its because companies know what we actually want. they probably spend millions finding out and fine tuning things for them to be as appealing as possible.
That's because it's the vocal minority. Meaning WE are the ones asking for innovation, 95% of people unfortunately aren't as passionate as we are. And when that percentage happens to be, they back off because: 1. It's a purchase that costs 100s of dollars. It's an investment. 2. It's different from the norm. If they aren't invested emotionally as well, they will burn out that drive to really make a difference that they could've otherwise made. It would truly be so awesome to see headlines about interesting and quirky phones, but I truly think we've hit that plateau point where most people are just "fine" with the minimum.
There's no such thing as an "interesting phone" anymore for most people. Smartphones themselves have become just "meh". Like wooden spoons - you may produce a wooden spoon with nice carvings on it but few people would really appreciate that extra feature. How would you "innovate" wooden spoons? You wouldn't because they more or less reached their final form and carvings are not innovation.
Most people don't care for spinning, folding, or curving phones. They just want something that works reliably, has a speedy chip, and a great battery life. That's it! And they don't upgrade their phone every year but every 3-5 years when their old one starts getting slow or the battery degrades!
Hate that it’s every 3-5 years, the old ones lasted so long and computers still last so much longer. Phones are priced so garbage and have such garbage hardware design just like laptops. They’re the same level of BS with the same anti-repair and planned obsolescence.
Well... what if I don't listen to music or watch movies on my phone on-the-go and see no use for it because of it? I don't use wireless ones either because of the cost, you can easily lose them, the audio has some delay and it needing to be charged. Are you also disliking people for not buying a certain brand or design? Seems a bit silly, doesn't it?
@@JustAnotherYou2berI think he meant those who are against the headphone jack,not using it is fine but advocating the removal or justifying brand's decision to remove it is a concern for me. Some common arguments are slim phone (most will use cover anyways), IP ratings (they where there even before the removal of the audio jack) even I don't use micro SD but that doesn't mean I will support it anything that takes away choices from us is a L for me
@@Rishabh-Dev it was brave. Unlike other features, it is visible to people and they had accessories they spent money on that now is a hassle to use on those devices. But the payoff was real: they shaved off another material, design complexity, and distributor from their supply chain. In exchange, the backlash wasn't big enough that it's a net loss compared to the gains they have from its removal AND pushing their brand of TWS to the consumer. It was risky, and there are people who rightly hated it to these days, but as a person working in the intersection of sales, finance, and product departments, I have to applaud its ingenuity and bold business decision that has paid off so well everyone else copied the move. Apple might not be the first to innovate on technical aspects of their products, but they always innovate on business aspects of their products.
@FengLengshun I recently purchased a phone from POCO brand. It is as slim as IPhone 15. Comes with headphone jack, migrated, nfc, wireless charging and cherry on top, no Emerging camera lenses. I don't know what the heck these companies are crying about.
@@godpleasegimmehottomboygfActually, it was the women and that group seems to be the one being catered to by phone companies. Some of Apple's top execs came from fashion or luxury brands.
Samsung A52 and A52s were the last Samsung A5x with everything. People have choosen to buy flagship without those features, way before those features disappeared. It's a choice, made year after year. Most people have choosen to buy earbuds and copy from Airpods to look like an iPhone user. It's logic for a brand to cut off features when they see it can bring more benefits. People still can buy type-c earbuds ( 20€ for example) but they prefer to buy wireless earbuds. We, collectively, choose and accept.
3.5mm jacks, radio, SD card slot, easily removable battery, a screen aspect ratio that doesn't result in empty space on a UA-cam video What other features did they take in the name of "innovation"?
@@lowspender147 I haven't seen any with a field swappable batteries. I always wanted one that that could maintain operation through a batt swap but no one ever built it, as far as I know. Several that you have to dig for using tools, like my Samsung, but it's not something to do on-the-go.
That's why I stick with budget phones, as they have the features that have disappeared in midrange and flagship phones. The Micro SD card slot and headphone jack is a must for me.
I mean yeah in Asia you got tons of choice for phone with headphones jack &sd card it's good , my mom has Realmi 9I 5G ..it had both headphones jack and 1tb microsd card support
Buying a phone without a headphone jack was one of the worst decisions of my life, specially considering i come from a low income environment where buying expensive wireless headphones isn't exactly the priority.
@@omina.fornozhave a history of being flimsy and snapping inside your charge port Edit: I can say this one from experience on both sides... Ive dropped my phone once whilst one was plugged in, snapping it inside the port. I've also extracted them not just for myself, but for friends, as well. (It's more of a pain than you think).
@@mercoro Budget phones still have the jack. But you don't need brand name air pods. Apple sells everything at a premium. Amazon sells no name air pods for $20. They work great.
People really forget how much LG pioneered the current smartphone market, and how many features and designs that are common today that they brought first to market. Just as a sample... LG was the first to bring us the glass front and back, quad HD display, thin side bezels, multiple cameras on the back, multiple cameras on the front, quad DAC, double tap to wake and sleep, 18:9 display, and the super bright display. These are just the ones I can easily name off the top off my head. In almost every case, each of these were called a "gimmick"... Untill Samsung or Apple did the same thing then they were called "innovative" and "the future of smartphones"... 🙄
It's like when you tell a joke and nobody listens. You repeat the joke louder, everyone gives you the stink eye. Then the popular guy retells your joke and everyone laughs. That's LG with smartphones
Except lots of people make fun of apple and Samsung as well, they just have enough brand security to stay prosperous in times of adversity. LG would throw anything at the wall to see what stuck. That business model can't last forever.
I'm all for flexibility and not against it but what are you using sd cards for in today's usb 3 speeds, wifi6 bandwidth, gigantic 128GB storage times? last time I got a card it was 2GB in size..
@emperorSbraz I filled up 128gb on my new s24 in about a week between games, apps, videos, and everything. I hate swapping things out and hate sitting at the maximum storage. I have tons of microsd cards from 128gb to 1.5tb. If I could slot in the 1.5tb this would all be a non issue. Keep in mind the older phones which have headphone jack and memory card slot were also thinner some how
@@hdslave dang that's a lot of videos :) I'm at 90GB after 3 years and I copied my old phone data in here too. to each their own I guess. the headphone jack for me is also very important for the flexibility of not HAVING to buy stupid battery powered expensive headphones for no reason. I think my current device has a shared second sim/sdcard and of course 3.5mm jack. we lost the fight with removable battery for now though :(
@@hdslaveI don't know what percentage of those are games to videos, but if they are videos I would off load them to the cloud or an external storage device anyway.
@@TheJunky228 I'm still using a 2017 Huawei Honor 9 with 5.15" display. Sadly mine is a 4/64GB version because the 6/128GB model wasn't available yet in my country when I bought mine
That's why I still rock a 5-year old Samsung S10e. Snapdragon 855, SD Card, Headphone Jack, stereo speakers, POCKETABLE PHONE, 4k 60fps on both the front and rear camera, as well as an ultra-wide camera. Most phones nowadays sucks.
Absolutely agree that once LG stopped making phones the other android phone makers got lazy. I was a HUGE LG fan, my last several phones were LG (G4, G6, V60with the dual screen). Now I'm stuck with Samsung and while it does have some neat features, they are not nearly as good as LG. The best thing about the LG phones was the space for expandable memory, which hardly any of the phone brands offers any more.
I used to be a fan, but my LG phones kept dying close after warranty expired. I moved away and never regretted. Asus, Poco where rhe phones I had since then
Finally, PDAs were supposed to be the pocket computing standard and instead we got iPhone the so called smart device that's severly limited in input and versatility and entirely compensates for it through software and online feature sets. Hopefully we can get RISC-V PDAs with optional cellular features if you actually want them.
@@arandomfox999 doubtful, unless Apple started the trend. Let's not forget: Linux phones died. Multiple times. Gimmicks and features they don't understand won't convince people to buy phones. You have to convince them it will meaningfully improve their life. For some, just being able to access social media, the digital economy, and occasional photos are good enough. Phones are just commodity to them. For others, it is a status symbol - Apple and Samsung are valued, because others valued them much like people values Casio or Ford. Others values different things - including gimmicks, sometimes. But ultimately? People will buy what they _think_ they need.
HTC sorta returned, but they were like, frozen in a time chamber and came back with a phone that's new but feels like it's from the past (2014 or something)
Sony needs to make their flagships more affordable and support them for longer. It's crazy what you have to pay for one and then get Xiaomi levels of software support.
@@michalsvihla1403 Yeah Sony is great and they were always expensive tbh. I like their very conservative approach to everything. But yeah their biggest weakness is software. I mean i don't even care about the updates since Their phones are openly supported to have bootloader unlocked and they even give out some binaries to developers for cameras and stuff. So u can install your own ROM if you want but i mean you even don't have to cause the android updates just don't even bring anything new anymore. The real problem however is that their overall software experience is just lackluster. Features are missing, they rely too much on Google's basic apps instead of offering their own (which used to be excellent) and their apps they still have aren't as polished and look dated. Also the era when android skins were undesirable and when Google poured all of their cool new ideas into AOSP android are gone, now AOSP is bare bones and manufacturers kinda have to put a lot of effort into polishing their system and Sony just lacks in that.
@@MrMozkoZrout The updates are not important in the way of Android versions, but security patches. Without them it's generally unsafe to use the phone.
