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Hey all, let’s talk phones!

I figure I might as well keep this series going (systemDiscourse)… While I originally planned to use that title for anything related to my PC build I figure it makes sense to throw phones, gadgets, and other technobabble under that banner. So welcome back to the tech blog series!

So….. phones. New ones come out every year, most of them look the same, and they keep getting more expensive. But they also keep getting better, right?
Well, this topic came into my mind one afternoon as I sat pondering about my Pixel 7. This is one of the longest stretches I’ve used the same phone, picking up the Pixel 7 in 2022. In years prior I would tell myself that I should stick it out and use my whatever device I had until it stopped working, but temptation would often get the better of me until I end up buying something new. I was about to pull the trigger yet again… and it got me thinking about my phone buying habits and what might actually make me excited to get a new phone rather than doing so for the sake of having something new.

As of now my Pixel 7 still works well enough. I really enjoy it overall, especially in terms of OS updates. But it also has had bothersome quality of life issues, though most of those seem to be software related- so a gift and a curse? The battery is definitely showing its age but by and large… it works. Newest Android OS, supports most of all the new Googl-ey features (though I still have refused to use Gemini for more than experiments when it first came out), still has a decent camera, etc. But the feeling remains that I want something new. Once I started browsing options, though, it became apparent that I don’t actually want something new but rather something different. Something exciting. Samsung S25, Pixel 9, whatever else… It all seemed the same. A yearly revision of an existing product that doesn’t do all that much different. So I started looking in other directions… what do I want and what am I missing?

Well before I jump into the next phase of my shopping list, I’d like to jump into a bit of personal lore. This whole session of sitting and looking at $900 black rectangular glass sandwiches made me take a look back at all the phones I’d owned back in the day and the excitement I had when using something new. What changed? Surely this wasn’t simply a case of losing interest in a hobby… So I flashed back through my history of phone ownership:

When I was a kid, my first phones were flip phones and sliders. The Kyocera Cyclops was a cheap flip phone I used in 2008/9ish IIRC. It was simple and was my first phone. It acted as a fidget toy, let me text my friends for a few cents, and had a couple shoddy built-in games to kill time with. I loved that thing. The same goes for the other ‘feature phones’ I had. While I don’t recall all the model numbers, the sliding keyboards and fun gimmicks each device had kept me endlessly excited. Basic camera functionality but with an inverted color filter or funny effects. The ability to transfer MP3’s off of my computer and listen to them on the go via a terribly user-unfriendly audio player app without having to bring my iPod. Recording 144p video and putting it up on a blog for my friends to see. All the good stuff… But this infatuation with old smart-ish dumb phones is heavily swayed by nostalgia. Yes I had fun at the time… but something else happened since then-

Smartphones!

My first proper smartphone was as simple as it got for the time. An LG Motion 4G running Android 4.0 that I got in 2012. The novelty of my own Android device kept me hooked, the advent of Instagram and other popular apps of the era made me want to live inside of it. But it wasn’t just the social media or the Play Store- LG wasn’t just selling a slab with Android. They added their own flavor with themes to choose from, gimmicks galore, a quick app that let you draw on your screen and take a screenshot. I wasn’t just a kid with a smartphone, I was a kid with an LG phone. It let me get in on the fun but had a distinct feature set compared to iPhones and other Android phones of the time, and made itself exciting despite being a budget option. Features were still a focus. And not in a, ‘wow we added AI to this app for no damn reason!’ way, but rather a ‘look at us! we’re not just Android we’re above and beyond!’. Even hardware features that were rarely used in my market such as using wired earbuds as an FM radio antennae were mind blowing to me.

So I wasn’t just excited to finally have a smartphone, I was excited to use my smartphone! I was excited to compare what cool stuff myself and my friends could do with our phones, and compare all the unique features that our OEMs had cooked up. I knew other kids with Android, but they might have a slide-out keyboard, impressive camera, or some other quirk that set it apart from what everyone else had.

As an aside, I also had an iPod Touch 4 at one point which I adored and used heavily, even getting into jailbreaking and all the fun goofy stuff you could do with mods from Cydia- but I felt that was separate from my phone life as I never had an iPhone as my primary device.

Those same types of features kept me interested in the tech space going into high-school. I was a freshman in 2014 and entering my era of watching tech YouTubers review every new device that came out, fully engaged. My LG G2 had some great audio features and a volume rocker + power button combo on the back side. I never felt so cool using my index finger so casually for something that others had to reach to the top or side of their phones to do. It also had hardware features that were amazing to me at the time, like a built-in IR blaster to use it as a TV remote.
My G3 Stylus allowed me to experience digital doodling on the go like the old DS Lite days without the heavy price tag of phones like the Galaxy Note. Later, my Galaxy S4 that I used temporarily gave me a chance to check out all the gimmicky Samsung features like eye-tracking to automatically turn the screen off or pause videos, and gestures you could do above the phone to interact hands-free. The Nexus 5x gave me my first experience with a beautiful stock Android ROM. One of my friends had an LG G Flex with its flexible screen and self-healing back texture. Every single year had a phone that did all the phone stuff and could run all the apps, but also came with its own toolbox and flare that made you want it specifically, not just for the software. It was a glorious decade for smartphones- an established industry with plenty of competition and a now-forgotten willingness to experiment with each iteration. This is the era where I really fell in love with smartphones and the whole tech space online.

