Want a good Android smartphone without the $1,000+ price tag? Then buy Google's Pixel 3a Let's get this over with straight away: if you want a new smartphone but don't want to pay an increasingly stupid price tag, then get the Google Pixel 3a. It's $399 or £399, and it does everything you want and does it really well. There: that's it. You can now go about your day. If you want to know how this is done, or love …
No its not, I have 64gb in my current phone plus 128gb SD card and have maybe 8gb spare
The lack of an SD card is just one of the ways they force you to change your phone even if you don't want to, same with non removable batteries that wear out long before the phone itself does
I would be happy with even 32gb on a phone as long as it had an SD card slot as you have to be retarded to pay for huge amounts of built in memory when an SD card costs a fraction of the price for several times the capacity
I was on the fence about this, but the SD card was the final straw to the compromises so I opted for the CAT S61 instead for the FLIR camera rather than buy another phone that I will feel is constantly restrictive with no benefits to compensate for them, the lack of an SD card on this narrowed it down to the CAT and a rugged Chinese no name that had dual sim, SD card and came with 2 6000mah batteries and which was still less than the google phone despite having a higher resolution screen, faster processor, more ram, more built in storage, and SD socket, dual sim, was waterproof, drop proof
Granted its a no name, but for less than £200 I could have bought two of them, and being rugged theres a good chance just one of them would have outlived the google phone anyway
But the CAT was the best of both worlds, brand name, SD card and rugged but £225 more than the google phone, but I just refuse to buy a phone that is deliberately crippled for no good reason other than to make them get replaced more often and there is NO GOOD REASON to omit an SD card slot on a phone
"I have 64gb in my current phone plus 128gb SD card and have maybe 8gb spare"
But do you REALLY need to have all the photos you've ever taken stay on the phone? I understand having a large music library (for which, by the way, 64GB is ample), but your full photo library? It's extremely simple to sync it off to your computer, or to on of the cloud services if you want it always available. Same for videos.
Of course I get it that some people see it as an inconvenience to have to copy media on and off teh phone as needed as opposed to having everything always there, but I think for most people that's not a show stopper.
Similairly to all the other compromises Google seems to have made with this phone, they have come down on the side of the features that most people prefer, and if you don't want to compromise, get the £800 phone instead of the £300 one
Just so noted, if you're filling a 64GB SD card with nothing but high-bitrate (say 320kbps MP3) music, you basically have enough music to play without repeating for nearly two weeks (the benchmark is my own music collection, which tips the scales at about 14GB and according to Vanilla Music has a total playtime of over 71 hours (nearly 3 days). WITH high-res artwork for each track.
You know it's 2019, and not 1997 right?
Same for headphone jacks...
"so it is possible Google screwed up here somewhere when they added the jack in. " not really, all this is integrated in the Snapdragon chipset, all headphones jacks are essentially the modern equivalent of a PC intgrated soundcard. Basically but quickly reaches the limits of it's capability.
To get outstanding audio quality, you need to be listening to the vastly superior USB-C inline DAC. better still pick up the Pixel 3 wired USB-C earbuds, they are uber-comfortable, as they aren't in-ear, but use a nifty loop, and sound great.
"Therefore the phone makers don’t need to satisfy a few stick in the muds."
I was agreeing with your statements up until this. Why do you have such a dismissive attitude towards people who aren't being well-served by these devices?
But you're right, removing useful features doesn't appear to have hurt sales. It does mean, though, that I'm not likely to be buying more smartphones. At least not until/unless I find one that serves my needs.
Most people just don’t miss them
Like the 90% population of the world who cannot afford a $400 phone?
A simple wired headphone costs less than a dollar and gives an acceptable quality, any form of cheap wireless headphone is 15 times more expensive for a shitty quality.
You should get out from your ivory tower sometime and meet with real people.
No everyone wants "outstanding quality"
Thats why practically NOBODY has studio level audio and video equipment at home, because "normal" audio and video equipment is MORE than good enough
A wired headphone also doesn't go flat at inopportune moments, it doesn't cost way more than many want or need to pay for "good" quality, because "outstanding quality" becomes meaningless when sitting on a bus, walking down a crowded busy street, walking past road works and so on, also pretty worthless when youre only having a phonecall or my main use for headphones which is listening to audio books or connecting it to my car stereo or worksite radio ALSO via a 3.5mm to 3.5mm jack
Having the OPTION for USB-C audio is fine, but ASSUMING nobody needs nor wants the headphone/line out jack is just dumb narrow minded snobbery as it would cost practically NOTHING to have both so people can use whichever THEY prefer for each use case
The only two absolute deal breakers for me is the lack of an SD card socket and the lack of a headphone jack. My current phone is USB-C but ALSO has a headphone jack, go figure. Not to mention an SD card, so I happily paid an extra £225 for it over the google phone, although I also didn't have to buy a fully rugged case for the Google phone, so the gap was slightly less than that AND I got to sell my FLIR camera as the CAT has one built in, so I actually ended up effectively paying around £150 less to get the cat WITH headphone socket and WITH SD card socket that I would have ended up paying for the google without either because I would have needed to keep my FLIR camera AND pay for a rugged case whereas the S61 is fully rugged out of the box
You're almost certainly wrong. The speakers are driven by the same source, and the speakers reportely sound great on both this phone and the Samsung Tab S5e. As this review says:
"It was good coming out the speakers at the base...but the headphones? It felt like we were at the back of the hall and kept increasing the volume in the hope the sound would get stronger and clearer."
This sounds to me like one of the channels is out of phase with the other - or, more outlandishly (but fitting better with the description) crosstalk between, or even summing of, the two channels, AND one of them being out of phase, causing phase cancellation that leaves only the sounds that are unique to either channel (if you've ever used one of those dreadful karaoke/vocal removal DSP plugins, you'll recognise the description of sounding like you're 'at the back of the hall'), - which is hopefully just a cock up on an early release review unit. If that's what's going wrong, the cause could be either software or hardware related, and as long as the hardware isn't too desperately badly wired (ie the two channels are reasonably discreet and not wired together) the fix could be either, too.
Either way, though, if Google are going to bother including a headphone jack, they really ought to make the effort to ensure it works properly, regardless of whether many - or even most - customers will never use it.
I am thinking of a Commodore 65-compatible, modular smartphone ... modular smartphone ? the 4G chip is independent of the device and unpluggable, when 5G PCIe devices reach the market, you can just swap em and wham, you have a 5G smartphone, not quite sure about the RAM, but internal storage ought to be the same and .... nothing stopping you from installing a linux distro, if you prefer. The hardware is free and open, except maybe for the 4G chip, maybe.
