Buying a bottom of the line phone was a mistake
I have written several times about how I am not stingy, but there are certain things in life that I refuse to buy the latest and greatest of. One of these things is mobile phones. When I accidentally destroyed my old phone by it getting wet, I went a week without having a phone and it was actually kind of nice to not be able to be gotten in touch with during that time. Therefore, when I finally relented and went to go and get a new phone, I wasn't really enthusiastic about getting one that had all the latest features that are available.
I've always kind of thought that friends of mine who would spend $1000 on a phone, particularly when these same friends are the people I know that are usually in financial dire straits, were idiots. Therefore, when it came time for me to purchase a phone I was looking exclusively at the cheapest ones that the store had. The phones were arranged in cabinets by price points, and the only cabinet that I was looking at was the ones that were barely smart phones at all. The only cabinet to the right (where even cheaper ones were kept) were flip phones or just phone that have no app features at all. I was unaware phones like this still existed.
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Although the thought did occur to me to maybe get one of these I need access to 2FA and they can't do that. So I went to the left and was talking to the sales person and simply told them that I would buy ANY of the phones that would work with both my Thai and my Vietnamese simcards. We tried a few of them and eventually landed on the Samsung A03. This phone was just a little bit over $100 dollars and I played with it for a little while and thought "yeah, this is fine." Well here we are less than a year later and I seriously regret this purchase.
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Since I am not a heavy user of anything on a phone I figured that I wouldn't care how slow it is and at least at first, I was ok with it being very low-powered. I am NOT envious of people that have $1000 phones that can do all sorts of cool but useless crap but I made a mistake by not buying at least a mid-range phone.
For starters, this phone takes absolute ages to do almost anything. I frequently sit there as it stalls trying to do something simple like just open a messaging app. Then, even though I am not a fast finger typer anyway, the phone frequently hangs and can't keep up with how fast I am typing.... which is not fast.
Also, and this should surprise absolutely no one, it takes terrible pictures and video. Combine this with the fact that simply opening the camera app takes quite some time and now I don't really even bother to take many photos at all. My old phone, which was a Huawei something or other, had a fingerprint login that was super convenient in my mind because it was right where your finger would be if you were holding the phone in a normal fashion anyway. With the Samsung A03 you basically have to use the old school password login, which is a huge pain in the ass. It technically has facial recognition, which I am not a fan of anyway, but 95% of the time it doesn't recognize me and I have to enter the password anyway.
To make matters worse, apps will frequently crash and this is really annoying in situations like when I accidentally call someone instead and I am incapable of cancelling the call because the phone is shit slow.
Next week I am going to make my way to the mobile shop and get something more middle of the road. I REFUSE to spend $1000 on a phone no matter what features it has.
The crazy thing about this phone is that it is by far the cheapest phone I have ever had yet it is the only one that I have not damaged at all. The screen is in perfect condition whereas every other phone I have ever had has ended up broken at one point or another. I don't even have a protective case for it either.
So I suppose I have learned a bit of a lesson here. The cheapest of something out there at least as far as technology is concerned is probably just a waste of money. At least this lesson only ended up costing me $120 or so but I think in the future I will do a bit more research than just running down the store and buying whatever works.
I will not trade in this phone but instead just leave it in a drawer somewhere in my house as a backup for 2FA and really, nothing else.
Lesson learned I guess!
Midrange is absolutely the way to go unless for some weird reason you really need whatever the latest expensive stuff does. I have a redmi note 9 pro that I admit has really lasted. Four years in now and I think it's only just starting to show it's wear in the battery. I don't have a phone case for it, never do use those. I'm usually more careful and don't drop my stuff, but the build quality in this hasn't been bad at all in the few times I have dropped it and it realistically should've shattered.
This was kind of my first foray into getting the worst possible phone and I felt like a real trailblazer when I was doing it, like I was trying to prove a point to all of my friends that I felt were spending way too much money on phones but I'm with you on mid-range. The latest and greatest is always overpriced but I think I'm just gonna find out what was the latest thing LAST YEAR and get that one next. The cheap ones, well, I don't think they even really have the power to run the apps that come pre-installed on them and the manufacturer knows this.
I feel those phones are more focused at the less fortunate, and especially the elderly. I was like you in discovering that they're actually a thing still, and that was when I travelled out of Europe and started to notice the income differences. I looked around and started seeing those phones more and more, mostly in the hands of the elderly that just needed something that can accept and make calls every now and then.
