Basic smartphone recommendations, please?

adrianglass

HI Folks
I'm not a heavy mobile phone user, am in the process of switching from a sim-only, €15/month Meteor / eir deal to a straightforward eir PAYG deal. (Change in work circumstances, now working mostly from home, just using phone for txt most of the time)

Currently using a Huawei y330, but frustrated with the way it sometimes decides that the memory card isn't there, complains about 'log files being stopped', and doesn't allow me to download appls (like mapping & VNC) because it won't use the sd-card... Touchscreen keyboard's quite unreliable as well...

So - can anybody recommend a fairly basic, inexpensive, smartphone that can be bought online, please?.
Doesn't need 'selfie-cameras', but does need to have a decent screen / touchscreen, and either sufficient inbuilt memory to allow a few apps, or reliable access to an SD card.

I'm reasonably tech-savvy - but I'm not at all up-to-date with what's currently available. Ideally sub-€100, or up to €150 at a push.

Thanks
Adrian

Heres Johnny

You can get iPhone 5s on vodafone pay as you go if you switch from different network for 159
That's a decent phone.

adrianglass

Thanks for that. I'm a bit cautious about switching networks - out here in darkest West Cork the coverage is patchy is places, and I know where the 'holes' in the eir/meteor coverage are....
Adrian

Heres Johnny

adrianglass wrote: »

Thanks for that. I'm a bit cautious about switching networks - out here in darkest West Cork the coverage is patchy is places, and I know where the 'holes' in the eir/meteor coverage are....
Adrian

I get you on that. I'm in a blackspot myself in Dublin my house can't get proper signal on any network at all. Luckily I've excellent Wi-Fi and eir can use my Wi-Fi signal for phone calls. Handset has to be compatible though, mine in Samsung galaxy s6. Outside house is fine just indoors it's brutal and has been for the 8 years I've lived here.

CelticRambler

Don't know if you can get this one when buying in/from Ireland, but I bought one for an elderly friend (70€ at the time) and when setting it up for her was half tempted to keep it for myself. Then she dropped it, cracked the screen, and got another ... so I've reclaimed it! :pac:

She went from a regular mobile to that particular smartphone in April, and hasn't looked back since. Unlike most 71-year-olds, she uses it for WhatsApp, E-mail, YouTube, Google Maps, playing music, alarm clock, SMS & calls all the time! and was distraught when she broke it ... It's one of the few small screens still available so that was a plus for her, but might not suit you. I reclaimed it mainly to use as a 4G hotspot, but it'll do as a back-up for my main phone.

adrianglass

HI Celtic Rambler
That looks to be very reasonably priced - I'm really old-fashioned and tend to use a mobile mostly for speaking to people <g> - but also for texts and web/facebook when out & about or stuck in a Doctor's waiting room. Would like to be able to use one for remote monitoring of some computers, but the Huawei keeps bleating about not having any memory - despire the fact that I've given it a nice sd-card to play with...
Thanks for the suggestion - seems there's an Archos shop in Ireland - so that's a real possibility.
Adrian

ianob7

There's a few in your price range in Argos OP

adrianglass

HI Ianob7
Thanks - I did have a brief look, but, to be honest, I don't know what I'm looking for <g> - other than 'something that works better than the Huawei that I've got at the moment'.
Sad, I know, but I'm not up to speed with modern phones. It's annoying that the Huawei refuses to use the SD card I bought it - and, as a result, won't let me download any apps. The touch-screen is also quite difficult to use, even using a 'pointer' on the screen keyboard the phone often registers the next key along, which is tedious! Not into games etc - but would like to have reasonable battery life, and be able to load a mapping app and a VNC terminal all - so I can monitor a Raspberry Pi that keep an eye on my glass-fusing kiln..

ianob7

My recommendation would be to pick out a couple from Argos that tickle your fancy and then use the gsmarena.com comparison tool on the website.

You can weigh up your options against each other specs wise i.e battery ,screen, ram memory etc etc

CelticRambler

adrianglass wrote: »

... but the Huawei keeps bleating about not having any memory - despire the fact that I've given it a nice sd-card to play with...

That might be more to do with your Google apps than the phone. For a while, I had problems with my phone (another/different Archos model, no longer available) refusing to update apps because of supposedly not having enough memory - even though there was 50-odd GB available on the SD card, where those apps were stored. I eventually found the problem was a load of junk being stored in the caches of the Google family of apps, mainly YouTube, Maps and Chrome. I deleted the YT and Maps apps completely (access them now through the browser, and have a seperate GPS app) and the problem hasn't recurred.


As far as gadgetery goes, I'm still relatively old-school. I prefer something with real buttons than a touchscreen, and I'd sooner use a laptop than a tablet or 'phone, so I'm not blown away by all the bells and whistles that an extra 1-200€ supposedly buys. That said, I've still ended up as the proud-ish owner of three tablets and (now) two smartphones (all various Archos models that do exactly what I want/expect of them).



The only serious downside to Archos is that it's almost impossible to get spare parts; they have a return-to-manufactuer policy where they'll repair the device or give you credit note/discount code if they can't. But sometimes you just want to fix it yourself for the fun!

adrianglass

HI Celitic Rambler.
Thanks for the comments. I've spent some time trying to tidy the rubbish out of the phone - it's now got Google (95Mb) Google play services(109Mb), Google play store (34Mb) and Hi-Suite (500k), plus Huawei Backup (8Mb)
It claims to have only 91Mb of internal storage free, 2.1Gig used - plus a nice biggish sd card which it won't use...

