Mobile Phone thread - please include links to good deals

[QualityChimp]

I have a note pro tablet and the wen browsing is functional, lets down a.device that is otherwise better than my ipad for everything else.

I would suggest the spell check sucks too!
What the hell did you just say?!

[Digfox]

One of the reasons I've ditched iOS is because of ?700-800 phones. My iP5+ was ?709 new and I set myself a challenge to reduce the price of the next phone (so even though this Nexus 6 was pricey its still ?160 cheaper, and much cheaper than the iPhone 6+). Next time I'm tempted to see if I can get by on an even cheaper phone.

Maybe it helps having Nexus devices but both the 6 & 7 have blown me away. The 7 in particular has been phenomenal for the ?160 I paid. Regular updates, no bloat and Google apps that are sometimes considerably better than the iOS equivalent.

I also love Chrome over Safari. To me the stock browser on Android is much better, although I've read this complaint before. Where as Safari would struggle rendering pages, or have issues with things like forms, Chrome fairs much better. Even if Safari is sometimes smoother.

[MartyG]

I just bought one of these: http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Eleph...te-343251.html

Camera isn't as good as the Z2 I have and it's a little thicker, but looking at this phone, I can't see where that extra few hundred quid is going.

[ETC]

Think my iPhone may be slowly dying the death was going to go for a 6+ but I noticed I can get a Xperia ultra (the old one) for ?219, has anyone ever had one? Any good

[VR46]

Nice looking phone Marty, there are always phones like that on Amazon via re-sellers for anything from ?150 to ?300 (depending on spec). Be interested to see if it lives up to their hype.

ETC, you mean a Z Ultra? the big mutha? If so I have had one for about 15 months so can answer any questions.

[charlesr]

I just bought one of these: http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Eleph...te-343251.html

Camera isn't as good as the Z2 I have and it's a little thicker, but looking at this phone, I can't see where that extra few hundred quid is going.

It says 2-3 days standby - is that in airplane mode? Do you have any left at the end of a normal day?

[MartyG]

I'll let you know when I've used it all day - my Xperia Z2 will easily last 2 days for me (3200 mAh), the P3000S has a fairly beefy battery in it (3150 mAh).

[ETC]

Nice looking phone Marty, there are always phones like that on Amazon via re-sellers for anything from ?150 to ?300 (depending on spec). Be interested to see if it lives up to their hype.

ETC, you mean a Z Ultra? the big mutha? If so I have had one for about 15 months so can answer any questions.

Thats the one. The big beastie. If you don't mind that would be great. Does it have lollipop? And do you know if it can do ps4 remote play?
ooo how much crapware is on it. I have only ever had iOS apart from a small time when I had a note 2

cheers

[VR46]

ETC, Lollipop update came out a month ago and I didn't even realise so grabbing it now, is 680mb or something so may take an hour to download and install - will edit in some impressions later this evening.

It can only do PS4 Remote Play via a workaround (and rooting I guess), isn't official. Have seen videos of it working over on XDA Developers.

There's hardly any bloatware on it, and what there is half of it can be removed. Isn't forced on you at all.

The phone itself, lovely 1080p screen, thin and great battery life (lasts me 48 hours usually). Decent external speaker and speedy enough under the hood to run anything thrown at it. The massive screen is great for videos and games of course.
There's no flash and the camera is pretty ropey by some of todays standards unless used outside in good natural light.

Shame the bezels are so large really, a few mm off on all sides would have made a hell of a difference, though it fits in all my trouser pockets fine, but is pushing it once you have a case on it. The square corners Sony have on all their models of late do make it quite a slab. I would Youtube some comparison videos if you have any concerns over the actual phone size. Saying that, my 12 year old son can hold it in one hand no problem. One handed operation is an art and takes some practice. You do get some looks when holding it to your ear in public

Pre Lollipop I couldn't get it to work with a 64GB Micro SD card, so stuck with a 32GB one. There's quite a bit of on phone storage useable too, maybe around 9GB but don't quote me on that.

Anything else you want to check on?

[ETC]

Almost forgot what sort of sim is it, I'm using a nano at the minute so will either need an adaptor if it's different or a replacement. I'm guessing it's pretty much the same as iOS when it comes to apps (spotify, banking, wwe network, Netflix oh and Sky go?)
cheers for the help too

[VR46]

It takes a Micro Sim, apps are the same yes, Sky Go works well, not sure about the WWE one though.
Never mentioned it's waterproof of course, not that I've actually tested it past a quick splash under the tap.
Lollipop looks good, few nice added features, and finally a restart option which is great. Need to read up on it some more.

[MartyG]

It says 2-3 days standby - is that in airplane mode? Do you have any left at the end of a normal day?

At 45% battery at 6h 30m with pretty heavy usage of Spotify with wifi & bluetooth headphones whilst uploading 1000 odd photos to Amazon's Photo Cloud service, so that seems to be fairing quite well.

[charlesr]

Yeah not bad at all

[MartyG]

It was down to 20% leaving work, so it's definitely not as power efficient as the Xperia Z2 which is often still above 50% battery at the end of the day, but it's definitely enough to see you through the day for charging in the evening, I doubt it's going to last 24 hours without a charge unless you're barely using it though.

[Asura]

Here's a question.

My partner needs a new phone; her old iPhone 3GS is really creaking now (though functionally is OK; it's just literally starting to break). She's also on pay-as-you-go, which is a problem as my workplace has poor phone reception (she needs data so we can use iMessaging/WhatsApp/Skype).

I have an iPhone 4, which is OK (it stays in a Griffin case and never comes out, so it's still pretty much flawless). However, with 4G starting to appear around the country I think it's finally time to upgrade (as that's the first new feature which has interested me - I don't really "do" phone upgrades unless they offer quite big features).

Thinking that I might get a new phone, and she might get a SIM-only contract and use my iPhone 4.

I currently spend about ?25 a month on my SIM-only contract (I bought the iPhone 4 outright years ago), and I'd like to stay around that mark if possible. The minutes/data are good; I rarely spend over the ?25 in a given month, but if I get 4G I'm concerned about bandwidth caps - do they charge you if you go over? Or do they just throttle your bandwidth?

Really want to stay with iPhone devices, and ideally on Orange/EE, because I've always had good service with them. I can't go with Vodafone (do they even still exist?).

I see EE has an offer with the iPhone 5c, but it only has 8gb of storage. Does it manage that storage the same way as the iPhone 4? Because my iPhone 4 is 16gb and whilst I've hit the limit before, I tend to get along OK. I'm not sure I could manage with an 8gb device. Surely the OS makes that something daft like 4gb anyway?

I prefer the look of the 5 to the 6 (to be honest, I prefer the look of the 4 to all of the later devices, but you can't have everything it seems).

I also don't use my phone for gaming - at all. I have other devices for that and I don't play mobile freemium games.

Part of me thinks we should economise and go down the Nokia Windows Phone route.

Anyone got any advice?

EDIT: Looking around, I can't believe Apple stopped selling the 16gb iPhone 5C. That would be PRECISELY the price/featureset I want - basically something which is a bit better than my iPhone 4, and new. That's it. To get a usable storage size I have to go up to the iPhone 5s, and it seems everywhere is charging a ?35 monthly for that.