I hate phones
I'm trying to figure out which phone to buy to replace my old Samsung Galaxy A3 with. Android 8, woefully lacking in storage space, and falling apart. Yeah, definitely needs replacing.
So I've been looking around. Glanced at the S20 FE and A33, both suggested by people I know. Then glanced over at the A53, even debated A52, but either they're too pricy or there's something not quite right in the reviews I've read that makes me hesistant to throw a lot of money at it.
I am still of the opinion that phones shouldn't be expensive. 200-ish euro should be fine enough.
I'm so tempted to just go eff it and buy an A13 4G instead. 175 euro, seems still sane, and the phone is in every aspect an improvement on my old A3 that I've managed to use for almost 5 years now. :P
I really will need to make a decision by tomorrow when it's Cyber Frigging Monday. I am hugely disappointed at the 'discounts' given so far around here.
#Phone #Mobile #Samsung
I absolutely hate phones
I finally managed to make a darn decision and ordered one. Should get it in a couple days. :P
(A33 5G for those who are curious)
I hate phones
@trinsec You guys can't get Pixel phones in the Netherlands, can you?
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@obi We can, but they don't have an MicroSD card slot, so that's a dealbreaker for me.
The #1 reason for me to upgrade is storage space shortage. I highly doubt that 128GB will be enough.
Ok, it's the #2 reason, as #1 is the Android version.
I hate phones
@trinsec Oh wow. I have had the 4a for over 3 years and have 30GB out of 128GB used. But I have server under my desk that all my data transfers to, so I guess thats why haha. Never thought about storage issues. OnePlus Nord or Samsung A23?
I hate phones
@obi There's an A23? I'll have to check out that one then.
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@obi I just checked the specs and the price of the A23 here. At the current price (240 euro) I might as well go A33 (266).
I'm surprised that it got a Snapdragon CPU though. Weird thing also is that I don't seem to find any user experience on it on my local tech forum.
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@trinsec Not Exynos?
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I thought that weird as well. But you know what I find weirder? Samsung's own site doesn't list the specific CPU in the specifications of the A23.
But on https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/1848902/samsung-galaxy-a23-5g-4gb-ram-128gb-opslag-zwart/specificaties/ (Dutch biggest tech site) it's listed as having a Snapdragon 695.
I hate phones
@trinsec Something screwy is going on there.
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@obi gsmarena.com does mention a Snapdragon 695 too. So that's probably correct.
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@trinsec not at my PC anymore, but the video review I watched said exynos. Usually exynos would be for Asia and EU, Snapdragon NA, so having the snapdragon available in your area seems backwards. Weird.
I hate phones
@obi Yeah. The Exynos I've not heard great stories about for the A53, it's said to be lagging terribly.
But I've also read here and there that with an update from October the lag's largely gone. And with turning off some features like menu animations and such (I'd turn that off anyway), that it's largely fixed.
But it's said that the Exynos 1280 (which both A33 and A53 have) is about 33% slower than the Snapdragon 778G of the A52. The A53 also has a 120Hz screen which might worsen the situation, though I'd probably just put it to 60Hz if that fixes it.
Mm, kinda wish I knew someone with personal experience with an A53 to ask questions to. It still looks good on paper, just the reports of 'IT IS SLOW! IT LAGS! IT STUTTERS!' isn't looking good to me.
I hate phones
@trinsec I guess I keep going back to the S20FE as your best option lol.
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@obi Except I find 375 euro for a model of last year a bit ... I'm a cheapskate, truly!
I hate phones
@trinsec Refurb??
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@obi I checked, there is no refurb available of the S20 FE in our list. I'm a little bit wary of refurbs though.
I hate phones
@obi Oh, and it's a model from 2020 I see, so a shorter update cycle left. I'm not really in favor of that I'm afraid. Buddy suggested it to me but he's got an S20 and he's already had it for years, so it's easier for him to say that. ;)
I hate phones
@trinsec Hmmmm. Dang. I'm out of ideas except Nord.
I hate phones
@trinsec Nord is 2020 too, Oneplus seems better with updates but this still won't be good for what you need.
I GIVE UP LOL
I hate phones
@obi I KNOW! THIS IS FRUSTRATING!
I hate phones!
I hate phones
@trinsec Amazon has it new for cyberMonday in the U.S. for $25 ($349)more than the A53. Not sure about over there. Refurb it's $256
I hate phones
Ooh! Yay, I've got a couple questions:
- I've read about people just scrolling websites and the screen regularly stuttering during that. The whole interface feels slow and starting up apps would take a second or two to load. Camera is also sluggish, and people tended to miss the perfect camera moment by having a slow camera there.
