Summer days are here in Beijing so it’s hot just about all the time, even the trees are drooping under the rays of the sun. It also marks almost three years that I’ve been using the same phone which means… it’s probably time to get a new one.
There are a couple of reasons for this push to upgrade, even though the phone still takes pictures and does a lot of things very well. First, I can’t update a lot of APPs any more as, for some reason, the data they occupy, is huge.
It’s come to the point that I don’t even know how to remove any more of the items from the phone, especially from the Images. I don’t know which APPs are holding which photos and why they are still holding them when I’ve tried to clear everything up. And why do APPs and data take up so much space? And why can’t I view which APPs and data? (You’ll say that I can, but that function is not easily accessible from the screen above. I’d need to exit this screen and go to “Manage APPs”.)
Second, I might be able to get a new phone on payments rather than having to buy the thing with cash all at once. China isn’t like Canada and other countries wherein you often buy a phone plan from a company and then they sell you a phone on top of that plan. That’s because a lot of phones are locked to where they are issued. Chinese phones aren’t locked. I can buy any phone from any company and then go buy a plan or go month-to-month with any service provider I want.
Which phones am I considering?
I’m looking to stay with the Xiaomi brand for my next phone as I’ve typically had good experiences with their products. The Xiaomi 5 was my first “flagship” phone and I went through two of those since the phone had a spot where it would bend (and eventually snap). The current one is a Xiaomi 8 and that’s been a solid phone both internally and externally. If I had purchased the larger version of the phone (128GB or more), then I might not need to replace it just yet. But, as it stands, I’m constantly getting that annoying “Storage space running out” message and so I figure I could get a new one already.
After deleting many of the pre-installed APPs (I’m a bit sentimental and like to keep them on there just in case I’ll use them), and then some of the other APPs I’d like to use but don’t very often, I decided I don’t want to fight this any more. I can barely take a few photos and certainly not many videos before the storage is completely filled up. I can’t even update APPs any more.
So, which model am I looking at?
I’m only really looking at one: The Xiaomi 11 Ultra.
Expensive, you might say. And it is. It costs 6000 RMB which doesn’t include a wireless charger or case. To put this in perspective, the new iPhone costs about 11,000 RMB and the Samsung S9 is about 9000 RMB. Contrast this with what I paid for previous phones:
- 3000 RMB for the Xiaomi 8
- 2000 RMB for the Xiaomi 5
- 1000 RMB for the Huawei Honor phone I bought when I first came to China
- $80 CAD for the Huawei phone I used while in Canada
- $150 AUD for the HTC phone I used in Australia.
I could go on. To be sure, the Xiaomi 5 and 8 were considered “flagship” phones, which means they’re meant to be among the best. If this trend of price increases continues, could you think of ever spending 12,000 RMB (over $2000 CAD) on a phone in three years’ time?
I would consider some of the other phones on the market but I know the Xiaomi layout and ecosystem, and I don’t really want to spend a lot of time researching the different phones out there, as I did before purchasing the Xiaomi 8.
Apple’s phone are really expensive and I hate the entire iOS ecosystem. I bear with it on iPads but I wouldn’t want to deal with it any more than I have to.
Samsung seems good but it would be a new entry for me.
Huawei, well, they use their self-made Kirin chipset which is apparently part of the whole access to private information issue that has ensnared the company.
There are others, such as Oppo, Vivo, and others, but even their flagships don’t measure up to what Xiaomi offers.
Whichever I end up choosing, it has to be Android for the ability to use the phone as an external storage device without resorting to a proprietary content management system.
The other attractive feature of getting a Xiaomi phone is that I can put it on payments. Currently, both Apple and Xiaomi offer payment plans for their products if purchased online. If I had a Mainland Chinese-issued credit card, I could use it for financing. The only other issue is that I don’t have a Chinese ID card, for which I’d need someone else to help me out with and that can be arranged perfectly legally.
Apple offers financing on a lot of their products purchased online but Xiaomi only offers it only and for the Ultra. Why? Cause it costs a lot of money! lol I can choose from 3-, 6-, 12-, or 24-month instalments. Since my working arrangement in China is always precarious, I’d choose the six month plan just so I don’t have anything hanging over me should I have to leave the country for whatever reason. The idea here is just to put off buying the thing all at once.
And what about connection?
The Xiaomi 11 Ultra is 5G which I’m told is supposed to be pretty fast. But, given the latest hysteria in the 5G roll out, not many places have adopted the network just yet. This isn’t a problem in China as it is being rolled out extensively. But in other countries I sure hope the phone can kick down to 5G easily enough.
Ah, and there is one other benefit of sticking with Xiaomi: overseas eSIM cards. I can prepay for data or voice to be used in other countries and pay in RMB. This way I can keep my phone bill in China while still travelling.
So that’s the latest cost I might have to incur. I suppose I go the other route and delete all but the absolutely necessary APPs and forego all the other social media APPs and forget about taking so many pictures or videos. But, now that I think about it, I don’t think that’s even possible since the APPs that I do need (WeChat, Alipay, banks, language study) take up significant portions of the memory.
I am lucky that I have the money right now and so, if I can put it on payments, I’d rather upgrade now before it becomes a bigger issue. Also, if I do upgrade, I can still use my current phone as a backup or as a secondary while at home (hello multi-streaming!)
I suppose this can be filed under “first world problems”?