New phone - Honor, Huawei, Motorola or Samsung?

[pp05]

Honor 10. Good value at budget end. £140 from John Lewis.

[Saracen999]

Thanks, PP, but as per post 31,


"A71 now ordered. From John Lewis"

[jimborae]

Nerver mind.

[Jace007]

How are you getting on with the Samsung A71 ? - Its a brilliant Phone, -Did you consider the lower models like the a50. Also Buying it from the Samsung website works out cheaper in most cases, they do discounts or freebies if you look out every 2 months.

[Saracen999]

Pretty good, so far, Jace. Lovely screen, I have to say.

Some annoyances like trying to get rid of Bixby.

Also, and not directly A71-related, I needed a new SIM. Argos really annoyed me, over that. I knew what I wanted, ordered it having been told on the order page it'll be ready to collect at Sainsbury by 10:00 the next day.

Then the order confirmation arrives and is it next day? Hell no, it's five flipping days away. FIVE DAYS!!!!!

It only had to travel about 2 miles. I could have walked that myself in not much more than an hour,, there and back.

So the A71 sat here in it's box for nearly a week. I was spitting nails. Got a lovely new toy and couldn't use it.

My only criticism so far, aside from Bixby, is that the charging lead is rather short, but that isn't hard to fix. That said, I don't have much smartphone experience to compare it to.

[Apex]

If not already asked before; why not a Nokia >?

[jimborae]

If not already asked before; why not a Nokia >?

Nothing decent in price range compared to the oposition I would imagine.

[Saracen999]

If not already asked before; why not a Nokia >?

Before asking here, I narrowed it down to either Chinese or not, and a couple of options within each. In the "not" camp, I'd long been tempted by Motorola if I ever got a smartphone, and for Samsung, I'd recently been able to have a quick play with a friend's, with a brother that has one (A90, IIRC) and with the wife's work phone.

Ultimately, I've got to narrow it down somehow. The first narrowing was dismiss Chinese models, in part because of potential Android problems. That left mainstream brands and, having quite liked the Samsung, anything else had to 'beat' that, on some combination of price, features and general "appeal". Nothing did.

[Jace007]

Cool, Glad your liking it mate, IFfyou haven't turned off Bixby this might help https://www.samsung.com/in/support/m...urn-off-bixby/ - There are loads of help guides on the Samsung website buts its a bugger to find at times. Also check out that Youtube link I posted on the other Samsung post for loads of top tips to help you get the most out of the phone. I agree the Charging is way too short not sure why they do that, that said Motorola G7 is'nt that long either. I guess they want ppl to purchase longer cables for more money. You should be able to find a decent cable on amazon.

[Saracen999]

I think I managed to strangle Bixby. Irritatingly, it asked on initial power-up if I wanted Bixby, and I said NO.

So, naturally, I ended up with the damn tthing anyway. Still have the extreme left desktop screen dedicated to it. My pet hate with computers, is manufacturers (or Google) putting all sorts of rubbish on without permission, topped only by the tthem making it hard or impossible to get rid of.

Grrrr.!!!!


And thanks for the links.

[Sirmassimo]

I'd go with Samsung. Huawei a lot of bad press recently.

[bowepa]

As a new phone I would choose now Samsung S20 or One plus 8 Pro, no other phone could replace my Huawei mate 20 pro...

[Froger007]

I will certainly go for the Mii Mix 5G at +- £235. Great phone and Xiaomi software is butter smooth these days. the 5G makes phone future proof as well.

[Apex]

Before asking here, I narrowed it down to either Chinese or not, and a couple of options within each. In the "not" camp, I'd long been tempted by Motorola if I ever got a smartphone, and for Samsung, I'd recently been able to have a quick play with a friend's, with a brother that has one (A90, IIRC) and with the wife's work phone.

Ultimately, I've got to narrow it down somehow. The first narrowing was dismiss Chinese models, in part because of potential Android problems. That left mainstream brands and, having quite liked the Samsung, anything else had to 'beat' that, on some combination of price, features and general "appeal". Nothing did.

Fair enough. I am now a happy X20 user having upgraded from the Nokia 8 from 3yrs ago; my only gripe with this so far is because its part of the android one program the default launcher won't let me get rid of the google search box and some other google widget (up and coming i think its called) i have had to resort to using a 3rd party home launcher called Nova to banish it (like it so much paid the 3quid for the prime version)

Samsung never gelled for me no matter how many times i have had chance to use them (and having a works phone that is a Samsung) there's just something and i can not quiet put my finger on why i don't like them.

[Saracen999]

Had a quick look on Nokia.com (out of curiosity, this being an old thread, of course) and it looks like a nice phone. In reality, it would have no doubt done for my needs. Probably, pretty much anything would.