I've also read that during an October update and turning off features fixes most if not all of them. But those reports are less abundant. You're not having any moment that you think 'darn, I wish this thing was faster'?
From reports of people online I saw frustration and that people were disappointed in the speed, and that they regretted buying it and would love to swap it for other phones. That's a bit scary for me for that price.
- How's the vibration of the phone? Is it pretty strong, or is it more like a zooming of a washing machine (which means less attention grabbing than a RAKTATATA vibration)?
re: I hate phones
@trinsec @obi Okay, I can only tell you my experience with a phone bought direct from Samsung in the UK (so, I presume Exynos processor 🤷♂️ ).
I have not experienced stuttering when scrolling through websites, although that may be something that I've just adjusted to. I'm not the sort of person to inspect whether my phone is hitting 120Hz constantly etc. I would not say that the interface feels slow. The exception is the camera, but I'll expand on that later.
I, personally, have never thought "I wish this phone was faster". I would say that it's the fastest phone that I've owned, however, I have never owned a "flagship" phone, so my point of reference is only mid-range and less.
re: I hate phones
This sounds pretty hopeful so far. When'd you acquire the phone? And yeah I'm not asking for checking whether it's actually 120Hz, just your user experience with it. A stuttering would be noticeable.
I never owned a flagship either. I mean, I'm living with an ancient A3 for almost 5 years now. ;)
I'll eagerly await your camera expansion.
re: I hate phones
@trinsec I've had it since April. In terms of the web browsing, I use Edge (don't judge me!) with the "Tracking prevention" set to "Strict", which seems to block pretty much all ads and so pages load quickly and run smoothly. I also use Firefox occasionally as I really want to like their mobile browser, but after many years, it still doesn't match the quality of their desktop browser. However, using it to browse the web is equally smooth. I just tried out Chrome and that also seems snappy and smooth.
What I will say is that all the browsers take a good 3-4 seconds to load into memory. Re-opening once they're in memory is pretty snappy, but I guess if you have a lot of other apps open and the browser gets unloaded from memory, it'll be a few seconds to re-open it again. The only time this affects me is on the rare occasion that I play a game. This may or may not be important to you.
re: I hate phones
I know it'll likely not play Doom smoothly as it's not a gaming phone with a Snapdragon. That's fine. I play turnbased games or puzzles anyway. Star Realms was doable on my ancient A3, so it certainly should be doable on a more modern phone. I only can't play it on the A3 anymore due to storage problems. The 128GB of the A53 should certainly be an improvement over the 16GB that my old phone has. ;)
Does the A53 have the option too that with a doubletap on 'home' it loads up the camera? And if so, is it all speedy enough? Usually I'd want to take a picture of something quickly at that point.
I regularly click the context menu and go 'close all apps', so I am certainly used to the fact that first time loading of any app would take a little bit of time. But once they are loaded I do expect them to just do my biding snappily.
I use Vivaldi as browser myself. Which might be equal or faster than Chrome in speed. So that seems good.
re: I hate phones
@petetaylor
p.s. Nothing wrong with Edge nowadays, now that they're Chromium-based. At job I prefer to run Edge over Chrome now since that's way faster.
re: I hate phones
I'm also idly wondering.. You have it since April. Would you say that whatever performance you had back then, it's definitely improved with updates you've gotten since then?
Like, maybe you didn't really see the performance back then as problematic as you found it fine already, but maybe it's gotten even smoother nowadays? Or have you noticed zero difference anyway?
re: I hate phones
As a last question: How's the vibration? Is it clearly felt, or do you think 'what is that zooming feeling.. the fridge? The washing machine? Why does it keep zooming.. mm.. oh wait, the phone?'.
My A3 is pretty lousy, sometimes I wonder if my neighbours are having a music going or so.. (I'm deaf, so I would feel it, not hear it) and my phone likes to be obscure with the vibrating.
I appreciate all the answers you've given so far!
re: I hate phones
@trinsec This is strange, I thought I'd typed out a long-winded answer to this question, but I guess I didn't! 🙄
The vibration is pretty good (as smartphones go). I think it helps that it's somewhat thicker than phones that I've previously owned. What I didn't realise until I went to reply to this question, is that I've had the vibration set to the minimum of 3 levels!
I just tried it out on maximum setting, with the phone lying on my desk. There are seven different "patterns" of vibration available, and some seem to be more noticeable than others (I tested this wearing noise-cancelling headphones, listening to music). I don't know what your A3 offers, so I don't know how well/badly this would compare.
re: I hate phones
@trinsec Speaking honestly, I've not noticed any improvements since owning the phone. I recently got the Android 13 update and was slightly concerned that it may cause performance issues, but I think the days of Android updates bringing huge changes (and associated "issues") are probably over now, thankfully.
