Manufacturers don’t make displays under 6 inches available for purchase, with special cases (such as the iPhone Mini) being made under exclusive contracts. The best lead they have so far is to try to use displays designed for the front part of a foldable phone, but they’re yet to strike an agreement.

TIL that display manufacturers are also part of the reason why we aren’t getting small phones and why it’s probably even harder for manufacturers like Fairphone to make them.

    • @[email protected]
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      4811 months ago

      And SD card support. Why TF do I want to pay a mint for storage when I could spend like $50 (or less) for the equivalent (or more) in SD form?

      • @[email protected]
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        2611 months ago

        it’s not that you want to, but rather that the companies want to charge you $100 more for $5 of ROM.

          • @[email protected]
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            1011 months ago

            That you’ll need stable internet to use (so goodbye using your media library while camping/offroading)

        • @[email protected]
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          611 months ago

          Not just that, but they get to charge $100 dollars more for the $5 of ROM while avoiding the support costs and reputation hit of idiots who force the SD card in the wrong way or blaming the device when the SD card is inevitably sheered in half after being forgotten about during a battery replacement.

          Unfortunately every market incentive just aligns against expandable storage in phones.

      • CaptainBlagbird
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        1111 months ago

        This, also should the phone die, you can still take out the card and don’t lose your photos (fuck the cloud).

        • @[email protected]
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          -611 months ago

          And if was off the phone there’d be nothing to take out. All my shit is stored in a combo of on my home server and hosted space. Not Google, not apple, not a privacy invading data miner. Cloud doesn’t equal evil.

      • @[email protected]
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        -911 months ago

        Use common sense, most don’t want them, they’ve proven to be unreliable vs real memory, and it lessens the ability to waterproof phones.

        The overwhelming majority uses and prefers cloud storage. Whether external or self hosted. Pay a mint? Literally costs pennies on the dollar for pretty respectable amounts.

        • Clegko
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          111 months ago

          The people who still want SD cards have never had an SD card fail on them and it shows.

          • @[email protected]
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            -211 months ago

            Exactly, when I worked in stores there was rarely a day somebody wasn’t coming in and flipping out that they lost all their shit and that we sold them defective cards so we could sell them more.

    • @[email protected]
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      2611 months ago

      Wait until 2027 and buy a Sony then, I guess. They’re the only manufacturer who consistently includes a headphone jack and starting in 2027 all phones sold in the EU have to have removable batteries. Yeah, it’s pretty sad that that’s the only option…

        • @[email protected]
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          3411 months ago

          You don’t need to; the Brussels effect has you covered.

          It’s cheaper to sell phones with replaceable batteries worldwide than to design the same phone twice for different markets. So most major manufacturers will probably just sell EU-friendly phones everywhere just like when the EU required USB charging ports.

        • @[email protected]
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          -911 months ago

          Way to be overly dramatic. Ever hear of shipping? But enjoy being over taxed and privacy being more invaded than what the US does.

    • Zorque
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      911 months ago

      I don’t mind not having a removable battery, and a headphone jack is nice but not make or break… but so few phones apparently have expandable storage these days.

      • @[email protected]
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        1211 months ago

        This brothers me so much. It’s such an obvious cash grab - manufacturers can force you to buy a more expensive model of the same phone, cloud services can tap your wallet for additional space, and carriers can tap your wallet for a larger data plan.

        It’s gross. There’s literally no consumer-friendly reason to strip it.

      • @[email protected]
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        211 months ago

        While I like having the options and agree it’s pretty shitty to remove those features, how do you use up all your storage? I upgraded to 256GB and am no where near filling it.

        I’ve seen people argue they need to store a ton of media, but I’d argue you don’t need to keep a backup of everything in your phone. Rotate media out after you watched it or whatever.

        • LucasWaffyWaf
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          111 months ago

          I’ve nearly 40 gigabytes of FLACs as well as commissioned art (much smaller in size than my music collection) stored on a 256 gigglebyte card in my phone. While the 128 gigs built into my phone is more than enough, when it’s time to get a new phone all I gotta do is slap it into the new phone and boom, gucci. That convenience, on top of only needing to remove the card to add stuff to it, is why an SD card slot is non negotiable for me.

          • @[email protected]
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            211 months ago

            So you’re telling me if a perfect phone existed but did not have removable storage, you wouldn’t get it?

            You can just transfer those things. This doesn’t make any sense to me, I’m sorry.

            I would rather have any of the features that are part of the non-removeable storage, which I’m guessing is related to better water/dust resistance and a larger battery or other internals which I would use every day.

            • LucasWaffyWaf
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              111 months ago

              In fairness I’m not too picky outside of an SD card slot and 3.5mm jack. I ain’t a power user, so as long as I can chat with my buddies, reply to emails, enjoy my media, and it does all that just fast enough, I’ll take anything with an SD card slot and headphone jack. I’m not the average user lol

      • @[email protected]
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        11 months ago

        I don’t understand why we can’t have a phone a usb C port on top and bottom for audio + charging