People understood that they just need to make phone calls, send emails, navigate apps, watch videos and take some pictures. Smartphones enthusiasts / nerds era finally ended (2010 - 2020)
So many vendors in Asia, it keeps the competition up and prices down. Sometimes they offer unique features to differentiate from the others but most of time the money talks. I wouldn't call it innovation but it's much better than having just 3 choices.
It makes it overwhelming and hard to keep up. The companies in Asia *NEVER focus on refinement and the minutiae* and instead focus on who can put out the fastest CPU and GPU only to replace them in 6 months or so. That's why Xiaomi, who is notorious for releasing dozens and dozens of phones, is slammed for having unreliable, poor quality software despite the historically superior hardware... 😭
@@odeiraoloap Straight UP DISAGREE this is just old Rumers , i have still Xiaomi Redmi note 4 from 206 THAT IS STILL working , and my dad has MI11X ,HyperOS recieving Tons of cool features and preety much stable now after 3 years , NOT TO MENTIONED UNGODLY AMOUNT IF CUSTOM ROM SUPPORT IT HAS OH MY GOD ..
@@xninja2369 I've used Xiaomi before. The only one I liked was Mi A1, which is more of a Google phone. Every time I see an ad from my friend's Xiaomi phone, I just look at it in disgust. Even disregarding that, it feels way too busy. Not as much as the other Chinese brands, but it's one of the reason why I steer clear of them all.
@@chhandobhihbhushan2742 what vendors? If you have the money, you go with Apple or Samsung. If you're an on-paper specs guy or contrarian, you maybe go to Xiaomi. Maybe, if you have money and feeling eccentric, you go to Huawei. The rest? You buy them because some sales person or an ad got commissioned so you buy them without thinking about the invisible compromises. And for most, that's fine - they just need something to access the digital economy. That's not a compliment on those phones, it's a reflection of the commoditization of phones. Phones are the new computer now - some people will go to Apple, others to Lenovo, and some others will think a cheap laptop with AI sticker is a good purchase.
I use a flagship Sony running a no Google install of LineageOS. Phone ticks all the box and is a bit different from the norm. So there still definitely is a pathway out there for Android enthusiasts.
How is LineageOS? I'm considering trying it out for the first time. l'm currently using an Xperia 5 II. Are there a lot of drm features and functions lost?
No sd card and some models don't have headphone jack but gaming phones, most notably ROG are pretty different phones at least up until recent models where they started to blend more mainstream features, but before that the speakers are the most stand out feature.
@@sonyasever7625 not everything, the speakers are a bit mediocre (I had one), some have overheating issues, same as gaming phones the cameras are a tad lacking compared to other brands, although they have high refresh rates it isn't variable at least until recently making a slight battery drain and gaming features are a nice extra too, such as two USB ports, air triggers, the control panel, etc.. But ultimately my decision came down to price, I could get a modern phone with a gen 1 processor for just over $400 or I could have gotten an older 865/888 that had heat issues from Sony for about the same price.
Google killed windows phone. Many normies at that time were extremely dependent on google services,google wouldnt release windows phone apps of their services because of competition. And bam end of life.
I still have my LG V20 and use it as a dedicated audio player. I will NEVER get rid of it. The Hi-Fi quad DAC paired with my Sennheiser HD 650's is fantastic combo.
6:03 I remember LG V35 had a launch price of $900 and it only received one major Android update. iPhone XS launched the same year and it's still receiving major iOS updates to this year.
Eh, you'll anger the people who think "innovation" is just throwing different things on a phone while not working on the software. I remember watching the LG Wing on Flossy's page and him literally taking about 5 seconds for the thumb print scanner to register what was going on before unlocking the phone.
@@superiortoall22 I've personally had issues like that with every phone that switched to under display readers, not that external ones are perfect but the lack of tactile feedback on where to place your finger seems to make retries alot more common, even more so with just a little water or dirt covering it.
@@awc900 yes AT&T model got a buggy v10. But GoogleFi model got stuck on v9. Galaxy S9 released the same year and it received security patch updates till 2022.
Give me a phone with a 5.5" 16:9 display with flat glass and minimal top and bottom bezels, bring back the headphone jack, remove every single rear camera sensor but one (make it flush with the body) and ditch that damn front facing spy camera. There you go, the perfect phone.
I just disable the camera until I need it. They're still handy on occasion, so a hardware camera cover on what you've proposed would be perfect. Massive phone displays are awful.
The thing I've noticed is that as soon as any mainstream device (Samsung, Google, and Apple mainly) tries to do anything even slightly different from what has been perceived as the norm, ppl hop in the comments and forums to call designs and ideas ugly, not innovative or complain about copying. Now these companies are playing it safe by maintaining what's already worked and making a steady profit. Now the current trend is animations. Everyone wants cool/smooth animations. Meanwhile I'm sitting here wondering why Samsung hasn't done anything with edge panels in forever it seems. I want to be able to check messages from Snap, Insta, FB, etc from the edge panel. I'd also like them to update the ones currently in store as well. We're never SD support back because they can charge an extra 100 or 2 for storage and charge for cloud services. Not getting the headphone Jack because a dip in wireless earbuds/headphone sales would be annoying to them. The name of the game now is profit by any and all means now. Not create anything unique. That all changed I feel like, with the first few iphones.
And then due to the lack of basic features being missing, we have literally one, just one company left giving the full meal so to speak. From the Sony Xperias. While I appreciate that they do what they do, having one option that could disappear like LG one day is making me anxious about future "upgrades" in a hypothetical post-Xperia for me. Granted, there is Unihertz as well. Should Sony ever stop making their excellent phones, I guess I'll be fine with a Unihertz Tank. Those are really interesting!
They would have to innovate if competition offered these. Like it's happening in midrange sector which is super competetive. Goes to show that flagships are effectively ruled over by triopol of Apple, Google and Samsung.
I saw an article covering a leak or rumor of the Pixel 9a. It looks like the Pixel 9 but the cameras are flush to the back instead of having a gigantic thick bar on the back. Instead of celebrating the massive W of a flat phone, the author whined throughout the entire article about how not having a camera bar means it doesn't look like a Pixel anymore. Who give a f*** if it looks like a Pixel?! Who gives a f*** if other people can tell what my phone is at a glance?! Most pathetic "a phone is a fashion accessory, not a tool" brained garbage I've read in my life. Give me that flat phone. I miss flat phones.
@@JamesSmith-ix5jd I've seen big phones before, I've held them, etc - been given a work phone, etc. Yeah of course you can get used to anything, but that is not really an argument. I remember when phones were huge, then tiny, then now they've become huge again. I have no need for a huge screen, it's as simple as that. Sorry I am stubborn that way
I use a 4" iphone se from 2016 and its just so nice to use, ill never forget how compact and nice to use it is. It being a 128gb model also offered decent storage, 4k30 video, 1080p60 which todays budget phones just dont offer.
you inspired me to buy the refurbished phone i can currently afford to buy now , the oppo reno4 with android12 due to a previous video. You are a gem and I am a big fan from kenya. Be blessed.
Best LG phone for me was the G3. Had the G3, G4, G6 and the V30. All amazings phones and i really miss the brand. Thinking back the V30 was the most beautiful phone i had, i really regret selling it when i got the mate 20 pro.
Most people don't need to use it. This was a cost-saving (and cost cutting) advancement. Why do you think they have largely removed IR blasters and notification LEDs?
Then worry about changing them. Then worry about letting the case fall to the ground and the tws not charging. Worrying about bt extra batrery consumption. See, there are reasons for the headphone jack to exist, and for it to be liked.
Phones didn't get cheaper bro. I still miss notification lights, they were very useful. The SD card is a simpke move to charge kore on storage, or push people to the cloud. Both shitty things
The fact that us regular folks (yes that includes content creators) have just started to figure out the path these mega companies have been on for years now 😮 they know us better that we do
We kept an old V series LG phone in our second car, just in case of car trouble. We had it for 7 years and only got rid if it a couple of months ago. Of course, it hadn't been updated in years, but it still functioned for calls, but the battery just wasn't holding a charge. I enjoyed this walk through LG phone history.
@@X3RNEA5 it wouldn't. What sells like hotcakes in Asia are Apple, Samsung, and brands that knows how to sell their phones with sales on the ground. Sony is still very much a Japanese hardware company. Even with the PlayStation, their success has largely comes from the hardware, the entrenchment they had from when that mattered a lot, and the fumbling of their rivals (or just a clear lack of interest in fighting head-to-head for Nintendo).
@@X3RNEA5 They're not selling well in Asia nor Japan. iPhone has by far the biggest marketshare in Japan, contrary to the common impression that "Sony is a Japanese brand, Japanese brand = good, Xperia still exists, so they must still be doing well in their local market". 1 VI has been pretty poorly received even from its most loyal fanbase
@@FengLengshun Huh, well said. I felt like this because Sony already has a pretty good image in Asia and people will know that this company means innovation.
@@SitioLumbia they're marvels in hardware engineering. Still won't buy them - I'm not going to buy a phone whose sale price will immediately disintegrate as soon as buy them. And ultimately, I don't _need_ what they offer. I don't even trust if I can rely on their phones for years - though, I don't even know if I can afford them after customs kills their pricing, if the PS5 pricing is any indication.