Where's the joke icon ? No joke:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuNB4ocZDXA
It's pretty bad that Google has copies of local images which he thought he never uploaded, shared, or sync'd, records of Amazon and eBay purchases, OK Google recordings that start before he said OK Google, and all available via publicly available URLs (long ones that may or may not be predictable)... 150 gigs of Takeout data, and that won't be all of it, there's probably also shadow profiles connected to his account.
@Rich10
God forbid anyone has a decent size music collection and regularly goes anywhere you can't get a phone signal to access Spotify or Cloud storage.
Oh wait,... that's me.
Being cloud connected is fine if you're solely an urbanite. Me, I get my boots muddy as often as possible.
64 Gb is ok for the ordinary connected user with wifi usually available and moderate data contract. The phone is a cloud node. Think cache, not storage centre.
Larger storage is a drag on phone performance, eg, the scan of memory of startup. It also breaks the login on anything and you have everything usage model.
But sure, if you want to cart 50 movies or a humongous music collection around, this device won't do it.
I'm still on an archaic OnePlus 3 (the missus got it, then decided she hated Android, so swapped me for my iPhone) with 64GB and no SD card. I occasionally run out of space when I've forgotten to backup ~1000 photos/videos, and filled up the rest with podcasts and Spotify downloads, the latter two because I'm in Slovakia where data is still absurdly expensive. But we're talking once every couple of months, and when it happens it's easy enough to bin the re-downloadables until I get somewhere to back up the pics and start fresh, so 64GB seems like a pretty good sweet spot to me. I'm not sure why anyone would want to watch video on a phone this size, regardless of how good the screen might be, but to each their own I suppose.
While people frequently complain that "why anyone would want to watch video on a phone this size", try considering the relative visual size of the phone display (close) and the average TV (not close). Obviously TV like devices are often somewhat larger now than they used to be but it wasn't many years ago that sitting three or more metres away from a 19" TV was considering pretty immersive.
It means you will have to take Google up on its offer to host photos and videos on its cloud service. And you'll want to stream music – but then aren't you already?
No. My 'phone is a 'phone. I don't do things like that with it, I switch things like Wifi/Internet off most of the time; maybe that is why I get several days out of one batter charge.
The reviewer hack praised it for not having top end features that you don't need (good) but then shows that he uses a 'phone for things that many of us don't use a 'phone for.
BTW: did it come with apps that cannot be un-installed ? How much slurping of my data by google cannot be turned off ?
If your phone is (only) or (primarily) a phone, then possibly you are not the target market for pretty much any recent smartphone, a basic candybar would probably suffice, right?
When you say the reviewer hack uses a phone for things that many of us don't use a phone for, I suspect the "us" set is probably smaller than you might imagine. For most users of a smartphone, what this phone offers is pretty much everything they need without the stuff they don't. MicroSD card would be nice, but I've never managed to even half fill my 128GB phone, so at the 64GB point, they're likely spot on too.
That of course is total horseshit. It's a myth made up by idiots that pay £1000 for their phone to try and justify that price. Google privacy policy is virtually identical to apple's. They both use your data for advertising purposes... The funniest thing is that it's written in back and white in apple's policy and everyone is too lazy to read it, and just assume because it's apple it's going to be fine, as apple told them...
”Google privacy policy is virtually identical to apple's. They both use your data for advertising purposes... The funniest thing is...“
The funniest thing is, that you actually think that by repeating that often enough, you might make it true.
Naive to the point of idiocy.
"My 'phone is a 'phone. I don't do things like that with it, I switch things like Wifi/Internet off most of the time; maybe that is why I get several days out of one batter charge."
Why go for a smartphone at all then? Save a bunch of cash and get a Nokia 105.
Why go for a smartphone at all then? Save a bunch of cash and get a Nokia 105.
It's getting harder to do that and not being living in a cave as a hermit who gathers his food in the forest every morning.
Governments and other services have long since switched from the mindset that the smartphone is a convenience alternative to mainstream channels to viewing it as a excellent excuse to cut those other channels down to nothing and now the phone is the only channel.
I need a smartphone because my employer's MFA application requires one, and because many people I communicate with prefer SMS, and doing SMS without a qwerty keyboard is horrible.
But then even if a feature phone won't work for me, I can get a good Android smartphone for a hell of a lot less than $399. With the features I want, such as an SD card slot.
It's hard for me to imagine that being the case. If it ever is, I suppose that I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I'm more likely to just start another business myself rather than put up with such employers, but I understand that's not a path that is appealing to a lot of people.
"How much slurping of my data by google cannot be turned off ?"
It can all be turned off. You answer NO at the initial setup screen, and you aren't signed into any Google services, and can't use the Google apps, but free to use the phone otherwise (and install F-Droid).
it's hilarious how informed people are, and just believe any old bullshit that former writers for El-Reg used to spew here.
Oh can it? I've never heard that before. Nobody's ever told me that. I have this phone over here that I can do that on. Just give me a few minutes... You want to explain why this phone, on which I don't have any google account configured, is still making DNS requests to google domains and shows play services as using a bunch of CPU and network on some occasions? It's also informed me that its performing a play protect scan of my phone. I have no malware, at least so sayeth Google when they checked my list of installed software against Google's servers. Which is some data. If this is happening, I'm guessing other data is coming out, too. Yes, I can go into settings and disable play protect. I can't disable google play services, though.
"panicking" as in being unstable and having a tendency to crashing often?
Rooting is simply a matter of obtaining, erm, root access. As long as dodgy Chinese rooting apps are avoided, the phone should be as stable as stock.
And a good custom ROM should be stable (but I agree that not all custom ROMs are factory-quality).
Still, it's been ages since I've experienced any crashes or instability with custom ROMs on modern, dev-friendly phones.
No, just flat-out refusing to run due to things like SafetyNet and the signature checks on modern Android phones, which apps can query and balk if they detect problems. Plus, Samsung phones have the Knox e-fuse and many others refuse to unlock the bootloader. Most of the others that don't trip one of the red lines have features missing or are so niche as to not be supported by the likes of xda.
No, just flat-out refusing to run due to things like SafetyNet and the signature checks on modern Android phones
Ah, you seem to have missed systemless rooting through Magisk. It has a "SU hide" feature that allows such apps to run, as well as signature check bypassing, bootloader lock status spoofing, and the whole lot. Mostly needs systemless root though.
Samsung's KNOX is what keeps me away from them these days, ditto for any Android without bootloader unlock (aka phones by OEMs that don't respect their customer).
Most of the others that don't trip one of the red lines have features missing or are so niche as to not be supported by the likes of xda.
OnePlus, Google, Essential, and Sony* ... all don't. They have great community support.
