
Why I am happy downgrading from a $500 to a $75 smartphone - thepoet
https://medium.com/@n00b/why-i-am-happy-downgrading-from-a-500-to-75-phone-3a0ed867593b
======
__xtrimsky
I have the Xperia Z3C, it lasts 48 hours.

My issue with cheaper phones is: I don't mind it being slow, I don't mind it
having a bad display. But I do mind the camera quality. I take a lot of
pictures (multiple a day) which I treasure because it's pictures of my kids.
But I hate having a camera with me, so my phone has to have a good camera.
There aren't cheap phones with good cameras.

~~~
agumonkey
Sometimes even decent smartphones cut on surprising camera features. The Moto
G has a fixed focus, makes me regret the Nexus S...

~~~
sukilot
Moto G is just about the cheapest smartphone you can buy, in USA at least.
Moto G 2 has autofocus with tap to choose control point.

~~~
agumonkey
Cheapest but still not 75$ and the other components aren't under-powered. I
didn't know the G2 was improved on this.

------
blackhaz
Sign me in. Just purchased Lenovo A5000 instead of moving from iPhone 4 to
iPhone 6. Why?

1) Because I feel Apple has screwed me. The iOS 8 update has turned my iPhone
4 into a brick. My phone now does everything iOS 6 did, but now it is slow as
hell. In return, I get nothing new worth of mentioning besides animations
(what a giant leap forward, Apple) and eye-bleeding colors. And turtle speed
and constant hang-ups.

2) Apple isn't innovating anymore. They are busy adding "features." Sometimes
the way iOS 8 works makes me think the whole iOS division lacks ideas about
what else they want to add, so they are simply throwing stuff on the wall.
It's hard to believe how dysfunctional iOS has started to be when Jobs left.

3) I still get eyebleeding idiotic colors on this Android device, but A5000 is
four times cheaper than iPhone 6, and it delivers the same functionality, plus
dual SIM capability for travel, and a 4000 mAh battery. (I am not associated
with Lenovo, that was an impulse purchase.)

So after 6 years of having everything-Apple at home and at work, I think I am
starting to leave Apple. Sad and happy at the same time.

~~~
pkorzeniewski
Aren't you afraid, given the SuperFish scandal, they also install some
bullshit crapware on their consumer phones? Yeah, I know, most vendors do, but
the SuperFish was a new level of bullshit and a high security threat.

~~~
blackhaz
Honestly, I didn't know about it. I usually don't store anything critical on
the phone so I am generally not as paranoid as I should be. I just Googled
they've admitted they screwed up badly. But the point is, anything can be
instead of that Lenovo - iPhone isn't doing it for me anymore as a premium
phone, and by premium I mean having outstanding features or UI.

------
darklajid
That's a serious downgrade, but I'm approaching this similarly, from way up.

I just gave my OnePlus One (beautiful, 'cheap' \- the only thing against it?
Really, really big) to my wife to 'upgrade' to an S6 Edge. Boy, what a mess
that thing is.

No reception. Bad wifi. Battery issues. Calls are distorted, I often hear the
other side in a ChipMunk-y way. And don't get me even started on this TouchWiz
crap. Or 'Odin'/'Kies'/'Smart Connect'.

So, I 'upgraded' from a perfect 300EUR device to a crappy/barely working
850EUR device. There's a lesson here: Stick to devices with stock Android
experience and ideally stick to a device that is properly supported by CM.

Can't take the OnePlus One away from my wife by now. I do tend to look at my
Flame every now and then and have a hard time deciding which phone to carry.
The beautiful or the less broken one?

~~~
fweespeech
> Stick to devices with stock Android experience and ideally stick to a device
> that is properly supported by CM.