@@Paul_RohdeYou can purchase them from smaller retailers who import them. You'll likely need to search around. I bought my Xperia 5III from an independent vendor 2 years ago in Toronto. I'm local to the area and it made sense to my needs.
Losing LG and HTC was the beginning of the end for smartphone innovation, but people just didn't want innovation. They wanted the same. They wanted to complain about the same things. People love being taken advantage of.
From LG, I've had the G3, G4, V20, G8X and I currently have a V60. - Snapdragon 868 of I recall... - Headphone Jack with QuadDAC support (Yes, I have normal AND High Impedance headphones!) - SD Card Slot - Stylus Support - Dual Screen Case accessory (which I always use) Oh, and did I mention that it's last OS is Android 13? Which is fairly recent? This phone literally has everything most people need and then some! LG really finished with a banger. The other unique and rather innovative phone that I own, is the Surface Duo 2. Absolutely love using it.
I had the LG G3 as my first smartphone! Then the G6 a few years later. The rear power button/finger print scanner, curved back that made a large (for the time) phone actually fit in your hand and pocket. The double tap to wake/sleep became muscle memory. No camera bump is a bonus too! Micro SD is a must, as that's the main reason I haven't upgraded from my S20FE!
I love my LG G6 and V30 so much, especially the G6. The DAC, the size, fingerprint on the back also the power button, the HDR quantum LED. G6 has the peak phone ergonomy for me.
For all the nostalgia for past phones people forget that companies go out of business for a reason. LG had serious quality control issues and for all their innovation somehow OS updates didn't seem important. The real catalyst for competition in the phone arena was Huawei. They scared the hell out of Samsung and Apple before they were snuffed out. Let's hope Google can do the same. Let's not forget BlackBerry who due to their own stupidity failed as a tech powerhouse yet their innovation and creativity was pillaged by Apple and Samsung.
Nokia as well. Windows phones in general, died before anyone had enough time to get used to them, because, who would've guessed, people would rather stick with what they're familiar with. Being different is not being innovative, it's just being different
I'm the LG enthusiast that was forced to move to Sony, but I still have my V50S sat around as a backup and music player, what's amazing is that old phone still feels more responsive than my X1mkV. The V10 was my first android phone and I loved having no buttons on either side, you could really grab the phone with confidence and never accidentally hit anything, you could also buy aftermarket batteries and rear covers so I put a 10,000 mAh in it. After 2 years it did bootloop though (maybe not helped by the heat of that big battery) and I didn't want a V30 as they made it sealed, so I got an old V20 and that thing was absolutely peak phone. I bought lots of spare parts from witrigs and repaired the V20 myself many times, and customised random bits with different colours, it was magnificent. The V50S came with the deal screen case which was genuinelu useful but sadly very delicate when dropped, so I bought a second one on ebay at great expense only to break it too, sad. Now I'm on my Sony and I do love the 4K screen and magnificent cameras but I miss the LG's smoothness, DAC, form factor, and reliability. I've had wayyyy more unexplained glitches on the Sony than I had on any of the LGs.
Good old days when I remember always waiting for the weekly phone release magazines due to how gud the innovation was way back then my love being the samsung s7edge,s8, s9 era.
Truly an exciting era when people would line up around the block to get the latest iPhone and Apple launched the greatest marketing campaign in the history of consumer products with their Mac vs PC ads, the shot on an iPhone billboards, the Samsung riff on iPhones. People couldn't wait two years to upgrade and wanted a new phone every year.
True i miss when every phone was unique, you could look at one from a mile away and know the exact model but nowadays even the different brands look the same
You are correct, I don't want innovation. I want functionality. Innovation is just a means to an end. It is a way of discovering new and useful functionality. If the functionality that is being offered through "innovation" is of no use to me then the innovation is of no use. The market decided that the things that LG was trying were not useful enough to them to be worth the novelty. That doesn't mean they are wrong. They chose the product that was best for them.
i dont want different for the sake of being different. i want good and better. i dont care about a car with square wheels. i dont care that we've had round wheels 100 years in a row.
Notification light and micro sd card. My Motorola moto edge 20 fusion lights up when I refresh but for some reason they didn't make it a feature I didn't expect that when I unbox it.
I will always complain about phones getting stale and boring but at the same time buy an iPhone and use it for the next 4-5 years lol.True I might have a second work phone sometimes but that's almost exclusively a Samsung. I guess growing up made me boring and now just prefer a phone that just works mainly because its my main computing device and the most important computer I have. If I want to tinker I have gaming handhelds and whacky devices I build in my spare time.
@@Shimeih exactly. I juzg need a tool that will work. For fun, I'll mess around with my Linux laptop or my actual hobbies. Fun phones would be nice, but I just can't justify the money to get those phones when I know what I need and want my phones to work well at.
Having multiple cameras with different focal lengths was always a workaround the physical limitations of the smartphone. I never felt okay about this. A normal, traditional camera has ONE lens and ONE sensor.
Well a normal traditional camera has also a sensor ten times bigger, capable of capturing ten times more light, not being as restricted by physical limitations and not having to rely heavily on software. A normal traditional camera usually also can swap lenses so it's not like you are good with just one and even if you mean those that can't swap lenses then it's definetly not like the default lens can cover all the bases that telephoto and wide lense can. Also a normal and traditional camera suffer from the slight problem that even if compact they are usually three times bigger than your whole smartphone so that is kinda inconvienient. There is no better solution than putting three separate cameras to phones, the physics just don't allow it. And if you'd like a more natural processing and in camera approach to smartphone photography you can look at Sony. It has its drawbacks tho.
@@MrMozkoZrout Volume-wise, my Canon S90 is about the same size as my iPhone 15. By default, it's wide (f/2.0) and it can zoom to 3.8X. I did make the point about having to work around physical limitations. Doesn't mean I like it.
I loved my LG v10 but after my third one going into a bootloop I just had to give it up. The second screen was such a cool feature. I even added wireless charging to it which was hardly a thing at the time. The camera was awesome, but the software is what did the phone in. How did they let that issue persist for so long and through so many models?
@@RegularTetragon it is still innovating in Japan, but their limited popularity do shows that it's not valued enough to justify their price and cons in other markets.
I'm still rocking an LG G7, simply because of the sound. It's stuck on Android 9, hasn't received a security update in ages, and the camera app freezes the phone. Would I do banking or major purchases with it? Of course not.
G5 is still my favourite phone ever. The camera was excellent and the unlock on the back was so convenient compared to the underscreen tech used today. I was tempted by the g6 but the slow software releases really put me off.
I had lots of fun carrying a little utility pouch on my belt with spare batteries and that spare charger that doubled as a battery bank. Family and friends were amused and in awe of me doing the TACTICAL BATTERY RELOAD instead of needing to plug in somewhere... and could offer to charge theirs too with the bank!
I don't understand the complaints on phones being the same. It's ultimately what people wants. The smartphone industry started off very innovative, with manufacturers making very unique models year after year - but that's because nobody really knows what works and what doesn't yet. As the years go by, we now have a sense on what works, from both the manufacturer's standpoint as well as the consumers. So everyone just designs and produces something that people want, while things people don't want dies out. This is just natural selection. Literally convergent evolution within less than 2 decades.
No. Natural selection and evolution are products of random mutations. This is exactly the opposite; there is nothing random about the way phones features are implemented to ensure selection. It is entirely unnatural selection.
It's like everything. As a product category matures, people learn what they want and what they don't want, and everything starts to do the same thing in slightly different ways. It's why no one makes a laptop that is truly different from the rest. I member back in the Windows 8 days when we got dual touchscreen laptops with no keyboards. I member when feature phones used to be weird and wacky, then the Razr came out and set the standard everyone else had to meet. In the 80s there were weird and wacky desktop computers, now every desktop is some sort of non descript box with some ports on the back. The fact of the matter is manufacturers learn what consumers actually want by being innovate, and don't change once they figure that out. Most of these features that enthusiasts claim are innovative are anything but. Small screens? We did that. Consumers don't want them, it's regressive to go back to the small screen. Replaceable Batteries? Consumers seem to much prefer a waterproof phone with a solid build to having a replicable battery. Expandable Storage? People stream music and movies, few people have more than a handful of apps they use on a daily basis, and photos and videos are backed up to the cloud, no one cares and it isn't a buying decision for the vast majority of consumers. Headphone jack? Again, consumers don't care. Why I couldn't say, but they don't rank this in their buying decision. The fact of the matter is consumer demand drives the market. Phones that have 2-3 camera lenses, have larger than 6 inch displays, and are solid unibody construction with a glass back are what consumers want. And no wishful thinking from enthusiasts is going to change that.
I had G5, G6, V40, V60, Velvet. V40 was my best, G5 Ultra lens is the first, but wasn't so good, G6 started waterproof, and V40 was so good, until V60 I just use it as backup. Velvet was so nice body even I couldn't forget today.
The finger print sensor being placed in the back of the phone, roughly towards the top 3/4 of the device, and functioning as a scroll wheel in a way, allowing you to bring down your notifications and the quick settings bar by swiping down on it, as well as hide it by swiping up, is a feature I am going to struggle to live with out. As far as I'm aware, a modern device does not exist with this feature anymore and as a result, I'm keeping my google pixel 2 xl as long as I possibly can.
