whats do you consider more important when choosing a phone?

thomasj

Value for money ?
Performance?
Battery life?

So this is the thing.

We see a lot of variety of phones. For example, we have the flagship phones with the latest chipset and other top specs. But we see mediocre battery.

Then we see medium range phones that seem to focus more on battery life. There is a few as well that have larger batteries ie 4000mah even 5000mah!

So which one of those two factors would you consider more important when buying a phone? Or would it be cost?

In buying a new phone recently I thought performance would be the reason I would by my latest phone, but in the end I went for battery life, and I'm glad I did so!

eamonnq

Price, around the 200 euro mark is more than enough.

Useful.Idiot

Usability. Look and Feel. Performance. Less interested in bells and whistles.

thomasj

eamonnq wrote:

Price, around the 200 euro mark is more than enough.

I was thinking that myself, while I did spend 400 in the end I'm kinda put off by buying a 1000 euro phone that may be outdated in a year.

thomasj

Useful.Idiot wrote:

Usability. Look and Feel. Performance. Less interested in bells and whistles.

Completely agree.

4068ac1elhodqr

Total Price of under 25notes inc. spare battery, unlocked, ability to talk & text, no unexpected billing, and most importantly a total battery life exceeding 30days on standby.


Anything requiring additional processing can go via the (proper and easy to interface) much larger laptop/mac/tablets or dedicated pro-camera.

cal60

Bobby Quick Flapjack wrote: »

Total Price of under 25notes inc. spare battery, unlocked, ability to talk & text, no unexpected billing, and most importantly a total battery life exceeding 30days on standby.


Anything requiring additional processing can go via the (proper and easy to interface) much larger laptop/mac/tablets or dedicated pro-camera.

I would agree if a feature phone was available with threaded SMS and reliable text prediction. I have become disenchanted with smartphones - particularly can't see the logic of spending large sums of money for equipment which will be outdated in a couple of years and peering at screens which are simply not a match for tablet/PC etc. Problem is for texting it is difficult to go back to T9 after using a smartphone for a while.

eamonnq

Have to have the 5.5inch screen, 4G, Dual Sim, 64gb memory, GPS, two cameras, quick charge, 2 day battery, be able to run IPTV, and have gyro for VR apps.

Mantis Toboggan

Battery is the big one for me.

Then camera

Then storage space

Screen, processor etc.

Most phones are pretty decent these days.

I'd take 5000 mah battery over 8 gig of RAM any day.

PrzemoF

thomasj wrote: »

Value for money ?
Performance?
Battery life?
[..]

Independent developer support, so I can run firmware like LineageOS based on android 7.1.2 on Galaxy S4 :-)

s3rtvdbwfj81ch

whatever phone I can get for free off work, with the best specs. For the last couple of years it's been the company branded phone

Vodafone Smart Ultra 6
Vodafone Smart Platinum 7
and I'll be getting the Vodafone V8 in a week or two.

I can usually get around €300 off whatever phone I want, but with the top end flagship phones costing 700+ I can't justify a spend of 400 when I can get a very decently specced phone for free ever year anyway, I don't need future-proofing as it were.

Out of the 3 things listed, none of them is more important than the other really. I wouldn't buy a phone that was really poor in any of the 3, though.

Development community and latest Android features would be my main reasons.

Performance is number 1 for me with a very good camera and a battery that gets me through the day.
I do change my phone far more frequently than is necessary.

bmwguy

They are all so similar at each price point. Reliability these days but how do you know which is reliable or not?

People spending close to 1000 on the latest slight upgrade that can't afford it is mental to be honest. Latest iphone/galaxy S does very little different from the HTC One M7 I had in 2013 that is useful. More gimmicks, but that's all that's been added now.

I have Samsung s6 now, its from 2015 i think, what can the new phones do that mine can't? Or the HTC from 2013. Honest question.

bmwguy

bmwguy wrote: »

They are all so similar at each price point. Reliability these days but how do you know which is reliable or not?

People spending close to 1000 on the latest slight upgrade that can't afford it is mental to be honest. Latest iphone/galaxy S does very little different from the HTC One M7 I had in 2013 that is useful. More gimmicks, but that's all that's been added now.

I have Samsung s6 now, its from 2015 i think, what can the new phones do that mine can't? Or the HTC from 2013. Honest question.

S6 is a bit of a bad example. Bad battery life, no expandable memory, no waterproofing.

The M7 was a great phone, if you didn't get the purple tint on the camera. It also had an IR blaster, which was a good thing to have. The button layout really annoyed me on it, though.

Alanstrainor

For me priorities are 5"+ screen, all day battery life, and good performance. And luckily it is possible to tick all of those boxes for not much money.

Mid range android phones have gotten great in the last number of years. They have plenty of performance for day to day tasks, good battery life and decent everything else. I really can't see the benefit of spending over 300 on a device these days. I've been running a Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 for coming up on 2 years now. The battery life is still great, performance is acceptable (more RAM would be nice) and everything else is grand enough. That device cost me 185€ all in, including unlock code.

The high end gets you a much better camera, probably a considerably better screen and a high end chipset. All are great, but they don't necessarily change your day to day use of the phone.

bmwguy

Basil3 wrote: »

S6 is a bit of a bad example. Bad battery life, no expandable memory, no waterproofing.

