like I lived through the brick to flip phone to smartphone era, but I can’t remember what features I was looking at on these flip phones when I was deciding which one to buy. do you guys remember?
I liked the ones that had fm receivers in them and if you plugged in a pair of headphones they would act as the antenna and you could listen to local Radio stations.
forgot about that. I think that’s how my Walkman worked as well
It was.
Source: Had one myself.
I honestly miss that in modern handheld devices. A lot of radio stations aren’t even available as Internet radio, and if they are, there’s often no common search database (except iHeartRadio, except fuck iHeartRadio) so you have to manually input the stream URL, and a lot of them make it a pain in the ass to even find the stream URL on their site.
In short: fuck Internet radio. FM’s where it’s at.
Edit: Sorry, I should have specified: I’m in the US, specifically the Midwest.
I don’t know its source for stations, but Transistor has direkt links for many German radio stations and probably other regions too.
I still vastly prefer FM, DAB or Satellite radio, but when those aren’t available Transistor is a nice alternative.
Sorry, I should have specified: I’m speaking from the perspective of a Midwestern American.
It seems to also have american stations, I’d recommend you still give it a try.
You can also try https://f-droid.org/packages/net.programmierecke.radiodroid2/
Seems like it’s no longer maintained, but it works fine, has search, sleep timer.
It uses data from https://www.radio-browser.info/
It’s all FOSS
I’m trying to remember. I think they had cameras. I know I had the Motorola Razr. Everyone had that phone. I think it had a camera and that was basically it. But everyone has that phone because it looked cool.
for some reason my little brain decided that the razor was a girl’s phone and, being a teenager, that mattered.
How big the front side screen was and if it was a colour display? Unless you liked the look of phone that only had LEDs showing the time on the front.
What ringtones it had (remember this was the age of $1.99 ringtones).
Speed/specs wasn’t too much of a factor as much as looks. As long as it made calls, did texts, play Snake and if you could afford cellular data then receive emails and do light websurfing then it was good enough.
Oh, and in this age the smaller and more compact the phones were the better. Only with smartphones did the trend go into reverse.
Cared about:
- Camera quality
- Audio playback (Can it do MP3 ringtones?)
- Looks and size (more important than anything else!)
Didn’t care about:
- Screen resolution
- Processor specs
- Onboard memory (because the assumption was all those photos and videos were going on an SD card)
it’s funny that we cared about picture quality when we were viewing them on 240i screens
Haha yeah.
Honestly though, while I’d certainly look through my photos when I was bored on the train (having no Internet on phones then of course) that was never the intent of how I expected those photos to be viewed.
I’d regularly transfer all the photos to my PC and that’s what I considered the “real” way to look at them, and email them from there to other people.
I only really transferred photos off my phone if they were really important.
I keep thinking fuck im old. Then i see a post like this and go Yeah right im fine.
Does it make a Star Trek communicator sound when it opens? Because doing it myself is inconvenient.
lol I set the Star Trek door chime as my notification sound but then I started a Star Trek rewatch.
Been dealing with this for years. It doesn’t get better.
I looked for one that could fit in my front chest pocket and be indestructible when fallen out, and then kicked across the floor as I reach for it.
Yes. Except it wasn’t a toilet but chicken stock.
okay, it’s starting to come back to me now. I remember the importance of caller ID on the outside of the phone. it was also really important to me that the phone continued working in speakerphone or with a headset after I closed it. I had one that no matter what settings you changed would not do it, closing it always hung up
Cost. Weight. Serial connection for use as a modem.
- It flips;
- it phones.
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I don’t remember phones ever having FM radio as a norm. Yoy could listen to stations that were playable online if you had data. But that was before streaming is what is now.
Very common before 2010. As far as I know the fm decoder was integrated in the SoC itself (at least it is so in modern SoCs), so it’s not even that demanding on the design. Probably not a requested feature, which is a bit sad
I just don’t remember it. Also had a Zune at that time haha
Tbh I always preferred the slide phones. But if you specifically want opinions on the flip phones…
Needs to be able to open one handed with your thumb. Some models are too sleek with no ridge to pry up with your thumb.
Needs to be durable. A lot of cheap flip phones start having screens and buttons coming off after a while because of slamming the phone shut all the time and being made of cheap parts.
I preferred a phone with T9 texting, but maybe you can just download that these days.
Vibration might be a factor for you. Some phones vibrate really loudly while others are more subtle. When I was in high school I wanted a vibration I could feel but not hear if it was in my pocket or my hand. Many modern smart phones have much more aggressive vibration than the old flip phones. Not a problem for me anymore now that I’m an adult.
The weight of the flip does not cause the phone to jostle out of my grip but also fully opens it.
My first flip phone was free when I signed up for service. Next one I got because it had that push to talk feature a bunch of my friends and coworkers had. Last one was just to upgrade the second one. Added a camera, an external display with caller ID and track info when playing MP3s. Then I got into the early smartphones. Pre iPhone, Windows CE stuff.
If I were looking today it would need to be rugged as hell since I drop shit all the time, and I bet there won’t be a lot of cases for it. Capable of hotspot. Still want a camera (the best camera is the one you have with you). And a decent button feel since texting is going to be a way bigger PITA
So first phone was an Ericson T10, this was basically the cheapest GSM in the late 90’s. After that I got a Nokia 3310 (flashed with 3315 firmware and with a Bacardi case) which had a bigger screen, so multiple lines of text on-screen. Also, you could send images over SMS and install custom midi ringtones. Next a Samsung X600 with a color screen and camera. After that a T-Mobile MDA vario (rebranded HTC Wizard 200) which was a less than great very bulky phone, but it had windows and a (stylus only) touch screen. I can’t really remember why I got it though. After that a Nokia N95, the last one before my first smart phone, which was a LG optimus 2X.