Ah yes Nothing with their quad Dac headphone jack and micro SD card slot and flip double display. Oh wait or was it just uhhh fancy lights at the back ?
I miss LG so bad.... My LG Wing is finally starting to slow down because of age and I sadly have nowhere else to go. Sony isnt released in America and too expensive too risk porting over and having limited radios support. And Google phones for some stupid reason won't support features I care about ( like expandable storage and a headphone jack) I wish we had more options in the marketplace, but I'm going to keep rocking LG as long as my phone continues allows me to.
1:20 RIGHT?!!! I really liked that positioning of the buttons when I had an LG Magna, and was sad to find out it didn't exist anywhere else. I got it mostly back when I got a rear-facing fingerprint reader, but those are going out of fashion too. It's nothing massive, and I guess it's awkward if the phone is lying down on something... but I liked it nonetheless. It's probably related to me left-handedness tbf.
I have a Xiaomi mi9T, no front camera, has headphone jack, no protuding camera lenses, but no SD slot as at the time (4 years ago) 128 gb were enough and the pro version had more. I'm still very happy with it, and I don't really want to change it as it's more light that the current ones.
Rocked an LG G4 for 4 years. The most solid phone I ever had. Changed the back based on what I wear, and had a spare battery in my backpack instead of o power bank. Also the buttons on the back feel more intuitive than any other placement.
Why most companies removed 3.5 jack from mobile phones? I recently bought a phone from Honor and my usb c earphones are not working! With my previous Motorola phone they worked fine. Now I have to buy a dac which costs 15€ and can be lost....
I’ve been using the LG G6 since 2017 until I got a Samsung A54 replacement in late 2023 but I still have it. I can’t let it go just because it’s so beautiful.
I'm still using my G6 as my personal phone, also since 2017. The fingerprint reader died 2 yers ago, and I'm using it just for making calls. At this point I'm just curious when it will completly give in. For security reasons I mainly use my company phone, but just like you, can't let go of my G6.
The V10 was amazing and different. The way you could switch the back for style was top notch. I loved how different it was, and the quad DAC made a legitimate difference for audiophiles.
Those who screamed like "screw this jack I want a waterproof phone", don't expect we'll be in the same team, true innovation is having a phone with jack and still being waterproof, that's what innovation is about.
I recently bought a motorola g stylus because of the forward thinking, and innovative decision of including not only a sd card slot, but a headphone jack. Hopefully one day their competitors will be able to catch up.
I used to love my G4 until it, too, caught the bootloop of death. The placement of the power and volume were perfect, and the leather back was a really neat vibe. Since then I've had Samsungs, Motorolas, and I'm currently rocking my third Sony, but that LG G4 will always have a special place in my heart.
Having missed innovation among smartphones, I recently purchased a blackberry key one. I dumbed downed a bit from my iphone 13 and Google Pixel 7. Now I'm enjoying the device and people approach me to ask me about the phone and the typing experience.
I held onto my LG for dear life as long as I physically could, only replaced it this year because the port died and no repair place where I am was able to work with it. It was incredibly reliable, I was contemplating getting one of the few extra models they released in South America for a bit after they shuttered mobile operations elsewhere, but I needed a new phone urgently for travel so I settled for a Samsung. Really wish LG hadn't gotten pushed out of the competition, very reliable phones that genuinely only died on me because of my own recklessness.
honestly i was over smartphones with my galaxy s3 already. i was plenty satisfied with that. although i'd say android peak with the s6 (was that the last one with infrared?)
People scream every phone looks the same and it’s boring. But when an interesting phone comes out. Nobody buys it.
its because companies know what we actually want. they probably spend millions finding out and fine tuning things for them to be as appealing as possible.
@@mikn999because a lot of these devices are just too expensive😢 not that I can't afford it's just crazy to spend money like that😮
For me it’s always been that the interesting phone has had some sort of deal breaking compromise
That's because it's the vocal minority. Meaning WE are the ones asking for innovation, 95% of people unfortunately aren't as passionate as we are. And when that percentage happens to be, they back off because:
1. It's a purchase that costs 100s of dollars. It's an investment.
2. It's different from the norm. If they aren't invested emotionally as well, they will burn out that drive to really make a difference that they could've otherwise made.
It would truly be so awesome to see headlines about interesting and quirky phones, but I truly think we've hit that plateau point where most people are just "fine" with the minimum.
There's no such thing as an "interesting phone" anymore for most people. Smartphones themselves have become just "meh". Like wooden spoons - you may produce a wooden spoon with nice carvings on it but few people would really appreciate that extra feature. How would you "innovate" wooden spoons? You wouldn't because they more or less reached their final form and carvings are not innovation.
Most people don't care for spinning, folding, or curving phones. They just want something that works reliably, has a speedy chip, and a great battery life. That's it!
And they don't upgrade their phone every year but every 3-5 years when their old one starts getting slow or the battery degrades!
Innovation doesnt always mean better or even good. It usually just means expensive and broken
@@chiquita683 apple vission peo
@@chiquita683 or , if not broken, at least untested and buggy.
And when the battery degrades, we want to be able to pop in a new one in less than 5 seconds!
Hate that it’s every 3-5 years, the old ones lasted so long and computers still last so much longer. Phones are priced so garbage and have such garbage hardware design just like laptops. They’re the same level of BS with the same anti-repair and planned obsolescence.
I dislike everyone who is against 3.5 mm headphone jack
Well... what if I don't listen to music or watch movies on my phone on-the-go and see no use for it because of it?
I don't use wireless ones either because of the cost, you can easily lose them, the audio has some delay and it needing to be charged.
Are you also disliking people for not buying a certain brand or design? Seems a bit silly, doesn't it?
stuck in pre-teenage development?
@@JustAnotherYou2berI think he meant those who are against the headphone jack,not using it is fine but advocating the removal or justifying brand's decision to remove it is a concern for me. Some common arguments are slim phone (most will use cover anyways), IP ratings (they where there even before the removal of the audio jack) even I don't use micro SD but that doesn't mean I will support it anything that takes away choices from us is a L for me
I'd rather have a waterproof phone than a useless hole
I dislike the 3.5mm jack. It’s either 2.5mm, 4mm, or nothing.
Removing 3.5jack was cowardly move.
@@Rishabh-Dev it was brave. Unlike other features, it is visible to people and they had accessories they spent money on that now is a hassle to use on those devices.
But the payoff was real: they shaved off another material, design complexity, and distributor from their supply chain. In exchange, the backlash wasn't big enough that it's a net loss compared to the gains they have from its removal AND pushing their brand of TWS to the consumer.
It was risky, and there are people who rightly hated it to these days, but as a person working in the intersection of sales, finance, and product departments, I have to applaud its ingenuity and bold business decision that has paid off so well everyone else copied the move.
Apple might not be the first to innovate on technical aspects of their products, but they always innovate on business aspects of their products.
@FengLengshun I recently purchased a phone from POCO brand. It is as slim as IPhone 15. Comes with headphone jack, migrated, nfc, wireless charging and cherry on top, no Emerging camera lenses. I don't know what the heck these companies are crying about.
It made manufacturing easier, but when phone shopping it is a feature I look for
Just use the USB-C port. It's almost in the exact same location.
@@xocomaox Nah I'd still prefer ones with jack. Nothing can match analog quality.
Once phones moved from a piece of innovative technology to a status symbol the competition and innovation just died.
They are very reliable phones, that keep their values for a long time and they also look pretty
what s-hole do you live in if phone is a status symbol?
@@AudriusN There isnt a country on Earth where the iPhone Pro Max isn't a status symbol. The only difference among countries is the age group
@@BillyBob-oi9kl Welcome to EU, muppet, nobody effin cares.
@@godpleasegimmehottomboygfActually, it was the women and that group seems to be the one being catered to by phone companies. Some of Apple's top execs came from fashion or luxury brands.
I hate Samsung for copying Apple and removing the headphone jack and the sd card slot.
Samsung A52 and A52s were the last Samsung A5x with everything.
People have choosen to buy flagship without those features, way before those features disappeared.
It's a choice, made year after year.
Most people have choosen to buy earbuds and copy from Airpods to look like an iPhone user.
It's logic for a brand to cut off features when they see it can bring more benefits.
People still can buy type-c earbuds ( 20€ for example) but they prefer to buy wireless earbuds. We, collectively, choose and accept.
3.5mm jacks, radio, SD card slot, easily removable battery, a screen aspect ratio that doesn't result in empty space on a UA-cam video
What other features did they take in the name of "innovation"?
An external charger for quick-change batts would be nice. Milwaukee phone?
is there any smartphone out there that still has removable battery? I want one
@@lowspender147 I haven't seen any with a field swappable batteries. I always wanted one that that could maintain operation through a batt swap but no one ever built it, as far as I know. Several that you have to dig for using tools, like my Samsung, but it's not something to do on-the-go.
I want my sd slot back
@@stickboybob Sony Xperia still has one
That's why I stick with budget phones, as they have the features that have disappeared in midrange and flagship phones. The Micro SD card slot and headphone jack is a must for me.