I do think once this phone kicks the bucket I might actually upgrade a little. I don't care for phones with "good" cameras since I use an actual camera for everything photography. The main thing for me is battery life and storage, since app bloat is massive these days. And longevity in the battery means it'll hopefully last years. 128GB these days just doesn't cut it.
I don't need a fantastic camera that doubles the price of the phone but something decent would be a nice touch. It shouldn't be surprising that on a $100 phone the pictures are trash and most of the time they are blurry unless I have perfect accidental lighting or something to stabilize it on like a table.
I found this article quite funny. I wasn't laughing at you. The funny part is I've done this before. Except I used to do this every year! I refuse to pay a grand for a phone that still makes calls, texts, and has internet access like mine does!
I used to "upgrade" and buy one of the cheapest phone brands every year, Alcatel.
They also costed less than $100 and were getting a little bigger and better and better every year! One specific year I remember the latest model costed $79! That one was great.
I never had any crippling experiences with them, mostly just very weird glitches. Eventually I decided to try out something a little "better" due to the contempt I was getting from anybody with an iPhone, even my family.
The better little somethings always felt orders of magnitude more advanced like a caveman leaping to the atomic age in a minute. I definitely feel this way after splurging over $500 on my last phone, the most I've ever spent on such a device but it's pretty cool. That's planned obsolescence for you...
My last phone before this one was about $400 and it lasted years. This new phone I haven't even had it one year and I need a new one. This phenomenon of planned obsolescence is a very real thing and I have found that it applies to laptops as well. I bought a $1200 laptop 7 years ago and it is just now starting to show signs of needing to be replaced. Prior to that, I would buy a new $400 laptop every 18 months or so... It just doesn't make sense to get the shitty ones for this type of thing.
I just bought a laptop around that price. I guess that's a good idea of how many solid years I have of high performance!
⋆ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʟᴀᴄᴇ ғᴏʀ sᴏᴜᴛʜᴇᴀsᴛ ᴀsɪᴀɴ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ ᴏɴ ʜɪᴠᴇ
⋆ sᴜʙsᴄʀɪʙᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀsᴇᴀɴ ʜɪᴠᴇ ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴛʏ
⋆ ғᴏʟʟᴏᴡ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀsᴇᴀɴ ʜɪᴠᴇ ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴛʏ ᴠᴏᴛɪɴɢ ᴛʀᴀɪʟ
⋆ ᴅᴇʟᴇɢᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ʟɪɴᴋs 25 ʜᴘ⇾50 ʜᴘ⇾100 ʜᴘ⇾500 ʜᴘ⇾1,000 ʜᴘ
I don't like to spend a ton of money on phones either, but since they are such a huge part of our lives these days, it is helpful to get something that is going to do the job. My phone is my book, newspaper, radio, television, computer, calculator, and a ton of other things on any given day. You should check out the site gsmarena. They allow you to compare all different kinds of phones so you can see what you want and what you need. I use that site every time before I upgrade my phone. OnePlus used to pride themselves on making phones that had the same features as the flagship phones but at a much lower cost. I've found their recent phones since the series 9 haven't really been that much cheaper though. That being said, I wouldn't hesitate to buy a OnePlus phone again. I also love my Google Pixel phones. I have had their high end ones and their stripped down versions and they have been great. I have never been too impressed with most of the Samsung phones I have gotten my hands on.
thanks for that, this will be very helpful.
I am not dedicated to any particular brand, there are a lot of things about Samsung that I do not like and I feel as though we are paying a premium because of their advertising budget. The only thing I really need is for the phone to respond quickly, and for it to have fingerprint unlocking. I simply hate entering codes and am not down with facial recognition just in a general sense... like using it for anything. I'm a bit of a privacy nut when it comes to shit like that.
I hope you find something good. If you are an android guy the Google Pixel phones are great with minimal to zero bloat-wear.
I like you never worried about the latest phones and was always happy with what I had and was reluctant for change if it worked. Until I got into crypto a phone was a phone and nothing else and now speed and 2FA is that important you cannot ignore it.
If it wasn't for 2FA and the fact that I honestly cannot contact any of the people I know outside of various messaging aps I wouldn't bother having a smartphone at all. I cannot stand the people in various social situations that are always pulling up shit on their phone. STOP IT! we came here to talk not to look at screens!