OT: mobile phone dilemma

secretsam

Can't decide. Am going SIM only as I can't get a good deal using contracts.

Was thinking of either going mid-range and cheerful - Sony M4 Aqua or Motorola Moto G 3rd Gen, or being a bit posher and getting a Sony Z3 Compact or Samsung Galaxy S6.

I've heard the Z3 compact is a bit delicate, and the 'waterproof' nature of the mid-ranges appeals to me, but then I get frustrated by the utter uselessness of my current Samsung S3 mini, and am craving something with more 'ooomph'.

Help! Comments, suggestions, welcome all...

rhodrich

I bought a Moto G a couple of weeks ago to replace my useless S3 mini that kept randomly turning itself off.

The Moto does the job very well - cheap, water resistant, reasonably quick and runs Marshmallow. I really don't see any point in paying any more.

Make sure you get a 32GB SD card to go with it though, and designate that as 'internal' storage (which you can do in Marshmallow). The standard 8GB built in is not enough.

bendertherobot

SecretSam wrote:

Can't decide. Am going SIM only as I can't get a good deal using contracts.

Was thinking of either going mid-range and cheerful - Sony M4 Aqua or Motorola Moto G 3rd Gen, or being a bit posher and getting a Sony Z3 Compact or Samsung Galaxy S6.

I've heard the Z3 compact is a bit delicate, and the 'waterproof' nature of the mid-ranges appeals to me, but then I get frustrated by the utter uselessness of my current Samsung S3 mini, and am craving something with more 'ooomph'.

Help! Comments, suggestions, welcome all...

I can do you a very reasonably priced S6 if you want. Unlocked.

cougie

I've had a z3 compact for 18 months now and happy with it. My wife has the M4. I'm not sure I can see much difference in performance.

kingstongraham

Rhodrich wrote:

I bought a Moto G a couple of weeks ago to replace my useless S3 mini that kept randomly turning itself off.

The Moto does the job very well - cheap, water resistant, reasonably quick and runs Marshmallow. I really don't see any point in paying any more.

Make sure you get a 32GB SD card to go with it though, and designate that as 'internal' storage (which you can do in Marshmallow). The standard 8GB built in is not enough.

Or buy the version of the Moto G (3rd gen) that is up to the job and has 16GB internal and 2GB RAM. Then get an SD card and don't mount it as internal.

4th generation Moto G is either just out or about to come out for under £200 with better specs but not waterproof only water resistant.

Sony Z3 compact glass has broken on the front and then the back on my wife's phone. Lovely phone but wouldn't go near it.

secretsam

Rhodrich wrote:

Make sure you get a 32GB SD card to go with it though, and designate that as 'internal' storage (which you can do in Marshmallow). The standard 8GB built in is not enough.

They do a 2GB RAM/16 GB memory version on Amazon (it's only on Amazon though). Am seriously tempted, gets great reviews.

elbowloh

I did the same thing and went sim-only with the Sony M4 aqua.

The water-proofness is good.

The lack of internal memory is bad only 8gb. You can expand with a memory card, but a lot of apps can't be moved to the SD card, particularly all the sony bloatware. I'm constantly getting alerts that my memory is almost full and to move stuff to SD, but there's nothing left I can move there. Also when updating apps, it uses the phone memory to download before installing.

It's manageable, but a bit of a pain. Also, the gps (which I use with google maps) as a car sat nav is rubbish. Constantly drops signal.

secretsam

elbowloh wrote:

I did the same thing and went sim-only with the Sony M4 aqua.

The water-proofness is good.

The lack of internal memory is bad only 8gb. You can expand with a memory card, but a lot of apps can't be moved to the SD card, particularly all the sony bloatware. I'm constantly getting alerts that my memory is almost full and to move stuff to SD, but there's nothing left I can move there. Also when updating apps, it uses the phone memory to download before installing.

It's manageable, but a bit of a pain. Also, the gps (which I use with google maps) as a car sat nav is rubbish. Constantly drops signal.

Is there a more powerful version than the 8BG???? This sounds like it's going to drive me nuts!

andyrr

Samsung J5 - Got one and after a couple of Nokias (don't like Win phones at all now) I really like it.
Think these can be got pretty cheap. Wife had a Sony Experia which she didn't particularly like J6 and now has a J6 which she gets on much better with.

schlepcycling

How about a Wileyfox Swift? https://www.wileyfox.com/swift/ or the newest Moto G https://www.motorola.co.uk/products/moto-g

secretsam

schlepcycling wrote:

How about a Wileyfox Swift? https://www.wileyfox.com/swift/ or the newest Moto G https://www.motorola.co.uk/products/moto-g

Wileyfox doesn't use Android? I like to add a few apps

I've looked at the Motorola latest gen...hmmmm...

