Need help deciding on new Android - lost touch after 3 years and 7 months with OP 6T

Crisdean

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Apr 13, 2013
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Good afternoon from the UK community,

I've decided to post here because of a few reasons.

1) After purchasing my OP 6T in 2019 I stopped following mobile phone websites
2) I'm still enjoying the phone but battery life is decreasing a bit too far
3) The last real security update was November 2021 (ignoring the Google Play System update)

I would like to have a flagship phone experience now with

1) Near to stock Android experience
2) Excellent camera and video functionality
3) Decent storage option, at least 256GB as my 128GB are pretty much used up
4) Android version updates for at least 3 years
5) Security updates for at least 3-5 years

Of course I started to watch YouTube reviews and read on the internet and i do have some phones in mind.

1) Google Pixel 7 Pro
2) Xiaomi 12 (T) Pro
3) Samsung S22 Ultra (but since I'm in the UK it comes with Exynos chip, and quality of photos, zoom and video seem to not be on par with Snapdragon version), but love s-pen functionality (not a must though!)
4) Any other phone that you could recommend.

Issues right now. I've played around with a P7P in a store but because people apparently steal phones in the UK (London) I couldn't test any functions.

Pixel 7 Pro

1) One Youtube says excellent camera and video
2) YouTuber 2 says artifacts in 100% crop and I want to not only look photos on tiny screen
3) Noise in photos when in darker conditions
4) Battery either drains very fast or is fine

I really don't know if the Pixel will be fixed by software updates or if I won't have any issues at all. I just don't want to buy a phone that provides not good battery life.

Any help would be really helpful for me.
 

B. Diddy

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Mar 9, 2012
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I just traded in my Pixel 6 Pro for a Pixel 7 Pro, and the camera just keeps getting better and better. I'm not sure what you mean by "artifacts in 100% crop", but I've had no issues when cropping or doing other edits in Google Photos.

Noise will always be an issue with low light photos regardless of the device, but if there's any phone camera that handles it well, it's the Pixel Camera with the phenomenal Night Sight feature -- this yields great low light shots using a combination of increased exposure and AI.

Battery has been excellent for me, both for my Pixel 6 Pro and 7 Pro. One of the issues with the 6 Pro was that the 5G antenna tended to use excessive battery, which was never a big deal for me since 5G isn't great where I live, so I always turned off 5G. But this was supposedly improved with the 7 Pro, and as I've kept 5G on since I got this phone, it's been quite good.

I would suggest also considering the ASUS Zenfone 9, which has gotten pretty much universal rave reviews. ASUS has made their UI much more stock lately, and the camera is supposed to be pretty good, with the main feature being excellent stabilization. The main downside is their update policy -- they promise "at least" 2 years, but that's not great compared to Google and Samsung.
 

Kizzy Catwoman

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Feb 2, 2017
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I just traded in my Pixel 6 Pro for a Pixel 7 Pro, and the camera just keeps getting better and better. I'm not sure what you mean by "artifacts in 100% crop", but I've had no issues when cropping or doing other edits in Google Photos.

Noise will always be an issue with low light photos regardless of the device, but if there's any phone camera that handles it well, it's the Pixel Camera with the phenomenal Night Sight feature -- this yields great low light shots using a combination of increased exposure and AI.

Battery has been excellent for me, both for my Pixel 6 Pro and 7 Pro. One of the issues with the 6 Pro was that the 5G antenna tended to use excessive battery, which was never a big deal for me since 5G isn't great where I live, so I always turned off 5G. But this was supposedly improved with the 7 Pro, and as I've kept 5G on since I got this phone, it's been quite good.

I would suggest also considering the ASUS Zenfone 9, which has gotten pretty much universal rave reviews. ASUS has made their UI much more stock lately, and the camera is supposed to be pretty good, with the main feature being excellent stabilization. The main downside is their update policy -- they promise "at least" 2 years, but that's not great compared to Google and Samsung.
I would agree with B. Diddy as my husband has the 7 Pro and he really likes it. He moved from the 4XL and says it is a real improvement in most areas especially the camera.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk