alt.hn

2/23/2026 at 10:30:20 PM

Disappointing Phones

 https://cadence.moe/blog/2026-02-08-disappointing-phones

by birdculture

2/24/2026 at 12:17:19 AM

I have to complain about some side effects of shutting down the 3G network. Similar to New Zealand, Australia is also shutting down the 3G network. It is quite reasonable since most people have upgraded to a newer phone on paper.

However, it also means that a quite range of phones will not support emergency calling via VoLTE, since it not only requires a 4G/5G capability, but also requires a separate protocol needed to make the emergency calling available without a SIM card, I suppose?

So, the final result is, the telecommunications department of Australia forces customers to switch phones, and I just don’t want to switch. I am currently using two phones, one is an iPhone which is fine, another one is a Xiaomi phone purchased from China, which will be banned and I am very satisfied with it.

The final result is, I purchased a budget 5G phone as a hotspot device and use it with my Xiaomi phone. With that said, I still feel frustrated. I contacted two carriers and both of them said “oh we can do nothing”, although the shutdown notice email said “we will find you a solution”. According to my friend, it is “we kindly ask patients to avoid passing away in the hallways.”

by Astrian

2/23/2026 at 11:57:35 PM

> I'd have to fill up my backpack with the heavy camera equipment and carry it around everywhere, which would make photography more labourious and less spontaneous.

I'd recommend looking into a camera such as a Ricoh GR series. Yes, it is an additional cost, so it doesn't solve the 'expense' part of the equation, but you'd get significantly better photos from it than any phone camera, plus it's very compact so wouldn't need to lug around much at all in terms of equipment.

Or something like a Fujifilm XM5 with a pancake lens - this will give you a compact setup, with the flexibility of using different lenses if you wished.

by ebbi

2/24/2026 at 7:26:04 AM

I was in a similar situation in 2021, and my requirements were small size, no notch and headphone jack. I didn't like Samsung (the android from Samsung is fundamentally different from the other androids) and wanted to avoid xiaomi and other similar brands due to the ads bloatware.

The size requirement was basically impossible, but I switched it to a width requirement instead, and I found the Sony Xperia 10 III.

Pros: One of the smallest widths, no notch, jack, and a minor modified android (no stock, but pretty close).

Cons: too tall (but at least the small width makes it a easier to use with one hand), medium-bad camera (for some reason, although I don't care) and some preinstalled apps (like Facebook, but you can remove/disable them with adb).

Overall I'm pretty happy with it, and I'm considering another Xperia as a replacement if this one starts to fail (more than 4 years now, but still fine)

by TrianguloY

2/24/2026 at 1:13:06 AM

I too find the phone market, especially in the United States, has outright abandoned users like me. About a year ago I rushed to buy what seems to have been the last flagship model sold in the United States to have micro SD card support (an Xperia 1V), as soon as I saw stocks were dwindling. Now there are none left, and while I should be good for a few years, I fret over what I will do next time.

Just the other idea, I tried transferring a large number of photos from phone to PC with a cable, just to see how bad it would be without a card. It was so slow I eventually gave up (not to mention the timestamps were messed up). I have no idea how anyone manages this way.

by egorelik

2/24/2026 at 1:46:16 AM

They don’t. They sync to/from the cloud in real time.

by conception

2/24/2026 at 2:16:31 AM

wifi would probably be faster than the cable.

by johnny22

2/24/2026 at 2:26:51 AM

I tried that too - it works great for large files, but still chokes on large numbers of files. Which, when I'm transferring photos, is usually the case.

by egorelik

2/23/2026 at 11:55:12 PM

I was in the small phone camp. I’m in a fortunate position where due to my work I have a work phone that has regularly refreshed hardware that I have some input on, so I made the conscious decision to switch to a max-sized handset (iPhone 15 pro max). I gave up being able to ‘one-hand’ the phone, but let’s be honest - all modern mainstream phones can’t really be used with one hand easily, that ship has sailed.

I really liked it. The larger screen is more productive, and the improved cameras on the larger phones are worth it for me. I take more and better photos of my kids.

Sometimes it’s worth trying the thing you don’t think you want - you might be surprised.

by Daneel_

2/24/2026 at 9:22:59 AM

phone size has nothing to do with camera quality (in the current market, only in the theory), the best android camera phones are the smallest pixels, every other brand has worse cameras and bigger dimensions

by Markoff

2/24/2026 at 3:09:12 PM

The iPhone pro max cameras offer more physical options that I actually take advantage of, so it’s a true statement for me.

