We miss those quirky Android phone experiences – Gizmodo Australia

Being an Android user can be a difficult experience at times, but it can also open you up to a host of new hardware quirks that you won’t find anywhere else. While Apple chose to put features that only match its elegant image on the iPhone, Android manufacturers took more risks in pursuit of market share. It’s one of the fun parts of using an Android device.

This week reminded me of what it’s like to have these things suddenly taken off. OnePlus launched a version 10 Smartphone without its own signature alert slider. The company knew it would make some of its fans protest enough that it released an official statement on why it had to remove the physical alert slider. It got me thinking: How many random and interesting Android device features have we lost because they were just a little a stranger?

OnePlus 7 Pro pop-up camera

Let’s start with another OnePlus feature that is no longer with us. The OnePlus 7 Pro was an impressive launch from the company. But it arrived before OEMs figured out how to implement the punch-hole camera. To make good on its promises of full-screen displays, OnePlus introduced a front-facing pop-up camera on the 7 Pro instead. It’ll peek when you want to take a selfie or get into a video chat, and it’ll sound a gentle buzz every time.

Of course, every gimmick has its downsides. The pop-up camera wasn’t it more powerfulSome people have complained of lint and debris getting into the unit after some use. Not to mention it’s not repairable.

Sony PSP Pop-up Phone

Well, sorry, that’s already called Xperia PlayAnd, you may have seen him do the blogging tours for over ten years now. Manufactured by Sony Ericsson, the phone was based on Android, but was a portable gaming machine at its core. The phone featured a sliding controller with “joystick touchpads” so you could play any of the 50 pre-configured PlayStation games, as well as everything that was on the Android Marketplace at the time.

Asus Convertible Tablet

Before folding, if you wanted a hybrid phone/tablet mode, you had to buy one of these: the Asus Padfone. This, in particular, is Asus PadFone X Mini, which features a 4.5-inch flagship smartphone that can dock inside a 7-inch tablet. It was available at AT&T in 2014, although it didn’t have the best specs. In addition to having a poor screen and even more awesome cameras, the hardware duo was powered by an Intel processor back when the company was trying its hand at smartphone chips (and it didn’t exactly make great strides).

We miss the back of YotaPhone’s e-ink

The YotaPhone 2 It was a 2nd generation Russian smartphone that was pretty cool! It had a 4.7-inch LCD screen on the front that gave you access to the Android operating system and an e-ink display on the back to work as a backup. You can use this part of the screen to read or even navigate maps if you’re trying to save battery power. But according to our review of the device at the time, “a slew of graphical issues and slow response” eventually decimated the smartphone’s chances of success.

Why did Samsung and LG make round phones?

Ah yes. The direction of the phone is round. Samsung tried it in 2013 with galaxy tour, a smartphone with “the world’s first commercialized FHD Super AMOLED full HD flexible display.” The phone’s 5.7-inch screen curved vertically when I held it upright, and it didn’t lay flat on a desk on the back.

LG also had a curved screen orientation with the G Flex, which it followed with 2nd generation version. I remember one of the main caveats of the device was that it was able to press down on the screen, since it’s made of a flexible P-OLED.

We all salute the original Android Rollerball

Android has started its journey towards weird, bizarre add-ons with the rollerball on the first-ever Nexus One. At the time, you could navigate through Android home screens using the touch swipe mechanism or by rolling left and right on the rotating ball, placed in the same area as the previous home button on the iPhone. Other Android phones have adopted this feature, including the first Android phone, HTC Incredible. But it was eventually phased out to make way for the screen.

Wait, we still need a phone with a radiation detector

Sorry to lower the mood, but these color smartphones from Pantone released in 2012 were also able to report your radiation level. called Sharp Pantone 5 ICS, and it was a Japanese version only. Sharp reduced the radiation circuitry needed for the telephone to a small beam, which was a major industrial achievement at the time. Unfortunately, this seems like a feature that could come back again after all the weather disasters we’ve been facing. flaw.

Plug-and-play modularity, similar to Project Ara

Google’s modular smartphone made me hope for a future where smartphones won’t contribute to the massive piles of electronic waste that has been isolated from a direct human viewpoint. ARA . project Allows you to easily swap units from an “inner chassis” so you can upgrade your camera, processor, or something else. Unfortunately, the cost to produce these boxes was too high for a phone that didn’t yet have mainstream appeal, and Google eventually scrapped the project. 2016.

We now have a version of the standard phone with the extension FairphoneIt does, however, require a little touch of tamper to conveniently change components.