For me it’s the notification light you used to find on older phones, was particularly good to know if your phone was charged without picking it up

  • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
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    1 year ago

    Absolutely the damn LED. I would love to trade the stupid never-being-used selfie-cam for a damn 5 cent LED.

    And swappable batteries. And a headphone-jack. And root by default (imagine you winpc came with no admin-pwd. Lol)… And…

    • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      What I don’t understand is why the notification LED was removed in the first place? It can easily be put under the screen.
      The LED was so helpful, and it’s so annoying when I don’t see an important message for hours, because I haven’t used my phone.

      • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I’m guessing… they don’t want us deciding whether to engage with our phones, they want us looking at them more. If that means less convenience for us we can get fucked

        • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I think you may have a point, It’s kind of weird how the first 10 years of smartphones, was an ever higher climb for better phones, driven by competition.
          But now that everybody are dependent on the phones, they all agree on taking useful features away???

        • cjsolx@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Fuck. You’re probably right. It’s all about nudging us towards the behavior they want.

        • ___@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          It’s probably also a little safer with only system apis accessing system hardware. If you look at how the camera assembly is one piece and apps basically access the whole thing securely.

      • xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        Nowadays most phones have OLED screens, which can easily replicate the function of the notification LED with the “always on” feature.

        • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yet there are often warnings that even with OLED AOD eats a lot of battery, not so with a notification LED.
          The absolute newest OLED that can do 1Hz refresh are better. But that doesn’t change that the removal of the notification LED was detrimental to the functionality of the smartphone.

          • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Someone else posted an app that gives the feature back. If you turn off other aid features and just use the app it won’t use more battery than a notification led.

            • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              If you turn off other aid features

              What?

              it won’t use more battery than a notification led.

              If the screen has 60hz or higher refresh, I’m pretty sure it will. The screen itself may not use much, but the DAC will still use power.
              I haven’t seen this actually tested, but many claim the difference in battery life is noticeable. I don’t think it matters much what app you use, many phones come with an AOD app, and I seriously doubt a third party app is better.

              • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                aid what?

                Typo: aod feature. Always on display.

                If the screen has 60hz or higher refresh, I’m pretty sure it will.

                It’s supposed to drop down to 1hz. The CPU refreshing a pixel of an OLED screen or a notification led is the same power usage. That is even if you have a notification led, the CPU could still be stuck refreshing it at 60 hz.

                • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  AH ok that makes a lot more sense. ;) As I understand it, it’s only the newest top displays that can go down to 1 Hz. Or maybe it’s just when in use they can’t for some reason. I find the 1Hz capability to be extremely cool, so it would be great if it’s a more general feature of AOD.

          • Perfide@reddthat.com
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            1 year ago

            OLED AoD eats a lot of battery because there’s still quite a lot of information(and thus, pixels turned on) shown on the AoD. A single pixel blinking on and off would at most use the same power as a dedicated notification led.

        • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
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          1 year ago

          I really can’t. I did it all. It just doesn’t come near the tiny lil LED shining bright.

      • RiderExMachina@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I used to have a custom ROM that would allow me to change the color based on which app had the most recent notification: FB was Blue, SMS was Green. Let me be prepared ahead of time if it was going to be important or not.

        • jpeps@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Ironically I was grateful for a custom rom to turn off the light. It was useful but I hated it at night because at least on my phone it was stupidly bright

      • Aniki 🌱🌿@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Because if you can read an LED notification system you have no purpose to pick up the cellphone.

        Cellphones are not designed FOR YOU. They are designed by marketeers for you to use.

        Once you realize this, all the anti-consumer shit makes sense.

        • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I’m pretty sure mine has a tiny LED under the screen, that only shows very shortly on reboot. But as you say, it’s disabled for some weird reason.

      • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        I have no effing clue. Maybe to get us to actually look at the damn phone more often? Because of the people who’re drowning in spam? Makes not THAT much sense. Probably to save a cent in circuit-design, because only the nerds were using the stupid LED? I really would like to know too.

      • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        But probably no easy root? That is imperative for me. I don’t buy gadget i wouldn’t own.

      • otp@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I had an XCover 4 and hated the specs and the Samsung aspect. Too much bloat for my tastes.

        I’m glad there are others still buying these phones though, and the “Pro” makes it sound like it has modern specs!

        • Critical_Insight@feddit.uk
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          1 year ago

          It’s very much a mid-range device but so was the price. It was still an easy decision since it is literally the only modern smartphone in existence that matched my minimum requirements. I’m coming from LG V20 so I still had to let go of FM-radio, optical image stabilization, IR blaster and the hi-fi DAC.

      • gregoryw3@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Not sure but you can have the back camera led flash when you get a notification at least.

      • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        Of course not by default, that’d be dumb. Every app that wants it pops up a Y/N-dialogue. That’s how I want it. It’s my phone, goddamit. I might’ve phrased that a bit misleading :-)