Tempted to do the unthinkable switch....

[Coddy85]

Years of Apple servitude is starting to get a little boring and I’m thinking about jumping ship. Currently have the iPhone XS Max and a Watch and whilst they are functional, I’m a bit bored.

After a little search of the most recent flagships I feel most of them have compromises, some are deal breakers. Looking forward to the Note 10 announcement later.

Got to admit, I’m a bit nervous about losing iCloud sync for messages and photos and more but I’m sure I can muscle through. Also my last toe dips into Android went badly (A note 2 with horrible UI and a Sony which used to die whilst on charge and not reboot).

But yet, here I am, looking for options and I have a list of needs and nice to haves:

Needs:
- To be new enough to get the next few major updates.
- Wireless charging.
- The ability to do cloud backups (not sure if this is native these days?)
- Battery life to support medium to heavy usage including using hotspot.
- To be a brand, as much as some of the Chinese makes are doing well, I like to have a support network when things go wrong.
- OLED screen.
- Android Auto (is it standard?)

Nice to haves:
- Smaller screen? I sometimes feel my XS Max is too big, but I think the days of sub 6” phones are gone for now.
- A “wow factor” feature, it’s always nice to have a party trick.
- Notchless, also not too keen how Samsung are doing the offset holepunch either.

Things I care not about:
- Camera, don’t use it for anything serious.
- Where the fingerprint sensor is, it just doesn’t matter.
- Gaming, except PoGo.
- Price, I’ll pay whatever is needed for the right thing.

So where do I go? What do I have to sacrifice?

 

[Coddy85]

Oh and a quick edit: another must have is the ability to connect to a smart watch and do Google Pay.

 

[PixelTracer]

How about a Pixel 3a?

It covers what you need and it has a really low price compared to flagship phones. ($400 USD.)

 

[Coddy85]

Thanks for your reply, Pixel 3 was certainly in the top 3 of the shortlist I made. In fact it was leading until I found out that I can get significant discounts from Samsung. So I think I’m going for the regular S10 512Gb.

 

[Golurk]

Thanks for your reply, Pixel 3 was certainly in the top 3 of the shortlist I made. In fact it was leading until I found out that I can get significant discounts from Samsung. So I think I’m going for the regular S10 512Gb.

Ok! Good choice

You’ll definitely get Android Q and R as well as security updates until at least 2021-2

The 6.1 inch sAMOLED display is great...QHD resolution and vibrant.

The S10 is significantly smaller than the XS Max but not too small (just right if you ask me)

It has NFC

Party tricks: Wireless PowerShare and an in-display fingerprint sensor (as well as a recognisable design)

The battery life is solid (3400mAh) and will probably last you an entire day (not much more though)

Samsung Cloud, Google photos and Google Drive are an excellent way to store your files (I use them as well as micro SD for peace of mind, but it sounds like you’ll be fine with the cloud and 512GB lol)

I did read that Android auto might be disappearing from the play store and won’t be supported on phones in a while, you might want to check that.

 

[Morty2264]

Thanks for your reply, Pixel 3 was certainly in the top 3 of the shortlist I made. In fact it was leading until I found out that I can get significant discounts from Samsung. So I think I’m going for the regular S10 512Gb.

Did you get the S10, OP? The camera on it is spectacular!

 

[Coddy85]

I did get the S10, unfortunately missed out on some big discounts but still got the 512Gb for the price of 128.

I'm enjoying it so far. Not really missing iOS and I have an iPad for anything specific. My only real gripe is the way ads present themselves, I guess I just need to find a good blocker.

Did you get the S10, OP? The camera on it is spectacular!

 

[Morty2264]

I did get the S10, unfortunately missed out on some big discounts but still got the 512Gb for the price of 128.

I'm enjoying it so far. Not really missing iOS and I have an iPad for anything specific. My only real gripe is the way ads present themselves, I guess I just need to find a good blocker.

So glad you are liking it so far! Oh yeah, ads are cumbersome and annoying! Hope you get that fixed soon! I'm pretty sure we have some threads around AC about ad blocker apps!

 

[rebretz000]

I switched to iPhone last year after years of Android. While I do like the iPhone XS and Apple Watch and how well everything just works I will more than likely swift back to Android when I pay off the iPhone. Only thing stopping me right now is Wear OS’s complete lack of an Apple Watch competitor.
There is so many small things in Android I miss. One of the biggest is not being able to set default apps.

 

[Golurk]

So glad you are liking it so far! Oh yeah, ads are cumbersome and annoying! Hope you get that fixed soon! I'm pretty sure we have some threads around AC about ad blocker apps!

Samsung Internet can be integrated with ad blockers