I have the Xperia Z3C, it lasts 48 hours.<p>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.
Sign me in. Just purchased Lenovo A5000 instead of moving from iPhone 4 to iPhone 6. Why?<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.)<p>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.
That's a serious downgrade, but I'm approaching this similarly, from way up.<p>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.<p>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'.<p>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.<p>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?
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).<p>And it cost me $35.
When I'm making a larger purchasing decision, I like to base it on my net worth. It makes things very clear.<p>Let's say you have a net worth of 25k, which seems about median for a 30 year old in the US.<p>So you're saying, I gotta spend 2% of my financial <i>existence</i> on a stinkin telephone? A nearly-guaranteed depreciating asset, at that!<p>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.<p>I personally rather spend higher percentages of my net worth building businesses and memories/experiences, not things.
"We deserve a smartphone that can last a whole day without charging"<p>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.<p>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.
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.
> "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"<p>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.<p>I would say that the title should be "Why I am happy downgrading from a $500 to a $75 Android "
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.<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/BLU-Advance-Unlocked-Phone-Black/dp/B00GXHPN1U" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/BLU-Advance-Unlocked-Phone-Black/dp/B0...</a>
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.<p>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.<p>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.
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!<p>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.
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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
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-<p>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.<p>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.<p>3. The phone would last forever, only you would have to change the battery in every two years.<p>4. It was rock solid. You could use it as alternative to stone to hit something.<p>5. After all, there is no more satisfying communication method than voice call. And there is no more satisfying game than snakes.<p>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.
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.<p>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.
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.
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).<p>I mean, seriously... THE DIALER APP?!?!?! Even a $10 Nokia has a stable dialer...
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):<p>1) don't <i>really</i> want a slower/more efficient processor (like Cortex A7/A53)<p>2) don't <i>really</i> want a smaller ~4.5" screen<p>3) don't <i>really</i> want a 960x540 or 800x480 resolution<p>If we could build a "premium" phone with <i>those</i> 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.
>Moto E image taken from its review on The Guardian<p>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.<p>Not that I think the Guardian would care... but still. Don't use other peoples images without permission.
For battery life: why not just bought an external battery like this: <a href="http://www.aukey.com/product/dual-usb-external-battery-pb014-black" rel="nofollow">http://www.aukey.com/product/dual-usb-external-battery-pb014...</a>?<p>Problem solved...
For battery life: why not buy an external battery like this: <a href="http://www.aukey.com/product/dual-usb-external-battery-pb014-black" rel="nofollow">http://www.aukey.com/product/dual-usb-external-battery-pb014...</a>?<p>Problem solved...