So what happened? Looking back down at my Pixel 7 I still had this feeling that I want something new. But there’s no joy in scrolling the endless pages on Amazon. I could go for something cheap and reliable like a new version of the Moto G Power that I had in 2020- clean Android with some cool Moto features and a kickass battery. Or maybe an S25 if I want to splurge on the high-end. Or maybe a new Pixel since I love having the newest Android as soon as possible… or maybe… or…

After much scrolling I came to the conclusion that I was wasting time comparing rectangles with slightly different specs running slightly different software and nothing else- All of these phones shared things in common: missing a headphone jack, missing an sd card slot. Glass on the front, glass or metal on the back, 2 volume buttons, a power button, maybe an extra button for a shortcut… that’s it. Do I really give around $1k worth of a care whether the camera is slightly better or whatever materials its made of? So I pivoted- I wanted to find out where I should go if I’m bored of modern phones but need something that works while also wanting to reclaim the excitement. And that took me in an interesting direction.

Enter Unihertz. A brand I’ve never owned a product from to my knowledge who’s smartphone lineup consists of devices that look like they’re straight out of 2007. I was intrigued immediately.

I knew of their Jelly phones which are some of the smallest modern smartphones you can get your hands on these days. The small form factor was interesting- not just small but tiny and somehow still usable. Reviews give those models understandable criticism but I was surprised at how usable they were and how thoughtful the software behind them is. But then something else caught my eye- Titan

The Unihertz Titan models are essentially a spiritual successor to what Blackberry could’ve become if they stayed the course. Full keyboard, squareish screen. Models ranging from large footprint for comfort versus models that are more compact so you can enjoy a full physical keyboard without overflowing your pockets.
Not only does Unihertz sell Blackberry type devices with reasonably modern Android… they also sell monstrosities like the Tank- a rugged phone with a mind-blowing 23,000 mAH battery and a built-in projector. This is at the top end of their collections of other various models which are all built to be rugged and have their own hardware focuses whether its conveniently bright flashlights for camping or physical keyboards as mentioned prior.

THIS is what I’d been missing. Unihertz isn’t trying to make an iPhone killer- they are genuinely building interesting phones for the sake of it that cater to niche audiences all while being built to be resilient.

After much deliberation, though… I decided against it. I was torn between the Titan Slim and going completely overboard with something like the Tank 3 for the novelty of it. But at the end of the day an ageing Android 14 ROM with no solid guarantee of updates and ageing processors turned me off a bit. This is where I get stuck between a desire to have the latest and greatest and the desire to have something fun- and ultimately I think the seamlessness and widely ensured compatibility of Android 15 on my Pixel 7 isn’t something I’m entirely ready to give up… but there’s one last stop before I make my verdict.

Nothing.

I was really interested in Nothing when they came out with the Phone 1 a few years ago. A team of former OnePlus employees doing their own thing. Making solid phones with unique flavor that reeks of the bygone era where LG, Samsung, Sony, and all the rest were competing on stylish flare and gimmicks back in the day. And overall Nothing seems to make great products all-around. Reasonable price point, dope aesthetic, fun hardware gimmicks, and a very thoughtful and intentional custom Android ROM. Pretty much everything I could want from a modern currently-supported phone without jumping all the way into the realm of Unihertz type devices. So I watched as many reviews as I could on the Nothing Phone 2, trying to convince myself that I should just buy one. Not only for the sake of retiring my Pixel 7, but also for the sake of supporting a company that has a concrete goal of putting out interesting and innovative designs with phones that people would actually use on a daily basis. Ultimately I didn’t purchase in that moment.

So where did I end up? Did I figure out why phones are so boring? Did I figure out what to do about my relentless hunger for having new shiny things?

Sort of, but not really.

Ultimately my decision remained to keep staying the course with my Pixel 7 until it either gives out in a moment where I have no ambition to repair it myself (I’ve had phases of doing plenty of my own phone repairs for broken screens and whatnot) or it becomes so frustrating to use that I can’t bear it. It’s still a good phone, it still supports all the apps I need, it’s still reasonably snappy in performance, it’s still on the newest Android. So I’m gonna hold strong. I’m gonna commit to what I’d previously told myself as a lie: keep the phone I have until I need to upgrade.

But also I did learn that there still are companies pushing out unique Android devices and do so wholeheartedly with much effort put into their own tailored user experience. These companies are few and far between but they exist…

So for now I keep going. But if the Nothing Phone 3 continues the trend that Nothing has been going for thus far, I may buy it when it drops. If Unihertz releases a new model of the Titan with Android 15 or newer, I may buy it. Whatever happens at this point I’m gonna get a fun phone for my next phone. Something fun and usable. Because the big dogs have let me down. I’d even tried to rekindle some love for iOS when I tried out an iPhone 12 for a while and was quickly reminded why I could never daily drive iOS, though I don’t expect Apple to do anything particularly interesting for the next generation.

So thank you Nothing and Unihertz for keeping the dream alive, keeping things interesting. I’ll come home to one of you when Gemini inevitably takes over the corpse of my P7 and tries to sell me things I don’t want.

Unless there’s a truly viable Linux phone at that point… a pipe dream… but a dream………… (i use arch btw)

Dare to be different.

See ya when I see ya and thanks for stopping by my blog of brain dumps