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Phones and what to buy

PostPosted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 8:15 am
by adamd
Hello everybody.

As I mentioned a little in IRC, recently my trusty Nexus 4 has started to show it's age by stopping working reliably when making phonecalls, along with a couple of other issues. As much as I love it and am considering fixing it, I think it may be time to upgrade.

Usually I do tons of research and I'm pretty set on what I want to buy, this time however due to it letting me down quickly in some important phonecalls, I'm trying to make my mind up relatively quickly, which is making my decision harder. I originally wanted to start with a budget of £200 (what I paid for the N4 back in the day) but it seems £300 can get you a lot of extra bang for your buck.

What I'm considering so far:

Oneplus 2 64gb

Pros:
- Nice design
- Fancy shmancy camera with image stabilisation and stuff
- Seemingly good community support, I like the idea it will be long lived with regards to custom ROMs
- Oneplus don't care if you unlock the bootloader and start faffing
- 4GB Ram
- Dual SIM

Cons:
- No NFC
- Slower charge time (not a mega issue)
- Not sure on support if there is a problem

Moto X Force/Droid Turbo 2

Pros:
- Unshatterable screen
- Beefy battery
- 1440p AMOLED screen
- Old style Micro Usb (I got millions of cables, no USB Type C ones)
- More easily accessible support if there is a problem
- Very fast charging
- MicroSD slot

Cons:
- Only 3GB Ram
- Camera higher resolution but no image stabilisation or laser autofocus
- Motorola get annoyed if you unlock bootloader and take the warranty away

Oneplus X

This one is a bit of an outsider, essentially pros:
- £100 cheaper
- Smaller, I'm not a huge fan of the bigger phones but it seems to be the only way now.

Cons:
- Older chipset, less power
- Smaller battery
- Worse screen
- Worse camera


I'm open to other suggestions, but I'm just looking for a few different views from outside sources before I jump into a decision. As I say, I need to make it pretty soon as I need a reliable phone and I can't find my old Nokia 3310....

Re: Phones and what to buy

PostPosted: Sun Feb 07, 2016 3:26 am
by Denta
Lenovo A7000 is a nice choice if you want a long battery life and doesnt want to worry about find electric socket for your phone outside, however i think for now the phone is bit old for this year standard

Re: Phones and what to buy

PostPosted: Sun Feb 07, 2016 7:02 am
by AirJordan
these are not facts but merely my opinion.
Comparing opneplus 2 and X doesn't make much sense :) so if can stretch to 2 than forget X... and as far as I know and heard, there are no bigger issues with the support (let's say they are no worse or much better than others)
Is lack of NFC really a problem? Personally I have it but almost never use it.
Droid turbo 2 is a beast! Don't worry about 3 gb ram, it should be enough to make it futureproof...even 2gb in a good optimised device is lagfree. Speaking of which, how come Nexus 5x didn't make it in your top 3?

Re: Phones and what to buy

PostPosted: Sun Feb 07, 2016 8:53 am
by adamd
Nexus 5X isn't on there because it's the same price as the Moto/£10 more than the OP2, and I'd rather not be stuck with 16gb of storage again if I can help it. There is one place that has it on sale currently for the same as the other two in 32gb trim however...

I do use the NFC on the N4 quite a bit with a couple of tags, but nothing major I couldn't live without, it's just nice to have.

Currently I'm kinda leaning back towards the Oneplus 2...

Re: Phones and what to buy

PostPosted: Sun Feb 07, 2016 11:17 pm
by AirJordan
From personal experience I would recommend 5x of course 32gb. Simply it has it all. However it lacks image stabilization (still makes great photos).
I think that any of this phones will serve you well. Bottom line is simply whichever fits you the best in the hand as makes you feel good, that's the one. It might sound silly but when comparing high-spec phones there is no wrong decision.

looking at your pros and cons... Due to unbreakable glass on Moto, the screen is not that awesome looking as you might think. It's sharper on the 1+2. Also pro for Moto is great battery life (edit: oh you got that sorry). Con on 1+2: must not drop that phone (compared to turbo) :)

Re: Phones and what to buy

PostPosted: Mon Feb 08, 2016 10:39 am
by adamd
If anyone is still fussed, I've ordered the Moto.

Re: Phones and what to buy

PostPosted: Mon Feb 08, 2016 11:31 am
by Daffyflyer
The One Plus One seems to have a really poor quality touch screen, in terms of correctly detecting touches. Also the screen is REALLY easy to shatter :(

Re: Phones and what to buy

PostPosted: Tue Feb 09, 2016 5:38 am
by pyrlix
Daffyflyer wrote:The One Plus One seems to have a really poor quality touch screen, in terms of correctly detecting touches. Also the screen is REALLY easy to shatter :(


YOUR One has a poor quality screen. Mine works like a charm and did not even shatter.
But I am running Sultans CM13 Custom Firmware (i highly recommend it) and had a real-glass screen protector which actually protects against shattering properely.

@adam: The moto will be good :) Tell us the user experience and how battery and stuff is doing in a couple of days!

Re: Phones and what to buy

PostPosted: Tue Feb 09, 2016 7:12 am
by adamd
The shop messed up my order, so I need to wait til tomorrow. First they said they lost it, then they just decided it hadn't been sent (despite telling me it was). The shop has a poor reputation but one of their braches ignored me entirely after someone was meant to be coming to help me, and then this at a different one. It's a good job it's cheap...

Image

Re: Phones and what to buy

PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2016 7:02 am
by AirJordan
How is moto?

Re: Phones and what to buy

PostPosted: Sat Feb 13, 2016 12:05 pm
by adamd
It's pretty great actually, I'm pleased I went for it. Battery life isn't quite the claimed 2 days, but is still really good, I managed about 1.5 days of reasonably heavy use. The TurboPower charger is great as well, 15%-60% in 25 minutes, does make it warm up quite a bit though.

Screen is great, call quality is great, performance is great, camera is great and it feels really solid. Wifi signal is fantastic, and being able to use the force to check notifications is brilliant. I can't fault it up to now to be honest. :)