why is buying a cell phone so annoying

[cahn]

My cell phone is slowly dying by inches, and although I think it could last for quite a while, I was reminded recently that as we don't know what will happen as things open up, second waves happen, supply chains, etc. I should probably get a new one now rather than be stranded later.

So I have narrowed it down to the Samsung A51 and the Google Pixel 3a.

A51 pros:
Expandable memory
bigger battery

A51 cons:
Too big
Kind of... just okay. It seems like a decent phone but there's nothing that super impresses me about it
Samsung comes with all kinds of bloatware
Camera has too many megapixels and apparently won't let you pick how big you want your pics to be
Camera is not great in low/inside light, which is a large percentage of my pics

Pixel pros:
Right form factor
Google is probably a bit smoother than Samsung
Will continue to get google updates for at least a couple of years, which is not at all clear for the Samsung phones
Everyone agrees it has an amazing camera, which is my #2 criteria for a smartphone (the #1 use is as a phone, of course)

Pixel cons:
No expandable memory
Decent battery but smaller than A51
Pixel 4a is coming out soon
A number of users have reported problems with the speaker where they either can't hear the call or the caller can't hear them (which, uh, see my #1 criteria)

So as far as I can tell it is a minority of people who have this problem, but it's not like one or two people, it's a bunch, probably several percent. Ordinarily, I'd roll the dice and take my chances with those odds, but I am also moving from a micro Sim card to a nano Sim card and I don't have any other phones at this point that take that kind of card. So if it dies or has to be fixed I'm stuck in the same situation where I don't have a phone, which is the whole reason I'm buying a phone to start with! And because people report finding this problem after 6 months or so, I don't think I can go with the Pixel 4a either, just in case.

I think I have to go with the Samsung this time, even though I really really want the Pixel. I guess since phones don't have replaceable batteries any more (I have been holding to my Samsung S5's for forever because it's the last generation of replaceable-battery phone) the battery will start dying in a couple of years and I'll have to get a new phone anyway, but I feel like I'm not so excited about this line of thought :P

Anyone have either of these phones and like/dislike them? Other thoughts on phones?

Comments

[thistleingrey]

My flagship Samsung phones have had updates for 2-2.75 years, each time. (S3, S5, S7, and now S10. Before then, I had Google's G1 and G2.) I've no idea how the non-top-tier phones go, which includes the A51.

I have a Pixel 3a as a tiny work-only device (my choice and my $), which I have not used for voice calls at all. The speaker works for Spotify, but if the issue is in the software that handles phone usage specifically, that wouldn't matter. I think the battery life is pretty good: it's not only capacity but how well the device manages screen brightness, background app use, etc. Samsung has more cruft (I have manually disabled several apps that I never use), but it does currently have better battery management than a Google Experience device; even so, the 3a is pretty good there, IMO.

It's kind of a dieroll whether the 4a will outdo the 3a meaningfully in factors that matter to you. The 3a is better than the 2 for my purposes, but the 2 was/is better than the flat 3, for me, soooooo....

Good luck choosing!

[cahn]

Heh, I think the only flagship phone I've gotten while it was still a flagship was the S4 (the two S5's were bought refurb well after release date), and okay, yes, I think it did update for a couple of years.

The speaker thing appears to be a hardware issue (or at least that seems to be the general consensus among people who have had this problem), so it's good to know that yours at least is working!

Hmm, I think maybe I can wait for the Pixel 4a and figure out out then, if the rumors are true and it's going to come out at the beginning of June...

[sophia_sol]

My main thoughts on phones is that buying them suuuucks and that phone designers tend not to have the same priorities as me, so you have my sympathies in trying to make this choice! Given your priorities in using a phone, I think you're right that it makes sense for you to go with the Samsung, despite the various reasons to be unexcited about that choice.

[cahn]

ahahaha I feel VERY SIMILARLY to you. What are your priorities?

One of my big priorities is REMOVABLE BATTERY, but I am finally coming to the conclusion that zero phone designers have this as a priority any more :P

[sophia_sol]

My priorities include:
- small enough to operate one-handed without any awkward thumb-stretching that makes losing my grip and dropping my phone more likely
- stable in appearance and function (OS changes are solely for improvement, not aesthetic alteration that I have to get used to)
- decent storage space or can accept memory cards to expand this
- no unremovable bloatware taking up storage space and distracting my visual attention from the things I actually care about
- long battery life
- doesn't save or share my personal data with anyone
- can survive being dropped on hard surfaces from a height on an extremely regular basis
- does the things I ask it to promptly, without throwing hissy fits
- has a headphone jack (I heard Apple phones don't anymore???? Outrageous!)
- reliable at connecting to (and staying connected to) wifi
- not subject to intentional limited lifespan; designed to be repairable
- made out of ethically sourced materials
- affordable to buy outright rather than locking me into a multi-year plan with high monthly payments

Basically, my primary use for my phone is not as either a phone or a camera, but as an assistive devices to help me cope with issues caused by my ADHD, so prioritising making it easy to keep it on my person at all times and smooth to use are what encompass most of what's important to me.

