Mobile phone recommendations.

B

battery_charger

New Member
Registered Member
I've got a Galaxy Tab A tablet - 9.7 inch display and absolutely love it! Very good investment.
As for my phone, it's a 2 year old Galaxy S4, which was actually released in early 2013 - so a 3 year old technology - still does the job though!
I started off with a Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus. That was a reasonably good phone. Problem is, it's now 5 years old, and the Android version (2.3) is no longer supported by a lot of app developers.
Then "upgraded" to a ZTE Blade 3 - it was horrible!!! Apps that would work on the Ace Plus (this was about 2.5 - 3 years ago) didn't stand a chance on the Blade 3. It ran slower, internet was slow (despite supporting a faster mode of internet), apps would crash, sometimes the entire phone would freeze, and you had to hard reset it by removing the battery. It was an abomination. Why was it made?!
After just 6 months of the ZTE, I forked out quite a large sum of money and got the Galaxy S4 - and have never looked back since. This S4 is staying with me until it gives way - and I am never buying a no name phone (like the ZTE) ever again.
 
solarz

solarz

Brigadier
I've been using my Samsung Galaxy S3 for 3 years now, and it's still going strong. Battery life is still decent, I'm able to comfortably get 2-3 hours of heavy usage per day, or 4 hours if I drain the battery.

It runs Hearthstone pretty well, better than my iPad mini, in fact. As much as I like my iPad mini, I am getting really tired of Apple's walled garden.
 
Zool

Zool

Junior Member
That's funny because I just upgraded from the S3 to an S7 about 6 weeks ago. I loved my S3 and had it for the same amount of time (when it launched) but noticed the battery not holding up and needing to set my brightness down to a quarter level or less. Anyway the S7 has been an amazing upgrade - I get a little over a days worth of heavy usage on one charge at half brightness and 2 days when using sporadically. And I have zero lag - the processor flies.
 
SteelBird

SteelBird

Colonel
I traded my Galaxy Note 4 for a Huawei Mate 8. The reason behind this is simply I need a single phone with dual SIM.

Furthermore, I wanna try out what the Chinese giant are introducing to us. The result is not so satisfied, the hardware is quite impressive with 4GB of RAM; running smooth and fast reaction time. Software is so disappointed if I compare it with Samsung's Note 4. There are very few apps out of the box. Some has different views though; it's good because you don't have unneeded apps full of the phone that can't be uninstalled. Final point is the camera. On Note 4, I took a photo of the 100 USD note and enlarge it. I can clearly read the words "The United States of America" on the collar of Franklin. On Mate 8, the words are blurred.
 
Blitzo

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
Upgraded from iphone 4S late last year to a Nexus 6P, made by Huawei. I was hoping to wait to get the Mi5, but it only came out at the beginning of this year and my old phone at the time was dying so I needed a new phone fairly promptly

Nexus 6P is my first android device, and it runs stock android rather than EMUI like other Huawei phones.

I'm pretty happy with the phone as is; I've got family using other Huawei devices too (P8 and P8 lite). I'm keen to try out a Xiaomi eventually, in a few years. One reason I've not gone Samsung is Touchwiz; I'm more of a fan of either stock android software, or more iOS style software like EMUI or MiUI.
 
vesicles

vesicles

Colonel
solarz said:
Don't you find it incredibly annoying when you want to transfer media files in or out of your phone?
Click to expand...

I manage my iTune contents on my iMac, which will automatcially sync between all my Apple devices. No need to mess with every single device.

The biggest benefit of having Apple devices is the ability to communicate between devices. Since I use a single iCloud account on all my Apple devices, these devices can all connect with each other using Bluetooth. I can actually access all my devices from a single device. This also includes using my iPhone as a wifi hotspot (simply using my iPhone's data plan, without paying extra for the WIFI hotspot feature). This is incredibly useful when having to use my MacBook Pro laptop on the road.

Other devices also have wifi hotspot feature. But because you can't link your devices like Apple devices, you will most likely have to pay extra for the mobile hotspot feature.

Of course, you can connect two devices of any kind using Bluetooth. However, communication can only be achieved between certain features. Like accessing your phone contact and calling feature from your car. You can't open other apps. Just imagine how you can manage anything on your iPad using your Samsung phone... And what about using your PC to manage your Samsung phone? On Apple devices, you can access the entire device (along with ALL apps on the device) from another one because all devices are managed via a single iCloud account. That's a complete data linking, so to speak.
 
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solarz

solarz

Brigadier
vesicles said:
I manage my iTune contents on my iMac, which will automatcially sync between all my Apple devices. No need to mess with every single device.

The biggest benefit of having Apple devices is the ability to communicate between devices. Since I use a single iCloud account on all my Apple devices, these devices can all connect with each other using Bluetooth. I can actually access all my devices from a single device. This also includes using my iPhone as a wifi hotspot (simply using my iPhone's data plan, without paying extra for the WIFI hotspot feature). This is incredibly useful when having to use my MacBook Pro laptop on the road.

Other devices also have wifi hotspot feature. But because you can't link your devices like Apple devices, you will most likely have to pay extra for the mobile hotspot feature.

Of course, you can connect two devices of any kind using Bluetooth. However, communication can only be achieved between certain features. Like accessing your phone contact and calling feature from your car. You can't open other apps. Just imagine how you can manage anything on your iPad using your Samsung phone... And what about using your PC to manage your Samsung phone? On Apple devices, you can access the entire device (along with ALL apps on the device) from another one because all devices are managed via a single iCloud account. That's a complete data linking, so to speak.
Click to expand...

The thing that bugs me about syncing is that I have no control over what content gets stored where. In effect, you have duplicate copies of your files on all the devices that you sync. You can keep them in iCloud, but storage is limited on the cloud.

I also don't like to have all my devices storing the same content.

Just a few weeks ago, I was trying to copy a video I took on my wife's iPhone onto my PC. ITunes was no go because the phone was not synced to my PC. I ended up having to download an air drop app to copy the video over wifi.

I remember when my wife and I were copying some songs to our phones for a road trip. It took me about 5 minutes, and my wife an hour. She had to fire up her old laptop, since that's the comp her phone was synced to. Then she had to update iTunes, since she hadn't used it for months.
 
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