Which Phone Do you Use? Why?

[NETWizz]

Which phone(s) do you use and why? Do you like it/them?

 

[sapphirescales]

iPhone, no question. I hate Apple and I don't like or use their computers but Android phones are so full of garbage and have never been reliable for me. The last Android phone I bought was the Note 8 and it had so much crap on it that it was slow/stuttery out of the box. I tried disabling things and the phone no longer worked right after that so I just returned it.

I thought about the Pixel or other Android phone that has limited garbage on it, but I don't like Google's services either and the Pixel isn't any cheaper than an iPhone, so why bother? If it were up to me I'd have a dumb phone and a small laptop/tablet for internet/GPS/texting. Unfortunately there are no reliable ways to link a phone with a computer/tablet. I've tried Apple's solution and I've tried Google's solution (Google Voice) and in both instances I've missed calls.

 

[Kitten Kong]

I used the original iPhone, then switched over to the Samsung galaxy. I've had the 1,3 5 7 and currently on the s9.

Love the phone, fantastic screen size, good camera quality, just xies everything I need.

 

[HFultzjr]

Android.......lower to mid range.
I just can't bring myself to pay Apple's prices.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

It's similar to the Apple vs Windows computers....
Apple doesn't do cheap ones. They control it. Decent hardware and not bloat
Androids..much like Microsoft, opened it up to all manufacturers..and allowed them to change it. So...you end up with cheap ones, full of custom crappy versions of Android with bloat and junk, medium ones, and good ones. So...you have to do your homework and research to find good ones. But most people don't, get a cheap one first (human instinct for some), hate it, complain, go and spend top dollar on an iPhone..and then praise it and bash Android because they got a cheap one. All without realizing there are good/great Androids out there they didn't have the brainpower to find.

In the past I've preferred Motorolas upper model Android phones, because they came more "lean and mean"...slim pure version of AndroidOS.
And once Google released the Pixel...pure love for it. Great camera quality, incredible battery life, great call quality, very stable. When upgrading phones, always so easy to "sign into Google and restore"...and BOOM all your stuff is back on the new phone, even memorized wireless networks. Wife and daughter always have iPhones..and always having issues, always worried about having a charger nearby and constantly having to plug in.

 

[carmen617]

99% of my clients have iPhones, and I am always "fixing" problems on them. For myself, I've never been able to stand the paternalistic Apple ecosystem and outrageous prices. Have been Android forever, started with Motorola and now have a Pixel. Don't really like Samsung that much, especially Bixby integration, but the more vanilla Moto and Pixel phones are a great combination of price/performance/flexibility for someone who can find their way around a few settings and use a discriminating eye in an app store.

 

[sorcerer]

Xaomi Redmi Note 9 for me and the wife has a Xaomi Mi A2 Lite.

Both great phones, stable, good quality in all aspects (phone, data and photos - my Note 9 has a 48MP quad camera and is excellent) and cheap too. Mine only cost £150 of our Great British Beer Tokens and is better than some at three times the price.

 

[HCHTech]

Definitely Android for me and my team. Google all the things, ha. Back when I took on my first tech, It allowed us an easier way to standardize, and we've had no reason to change since. We all share Google Contacts, Google Calendar, etc. I have Gmail, but it's not my primary address. It's also my least favorite Google offering. I have almost always bought at the top of their line, as I could easily appreciate @YeOldeStonecat 's argument. Currently, we have two Note 8's, 2 S8's and I use an S8+. We're with Verizon, so did the 2-year payment plan on everything, and just last month paid off the last one, so I'm hoping for another year before we replace everything again (now I just jinxed that plan!). I think next time, I'll buy everything upfront.

 

[HCHTech]

Great British Beer Tokens

Haha - awesome.

 

[SAFCasper]

Currently using an Xaiomi Mi 9T. Cost about £270 been using for 4-5 months with no complaints. Decent battery, good camera, fast enough for general usage (maybe not gaming I've never tried) and it just "feels" premium. Build quality is solid, slim bezel, glass back, fingerprint reader under the glass etc. If you hadn't heard of it and were handed the phone unbranded you would assume it was far more expensive.

