubbing together, right?
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As someone who has a foldable, im happy that my ebook reader comes with me everywhere. Its also gotten me into comics when I would have never given a damn before.
Same. Big videos are nice, but comics, ebooks, PDFs, and diagrams are what make it worthwhile for me.
I never got the appeal of bleeding edge smartphones. Then again I have boring life.
With computers, you have compute for working or gaming. Powerful phones are for media consumption? Is everyone really leading such interesting lives as they project on social media such that the latest phone features are a must have?
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I love my z fold, the only thing is the screen protector peels and can somehow damage the screen if you hold off on replacing it. Ask me how I know.
Tech Demos keep showing rollable screens, and those look way more interesting to me than foldable
But all the demos are still not what I want, I'd want it to go from pager sized to feature phone sized 
YES to pager sized phone!
I have little hands and don't want thumb tendonitis
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