I mean yeah in Asia you got tons of choice for phone with headphones jack &sd card it's good , my mom has Realmi 9I 5G ..it had both headphones jack and 1tb microsd card support
Yeah we got the realme P1 speed here it has a Dimensity 7300 so it's good enough for daily tasks and light gaming
nah, i'm gonna buy sony xperia, i will support them with my wallet. they still have sd card and 3,5mm jack
@@sonyasever7625 @sonyasever7625 only Flagship brand with 3.5Mm jack , Sd card + Separate app for videography + natural photography 🗿
It's going away there too
Buying a phone without a headphone jack was one of the worst decisions of my life, specially considering i come from a low income environment where buying expensive wireless headphones isn't exactly the priority.
What about USB-C to 3.5mm adapters?
@@omina.fornozhave a history of being flimsy and snapping inside your charge port
Edit: I can say this one from experience on both sides... Ive dropped my phone once whilst one was plugged in, snapping it inside the port. I've also extracted them not just for myself, but for friends, as well. (It's more of a pain than you think).
@@omina.fornoz it's a mess of cables to have. Don't fit great in the pocket either.
@@mercoro Budget phones still have the jack. But you don't need brand name air pods. Apple sells everything at a premium. Amazon sells no name air pods for $20. They work great.
@omina.fornoz that tends to wear the charging port out a lot faster
People really forget how much LG pioneered the current smartphone market, and how many features and designs that are common today that they brought first to market.
Just as a sample... LG was the first to bring us the glass front and back, quad HD display, thin side bezels, multiple cameras on the back, multiple cameras on the front, quad DAC, double tap to wake and sleep, 18:9 display, and the super bright display.
These are just the ones I can easily name off the top off my head.
In almost every case, each of these were called a "gimmick"... Untill Samsung or Apple did the same thing then they were called "innovative" and "the future of smartphones"... 🙄
Sexual harrassment from the ugly guy, compliment from the handsome guy meme comes to mind, really.
It's like when you tell a joke and nobody listens.
You repeat the joke louder, everyone gives you the stink eye.
Then the popular guy retells your joke and everyone laughs.
That's LG with smartphones
Except lots of people make fun of apple and Samsung as well, they just have enough brand security to stay prosperous in times of adversity.
LG would throw anything at the wall to see what stuck. That business model can't last forever.
Yeah remove the features people use daily and call it an ''innovation''
Absolutely a genius idea.
There are replacements.for most all those features. You are the one refusing to upgrade.
Of course, taking away replaceable batteries does suck.
@777idkineedausername Not the same thing on so many aspects.
From audio quality to charging.
We desperately need the microSD slot back. It absolutely sucks not having that in my galaxy phone
I'm all for flexibility and not against it but what are you using sd cards for in today's usb 3 speeds, wifi6 bandwidth, gigantic 128GB storage times?
last time I got a card it was 2GB in size..
@emperorSbraz I filled up 128gb on my new s24 in about a week between games, apps, videos, and everything. I hate swapping things out and hate sitting at the maximum storage. I have tons of microsd cards from 128gb to 1.5tb. If I could slot in the 1.5tb this would all be a non issue. Keep in mind the older phones which have headphone jack and memory card slot were also thinner some how
@@hdslave dang that's a lot of videos :)
I'm at 90GB after 3 years and I copied my old phone data in here too.
to each their own I guess.
the headphone jack for me is also very important for the flexibility of not HAVING to buy stupid battery powered expensive headphones for no reason.
I think my current device has a shared second sim/sdcard and of course 3.5mm jack.
we lost the fight with removable battery for now though :(
@@hdslaveI don't know what percentage of those are games to videos, but if they are videos I would off load them to the cloud or an external storage device anyway.
Even the small compact phones they replace with the gigantic 6.7inches phones.
imo 6.1 - 6.4 inch phones are the perfect size
@@limo1795 and I'm still using a 2017, 4.7" screen, xz1 compact because even 5.1" is larger than what I want, forget about the 6" range lmfao
@@limo1795 It's a very comfy screen size.
@@TheJunky228 I'm still using a 2017 Huawei Honor 9 with 5.15" display. Sadly mine is a 4/64GB version because the 6/128GB model wasn't available yet in my country when I bought mine
Because no one bought them
I want phone manufacturers to stop removing ports!
Exactly, stop removing upgradability possibilities too (sd card, replaceable batteries)
money go brrrrrrrr
I'd like a second USB-C for sure.
@@antilogism What would you do with those two charging ports?
@@Abhishek__Parihar USB-C, not charging. Saves having to use a hub with 2 devces or a device with a charger.
LG needs a comeback 😭❤
Nah good riddance after boot loop issues & poor sales it’s OVER 😅
For who to buy?
I say htc would be better
They have always had brilliant ideas, just poor way too market them
@@GuyRobertKernisant ...and poor manufacturing quality which lead to the confirrmed problems with 7 dying premium phones and multiple cheaper models.
That's why I still rock a 5-year old Samsung S10e. Snapdragon 855, SD Card, Headphone Jack, stereo speakers, POCKETABLE PHONE, 4k 60fps on both the front and rear camera, as well as an ultra-wide camera. Most phones nowadays sucks.
I just recently bought a refurbished s10e
what's the newest version of Android it can handle?
@@martian9999the snapdragon 855 should still be good for years to come
@@martian9999 android 12 version
and yet, these spec compare very competitively to modern day phones. Including the RAM size
We want headphone jacks, nfc, ir blasters, and radios.
Poco F5 :)
no headphone jacks. we have NFC. IR blasters are useless (where are you "universal remotes" now?).
Headphone jacks? No thank you for me.
Jfc just get a Sony
all Xiaomi phones have ir blaster and nfc lol
I'm so sick of the camera hole in pretty much every phone screen nowadays. I will always buy Sony Xperia until the industry moves away from it.
And that's why the Xperia phones look old, like a 2013-era TV with the MASSIVE forehead and chin. 😭
@odeiraoloap Sony Xperia 1 V does not have a forehead and chin. In fact it has an uninterrupted viewing experience.
The Xperias are great, but they lack camera hardware and software that competes properly. Despite the natural processing
I had an Xperia 5 II, I liked the headphone jack and camera but the rest of the phone let me down sadly. So now I'm on a boring Samsung phone.
@@RennieAshwhat do you mean ? Most of smartphones use their camera.
it would be good if phone manufactures would push a new phone every 3 years or so not every year with a small changes
I think android need to do that first.
No thanks, i treat myself to a new phone every year.
Would suck to go buy a new phone now and it was made 3 years ago😂 would not be very new then😂
@@iLuseMy1v1s Me thinks you're bad with money lol
@illegalalien6542 my 830 credit score suggests otherwise.
Absolutely agree that once LG stopped making phones the other android phone makers got lazy. I was a HUGE LG fan, my last several phones were LG (G4, G6, V60with the dual screen). Now I'm stuck with Samsung and while it does have some neat features, they are not nearly as good as LG. The best thing about the LG phones was the space for expandable memory, which hardly any of the phone brands offers any more.
Market got lazy not because of Lg but because american ban for huawei
I used to be a fan, but my LG phones kept dying close after warranty expired. I moved away and never regretted. Asus, Poco where rhe phones I had since then
It's crazy how many people are commenting like they founded the LG corporation or something. Why the emotional investment towards a brand?
What are you storing on your phone that can't be handled with simple storage management?
Nah, you are lying. Why don't you keep using LG? The reason you switch is because you don't like LG you bum.
Nowadays I'm watching videos about old PDA's and other handheld devices and have realized, we went foward but in reverse.
Finally, PDAs were supposed to be the pocket computing standard and instead we got iPhone the so called smart device that's severly limited in input and versatility and entirely compensates for it through software and online feature sets.
Hopefully we can get RISC-V PDAs with optional cellular features if you actually want them.
Palm pilot was PDA King back in the day. A legend.
@@arandomfox999 doubtful, unless Apple started the trend. Let's not forget: Linux phones died. Multiple times. Gimmicks and features they don't understand won't convince people to buy phones. You have to convince them it will meaningfully improve their life.
For some, just being able to access social media, the digital economy, and occasional photos are good enough. Phones are just commodity to them. For others, it is a status symbol - Apple and Samsung are valued, because others valued them much like people values Casio or Ford. Others values different things - including gimmicks, sometimes.
But ultimately? People will buy what they _think_ they need.
Damn... I miss my QTEK 9100 with windows mobile so much!
I need Sony's dedicated camera button to become standard
I remember when every Windows Phone had such a button...
Apple added one, we called them hacks. These companies can't win in your eyes.
HTC needs to enter the chat
Same for LG, Sony also needs to stay
HTC sorta returned, but they were like, frozen in a time chamber and came back with a phone that's new but feels like it's from the past (2014 or something)
Sony needs to make their flagships more affordable and support them for longer. It's crazy what you have to pay for one and then get Xiaomi levels of software support.
@@michalsvihla1403 Yeah Sony is great and they were always expensive tbh. I like their very conservative approach to everything. But yeah their biggest weakness is software. I mean i don't even care about the updates since Their phones are openly supported to have bootloader unlocked and they even give out some binaries to developers for cameras and stuff. So u can install your own ROM if you want but i mean you even don't have to cause the android updates just don't even bring anything new anymore. The real problem however is that their overall software experience is just lackluster. Features are missing, they rely too much on Google's basic apps instead of offering their own (which used to be excellent) and their apps they still have aren't as polished and look dated. Also the era when android skins were undesirable and when Google poured all of their cool new ideas into AOSP android are gone, now AOSP is bare bones and manufacturers kinda have to put a lot of effort into polishing their system and Sony just lacks in that.