So yeah, I didn't experience issues when I got the phone and haven't experienced any since.
I hate phones
@trinsec Hmmmm. Seems like a solid device. But if you might as well go for that, perhaps you might as well go A52???
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I did take a peek at the A52 as it's said to be decent. But I'm SCARED of the handful of the bad reviews with regards to its vibration. I'm deaf, see. So it needs to vibrate, I don't care about the sound it gives. And if it's got a shitty weak vibrator, I'd rather not want to pay that much for it.
I hate phones
@trinsec Ahhhhh. That would be a no go then. I would be afraid of any bad reviews on vibration. It's crazy at this stage of phone development to have it not function well.
I hate phones
@trinsec Are you considering the second hand market?
I bought a Samsung S10e for € 125 while the retail price is ± € 380. Works perfectly, and still love it.
I hate phones
I prefer it new for the full scale of updates. I highly doubt the S10e has a recent version of Android?
I do want to last as long as possible with it, including getting updates to Android and the versions upgrades. So my preference is to a model of this year. Maybe last year, tops.
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@trinsec Yeah I get that, mine has the latest version, and it was an important factor for me as well. But I couldn't find any new model with smaller dimensions that fit pockets unobtrusively. Smartphones have simply become unreasonably big.
PS you're probably using it already, but I use https://www.gsmarena.com to find and compare phones.
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Oh gods, don't remind me about the SIZE! I was postponing replacing my old A3 for so long because I couldn't find anything decent and affordable smaller than 5". Or smaller than 5,5" either. Heck smaller than 6" is proving to be about impossible nowadays too! And now I have to look at 6,5" thereabouts, people are just crazy for wanting it this big!
I am using https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/ here as that's listing all the phones I can buy reliably easy in my country. It does have good comparisons and shop reviews as well and I know what's directly available to me.
I hate phones
@trinsec Tweakers is my go-to tech second hand website ;)
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@stardust Hehe cool. :) Yeah, it's a great site for anything tech related!
But I still would like my future phone new if I can help it. The cheapest S10e (refurb) I can see is still 277 euro, so a tad out there for me compared to other newer models.
I hate phones
@trinsec don't if you are familiar, but you can expand your internal space with an SD card. The phone should have an initial setup option for the card. Recently did it with my phone and chose internal over external storage. So what you really need to check is what the largest supported SD card is.
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@barefootstache My A3's internal storage is 16GB. I have a 64GB SD card in it that still has space left. But with every update it installs on my internal, and I have to manually move the bunch over every time.
Plus Android 8 is starting to be a huge bottleneck for me. Certain software I want to use won't work on it well.
I simply need to have a phone with a newer Android version, and while I'm at it, at least 128GB so I'm spared the hassle of moving over stuff out of sheer desperation.
I hate phones
@barefootstache Oh yeah, AND IT DOES NOT HELP*cough* sorry, for screaming. Lemme restart:
It doesn't help that apps like Whatsapp and Telegram won't save the images and videos to external. It's always internal. And my bro, and my deaf friends, they always send me videos...
Yeah, fun(!)
I hate phones
@trinsec one thing I did a long time ago is deactivate automatic download for media. Plus I delete that data regularly.
If only those videos came with an alt tag...
I hate phones
@barefootstache I delete data regularly too.
I just don't want to anymore!
I hate phones
@trinsec idk if you understood me correctly earlier when I mentioned that you can use the SD card as internal storage and thereby losing external storage altogether unless you manually exchange the cards or have another slot.
I hate phones
@barefootstache Aaaah! Well, there's still the problem of having an old Android version and that certain apps I want to be using don't work well on it anymore. :/
Stuff is getting slow too, because the apps all are getting updated and become bloatier.
I hate phones
I absolutely hate phones
@trinsec congrats! 🥳
I still hate phones. But if you've got a Samsung Galaxy A53, I've got some questions for you!
If you own a Samsung Galaxy A53, I would love it if you could answer some questions I have!
- I've read a lot of reports online that the phone is extremely sluggish, slow, laggy. Scrolling doesn't go smooth. Did you also experience that and did it get fixed?
- How strong is its vibrator? As a deaf person this is an important feature for me. The only reason I won't go A52 is a fair amount of reviews saying that the vibration is poor on that one.
#Phone #Mobile #Samsung #SamsungA53 #SamsungGalaxy #SamsungGalaxyA53