* Sony is a special case. On the one hand, it goes as far as telling you how to build AOSP yourself (and provides the necessary device trees), but on the other, it wipes DRM keys when unlocking the bootloader, or so I've heard :-(
"Ah, you seem to have missed systemless rooting through Magisk."
No, it's become a very hit-or-miss affair. Magisk can stop working spontaneously, and when Android gets updated, there's a fair chance of Magisk tripping up.
"OnePlus, Google, Essential, and Sony* ... all don't."
And like I said, they tend to have things missing that are on my must-have list, such as batteries designed to be easily switched out, SD Card slots, and so on.
I've been running rooted for almost a decade, and have never noticed my phones becoming unstable because of it. As to apps that refuse to run on rooted devices, I simply don't run them -- but there are countermeasures you can install that will make those apps think that your device isn't rooted.
The problem with rooting the device and installing a custom OS is that very few phones are supported. I'm happy to do so, and I have one phone here already running lineage OS, but the list of devices for that, while the longest I've seen for such a build, is quite short. The phone I was talking about, an older LG one sitting in a drawer, has no known rooting path described online, and certainly no build already for it. I may have enough knowledge to build the lineage OS build for the device, but that would be a lot of work that wouldn't help much because I do not have access to install it. I don't know enough about low-level manufacturer-specific things to find my own rooting path without spending a lot of time learning about it, and since this phone is an old one I haven't thrown away, it's not really worth the trouble to me. The result being that I can't actually do anything with this device to disable Google's data collection.
"The problem with rooting the device and installing a custom OS is that very few phones are supported"
There are lots of supported phones, but you're right that not all are (and newer ones are less likely to be). Each time I've replaced my phone, though, I've selected it based on whether or not I can replace the ROM. If I can't, then I don't consider the phone at all. As a result, I've used a replacement ROM on every smartphone I've ever owned.
I'm with you alain.
I don't play games that need huge amounts of grunt, and I keep the data, bluetooth, location services and the like off most of the time. I do not watch movies (what's the point on a ~5.5" screen!), and I can get plenty of music onto the external flash if using mp3 or similar codec (I don't expect super quality sound, I still have a HiFi for that).
I do use it as a smart phone when I want it to, and it acts as a dumb phone for incoming calls and texts when I don't.
I have a cheap Chinese quad-core, dual sim phone with a 32GB flash card, and it does all I want it to at a fraction of the cost of even this phone. And it's got a finger print reader on the back. It's about the same size as the Pixel 3a, but has a huge (3400mAh) battery that I can get about three days of typical use out of.
The only problem was a few baked in apps that I did not like, but the Play store security check has been removing theses for me recently! It also does not have Android 9, of course.
I've been a 'smartphone' user since my Treo 650 in the first half of last decade (still sad the way Palm went), and that used to do a week or more on one charge! My how far progress has come.
it does all I want it to at a fraction of the cost of even this phone.
Try to compile the stock kernel for it. Bonus points if it's a MediaTek SoC.
That's my chief complaint against phones from obscure OEMs ... but then again, even Samsung screws up kernel releases. At least Google releases proper kernel sources , so does OnePlus.
If your "'phone is a 'phone" (and I assume that the weirdly pedantic/anachronistic apostrophe is for the removal of "tele" rather than "smart"), why on earth are you even considering a smartphone, of any sort? If you turn all data off, why do you care about Google potentially "slurping" data?
"the obvious big question is how did Google manage to produce an Android 9.0 phone that looks, feels and acts like one that costs two or three times as much?"
No. The obvious question is by buying one of these, how much more of your data and the data of others that you happen to have access to are you giving Google the irrevocable right to slurp and sell to whoever they like.
This is probably designed as a loss-leader in an attempt to get more people onto Google's hardware. Not that such undercutting of competitors is in any way shape or form an anti-competitive practice, oh no...
You can always install something like Blokada (3rd party app store required) which effectively runs an in-phone VPN to allow for a hosts file to block the Google domains. The only downside is that in some places it doesn't work (e.g. when I'm on a corporate WiFi some APs block VPN traffic) so you have to switch it off and no doubt some of your data then flows to Google
"You can always install something like Blokada (3rd party app store required)..."
... which is fine for the likes of you and me, and others on here - the generally IT savvy. But say I need to call Joe Average, who has bought one of these, clicked the OK button and entered details until all the start-up/new-phone stuff has gone away, and is pretty much oblivious to how much of his life he has just signed over to Google.
Now, I don't know that Joe Average has one of the phones. How much of my call/text/whatever inbound data is now on its way to Google - without my permission?
It's not like they don't have form for this kind of thing...
"this $400 phone has a fingerprint reader. And it's on the back which is actually much more convenient that having it on the front."
Ignoring the typo that/than; How is fingerprint reader on the back much more convenient?
To me it seems inconvenient when the phone is in a car holder or lying on a table.
My Samsung S7 had the fingerprint reader on the front. When I lost that and got an S9 I really like the reader on the back. It's exactly where you can put your finger on it when you pick the phone up. I find it much more convenient.
When the phone is on a table, I pick it up and as part of that scan my finger and log in. I have never put my phone in a car holder - I can see it might be less convenient if you do.
I also prefer the fingerprint reader in the back. I admit I find inconvenient to pick up the phone in order to use the reader; but I have no such issue in the car holder because mine leaves the back open and easy to reach. At some point, somebody will put a reader on both sides...
I've had front and back, and in a car holder.
Back still works better. Getting the angle of my arm right to hit front bottom (hehe "front bottom") is much more awkward. In the car holder I just curl my finger around. The angle is just easier.
The reviewers comment that the iPhone fingerprint reader is slow confuses me because I find it to be instant. In fact too instant as when I want to give it a quick touch to light the screen up, it unlocks the phone unwanted.
I would prefer more delay so I can press it without the instant unlock.
I have a work provided S7 Edge and a personal Motorola E5 Play.
I find the E5 Play's rear mounted fingerprint reader much more convenient to use compared to the S7 Edge's front mounted one.
The E5 Play's reader is right where my index finger falls when I pick up the phone.
SatNav
I have never experience d a SatNav app that didn't keep the display alive. If you need to start a new journey or modify one that is in progress and do not have a passenger available to do this then sure unlocking with a a fingerprint reader is trivial once you have found somewhere safe to pull over
It's much better on the back,my finger just rests around the area where rear finger print readers are positioned,much better than old iPhones with it on the front,or the cheap Chinese phones I've seen with the reader on the side at the back is where it's at
I read it again. In one place, he said
"this $400 phone has a fingerprint reader. And it's on the back which is actually much more convenient that having it on the front."
and in another place, he said
"Like the fingerprint detector on the back this is something that this reviewer started using almost immediately and felt very instinctive."
