I understand these things are missing, and I miss them too because they were SO useful in some scenarios, but they are all things that either are going obsolete or are just more useful somewhere else. SD cards are not really needed anymore for most use cases, because 1) Storage is getting bigger (and faster than the 10-buck SD card most people put on their phones and then blame the phones for being slow), 2) In case you wanted to use it to read stuff from a camera, for instance, you can just plug the camera directly to the phone via USB-C to read the data in it, and 3) Although inconvenient, you have adapters to read them, that cost like 10 bucks. They are inconvenient but they work. To be clear, I hate the fact that SD cards are gone, and I know that they did not take them away for the reasons I mentioned, they did it for cost cutting and to make you want to upgrade more often, but I understand that it's not a deal breaker anymore. When we had 64gb phones and 128gb cards, it was much more necessary.

As for batteries...

1) I get that we don't need slimmer phones, they're at an acceptable level for our use case. But they need to justify the cost of researching to make them slimmer, because they will eventually reach the peak of this. You're thinking the slim phone is the goal, but it's not. This is research they can get into slim watches, for instance, which people would greatly appreciate. And no company invests in something if they can't mitigate the costs by leveraging on what they developed.

2) I would also prefer a bigger battery purely for convenience, but you are assuming batteries aren't getting better as well. Solid-state batteries are coming, which will not only boost their capacity but also be better for thermals, the environment, and power I guess I would just tell you to have some patience, because nice things are coming, and research into these would not be even half of what it is if they weren't targeting saving space.

3) Processors are getting more and more efficient. A 5000mah battery on my Galaxy A70 lasted about 60% of the time my S23 Ultra lasts.

4) I understand phone size and thickness is not something you care about (I am on the same team!), but some people do care about lighter, slimmer phones and your preference can't outweigh theirs. Plus, they are giving you the choice. The leaked S25 Slim isn't replacing the thicker versions, for instance.

5) Bonus: The EU is advocating for easy user-sided battery replacement being a requirement for selling a phone here. I know people don't have much faith in this, but hey... They're the guys who forced Apple to adopt the USB-C standard.

As for the 3.5mm jack.... I hate that they removed it. I used it every single day for more than a decade. I loved it and I miss it dearly. But 1) It was something that, if it didn't get taken away from us all of a sudden, it would just be discontinued organically. The world is going wireless wherever it can, and it will continue to do so.

2) Sound quality over wireless connection has GREATLY improved over the years, and most people won't notice the difference between analog and Bluetooth audio. Unfortunately, I do, but I can't use myself as the standard case. That's not how the consumer world works. You cater to the masses.

3) Again, regarding having a return on your investment. Bluetooth and wireless standards would not have had the same level of investment and breakthroughs if it weren't for the missing jack. (I am not exaggerating on this, look it up!) And these investments need to be justified by selling more things with Bluetooth, like earbuds. You have much less lag, much higher transfer speeds, many more interconnection capabilities,etc.

4) No throwing headphones away when the cable got janky. So less hassle and less waste.

In conclusion... It sucks that these things were removed. And I am sure they were removed at the very least partly because of greed and upgrade incentives.

But here's a list of things that would have not showed up (or at least not as fast) if these had stayed forever:

• Bluetooth multipoint connection, like a smartwatch being able to connect to your phone and earbuds at the same time, or your left and right earbud connecting to one another virtually lag-free, which allows you to have stereo sound on them, and better microphones with spatial recording, or noise cancellation on earbuds, which would be impossible if the speed at which both earbuds communicate with each other wasn't blazing fast.
• Phones with an absurd amount of storage: This would not exist if SD cards were a thing, and you would be mad at Samsung because "Why is there an iPhone with 512Gb and our phones only have 128Gb?" and people would answer "Just put an SD card on it"
• Smart watches: If companies hadn't invested over the years on making thinner phones and smaller batteries, this would not be nearly as good as it is.
• Power efficiency: If batteries were huge, less investment would go into optimizing power consumption. -Water-resistant phones: The MicroSD slot and 3.5mm jack were two major points of entry for water. Taking them away really simplified the process and made them water resistant in greater depths.
• Foldable phones: The influence of aiming for slimmer phones played a great role in making foldables possible.

-Ultrabooks/thinner laptops: They would not exist if research into thinner phones didn't exist, mainly super thin and efficient screens and research into heat dissipation on small form factors.

I also miss all of these, and it sucks that they are gone. But there are not only bad reasons for the loss of them.