what features would you look for when choosing between flip phones?
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.
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.
Okay, so I installed it through F-Droid and tried to find this station
but it couldn't find it even when I included the callsign.
Am I doing something wrong?
Nope, you're doing everything right. Unfortunately it seems like that station actually just isn't available in whatever catalog Transistor uses.
Balllllllllllllllllls...
...That being said, this is exactly what I was talking about.
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Seems like it's no longer maintained, but it works fine, has search, sleep timer.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.
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.
I keep thinking fuck im old. Then i see a post like this and go Yeah right im fine.
Cared about:
Camera quality
Audio playback (Can it do MP3 ringtones?)
Looks and size (more important than anything else!)
Didn't care about:
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.
This you?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSaQx1jgM-I
Yes. Except it wasn't a toilet but chicken stock.
Does it make a Star Trek communicator sound when it opens? Because doing it myself is inconvenient.
Cost. Weight. Serial connection for use as a modem.
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.
Never had a flipphone but I would imagine that features like: opening with one hand, FM radio, and a good microphone, and builtin games are a must. I'm gonna get a refurb (excellent condition from amazon) Samsung flip3 5g so I'm hoping that I can open it with one hand, and I'm a bit sad that's there's no FM radio on it. But a lot of comprises are made when buying former flagships. (No SD card slot, no FM radio, no headphone jack.)
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
The weight of the flip does not cause the phone to jostle out of my grip but also fully opens it.
I remember seeing a news broadcast about some tech expo where they showed being able to watch live television on your phone and they demonstrated it on a Motorola RAZR V3.
7-year-old me instantly wanted one; plus the iTunes integration certain models of the RAZR had would've been pretty neat back then.
The LG EnV2, that's what I looked for in a flip phone.
Yes, it opened sideways instead of top to bottom but it was still a flip phone.
I still miss it sometimes, I wish someone would come out with a new version for Android, just the same simple front with only a physical number pad and a small screen, then have it open like a Samsung folding phone to a full screen Android display.
Ah I remember this phone. I remember when it finally died and I replaced it with an Android 2 that was R2-D2 themed. It still had a physical keyboard because I very distinctly remembered not wanting to use a touchscreen keyboard for everything.
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.
Looking cute
I was never in a situation where I had to choose which fliphone to buy, but most don't have a normal headphone jack, with a decent number of them also using a fully proprietary headphone port. So I guess I'd look out for it having a normal USB connection and ideally a fullsize headphone jack, or at least one of those smaller diameter jacks.