@@MrMozkoZrout The updates are not important in the way of Android versions, but security patches. Without them it's generally unsafe to use the phone.
People understood that they just need to make phone calls, send emails, navigate apps, watch videos and take some pictures. Smartphones enthusiasts / nerds era finally ended (2010 - 2020)
What is phone calls?😅
@@NKN82 People used to talk into their phones once upon a time. This primitive ritual has died out.
So many vendors in Asia, it keeps the competition up and prices down. Sometimes they offer unique features to differentiate from the others but most of time the money talks. I wouldn't call it innovation but it's much better than having just 3 choices.
It makes it overwhelming and hard to keep up. The companies in Asia *NEVER focus on refinement and the minutiae* and instead focus on who can put out the fastest CPU and GPU only to replace them in 6 months or so.
That's why Xiaomi, who is notorious for releasing dozens and dozens of phones, is slammed for having unreliable, poor quality software despite the historically superior hardware... 😭
@@odeiraoloap Straight UP DISAGREE this is just old Rumers ,
i have still Xiaomi Redmi note 4 from 206 THAT IS STILL working , and my dad has MI11X ,HyperOS recieving Tons of cool features and preety much stable now after 3 years , NOT TO MENTIONED UNGODLY AMOUNT IF CUSTOM ROM SUPPORT IT HAS OH MY GOD ..
@@odeiraoloap my 4 year old budget Xiaomi phone still standing great
@@xninja2369 I've used Xiaomi before. The only one I liked was Mi A1, which is more of a Google phone. Every time I see an ad from my friend's Xiaomi phone, I just look at it in disgust. Even disregarding that, it feels way too busy. Not as much as the other Chinese brands, but it's one of the reason why I steer clear of them all.
@@chhandobhihbhushan2742 what vendors? If you have the money, you go with Apple or Samsung. If you're an on-paper specs guy or contrarian, you maybe go to Xiaomi. Maybe, if you have money and feeling eccentric, you go to Huawei.
The rest? You buy them because some sales person or an ad got commissioned so you buy them without thinking about the invisible compromises. And for most, that's fine - they just need something to access the digital economy.
That's not a compliment on those phones, it's a reflection of the commoditization of phones. Phones are the new computer now - some people will go to Apple, others to Lenovo, and some others will think a cheap laptop with AI sticker is a good purchase.
RIP LG Mobile. You are sorely missed.😢
I use a flagship Sony running a no Google install of LineageOS. Phone ticks all the box and is a bit different from the norm. So there still definitely is a pathway out there for Android enthusiasts.
How is LineageOS? I'm considering trying it out for the first time. l'm currently using an Xperia 5 II. Are there a lot of drm features and functions lost?
No sd card and some models don't have headphone jack but gaming phones, most notably ROG are pretty different phones at least up until recent models where they started to blend more mainstream features, but before that the speakers are the most stand out feature.
@@mgz0305 It's great, you can reinstall all the Sony apps and they work natively
@@vgamesx1 Sony has everything
@@sonyasever7625 not everything, the speakers are a bit mediocre (I had one), some have overheating issues, same as gaming phones the cameras are a tad lacking compared to other brands, although they have high refresh rates it isn't variable at least until recently making a slight battery drain and gaming features are a nice extra too, such as two USB ports, air triggers, the control panel, etc..
But ultimately my decision came down to price, I could get a modern phone with a gen 1 processor for just over $400 or I could have gotten an older 865/888 that had heat issues from Sony for about the same price.
It's not that we don't want innovation. It's that we don't want to have to buy a new phone every year.
I will forever blame tech reviewers for the demise of LG and Microsoft Mobile
Right. Tech reviewers roasted LG too much. 😢
sure the tech reviewer are to blame, not that LG make crappy phones. Is that you Disney?
@@stellviahohenheim How many LG phones have you used? 😌
Google killed windows phone.
Many normies at that time were extremely dependent on google services,google wouldnt release windows phone apps of their services because of competition.
And bam end of life.
Microsoft Mobile roasted itself when it couldn't run FNAF and the next generation laughed at that.
I still have my LG V20 and use it as a dedicated audio player. I will NEVER get rid of it. The Hi-Fi quad DAC paired with my Sennheiser HD 650's is fantastic combo.
I was going to keep mine as a smart IR remote too, but I bricked them.
OL MATE SENNY HURR GERR SIX HUNGOES?!
I really miss the Quad DAC. I had the LG G2, LG G5, and the LG V30+.
as if you know what that means. and i bet bet you won't be able to tell which one is playing.
Agreed, especially as an IEM nerd, having to not carry dongles is huge.
@@AudriusNYou okay, bud?
@@utubepunk should i tell what to do?
A legend. They were that only one of its kind. G5 was ahead of its time.
Headphone jack and SD card slot needs to comeback, only sony still do it
6:03 I remember LG V35 had a launch price of $900 and it only received one major Android update. iPhone XS launched the same year and it's still receiving major iOS updates to this year.
Eh, you'll anger the people who think "innovation" is just throwing different things on a phone while not working on the software. I remember watching the LG Wing on Flossy's page and him literally taking about 5 seconds for the thumb print scanner to register what was going on before unlocking the phone.
@@superiortoall22 I've personally had issues like that with every phone that switched to under display readers, not that external ones are perfect but the lack of tactile feedback on where to place your finger seems to make retries alot more common, even more so with just a little water or dirt covering it.
The retail version only got an Android 9 update but most of the carrier versions also got Android 10.
@@awc900 yes AT&T model got a buggy v10. But GoogleFi model got stuck on v9. Galaxy S9 released the same year and it received security patch updates till 2022.
thats an android thing though, not necessarily LG’s fault
The V20 is one of my all-time favorite phones as it was the last flagship to have: Headphone jack, SD Card slot AND a removable battery. RIP LG Phones
The correct statement would be, people don't want bad ideas dressed up as "innovative"
Give me a phone with a 5.5" 16:9 display with flat glass and minimal top and bottom bezels, bring back the headphone jack, remove every single rear camera sensor but one (make it flush with the body) and ditch that damn front facing spy camera. There you go, the perfect phone.
why ditch the front camera , make it a pop up and get the best of both worlds
@@tomanderson2006 because ugly people don't care about one
I can't do without a selfie camera 😅
I just disable the camera until I need it. They're still handy on occasion, so a hardware camera cover on what you've proposed would be perfect. Massive phone displays are awful.
@@tomanderson2006 Because I have literally zero reason to ever have a damn camera pointed at my face, and pop-ups increase cost/reduce durability.
The thing I've noticed is that as soon as any mainstream device (Samsung, Google, and Apple mainly) tries to do anything even slightly different from what has been perceived as the norm, ppl hop in the comments and forums to call designs and ideas ugly, not innovative or complain about copying. Now these companies are playing it safe by maintaining what's already worked and making a steady profit. Now the current trend is animations. Everyone wants cool/smooth animations. Meanwhile I'm sitting here wondering why Samsung hasn't done anything with edge panels in forever it seems. I want to be able to check messages from Snap, Insta, FB, etc from the edge panel. I'd also like them to update the ones currently in store as well. We're never SD support back because they can charge an extra 100 or 2 for storage and charge for cloud services. Not getting the headphone Jack because a dip in wireless earbuds/headphone sales would be annoying to them. The name of the game now is profit by any and all means now. Not create anything unique. That all changed I feel like, with the first few iphones.
And then due to the lack of basic features being missing, we have literally one, just one company left giving the full meal so to speak. From the Sony Xperias.
While I appreciate that they do what they do, having one option that could disappear like LG one day is making me anxious about future "upgrades" in a hypothetical post-Xperia for me.
Granted, there is Unihertz as well. Should Sony ever stop making their excellent phones, I guess I'll be fine with a Unihertz Tank. Those are really interesting!
@@Spearra If you liked Unihertz, then you'll probably like Blackview phones.
They would have to innovate if competition offered these. Like it's happening in midrange sector which is super competetive. Goes to show that flagships are effectively ruled over by triopol of Apple, Google and Samsung.
I saw an article covering a leak or rumor of the Pixel 9a. It looks like the Pixel 9 but the cameras are flush to the back instead of having a gigantic thick bar on the back. Instead of celebrating the massive W of a flat phone, the author whined throughout the entire article about how not having a camera bar means it doesn't look like a Pixel anymore. Who give a f*** if it looks like a Pixel?! Who gives a f*** if other people can tell what my phone is at a glance?! Most pathetic "a phone is a fashion accessory, not a tool" brained garbage I've read in my life. Give me that flat phone. I miss flat phones.
I'm sorry, I can't stop noticing how HUMONGOUS all the phones are, like geez! I still have an S4 mini from like 2013 or whenever they came out
Buy any 6.6" phone, in two weeks you will think the size is just perfect. You can configure a special mode for one hand usage.
@@JamesSmith-ix5jd I've seen big phones before, I've held them, etc - been given a work phone, etc. Yeah of course you can get used to anything, but that is not really an argument. I remember when phones were huge, then tiny, then now they've become huge again. I have no need for a huge screen, it's as simple as that. Sorry I am stubborn that way
I use a 4" iphone se from 2016 and its just so nice to use, ill never forget how compact and nice to use it is. It being a 128gb model also offered decent storage, 4k30 video, 1080p60 which todays budget phones just dont offer.
