The Nokia XR21 also has a 3.5mm jack. It’s likely weaker performance-wise but it has a battery life of approximately 3 days so it won’t run out of juice as quickly.
Ah, coming from iPhone makes sense. You probably felt that an s10e was a “normal” sized phone. After all, it is larger than the mainline iPhones at that time. The Android market had already decided an s10e was a small phone for a niche market
Art, annotation, memos, hand drawn animation, business’y stuff of that nature
It kinda depends on the stylus though: Some are actual digitizers(pressure sensitivity for use as a paintbrush, some even recognize tilt and rotation for calligraphy) while others are just a rubber nib on a stick(rubber finger…on a stick…no electronics just rubber).
Is using the stylus really more efficient than typing your notes into your phone though? I guess it’s likely a preference thing but I’m amazed there’s that big of a market for that.
There are languages that are just not convenient to type on a keyboard. A stylus combined with a proper OCR keyboard app could read the handwriting and compose messages in a lot less time.
I like it for OneNote specifically; in a uni setting it’s nice to have a stylus handy to jot margin notes or drawings alongside my text input, do a non-rectangular crop on a photo I just took of the lecture slide to put in notes, or just idly doodle. Stylus pens are super smooth and gives me good brain feel when I do swooshy doodles.
True. Although looking back over the last five years, and even more so since COVID, the majority of the documents I’ve had to sign that were emailed to me have been secure digital signatures so I feel like even this advantage is becoming less relevant.
Tablets make total sense to me because the use for a tablet is different. I would use a stylus on a tablet with a larger screen. I wouldn’t use a stylus on my phone.
I’ve had situations where having a stylus even on the smaller screen of a phone wouod have been handy. Sketching with your finger is very crude. It’s not something I would pay a premium for and I wouldn’t want it robbing a bunch of space to fit it inside, but it would be a nice addition that I might use on and off.
Some people like to make art on their phone. Others like to use it for note taking. I came across a TikTok creator that has the S23 Ultra and he uses the stylus to edit/make photos and videos.
Sometimes I’m on the go and I need to highlight, underline and make comments on pdf files. A stylus makes these much easier. Other than that I’ve used it about once for taking a photo using the stylus when the camera was on a tripod.
It's great to quickly draw a diagram or something similar to explain something to someone. I could use pen and paper but I prefer doing it on my phone since it's already there. I don't do it daily but I enjoy having this option. When I was taking a break from the Galaxy Note lineup I was sorely missing it.
I got the version with the stylus of this phone solely because the version without the stylus didn’t have an NFC chip. The stylus is kinda neat though.
I've had a Galaxy Note 9 for a few years now and, at least in my use case, I rarely use the stylus. It's very convenient to have when I need to take notes in a meeting or something that I need to send a copy off somewhere, but day to day, I really only remember the stylus is there when I drop the phone and it pops out lol.
According to the article it’s only getting one year of Android version updates!? For a phone that normally sells for 400 US dollars, that’s just unacceptable.
Motorolas are my favorite type of phone. I’m never going to use Apple and Samsung phones are bloated with garbage I don’t want. It’s not like there’s another real option.
The third iteration of Nokia is back to building phones, and the smartphones they sell are part of the Android One program (stock Android, two years of updates guaranteed).
Yes, the Nokia X10. Worked rather well over the last two years, although the only thing I can compare it to are devices I got from work (mostly older Samsungs with a ton of crapware).
No, they are owned by HMD Global which is a company that was initially comprised mostly of former Nokia executives. They produce in China though (like everybody else).
The Nothing Phone is the only other real option, but it’s also one phone while Motorola has several options for several different price ranges. OnePlus is purely Chinese (I know Motorola isn’t perfect but it could be worse). Google Pixels aren’t cheap.
Belsimpel, T-Mobile or Tele2 in combination with any carrier plan.
I assume you’re not using a Prepaid plan but if you are then my comment was misleading. Everyone I know here has a carrier subscription so I usually list those prices (but with one-time payment for the phone).
Now that the 7A is out, 7 doesn’t seem to be getting discounts anymore.
Does the 7 has working Dual SIM support? On the 6 it’s broken since release. It’s 2 years now and still not fixed. Phone calls randomly drop and after 30 minutes or so the modem just crashes and needs both SIMs to be deactivated and actives again. Absolut shit show.
OnePlus may be Chinese but the OS has some privacy features like removing permissions for apps you don't use. Out of the Androids I've used, it has way more customisation than I expected.
