Portable New Phone Time (Maybe?)

Been considering this myself (also a 7.2) although it's not suffered the same issues. It does randomly drop WiFi and I think the camera (or at least the app) has been duff for a while - difficulty focusing and it wants to save to both the phone and the SD card...

Never heard of Fairfone, I see that has a replaceable battery though. Which is good but I do wonder if it's even relevant anymore - by the time it'd fail the phone probably won't be getting any sort of update.

So, yeah, soz no help - just understanding

 

Only last week did I replace my 6 year old Oneplus 5 with a Xiaomi Poco X5 Pro for £289. 256Gb storage, and battery life so far is phenomenal, despite it still being in the early stage where I'm prodding and poking it more often than I did the old one.

 

I have a Fairphone 3+ and it's... absolutely fine. It runs completely stock Android which was a bit of a shock compared to the Samsung S5 I had before and it's much more polished Samsung overlay. Other than that it's a phone that does phone things.

 

Not for the specific model you quoted but huge personal recommendation for Motorola.

Fantastic 'punch above their weight' performance for the dollar.

I currently have the G53.
For everyday use, genuinely cannot understand people spending hundreds more.

 

Yeah, Motorola do some fantastic value for money phones.

This thread is quite timely, too, as my Pixel 4a has suddenly decided to start to fail - the glue holding the screen to the body is giving up the ghost in one corner and the screen is starting to lift away. Bloody thing isn't even 3 years old yet. Was thinking about a 7a (or possibly even a 6a) but I'd want reassurance that the build quality and/or durability is better than on my 4a (which, to be fair, has been bloody marvellous for the less than £250 that it cost).

 

Personally I don't go near Google stuff. They've had widespread issues across several generations of devices, and after the Watch snafu they're on my black list! I know several people who went for various Motorola's over the years and they all got battery issues after a few years. The Fairphone seems good, but if you dig in to it a lot of what they claim is basically green washing. And as you say, low end specs for mid range pricing.

For my next phone I'll probably jump ship from Samsung to Apple, as the 15 pro is highly compelling (I know way more expensive). Repairable with long term support. Redesigned with a focus on repairability. Lots of software update, likely for a decade. Ample compute, RAM and storage, so as apps bloat it'll still feel speedy. Sourcing all precious metal from recycled sources (this is a massive one for me, as this one generation of devices will probably go a long way to drive that industries maturity), offset carbon for the lifetime of the phone, greenwashy, but nice to have and way more than what anyone else is doing. Its really highly compelling.

 

I’ve always had reservations about the Fairphone. I like the idea of a phone that’s very easy for the end user to repair. But if they stop making parts when the next phone releases, it seems like a bit of an empty promise. They also seem quite expensive for what looks like fairly mediocre performance/specs. I appreciate that they can’t get the same slave/child labour “economy of scale” that the likes of Motorola can access, but they’d have to do a lot more to convince me to pay more than double what their competitors are asking.

Honestly, I am extremely skeptical of Apple’s claims in this regard. When it’s a company that’s approaching $3 trillion in value, it’s hard not to be skeptical.

However. The iPhone 15 Pro is a fantastic device. I had cheaper iPhones for a long while, and while I was perfectly happy with them, it’s nice to have the top-end flagship now and then. I have the 14 Pro Max and my other half has the 15 Pro. I’m not sure I’d recommend the Max model though; the extra screen space is nice, but even if you have big clumsy mitts like mine they’re quite hard to use one-handed.

The camera quality still blows me away. I’ll have to get round to uploading the clips I took at a Sabaton gig last year - you’d never think that a phone could capture such amazing video & audio quality.

Not cheap at all though, and the price they charge for storage upgrades is still absolute daylight robbery, but damn nice phones to use and you’re guaranteed at least 3-5 years worth of OS updates. Even when a model is dropped from iOS, they will still usually supply critical security fixes for another year or two.

 

Transferring to a new phone is easy, you just plug a cable in and it is done mostly, without interaction, well at least android to android, to IOS that's another matter, although I was going android to IOS with my daughter. She jumped ship from Samsung to and iPhone 15 plus, hardware seems nice enough but I prefer the Samsung software, it is better for me, I use its features.

My daughter is totally indifferent, for her basic usage she feels no difference software wise between the cheapo Honor Magic OS she ran, Samsung OS or IOS. Only camera quality seemed to be the differentiator to her and surprisingly the new iPhone fails to capture a good photo for her most of the time which was what they were supposed to be good at!!! but she is not patient enough to wait for a good focus, the iphone is slow to react compared to her old Samsung which had mid range camera hardware (flip4) she thinks the iphone camera is worse because of this, though not as bad as the Honor but the honor gets a pass on price.