It does have the usual bloatware crap though. Will probably flash it with a AOSP rom sometime down the road.


And sure, an iPhone/Galaxy would be faster, better camera etc. But I don't need any of that. I'm not a professional photographer and I've never had any issues with the Mi 9T being slow.

I also have nothing against iPhones other than price. £800+ for a phone is just insane to me, no matter who makes it.

 

[trevm999]

Pixel 2, still gets updates, can get them super cheap used.

 

[Your PCMD]

HUAWEI P40 Pro

Actually, I still use my Note 8. It's paid for. It gets updates. And most importantly, its still works flawlessly. Theres not a single chip/scratch on it either, and I dont even use a case. My wife has an S8 and under the same reasons I listed for mine.

We have Verizon (switched from ATT after 13 years) because cell service is top notch, always 5 bars. With ATT, we were lucky to hit 2 bars. We are thinking though of upgrading, but to what we don't know yet. Wife wants iPhone so we can facetime with the kids but me, not so much. I prefer to do what I want with my phone.

I have apps on my phone I use for business. Call Recorder and WiFi analyzers. Those are restricted and banned on Apple. I am however looking at the LG V60. That thing is gorgeous. A buddy of mine has it and its a work of art and works very well. Pictures are way better than Samsungs. Video is as well. So if I upgrade, I'd probably go for the V60.

 

[Diggs]

I'm a long time Moto user that recently changed to a Pixel. Love it.

 

[britechguy]

Among my immediate family we have one Samsung A70, and the rest are Xiaomi Redmi Notes 2, 4, 7, 8, and 9. The last three generations of the Xiaomi run rings around the Sammy (which also costs significantly more) but how do you tell a teenage girl that a brand her friends have never heard of is socially acceptable?

I had a Galaxy S7 and replaced that with a Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro. I got my partner a Redmi 5 Plus. Great phones, and I have continued getting MIUI (Xiaomi's House Brand of Android) updates for a couple of years now, though I think the 5 Plus has reached the end of its OS update line. Both definitely still get security patches and app updates.

After having had to work with iPhones many times with my blind clients, as in the early days of smartphone accessibility VoiceOver was king, I learned to dislike that hardware as much as any other Apple product.

Android phones are available from dirt cheap to ultra-flagship, and most of the middle ground will meet the needs of any typical smartphone user. It also allows you to customize so much more than iOS does, but that's no surprise, either.

What's funny is that certain brands tend to dominate in certain markets. Xiaomi is almost unheard of in the USA to this day, but it's huge throughout Asia.

 

[Philippe]

If it were up to me I'd have a dumb phone and a small laptop/tablet for internet/GPS/texting

Exactly my setup. Don't have time to play with these so called smartphones

 

[britechguy]

Exactly my setup. Don't have time to play with these so called smartphones

One can use that setup even if one has a smartphone.

I do virtually all of my texting using Google Hangouts with my Google Voice number, and from the laptop. But I wouldn't want to have to carry my laptop at all times.

One can have the best of both worlds, and the smartphone is very handy "in a pinch" for all sorts of things.

No one is forced to use a single feature or app on a smartphone that they have no use for, and you can either nuke many apps or, at the very least, remove them from any home screen. I've done radical simplification on client phones on more than one occasion.

 

[overburnz]

iPhone XS Max here, i’ve had android and iPhone and by far, for me , iOS experience is much better and more reliable than any android, I’ve had a nexus 5 (awesome phone) but limited to android 6 so I sold it and got an iPhone 5s, then 6s, 7 and trade it for a Samsung s8 edge because of the better quality camera, used it for 2 days (not for me!) the went back to iPhone 7, 7 plus and now XS max, love iOS! And macOS also and Apple TV 4K has a streaming device (for me Apple ecosystem is better then everything else
I’ve tried!)

