Being an Android user can be a clunky experience at times, but it can also expose you to a lot of new device quirks that you won’t find anywhere else. While Apple chooses to only put features on the iPhone that match its streamlined image, Android manufacturers have taken more risks in pursuit of market share. It’s one of the fun aspects of handling an Android device.
This week reminded me of what it’s like to suddenly take that away. OnePlus launched the 10T smartphone without its signature alert slider. The company knew it would make some of its fans protest enough that it released an official statement as to why it needed to remove the physical alert slider. It got me thinking: How many random and interesting Android device features have we lost because they’re only a small foreign?
OnePlus 7 Pro’s pop-up camera
Photo: Sam Rutherford / Gizmodo
Let’s start with another OnePlus feature that is no longer with us. The OnePlus 7 Pro was an impressive flagship launch from the company. But it arrived before OEMs figured out how to implement the punch-hole camera. To deliver on its promises of an all-screen display, OnePlus introduced a pop-up front-facing camera on the 7 Pro instead. It would peek out whenever you wanted to take a selfie or video chat, and would make a cute buzzing sound every time.
Of course, every gimmick has its caveats. The pop-up camera wasn’t the most robust and some people complained about lint and grime getting into the module after some use. Not to mention, it’s not very repairable.
Sony’s Pop-out PSP Phone
Photo: Kat Hannaford / Gizmodo
OK, sorry, this is actually called the Xperia Play, and you may have seen it make the blogging rounds over a decade ago. Made by Sony Ericsson, the phone was based on Android, but at its core it was a handheld game console. The phone had a slide-out controller with “joystick touchpads” so you could play any of the 50 pre-formatted PlayStation games, plus whatever was on the Android Marketplace at the time.
Asus’ transforming tablet phone
Photo: Sean Hollister / Gizmodo
Before the foldables, if you wanted a hybrid phone/tablet situation, you had to get one: an Asus Padfone. In particular, this is the Asus PadFone X Mini, which had a 4.5-inch main smartphone that could be placed inside a 7-inch tablet. It was available from AT&T in 2014, although it didn’t have the best specs. In addition to a crappy display and even crappy cameras, the pair were powered by an Intel processor when the company tried (and didn’t really make any headway) smartphone chips.
We miss the e-ink back of YotaPhone
Photo: Darren Orf / Gizmodo
The YotaPhone 2 was a second generation Russian smartphone that was very cool! It had a 4.7-inch LCD screen on the front that lets you access the Android OS and an e-ink display on the back to act as a backup. You could use that part of the screen to read maps or even navigate if you’re trying to save battery. But according to our review of the device at the time, an “abundance of graphics issues and slow responsiveness” ultimately killed the smartphone’s chances of success.
Why did Samsung and LG make round phones?
Image: Samsung
Ah, yes. The round telephone trend. Samsung tried it in 2013 with the Galaxy Round, a smartphone with “the world’s first commercialized full HD Super AMOLED flexible display.” The phone’s 5.7-inch screen curved vertically when held in portrait mode, and it didn’t lay flat on a table on the back.
LG also got its hands on the curved screen trend with the G Flex, which it followed with a second-generation release. I remember one of the main warnings from the device that it could press on the screen as it was made of a flexible P-OLED.
All hail the original android rollerball
Photo: Jason Chen / Gizmodo
Android started its journey into weird and wacky add-ons with the rollerball on the very first Nexus One. Back then, you could navigate Android home screens using the touch-swipe mechanism or by rolling left and right on the rollerball, placed in the same area as the former Home button on the iPhone. Other Android phones have adopted this feature, including my very first Android phone, the HTC Incredible. But it was eventually phased out to make more room for the screen.
Wait, we need another phone with a radiation detector
Image: Engadget / Pantone
Sorry to bring the mood down, but these colorful smartphones from Pantone released in 2012 were also able to report your radiation level. It is called the Sharp Pantone 5 ICS and it was a release that was only released in Japan. Sharp has reduced the radiation circuitry needed for the phone to a small package, which was quite a productive feat at the time. Unfortunately, this seems like a feature that could make its way back after all the climate disasters we’ve been dealing with. Elm.
Plug-and-play modularity, a la Project Ara
Photo: Sean Hollister / Gizmodo
Google’s modular smartphone gave me hope for a future where smartphones didn’t add to the huge piles of e-waste that were hidden from direct human view. Project Ara lets you easily swap modules of an “endoskeleton” so you can upgrade the camera, processor, or whatever. Unfortunately, those tiles cost way too much to produce for a phone that didn’t yet have mainstream appeal, and Google eventually halted the project in 2016.
We now have a version of the modular phone with the Fairphone, but it takes some tinkering to switch components comfortably.
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