Yeah, that is why I always bought the Nexus devices from Google. Sometimes
there are issues but anything major is fixed by the next patch.

~~~
darklajid
I have only one Nexus device. A 7 (flo, the 'newer' one). I migrated that to
CM quite some time ago.

Google OTAs are now block-based, as far as I understand. Which means that I
cannot change my system and apply the update afterwards.

I have no problems of that sort with CM. So, while Nexus devices might be a
good base line, I personally would still move away from official Google
releases.

That said, I agree that the experience is quite nice and it sure helps to get
timely updates.

~~~
fweespeech
Fair enough :)

Personally, I tend to worry about the fact CM sometimes bricks phone and would
rather have the hassle free stock android.

------
ghshephard
I double up - I really appreciate the power/performance/resolution/features of
late-generation phone technology - but I absolutely have to have reliable SMS
(OTP), Phone Calls, and Alarms. My Nokia 105 gets between 10 and 12 days on a
single charge with moderate usage, and I've stretched it out to three weeks in
periods of low usage. It's pretty close to indestructible - so I can toss it
in my bag without worrying, and charges fast (~ Hour).

And it cost me $35.

~~~
digi_owl
Been doing something similar, mostly because i have a featurephone that can do
HSPA and i can't be assed to get a smaller sim to fit in the smartphone.

So instead i pair one with the other via bluetooth if i can't find some wifi
to use and the data itch gets me.

~~~
swah
Been thinking of doing the "smart" stuff with a tablet and have a phone that
lasts a week for calls.

------
MicroBerto
When I'm making a larger purchasing decision, I like to base it on my net
worth. It makes things very clear.

Let's say you have a net worth of 25k, which seems about median for a 30 year
old in the US.

So you're saying, I gotta spend 2% of my financial _existence_ on a stinkin
telephone? A nearly-guaranteed depreciating asset, at that!

For some of you, that might make a lot of sense - you spend 99% of your waking
lives on those things. But for me, not so much. I'll opt for the $80 Android I
found on Amazon.

I personally rather spend higher percentages of my net worth building
businesses and memories/experiences, not things.

~~~
fweespeech
Yeah, but most of us buying expensive phones are on-call and need a powerful
wifi hot spot and a bunch of other things out of it.

I literally can't think of a company where you end up on-call and the
expectation is you can respond in [at most] 15 minutes to an emergency/alert.
That means a laptop + mobile wifi hotspot [phone] everywhere you go.

The cheaper phones tend to have worse reception. In my office, I used to only
get Edge due to the thick walls. My Nexus 6 has no trouble getting to LTE.

~~~
z0r
If you are on call, your company should be paying for your phone.

~~~
fweespeech
They would if I wanted to have a company phone.

I don't want a company phone and have to juggle two phones.

------
tobias2014
"We deserve a smartphone that can last a whole day without charging"

I claim that any recent smartphone can work up to two days including a few
hours of browsing and doing calls, once you disable all (unnecessary)
background synchronizations, forcing the hardware awake. At least this is my
experience for the Nexus 4.

But reading that the authors phone "used to die with 6–8 hours of moderate
usage or sometimes even before that", it seems he had much higher expectations
than me. I don't expect a phone to work in "active" mode with screen on for so
many hours. I expect it to consume just little power when screen is off and
few background synchronizations run, and do not care much about consumption
when the screen is on. If you need 8 hours (that is 1/3 day) of screen-on time
then maybe your expectations are too high on a smartphone? Additionally you
would probably stumble over a power socket in the meantime.

~~~
nodata
So by not using it as a smartphone, the battery will last longer? Well yeah.

