I'm going out on a limb here and hoping it's possible to get a phone discussion going that doesn't degenerate into either fanboyism or hatred of one form of phone or another.

Essentially, my contract ended several months ago, and up until now I've been on a cheap sim only deal on GiffGaff saving money not being on an expensive contract, as well as putting money by, to buy a new phone outright and maybe stay on GiffGaff. There's plans to move country in the near future, and so I don't want to be tied down on contracts.

I'm curious what peoples views are on the current phone offerings, including the iPhone 7, to be announced on Wednesday.

My most recent phones go something like the following (oldest to most recent):

HTC Desire
iPhone 4
Galaxy S3
HTC One M8

You'll notice there's an iPhone 4 sandwiched in the list. I'm finding it difficult to remember my exact motivations, but I think I bought the desire based upon some sort of understanding it was meant to be a flagship phone, but from memory found ti fell quite short of the mark, prompting the iPhone 4. Similarly I can't remember my reasons for moving from the iPhone to the S3. Again I think the S3 fell a bit short of the mark, and was quite clunky from day one. The M8 on the other hand has been a fairly solid performer. There have been a few gripes, the dual camera system is a bit of a gimmick and picture quality is pretty pants, having the option of expandable storage is all great and everything, but I found the way Android treats non-system memory to be a bit of a handicap. Also the phone is suffering from that classic 2-year old phone issue of suddenly getting a bit unstable and buggy. All my personalisation reset itself a few weeks ago, alarms, ringtones etc. For no reason.


Are the new Galaxy phones all that? I've seen some colleagues with what I assume are last years models and they look quite worn, which is surprising. I'm also curious about the differences between iOS and Android. I think I'm past rooting my phones and customising them much, and would rather have something solid and well built. I appreciate that Android hardware is quite impressive with epic resolution etc, but at the same time I'm left thinking that all the extra hardware needs that extra power, so performance might balance out, whilst on paper the specs don't.

I'll stop there before my internal phone debate continues into even more mindless drivel....

What we're the bits that you hated / liked? If say the m8 has been the best android phone I've had yet so am curious what you find it is lacking when compared to the iPhone?

I've had iPhones in the past as work phones and hated their restrictive nature.  I can't get half the apps that I need to manage my HTPC on there without pissing about and attempting a jailbreak.

There's a world of difference between a good and bad Android phone, and for me Samsung fall into the BAD category for two reasons.
Lies and Updates.
Basically, they lie about you getting updates.  The trend goes:
Phone comes out with Android version A.
Promise Version B 6 months after launch of said Android version.
No Version B arrives.
Promise Version C. 
When C Finally arrives, it nerfs the performance of the phone.

Rinse, Repeat.

Happened with my S1, Wife's S2 and mine and friends S3.   Reports of it happening to newer handsets all over the internet.

I go with Nexus phones now.  Had a 5, got a 6 and waiting to see what the new ones hold.
LG are good these days, as are Huawei and Motorola (avoiding the G)

I don't rate HTC (which is a shame, as they are making the new Nexus apparently, so I might skip that) and get last years 6P or the Huawei P9.

I still use my old Nokia N9 but I am hearing good things about this one (friend has a oneplus 1 and is really pleased with it, durable and fast)

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/oneplus-3-1323353/review

Ah nokia, mine is a 6 year old nokia, £5 a month

"Modern" phones do my nut in, lack of battery power, too bulky, but I've always got my eye on an "upgrade" so will watch this thread with interest!

You might want to avoid the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 for the moment, seems some of the batteries can explode or burst into flames and they are being recalled.

I've still got an iphone 4... though it does need replacing soon as the case doesn't fully screw together quite so snugly after a couple of dodgy repairs - so far I replaced the charging port with a £2 Chinese knock off from ebay after the 'genius' in the apple store told me a pack of lies about it being integrated into the main board and that I'd need to replace the phone... then the on/off switch stopped working... current bodge job repair has again involved taking apart the phone and inserting some folded paper to bridge the gap where the switch was failing to depress properly

thing is I don't much like the size of these new phones, I like the size of the iphone 4

I'm tempted to try an android phone next, maybe see what the google pixel phone looks like (AFAIK it is going to be made by HTC) - though am interested in any other recommendations for iphone 4 size phones

Quote from: Dave on September 10, 2016, 01:39:54 AM

I've still got an iphone 4... though it does need replacing soon as the case doesn't fully screw together quite so snugly after a couple of dodgy repairs - so far I replaced the charging port with a £2 Chinese knock off from ebay after the 'genius' in the apple store told me a pack of lies about it being integrated into the main board and that I'd need to replace the phone... then the on/off switch stopped working... current bodge job repair has again involved taking apart the phone and inserting some folded paper to bridge the gap where the switch was failing to depress properly

thing is I don't much like the size of these new phones, I like the size of the iphone 4

I'm tempted to try an android phone next, maybe see what the google pixel phone looks like (AFAIK it is going to be made by HTC) - though am interested in any other recommendations for iphone 4 size phones

Iphone 5s?

If you're already tied into the Apple ecosystem (paid apps etc) then it doesn't make much sense to swap.

Quote from: soopahfly on September 10, 2016, 09:10:40 AM

If you're already tied into the Apple ecosystem (paid apps etc) then it doesn't make much sense to swap.

that can be said about any OS phone though

Exactly.