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I don’t know about you, but I love phones that can be custom these days. It seems that now nothing like this can already be, but this is not entirely true. For example, the iPhone and OnePlus have a mechanical sound switch, which is located on the side, and allows you to turn off all sounds with one switch of the slider. This is a very handy feature that many underestimate. At the same time, OnePlus managed to refuse it. It used to be in all of its flagship phones, but the first phone without it has already come out. At first I was upset about this, but it turns out that all is not lost, and here’s why. Let’s look at this, and at the same time understand why this happened and what are the advantages of this slider.
Phone mute switch
You may have already heard the news. OnePlus 10T does not have an alert slider . The same unique feature that I described above and that almost all of the brand’s flagship models had before the company decided to expand its product package. The good news is that OnePlus claims that this feature is not over yet. This is encouraging, but raises some questions about why the slider has been removed now.
This feature debuted in OnePlus Two . The alert slider provides users with a tactile switch that allows them to quickly switch between mute, vibrate, and ring modes. To do this, you do not even need to turn on the display, and you can switch it without taking your phone out of your pocket. Although, for those who have not used it before, you need to get used to this level of convenience. For me, smartphones started with the first generation iPhone and now I always have at least some model of a Cupertino smartphone at work. That is why I cannot imagine life without this switch, and from Android models I often prefer OnePlus .
Why OnePlus ditched the sound switch
OnePlus says the alert slider was removed due to lack of space and that it was a “necessary compromise” for “meaningful new technologies” in the phone. In particular, this is a new antenna array and a fast charging system with up to 150 W with a slightly larger battery. Apparently, the OnePlus 10T would have had a 4,500 mAh battery instead of a 4,800 mAh battery if the slider had remained in place. The alternative would be to make the phone thicker, but hardly anyone would agree to this.
Other Android smartphones have not adopted the practice of using such a switch.
The end user must decide if these trade-offs were worth making. But the good news is that OnePlus hasn’t quite done away with this feature yet and may bring it back.
Will OnePlus bring back the sound slider in new models
Going forward, OnePlus says it plans to “overcome this technical” issue in order to keep the Alert Slider (as it’s called in the original) in future smartphones. It’s important to note that this is not a guarantee that the switch will appear in future OnePlus devices. But at least the company says it understands its importance and wants it back. It might just be a distraction, though. After all, now you can divert attention from the problem, and then everyone will get used to it and it will be possible not to return the lost element to its place.
“Our development team plans to overcome this technical and design challenge in future devices. Therefore, we can provide improved technologies while maintaining our alert slider. While the OnePlus 10T doesn’t have it, that doesn’t mean it will be removed from all future OnePlus devices.” the company said in a statement .
What else manufacturers have removed from phones
While there’s certainly a lot of truth in everything OnePlus says here, it’s also interesting to see how things actually fared with the OnePlus 10 Pro. When disassembling this device, the size of what appears to be the physical component of the warning slider is quite small. OnePlus claims that the component occupies 30 square millimeters of space inside the case.
Another thing immediately comes to mind that phone manufacturers have abandoned – a headphone jack. In a separate article, I gave examples of models that this trend has passed. But it takes up significantly more space inside the case, because in order to understand its size, you need to look at the plug and mentally increase it by about three times. So much space inside was occupied by a mini jack. In this case, the gain was more significant than when the switch was abandoned. Even Apple does not remove it, although it tends to do so.
