New Cell Phone Choice

[docsouce]

So I'm finally thinking about replacing my old trusty Samsung G5. I've had it for 5 years now. It's been good to us. Survived 4 cross country trips and taken hundreds of pictures. I have 2 reasons for wanting to update my phone. First is to be able to "Hot Spot". I bought the one I have from Straight Talk and the hot spot and teathering are disabled. Second I would like a better camera. I've been researching Samsung G7 and G8 phones and these 2 seem to fill the bill (I want to stay under $600) however I'm seeing G7 problems with the screen breaking easily, and the battery overheating. G8 screen breaking easily and fingerprint unlock and face recognition
trouble. I use our phone for calls, texting, GPS/maps, light internet and pictures. My wife uses the it for that Facebook thing. No gaming or streaming movies. As I mentioned having hot spot is important. Which I guess all the phones have now. So are these complaints about the Samsung phones I mentioned "sour grapes" and don't worry about it, or should I consider another brand, which I have absolutely no clue about. Thanks for your patience with my lack of knowledge on this. Just would like some ideas. Oh the size needs to be near the G5. DW takes most of the pictures and a bigger phone will end up be difficult for her.

[mr__ed]

I have a Samsung Galaxy J3 on Verizon. The cost was well under $200. I use the hotspot feature quite a bit, and it works well.I think in your case, since you said you wanted a better camera, a higher upgrade may be more to your liking. The camera on my model works well enough for me.

Verizon has been giving me an extra 15GB of data each month since the pandemic hit. 🙂

[SheriGoddart33]

I used different phones, but for me the most convenient is the iPhone.

[TurnThePage]

I recently purchased a couple refurbished Pixel 2s for $90 each. They are working excellent, and tons of life left in them.

[ramyankee]

T18skyguy wrote:

AsheGuy wrote:

dieseltruckdriver wrote:
As an added bonus, (my DW is not easy on phones) neither of us has ever cracked a screen on these. They must use good glass!

I have a Pixel 3 and I dropped it three times in a row on a concrete sidewalk within a 20 minute period. Each time I thought this is not going to be good but on the first two drops there was no damage.

On the third drop the glass was slightly cracked on the upper right corner. First of all, I made a pledge to always focus on what I am doing when I take my phone out of my pocket. 🙂 I ordered myself a new Pixel 3 from Google (luckily they were on sale at the time) and when it was delivered I sent my phone with the broken glass to Google for repair (it still worked normally). It came back looking like new and my wife decided she wanted to use it to replace her Moto G 5S Plus because the Pixel was a little smaller and felt better in her hand.

The Moto G ended up with a grandson whose phone died when he was visiting with us. So we are a two Pixel family now and have been for a year and I have not dropped my phone again.

I have a Note 9 now, but my alternate choice would be the Pixel. I especially like the Pixel's quick updates from Google, where Samsung takes forever to update theirs. Then there's all that Samsung bloatware and Bixby, which to me is worthless and bothersome. I thought I wouldn't use the S pen, figuring it was fluff, but I've been quite surprised how much I use it; particularly for taking notes in the dark. I really like the Notes 4000 ma battery. Sometimes I don't charge it for 2 days. If they put out a Pixel with a bigger battery I'd buy it in a heartbeat when this gets older. Ashe, I commit my left front pocket to my phone. Nothing else but the phone, so it doesn't get scratched from coins or keys. So far so good, but my cats like to knock it off the end tables when I put it out.

By bloatware you must mean all those really necessary apps that are preloaded but NEVER get used. Is there even a phone where one can skip all that garbage. Right now we are contemplating updating our cheaper Stylo 4 to the Samsung S20 format...

[monkey44]

Thanks for all the advice - I ended up with a Samsung A10e ... small, does everything I need - Phone, Camera, Internet, Hotspot, good battery life, and $250. We're on the Senior plan with T-Mobile, and get everything for the monthly fee, no add-ons.

Now, we just have to get one the road ... Stay Safe ya'all !!! 🙂

[free_radical]

Fwiw I bought unlocked Blackberry 10 while back on Amazon for 120$

Does everything I need and battery last couple days easy.
Especialy like the Blackberry Hub
And the fact its not made in China

Not as famous as other phones,
but with the most secure OS it still has plenty of fans
https://crackberry.com/

[T18skyguy]

AsheGuy wrote:

dieseltruckdriver wrote:
As an added bonus, (my DW is not easy on phones) neither of us has ever cracked a screen on these. They must use good glass!

I have a Pixel 3 and I dropped it three times in a row on a concrete sidewalk within a 20 minute period. Each time I thought this is not going to be good but on the first two drops there was no damage.

On the third drop the glass was slightly cracked on the upper right corner. First of all, I made a pledge to always focus on what I am doing when I take my phone out of my pocket. 🙂 I ordered myself a new Pixel 3 from Google (luckily they were on sale at the time) and when it was delivered I sent my phone with the broken glass to Google for repair (it still worked normally). It came back looking like new and my wife decided she wanted to use it to replace her Moto G 5S Plus because the Pixel was a little smaller and felt better in her hand.

The Moto G ended up with a grandson whose phone died when he was visiting with us. So we are a two Pixel family now and have been for a year and I have not dropped my phone again.

