Making the 2023 [email protected] Buying Guide: High End
Making the 2023 [email protected] Buying Guide: High End
I should really do something about the schedule slip. Last week has been pretty exciting.
Can't promise that it won't happen again, but I'll try to keep on schedule.
Previously on Lemmy:
Past Discussions:
Now we get to the fun part, the 700 USD+ range of phones. Go wild with your recommendations, showcase the excellence in the top end Android ecosystem and your favorite features that people don't know about.
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From the bottom of my heart, thank you for contributing to making Lemmy a better place. So, now if people in your life ever ask you about what phones to buy, well, send them here, and maybe they'll like this place and stay around to chat a bit.
Who knows.
Let's hope for the best.
Zenfone 10. Good size, amazing performance, love it. 3.5mm jack!
Galaxy Fold 4/5. I know, I know, it's not for everyone, being so niche and expensive, but hear me out: as someone who spends a LOT of time reading books, manga, and browsing desktop-mode sites, it's so worth it. In addition, I use it for emulation/gaming, and it excels at that - I pair my Fold with a telescopic controller (Gamesir X2) and run emulators like Dolphin, which is an amazing experience on the large 4:3ish screen. Even if I'm not carrying a controller with me, I can use an emulator like Citra and play Nintendo 3DS games, and with the right skin it feels like you're gaming on an actual 3DS!
On to the productivity stuff, the multitasking features is the main reason as to why I'd prefer a Samsung foldable over others. For starters, the ability to turn any app in to a floating window, and being able to set it's transparency level is real handy - I could be say, reading a manga in full-screen and have a small, translucent Uber Eats window on top to keep an eye out on my order; or I could use it's triple-split feature to have say Lemmy on one half, and a video player + Discord on the other half. And when I'm working, I might have Word on one side, and Outlook and Teams on the other (or just have Teams as a floating window so that I can keep an eye on the chat, instead of being bombarded by continuous notifications). Of course, the large screen in itself is handy for stuff like group video calls, or viewing maps and browsing desktop versions of websites.
Finally, I'm one of the few people who actually likes the narrow front-screen: it makes it easy to type and use the phone one-handed, and I like that I can actually reach the other edge of the screen with my thumb, without having to do some hand gymnastics. The grip on the back on the official case also makes this a lot easier, so if you're planning on getting a Fold, I'd higly recommend getting a case with a grip.
I've been using my Fold 4 for close to an year now and it's been great so far. It was an impulse buy, but I reckon it's been probably one of my best purchases in recent years in terms of utility, and this is coming from someone who's been a Stock Android fanboy all this time and avoided Samsung like the plague.
I just bought a 23 ultra and am here to bias myself into how good a purchase it was so that I don't feel bad for spending 1000 euros in a 512/12. I know it's an ok deal but it's also a lot of money. Lol.
Seriously Ive been always a note person and am used to the spen. Battery is a non issue now and the pics are awesome.
I was at the apple garden like 10 years back and still miss some things but I love the feeling of freedom of just plugging my phone to the computer and being able to start transferring files or doing stuff to the phone.
Any feature that stands out to you?
Really pleased with the Sony Xperia 1 V. It's made out of this really nice grippy material and I'm getting 2 to 3 days on a full charge. Great camera too, and it's basically stock Android.
It's out of my range but I would be worried about updates (I had other xperias before)
Samsung's Galaxy Fold 5. If I'm going to lose the headphone jack and SD card slot, while spending laptop prices, I better get something out of it. In this case, a phone that can be a tiny tablet, that'll cost less than a high-end phone and small cheap tablet.
Do you have a recommended price for it?
I can get the Fold 5 512GB for about US$1300 now.
I never felt comfortable spending significantly over $500 on a phone despite easily affording it, so I'm mostly limiting myself to mid-range phones (though my Pixel 7a doesn't feel mid-range at all and I'm very happy with it). But if I had to pick a $700+ phone, I'd pick something that has a track record of providing good software support and future-proof hardware.
The Asus Zenfone 10 has amazing hardware, the form factor is perfect, but the latest shenanigans around bootloader unlocking and Asus abandoning the Zenfone lineup (https://9to5google.com/2023/08/26/asus-zenfone-series-ending-report/), adding to my personal experience with an Asus Zenfone and the almost nonexistent software updates that led to my phone being obsoleted within 2 years as it just kept rebooting randomly, all lead me to cross that brand from the list.
The Fairphone 5 looks really good, but to be honest, it's technically a mid-range priced like a high-end phone. Its Qualcomm QCM6490 is a 2 years old 6nm SoC that's ranked between the Qualcomm 860 and the Exynos 1080 in Geekbench, a bit near the Snapdragon 782G, which in other words means that the Fairphone 5 should feel like a OnePlus Nord CE 3 5G in terms of performance. But obviously here you're paying more for fairness and sustainability (though it gets a bit contradicted by their removal of the audio jack).
I'd wait for October 4th to finally confirm the specs, but from what's leaked right now (see https://lemmy.world/comment/3775773) the Pixel 8 Pro looks really good and has some future-proofing (Wi-Fi 7, 7 years of software updates) which makes it conceivable to keep such a phone for 5+ years, especially as they're making parts available through iFixit (though it's obviously not as easy to open as a Fairphone). For me personally it ticks most of the boxes.
Oh the Pixel 8 Pro from the article does look promising. Cautiously optimistic for now.