Android Phone Recs

[tehpope]

I'm in the market for getting a new android phone. I really want one with expandable memory. Probably in the $200-600 range. Snappy UI performance would be great too. Probably something with more than 2gb of RAM. I don't intend to do any heavy gaming on this phone. Maybe some 8/16 bit Emulation at best or 2048.

My current phone sucks dick. Its okay for single tasks but shits the bed when multitasking. It has 2gb of RAM.

I've looked into it and it seems a lot of people like the Moto G Power. The only downer is that it lacks NFC, which I can do without. There's also The a50/51/71 from Samsung. But people don't like the under the screen finger print scanner, among other things. There is the Galaxy s8/s9/s9+. Amazon has them for under $300. Former flagships and seem like it could be a great deal. I'd love to get a Pixel or OnePlus phone, but those don't have expandable memory so Its out of the question.

 

[cjöcker]

Redmi 9. All day every day.

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

An old Samsung

 

[XYZpdq]

I have a ZMax 2.
I was finally getting a "smart" phone and figured I'd just get the cheapest damn thing I could so I could figure out what I needed and didn't need in a phone.
Still working pretty good for me after a few years, has a micro sd card slot.
It doesn't have a gyroscope so that week and a half I played pokeymans go I didn't really get the "it's a pokeyman over there" experience.
But it emulates SNES, GBA, GB, NES, and even can take a decent stab at PSP, it can do synchtubes and video fine, too.

 

[tehpope]

Redmi 9. All day every day.

I forgot about that one. I'm a little gun shy about getting chink shit, but might as well. I know Motorolla is now chink shit too. So I guess pick my poison.

I might pick this. Works with my carrier and seems like its pretty powerful for what I need. Thanks man.

 

[Yoghurt Baby]

My A51 started having performance issues after a week so I'd recommend not going with it. My A20 on the other hand was a little beast and I regret upgrading. Its a 2019 too so you can probably get it a bit cheaper now.

 

[cjöcker]

I forgot about that one. I'm a little gun shy about getting chink shit, but might as well. I know Motorolla is now chink shit too. So I guess pick my poison.

I might pick this. Works with my carrier and seems like its pretty powerful for what I need. Thanks man.

Chink shit is fine, just despyware it when you get it. Honestly the best phone is the cheapest one. It's not like you're doing anything intense on it so why bother with a fancy one?? If it does Telegram and web browsing you should be fine.

 

[Lord Xenu]

I forgot about that one. I'm a little gun shy about getting chink shit, but might as well. I know Motorolla is now chink shit too. So I guess pick my poison.

Xiaomi is kind of like the Chinese Apple as far as phone build quality. Another suggestion would be OnePlus, but I have not owned one since the first phone and I have seen complaints since. They recently debuted a mid tier phone called "Nord" but availability is somewhat limited still.

In my opinion, the most important thing is if a given phone has custom ROMs, or is likely to get the ability to use them in the near future. I'm sick of tossing my phone every 2 or 3 years, and I want the ability to minimize snooping if, or when, I feel compelled to do so. My last 3 phone purchases were OnePlus One, and then two different Xiaomi Redmi phones, I have no real complaints (I owned every revision of iPhone prior to the OPO).

Be certain you get a Redmi with a Qualcomm processor. They are slightly higher priced but the other ones are not likely to get customization.

 

[Demonslayer1776]

Look for sales. I saved $400 on mine last year because Verizon and Best Buy happened to be having $200 off sales concurrently. I doubt you'll find a deal that good, but if you arent in a huge hurry and keep an eye out you can get a nice phone and save a good chunk of cash.

 

[Orange Rhymer]

I'm looking for a 'more privacy-minded' phone.
I don't want a phone that leaks an endless stream of my location and internet history.
Is there such a phone?
...as an alternative, is there a phone that is JUST a phone and an SMS client - no internet ?

 

[DNA_JACKED]

If you live in the US/Canada, I'd stick with the motorola. Reason being the upcoming move to VoLTE. These grey market chinese phones sound great but lack of official network support is going to become a massive issue once the analog 3g networks go down.

In other countries its easier to recommend the xaiomi/remdi phones.

 

[Lord Xenu]

If you live in the US/Canada, I'd stick with the motorola. Reason being the upcoming move to VoLTE. These grey market chinese phones sound great but lack of official network support is going to become a massive issue once the analog 3g networks go down.

In other countries its easier to recommend the xaiomi/remdi phones.

Sorry, I don't understand what you are saying here. Can you flesh it out a bit? AFAIK all the current Qualcomms (that cover the proper bands) work with LTE and all the ones that I have used support VoLTE even in custom ROMs. Is there some sort of iminent change that I am unaware of that will affect this? From my understanding VoLTE is a chipest feature, so I would think most or all phones that share a common chipset that works in a particular region will work no matter what brand of phone they are in.

For instance, the Qualcomm chipset that my current phone has is in many other brands, including the Motorola Z2 Play. Are you saying that this phone will not be supported in the near future due to network changes?