I agree that phone size doesn’t have to correlate to picture quality, but that’s how many of the manufacturers position their cameras - bigger phones get the more capable cameras.

by Daneel_

2/23/2026 at 11:14:17 PM

Librem 5, my daily driver fulfills three out of five requirements. Camera is too weak and size is too big. Software is GNU/Linux, so no bloatware. Can be repaired easily. Has the headphone jack.

by fsflover

2/23/2026 at 11:39:46 PM

This is fantastic. How long have you used it? Can you tell us more? I'll probably buy one of these in the near future once I can research a bit more and I have to decide where to buy it (if in USA on travel, or ship from wherever they might sell it in Europe).

Proper GNU/Linux in my phone and full control is exactly what I want, even if exploratory.

by alexhans

2/23/2026 at 11:36:33 PM

Looks like Pixel 9a is supported by LieneageOS. No phone jack but otherwise a very competent modern device.

Instead of trying to shop locally from such a small pool of devices I'd advise the OP to pick a protective case and a screen protector since they seem to hang on to their devices for a long time. A device like the Pixel 9a or the upcoming 10a with their oversized battery for the specs is likely to deliver many years of service before degrading to the point of being unusable.

by abraxas

2/23/2026 at 11:50:52 PM

I’d recommend Pixel but they have terrible battery life and they heat up pretty easily. On the other hand, they have support for Graphene OS, long software support and very nice cameras. Samsung and Xiaomi are absolutely worst choices when it comes to software; they are filled to brim with bloatware and worse, blatant spyware. The only way to use them is to immediately install a clean alternative OS, such as LineageOS.

by microflash

2/23/2026 at 11:58:35 PM

I have had no issues with any of my Pixel phones overheating and I've had many. Maybe you have an issue with a specific app that misbehaved in the background?

I don't think there is any inherent flaw in the design of the pixels that causes them to overheat or drain battery. And the OP is likely to replace the Android OS with Lineage anyway.

by abraxas

2/23/2026 at 11:34:20 PM

I wrote a blog post about exactly this in 2021 when the US was shutting down their 3G networks. https://benergize.com/2021/07/16/were-shutting-down-our-3g-n...

I had a OnePlus 3T and really didn't want to let it go (particularly because it DOES support VoLTE!) but ultimately got a Pixel 4 and have been using it since.

by spcebar

2/24/2026 at 1:25:47 AM

+1 for a Pixel GrapheneOS. Kinda surprised it wasn't mentioned, because I feel like it fits your criteria well (except for the headphone jack)

by flexagoon

2/24/2026 at 7:36:08 AM

I’m still using the iPhone 13 mini. It’s sooooo good.

(BTW author, it’s written Xcode. Lowercase c.)

by frizlab

2/24/2026 at 1:13:41 AM

“Size: They have a "mini" phone, which lives up to its name!”

Yeah, about that…

by PygmySurfer

2/24/2026 at 1:41:01 AM

The battery life on my iPhone 13 Mini never great, but I’m still hanging onto it because of the form factor.

There doesn’t seem to be a great upgrade path, plus it looks like I just bought it.

by doubled112

2/24/2026 at 9:20:38 AM

I find it amusing the author with OnePlus 5T is looking for small phone since 5T was never a small phone even back in the days, so when there were much more small phones available author clearly didn't care and chose big phone - 156.1 x 75 x 7.3 mm, but suddenly now 9 years later when there are almost none small phone he requires significantly smaller phone.

> Size. I've always felt like my OnePlus 5T was slightly too wide to use in one hand, so if my next phone was a little narrower, that would be great. Certainly I wouldn't want to get something larger.

You can certainly buy plenty of phones which are narrower than 75mm other than S24 /S25 and Xiaomi 15, but you can't really buy small phones anymore.

I just upgraded last year from Honor 10 (149.6 x 71.2 x 7.7 mm) to Pixel 6a (152.2 x 71.8 x 8.9 mm), basically the same width and it's funny screen:body ratio in Pixel 6a is better than following generations and hardly newest models finally match it again with hardly any improvement.

Btw. author is wrong Xiaomi phones are nowadays extremely difficult to root/unlock bootloader, so your only options are pretty much Samsung S series with bad slow camera or Pixels infamous for their battery/display issues in almost every generation. Sony phones have even worse camera than Samsung and let's better not talk about the value for money.

by Markoff