I like keeping a phone one me and modern monster phones can't do that.
@@martin1649what budget phones are you referring to that don't have 4k?
you inspired me to buy the refurbished phone i can currently afford to buy now , the oppo reno4 with android12 due to a previous video. You are a gem and I am a big fan from kenya. Be blessed.
refurb is a great lower cost option. i look at the website swappa
😂
Buying a used flagship phone is always better than a midrange one, if you know how to buy it. But to each their own. It's nice you enjoyed yours.
@@safwanfatih6167💯 AGREE
There's not any major feature / changes after Android 12 anyway. Best AI products can be access as an app rather than feature.
i hate pics and selfies , why not making a phone for music lovers with a prime dac , amplifier etc, it is all about the freaking cameras
Moondrop MIAD has all those features!
If it makes sense for them it will
Lg V phones were good for that alongside a good camera
@@martin1649 Yeah, LG was nice but partly let down by only offering 1 or 2 Android version upgrades ;-;
Yes , you are gay
Best LG phone for me was the G3.
Had the G3, G4, G6 and the V30. All amazings phones and i really miss the brand.
Thinking back the V30 was the most beautiful phone i had, i really regret selling it when i got the mate 20 pro.
I can live without headphone jack but micro sd card expansion is a must. Removing it is just pure greed
Most people don't need to use it. This was a cost-saving (and cost cutting) advancement. Why do you think they have largely removed IR blasters and notification LEDs?
Just use tws headphones they are not that expensive
Then worry about changing them. Then worry about letting the case fall to the ground and the tws not charging. Worrying about bt extra batrery consumption. See, there are reasons for the headphone jack to exist, and for it to be liked.
Phones didn't get cheaper bro. I still miss notification lights, they were very useful. The SD card is a simpke move to charge kore on storage, or push people to the cloud. Both shitty things
well duh
The fact that us regular folks (yes that includes content creators) have just started to figure out the path these mega companies have been on for years now 😮 they know us better that we do
I had a V20, a V35, a V60, and now an Xperia 5 IV. Good stuff all around.
We kept an old V series LG phone in our second car, just in case of car trouble. We had it for 7 years and only got rid if it a couple of months ago. Of course, it hadn't been updated in years, but it still functioned for calls, but the battery just wasn't holding a charge. I enjoyed this walk through LG phone history.
Sony needs to advertise and actually distribute they're fucking phones NOW
If Sony actually sold their phones in Asia it will sell like HOTCAKES
Also omg Cave Story Misery pfp!!!!!
@@X3RNEA5 a sophisticated gentleman well versed in fine culture you are indeed
@@X3RNEA5 it wouldn't. What sells like hotcakes in Asia are Apple, Samsung, and brands that knows how to sell their phones with sales on the ground. Sony is still very much a Japanese hardware company. Even with the PlayStation, their success has largely comes from the hardware, the entrenchment they had from when that mattered a lot, and the fumbling of their rivals (or just a clear lack of interest in fighting head-to-head for Nintendo).
@@X3RNEA5 They're not selling well in Asia nor Japan. iPhone has by far the biggest marketshare in Japan, contrary to the common impression that "Sony is a Japanese brand, Japanese brand = good, Xperia still exists, so they must still be doing well in their local market". 1 VI has been pretty poorly received even from its most loyal fanbase
@@FengLengshun Huh, well said.
I felt like this because Sony already has a pretty good image in Asia and people will know that this company means innovation.
Any opinions about Sony phones?
When my LG phone gets too slow, Sony will likely be my next phone.
@@Paul_Rohde You can't get them anymore. They left the European and American markets.
@@jonfreeman9682 That's a worrying sign. I've bought many of my phones from Asia anyway, same model as Australia, where I live.
@@SitioLumbia they're marvels in hardware engineering. Still won't buy them - I'm not going to buy a phone whose sale price will immediately disintegrate as soon as buy them. And ultimately, I don't _need_ what they offer. I don't even trust if I can rely on their phones for years - though, I don't even know if I can afford them after customs kills their pricing, if the PS5 pricing is any indication.
@@Paul_RohdeYou can purchase them from smaller retailers who import them. You'll likely need to search around. I bought my Xperia 5III from an independent vendor 2 years ago in Toronto. I'm local to the area and it made sense to my needs.
Losing LG and HTC was the beginning of the end for smartphone innovation, but people just didn't want innovation. They wanted the same. They wanted to complain about the same things. People love being taken advantage of.
Thank you for this video! It feels like a well-deserved tribute to LG's legacy in the smartphone world.
From LG, I've had the G3, G4, V20, G8X and I currently have a V60.
- Snapdragon 868 of I recall...
- Headphone Jack with QuadDAC support (Yes, I have normal AND High Impedance headphones!)
- SD Card Slot
- Stylus Support
- Dual Screen Case accessory (which I always use)
Oh, and did I mention that it's last OS is Android 13? Which is fairly recent?
This phone literally has everything most people need and then some! LG really finished with a banger.
The other unique and rather innovative phone that I own, is the Surface Duo 2. Absolutely love using it.
I have v20, V30(running), V50, V60 (running) G8x (running).
I love LG. I always will be.
I had the LG G3 as my first smartphone! Then the G6 a few years later. The rear power button/finger print scanner, curved back that made a large (for the time) phone actually fit in your hand and pocket. The double tap to wake/sleep became muscle memory. No camera bump is a bonus too! Micro SD is a must, as that's the main reason I haven't upgraded from my S20FE!
I owned a G3, G4, and a G8 and I miss them.
I love my LG G6 and V30 so much, especially the G6. The DAC, the size, fingerprint on the back also the power button, the HDR quantum LED. G6 has the peak phone ergonomy for me.
For all the nostalgia for past phones people forget that companies go out of business for a reason. LG had serious quality control issues and for all their innovation somehow OS updates didn't seem important. The real catalyst for competition in the phone arena was Huawei. They scared the hell out of Samsung and Apple before they were snuffed out. Let's hope Google can do the same. Let's not forget BlackBerry who due to their own stupidity failed as a tech powerhouse yet their innovation and creativity was pillaged by Apple and Samsung.
Nokia as well. Windows phones in general, died before anyone had enough time to get used to them, because, who would've guessed, people would rather stick with what they're familiar with. Being different is not being innovative, it's just being different
I'm the LG enthusiast that was forced to move to Sony, but I still have my V50S sat around as a backup and music player, what's amazing is that old phone still feels more responsive than my X1mkV.
The V10 was my first android phone and I loved having no buttons on either side, you could really grab the phone with confidence and never accidentally hit anything, you could also buy aftermarket batteries and rear covers so I put a 10,000 mAh in it. After 2 years it did bootloop though (maybe not helped by the heat of that big battery) and I didn't want a V30 as they made it sealed, so I got an old V20 and that thing was absolutely peak phone. I bought lots of spare parts from witrigs and repaired the V20 myself many times, and customised random bits with different colours, it was magnificent. The V50S came with the deal screen case which was genuinelu useful but sadly very delicate when dropped, so I bought a second one on ebay at great expense only to break it too, sad. Now I'm on my Sony and I do love the 4K screen and magnificent cameras but I miss the LG's smoothness, DAC, form factor, and reliability. I've had wayyyy more unexplained glitches on the Sony than I had on any of the LGs.
Good old days when I remember always waiting for the weekly phone release magazines due to how gud the innovation was way back then my love being the samsung s7edge,s8, s9 era.
Truly an exciting era when people would line up around the block to get the latest iPhone and Apple launched the greatest marketing campaign in the history of consumer products with their Mac vs PC ads, the shot on an iPhone billboards, the Samsung riff on iPhones. People couldn't wait two years to upgrade and wanted a new phone every year.
True i miss when every phone was unique, you could look at one from a mile away and know the exact model but nowadays even the different brands look the same
You are correct, I don't want innovation. I want functionality. Innovation is just a means to an end. It is a way of discovering new and useful functionality. If the functionality that is being offered through "innovation" is of no use to me then the innovation is of no use. The market decided that the things that LG was trying were not useful enough to them to be worth the novelty. That doesn't mean they are wrong. They chose the product that was best for them.
i dont want different for the sake of being different. i want good and better. i dont care about a car with square wheels. i dont care that we've had round wheels 100 years in a row.
Funny how this video came up in my suggestions right after I was just searching for any orphaned Windows Phone users on Bluesky 🤣
HTC deserves a comeback more than LG I suppose.
I think you missed one important factor, the western sanctions on Huawei.
0:23 oneplus is chinese....
Notification light and micro sd card. My Motorola moto edge 20 fusion lights up when I refresh but for some reason they didn't make it a feature I didn't expect that when I unbox it.
I will always complain about phones getting stale and boring but at the same time buy an iPhone and use it for the next 4-5 years lol.True I might have a second work phone sometimes but that's almost exclusively a Samsung. I guess growing up made me boring and now just prefer a phone that just works mainly because its my main computing device and the most important computer I have. If I want to tinker I have gaming handhelds and whacky devices I build in my spare time.
@@Shimeih exactly. I juzg need a tool that will work. For fun, I'll mess around with my Linux laptop or my actual hobbies. Fun phones would be nice, but I just can't justify the money to get those phones when I know what I need and want my phones to work well at.
