Previously on Lemmy:
Past Discussions:
Every hobbyist forum needs their own guides and resources, and we are no different. I think it’s finally time for us to all pitch in and make an Android buying guide that’s 100% Lemmy over the next couple of weeks, since buying recommendations are commonly requested here, and it’s also a way for us to get more friends to talk Android with.
So, over the next couple of weeks, we are going make our own guide piece by piece: Low-end, Midrange, High-end, and Android Accessories.
We are going to use the following price range definition in terms of USD, use this as a general guideline for price range estimates in your local currency, (Probably not a direct conversion, since purchasing powers are different in different countries.)
- Low-end: 0-300 USD
- Midrange: 300-700 USD
- High End: 700+ USD
Rules are simple:
-
For all top-level comments, you should include the model and brand of the phone, your own recommended price range (i.e. This phone would be a good deal at 200 dollars, OK at 250, but a terrible deal at 300.), and anything else you would like to add to justify your recommendations.
-
No direct links to products. Prices changes too much, and having affiliate links opens up another can of worms about how sincere our recommendation intentions are.
And we are going to start with the hardest price range to recommend first: Midrange.
Have fun.
Welp, this is a category that’s difficult alright, partly because of differences in PPP that’ll make it hard to define. Bottom and top are easy, since there’s always a clear ceiling and floor.
I’ll go with something more universal: Samsung Galaxy A54. The build quality is nicer than my A52s (the outer frame is more solid and doesn’t have the occasional flex that some units get), and the Exynos SoC in this one is fast enough. Going back to a 19.5:9 aspect ratio screen means it’s also more useful on the wider end. Like most of the A50 series, great battery life too. Alas no more headphone jack since the A53. Still has a micro SD card slot. OIS on a 2/3" image sensor. Almost perfect otherwise. Cheap too, can get it for US$350 for the 256GB variant.
What is PPP
Purchasing power parity, basically, a comparison of how much of the same thing a particular currency can buy.
Yeah, Samsung phones availability globally has been great in my experience. The only pain point is they didn’t have a global warranty.
There’s a little bit of reasoning behind this, Samsung has set up a little bit of regional pricing for their phones. As an example I recently bought the Fold5 1TB for USD 1773. And that price is after taxes. Before tax it’s around USD 1600.
So I basically got a USD 560 price difference for the phone.
Yea, same. The Fold 5 in my region has started dropping in price and the base 256 GB is almost at US1k. That’s basically a tablet and a phone together. I expect more price drops by the end of the year.
Maybe I should have started with an easier price range…
Are the Samsung midrange worthwhile to use now? A few years ago, the advice I got was that Samsung’s top end are excellent, whereas their midrange are generally not as good as the Chinese brands.
Yea, the double digit A series were a revamp of the original A line in response to the Chinese makers. As someone with easy access to Chinese phones, I switched from a Mi 9T to an A52s. I have to say the Samsung comes with a lot of pluses, like timely security updates. The only real downside so far has been the haptics: The vibration motor on the A52s is not good.
How is battery life and heating issues compared to A52s, which comes with snapdragon chip?
I switched from a pixel 6 to an A53. I lease my phones through T-Mobile with jump on demand, so I can switch pretty often if I want to (I hate doing it. I like finding a decent phone and sticking to it), and I’m thinking about switching again. The A53 is super laggy, and it crashes frequently, as well as a weird thing with WiFi becoming super slow unless I restart
Any idea if the 54 is better? I’d like to stick to Samsung if possible, because I have a Samsung tablet and they work well together. I really miss LG. :(
My work phone is an A53, don’t have anything remotely like your issues. In fact I’ve used low end phones on Snapdragon 400-series SoCs before, and while they’re slower, they don’t lag or crash. I’ve always wondered why people have issues with their phones…
Hmm. That’s weird. Me, my mom and my dad all have the same phone. I try to keep them on whatever I’m on to make trouble shooting over the phone easier when they call me with problems. Both of them report laggyness, too.
Eta
I should clarify, until recently, I’ve been used to higher end phones. The note series and whatever flagship LG was rocking when I was off the notes. Maybe I’m just spoiled?
Still doesn’t explain the crashes. Mine has been pretty rock solid.
Day-to-day stuff like browsing web pages and using social media shouldn’t have much of a difference, especially if you moved from say, a Snapdragon 845 to a SD 778G. I went from a Snapdragon 820 to a 730g and the latter was definitely faster, so dropping down a class level or two may not make a difference if the generation gap is big enough.