OnePlus was fully designed and created in China while Motorola was bought out by Lenovo. Motorola is still fishy but it’s technically still an American company so I feel better about it. It’s just false hope that my data isn’t being stolen, privacy is dead anyways.
Alright :) In my opinion the companies are all not that trustworthy unfortunately. Because Motorola is not that good with updates it’s not the brand for me.
They have. OnePlus was great until the OnePlus 5. Now they have become just another premium smartphone brand. Same thing will happen to Nothing eventually.
I’m not doubting the hardware, but software is a real issue. Carriers are now pushing 36 month plans… what good is that if your device is basically out of date after 18 months.
Not a single phone has released their proprietory camera driver blobs in recent history. I wish that would happen. There will always be a loss of image quality in custom roms which don’t use the stock version on the phone.
Yeah, but pixels have a low market share unfortunately. Something like Samsung will have the majority market share in most countries. I had a one plus 5 and even with the gcam mod the image output was significantly low (pixels back then only had 12mp and the aspect ratio etc was terrible.)
I do blame them. I also blame google for not offering those features in android in the first place… A lot of custom rom features are available in the Samsung rom so I don’t really use rooted devices anymore.
Especially hate how android changed with their anti-call recording stance, which now requires root, exposed and an xposed module just for this basic feature. Samsung offers this out of the box.
The longer answer has to deal with the way that our cellular networks are set up. Most people “rent to own” their phones here and usually trade in their phone long before they get to the owning part.
Contracts are set up so you can get discounts, but only if you stay with the carrier for 2-3 years. The discounts are given as monthly credit towards your bill and if you pay off the phone early you forfeit all future credit.
This system allows for carriers to sell more expensive phones at rates that, while not low, most people will stomach. Phone manufacturers avoid selling good budget phones here and I think that’s a big part of the reason. Why sell a budget phone when you can probably convince someone to finance a flagship?
Now, as an enthusiast aware of other budget phones you might think importing might be an option, but that unfortunately isn’t the case. A couple years ago all the carriers here switched off using the 3G network for phone calls and instead we use Voice Over LTE (VoLTE). This new system requires cellular carriers to explicitly support phones/models for them to be able to make traditional phone calls. These support lists are not public and make it incredibly difficult to tell if a phone not sold by the carrier will function on their network. Gone are the days were you can just check the bands the phone supports and pop in a sim.
This got a bit long and probably was more me ranting than actually explaining anything, but I hope someone finds it at least a little bit informative
Yikes, I knew your systems were different, but holy hell I didn't expect all that. VoLTE is part of the GSM standards, how'd the USA carriers make it work like a proprietary system?
Bought one for my kid because he’s a little artist. Seems nice. I use a Pixel, but honestly I miss the moto “chop chop to turn on the flashlight” feature from my old Moto.
If you go to Settings -> System -> Gestures, there’s an option for “Quick tap to start actions”, one of the options is to turn on the flashlight when you double tap the back of the phone.
That is not an adequate replacement for chop chop.
The screen needs to be on for the pixel gesture to work. Chop chop can be done with the screen off
Tapping the back of the phone to the beat of music will turn on the flashlight by accident all the time. Chop chop is a very deliberate gesture
Tapping does not always register. Sometimes I need to do it 2 or 3 times to get the flashlight to turn on/off, the moto gestures were almost 100% reliable for me
I miss that flashlight thing too. Also on Pixel now but I used an app called edge gestures to activate my flashlight. I just swipe up on the edge of my screen and hold to activate/deactivate. Not as awesome but very functional. If course I use edge gestures for everything, calling/texting certain contacts, activating apps I use regularly, it’s such an awesome tool. Been using for years at this point and can’t imagine using my phone without it.
In case you didn’t know, Pixel phones also have a built in feature called quick tap that lets you toggle the flashlight (or do a few other things) by tapping the back of the phone twice.
I have the 2022 version of this phone, and it’s great value for money in the USA. Adequate performance, lots of internal storage, headphone jack, MicroSD slot, and good battery life. I didn’t buy it for the (crappy) stylus, I bought it for the good value for money.
The 2023 version most notably updates the SoC from SD695 to SD6g1, which is about 15-20% faster and more efficient. It also adds stereo speakers, which is nice. It seems like everything else is only a marginal change or the same from last year.
For that price point I’ve had a really good time with using Xiaomi phones. Specifically the Redmi Note series. They’re similarly cheap but they’re built well and feel expensive, not with a plastic case or anything like that.
I would love to see comparison to the Poco F1 which at the time had the same price. I suspect its pretty close, despite the 6 years gap. That being said, the F1 was unreal value at the time.
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