My bic lasts years when I don't use it too.

~~~
tobias2014
My argument was that the expectations are maybe too high, asking for a "a
smartphone that can last a whole day without charging", but using it 1/3+ day.

For me that is like saying "When can we have a car that drives 2000km? It
usually stops for me after 1000km."

------
smoothgrips
I have a Nexus 5 I've had for, well, going on a year and half now, and with
the exception of the battery (which for me lasts most of the day), it has been
an exceptional phone. For only $400ish (bought full retail through Google), it
has met or surpasses my ROI. It is still as fast today as when I bought it. I
am always up to date with the latest version of Android. It rarely crashes or
even hiccups. I am very satisfied with it. I am a little sad that the Nexus 6
cost so much more, but even if it was the same price as the Nexus 5, I
currently have no need to upgrade my phone. I plan on using this as long as it
will go, which I'm guessing might be another year or two, maybe even longer.

------
pmelendez
> "Waiting for Android updates is frustrating" > "₹ 30000 for a phone that
> cannot even last 2 years is not value for money for me" > "Why not try an
> iPhone once? Let’s just say I need a mobile for Android app development"

Most of author's arguments are very Android specific. I haven't seen the first
two issues I quoted with either iOS or Windows phone.

I would say that the title should be "Why I am happy downgrading from a $500
to a $75 Android "

------
benologist
I downgraded too, also from a Sony Xperia to a $70 Blu Life Advance 4.0. It's
got a crappy camera and screen, but it handles tethering 4g, music, can run
apps and browse the internet. And dual sim + unlocked. I really can't imagine
spending $500 - $700 on a phone again, the cheap end is improving all the
time.

[http://www.amazon.com/BLU-Advance-Unlocked-Phone-
Black/dp/B0...](http://www.amazon.com/BLU-Advance-Unlocked-Phone-
Black/dp/B00GXHPN1U)

------
contingencies
... TLDR; I don't care about photo quality.

------
morganvachon
I'm an admitted phone-hopper, and while my preferred platform is Windows
Phone, I've had to give that up for Android so I don't have to carry two
devices. I've had everything from basic phones up through flagships, and I've
found the best battery life and balance of features/price to be
(unsurprisingly) in the mid-range.

I was using a Nexus 4 for a while, but when my wife's phone died I gave her
that and got a 2014 Moto G. So far I'm very happy with it, especially given I
only paid $150 for it with no contract. It's not quite as snappy as the Nexus
4 was, but the screen is a bit nicer, the battery lasts a bit longer (usually
at ~60% when I put it on the charger before bed), and the camera is definitely
better. It has a few quirks, things I've seen on many Motorola phones (the
earpiece doubles as a loudspeaker, and it randomly switches volume during a
call; the ambient light sensor sometimes stops working so I end up with an
extremely bright screen at night). But overall I feel I've gotten my money's
worth and then some.

I do miss my Lumia 925, and I'm looking forward to sampling whatever Windows
10 Mobile devices come out over the next year. But I'm more than satisfied
with my budget phone.

------
kolev
Just like with Chrome, Google keeps bloating and bloating. Nexus 6 doesn't
last even 4 hours for me. It just sits silently in my pocket and dies without
much fanfare. I have basic Google apps, Facebook, Twitter, and a few more. I
don't do anything, and when I look at battery breakdown, it's Gmail and Inbox
that use more than 20% of the power. Every time I need to go outside of home
for more than a couple of hours, I get anxious as I know my phone will give up
on me and I don't like carrying power reserves, cables, and all that we
shouldn't be doing in 2015!

In general, Android keeps disappointing as there are such idiotic problems
that I wonder if Android engineers actually use Android phones in real life.
For example, taking videos since day one is a huge pain. You start shooting a
video, and then you start cursing shortly after, because background apps kill
video quality. How hard is to get this simple thing - shooting videos is a
CPU-intensive job, pause everything else until the video is done? This is one
of the many issues, I just recently struggled with shooting videos and decided
to buy a camcorder again to use for the more formal events and use the phone
only spontaneously.

------
gokhan
I use a Galaxy S (the first version), purchased 4 or 5 years ago, can't
remember. Upgraded it to KitKat with a custom build (MacKay) a year ago, was
happily using Froyo before that.

I love it's small footprint and plastic back. It's kidproof, verified by my
two test engineers here in various incidents. Changed it's battery once, lasts
almost two days based on my usage.

For the last three years, I'm trying hard to justify buying a new phone based
on my use case and can't come up with a good reason. I shrinked my usage to
email mostly. Twitter is so time consuming, I'm happy that my phone can't keep
up with it's basic hardware requirements so I gave up using it 2 years ago.
Same story with Facebook and other popular apps. Staying long on a not up-to-
date hardware trims your excess device usage and makes it hard to have a
reason for upgrade.

I was about to buy Xperia Z3 Compact for its smaller size and long battery
life but turned down by glass back and lack of physical home button. I guess
I'll shop for a second hand Galaxy S if this one dies on me.

------
amelius
Android got a lot slower lately, so I'm hesitant to go to a cheaper phone.

