Need help deciding on phone stuff.

[Tygron]

Ok. So I currently have a Samsung Galaxy S3 mini. Just the standard unlocked model, nothing fancy with wireless charging or anything. I payed $300 for it at the time and I notice I can pay about $230ish on Amazon to get an S3 (wow, was $400 when I looked about a year ago)

So I cracked my screen again, last time I spent $80 on a replacement front half (cause I lack a heatgun/ patience to use a hairdryer and not screw up and yadda yadda with a $4 replacement glass which would have been much preferable) and that did me good for a while, save the broken vibrator motor inside that broke in the process of fixing the screen.

I would just buy another screen replacement front half and call it a day but I would like to upgrade for the time being while I wait for Project Ara to release and hopefully pick up some steam. I don't expect that to be super amazing, but i'm hoping eventually i'll be able to make something maybe not quite as powerful but close to an HTC One (M8). That's all just hopes and dreams though, I dunno how the Ara platform will do and really I expect it to be a thing for a year and die a horrible death with maybe only a small handful of hardcore users making it still relevant enough to have upgrades made for it every once in a blue moon.

 

So here's the specs of the S3 Mini for reference http://www.phonearena.com/phones/Samsung-Galaxy-S-III-mini_id7536

I'm looking for a phone no more than $300 (i'll go $325, maybe $340 ish if there's a really really good deal. But I really don't want to go over $350 for sure, and rather stay around $300) and at the very least have the same power as the S3 Mini. One thing I would like though is more internal storage. I don't have much on my phone and everything updating getting slowly bigger and bigger is filling the space and I can no longer update things. This website says it has 16 GB of storage but, in my phone it's telling me 4.54GB total. I have 386MB left so unless i'm reading something wrong there isn't much storage space here. I'd like to go with a phone that has 16GB usable to me with an SD card slot, otherwise i'm going to need 32GB without an SD card slot.

Preferably I need a standard SIM card slot as well, but if I have to get a microsim from my carrier I will. Otherwise i'm going to need a phone that can be unlocked on the Straight Talk network.

 

I would like the size of the phone to be similar, but if I end up with something S3 size or whatever i'll just have to get used to it.

 

I would also prefer it have Android 4.1.2 on it at least. Newer is good too.

Battery life is important as well, just as long as it's not drastically less than what I currently have. I listen to music while i'm at work, and can't have it plugged in so it needs to be able to last a good 6 hours at least streaming music off wifi. Comparatively i've done 8 hours of streaming like that and got home with a 6% charge. That's if I don't occasionally browse the web too, and that'll kill it after 6 and a half hours if I do it minimally. I don't expect miracles from smartphone batteries, just something to get me by till the next charge.

 

Would do this myself, but i've already looked at a few sites and nothing really gives me the clear information I want.

Wireless charging would be nice, but not a must. 3G is preferred, 4G capabilities are nice and all but I don't think I can get that on my network. They may have upgraded since I last looked, but meh. I don't do much on data outside of wifi anyway. Removable batteries preferred but not a must. Just as long as the phone at least compares directly to the S3 mini with a preference to being more powerful.

 

Thanks guys ; I need to learn a bit more about smartphones so I can do this sort of comparison myself. It doesn't seem to be so cut and dry as PC parts are benchmark and price wise.

[Guest]

Perhaps have a look into the Nexus 5?

[Tygron]

Perhaps have a look into the Nexus 5?

Outta the price range from the looks of it.

[Guest]

Moto G?

[OriginalPromise]

If it's under $300, I'll say Nexus 5, Moto G, OnePlus (If you can get your hands on it), or refurbished/used flagship devices. I'll rather get myself an S5/Note 4 and insure it.

[Jambls]

If it's under $300, I'll say Nexus 5, Moto G, OnePlus (If you can get your hands on it), or refurbished/used flagship devices. I'll rather get myself an S5/Note 4 and insure it.

 

 

I agree with that. Did you know that you may be able to get your sim cut to a smaller size if you go to a phone shop of some sort.

[Tygron]

If it's under $300, I'll say Nexus 5, Moto G, OnePlus (If you can get your hands on it), or refurbished/used flagship devices. I'll rather get myself an S5/Note 4 and insure it.

Well it looks like the Moto G is a good idea, but i'd have to get the LTE model which only lets me get 8GB of internal memory. I'm seeing conflicting reports on how much internal memory is in the S3 mini. If I have 8GB then I need more than that, and that's all I can get with the Moto G LTE. And I can't go with the standard Moto G because the highest internal memory I can go is 16GB and it doesn't have an SD card slot.

The Nexus 5 is out of the price range.

And i'm not going to go with yhr One Plus because i'm never going to be able to get invited to that.

I also don't like to do refurbished or used anything. I don't trust it. I know that's the point of refurbished but, still.

 

The Moto G looks like the best choice for now, but I can't deal with the memory issues. Barely anything on my phone as is, and no room to update anything or add more apps. Useless.

 

I agree with that. Did you know that you may be able to get your sim cut to a smaller size if you go to a phone shop of some sort.

It's cheap enough to get a micro sim from my carrier and get it activated through them and just switch over the active phone to that. And I wouldn't trust the phone shops in my area to cut my SIM and not mess it up, i'd rather just to that myself looking up some tutorials on Youtube (cause i'm sure they're out there) but i'm not gonna do that lol. 

[Tygron]

Decided on an HTC One mini 2. The price is more than I wanted to but, i've been drooling over the One for a while now and I didn't know the mini was a thing. The front speakers and, from what I can tell in reviews about it, overall performance justify the extra cost I wasn't going to do.

 

Thanks for the help though guys