The closest any of my phones have ever come to meeting my priorities is....only half this list.

[cahn]

*nods* Some of these are my priorities (small! WHY is it so hard to find a small phone. Easier these days than it was last time I was looking for a phone, but still) and some are not, but... I very much share the feeling of "phone designers are not in sync with me AT ALL."

[sophia_sol]

Yeah, I still think fondly of the days when I did not have a smartphone but instead had an ipod touch, because it was the PERFECT size. I eventually got a smartphone instead for a reason (I never remembered to keep my flip phone charged and OCCASIONALLY one does need to use a phone as a phone, and also having data capability is super nice), but I miss that ipod.

I think maybe part of the reason for the trend towards enormous phones is that for more and more people, their main computing device is their phone, and trying to do stuff on a really really tiny screen can be more challenging, so phones are more like mini-tablets these days than like. Phone-sized. Which is fine to have some products aiming at that market, but can't those of us who like small phones have SOMETHING to choose between????

[cahn]

Yessss! I had an ipod touch! I agree it was the perfect size.

IDK, I think maybe phone designers just didn't have a clue, because I think the pendulum is swinging back towards at least slightly smaller phones. When I last bought a phone I couldn't find any newly-made phone that was as small as my Samsung S5 (which is already fairly large, though not a behemoth) and now there seem to be a few at least. Though not as small as the ipod touch, to be sure :P

[sophia_sol]

Oh that's exciting to think it might be going the other direction finally! Of the various smartphones I have had in my life, every single one has been larger than the last and it's just getting ridiculous.

[allmyfansquees]

If the SIM card is really the main sticking point for you, I'd say that every card I've had in the last five years (both my main contract card and cards that I've rented in the US/Japan/elsewhere for travel) has come in a little package with a mini and micro plastic frame in which to stick a nano-sized SIM. If you hang onto that when the new card arrives, then you'll have a emergency back-up of the right size :)

[cahn]

OH! this is excellent!! Thank you! All right, I think I have a path forward, YAY :D

I'm really glad I posted about this and that you told me about this!

[mildred_of_midgard]

Can't speak to the Pixel 3, but I've had the 2XL for over two years now, and am very pleased. I got the one with 128 GB, so the lack of expandable memory hasn't been a problem yet, plus there's always cloud storage.

[cahn]

Yeah, I thiiiiink even 64G should last me for a while. I think my current phone only has 64G even with the SD card (when I tried to use larger ones it got very unhappy -- yes I need a new phone :P )

My current Samsung phone has the really irritating property that it core dumps into the phone memory into a spot where I can't get at it without rooting the phone, which I would be willing to do except that I have the Verizon-compliant model that internet research has told me is apparently super-hard and possibly impossible to root. So I am constantly running out of memory and it's really fortunate it has an SD slot. (And yes, wiping the entire phone would fix this problem, but I'm not really happy about doing that.) However, I suppose I do trust google to be better about that kind of thing :P

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, dear lord, that is not an acceptable bug!

[cahn]

...yeah, it is definitely a testament to my Unwillingness to Buy New Phones that I have just been like "huh, this sucks but I can probably put up with it for a while." Now that I'm researching new phones I'm like... actually... why am I living with this when I don't need to??

[mildred_of_midgard]

Have you seen this? You reminded me of it. ;)

[cahn]

lol!

In general I don't have problems buying new things (though D does because he has to do Lots of Research and Optimize His Choices and it takes literally years -- getting a new dishwasher took less than a year, but only because I told him he had to wash all the dishes until we got one and it still took him months!) but cell phones are sort of a special case. I think I never really got over the idea that phones ought to be cheap, so I will hang on to a phone well after a normal person considers it unusable, in order to squeeze that last little bit of amortized cost out. (The cell phone makers may have cured me of that by making removable batteries a thing of the past -- before, I could squeeze out another couple of years out of a phone by buying a new battery, but I can't do that anymore.)

Now, that school entry by the same DW person reminded me of you :P

[eglantiere]

i don't have any opinions on those two, but in 'other thoughts' might i wave the OnePlus phones flag? they're expensive but not flagship-expensive, and i bought mine couple of years ago and it's still ticking along very well, has virtually endless memory, is fast like lighting, no weird bugs, great camera, keeps the charge for at least half a day of full use and a full day of moderate use, charges in under an hour, et cetera, et cetera - basically it's a phone that doesn't bring my attention to itself, and works very well and seems to last, so i am now a brand believer.

[cahn]

Ohhhhh. That sounds fantastic. They look a little big size-wise, but so is the Samsung, and everything else is basically what I want way more than the Samsung. Thank you!

[eglantiere]

hope they work for you! and btw, i've just checked and apparently we're at oneplus 8 by now? whereas what i have one 5t, and it's more or less a perfect phone as it is, as far as i'm concerned - perhaps if you can find it, it will be much less expensive than the current models.

[cahn]

Hmm, okay, 5t looks great but it is hard for me to find one that works with my carrier, and I went with a smaller phone than the 8 for this time, but I am definitely keeping oneplus as an entirely viable option -- hopefully they will go to smaller phones again soon and then I will be totally sold!