I have a Note 9 now, but my alternate choice would be the Pixel. I especially like the Pixel's quick updates from Google, where Samsung takes forever to update theirs. Then there's all that Samsung bloatware and Bixby, which to me is worthless and bothersome. I thought I wouldn't use the S pen, figuring it was fluff, but I've been quite surprised how much I use it; particularly for taking notes in the dark. I really like the Notes 4000 ma battery. Sometimes I don't charge it for 2 days. If they put out a Pixel with a bigger battery I'd buy it in a heartbeat when this gets older. Ashe, I commit my left front pocket to my phone. Nothing else but the phone, so it doesn't get scratched from coins or keys. So far so good, but my cats like to knock it off the end tables when I put it out.

[mileshuff]

I too had an S5. Worked well for all these years but decided it was time for something new. Ended up with the new S20. Had to change carriers in order to get a good deal. Two for one so cost was $500 each, $40 a month for 24 months. Since I am not 55 I was able to go with a senior plan that dropped my phone bill well below my old cost even with the cost of the new S20. WAY faster than the S5. Love it.

[RambleOnNW]

The 5G technology is still developing and Apple does not use it yet, perhaps next fall. They are typically late in adopting the new standards preferring to let them mature before adopting.

The current 5G chipsets are also reported to have heat issues:

5G heat issues

I use wi-fi for data most of the time and have never noticed 4G bandwidth issues. I have a old 3G booster and had no problem streaming a 2 hour movie through Amazon Prime while camping using its HSPA+ through my phone boosted as a hotspot to a laptop.

Sure, if I was using Android I'd buy a 5G phone now.

[Bill_Satellite]

Even if it costs more than your budget, I would buy a 5G phone. You are going to have this phone for years to come and there's no reason to buy old technology and regret that option later. I have had a Samsung S9 for the last 2 years and in the next year or 2 will likely replace it. I'm OK with 4G now, but in a year or so the 5G coverage will be much more widespread and I will want to be able to take advantage of that.
I believe it's the lasted Samsung S10 that has 5G and I highly recommend their products. We were able to buy 1 and get 1 free so the cost came out to be $350 per phone.

[RambleOnNW]

Tom N wrote:
I would go for an iPhone. An iPhone 8 or later.

iPhone 8 is no longer available, replaced by the iPhone SE (2020 version) .

We originally went the iPhone route versus Android due to the iPhone having the better camera at the time even though I would typically want more options to tinker with the phone as in Android versus the more limited iPhone environment.

Previous phone was the original iPhone SE which was great, small and light, but needed to replace it due to the charging port wearing out. I thought the new iPhone SE would be good as it was reputed to use the same chipset as the iPhone 11. But I couldn’t wait so I got the iPhone 11.

The iPhone SE uses the same case and screen as the iPhone 8. Likely same battery also. So with the iPhone 11, which is much more expensive, I get a bigger screen, bigger battery, possibly more RAM. It has 2 camera lenses also, regular and extra wide, and better night photos. Both phones have wireless charging so no wearing out the charging port this time. And both phones are water resistant to 1 meter for 30 minutes.

That said the 11 is heavy and has a big screen, edge to edge which is a 6.1” screen.
If the new iPhone SE had an edge to edge screen it would have a 5.5” screen instead of its iPhone 8-like 4.7” screen with big bezels. A 1/2” shorter phone and lighter would likely be most interesting to me but is not available at this time.

5G is not an issue for me as the high frequency 5G signals can’t penetrate walls, etc. so phones will have to fall back to 4G LTE a lot of the time.

[AsheGuy]

dieseltruckdriver wrote:
As an added bonus, (my DW is not easy on phones) neither of us has ever cracked a screen on these. They must use good glass!

I have a Pixel 3 and I dropped it three times in a row on a concrete sidewalk within a 20 minute period. Each time I thought this is not going to be good but on the first two drops there was no damage.

On the third drop the glass was slightly cracked on the upper right corner. First of all, I made a pledge to always focus on what I am doing when I take my phone out of my pocket. 🙂 I ordered myself a new Pixel 3 from Google (luckily they were on sale at the time) and when it was delivered I sent my phone with the broken glass to Google for repair (it still worked normally). It came back looking like new and my wife decided she wanted to use it to replace her Moto G 5S Plus because the Pixel was a little smaller and felt better in her hand.

The Moto G ended up with a grandson whose phone died when he was visiting with us. So we are a two Pixel family now and have been for a year and I have not dropped my phone again.

[2chiefsRus]

we recently switched to Consumer Cellular (get the AT&T Sim card option) and have been very happy. We replaced our Samsung S4 minis (6 years old) with Samsung S10e models. The e part means it is smaller than the regular S10 model. Again very happy with the phones and the cost of the Consumer Cellular. We only have the 10gb plan per month so your results may vary depending upon your data needs. Cut our Verizon plan costs in half.

[dieseltruckdriv]

AsheGuy wrote:

Exactly our experience, we have had Samsung and Moto phones but my last three phones have been unlocked Google phones and I will never go back. The Moto phones are unlocked and priced lower than most and we had no problem with them. But the Google Pixel series have excellent cameras. Having an unlocked phone separates you from the carrier and Samsung apps that are not needed but can't be removed.

As an added bonus, (my DW is not easy on phones) neither of us has ever cracked a screen on these. They must use good glass!