The only new brand of smartphone in the last four years I can think of is OnePlus that has had success. OnePlus did this by buying their popularity. By offering a ton of value initially and then raising the price each generation.
Also while price was definitely a huge factor for it's popularity, the main reason IMHO was because it was the first phone that officially supported a popular AOSP at that time - CyanogenMod (now LineageOS [3]) and it even had the logo branded on the back. Almost everyone I knew with a OP1 phone bought it simply for cyanogenmod and how fast/smooth it ran it with no issues. Remember that when OnePlus 1 was first announced in 2014, android phones were well known to be filled with vendor bloatware (Samsung Galaxy S3,S4 anyone?), expensive, became really slow over time and for those of us that wanted custom ROMs, it was relatively painful to flash/root a stable AOSP on any device. OnePlus 1 was the first phone that I had absolutely no issues with having CyanogenMod on it such that I even turned on nightly updates knowing full well that it was tested at least on a OnePlus device.
So yea, I think OnePlus became popular simply because of price and their official support for CyanogenMod which meant a phone with a fast & responsive running android and most importantly, no bloatware.
[1] https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=6214&idPhone2...
[2] https://www.gizchina.com/2014/04/28/oneplus-responds-oppo-co...
[3] https://www.androidauthority.com/cyanogenmod-lineageos-65481...
Maybe for the tinkering crowd, but I think you vastly overestimate it's importance in becoming a sales hit. I don't have the numbers for how many people flash their phones, but I'd guess less than one in a thousand. They do advance the sales via favorable reviews and recommendations though, I'm sure.
As far as I see, it was simply just the price-quality ratio that made it a success.
It is a shame too because I think the Amazon Fire phone failed for the very same reason.
In hindsight, the ridiculous invite system that one plus had makes sense now. Maybe they were trying to limit the number of phones sold because each one sold at razor thin profits (possibly at a loss after warranty support).
There is no way I'm replacing all those with much more expensive bluetooth devices, all of which I need to keep charged. And I'm also not buying six dongles or carrying an adapter with me everywhere.
I just don't get the obsession with getting rid of the jack. I'm sure some people don't need it. And I even get it with Apple; they have a strong sleekness bias and it lets them sell more expensive AirPods. But is everybody else just cargo-culting Apple?
Buying 6 dongles would also only cost $54 ($9 each) which isn't a ridiculous price for an accessory in my opinion, especially if you're buying a high end phone that's going to cost you $700+ anyways.
Personally, I just carry one dongle attached to my keychain and keep one in the car. It hasn't been an issue for me yet.
https://strangeparts.com/bringing-back-the-iphone-headphone-...
I'm also not persuaded by the "most people won't base their purchase" argument, as that applies just as well to adding another 5-10% to the battery. Most people don't base their purchase solely on anything. I may have to go by my local phone stores and chat with the staff to see how much this matters in practice to people.
I would've had a huawei p20 pro right now if that thing carried a 3.5mm jack, as it's one of the very few phones who fills my other requirements.
I don't think it is, everyone is just too afraid of doing something radically different. Essential phone was just another generic midrange Android phablet at a top end flagship price. Until someone completely throws that paradigm away we will be stuck with the bloated nonsense that smartphones have become. I would give ANYTHING for a 5" phone with capacitive touch e-ink display, 3000mAh battery, and a barebones BSD based OS that did nothing but call, text, take pictures, gps, and text-based web browsing.
https://www.verizonwireless.com/basic-phones/
There's a whole bunch of phones that do basically what you're looking for.
not a rhetorical question. Does ANYTHING include 20x cost factor?
I wonder what they do in the developing world. Previous gen bloat-phones or simple flip phones, or something market-specific, closer to what you're asking for.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2014/2/28/5450258/yotaphone-e-ink-d...
Isn't that pretty much exactly what the light phone2 is? https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/light-phone-2-design#/
Not sure if it'll have browsing, but it's got everything else, including an e-ink display, which is probably the hardest feature to comeby in a phone
I've heard whispers of mini PCIe 3G cards that have "unused" pins that actually offer up a USB device. That's how the USB-to-miniPCIe adapters work.
There are also ARM processors that can operate as USB hosts and run Linux or a BSD.
LiPo batteries are cheap and fun to use. The charging circuits are less fun, but there are probably ways to handle it without too much trouble.
And finally, our good friends at AliExpress or eBay have plenty of SPI-driven e-ink displays and probably a few usable digitizers, although you'll have to combine them yourself.
If you ever actually go through with building this, let me know. I looked into it once but lacked the time to ever finish.
Aren't they a major Chinese brand? Seems like the message here is that you'd better already be big with deep pockets to wade into the smartphone market.