I remember when I was in elementary, having a smartphone "made you look important and rich" in my old elementary school.
Having multiple cameras with different focal lengths was always a workaround the physical limitations of the smartphone. I never felt okay about this.
A normal, traditional camera has ONE lens and ONE sensor.
Well a normal traditional camera has also a sensor ten times bigger, capable of capturing ten times more light, not being as restricted by physical limitations and not having to rely heavily on software. A normal traditional camera usually also can swap lenses so it's not like you are good with just one and even if you mean those that can't swap lenses then it's definetly not like the default lens can cover all the bases that telephoto and wide lense can. Also a normal and traditional camera suffer from the slight problem that even if compact they are usually three times bigger than your whole smartphone so that is kinda inconvienient. There is no better solution than putting three separate cameras to phones, the physics just don't allow it. And if you'd like a more natural processing and in camera approach to smartphone photography you can look at Sony. It has its drawbacks tho.
@@MrMozkoZrout Volume-wise, my Canon S90 is about the same size as my iPhone 15. By default, it's wide (f/2.0) and it can zoom to 3.8X.
I did make the point about having to work around physical limitations. Doesn't mean I like it.
I loved my LG v10 but after my third one going into a bootloop I just had to give it up. The second screen was such a cool feature. I even added wireless charging to it which was hardly a thing at the time. The camera was awesome, but the software is what did the phone in. How did they let that issue persist for so long and through so many models?
Quality content as always 👑
1:48 reminds me of that annoying touchwiz feature samsung used to have
This may just be an example of quintessence. Nobody complains about a lack of innovation in paperclips.
@@RegularTetragon it is still innovating in Japan, but their limited popularity do shows that it's not valued enough to justify their price and cons in other markets.
I'm still rocking an LG G7, simply because of the sound. It's stuck on Android 9, hasn't received a security update in ages, and the camera app freezes the phone. Would I do banking or major purchases with it? Of course not.
If the innovation are cheaper, i will buy all the innovation the manufacturer makes
G5 is still my favourite phone ever. The camera was excellent and the unlock on the back was so convenient compared to the underscreen tech used today. I was tempted by the g6 but the slow software releases really put me off.
I had lots of fun carrying a little utility pouch on my belt with spare batteries and that spare charger that doubled as a battery bank. Family and friends were amused and in awe of me doing the TACTICAL BATTERY RELOAD instead of needing to plug in somewhere... and could offer to charge theirs too with the bank!
I don't understand the complaints on phones being the same. It's ultimately what people wants. The smartphone industry started off very innovative, with manufacturers making very unique models year after year - but that's because nobody really knows what works and what doesn't yet. As the years go by, we now have a sense on what works, from both the manufacturer's standpoint as well as the consumers. So everyone just designs and produces something that people want, while things people don't want dies out. This is just natural selection. Literally convergent evolution within less than 2 decades.
No. Natural selection and evolution are products of random mutations. This is exactly the opposite; there is nothing random about the way phones features are implemented to ensure selection. It is entirely unnatural selection.
It's like everything. As a product category matures, people learn what they want and what they don't want, and everything starts to do the same thing in slightly different ways. It's why no one makes a laptop that is truly different from the rest. I member back in the Windows 8 days when we got dual touchscreen laptops with no keyboards. I member when feature phones used to be weird and wacky, then the Razr came out and set the standard everyone else had to meet.
In the 80s there were weird and wacky desktop computers, now every desktop is some sort of non descript box with some ports on the back.
The fact of the matter is manufacturers learn what consumers actually want by being innovate, and don't change once they figure that out. Most of these features that enthusiasts claim are innovative are anything but. Small screens? We did that. Consumers don't want them, it's regressive to go back to the small screen. Replaceable Batteries? Consumers seem to much prefer a waterproof phone with a solid build to having a replicable battery. Expandable Storage? People stream music and movies, few people have more than a handful of apps they use on a daily basis, and photos and videos are backed up to the cloud, no one cares and it isn't a buying decision for the vast majority of consumers. Headphone jack? Again, consumers don't care. Why I couldn't say, but they don't rank this in their buying decision.
The fact of the matter is consumer demand drives the market. Phones that have 2-3 camera lenses, have larger than 6 inch displays, and are solid unibody construction with a glass back are what consumers want. And no wishful thinking from enthusiasts is going to change that.
I had G5, G6, V40, V60, Velvet.
V40 was my best, G5 Ultra lens is the first, but wasn't so good, G6 started waterproof, and V40 was so good, until V60 I just use it as backup.
Velvet was so nice body even I couldn't forget today.
*HTC
The finger print sensor being placed in the back of the phone, roughly towards the top 3/4 of the device, and functioning as a scroll wheel in a way, allowing you to bring down your notifications and the quick settings bar by swiping down on it, as well as hide it by swiping up, is a feature I am going to struggle to live with out. As far as I'm aware, a modern device does not exist with this feature anymore and as a result, I'm keeping my google pixel 2 xl as long as I possibly can.
NOTHING is carrying the legacy of LG
Ah yes Nothing with their quad Dac headphone jack and micro SD card slot and flip double display. Oh wait or was it just uhhh fancy lights at the back ?
@@MrMozkoZrout nailed it
LG and HTC were the most creative and innovative brands in the industry,and unfortunately we've lost both 😢
Am here after googling the new samsung A16 and realised it didnt have a headphone jack
The old saying goes 'If it aint broke, dont fix it'
I miss LG so bad.... My LG Wing is finally starting to slow down because of age and I sadly have nowhere else to go.
Sony isnt released in America and too expensive too risk porting over and having limited radios support.
And Google phones for some stupid reason won't support features I care about ( like expandable storage and a headphone jack)
I wish we had more options in the marketplace, but I'm going to keep rocking LG as long as my phone continues allows me to.
1:20 RIGHT?!!!
I really liked that positioning of the buttons when I had an LG Magna, and was sad to find out it didn't exist anywhere else. I got it mostly back when I got a rear-facing fingerprint reader, but those are going out of fashion too. It's nothing massive, and I guess it's awkward if the phone is lying down on something... but I liked it nonetheless.
It's probably related to me left-handedness tbf.
I have a Xiaomi mi9T, no front camera, has headphone jack, no protuding camera lenses, but no SD slot as at the time (4 years ago) 128 gb were enough and the pro version had more. I'm still very happy with it, and I don't really want to change it as it's more light that the current ones.
Rocked an LG G4 for 4 years. The most solid phone I ever had. Changed the back based on what I wear, and had a spare battery in my backpack instead of o power bank. Also the buttons on the back feel more intuitive than any other placement.
Why most companies removed 3.5 jack from mobile phones? I recently bought a phone from Honor and my usb c earphones are not working! With my previous Motorola phone they worked fine. Now I have to buy a dac which costs 15€ and can be lost....
Korean Dramas had the best LG phones on characters, always drooling for those.
People want good innovation, not bad ones, always.
Counterpoint: a lot of people want innovation, just not the one vendors offer.
I’ve been using the LG G6 since 2017 until I got a Samsung A54 replacement in late 2023 but I still have it. I can’t let it go just because it’s so beautiful.
I'm still using my G6 as my personal phone, also since 2017. The fingerprint reader died 2 yers ago, and I'm using it just for making calls. At this point I'm just curious when it will completly give in. For security reasons I mainly use my company phone, but just like you, can't let go of my G6.
You've got to be joking. Is that LG phone still supported on carriers? It must be a 2G phone.
@@jonfreeman9682 no. It’s a 4G , laggy but still useable
LG's fall hurt the industry because the other brands learnt a valuable lesson. "Innovation doesn't sell. Better to stay boring and stay in business"
The V10 was amazing and different. The way you could switch the back for style was top notch. I loved how different it was, and the quad DAC made a legitimate difference for audiophiles.
Only tech enthusiasts want innovations. People want practical and functional devices
Those who screamed like "screw this jack I want a waterproof phone", don't expect we'll be in the same team, true innovation is having a phone with jack and still being waterproof, that's what innovation is about.
I recently bought a motorola g stylus because of the forward thinking, and innovative decision of including not only a sd card slot, but a headphone jack. Hopefully one day their competitors will be able to catch up.
I used to love my G4 until it, too, caught the bootloop of death. The placement of the power and volume were perfect, and the leather back was a really neat vibe. Since then I've had Samsungs, Motorolas, and I'm currently rocking my third Sony, but that LG G4 will always have a special place in my heart.
Having missed innovation among smartphones, I recently purchased a blackberry key one. I dumbed downed a bit from my iphone 13 and Google Pixel 7. Now I'm enjoying the device and people approach me to ask me about the phone and the typing experience.
I had the v30 and while I'm not daily driving it, I am watching this on my v60, I miss my LG phones
I held onto my LG for dear life as long as I physically could, only replaced it this year because the port died and no repair place where I am was able to work with it. It was incredibly reliable, I was contemplating getting one of the few extra models they released in South America for a bit after they shuttered mobile operations elsewhere, but I needed a new phone urgently for travel so I settled for a Samsung. Really wish LG hadn't gotten pushed out of the competition, very reliable phones that genuinely only died on me because of my own recklessness.
honestly i was over smartphones with my galaxy s3 already. i was plenty satisfied with that. although i'd say android peak with the s6 (was that the last one with infrared?)