Both of those read as opinion to me, in part because of context (product reviews -- like movie reviews -- are opinion pieces by definition) and in part because phrases like "more convenient" are opinion statements, as how convenient something is is an inherently subjective thing.
The fingerprint reader is to send your 'identification used as authentication' to Google so they can keep your profile updated with your biometrics....
A fingerprint reader is just another thing i'd never use.... like the user-facing camera, sure, they're there for convenience - but for who?
Ok some people will downvote me straight based on the title.
Here's the thing. I really want to upgrade my phone and probably have said to myself 10 or more times now... I'm going to go out and buy an XR SIM-free. Because we all know that's the "cheapest" way to buy any phone. But I physically can't bring myself to the point of spending 700+ quid on a phone. I can't actually do it. I'm not really sure what my limit is but something tells me it's around the £500 mark.
So where does that leave me? This looks very tempting. I'm not an Android fan but given that it's sensibly priced and seems to do much of what the XR would do, I am tempted. No stupid connectors for headphones / needing to buy new headphones? Thumbs up from me. I also really like the Galaxy s10e but thought it's getting up to XR money.
Is anyone else in a similar position? What should I do?
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A lot of iPhone users are in your position and Apple have lost sales since as a result. The only current option from them is the 8 @£700 as you said.
If in September Apple do something radically out of character and release a reasonable spec phone at a reasonable price, they will make a killing. It is a safe bet that the XR will not be reduced in price below £700.
IMHO the culture shock of reverting to android will be less painful with a Pixel, my fear is the historical build quality issues that may still plague them (as with demo unit reviewed) coupled with the the often poor customer service post sales.
Upshot I really don't know either sorry.
I would not get a pixel, instead going with a cheaper android device. There are a few good reasons to do that:
1. A lot of them have comparable specs and can't really be told apart.
2. Many of these, especially Xiaomi devices, are supported by lineage OS, so you can use that if you prefer it or want to extend the life of the device.
3. Looking in the low-cost field gives you more options so you can find a phone that has features you are more likely to want (for example, you can have a headphone jack, SD card slot, waterproofing, or a removable battery in various models, though all at once is harder to find).
4. If it turns out you really hate android, which happens from time to time, you have spent less money on your device and don't feel as bad when you sell it again.
I have to say that point 1 is the most important. While this article is extremely laudatory of the pixel, calling it low-cost, it really isn't when you compare it with the numerous good phones in the 100-200 price range. It's low-cost only when it is compared with flagships, which are all so high-cost as to be utterly ridiculous. The only thing I've consistently heard about being better in the pixel is the camera, but you will certainly get a serviceable camera in a cheaper phone, so it depends on your requirement for mobile photography.
I beg to differ. Let's consider the processor in an older iPhone and the one in the Pixel 3a:
Iphone 7: four cores (two 2.3GHZ high performance plus two more lower-power ones)
Pixel 3A: 8 cores, two 2.0GHZ cores and six 1.7 GHZ cores
The iPhone's cores have a pretty good single-threaded performance, better than many snapdragon cores, but not dramatically so depending on what the cores are called on to do. Now, let's look at some phones that cost less than 200 currency units, as defined by GSM Arena. I'm not sure exactly what currency unit they're using, but it's either euros, pounds, or U.S. dollars, as they use all three on various pages. Also take note that GSM Arena uses old prices, usually a price that was seen shortly after launch, so this includes only devices whose release price was under 200 units. Many other candidates are available whose price has been reduced to that level, but don't show up in the quick search I did.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 specs: eight cores: two at 2.2GHZ and six at 1.8GHZ, 4/6GB memory, clearly outstripping the pixel
Realme X specs: eight cores: two at 2.2GHZ and six at 1.7GHZ, 8GB memory, clearly outstripping the pixel
Samsung Galaxy A20 specs: eight cores: two at 1.6GHZ and six at 1.35GHZ, 3GB memory: not as good as the pixel, but not all that much worse
Nokia 4.2 specs: eight cores: two at 2.0GHZ and six at 1.45 GHZ, 3GB memory: A little worse than the pixel
Oppo A3S specs: eight cores: eight at 1.8GHZ: probably about on par with the pixel
These aren't all of the models, as I only considered one for each manufacturer. As you can see, several outstrip the pixel, and if I had included multiple candidates from each manufacturer, it would be even more of them. Even those that do not exceed the pixel in power have respectable processor performance, having eight cores and not having weirdly underpowered cores either. If you're doing something very processor-intensive on a phone, these might not be enough, but this is not the budget android device of old. It is perfectly capable of the standard smartphone use case.
Yes, this. I would never buy a new car unless I was loaded with case. As soon as you drive it away it has lost value. The same is true of high end tech. Get something a few years old, save the planet and save buckets of cash. A 12 month warranty from Music Magpie included.
If you like the S10, you might want to look at the new OnePlus phones - which look like Galaxy S phones. Hundreds of quid cheaper, very fast, and very capable camera. Vaguely water-resistant but not certified as such, no wireless charging, no headphone socket though.
Or look at Galaxy S8 or 9, reasonable cameras, headphone socket, SD card, wireless charging etc. S9 main advantage over S8 is that S9 will be supported for longer and has Project Treble so updates are easier to roll out (and mod).
LG phones have the best analogue audio out through the 3.5 mm socket.
I have an S8, and I intend to keep it for some time, so I see waterproofing as insurance against water damage and wireless charging as insurance against a broken or gummed up usb port.
+1 for OnePlus..., depending on how far back you want to go, you can add wireless charging for £5 with a QI pad, the OnePlus 2 has a removable back which hides it quite well - if you take the coil & electronics out of it's plastic wrapper and has hardware buttons which don't get in the way on the screen, most OnePlus devices have LineageOS available, Sony Xperia models also have broad support.
Yeah I still think the Moto G Series is perfect for the majority of Android Users (I have a G7 Power and its fine for my needs), if its your first Android get a cheap Nokia branded Android phone (My mum got one and has been prompted for updates every month and does what she needs it to do). If you decide you don't like Android, then its not like you spent £600.
Been very happy with my Moto - and E series at that!
Music, email, maps, memrise (language learning app), the odd stupid little game - runs fine. Works well for calls too ;)
Regular updates, none of which has done any harm.
People love to tell me what I'm supposedly missing; I just don't see it. I think perhaps they are mostly just justifying the price premium to themselves.