~~~
lukeschlather
I switched from a $550 two-year-old Android phone that has become unusably
slow to a new $200 phone that is snappy and quick, network permitting.

I really think the age of the phone has more to do with the speed than the
price (and I suspect this has more to do with software than hardware going
bad.)

------
mmrasheed
It may sound like Flintstone, but after using 3 different feature phones for 6
years, and then 4 different (mid to high end) smartphones in the next 6 years
(till now), I found no better "phone" than Nokia 1100 ($35). the reasons-

1\. You would have to charge it twice in a week, at most. Mostly I ended up
charging it once/week. It would actually run longer with low battery warning
than today's most smartphones' whole charge cycle.

2\. It was convenient to hold, small enough to lose in any kind of pockets. At
least I never had to take the phone in to account when buying pants, which I
need to do now, for smartphones.

3\. The phone would last forever, only you would have to change the battery in
every two years.

4\. It was rock solid. You could use it as alternative to stone to hit
something.

5\. After all, there is no more satisfying communication method than voice
call. And there is no more satisfying game than snakes.

I wish I could buy a Nokia 1100. Today's Nokia feature phones are sensitive,
fragile, bulky and they stop working in couple of years.

~~~
upofadown
I still have and am using my 1100. Since I am still using the original battery
the life is down to about a week. If I buy a random battery off the net,
chances are it will be crap. You, of course, can't get original batteries
anymore.

The 1100 is the most popular cell phone in the known universe:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_1100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_1100)

------
kamaal
This post is the reason why Apple is doomed on the longer run. Yes, expensive
cute phones sell a lot early on. But no one sees value in spending that kind
of cash every two years, for very little value in return.

This is basically the repeat of the desktop market in the 90's and early
2000s. Except that we now have Android instead of Windows as the dominant
alternative.

~~~
sokoloff
I think you're giving the mass consumer a fair bit too much credit. People
still stand in lines to buy the 6, which is something like the 11th generation
(if you count all the intermediate minor-rev phones).

Why? Apparently so they can have it before everyone else...for 48 hours...

(iPhone 5S/Ting user, bought 'em used for my wife and I a few weeks after the
6 came out and a bunch of people dumped their "obsolete" 5Ss. So I agree with
you in philosophy, but disagree that enough people think like that to "doom
Apple")

~~~
kamaal
You don't see people stand in lines for other smartphones because they are not
released as mass media events. And the crowds would be to large to work as a
queue. Those phones are selling all the time, hence no need for the queue.

Queue's are needed when you need some kind of a priority based selection.

~~~
sokoloff
I agree the queueing is unnecessary, border on insane. However, the fact that
many of the people queued up (whether literally or figuratively) to buy the 6
were using their perfectly good 5S to pass the time is some amount of evidence
that people do see some value in buying expensive phones every year or two and
Apple isn't doomed.

------
pkorzeniewski
I've a low-end Xperia which I use almost entirely for calling and texting - no
apps, no browsing, disabled WiFi and data transfer. The battery lasts a week
:) and I don't get any annoying notifications or waste time on pointless apps.
I'm planning to get a "dumbphone" with small screen and physical keyboard, but
I can't find one with an incoming calls blacklist which is a must for me.
Other than that, I'll happily throw my smartphone away and never use one
again.

------
Aldo_MX
I have a Samsung Galaxy S5... I seriously hate that sometimes the dialer app
crashes or freezes when I'm receiving a call (and I end up being unable to
answer that cal).