 

[Markverhyden]

My mobile phone days go back to bag phones so I've seen the gamut. I guess the Moto Razr3 was the first smartphone I used. Still one of my favorites. With the touch screen stuff I started with the iPhone 3. Being the doting father I am I finally succumbed to my daughter's entreaties about iPhones. Of having Apple made it easy as well. So I've had iPhones up until a couple of months ago. I needed a local phone number when I moved down here so I got an Android, Samsung S10e. While the interface is a bit different I really do like the battery life compared to the iPhones.

 

[NETWizz]

As a child I borrowed one of my parent’s Cingular carrier flip phones in the early 2000’s, and it worked on GSM with the terrible speaker buzz. At any rate my first job provided a Verizon flipphone and the service was vastly superior.

at some point Cingular became AT&T and maybe 2006 I got a Motorola Razer on AT&T. Coverage was so-so. I moved in 2008 and had virtually no coverage but friends with a Verizon did, so I switched and paid something obnoxious like $50 for 450 minutes and $0.10 per text, but it worked and SMS didn’t really use any data which I had none. That was on a Razr 2. At some point I got 900 minutes, which was finally enough not to freak, and some text message package that allowed maybe 100 texts. Used to irritate me when friends would send like 20 texts and it would cost me $2 to receive them, lol.

At some point it became unlimited talk and text maybe 250 Mb of data for about $40, which I used only for MMS messages and sported an LG Cosmos, Cosmos 2, and Cosmos 3 slide phone with a keyboard.

At work I got a Blackberry with trackball (Altel) which became Verizon then I got a Blackberry with trackpad. Next was an iPhone 4, 4s, 5c, and 6s all on Verizon, and I did not pay for them... no real desire to upgrade because I don’t run apps keeping work separate. I did run certain apps for a while.


****

fast forward a couple weeks ago my LG Cosmos 3 from 2015 or 2014 has been having battery problems despite a few replacements, it shuts off if you set it down wrong, charger falls out... it’s in real rough shape. Probably didn’t help it falling 22’ onto concrete though!

I made the change to Android!

It is crazy different than the iPhone, and I am cheap. I bought a Nokia 4.2 for $128 out the door. Tried a friend’s Motorola g7 Power that he retired that costs twice as much, and the Nokia 4.2 is better.

Ehar I like about the Nokia 4.2 is it has near field, runs Android 10, and has Android One simply meaning Google maintains the software updates, so it gets updates and patches faster than many phones that cost four times more and it is not loaded with crap.

That said, securing it, changing all sorts of settings including APN, how MMS vs SMS work for group messages etc. has taken a lot out of me. It was hell there are so many options and it is a bit quirky. To get backup working I had to disable screen lock delete my pin, fingerprints, etc.., but now it works re enabled. Go figure. Face unlock doesn’t really work well. The finger print reader is awkward on the back, but otherwise it is okay.

The apps are fine etc.

I think if I continue with Android for years, my next phone will be a Pixel because it just needs to work. It was as much work as setting up a desktop computer migration. Everything from migrating Google Authenticator To my address book.

I used google address book with gmail for years, which is nice, but my Cosmos doesn’t sync. In the past I could use Backup Assist, then download a CSV from Verizon, and import to Google Contacts. That was the plan, but the CSV export is gone since like 2014. I had to manually move a bunch of contacts.

it was hell!

 

[GTP]

I get phones given to me all the time so I'm currently using a Samsung S9.

I use it to make /receive calls, send/receive texts, take the occasional photo and play Pokemon Go.
I have it firewalled, run Emsisoft Mobile Security and JottaCloud and everything that can be disabled is disabled or blocked by the firewall.
Any other use I'm not interested in.

I also have a Samsung S6, firewalled, EMS, and everything disabled. I dont use it for anything other than Pokemon Go. No calls. No messages.

Email? Internet? Thats why I have a PC.

Edit to add: I would have to be in Hell about to be roasted before I would even consider using an iPhone.