I was a die hard iPhone user,then my Mrs spent £200 on a honor 10 lite for my birthday,and I love it ,wish I had of made the switch years ago.just give it a try,if u don't like it,sell the phone,and shell out for an iPhone,which are just fashion accessories now,apple ain't the inovators no more
I went for the XR and have been very pleased with it. Its expensive but IMHO worth the cost. I've more or less done with Android until something switches me back from Apple but the Xr is an extremely capable phon. Battery life is very good, not all iPhones have that, and face recognition works very well, even unlocking when I crawl out of bed, in the semi dark with no glasses and hair (what I have left) in complete disarray.
Keep in mind that if you are planning on buying SIM free, if you go to Apple, (with your presumably iPhone) you can trade it in towards the price of a new one. I got £150 for a 6s off the price of an Xs. £850 was admittedly still a lot, but slightly easier to swallow. (obviously, if you have been able to keep hold of, say a 4, or 5s for example, you would get considerably less)
Even the Pixel3a makes the iphone look like a expensive chump-phone. The Pixel3 is even better still (and can be picked up for about £450 if you are quick)
https://i0.wp.com/9to5google.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2019/05/pixel-3a-vs-iphone-ad-cover2.jpg?resize=1500%2C0&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1
You don't say which iPhone you're upgrading from, but if you're not after the latest models, GiffGaff's prices are relatively reasonable and all the phones are unlocked.
iPhone 7 32GB £359
iPhone 8 64GB £589
I picked up a new iPhone SE 32GB for £200 from them last year which I'm still satisfied with.
I like waterproof phones so I can use them for navigation while out on the mountains in the rain. I am not sure how this makes me a narcissist.
Yes, I know there are waterproof cases available, but they're rather awkward, and not all are as waterproof as they should be.
Currently I have a Samsung A5, which was cheap and is waterproof. It's a great phone, but when I want to replace it I don't know what I will get; there don't seem to be any affordable waterproof phones any more. I was hoping the Pixel 3a would be.
"Or just "put them in your pocket and still have it work after a downpour""
Having lived in the alps (and Wales) for a bit, that's not going to work - serious downpours in those areas will find a way of getting into pockets (whilst wearing good quality water-proof outdoor clothing).
OnePlus are claiming that their phones are waterproof but they haven't applied for certification because it costs money... make of that what you will.
This is probably why most midrange phones aren't advertised as being waterproof. For a waterproof phone for mid-range money, you could look at older Samsung flagships such as the S8 or S9... the S9 maybe being better choice because it will be supported for longer. You might also look at what Sony are up to lately.
They showed one in a bucket of water. Nowadays "waterproof" means 1.5 metres for 30 minutes. Forget the 30 minutes, you can easily reach a depth of 1.5 metres if you happen to fall in water, and if you are unfortunate enough to get hit by a big wave on a beach, the water pressure can easily reach that even though you aren't submerged.
OnePlus could simply have carried out the test and, if it passed, said "We test our phones to the requirements of IP68 but do not certify them". It is a standard, not an approval. They did not.Therefore they don't meet IP68.
I got the joke (the classical allusion, anyway) about Narcissus, but I agree. Some of us are weirdos who like boats. Unexpected things happen on boats. I have lost one phone to being accidentally pushed off one. I did not lose a phone the second time because it was waterproof. If you are out on a river or a lake, carrying a phone is a wise precaution in case you get stuck somewhere.
I paid the same for an Xperia XZ2 Compact that a 3a costs; it has a better processor, an sd slot and it's waterproof. I cannot understand, then, why the 3a isn't unless it was to create a marketing distinction between it and the 3.
I purchased two Swift 2 X's for the kids.
One has serious battery drain issues (OS says the camera is causing the drain). The other one was dropped and the button popped out, my daughter (Youth, I forgive her) tried to fix it by sliding something under the cover to try and wiggle the button back in. She's managed to snip the flexible pcb going to the buttons and Wileyfox (Now defunct, but still going by another company) refuses to sell me the part. However, IF I pay around £60 + Delivery + Cost of Repair then they'll fix it for me.....
Soooo... My view on WileyFox and Santok(STK)…. They can take a flying flock.
Reason for them not being able to sell me the pcb flex - Because it encourages illegal reselling of parts and voids my warranty. Phone was under warranty (3 months old) but that would have been rejected.
Why is it that people are willing to accept compromise with Google/Android but not Apple/iOS?
Imagine a review for an iPhone where it said sound quality was bad or photos weren't stored in full res. People would be like "fucking hell, I told you Apple were shit. Only an idiot would buy this.".
Yet when it's an Android device all is forgiven and everyone is willing to compromise.
So does it just come down to the price being lower? Or the fact it's not made by Apple? Or both.
Don't really understand how it's 1 rule for Android and another for iOS devices. If Apple made a phone like this, at this price, everyone would say it was shite.
Both points you make are incorrect. Firstly another user has written that his audio is fine and as for the pictures of course you can save in full resolution both on your phone and on gdrive, however full resolution uses up your (free, as in gratis, or paid for ) storage whereas high-res does not count against you at all ever.
So you get 5Gig of photo storage from apple and after that you have to pay
So Google supply 15Gig of storage for free (use this for original quality) and then also hand you you infinite storage (no charge) provided you only upload high quality ones (essentially sub 16 mega pixels (or 1080p video)
Yeah that's a really awful deal compared with Apple or anybody else.
As for a duff headphone jack, well obviously that condemns all non Apple products.
That really was a silly statement you made, does the phrase fanBoi still exist?
"So Google supply 15Gig of storage for free (use this for original quality) and then also hand you you infinite storage (no charge) provided you only upload high quality ones (essentially sub 16 mega pixels (or 1080p video)
Yeah that's a really awful deal compared with Apple or anybody else."
Google will plunder anything you put in that free 15gig, and use anything they can datamine for anything they want. You don't use their product, you ARE the product; so yes; it's a REALLY fucking awful deal.
fanBoi may or may not still exist, but Google's Bitch definitely does.
”I understood him perfectly well. It's a bit silly carrying on the argument, but basically he said "15G is bigger than 5G" and you replied "but the 15G is being read by automata." Size and privacy are different attributes.“
You say you understood, and yet you missed his point; that 15GB vs 5GB by definition makes it a better deal. My point was that it’s not all about the size, and sometimes about what you (or Google) do with it. He then replied with some nonsense which I didn’t follow.
See my post "as an iPhone user".
Yes, I'd say it comes down to price.
I'd like an XR which costs, what, £749? This is (just) under £400. If I were to buy an XR am I getting £349 better hardware? No.
The software cost is negligible. Giving people physical hardware has a cost. But once the software has been produced - and is the same on every model - there's almost no cost attached to getting it on to devices.
Apple wouldn't offer a phone of this spec at this price, and that's the problem! If they did, I and many other people, would be overjoyed.
You're definitely getting better hardware with the XR but I agree not better enough to be worth the cost. Part of the cost is Apple NOT stealing all your data to help sell your eyeballs to everyone. If you value that, it is worth something. If you don't, it has no value and the iPhone is not worth it for you.