The M7 was a great phone, if you didn't get the purple tint on the camera. It also had an IR blaster, which was a good thing to have. The button layout really annoyed me on it, though.

I did get the purple camera alright. Still have the phone. Huge step up from the iPhone 3gs I had just before it. Couldn't get over how well the thing looked and felt first time I got it.
Take your point on waterproofing, thats a good feature that I don't have.
Happy enough with the 32gb memory I have though. Had an m8s in between with 16gb and it wasn't enough. Plus it wasn't great performance wise. It was a mid range phone in a premium package to be honest.

Das Reich

If is not made in china, I had only headaches in the past with anything made there, including apple gadgets.

Q&A

Have my S4 mini over 3 years and while I would look to upgrade it is difficult to find something that isn't a compromise in some category. They are not huge drawbacks but from my perspective the fact I can't find a phone to meet and beat all criteria 3 years on is a little disappointing. Especially for the prices of some of the phones

Size wise I wouldn't look to go above 5.2", I want it manageable in one hand. Despite my phone's age the fact that it has a removable battery and expandable storage reduces the impact of age. These two factors are probably top of my list. The fact that the phone is rootable and has reasonable support from developers also adds to the longevity. I'm running android 6 but upgrade to 7 of I wanted. Official Samsung support stopped at 4.4. My previous phone was an HTC desire s that was also rooted so thanks to titanium back up when it broke I had a recent back up of all my important apps and data saved on my SD card which were easily transferable to a new phone. lastly and again it's only a little thing but finding a phone with an FM radio and all of the above is nearly impossible.

In saying all of this the biggest criteria will be accessibility and how soon I can get my hands in a replacement when my current phone dies.

thomasj

Q&A wrote:

lastly and again it's only a little thing but finding a phone with an FM radio and all of the above is nearly impossible.

Yeah it's great to see that Samsung and motorola have kept the FM radio and record function in their midrange devices. It's great to see.

I presume that the radio is gone from the HTC flagship phones now that they have got rid of then headphone jack

Calculon1982

I would put a fair bit of weight behind how ethically the phone was manufactured and component raw materials sourced.

I've read and seen some reports on the mining of minerals from the Congo etc and has definitely influenced my phones choices.

eamonnq

Calculon1982 wrote: »

I would put a fair bit of weight behind how ethically the phone was manufactured and component raw materials sourced.

I've read and seen some reports on the mining of minerals from the Congo etc and has definitely influenced my phones choices.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/congo-cobalt-mining-for-lithium-ion-battery/

StereoSound

Camera
Performance
Screen size
Jealousy factor of those around me

s3rtvdbwfj81ch

Alanstrainor wrote: »

I've been running a Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 for coming up on 2 years now.

I passed mine to my wife when I got the Platinum 7, and she's smashed the screen, but the phone still performs pretty well.

When I pass the Platinum next week I'll put tempered glass on it :pac:

But I see no other reason to "retire" the SU6, it still does a pretty good job, probably not worth selling with the smashed screen, so it will reside in a drawer for god knows how long.

DopeTech

Decent battery, as close to stock Android as possible, in the 150-250 price range. Will never buy a flagship, would rather have 500+ extra in my pocket

Dravokivich

After using Android phones for nearly 7 years, it's the life-cycle of the device that I consider to be important now. I've had a budget android and it didn't get much out of updates even though it was new. It was lower tier for the manufacturer and considered a disposable consumable item, so they just didn't bother. I've bought Chinese and it only got updates made available to look like it was on newer android. And most of the others seemed to be dependent on community developers.

Samurai12

Decent battery, I find that no phone has really satisfied my battery life needs. Thanks to apps such as Snapchat which destroy battery life. I am yet to use a phone that would last me through my average day. Although I do carry around a power bank.
Regular updates and good performance. 
Good camera, both front and back.
Decent screen(4.7-5.8) and relatively small bezels, I like a phone that I can somewhat use in one hand.

cal60

Calculon1982 wrote: »

I would put a fair bit of weight behind how ethically the phone was manufactured and component raw materials sourced.

I've read and seen some reports on the mining of minerals from the Congo etc and has definitely influenced my phones choices.

Some disturbing stuff when you look into this - maybe we could have a thread on ethical issues with smartphones and which manufacturers are better when it comes to these sort of ethical issues ?

@Calculon1982 - perhaps you could say which phones you found more acceptable ?

CiDeRmAn

I used to be looking for the most powerful and large screened phone I could find, but having owned a Moto G a couple of years ago and looking at my actual handset use over that time, it makes me realise that while a large display is a must, I don't have any need for something particularly powerful.
Also, a as close to vanilla launcher is a must too, as much as I can admire Samsung devices I just detest their UI.
The look of the back of the phone is barely relevant, as it'll live in a case anyway, the front, small bezels are good, I expect the bezel-less phone will be a basic feature over the next year or two.

I've been using a 6p for the last year, a Nexus 6 before that but I haven't had that much more utility from them compared with the Moto G.
The S6 Edge just felt like an expensive trinket, couldn't wait to sell it on.