I mean, seriously... THE DIALER APP?!?!?! Even a $10 Nokia has a stable
dialer...

------
lectrick
So basically the argument here boils down to, "I should have gotten an iPhone
instead"? Because it seems to solve all of the named problems.

------
higherpurpose
We can build phones that last us a few days on a charge already. We have all
the technology we need. The problem is we (both customers and OEMs):

1) don't _really_ want a slower/more efficient processor (like Cortex A7/A53)

2) don't _really_ want a smaller ~4.5" screen

3) don't _really_ want a 960x540 or 800x480 resolution

If we could build a "premium" phone with _those_ specs (for instance the same
resolution, but a much newer and more efficient display technology) we could
make them last even more than these low-end phones where we typically find
these specs.

~~~
mwcampbell
How do we (and the OEMs) know that there isn't a large enough subset of
customers that want these things? I'm guessing many customers would accept a
weaker processor and lower-resolution screen in exchange for more battery life
if the phone's marketing emphasized the battery life over the processor and
screen specs. And while we're at it, why not go all the way to a Cortex A5?

~~~
alistairSH
I'd like to know as well.

I remember seeing some data about iPhone battery life over the generations.
Apple has basically held it steady - as the processors and screens have
improved, the power efficiency has improved just enough to hold battery life
constant.

The exception to this was the 6+ which due to it's larger size, had a fair bit
more battery life.

Personally, I'd love a phone with 6+ battery life or better in the 5S form-
factor. I don't need or want a large screen - that's why I have tablets and
laptops.

~~~
zimpenfish
[http://sixcolors.com/post/2015/01/battery-life-apples-
solvin...](http://sixcolors.com/post/2015/01/battery-life-apples-solving-
for-x/)

~~~
alistairSH
That's the one, thanks. I'd love to see some of the research that determined
'x'.

------
krmmalik
My OnePlus One happily lasts me 36hrs and that's _with_ regular to heavy
usage. On moderate usage I could easily get two days out of it.

~~~
heri0n
Even though it's great value, it still costs around $400

------
mkaziz
That last comment didn't make sense. Why throw in the iPhone mention for no
reason?

~~~
fencepost
I believe that iPhones have a reputation for better power management and
therefore better (or at least more consistent) battery life, hence the iPhone
mention.

On a side note, because there are more of them, there are also more options
for external battery cases, just as there were extended battery options for
some of the more popular Android phones when removable batteries were
standard.

------
GigabyteCoin
>Moto E image taken from its review on The Guardian

That link back to the Guardian gives him any rights to use the image. In fact
he's probably making it easier for the rights holder to track him down now
that he has linked to the page.

Not that I think the Guardian would care... but still. Don't use other peoples
images without permission.

------
mdelanno
For battery life: why not just bought an external battery like this:
[http://www.aukey.com/product/dual-usb-external-battery-
pb014...](http://www.aukey.com/product/dual-usb-external-battery-pb014-black)?

Problem solved...

~~~
cweiss
The issues with an external battery are: Phones tend to die when you're using
them. This means you're either constantly plugging/unplugging, or you have a
cable hanging out of your pocket all the time. My LG G3 can easily drawn than
a smaller battery can supply, so it'll still go dead. A big enough battery is
a large, heavy thing. It will monopolize a pocket or small purse.

From a strictly emotional standpoint, the idea that I _must_ carry a separate
battery if I plan to be away from a charger all day is just stupid.

------
mdelanno
For battery life: why not buy an external battery like this:
[http://www.aukey.com/product/dual-usb-external-battery-
pb014...](http://www.aukey.com/product/dual-usb-external-battery-pb014-black)?

Problem solved...

~~~
rjaco31
Because that's not convenient? It's like bigger than the phone itself, you
cannot really stuff that into your pocket anymore.

------
dharma1
using nothing but moto g's these days. Good enough and doesn't matter if it
gets lost

