Features - QOTW: Which smartphone will you buy next?

[Muwatallis]

I'll be buying the Sony Xperia Z1 Compact next week, because reasons.

To put the reasons as simply as possible: size (~130x65x12mm is where my sweet spot is), battery life (~12 hours of video playback, best metric I've found to gauge battery life), waterproof (IP55 + IP58).

For me, Sony got the small phone size done the best I've seen; their latest offering is annoying because it sacrifices battery life in talk time and video playback to have a bigger screen, prefer a smaller screen anyway. Z1c ticks the most boxes for me, something I won't like for example is its thinkness; I'm fixing that with a cover though.

You know the Xperia Z3 Compact will be released in 2 weeks right?

[ET3D]

If I find a small and light phone with better hardware than my THL A3 (in particular, most RAM), or equivalent hardware but Android 4.4 and up (so it might behave better with the small amount of RAM), then I'll buy it. Otherwise I might go back to a feature phone at one point. I don't like big phones, I just want something for basic communication (only reason I have a smartphone is that this includes Whatsapp these days) that's as easy to ignore as possible.

[Tallflip]

Happy with current Lumia 920. If there is a good successor to the 1020 then I may be tempted.

[TooNice]

My S3 still works so I am not really looking for a new phone at the moment. That said, is there anything out that that provides:

1. MicroSD
2. Removable battery with a market of 3rd party extended battr (Zero Lemon etc.) OR stupidly long battery life out of the box (10+ days standby, 2-3 days of moderate use) OR decent battery life PLUS waterproof?

For me, MicroSD is almost a must, as I never want to worry about storage. Having a very long battery life very handy for short trip outside civilisations.. or longer regular trips where I do not have much time to charge my devices. I might be willing to trade it off some battery life for water resistance however (not that the need to be mutually exclusive) again, because I have been subjects to sudden heavy rain during mountain hikes enough. And by heavy rain, I mean that I was fully soaked before I could even put on my rain shell (that experience damaged two electronic devices I had in my pocket including the phone I had at the time).

[AlexKitch]

I'm thinking about grabbing the Amazon Fire.


But no, in all seriousness, I might actually invest in the iPhone 6 (non Plus). My S3 is getting tired and I don't fancy another Android handset.

[Noxvayl]

You know the Xperia Z3 Compact will be released in 2 weeks right?

Yes.

My last paragraph directly addresses that by saying: "their latest offering is annoying because it sacrifices battery life in talk time and video playback to have a bigger screen, prefer a smaller screen anyway." Check the specs, the Z3 Compact has less talk time and video playback which makes a big difference to the battery life you will experience during normal use.

The Z1c has a better package for me. Nothing the Z3c brings to the table can persuade me from spending money on it; what it offers, in addition to the Z1c, is not of value to me.

[MrRockliffe]

The Z3 compact has a bigger battery and more efficient SoC so I'm not sure why that'd be - maybe brighter panel? I'd wait until it comes out and for GSM Arena to review it. I find their battery life chart quite accurate from experience.

With Sony's reputation of dropping software support quickly, it'd be worth spending the extra to ensure you get bug fixes for longer - there are often a lot of them with Sony phones.

Plus, project Volta soon to be released which will increase battery life. Im not sure if the Z1c is definitely getting it yet?

[realstock]

iPhone, which one... i haven't decided.

[crossy]

QOTW: Which smartphone will you buy next?

No idea, I'm going to be contrary to the One+/Apple/Samsung crowd and say I bought a LG G3 this year. Assuming LG keep up the software upgrades, then I don't see me changing before 2016-2017 at the earliest, and with the pace of change who can tell what the market will look like then?

I'm probably going to stick with Android, although I could perhaps be persuaded if Microsoft have some spectacular Lumia available. iPhone is a definite no-no because I don't like the restricted choice I'd have (especially the lack of uSD expansion). So as to manufacturers, probably stay with LG or Sony, with HTC a possible third choice, assuming Project Ara goes no-where. I've got a lot of Samsung gear at the moment, but I really don't like Samsung's increasing closed setup - and especially the amount of god-awful bloatware that they see fit to slap on their devices.

[tonyd223]

Galaxy Note 4 or 5, after the Galaxy Note 1 and 3 there's no other choice of interest...

[Torashin]

iPhone 7 maybe. I'm content keeping my 5S for a while.

[Ginettor]

nothing for a very long time

[Bluecube]

An iPhone 6 will hopefully be here for me on Friday. I vastly prefer iOS over Android and I'm looking forward to having a slightly bigger screen over my current iPhone 5.

[Noxvayl]

The Z3 compact has a bigger battery and more efficient SoC so I'm not sure why that'd be - maybe brighter panel? I'd wait until it comes out and for GSM Arena to review it. I find their battery life chart quite accurate from experience.

