Need a new phone. My Xiaomi Mi 5 “flagship phone” was having battery issues for the last eight months and finally gave up its ghost, or at least I’m unwilling to deal with it any more. Although the hardware was great, the software sucked. I’ve been cell phone-less for the last week and, other than having a few issues with paying for things and no way to count my daily steps, I can’t say I’ve missed it. I take less photos and read less garbage online, but I would like access to the delivery and payment APPs again. I will not get a Xiaomi again as I had issues with the thing the entire time I had it despite the fact that the phone did actually serve me quite well as a mini-computer. Looking at Huawei, Meizu (though hard to find a store), or Oppo.
Why another Chinese phone?
First, I’m in China so I’d like to try these things out. Second, I’ll probably have to replace the thing in two years anyway. Third, they’re cheaper than the other imports, such as Samsung or Apple.
Although I like to pretend that I have been researching cell phones, the biggest difference between phones these days seem to be the processor and the camera quality. Many phones have larger amounts of storage and RAM (often 64 GBs or 128 GBS) which is plenty for what a phone needs, and many phones have anywhere from 4-8GBs of RAM, 4 being on the lower side these days. The cameras are all double digit megapixels with 12MP being about standard these days. The thing about the Huawei phones is that they have introduced three cameras on the back of their flagship Mate 10 Pro and P20 Pro lines. Three cameras?! The first image that pops into my mind is that we’re heading towards “spider-eyed” cameras wherein we’ll have eight, twelve or who knows how many cameras in a little globule on that back of the camera. I guess it’s good seeing the world in colour. I wonder if people will ever return to the way it was in the past: seeing the world with their own eyes? Anyway, since I travel quite a bit and take a lot of photos, it’d be nice to have a good camera phone.
Finally, the processors. There are two or three biggies on the market these days, the Apple A-chips, the Kirin series and the Snapdragon. Oh and the Exynos by Samsung, but those aren’t easy to find in Mainland China. I’ve noticed that many of the Chinese manufacturers are using the Kirin chipsets and not the Snapdragons, something that I think stems from the blocked take-over attempt of Qualcomm (who makes Snapdragon) and the recent trade war between the States and China. The Kirin chipsets, made by ARM Holdings, have these AI-enhanced CPUs or whatever that supposedly learn what you like or are able to identify images and select the appropriate colour scheme for photos or videos. This worries me, kinda like the facial recognition thing: I don’t want something scanning me and connecting with the interwebs to identify me and the things I take photos of. Yes, I do like a little privacy, though I know the Chinese are a little bit more lenient with how they let people track them. Call me an old-fashioned Western guy, I guess.
The other chipset available, the Snapdragon, is pretty popular in the West and is said to offer the best performance overall though its optimization isn’t as good, so “they” say. Sadly, on GSM Arena (my go to for cell phone research), the Xiaomi Mi8 actually underperformed with the latest Snapdragon 845 chip in it, add to that my frustrations with my previous phone and I don’t think I’ll go with Xiaomi again. I would prefer a Snapdragon processor as it was a good performed but it looks like if I’m going to get a Chinese phone then I’ll probably have to go with the Kirin.
What is Meizu?
A company that no one has heard of outside of China. It’s another “start up” in a sense and copies the other Chinese companies that are copying Apple or Samsung. This became an option because a lot of Chinese people say it’s a good phone company. I looked up the Meizu 16Plus and the specs looked good (with the Snapdragon 845 processor) but the display ppi is significantly lower than just about every other phone out there. Why didn’t I just get that one? Well, I haven’t been able to find a phone store that sells the phones nor have I been able to find an actual Meizu store, which makes me very suspicious of buying anything from the company because it might become a relic faster than it becomes the next hot company.
Oppo?
Another little known Chinese company that produces some decent phones, all of which are basically copies of other manufacturers but put out a few months later than the leaders. My problem with these phones? Pop-up cameras. Moving parts. Their Nex phone has this little doo-hickey that pops out the take a photo or video. Uhhh, I’m no professional but I have used cell phones for a while and know that even “innocent droppings” can lead to scratches and damages that can make or break a phone. Moving parts that stick out on a cell phone? No thanks.
To put this in perspective, I bought a Huawei phone in Canada for $80 and it didn’t work in China. I bought another Huawei Honor when I arrived in China for 800RMB, about $140CAD, and I got two years out of it. The Xiaomi cost 2000RMB (about $400CAD) and I barely got two years out of it. Now I’m looking at phones that are about 4000RMB ($800CAD, though this keeps going up because of the current currency devaluation). Seems like cell phones are becoming like laptop prices.
Well, Steve, what do you need your phone for?
To put it simply: everything I need to do when I’m away from my computer… and wallet. Taking pictures, mobile payments, delivery, step counter, WeChat (for communication), WIFI, hotspot, video, audio recording and note-taking for ideas and lists. Oh, and international keyboard options, especially an easy transition from Chinese to English. And some games, though I can’t say I play much more than Simcity Buildit. And I want something that will last a couple of years, perhaps an average of $100 per year? Is that even possible? At the current price of things and the way that technology is developing, I don’t think it is. It actually seems to me that APPs are hitting some sort of wall in which they will become more powerful but at the expense of being much larger in storage size and RAM-hungry.
Unlike in Canada, China doesn’t have much by way of the “phone contract”, which means you don’t need to sign with a telecom in order to get a phone. In China, all phones are sold unlocked and it’s common to see the actual phone companies sell their own phones without plans, so it is really easy to spend a lot of time looking at different phones from all over. The problem is that the stores always want to sell the latest (and most expensive) phone rather than the one that offers the best quality. To be fair, the phones on offer are pretty good, spec-wise.
One of the more frustrating parts of buying a cell phone is the plethora of choices. And Chinese phone makers are even worse in this regard in that they often release three versions of the same phone (which is what Apple started doing a few years back) but, unlike Apple, they release another new phone a few months later. And then another new phone a few months after that. So, within a calendar year, they will release at least a dozen NEW phones with various qualifications attached to them: PhoneX, PhoneXi, PhoneX21i, PhoneX21 Pro, PhoneX21 Pro S, and so on. It seems kinda stupid at this point.
In all my looking around, however, it seems that Apple simply dominates the market. I never knew just how far ahead Apple was with its iPhone in terms of specs. My major issue with the iPhone, however, aside from price, is that you can’t use it as a hard drive and, worse still, you have to go through that terribly slow and inconvenient iTunes software. If they solved those two issues, I’d get an iPhone. Their phone’s chips are the best on the market, the phones work well, are durable, and can be used for years (including updates) unlike a lot of the Android phones out there. Not only that, although the company gets criticized for cannibalizing their own products, there are fewer choices which makes it easier to simply choose one to go with with. But again, that storage option is a feature that I don’t want to give up just yet.
Overall, I’m leaning towards a Huawei Honor 10, Mate 10 Pro or, if I must, an older Samsung phone. I don’t want to go too much older than a year because phone companies stop supporting the phones after a while, though, to be honest, most updates are useless and if the phone doesn’t work right away, chances are they won’t get it any more right later on. I also want to limit how much I spend on this thing since it will have to be replaced within a couple of years anyway. These things take abuse in ways that laptops and other electronics don’t so it’s not something I’ll have forever.
So, yes, I’ve been spending a bit of time looking at phones though I do like looking at what’s out there and how technology has advanced though I have yet to put any money down. To be certain, the phones out there these days are by far better than what we had ten years ago!