I think there are double standards the other way too;
Google = Evil data slurp merchants
Apple = Angelic personal data custodians
I still think £400 for the 3a phone is still expensive, but if I paid £700 for a phone it would need to be perfect in every way, for £1000 I'd expect to get laid every time I flashed it at the pub.
Full disclosure on the type of phone-owner I am: I'm still on my 3 year old, £150 Vodafone Smart Ultra 6, so I can accept compromises if it's only cost me an average of £4 per month over the life of the phone
> If you stick a case protector on it, as you should with any phone
Dumb question, but if we're all supposed to be doing this, why don't manufacturers just make the phone with them integrated and save us the trouble...
After all, what's the expensive shiny back for if the phone spends it's entire life in a protective case...
- different coloured phone cases (chosen by the user) provides a function, just as different coloured patch cables do. There's no chance of confusing your partner's phone for your own if you're rushing out the the house
- a bricklayer might want a higher level of phone protection than a dentist might need
- people want different features from their phone cases, such as card wallets or kick stands
- a scuffed or otherwise damaged case can be swapped for a new one. This is handy for people who want to resell their phone, since cosmetic damage affects resale value.
- physics dictates that stress on internal components is reduced by reducing the rate of deceleration in the event of a drop. This means using a material that can deform. What's the advantage of permanently attaching this material to the phone at the factory instead of the user clipping it on?
It's great! I hand all of my data over to Google and they give me nice products and services. They know where I am and where I need to be, make sure I arrive on time for meetings, flights, restaurant bookings (which may be suggestions based on my previous dining trends). Produce pretty collages reminding me of things I did on this day X years ago that I may have forgotten. They're pretty good at identifying my dog in my pictures (and manage to exclude pictures of other very similar looking black dogs). They have all my emails and attachments indexed so with their search mastery I can find an obscure email from a decade ago. Good calls on my music tastes, amusing videos I might like to watch on YouTube and they've stopped trying to inject sport stories in to my news feed.
They know me better than my ex did after 10 years.
And by handing my money direct to them for these phones it also means it has never had Facebook or Instagram or any other (un)social media installed on it. Not even as a factory loaded thing where you can only uninstall updates (but it somehow still snoops on you).
VonDutch gets it. Google will slurp you sideways; denying this just makes you a naive idiot. As long as you're aware of it and welcome it with open arms, you can save a ton of cash by being (part of) the product yourself. No problem there.
My problem is with the idiots who don't recognise this, and think they're getting a 700 quid phone for 399. You're not.
Google give me products and services, I invite it in to my life.
Facebook I don't want interaction with but it is bundled on my work phone. You can't get rid of it* and yet: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/22/facebook_data_leak_no_account/
I have no idea what information they are collecting in a shadow profile for me.
* (I can if I root/do my own thing but not going to do that with a work supplied device)
It means you will have to take Google up on its offer to host photos and videos on its cloud service. And you'll want to stream music – but then aren't you already?
No, no and no. But 64GB is enough for a decent amount of music and photos, and surely one will be able to download photos to ones own local storage?
But, again, do you really need your photos at full resolution?
Yes I do. If I can't store them at full resolution, what's the point of having that many pixels? Anyway, again I'm hopeful that one will be able to download them locally at full resolution.
Budget for Apple is £700 - that's as low as they will go. They believe they're better than everyone else, so people will pay whatever they ask. That level of eliteism isn't going to change anytime soon. Apple make too much profit per handset to even consider dropping down to where the rest of the world live.
As for the 3A, it genuinely sounds like Google's best option for Nexus holdouts or ex-owners, and they've done a lot of working creating a great experience at a sensible price - I haven't actually read a bad or even negative review yet.
I don't think anyone thinks Apple's prices are in any way justifiable, but that doesn't suddenly make this phone well-priced. Yes, it's better than Apple, Samsung, and Huawei in the flagship realm. But you can get a phone for much less that has similar specifications. This article has described it as similar to a flagship, but it's really not. It has a slower processor, less memory, and less internal storage than all other flagships and many other low or mid-cost phones. That doesn't make it insufficient; I've long contended that it is hard to tell whether an android phone has 4, 6, or 8 GB of memory, but it is important to avoid categorizing it as one of the most advanced, because that misleads potential customers into thinking that the price tag is a bargain, when it is in fact a bit overpriced.
I'd much rather be able to do it myself. The battery tends to be the first thing to wear out on my phone, so it's #1 on my must-have list. SD card slot is also critical since the internal storage is encrypted so gets bricked if the phone does (had that almost happen to me; fortunately, it had enough life left for me to offload before it went entirely), whereas low-priority stuff remains unencrypted on the SD and can pass from phone to phone as needed (which I have many times) so long as it remains unencrypted.
And doing it on a Note 4 takes mere seconds because (gasp!) the back cover is designed to come off. Plus, since it's designed to come off, you don't need any special tools and there's much less risk of something breaking (like happened to an old Samsung tablet I tried to open because of a bulging battery).
Hey Siri, how naive do you have to be to believe that Apple can provide similar user data dependent services without access to, storage and processing of, user data.
Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc, they're all the same.
”Hey Siri, how naive do you have to be to believe that Apple can provide similar user data dependent services without access to, storage and processing of, user data.“
They can’t. There’s a reason Siri’s so shit; it’s largely because it doesn’t have access to the huge data mine that the others do.
Apple don't primarily monetise through selling data to advertisers. Google do. Google's primary motivation is to get data from you to sell it on. Apple want you to buy their overpriced hardware and are trying to boost their sales by touting their privacy standards.
Those two companies are not the same. I'm not saying either is moral, but Apple's business plan is not as dependant on privacy violation as Google's.
It's all about the bottom line.
I don't like the huge bezels at the top and bottom,that's a waste of so much space on the screen.ive seen online that reviews are saying digital wellbeing is choking there pixel 3a,so I'll wait and see how that pans out,I have Android pie anyway and will get the Android q update,so I'm in no rush.i love they have added a headfone jack tho,I think the pixel you had must of been faulty,
The Pocophone F1 with 128GB and a Snapdragon 845 costs about £300 vs the Pixel 3a with 64GB and a Snapdragon 670 for £399
F1 advantages
The F1 has a 4000mAh battery - the 3a has a 3000mAh or 3700mAh battery
The F1 can take a microSD card if dual SIM operation is not needed (up to 256GB)
The F1 has 6GB RAM and 128GB storage vs 4GB RAM and 64GB storage
(A cheaper version of the F1 is available with 64GB storage instead of 128GB at around £250)
The F1 can act as a FM radio
3a advantages
Google name
OLED screen vs IPS screen on F1
NFC for pay by phone
In my opinion the advantages of the 3a do not make up for the advantages of the F1 and do not come close to justifying a price that is £100 higher than the price of the F1
"[The] big question is how did Google manage to produce an Android 9.0 phone that looks, feels and acts like one that costs two or three times as much?"