 

[tehpope]

I'm looking for a 'more privacy-minded' phone.
I don't want a phone that leaks an endless stream of my location and internet history.
Is there such a phone?
...as an alternative, is there a phone that is JUST a phone and an SMS client - no internet ?

For the former: https://kiwifarms.net/threads/is-the-pinephone-any-good.73458/

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/anyone-using-e-os-its-a-de-googled-version-of-android.75170/

For the latter: A lot of carriers still carry flip phones. Just make sure it has 4g support. 3g is on its way out since 5g is here.

 

[Margo Martindale]

I'm looking for a 'more privacy-minded' phone.
I don't want a phone that leaks an endless stream of my location and internet history.
Is there such a phone?
...as an alternative, is there a phone that is JUST a phone and an SMS client - no internet ?

Pinephone. Also avoid anything chinese

 

[DNA_JACKED]

Sorry, I don't understand what you are saying here. Can you flesh it out a bit? AFAIK all the current Qualcomms (that cover the proper bands) work with LTE and all the ones that I have used support VoLTE even in custom ROMs. Is there some sort of iminent change that I am unaware of that will affect this? From my understanding VoLTE is a chipest feature, so I would think most or all phones that share a common chipset that works in a particular region will work no matter what brand of phone they are in.

For instance, the Qualcomm chipset that my current phone has is in many other brands, including the Motorola Z2 Play. Are you saying that this phone will not be supported in the near future due to network changes?

Hypothetically any Qualcomm chipset or any brand with the proper band should work with VoLTE without issue. It's all software based.

However, networks can be utter fucking dicks. ATT and Verizon will absolutely not allow VoLTE on your phone unless its a branded android phone, and iphone, or on their comically small list of supported BYOD phones. ATT in particular has a stupid list, with huge gaps in what is considered supported. https://www.att.com/ecms/dam/att/co...Capabilities-Unlocked-Devices-ATT-Network.pdf . Verizon's list is a bit mroe complete, but has more caveats, IE only CDMA versions of phones will support VoLTE, like the iphone 7. Many android phones will only support VoLTE if they are the verizon edition, but there is 0 consistency here.

Now, unless Verizon/ATT pull a T mobile and just...allow VoLTE (like a normal carrier) these chinese xaiomi phones will NEVER being on the official support lists.

 

[tehpope]

Pinephone. Also avoid anything chinese

So one is basically limited to Samsung (Korea), Apple (USA), Google (USA), or Nokia (Norway)? There's probably a few more brands but most you see in the US are from Chinese companies.

 

[Orange Rhymer]

Pinephone. Also avoid anything chinese

Are the Pines compat with US providers? How do I switch over w/o my carrier giving me shit?
Also,
Completely out of stock.
I have a dying phone, no landline. I hope it's in stock soon...

Apologies: Just saw your reply. I will start asking about the Pine in the other thread.

 

[Lord Xenu]

Hypothetically any Qualcomm chipset or any brand with the proper band should work with VoLTE without issue. It's all software based.

However, networks can be utter fucking dicks. ATT and Verizon will absolutely not allow VoLTE on your phone unless its a branded android phone, and iphone, or on their comically small list of supported BYOD phones. ATT in particular has a stupid list, with huge gaps in what is considered supported. https://www.att.com/ecms/dam/att/co...Capabilities-Unlocked-Devices-ATT-Network.pdf . Verizon's list is a bit mroe complete, but has more caveats, IE only CDMA versions of phones will support VoLTE, like the iphone 7. Many android phones will only support VoLTE if they are the verizon edition, but there is 0 consistency here.

Now, unless Verizon/ATT pull a T mobile and just...allow VoLTE (like a normal carrier) these chinese xaiomi phones will NEVER being on the official support lists.

Got it, I have never used VoLTE, but I have been using custom ROMs since Android 2 (Eclair), and lots of overseas carriers were supporting VoLTE even back then and it was an issue, but I know that it had been ironed out as constant problem in ROMs a long time ago.

On the plus side, every OnePlus phone since 6T is on the supported list so that's a small consolation. I do wonder how they intend to accept/reject supported phones and whether that is robust enough to stop people from using it. I know there is a Magisk Module that enables VoLTE for phones unsupported networks, but like I said I have never needed to use the feature.

 

[XYZpdq]

So one is basically limited to Samsung (Korea), Apple (USA), Google (USA), or Nokia (Norway)? There's probably a few more brands but most you see in the US are from Chinese companies.

I never bothered to look into it much, but doesn't basically every non-China company get parts from China anyway?

 

[White Devil]

So one is basically limited to Samsung (Korea), Apple (USA), Google (USA), or Nokia (Norway)? There's probably a few more brands but most you see in the US are from Chinese companies.

Nokia used to be Finland, but is now Chinese. I used to use one of their smart phones a couple years ago and deep dived into how all the software on them is Chinese because a Chinese company owns the company that owns Nokia now.