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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2401 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 24, 2024

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Phones!
After six years I finally need a new one, and after being out of the market for so long I could use some Motte advice.
For starters, is there anywhere that actually lets you shop by features? Most searches will include different versions, like international models without US band support.
My current spec is:

  • 6-8GB ram: is that enough these days? I don't play games, but I'm a heavy multitasker with a serious tab addiction
  • 128-256GB drive: last phone had 32GB, which was dreadful.
  • CPU/GPU: capable of running android without too much lag is all I ask, why does that seem to take a supercomputer now? Ideally good H265 hardware decoding, but apparently that's asking for a miracle.
  • microSD slot: do modern OSes handle these well? It only worked on my last phone as an integrated drive, and performance was awful.
  • Camera: ideally a simple one, why do they all have 5 different ones now?
  • Screen: bright and 1080p, who cares about 144GHz refresh rates, seriously. Large and not excessively long is best: I hate this new 22:9 stuff.
  • 4G Band 12, 71, optionally 5G n71: T-mobile and its VNOs are the only local option. Is 5G any improvement? I only use data for browsing and messaging, so latency matters more than speed.
  • Extras: As few as possible. I will never use wireless charging, and NFC makes me nervous.
  • Cost: Looking at low end phones mostly because I feel retarded carrying around a thousand bucks of easily crushed hardware in my pocket.

Current Options:

  • Moto G Power '23/'24: top contender, but Motorola has so many different versions with some heavily gimped that I'm hesistant.
  • Samsung A15: probably off the list because the US version with 600-700MHz band support only has a 4GB option. Obnoxious price discrimination to stop us buying the cheap 8GB international version.
  • Galaxy A5x/A3x: again the US versions seem to be gimped, but it's hard to find out.
  • Nord N30: positive: skyrim jokes, negative: ???
  • Pixel 6a: ugh, please don't make me use this thing

Anyone have recommendations?

Obligatory "iPhone SE", but that might be too expensive for what you're looking to do, the screen might be too low-res, I wouldn't buy one until the 4th gen comes out, and you're giving up NewPipe + proper Firefox with uBlock + being able to run whatever you want by going with iOS.

You do get a lot for the money, though; it's the third-fastest phone available (leaps and bounds better than everything else; the 2nd gen is merely on par with those phones- Qualcomm's main business is very expensive modems with CPUs that are already 4 years out of date attached to them) and is as simple as you want it to be, being that it's an iPhone 13 packed into an iPhone 8, with everything that implies (including parts availability).

I hadn't actually considered an iphone, in retrospect strictly out of tribalism. But honestly just the thought of using the youtube app without adblocking makes me want to gouge out my eyes and stuff them in my ears, so it's probably out regardless.

Yeah, I was trying to read up on mobile chipsets for a while, but realized I don't have the time to be doing that kind of dive just to buy a damn phone any more. It's infuriating, honestly.

I was trying to read up on mobile chipsets for a while

Honestly, they're all good enough, you'll just be tempted to replace the slower ones more often.

And I still think you're doing it right; Android phones only make sense at the "cheaper than the current-gen SE" price point (and they do make a lot of sense there even if your total spend is going to be roughly equivalent)- simply because the more expensive Android phones are just iPhone 11s with a different OS and a better screen (or a gimmick- I'd actually say the future of Android is foldable especially for people whose phones are their main computing device because Apple is institutionally incapable of making proper multitasking and copy/paste is one of the most important things a computer can do).

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