The Pixel 3a may well be a good phone, but it's made of plastic, isn't waterproof, has limited storage, a slower processor and half (or even one third) of the RAM of a flagship phone. It most certainly does not look, feel and act like a phone which costs three times as much.
I use a Sony ZX Experia compact. 4.5" screen. I can use it one-handed.
Sony's new "compact" phone has a 5.3" screen, and it's about as small as you can get these days.
Come on Google. Do a Pixel 3a compact, with a smaller (and not quite so high quality) screen, at, say £349. Watch it FLY off the shelves.
Sigh.
You might wish to examine the length and especially width of the new Compact phones versus the older ones. Due to smaller bezels and a different aspect ratio, they're not much wider despite the diagonal screen measurement being much bigger.
Due to smaller bezels and a different aspect ratio, they're not much wider despite the diagonal screen measurement being much bigger.
The ZX compact is right on the edge of being able to use with one (quite small) hand. Anything "not much wider" is still going to be too big.
(And what's with the two downvotes? Is it SO unreasonable not to want to carry around something that, only a few years ago, would have been considered to be ridiculously huge?)
"Want a good Android smartphone without the $1,000+ price tag?"
No, I want a phone that doesn't cost even £399 (half that is about right), has a removable battery, an accessible SD card slot (what's all this stick-it-under-the-battery nonsense? It's *REMOVABLE* storage), a headphone socket, a standard USB charging socket (USB-C is fine), ONE DAMN CAMERA LENS unless the others are literally free, a flashlight, maybe an IR blaster, a battery that lasts a decent time, a non-curved screen, a physical home button (all that in-the-screen nonsense just makes things expensive), something with a bit of ruggedness and bounce (I'm already paying hundreds, I shouldn't need to wrap it in a third-party case!), that fits in my pocket even if it's a bit chunkier than these slivers (and that means a non-ridiculously-large screen too), that runs bog-standard Android, has an entry on CyanogenMod/LineageOS, no force-bundled apps, and which is from a name I vaguely recognise.
The same as I've wanted for the last 10 years, plus. Closest I get is the Galaxy S5 Mini, but all their successors are naff. Mix up an S5 Mini with an XCover and I'll buy tomorrow. Literally. I'll buy it just to have it, just because it's such a rarity in the market, even if I don't use it immediately.
One day the market will learn, but by then what I'll actually have in my pocket will technically be a tablet, not a phone, with a 5G connection. TBH, in this day and age, that's basically what phones are, and we have no need for the actual phone bit so long as WhatsApp/Skype/VoIP etc. work on the network. I can just as easily put a SIM in a tablet as I can a phone nowadays, and just as easily get a "real" phone number on a SIP account than I can sign up to a mobile contract.
To be honest, by the time it gets there, I can see things like the RPi being small enough that I just buy a "5G" module for one and stick it in a pre-fab case and I'm done.
In the UK Argos are flogging off the last of the Pixel 2 & 2XL's new. Some of them are even listed as £30-£50 cheaper than their refurb exact matches. Still like my 6P though. Production is so streamlined now, that high-end cameras and SOC's are mass market. There'll always be people who want the latest and most expensive - and then there's people who don't like being mugged. It's still £400 for only an excellent phone/camera/GPS/SatNav/HiFi/Internet/wallet/Library/gaming system...meh.
Speaking for me, personally, this phone doesn't even come close to being something that I'd want. No SD card slot and completely inadequate storage, no user-replaceable battery, and -- although I cheer that the headphone jack exists, it sound like they used a terrible DAC to drive it. None of the features they're crowing about are things that I find compelling.
This is a nonstarter.
But, again, do you really need your photos at full resolution? Or do you just hate the idea of not having the absolute best thing even when you won't notice if you have it or not?
No. What I hate is paying $300 or $1000 or whatever amount of my hard-earned cash for a piece of hardware and not being able to dispose of if as I see fit.
If I decide to save the RAW files to my pc or thumbnails to a cloud, that should be my problem, not Google's.
It pretty much matches the Honor 9 lite!
32GB storage check, Honor also has an SD port or you can use it for an additional SIM.
Fingerprint reader on the rear, check.
FHD+ display, check.
Just about all day battery, check.
Headphone socket, check.
$400 umm nope try £120.
Runs android and has Google crap on, unfortunately check that as well.
Meh canny have everything.
It's so nice that *somebody* finally realized that maybe people don't need crazy top of the line phones with pointless geewizbang features. I'll take good battery life over some idiotic animated poop emoji, without a second thought. Headphone jack? Yay! Not the best processor? Yay more battery life for me! It's not like I'm going to be playing games with top-tier graphics on my phone anyway.
The only thing missing from making this the perfect phone is an easily swappable battery. (Which is one of the reasons I don't pay fancy games)
Smartphones have become so complicated that most manufacturers have killed off all diversity in models. Everyone has their one flagship and one or two "affordable" models. Odds are most people hate both of them because of some missing feature.
I can't imagine using a phone today without global LTE bands, headphone jack, and a microSD card that lets me boost the memory to 400+ GB. Those features aren't important to everyone, but are to some.
OK, if you're still reading, the obvious big question is how did Google manage to produce an Android 9.0 phone that looks, feels and acts like one that costs two or three times as much?
Because costs of production have practically nothing to do with smartphone prices. The $1,000+ models cost around a third of that in parts and a little more to have Foxconn stick it all together. The remaining $500+ is just what the Apple and Samsung fanboiz are willing to pay for new shiny.
"...the headphone jack, which cost cents..."
Blaming weak audio on the headphone connector itself is extremely silly. Clear case of Proximity Bias; i.e. blaming the component that just happens to be the nearest, or the most visible. E.g. "Can you fix my brake pedal? Cause my brakes aren't working very well."
Far more likely that the weak audio is a result of a poor audio amplifier. Invisible from outside, but it's in there.
I mentioned, "Proximity Bias; i.e. blaming the component that just happens to be the nearest, or the most visible."
Once (or perhaps Many...) upon a time, Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson's Ford GT wouldn't start. He and James May were shown literally disassembling the car's Start push button. This is another clear case of Proximity Bias, i.e. they're thinking (sic), "The car doesn't start when I push the Start button, 'therefore' (sic) the Start button itself must be at fault."
Blaming the headphone connector for weak audio is precisely the same (il)logical error.
