I know I have small hands but c’mon. Flagship phones these days are strait up small tablets, not even what we’d have called on phablets 15 years ago.
I know it’s what people buy, but I’m still sad that if I want a phone that small then I have to deal with camera and display a couple gens old
Just get a USB-c dongle and let that sit on your headphones. These days nearly everything has USB-c anyway and the sound is way better. The last phones I had with the USB-c jack (RedMi Note 13 Pro and iPhone 4 before that) all sounded worse than me using a cheap DAC. Getting an expensive DAC will improve the sound even more.
Personally I say that most would need to get a NAS before they need a SD card or you need to get a dedicated Camera or MP4 player if your pictures or music exceed the 500GB max and streaming isn;t an option using a NAS.
The rest of your points are valid.
Yeah spending 100s of dollars on whole other devices you have to carry around instead of like 10 for an SD card makes a ton of sense.
Yeah man cause a SD card that sits in your phone also works as a backup solution.
It’s not a backup. Neither is a camera or MP4 player (which also can’t play games or display books/comics, so I’d be up to 4 devices to have all my media covered). It’s a way of keeping my media available while I am on the go with or without a internet connection. It’s by far the simplest solution and allows me to do everything on my phone.
A MP4 player can play games or display books/comics. The once from FiO basically are Android devices from which you cannot call (or maybe with an internet connection you can).
Being on the go without an internet connection is getting rarer and rarer anyway so that is less of an issue for most.
Truth of it all is that most people want tinner phones and/or wireless earbuds/headsets and the people who do not are for a big part audiophiles who want better audio quality than a phone is going to offer. So there is only a relatively small section of users who prefer the audio jack.
I used to want one and a SD card and a good 3mm jack as well, but it just doesn’t exist. So I switched to using a NAS (a raspberry Pi can get your pretty far), plus an iPod or Spotify with dongles or just wireless.
I think the real truth is most people just take whatever the phone corporations shovel down their throats without thinking too much about it as long as they have the newest model. Phones have been thin enough for years now. They’ve hit the point where they can’t make the camera as thin as the rest of the phone so it sticks out and won’t sit flat. It’s ridiculous. It’s not like they’ve replaced the features we lost with new better technology anyway. There’s no reason customer focused reason to remove those features. They did it to sell more shit and make their devices less repairable. Expecting people to carry two or more devices when one could do everything is asinine. Also my phone has a Hi-fi DAC and gives fantastic audio quality through the headphone jack.
What phone do you have then?
Apparently the market is not big enough for phone’s to really exist with all the features everybody want for an acceptable price. Otherwise more options with good sound quality and SD card slots exist. But the nature of how DAC’s works is that it is hard to fit that in a slim phone and especially if you want long battery life etc.
Maybe taking two devices is a bit stupid, but on the other hand you can also ask yourself how often you can leave your phone at home or wherever when you want to listen to music.
I would also prefer a phone that has a good DAC, has a SD card and has good working apps. So unless Apple is going to start making that again (they never will), I’ll probably stick with an iPhone and a separate audio device or wireless buds/headphone. Android is not for me and finding the correct Android is a bullshit mess. But I know of others who are interested in an Android device with a good DAC.
I have an LG V20. It has all the features I asked for and then some and was made 8 years ago. It’s 6-7mm thick. The market exists. It’s just not the largest segment so they don’t care.
It’s not that it isn’t the biggest market it’s just that it’s not big enough to be worth while. An 8 year old Android is not going to be supporting all apps, which often makes it unsuitable for people as well. That doesn’t help the whole ordeal either.
Probably because people (like audiophiles) buy things like the Fiio M15S or cheaper alternatives if they really want good sound quality. Idk any who wants to spend 1100 euro on a MP4 player that is bigger than most phone’s, but hey.
Edit: I mean so the market does exist yes, but it seems to be filled by things like MP4 players (running Android) and old iPods with flash mods.