I think you've probably picked the best of the bunch for your requirements Gareth, I'd probably go Pixel or Moto.

But you could buy el cheapo if your needs are light and change in two years, not very ECO I suppose but such is the shift in tech on cheap phones ever year, you get a lot with each one, I was genuinely impressed with the ~140quid Honor phone I bought as a stop gap when my daughters flip was unable to bounce, apart from camera being mediocre, if it lost updates at 3yrs its price is almost disposable.

But I guess that's like that old adage buy cheap, buy twice, something with better specs would clearly last longer if you are careful and are able to look after it. I always intend to keeps phones a while but I bounce them too much

 

Be a little more careful with them. Got my first mobile phone in early 2000, yet to break one.

On the other hand though, I've broken the handles off two nice hand made mugs, in the last year...

 

Honestly, these days I find that the battery wears out long before the phone is no longer useful. Since I switched to an iPhone I haven’t had any performance issues at all, no matter how “old” the phone is.

My 14 Pro “feels” more responsive, but that’s largely down to the high-refresh rate screen. If you switch on Battery Saver, or limit the refresh rate in the accessibility settings, you can instantly notice the difference. It’s like with a PC monitor; if you go back to a 60Hz display after getting used to 144Hz, the PC is going to “feel” a lot more sluggish.

I haven’t cracked a screen in a very long time, but I drop my phone a lot. I’ve also got a long history of smashed glasses, plates, cups, etc.

We always used to say that clumsiness runs in my family, because my mother is exactly the same. It turns out that “being clumsy” is relatively common in people with ADHD, so it’s actually neurodevelopmental disorders that run in my family…

 

If you're planning on keeping it a while then I'd avoid Motorola who're notoriously bad at updating and supporting their phones. Google and Samsung (might be just the Galaxy series though) are currently the way to go for long term OS and security updates.

 

Can't say I am especially not clumsy but, have never broken a phone or a pair of glasses, have dropped glasses though. Other things, mugs, drinking glasses etc, they are another matter...

 

I'm in the Pixel boat, went 2 Xl (which was passed down to wife and is still in daily use) to 6 Pro and now 8 Pro, and plan to keep this for at least 4 years, daughter is currently rocking a 6.
Never had any bother, fuss, breakdowns or failure to do anything I ask of them.

Samsung and Motorola are deffo no goes for me as I've had / have them for work and they suck, slow, laggy, bloatware and out of date software.

It was, and you still can, but it'll do it all over wifi now.

 

Another Motorola fan here. I have a moto g5g and it's about 3 years old but I still can't find a phone with better specs for the price I paid for it. Only gripe is the camera is not very good, especially when seen next to my oldest iphone 13 mini, but that was second hand and nearly £500, where as mine was £120.

Daughters' have a g53 and a g32 and both are amazing for their needs.

I looked at the edge neo but went for the larger battery life of the g models as that is what my daughter will definitely notice more.

In my opinion, the price creep of phones over the years is ridiculous, especially now with people walking around with £1k plus iphones to use Instagram and Whatsapp.

There is so much tech in there to tick boxes, but I would out good money on most people not using 10% of a phone capability. Who needs a 4k screen on a 6" device! Oi it looks pretty!! Yeah, so does an extra few hundred in my T212 account /Rant oh where did that come from, didn't realize that was in me right now. Sorry.

I would go for the Motorola, nothing but good experiences with them and the neo camera is better than the g models as I understand it.

I am not sure about Motorola's move to mediately processors though, never had one so yet to have an experience to convince me either way so when I was looking I leaned toward the edge 30 neo with it's snapdragon even though it is more expensive.

 

I'll join the (probably unhelpful) crowd suggesting an iPhone!

There's a pretty nice one going for about 400 in the MP...

 

I could just never bring myself to part with too much money for a phone, especially not iPhone money.

 

They might be great products but there's just absolutely no way that I am paying iPhone prices. A grand (or more) for a phone, whether iPhone or Android, is just not happening.

My Pixel 4a was £230 (iirc) and that's the most I've ever spent on a phone. Paying four times that or more just doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever. Fair play to those willing to buy them, of course, but the value proposition is ludicrous imho.

 

Its the same as everything, people buy what they buy. The reality is the high end phone experience is massively better. Otherwise they wouldn't exist. I've had my S10+ for 5 years now, and its still responsive and fast and I get a full day of use without charging, no sub £250 will be able to do that as either software update bloat will make it slow or battery decay will not make it last! Like PC's, its why I go for the high end, as then I'm only doing one every 5-6 years!

Your point of view is like recomnding a 4050 to everyone and being baffled by people wanting a 4080 Sure they 'can' do the 'same' thing but its a wildly different experience