Proximity Bias doesn't happen all that often, but when it does it's rather amusing, because it's so extremely silly.
It's almost TMI about what's inside people's heads. Scary.
That alone would be reason for me to pick this phone over another. The really stupid part to me is rarely is space at such a premium that they they couldn't find somewhere to put a small jack. The only reason that any phone maker excludes it is to stiff consumers and incentivise them to drop a fortune on some bluetooth earphones.
DrXyn wisely noted, "The only reason that any phone maker excludes it is to stiff consumers and incentivise them to drop a fortune on some bluetooth earphones."
As proven by YouTuber Scotty of Strange Parts who reintengrated a headphone socket into an iPhone 7. If he can do it essentially at home, then Apple could have done it.
But Apple wanted to extract billions of dollars for AirPods. Which they've done.
Now even my wife wants an Android phone, as she's also lost interest in Apple products.
so its am iphone 7 with an oled screen, without ios.
why anyone would pay Google 400$ for this thing?
interesting to see that if this was apple, all the shortcomings ("things you dont need" would become a major flaw and the tone of the article would be totally different.
Article no, I meant advertising.
If they were leaving out expensive things but leaving in useful things then taking out the fingerprint sensor but leaving in the Wireless Charging would have my vote.
It's interesting to note that my current 4-year-old-design phone has a 563pp screen, wireless charging, iris recognition, SD card slot and removable battery - and can be got for 80 quid second-hand. Sure the camera is only 20MP and (I assume) the camera on the front works. Sure, the case is plastic, seems fine - never used an extra case myself, plastic shells seems like a sensible shock-absorber system to me.
I like wireless charging and don't wanna lose it, at least until batteries last a week.
So, won't be changing phones just yet then.
"Yes, that's right, this $400 phone has a fingerprint reader. And it's on the back which is actually much more convenient that having it on the front."
I really don't understand why reviewers keep insisting on this, when not only does everyone I know disagree, all the efforts by manufacturers to get fingerprint sensors on the front show they all disagree as well. Having the sensor on the front means you can actually use it when using your phone normally, in the same way you would the touchscreen. Cases don't get in the way, it still works when lying on a table, mounted on a holder in the car, and so on. The only reason anyone ever considered putting it on the back was to free up space for more screen. It's truly bizarre how reviewers, and only reviewers, immediately declared that this was the best thing ever, while everyone else desperately tried to figure out how to put it back on the front again.
As for a £400 phone having a fingerprint reader, why exactly is that stated as if it's something to impressed or surprised by? Is it even possible to get a phone without one these days? My >2 year old, <£200 phone has one, and it works as quickly and consistently as I could possibly want. Stand-alone fingerprint sensors have been a solved problem for while now, the only thing left is to get the under-screen ones working just as well.
Incidentally, that £200 phone of mine remains the reason I simply don't see any reason for the Pixel 3a to exist. When you can get phones like the Moto G-series or recent Nokias for less than half the price of the Pixel, what exactly is the point of the latter?
"Having the sensor on the front means you can actually use it when using your phone normally, in the same way you would the touchscreen."
Many users DON'T want the sensor on the touchscreen, for fear of accidental activation.
"Cases don't get in the way"
Cases simply make a hole for it like they do for the camera and the Apple logo.
"it still works when lying on a table"
Unless it's face-down, like some people do to keep the screen from getting dirty. If it's face-up, odds are it's already unlocked.
"mounted on a holder in the car"
Most car holders have open backs, and plenty of users have already said it's actually dead easy for them to curl their finger around to the back to do it. Plus, if it's in a car holder, it's probably unlocked and with a keep-alive app (maps and media players) or being unlocked with a Bluetooth Smart Lock geared to the car audio.
Can it survive:
- being submerged in 2 meters of water?
- run over with a car?
- cracking open walnuts and banging nails into wood...with the screen?
- frozen in a block of ice and use another one to smash that ice and retrieve the completely undamaged one?
- dropped into boiling water?
- repeatedly dropped onto concrete from 1.2m?
Does it have:
- a micro SD slot capable of using a 256GB card?
- 10300mAh battery?
Mine can/has - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58FvqdYUakA
Sure I'll likely never use/need all that it offers, and it's a bit hefty at 330grams, but it was a peace of mind purchase because of life's "what if?" factor and I'm satisfied with it so far.
I purposely chose a phone with a huge battery because by the time its capacity has diminished to the point where it needs replacing, phone tech will have advanced a lot and I may opt to buy a new, better phone for about the same good price.
You're right about the battery not being able to be replaced easily, but they actually provided the correct torx screwdriver to completely dismantle the phone (you need it to access card slots), plus how many phone manufacturers put out a video on their official YouTube channel on how to take their product apart? Ulefone did - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGX59M4uPFI
Yeah its Android 8.1 OS is still locked down, I did try jailbreaking it when I first received it but didn't want to try the route of flashing a new OS in case I bricked it. But one upside is that they didn't preload it with a shit ton of apps you don't want/need and are difficult to uninstall, it was practically a blank slate in the app respect.
...than my £150 Motorola? Does everything I want (and a load of things I'm not fussed about, eg selfie camera). The only thing missing is manual mode on the camera which doesn't have the f-stop, exposure & ISO sliders, which is a shame but I guess might be because they took it out of Android since my previous phone was manufactured. (??)
Icon purely because $mgmt decreed we should move desks over the weekend, not realising the only way facilities could get that done would involve us packing up at 2pm today, allowing me to "catch up on some document reviews" -- indeed I intend to provide so much feedback on the docs I'll have difficulty walking home *)
"...It's $399 or £399"
Is it just me who hates it when these companies equate $ to £ and screw over British consumers? I know the £ has devalued somewhat but its still pretty far off actual parity.
I also happen to think its too much for a fricken PHONE, but wouldn't begrudge someone their opportunity to fondle their slab.
Is it just me who hates it when these companies equate $ to £ and screw over British consumers? I know the £ has devalued somewhat but its still pretty far off actual parity.
Yes, you and others who don't take into account sales tax.
US prices are without sales tax, whereas our prices include VAT (which varies between EU countries and in UK is 20%). So if we take 1USD to be 0.79 GBP (as of this morning) and add 20% we have 399 * 0.79 * 1.2 = 378.25. Not a world of difference really.
Since the phone is aimed at people who just want an effective working communication device its likely the folk who want a fashion statement to place prominently on the table at Starbucks are not going to rush to buy one. Likewise the lack of a selfie camera has to be applauded as it will further alienate those same people who hail from the shallow end of the phone user demographic . Now if we can just get away from making phones stupidly thin that have a negligable battery life but don't make a bulge in a Gucci (knockoff) bag there is that sector completely gone !
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