Archos certainly looks promising... thanks!

CelticRambler

If a quick googling can be believed, your phone runs on Android 4.2. Have you gone through each app (via settings - apps) and chosen to move it to the SD card?

And surely you don't mean that you've got only those four apps? You must also have Clock, Phone, Messaging, and a bunch of other odds and ends? While you're making your mind up about a new phone, I'd go back through settings/apps and double-check every app that's listed and make sure there's nothing still enabled or not moved to the SD card (some can't be moved, e.g. the Ryanair app, which - like their fees - has mushroomed in size). Of course if the phone isn't even seeing the SD card, that's a different problem ...

adrianglass

HI CelticRambler
Yes - I've tried to move as many apps as possible to the sd card - but the phone doesn't want to play. Google suggests that this is a known problem with this phone, and reckons that it can be solved by downloading an app (there's hole in my bucket, dear Liza!)
It knows that the sd card is there, as it's happy to tell me that there's lots of space on it. It just doesn't seem to want to move anything out there...

My mistake on the apps - that was a list of 'downloaded apps' - clicking 'all' brings up a lot more of the blighters!
I'm a little wary of deleting stuff - the last time I did that the keyboard disappeared, and I had to download a replacement (which isn't easy without a keyboard!)

I guess I really want the phone to 'just work' - and my thought was that a more recent phone, with more local memory, might be able to do that...? The touch-screen on this phone isn't all that responsive - so hoping to improve on that too - but without spending a fortune...

Thanks
Adrian

beauf

I think Android runs badly unless you spend something like 160 on something like a Nokia 6 (2017). You need 2GB minimum of RAM, and ideally 32GB of storage.

I wouldn't be relying on SD cards Android is very hit and miss with SD Cards. Sometimes it works fine, sometimes not. At least with 32GB you don't have to use the SD card.

adrianglass

Thanks for the comments - I'll bear that in mind.
Actually, after a lot of ferreting around in the phone, I did find a few large logfiles, which I then deleted.
This helped no end, and I was then able to download the VNC Viewer, which I was also able to move out to the SD card - so, short-term, we're OK.
Long-term - still looking for something better, particularly in terms of touchscreen.
Thanks
Adrian

DopeTech

Have a look at the Xiaomi mi a1 32gb on euglobal. Should be in your price range and gets excellent reviews. I have the 64gb version and I am very happy with it.

Lord Nikon

Eir have brand new, sub €150 PAYG phones. Worth a visit to one of their stores to see what suits you.

adrianglass

Lord Nikon wrote: »

Eir have brand new, sub €150 PAYG phones. Worth a visit to one of their stores to see what suits you.

Thanks. Eir suggested that I call into one of their stores - but that would involve driving to Cork city, and that's not going to happen (I'm out in West Cork).

Thanks for the suggestion, though
Adrian

Lord Nikon

adrianglass wrote: »

Thanks. Eir suggested that I call into one of their stores - but that would involve driving to Cork city, and that's not going to happen (I'm out in West Cork).

Thanks for the suggestion, though
Adrian

Most of the phones that they have in-store are available on their website, which they also deliver.
Picked this up for my son 2 weeks ago, fabulous phone for the money
https://www.eir.ie/store/mobile/phones/prepay/huawei-y6-2018/

adrianglass

Lord Nikon wrote: »

Most of the phones that they have in-store are available on their website, which they also deliver.
Picked this up for my son 2 weeks ago, fabulous phone for the money
https://www.eir.ie/store/mobile/phones/prepay/huawei-y6-2018/

Thanks.
In true eir style <g> - 5 of the first 8 phones (sorting from cheap to silly-expensive) are out of stock - including the Huawei that you mentioned.
I'm a bit nervous of Huawei - the y330 I've got isn't all that good, poor touch-sensitive screen, has a habit of rebooting itself at random, fills its memory with pointless logfiles and won;t let me move apps into SD-memory.
Apart from that <g> - it's ok..
So - the only option they're offering at the moment is the Samsung galaxay J3 (pre-2017) for €119.99 Don;t know if that's any good. Saw a post elsewhere from somebody complaing that their Samsung was 80%-full of 'included' software, that they couldn't delete - don;t know how true that is?

Lord Nikon

adrianglass wrote: »

Thanks.
In true eir style <g> - 5 of the first 8 phones (sorting from cheap to silly-expensive) are out of stock - including the Huawei that you mentioned.
I'm a bit nervous of Huawei - the y330 I've got isn't all that good, poor touch-sensitive screen, has a habit of rebooting itself at random, fills its memory with pointless logfiles and won;t let me move apps into SD-memory.
Apart from that <g> - it's ok..
So - the only option they're offering at the moment is the Samsung galaxay J3 (pre-2017) for €119.99 Don;t know if that's any good. Saw a post elsewhere from somebody complaing that their Samsung was 80%-full of 'included' software, that they couldn't delete - don;t know how true that is?

I would wait for the Huawei to get back into stock, and purchase that one. While your current Y330 has 4GB memory, the Y6 has 16GB memory. That should be plenty of space to do you.

The Samsung Galaxy J3(2017 and 2018 models) has 16 GB memory also, but the 2016 has 8GB, so I'd steer clear of the 2016 model.

Me personally, I've always thought the Samsungs are full of Bloatware, and I'm not really a fan of their user interface.

I would highly recommend the Huawei Y6(2018), if on a budget, if you can hold out until they get them back in stock.

zoe 3619

I was in an eir shop earlier looking for a phone,and apparently their new stock isn't arriving until the end of july,so quite a wait.