Jump to content

Phone choice dilemna!

Vishan

Alright, so I am looking to buy a phone to replace my well aged moto g5 plus, definitely long overdue.

So I am looking at buying a used phone and I am having a very tough time deciding what to get.

I was thinking an iPhone SE 2020 which I could get for around $250 for the supreme longevity and performance and very good price

But I use windows and really appreciate the Phone Link so was then thinking Galaxy S20 ($460) and S21 ($510) and am wondering if it is worth getting the S21, as far as I can tell only for the better performance and longer support, but am also happy to root and download updates myself in the future, p.s. I'm from Aus so we get the exynos chips 馃槥

Your own opinions would be great as well as potentially some other options. I don't want to spend much more than $500, and don't care too much about 5G but would be a good bonus.
Also, I like to keep my phones for a while so my main priority is performance really.

Thanks for the help.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

I'll try to stay unbiased as I know a lot of people on here will automatically recommend Android or Apple simply because "it's better" lol.聽

Firstly, why would you buy used when you could very easily buy new with that kind of money? I'd much rather get a brand-new phone since it sounds like you plan to use it for a long period of time before upgrading.

From experience, iPhones tend to just be more user-friendly. Their UI is generally more user friendly and more efficient to use. Apple's security policies iirc are pretty rock solid, so not a bad option. Though, they come with the disadvantage that once you buy any Apple product whatsoever, you're locked into their ecosystem. Want earbuds? Have to buy the AirPods. Want a smartwatch? Gotta purchase the Apple Watch. Break a cable? Pay $50 for an Apple branded charger, and so on and so forth.聽

You also have the issue, that without Apple Care+ you'll find that if you break it, you'll end up paying like 80% of the cost of the phone for repairs, which is kinda a trick to coax you into purchasing a whole new device. Tis' the reason Right to Repair is so important, but that's a whole other can of worms.

Androids on the other hand, are built like tanks. I have had an old Samsung phone, and I could literally launch it at a brick wall out of a cannon and chances are it would come out semi-functional. They don't have as good of a UI as Apple, but a small price to pay for longevity I suppose. Because you want reliability, I would go with the Galaxy S20. Pretty modern, cheap enough and does what you need it to do.

Tl;Dr - Apple has better UI and (imo) is nicer to use, but Android phones last a bit longer and, in your case, will be what you'll likely be looking for. Doesn't make much difference going from S20 to S21 unless you plan on gaming or something.

Keep in mind that I am sometimes wrong, so please correct me if you believe this is the case!

"The Nvidia Geforce RTX 3050 is brutally underrated"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Birblover12 said:

Firstly, why would you buy used when you could very easily buy new with that kind of money? I'd much rather get a brand-new phone since it sounds like you plan to use it for a long period of time before upgrading.

straight up specs and/or cost savings, here in indo i can get mi 10t pro for like 260$ used and thats a phone with 144hz screen and snap 865 and its only been released like 2 years ago, pay abit more and go to the 330$ pricepoint and now you get a mi 11t pro, 120hz amoled over 144hz lcd and snap 888 cpu, and this is a flagship phone released september last year so theyre not junk phones clearly, especially when you root them and since these are cheaper xiaomi phones they have a massive community of modders around them cause its just cheap and very high spec for the price, if you arent a sissy and willing to go and install a custom recovery now you can just get a custom rom over stock miui AND still have updates well after official support ends, theres also other stuff like rooting and installing custom kernels but for normal use custom rom is most important

So op, what do you actually wanna use the phone for? Gaming? Productivity work? Just normal browsing around and whatsapp? They all have varying requirementw with obviously normal browsing around being the lowest spec requirement

Also for other stuff like long battery life, good camera, etc. What do you prioritize for that?

Used xiaomi mi 10/11t are very good in the performance aspect, unsure about camera but they should atleast be half decent at that too, battery life they do have big batteries but youll wanna get a custom kernet and/or root for an app that can control cpu governor to control max cpu speed cause these socs are quite power hungry but if you can do that then theres the good battery life aspect

Iphone se actually looks pretty decent from a support standpoint and should also have pretty decent durability though cant say much else since ive only used android and definitely will avoid apple cause i like tweaking my damn phones to my liking if possible but thats personal preference

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

If you want go Apple, go Apple. But don't pick the SE. It's just a complete and utter piece of garbage.

My company has given them to all employees. When it was announced, everybody cheered. Free iPhones, right?

Now they're all complaining 24/7 about the trash tier battery life.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now