Man Of Lard

Wileyfox uses CyanogenOS (which is Android Open Source Project based) - Android apps are both available and work well.

wolfsbane2k

SecretSam wrote:

schlepcycling wrote:

How about a Wileyfox Swift? https://www.wileyfox.com/swift/ or the newest Moto G https://www.motorola.co.uk/products/moto-g

Wileyfox doesn't use Android? I like to add a few apps

I've looked at the Motorola latest gen...hmmmm...

Wileyfox uses CyangenOS, which is a "fork" of android - typically all the apps etc work, some like a few banking ones have had issues in the past.
The S3mini was always a crippled version of the S3 - it has a slower processor etc compared to the full size version, so was more like an S2 as far as I can recall.

What's your budget?
My OH has managed to smash the screens very quickly on the Z1 and Z3 compacts, wouldn't touch them with a barge pole.
I'm on a Moto E2 (phone only £35) with a 64GB SD card, because I broke my last phone (moto Razr I) and I'm saving up for a "Caterpillar S60" - -10M waterproof thing designed for builders, and comes with a thermal camera for spotting those e-bikes you can't quite catch Heavy though.
The E2 does pretty much everything I need ( I don't need pokemon go for example , but it plays it "ok" )

secretsam

Wolfsbane2k wrote:

The S3mini was always a crippled version of the S3 - it has a slower processor etc compared to the full size version, so was more like an S2 as far as I can recall.

What's your budget?

Interesting question. Am on Virgin at the moment, S3 mini was on a good deal when I got it. Virgin aren't offering any good deals so far, so am likely to switch to an £8 pcm SIM deal (plenty of minutes and data for my needs), with a phone that brings it up to around £15-20 pcm over 24 months, ie a phone cost of £150-£250.

Am tempted by the Moto G4, as you can customise it and get a good spec for around £200. Plus it's water resistant, which means I can dump it in a jersey pocked just in its case, rather than in a pouch as currently (rain/sweat protection but can't hear the damn thing then!)

tgotb

I've had two recent Sonys, and they do seem to be quite fragile; the Samsung I have now is much more robust...

keyser__soze

Nexus 5x, hovering around £160 but some better deals available on and off. https://www.carphonewarehouse.com/lg/ne ... ealType=sf

thistle_

I've been thinking about getting the Z3 compact (small and comes with ANT+) but the comments on durability have put me off a bit now.
The Xperia Ray that I've had for the last 3 years has got wet, dropped, run over (by a bike) and still works OK - they must not make them like they used to.

bendertherobot

Gold S6 Galaxy's are where it is at

itboffin

my work phone is a G5 and my own is an S5 both of which barely get used in fact the S5 is mint and spends its life sitting on top of the fridge along with my old S4, i'm beginning to think i dont need a smart phone just a phone.

I have a samsung something or other that cost £1 the battery last for 6-10 months on standby and it always has a network signal now that's where it's at

bendertherobot

itboffin wrote:

my work phone is a G5 and my own is an S5 both of which barely get used in fact the S5 is mint and spends its life sitting on top of the fridge along with my old S4, i'm beginning to think i dont need a smart phone just a phone.

I have a samsung something or other that cost £1 the battery last for 6-10 months on standby and it always has a network signal now that's where it's at

I had the G3 and my son now has one. Great phones and great screens. I only cited the S6 as I'm selling mine.

Truthfully the S7 Edge is where it's at

jeepie1999

Gearbest is the place. Ignore branded phones and pay about £100 for a good spec.

rhodrich

Jeepie1999 wrote:

Gearbest is the place. Ignore branded phones and pay about £100 for a good spec.

You're taking quite a risk with that. If it goes wrong, you're a bit stuffed, as they often require you to send it back to China.

Before I bought my Moto G, I purchased a Cubot X17s, Amazing spec, cheap price - what's not to like. However, it developed a screen fault within a week of purchase (vertical stripe on the screen about 1cm wide which didn't respond to touch). I'd paid the extra to buy it from Amazon for piece of mind, and I'm glad I did - Amazon's return process is second to none. I don't think I'd touch a non branded phone again. The build quality just isn't there.

Wheelspinner

I bought a Motorola Moto G as above, some version or other. It's good as a phone, but it was the first Android device I've owned after years with iPhones.

