What happened to the fun, exciting, and unique Android phones that used to get released? If you feel like smartphones all look the same these days, you’re not alone. I miss the Android of old when phones came with dual front-facing speakers, wild designs, and cutting-edge changes looking to break the mold.
Naturally, many designs or features fizzled out due to new design approaches or didn’t get enough attention from customers, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t great ideas. With that in mind, here are a few old Android phone features I wish never went missing.
5
The Option For a Removable Battery
Remember when we could easily replace the battery on our smartphones? The last Samsung flagship with such an option was the Galaxy S5. Being able to pop the back cover off and throw in a full battery was great, even if it’s not all that useful in 2025.
Phones now come with huge battery packs and crazy-fast charging speeds, so we don’t necessarily need this feature anymore. Plus, with an integrated battery, manufacturers are now delivering sleeker phones with IP68 water-resistant ratings and things of that nature. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t miss having the option.
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Having a user-replaceable battery isn’t just about convenience; it’s also about longevity. Planned obsolescence is a real thing. Manufacturers don’t want you to be able to easily replace that old battery that doesn’t hold a charge after 3–4 years. No, they want you to trade it in and upgrade to something new.
There are a few brands still doing things the old way. You can get the Fairphone 5 with a repairable design and replaceable battery. Others include the HDM Skyline or Samsung Galaxy XCover 6Pro. Just don’t expect a premium and flagship experience.
4
Powerful Front-Facing Speakers (Remember the HTC One?)
How often do you find yourself cupping your hand around the bottom of your phone in hopes that it’ll amplify the audio? Our phones keep getting bigger and better only with slimmer designs and a few areas that never seem to improve. More specifically, battery life and audio quality.
I miss the days when brands like HTC wanted to push the envelope, and I’m not the only one. Who remembers the HTC One M7, with its stunning metal design and massive dual front-facing speakers? The company even partnered with Beats Audio. That phone could bump! Obviously, with massive edge-to-edge screens and such, there’s no room for big speakers. Surely Samsung, Apple, or Google can do better than what we’re getting.
Most phones have a bottom-firing speaker with little foam balls inside to make them sound fuller, and the earpiece can sort of double as a second speaker. However, audio quality remains a weak spot on almost every phone.
3
LED Notifications
Our smartphones are as distracting as ever, with always-on displays (AODs) just tempting us to pick them back up and scroll through social media. Things weren’t always this way though. I miss notification LEDs that allowed me to instantly glance over and see that I had a notification without turning on my phone. The AOD feature does this too, but it’s not the same.
See, phones had a tiny little LED in the corner somewhere that would glow for notifications. Some models even had an RGB LED, so users could customize the color for certain apps. I remember having my LED flash red for Gmail, blue for missed texts, white for calls, and amber for Tweetdeck (Twitter) notifications.
Samsung’s AOD is a nice feature. It even adds tiny icons to the lock screen to signal a new text or email. At one point, each icon had a certain color, but now they’re all white and too small to be useful. As a result, I find myself turning the screen on and taking a closer look just to discern what the alert is about. The next thing I know, I’ve been on social media for 25 minutes. Our phones are more customizable than ever these days, and there are replacements, but the notification LED will always hold a special place in my heart.
2
Expandable Storage with MicroSD Cards
Phones are expensive, and if you want enough storage for all your favorite apps, games, and videos or to snap endless photos, you’ll need to pay extra for a model with more storage. For example, the Galaxy S25 Ultra comes with 256GB of storage for $1,299. You’ll pay over $1,400 if you want to increase that to 512GB. Ouch!
I wish I could still buy a 256GB smartphone and then throw in a 512GB MicroSD card for $35. I did that for years with my old Samsung phones, but like everything good, they disappeared too. Now, we’re forced into expensive higher storage models or a monthly subscription fee for cloud storage.
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I understand why manufacturers ditched the bezels and LED notifications in favor of bigger screens, but removing microSD slots is all about making a buck. It’s unfortunate. That said, several phones still come with a microSD slot or even a headphone jack. Oddly enough, they’re usually cheap budget phones. Yes, cheap phones typically have a bunch of features that $1,000 phones do not. Weird.
1
Fun Designs and Small Flagships
I don’t know about you guys, but I think we need more small Android phones that don’t skimp on features. Big phones heavily dominate the smartphone market, especially on Android, and they’re showing no signs of slowing down. Every year or two, our phone options get a little bigger, to the point that they’re too big. Pocketability is quickly disappearing.
I actually returned the Galaxy S25 Ultra for a smaller model, as it was too big. If you want a phone with a good screen, capable cameras, and excellent performance, you’ll have to buy a huge Pro, Max, or Ultra device. Even the Samsung Galaxy S25+ is missing features, and it’s huge too.
In our Pixel 9 review, we called it a big upgrade in a small package. Guess what? It packs a large 6.3-inch screen, and that’s small by today’s standards. I just want a sub-6-inch phone with a high-end display, multiple Pro-level cameras, the latest Snapdragon processor, 512GB of storage, and good battery life.
And if we can’t get compact flagship phonesat least make things a little bit more exciting. Does anyone remember the LG Wing or the Moto X with all its customization options? I had a Moto X with a wooden back. What a piece of art, with all those textures and wood grains! I still have it to this day because it was fun, compact, and unique.
Or what about the OnePlus 7 Pro and its pop-up front-facing camera? That was pretty neat. In the long history of Android, hundreds of phones have been released of all shapes, sizes, and designs. We’ve moved away from that in the pursuit of profit, which is understandable, but I still wish we had a few things from yesteryear.
