I’m currently using a 2 year old Moto X4. The battery isn’t holding a charge as well as it did, so I am considering getting a new phone. What do y’all recommend?
I bought this because it supported google fi, and I still need a phone that supports google fi. I chose it over the pixel not just because it was cheaper, but also because it supported an external memory chip and had an audio jack. Mostly I’ve been pretty happy with it. Limitations are:
A lot of stuff needs to be in RAM, and the 8gb ram is small enough that I’ve had to uninstall things things I liked due to size limits. (The external chip does hold all the music and photos I want, with room to spare, however. And I don’t have reliable internet, so I like to carry that stuff around.)
The camera is not as good as what I had before (a Blackberry Priv) nor as good as my husband’s pixel, and I am often disappointed with the quality.
It’s a little large than what I want in my hands, or in my pockets. Something smaller would be an upgrade for me.
I am a fairly heavy phone user, and like a big battery, though, so really small phones aren’t going to cut it. I obviously don’t want to waste money, but I’m not super price sensitive.
The choice of personal finance subs on reddit would to be a Redmi Note.
I bought a redmi note 7 a couple years ago. It cost about $200 and specs were comparable to top of the line North American branded phones selling for a grand. (the redmi seems to be very popular in larges swathes of asia). I love the phone, it’s great. And it’s android based.
The only thing to note is that when I bought it, it was completely full of adware. Took some googling but I’ve got it gone now.
it’s got good specs, but it’s even bigger than what I have, which is already too large to be comfortable. I’m willing to pay more to get a smaller phone. (and one without a ton of adware to remove.)
New batteries are hard to get into the phone, would probably require me to hand the phone to another human being, in person, and come back later and interact with that same person to retrieve it.
I liked my last phone enough that I spent a lot of time looking for a new battery. This is only a mid-priced phone, only 'good enough", and iFixit says its moderately hard to fix, with lots of ways to break the phone if I mess up.
A lot of stuff needs to be in RAM, and the 8gb ram is small enough that I’ve had to uninstall things things I liked due to size limits.
I believe most phones with above 8gb are going to be gaming centered phones or flagships - both of which have unjustifiably high price tags compared to my Mi9T Pro which was $350 last year. As much as it pains me to not recommend a Xiaomi phone, I would recommend checking out the OnePlus Nord; I believe it may have a 12GB ram option for under $500.
My first priority is that the phone be small enough to be comfortable to hold. Most of the really good deals in phones are enormous.
But yeah, i really want flagship features in a small phone, and that’s not something there are many of on the market. I’d be willing to pay a flagship price to get that, by the way, but i guess the market for small flagship phones isn’t large enough to support it.
I bought the pixel 5 today. In some ways the pixel 4a would have been a better fit, but i find I’m washing my phone all the time these days, so it decided to give up the phone jack to get any environmentally sealed phone. I hate dongles, but I bought two.
I first read this as you were getting really absentminded and the phone was going into the washing machine until my brain caught up and went oh, cleaning phone, not actually washing.
Back when we could travel, I used to travel a fair amount, and Google Fi is AWESOME when you travel. It works pretty much everywhere. I flew into Germany, and turned on the phone as the plane taxied, and it said, “you are in a new jurisdiction, this is what stuff will cost (same prices as at home)” with some option to turn it off if I don’t want the pay the rates. When my bus crossed from Germany to the Czech republic, I got the same message, and the phone just kept working. It’s treated as a US number, so it was a little pricey for local friends to call me, but data-based services (like WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, etc.) was essentially free.
My son had rock solid Google Fi service in Tokyo and Kyoto. My husband in Paris. My boss in London and Mumbai and Ankara.
And at home it talks to my wifi. I basically don’t have cell service in my home, so this is the first time I’ve been able to get texts when I am home. And data when I’m home is free, because WiFi.
If I wanted to watch movies on my (train) commute, I downloaded them at home rather than watching them “live”, but there’s a cellular dead zone on my commute, so I’d want to do that even if data were free.
My experience is that it costs about the same as what I was paying a cheap re-seller of AT&T’s service, except that it works internationally. I think my bill went down (on average, it varies month to month) when I switched to Google Fi. But the reliable, affordable international service with the same phone number is worth a lot to me.
I have absentmindedly put my work ID through the wash, but never my phone. No, I wipe it down with rubbing alcohol after I return from shopping. (Right before stepping into the shower.)
I also used to clean my phone when I’d been sick, and had recovered. Like, after I had pinkeye, I washed all my clothes and cleaned my phone and my glasses before I went back out in public. I didn’t want to spread it to anyone.
I got the Pixel 4a 5G last week and really like it. My battery on my old phone had also degraded. I didn’t realize how much until I started using this phone.
Also was a good deal: $500 list was knocked down to $350 for black Friday, and I got another $62 off for trading in my old phone.
My old phone was going to be worth $25, so I decided to keep it as a backup.
You bought the big one, right? My husband likes the larger size, but my hands are smaller, and i prefer smaller. Also, I’m nearsighted. I can read just fine on the small screen.
I have absentmindedly put my work ID through the wash, but never my phone. No, I wipe it down with rubbing alcohol after I return from shopping. (Right before stepping into the shower.)