In Need of a Replacement Smartphone, Suggestions? (on a budget)

[Windows7ge]

Hello LTT Forum community, I don't ask for help nearly as much as I used to but phones are not my forte and I haven't a clue where to start so let's just go with what I know.

 

My phone the HTC One A9 is falling apart at the seams, both physically and logically. I'd like to find a sub-$400 replacement either based on Android or alternative Linux distribution. This would be my daily driver so I don't want something experimental/BETA. It has to be predictable/reliable in it's behavior if I go with some random Linux Moblie distribution. I'm also looking for something compact. Phones have gotten significantly larger over the years and it doesn't look like something I can escape so the smaller the better.

 

One important detail: It needs to be compatible with the mobile carrier AT&T in the USA. 4G LTE and if it happens to support whatever comes after 4G LTE that'd be a plus (so I can use it for longer when 4G LTE inevitably gets cut).

 

I'm not a mobile power user. Just about every phone feature I use is limited to:

• Calling
• Texting
• Bluetooth for wireless speakers (headphone jack would be a nice "just in case" feature)
• Taking relatively basic pictures of things (HDR is a great feature for poor lighting situations which happens a lot)
• Installing 3rd party apps (Notepad, SFTP clients, Linux CLI agents)
• Chrome Mobile Browser
• Calculator
• OpenVPN Connect so I can connect to my house from anywhere
• Adobe Acrobat so I can pull up .PDF files of motherboard manuals
• Androids included E-mail app
• Flashlight on the back of the phone
• Couple other less mentionable apps

Feature I really don't need or care about:

• I don't do any mobile gaming
• I don't stream videos, youtube, etc.
• I don't do facetime or other forms of conference calls
• I don't use PLEX or Spodify
• I don't use mobile data
• I don't take selfies
• I don't edit photos on my phone normally
• I don't use social media apps (facebook, instagram, twitter, etc)
• I don't use hotspot for sharing a wireless connection
• I don't use GPS
• I don't use any Office applications, or most Google services (maps, play, drive, calendar, etc).

A lot of the features that come with high-end expensive phones I don't need or would use. I don't expect that there is a phone that will tick every single box but the less expensive the better. I know you get what you pay for but a nice balance between reliability, features I know I need, and fair price would be the best.

[jaslion]

So a galaxy A52 5g.

[Windows7ge]

31 minutes ago, James Evens said:

If you want Linux there is the Pinephone64.

I actually have a early revision PinePhone(64?) that I won in a Den-Fi contest. It's running Mobian but is unfortunately in no way stable unless I missed an official stable launch from Pine themselves with updated hardware. I recently updated mobian myself which I watched it go from beta-mobian to stable-mobian in the repos and this big update fixed some issues but others persisted or caused new issues so...not a daily driver I don't think.

 

34 minutes ago, James Evens said:

Right now I wouldn't care about 5G combability. In Germany it took until 2020 before Deutsche Telekom included LTE into the cheap/pre paid offers.  Thier competitors did it in 2014 which is still 4 years after launch. So unless 5G is treated different I don't expect 5G before 2025 being a thing/reality. Since it will take a while before there is any actual benefit it might be 2028-2030 ish before 5G should be taken as mandatory.

I wanna say I bought this HTC One A9...5 years ago? 6 years ago? If the wireless network stays up until 2028 then i'll probably be thinking upgrade time again anyways.

[David_ballard]

A good option I would recommend is either the Samsung Galaxy A42 5G or the Samsung Galaxy 53 5G. the A42 is around $299.99 0n sale at the minute and the A53 5G is on sale for $349.99.

 

[Windows7ge]

@jaslion @James Evens @David_ballard

With everyone's suggestions right now I'm looking at the Galaxy S20 5G because it's physically the smallest of the line-up and has almost everything else I'm looking for short of a 3.5mm jack but that's not a deal breaker.

 

Right now I'm having trouble verifying that the phone will work with AT&T. All my research is saying that an unlocked version won't work with 5G and that some peoples S20's stopped working when 3G was dropped back in I think February. (like it skipped 4G LTE all-together).

 

Based on everything I'm reading the Internet is pretty divided 50/50 like "Yes it will work", "No it will not". Even AT&T's 3rd party compatibility list doesn't make it immediately clear. An extra few opinions would appreciated before I go looking over the refurb market or something similar because AT&T (at least on their website) want $1,000 dollars for it despite it being over two years old.

[Windows7ge]

For shits'n'giggles I stopped at AT&T and talked to them about it. I didn't expect answers but I got some information that might be useful.

 

Gal behind the counter pulled out an online compatibility sheet and wrote these down for me (word for word):

G981U
G981U1
G981W

WILL NOT
G981F
G981N
G981O

So there's at least 6 different...version? of the S20 5G and only three of them will supposedly work with AT&T. This explains the Internets ~50/50 yes it works, no it doesn't.

[Windows7ge]

6 hours ago, huilun02 said:

The S20 does not strike me as a budget sub-$400 phone

Looking at prices even though it's physically the smallest one of the bunch I did see its out of my price range after the fact.

 

The used market for it based on what I can find is quite sketchy too so I guess I have to abandon it.

 

I found the Galaxy A13 5G which fits well within my budget bought new. The cons being it's quite a bit larger, and the cameras missing features like HDR which sucks but it does have a macro lens which would be a trade-off. None/few of the cons I'm seeing people say about it make it a deal breaker given its a $200 device brand new.