this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2024
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Nostalgia

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nostalgia noun nos·tal·gia nä-ˈstal-jə nə-, also nȯ-, nō-; nə-ˈstäl- 1: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition also : something that evokes nostalgia

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2. Relevant Nostalgia Posts should focus on nostalgic content, including memories, media, and cultural references from the past. Stay on topic to preserve the nostalgic theme of the community.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I miss my Moto Milestone 2.

Back then, there was at least a bit of variety in phones. Today they're all just rectangles.

[–] andrew_bidlaw 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

We compensated it with stickers and cases, but that's not nearly as meaningful. If I kill my phone and get another one in a shop, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Maybe it's better for many in the end, but I love feel attached to my stuff.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

We also compensated with a VASTLY more customizable software environment. With your Nokia you could maybe install a new icon pack and play with the theming and that was about it most of the time. A modern smartphone lets you turn it into a completely different thing than what came out of the box. Most people don't give a shit and don't delve too deep into customization because on a modern phone there are much more interesting things to do than change your ring tone for the 17th time that week.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

With 6" edge to edge screens being standard now, a modern slide keyboard phone could make a laptop substitute. My eePC had a 7"screen.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This. I'd take this over a folding LCD.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

Was just going to comment the same thing. If I'm going to have a phone that folds out into an alternative format, give me a damned physical keyboard!

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

My favourite is the Palm Treo

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Edit: better pic here 1000034167

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

i liked the motorola flipout design. the implementation was hot garbage, but it really felt like someone took a chance and went for it rather than following the trends

and of course the old nokia 6800 for ssh terminals on the road

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I loved everything about that phone at the time (well, almost - that resistive touchscreen... :/)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

I’d buy one now if it had modern internals.

Probably the nostalgia of using a terminal on the bus to turn off the broken audio stream glitching out onto the speaker at full volume not my headphones that’s talking more than anything.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago

A battery so easy to remove it literally flies out if you drop the phone 2 feet.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Original LG EnV was a boss. Stick phone that resembled a sleeker OG Nokia, but then clamshelled open to a 2nd screen flanked by speakers and a full keyboard on the other half. Loved that phone.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (3 children)

My old LG. First smartphone I had. God, Android was an absolute disaster back then.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I miss my Danger Sidekicks the most! Had the original with the black and white display, the colour display one, and the Sidekick 2 in yellow. Good times!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

What a great fucking phone that was. And ahead of it's time.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

My first smartphone before there was a thing. Could generate pdf invoices and basically run my business on it!

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Sidekicks were great. Flipping them open and close was cathartic. They also had a video out jack!

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I desperately yearn for them to come back, but because fucking apple never made them and won't ever make them, it'll remain a "niche" for "uncool" people

Hell, even typing on a tiny Xperia Mini was a better experience for me than typing on any stupid glass screen. I also have a Blackberry 9800, fucker looks amazing and typing on it is great. A real shame it's "useless" for communication for me, no whatsapp, telegram or anything to bridge with them, afaik.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

There is this new phone called Minimal, which has a physical keyboard (but also an e-ink display).

https://www.tryminimal.com/

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Looks really interesting and something I'd want to give a try, my phone is only ever used for messaging and writing notes, but I don't think it'd work with local cell frequencies here (Brazil), plus that price is a bit beyond my range.

side note: half the site being literally just the logo zooming in is the antithesis to being minimal and... well, just imagine an angry person cursing design choices.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

I liked my droid.

[–] Jakeroxs 8 points 8 months ago

I had the Droid 2 back in the day, miss that keyboard for sure, it was also excellent for emulating Gameboy era games

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

If they made a new version if the sidekick with Android I would buy it in a heartbeat. Loved that phone.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

My first phone was this “dual flip” Samsung U740 (I don’t remember the model number, I just looked up “dual flip”). It could be used like a normal phone when talking, but you could also open it sideways to text and use a QWERTY keyboard. I could easily text without looking, I loved it.

Samsung U740

After that I had some moto droid with a slide out keyboard, but it was bigger and less comfortable to use.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Samsung Alias! Pretty cool idea. Not sure how great the execution was though. The Alias 2 that came after it had the same form factor but with e-ink keys

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[–] RIPandTERROR 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This was my all time favorite phone outright

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

At that time, those keys were way too small for using for anything important.

Nowadays people are using much smaller and harder to select keys for all important stuff...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

A big part of the problem was that the hardware on these was more often than not pretty terrible (slow, bad screens, poor antennae, physical construction was janky) and, if the hardware was okay, the software almost always sucked.

Windows Mobile was unpleasant to use up to WP7. Symbian was a pain in the ass to use that was only eclipsed by how much of a pain it was to develop for. RIM's classic pre-BB10 OS was at least nice to use, but it, too, was hard to write for and wasn't all that stable and, this is the important part, required a huge and costly server-side ecosystem to work well.

The genius of the iPhone wasn't the components or the capabilities, it was having a total package that wasn't utterly frustrating for everyone involved. BlackBerry 10 was close, and offered good physical keyboards, an OS that was nice to use and develop for, and hardware that was good, but by that point it was waaaaaay too late.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I really would love to see them make a return, personally.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

I had a Backflip and I looooved it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

These were great when the other option was resistive touch screens. Can't say I see myself buying a phone with a keyboard nowadays with swipe texting being so good

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They aren't good if you type a lot of unpredictable words, like me. 😑

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (4 children)

I never have understood swipe texting. Apparently my phone is capable of it but I have no idea what it is.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

You drag your fingers between the letters of a word and it spells it out when you let go. It's very fast

https://youtu.be/nLOKxchnNCk

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Blackberries with keyboards were the shit.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Is this some QWERTY thing I'm just too T9 to understand?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yooooo

Anybody remember these?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Ahh the og droid, miss that sucker.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

I didn't have money for one of these back in the day, but they look amazing. TOUCHSCREENS ARE TOO FRUSTRATING

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Two words: Palm Pre.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

I LOVED my HTC Apache. I thought it running Windows CE was slick AF back in the day.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I miss my Nokia E71.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I miss my sidekick. It was the best feeling in the world when opening my keyboard to type.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Blackjack gang represent!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

I had the original Motorola Droid and Droid 3, along with a couple BlackBerrys for work. Sometimes I still miss those keyboards, although I’m probably faster with swiping keyboards now.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Oh man, I had that Samsung on the right. Still the best typing experience I ever had on a phone.

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