With Sony's reputation of dropping software support quickly, it'd be worth spending the extra to ensure you get bug fixes for longer - there are often a lot of them with Sony phones.

Plus, project Volta soon to be released which will increase battery life. Im not sure if the Z1c is definitely getting it yet?

Cyanogenmod... not interested in Sony software, it is generally locked down more than I would like and more vulnerable to bugs due to their approach to development. Their hardware on the other hand is often brilliant so am happy to pay for that.

Battery life figures come directly from Sony (Z1c, Z3c), I can get all day talking out of the Z1c, but not the Z3c, and an extra 2 hours of video playback.

Speaking of depending on my phone; I literally can't wait until after the 20th of September for a phone, I have to have it in my hands before that date otherwise I am functioning with far less capability due to the lack of my essential apps like Google Authenticator, Evernote and LastPass. I have been without my Moto G for over a month now, waiting and searching for the perfect fit to my needs. Nothing on the horizon, or currently in existence, meets my needs better than the Z1c...

My phone before the Moto G was the 808 PureView (currently using that until I buy the Z1c) because it has a removable battery that I replaced with a Mugen Power one; it gives me 8-10 days of normal use on that 3000mAh battery which was very hard to give up and go to a Moto G. I got a cheap phone to test the Android waters and see how the features could improve my life, and since using it for less than a year I now can't do without the apps I have downloaded.

I'm not interested in why or how the Z3c is worse with regards to battery life... The most important thing about a phone is its battery life during use, the second is its size and how it feels in your hands and the last is durability. Everything else can be found in competing products and operating systems so not worth basing my decision on. Those are my preferences, I suspect yours are different...

Phones are not a status symbol to me, they are strictly a tool to get the job done. If no-one knows what phone I have I am not bothered, I spend zero time building or tinkering with my phone and 100% of my time using it. Therefore 100% of my decision is based on usefulness, nothing about aesthetics, technology or bragging rights comes into it; function is king for me and the things that facilitate function are only tangentially important if they manage to improve function which they often don't.

[MrRockliffe]

Cyanogenmod... not interested in Sony software, it is generally locked down more than I would like and more vulnerable to bugs due to their approach to development. Their hardware on the other hand is often brilliant so am happy to pay for that.

Battery life figures come directly from Sony (Z1c, Z3c), I can get all day talking out of the Z1c, but not the Z3c, and an extra 2 hours of video playback.

Speaking of depending on my phone; I literally can't wait until after the 20th of September for a phone, I have to have it in my hands before that date otherwise I am functioning with far less capability due to the lack of my essential apps like Google Authenticator, Evernote and LastPass. I have been without my Moto G for over a month now, waiting and searching for the perfect fit to my needs. Nothing on the horizon, or currently in existence, meets my needs better than the Z1c...

My phone before the Moto G was the 808 PureView (currently using that until I buy the Z1c) because it has a removable battery that I replaced with a Mugen Power one; it gives me 8-10 days of normal use on that 3000mAh battery which was very hard to give up and go to a Moto G. I got a cheap phone to test the Android waters and see how the features could improve my life, and since using it for less than a year I now can't do without the apps I have downloaded.

I'm not interested in why or how the Z3c is worse with regards to battery life... The most important thing about a phone is its battery life during use, the second is its size and how it feels in your hands and the last is durability. Everything else can be found in competing products and operating systems so not worth basing my decision on. Those are my preferences, I suspect yours are different...

Phones are not a status symbol to me, they are strictly a tool to get the job done. If no-one knows what phone I have I am not bothered, I spend zero time building or tinkering with my phone and 100% of my time using it. Therefore 100% of my decision is based on usefulness, nothing about aesthetics, technology or bragging rights comes into it; function is king for me and the things that facilitate function are only tangentially important if they manage to improve function which they often don't.

Cyanogenmod is fine, but there's been no stable release for the phone yet and from experience (Z1 owner - same hardware really) it's really buggy. Things are often crashing and Sony offer, again from experience, the worst customer service I've come across. I don't know your situation so I can't really comment further, all I'm suggesting is that you make sure it's definitely the phone you want. The Z3 compact will more likely be a more refined phone, due to the fact that they've had more phones before it to fix their errors and problems (something which, fair play to them, they seem to have been doing in the last few iterations of the Z line up).

If you want to get the phone, there's a site that offer the Z1c for 270 GBP which is a very good price. I'll PM you it if you wish to buy the phone

[DevDrake]

There is a lot stuff that cough my eye lately, but in general:

Something x86 based would be nice. If i dont find anything worth buying with x86 then Windows phone(Lumia) seams to be reasonable choice.
The best deal for me would be Windows phone based on x86 chip

The Windows prize to the actual "feel" of the phone performance is much better than for Android ones. The iPhones are just too damn expensive, the screen is smaller and some of the features drive me crazy.

The Samsung is a big no-no currently as they forcing to much of their stuff into the phones.