I will still look for a jack on my next phone, current Samsung has one, will likely buy another so I will probably buy top of their entry range

An AI that can turn YouTube videos into written articles? Take My Money! I have been wanting this for a long time, I far far prefer stuff in writing to videos, I dont take information from audio/video anything like as well

Same here. Whatever I have now is more than good enough. What I had before was good enough too

My last phone upgrade was about four years ago (Nokia 6 to Samsung A31) and that was only to try and get YouTube Music’s shitty app to work properly (spoiler : it didnt). Broke the screen on it dropping it while trying to put a mask on, got that fixed (that was over two years ago). Its still going, and will keep it until it dies

I dont upgrade my phone because I’m interested in upgrading, I upgrade when I have to

I moved to Deezer from You Tube Music a couple of years ago. I was on YTM for about six months after Google shut down Google Play Music (which was awesome). You Tube Music was a steaming turd, flakiest app I have ever used.

Deezer has been fantastic. Android app very rarely gives me any issues, and has probably the most extensive catalogue of any streaming service I have ever used (although it is a bit disorganised and shambolic at times), The Premium subscription is reasonably priced, especially if I use the yearly sub rather than the monthly one, and sound quality is great (although I only use HQ audio, not Hifi). I believe they pay artists more than most others

Other big upside is that there is NO limit to how many tracks you can download into a device if you are a Premium user! I have half a terabyte of country music in my phone. The only limitation is how much storage your device has. You can only download playlists / music into a maximum of three devices, I only have my phone and a waterproof media player so not an issue for me

Only downsides are the somewhat disorganised catalogue I mentioned - some artists have more than one artist profile with different albums scattered across them, and when two different artists share the same name they often get mushed together into the one profile. Discographies tend to be a bit random in the way they are organised. But careful use of the search function will find almost anything and everything.

Reorganising/ rearranging large playlists on the web client/ browser can get a bit flaky, with a really big playlist I find its sometimes easier to just rebuild it from scratch rather than move large blocks of tracks around

The MP3 upload tool is pretty clunky and has no folder feature, and a limit of only 2000 tracks upload. But because they have such an extensive catalog you shouldnt need it much

The downloaded music section in the app has no folders either which would be nice but isnt a deal breaker. Only other issue I have is that the Play button for playlists on the Android app defaults to shuffle mode which is a flaw shared with Spotify, and there is no way to disable shuffle even for Premium users. This is the ONLY thing YouTube Music gets right

I havent used Tidal but I have heard their catalogue is much more limited and what little exploration I did bore that out

Are there any waterproof USB-C headphones?

I used to have this bundled with Youtube Music. The Youtube Music app was possibly the worst Android app I have ever used, slow, unstable, buggy and flaky as all hell. Ditched it for Deezer which has a terrific if slightly disorganised catalogue and a far better app

My current phone is a Samsung. I bought it because its not made in China and has the features I needed - expandable storage and a headphone jack at the right price

I dont care about brands. I’ll buy anything not made in China if it does the job and its not too expensive. Currently Samsung is the only brand that fits the bill as far as I know (things may have changed since I bought my last phone)

Samsung Galaxy A31, running Android 12. Its far from the latest or most high end tech but its a tough old bird, and does all I ask of it without complaint. Good screen even with a few cracks, 128Gb memory which I’ve supplemented with a 500Gb SD card for all the music I have downloaded from Deezer. Battery usually lasts two days or more at a stretch. Camera is frankly better than I need. And best of all its got a headphone jack, an absolute necessity. Only downsides are that it wont upgrade to Android 13, 12 is as far as it’ll go, and the USB-C socket is getting a bit knackered. Not bad for an almost three year old phone, hope to get another couple of years out of it

I also have a small budget phone I bought overseas to use as a Wifi hotspot, thing called a Dash L4 LTE. I’m now going to press it into service as a music player when swimming. Its small and light, but grossly underpowered, and only runs Android 7, doubt it’d be capable of more. I’ve put a 64Gb SD card in it again for music, it’ll do the job, but i certainly wouldnt want to use it as my primary phone