Looking at all the features that older phones uses to have compared to newer ones, I never hear anyone talk about the removal of the notification LED. I personally really liked that feature, being able to see if I got an email, a text or missed a call without turning on my phone was awesome. My Samsung note 8 had this feature, but to my knowledge, newer phones (in the major companies anyway) have abandoned this feature. Did everyone else unanimously agree they don’t care for this feature?
I think it just got sort of replaced by the “always on display” as Android calls it, where the screen is “off” but still displays the system clock and any notification icons received. For me, it’s accomplished the same thing while being more specific than the LED
It’s also worth noting that most phones these days always have at least one item in the “notification” bar at some point. Like, right now I’ve got two apps taking up a slot, and Google’s weather thing up there, and that’s a normal day.
The LED would always be on.
I am pretty sure you can exclude permanent notifications.
I use third party apps to disable permanent icons, for me it’s the alarm. I always have repeating alarms on, so the icon is pointless, I disabled it in the app settings. I’d like for a first party way to do that, but oh well
am I the only one who misses funky antenna bobs that would flash like old nokias? that was handy
Afaik they don’t work on modern phone anymore because of the different frequencies and much lower transmit power. Those old phone has pretty high transmit power to the point of causing radio interference if you receive a call near an active speaker. Even if there is a version that work on 4g/5g phones, it’ll be very annoying because it’ll light up all the time due to modern smartphone’s persistent data connection.
causing radio interference if you receive a call near an active speaker
Oh damn, this just bought a flood of memories back from nowhere. That distinct sound that would comee out of the speakers right before you got a call. I don’t think I even noticed that it doesnt happen anymore.
sounds like a whole new line of bluetooth accessories are n lol
My galaxy s3 had a problem where the notification light never turned off ever. Even with factory resetting it never turned off. So ever since then my brain never registered phone LEDs as information.
Ulefone Armor 21 has a RGB notification led on the front and a light ring on the back.
It also has audio jack and get this… FM radio!
It also weighs as much as my bed, but I wouldn’t want anything else!
I think very few people cared. The Nothing Phone has a feature similar to that though, where the back of the phone lights up depending on what’s happening (notification, call, etc).
Notification LEDs kinda only make sense for phones without OLED since you can simply display a notification with minimal energy construction.
Also phones get so many notifications these days that the light has mostly lost its meaning. Last time I had a phone with one was around 2018 and the light was pretty much blinking at all times.
Meh, personally I only care if I missed a call, got a text, or an email. Only need 3 colors for that. Miss my Nexus 6 so much now…
I think my Xperia 1 has one, since it doesn’t do the punchole nonsense. There’s definitely a LED in the top bezel, and I think it’s color coded. To be honest, since I have a watch it’s not as relevant anyway. I do miss legacy features enough to have moved to this thing, though.
It died like 10 years ago for AOD and bigger screens
I kind of miss it. It was discrete and useful.
AOD is kind of more discreet tho
True, but I found a flashing colour more informative. I knew instantly what it meant. With an AOD I’d have to look more intently at the phone or bring it closer to my ageing eyes.
I miss mine so much. aodNotify works good though, flashing a ring around the camera similar to the LED.
iPhones definitely have this feature in the accessibility options still. I use it.
They don’t mean flashing the flashlight. They mean a small (often RGB) LED that’s usually next to the front camera.
It does the same thing. That’s just nitpicking.
No, not really.
One is an annoying fairly bright flash on the back of the phone and the other is a small dim LED that mainly shows information passively by shining constantly until a notification is addressed or acknowledged.
The notification LED can be seen discreetly by just glancing at your phone at any time, the flashlight on the other hand actively interrupts you and is useless if you didn’t see it when it blinked.
They serve different purposes.