Got used to it, but by crikey Google drove me nuts with the frequency of updates for all the useless little add-ons they install with the OS. Does anybody actually use all that drivel like "Hangout" or wtf it's called????

Its back in a box, and I've gone back to the iPhone.

If you can cope with the Android thing, the Moto is a nice device otherwise.

Man Of Lard

Wheelspinner wrote:

Got used to it, but by crikey Google drove me nuts with the frequency of updates for all the useless little add-ons they install with the OS. Does anybody actually use all that drivel like "Hangout" or wtf it's called????

Turn off update notifications. The updates still happen but you don't get bugged about it.

Play Store > Settings > Notifications > App updates available > uncheck > App were auto-updated > uncheck > exit

Disable the apps you don't need/want:

Go to your device's Settings app. Select Apps or Application manager. Touch the app you want to uninstall. You may need to scroll to find the app. Touch Disable. Rinse & repeat.

bendertherobot

Wheelspinner wrote:

I bought a Motorola Moto G as above, some version or other. It's good as a phone, but it was the first Android device I've owned after years with iPhones.

Got used to it, but by crikey Google drove me nuts with the frequency of updates for all the useless little add-ons they install with the OS. Does anybody actually use all that drivel like "Hangout" or wtf it's called????

Its back in a box, and I've gone back to the iPhone.

If you can cope with the Android thing, the Moto is a nice device otherwise.

Yeah, I use Hangouts every day as my stock message app. Nice app, easy to use.

On the flip side some students had to come in and show me video evidence of work completed on their iPhones yesterday. Bloody hell, what a messy looking thing.

Wheelspinner

Man Of Lard wrote:

Wheelspinner wrote:

Got used to it, but by crikey Google drove me nuts with the frequency of updates for all the useless little add-ons they install with the OS. Does anybody actually use all that drivel like "Hangout" or wtf it's called????

Turn off update notifications. The updates still happen but you don't get bugged about it.

Play Store > Settings > Notifications > App updates available > uncheck > App were auto-updated > uncheck > exit

Disable the apps you don't need/want:

Go to your device's Settings app. Select Apps or Application manager. Touch the app you want to uninstall. You may need to scroll to find the app. Touch Disable. Rinse & repeat.

Yeah I know all that. The reason I got so frustrated with it was even over the office WiFi network, a big chunk of those updates took unreasonably long times to download and install. Want to go out of network range for 5 minutes? Update fails, start again. Rinse and repeat as you say...

Facebook and Messenger by far the worst for that, but Google apps almost as bad.

Most of the apps I wanted to bin were Google's own, delivered with the OS. Seems thats not the recommended thing to do.

Wheelspinner

bendertherobot wrote:

Wheelspinner wrote:

I bought a Motorola Moto G as above, some version or other. It's good as a phone, but it was the first Android device I've owned after years with iPhones.

Got used to it, but by crikey Google drove me nuts with the frequency of updates for all the useless little add-ons they install with the OS. Does anybody actually use all that drivel like "Hangout" or wtf it's called????

Its back in a box, and I've gone back to the iPhone.

If you can cope with the Android thing, the Moto is a nice device otherwise.

Yeah, I use Hangouts every day as my stock message app. Nice app, easy to use.

On the flip side some students had to come in and show me video evidence of work completed on their iPhones yesterday. Bloody hell, what a messy looking thing.

What's messy about video capture on iPhone compared with Android? (Genuine question.. I don't do much video with any device, but the few I have recorded seem pretty clean and simple... ?)

Man Of Lard

Wheelspinner wrote:

Most of the apps I wanted to bin were Google's own, delivered with the OS. Seems thats not the recommended thing to do.

Most of them can be disabled with zero impact - Chrome, Gmail, Play Games, Play Movies, Play Books, Play Music, Hangouts, Japanese/Korean/Hindi/Pinyin/Hebrew input - all disabled on mine and you'd never know. Worst case you disable it and something stops working as you expect, you re-enable that one.

porlyworly

Oneplus & Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 are also great for the money

Sleeper Service

I have a Moto G 3rd gen. Cost £160, does everything very well. I can't honestly see the point in spending more on a phone now.

rhodrich

Oh noes! Decided to see what the fuss was about with this Pokemon malarkey, and decided to install it on my Moto G. It doesn't work, as the Moto G apparently doesn't have a gyroscope. It'll work in map mode (like a sat nav), but as for the augmented reality through the camera, forget it.

Much disappointment!