I think I mentioned earlier in this thread that I wasn't a smartphone fan, but was "giving in", and wanted something that was a cross between powerful enough to be useful, without being "silly" expensive. That is, of course, "silly" my my needs and standards,and would include anything premium, like S20, top iPhones, but doesn't mean I think it's silly for anyone that does want or need those. I just felt I didn't.

It turns out I was right. I'm now about 16 months into the Samsung A71 and so far it has done everything I needed, except I suppose for supporting Wifi6, but to be fair to it, I didn't have anything Wifi6 when i bought it so it wasn't even on my radar.

But I'm still not a smartphone fan. I still detest Google, as much as I ever have and so I don't use it much. I keep things like location services permanently off, and while I take it with me almost every where I go, a lot of the time, the phone itself is turned off. There's a very short list of people that have my number (immediate family, and a couple of close friends). For the vast majority of the huge number of people that seem to want it (mostly, commercial organisations) I officially still "don't have a molbile phone". The reality, f course, is that as far as they are concerned, I don't, because I don't want them using it under any circumstances, and certainly don't want them selling it on.

Why be so .... restrictive? I like my peace and quiet. Few things wind me up more than being out doing something, and getting pestered on the (mobile) phone by non-urgent matters. It can wait 'til I'm home). Those that do have that number (close family and a few friends) know it's not for run of the mill use but urgent or emergency needs.

That illustrates my mindset on mobile phones. For me, they're still about 10% useful, 40% necessary evil, and 50% pain in the butt.

In the 16 months I've had it, I've sent about half a dozen texts, received about 20 (that weren't spam or scam) and made/received maybe a dozen calls.

What I do use it for is a convenient and very portable wifi tablet, a Signal connection to family abroad (having ditched WhatsApp, partly because I'm as fond of Facebook as I am Google .... or less fond, actually, since Google does at least provide some useful services for their price in data acquisition).

I also use it as a controller for those Echo devices I mentioned at the start of the thread, a music player (sourced either from my own files or Amazon Music) and most recently, a screen on the controller for my DJI drone.

So back to my earlier point about what I "need" .... probably not even the A71. Something much cheaper, so far at least, would have done. But do I regret getting it? Not really. It is pretty good for the DJI screen (albeit getting the DJI software installed was a pain as it isn't in the Play Store for that phone). But I certainly don't stretch its capabilities in any way. It's akin to buying a Ferrari (or at least, a mid-range Beemer) and never driving it out of first gear.

As for never having jell'd with Samsung, I get it. A couple of decades ago, I had to choose between Canon and Nikon for a DSLR. I was in the unusual position of being able to ring both (and Minolta, for that matter) and borrow a high-end model of each (about £15k worth in total, plus a chunk more for loan lenses) to try. I prefer Canon over Nikon, but I'd struggle to explain why. It's certainly not a criticism of Nikon (though an aspect of it would be Canon's macro lens options, mainly the MP-E65). I also still have a venerable old Minolta E20 system which is a cracking camera, with some great glass. but the resolution is now a smidge low). I prefer the Milnolta "UI" to Nikon too, but again, would struggle to explain why.

So I get it, over Nokia. Do I love the ammy UI? Nope. It does the job, though, and given my still pretty minimal usage and 'ask' of it, I guess either Sammy or Nokia would do fine for me. If I was buying that first smartphone back then knowing what I know now, would I have bought the A71? Doubtful. But a cheaper Samsing? Probably. My only real criticism (having eventually managed to strangle that junk called Bixby) is that it was overkill for me, but that's my fault, not the phones.

Beyond that, I guess on the UI, it's not a matter of right or wrong, or even better/worse, but what clicks with each of us. I've been through the same with NAS UIs recently, and Synology v. QNAP. I prefer QNAP, but I get why lots don't.

[Apex]

I didn't even see the date stamp when I posted that.... (looks at my time stamp, that might be why I didn't notice )

Your opinion on phones feels very much like mine, they are very much something I wish we could do without.

I am very weary of giving out the number and like you will start to say I don't have one and if they insist I will often give out their office number (they don't check....) you have my other contact details {which include a vanity email address} another aspect of this is sim swap attacks; with so many banks wanting your mobile to send one time use codes etc, your phone number is now very very valuable anything you can do to lower the visibility of that number the better.

I would still use my gps unit, but garmin no longer update it and the UI is not friendly like maps/here maps, so that location tracking they get me on but only while i use maps/here (its off the rest of the time)

I do miss the smallness of my Nokia 8 (and the Compact's Z1 Z2 Z3 and Z5 i had before) this is a chungus