Budget phone with excellent sound quality

Hamster

Hamster

Hamster

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I'm looking for an android phone with decent sound quality, especially via bluetooth for wireless headphones and also very stable. Budget is approx £100. It'll be my secondary phone, mainly for music and runkeeper tracking.

My primary phone is the Note 4 but sound quality isn't something they prioritised so I'm using my Moto Defy+ which offers far superior sound compared with the Note4 but the Moto is getting a bit long in the tooth now and is also a bit unreliable, irrespective of rom.

I'd happily spend a little more if i can get a phone sim-free from Tesco (sold by them) when they double clubcard voucher value which apparently is just a few weeks away.

Any good options worth considering or am I chasing a holy grail here?
 
How about an old Samsung Galaxy S1? The audio chip in that was utterly fantastic. Should be able to pick one up cheap somewhere...
 
Thanks :) I've also heard the S1 (and S3) are both superb for audio with dedicated DACs iirc. I was hoping for something with a bit more hardware grunt though. The moto has lovely sound but very laggy for anything else. Similar processor grunt i think to the S1.

Also, latest versions of runkeeper (and other hiit/exercise software) won't run on older android OS' so with the moto and its most stable rom, I'm stuck with a version that works with gingerbread.
 
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Don't know anything about the S3, but it should have sufficient grunt with it being quad core although it has only 2gb of ram and with touchwiz... However you only need it for music and tracking then it should more than powerful enough.

But paying for a brand new one doesnt make any financial sense, second hand would be market would be best.
 
w1lliam said:
Don't know anything about the S3, but it should have sufficient grunt with it being quad core although it has only 2gb of ram and with touchwiz... However you only need it for music and tracking then it should more than powerful enough.

But paying for a brand new one doesnt make any financial sense, second hand would be market would be best.
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You're right. I was looking at second hand S3s on ebay but I think the ones i saw were 1GB RAM though some have 2GB. Will investigate further though i'm a bit wary of buying used phones and it's hard to find something well looked after at a reasonable price.

james.miller said:
you dont like the note 4? i was really surprised by it, much better than i expected.
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tbh compared with the moto, it really is dire, though i have the snapdragon version which doesn't have the separate Wolfson DAC if that makes much difference. May be something to do with bluetooth, i don't know but imo it sounds trashy when music gets 'busy'
 
Scougar said:
ZTE ZMAX has excellent sound quality, I would say better than my S3.
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Thanks :) My google-fu doesn't appear to be working! Is this only available from the US via ebay that you know of? It's something i'd need to consider when it comes to warranty etc.

MLAM said:
I think the galaxy alpha has the wolfson Dac if you can find one cheap
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Thanks :) Does seem to get great reviews that for sound quality. Bit over budget and tesco gits don't appear to stock it which is a shame.
 
I picked up a Samsung j5 today for 99 pounds new and was really surprised how good the audio was plugged into my hi-fi
 
Thanks for the J5 suggestion, emu :)

I've spent a few hours fiddling with eq in poweramp and have hit upon an acceptable sound profile, however there's a bug with it. Every now and then the audio skips (bit like vinyl skip) which is most annoying. It's fine with the screen on but that drinks a lot of juice, even with black screen apps.

Apparently there's a fix which means editing build.prop. I'd do this (which required root) even though I'm still within Samsung warranty but i'd then lose the ability to use Virgin Anywhere which I don't want.

Unrooting with a stock firmware would just take me back to square one together with voiding the warranty so I'm either on the lookout for a fix and if not, the second phone.
 
marc2003 said:
Sorry, missed the part about this being a bluetooth issue. :o

You may to consider wired phones. :p
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lol :D

I believe build.prop can be edited through some wizardry mounting the phone in recovery without rooting but not sure i'm that capable!
 
Don't get the qualcomm 2GB S3 (i9305) there is literally zero roms being made for it - its a dead end. Stick to the 1GB Exynos version (i9300). This i9300 one also has the wolfson dac.

I was running Blissrom on mine and it was really nice. I was using the Boeffla kernel to get Voodoo sound mod on it. Although not as good as my Nexus S running voodoo mod (same internals as S1 meaning Wolfson dac) it was very good on the SQ front. But this was wired I am not sure how it will sound via BT.

TBH I was really impressed with the S3 for the price when I bought one last year (yes I was using my Nexus S till then :)). It had all the right contours and I would have been happy with it for many a year but I just hated the hardware home button (a personal thing) and I didn't think the SQ was as good as my Nexus S so sold it. I bought a 2nd hand S1 and use that as a dedicated MP3 player along with a regular phone.

If you are after audiophile audio and a smartphone in one device I'm afraid to say that ship has long sailed. The only devices that fitted that bill were the S1 and Nexus S and the hardware is just too old to be used nowadays (although the S1 XDA dev forum is still pretty active).

You'd be able to get a nice condition S3 for £65 on ebay. You could flash a few roms and see what you think and always sell it on at not much loss if it isn't for you.
 
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I wouldn't bother buying stuff like the Galaxy S1 / S3 etc... seriously dated phones. My S1 was a buggy POS that I couldn't wait to get rid of, and my recollection of the sound quality was that it was nothing out of the ordinary. My girlfriends S3 was laggy as hell by the time she got rid of it.

If looking for second hand, I'd look into the HTC One M7 or M8, or perhaps iPhone 5S. I've heard all of these and they are all a step above your typical phone. I'm talking headphones here. My Sony Z3 with the Sony Concept ROM also sounds pretty respectable even when driving my Yamaha MT220s!

If new, I've heard that the Moto G is actually quite respectable in that department but I've not heard it myself.

Or just get a USB adapter, and small USB DAC / heeadphone amp and then choose whichever phone you want. If you can deal with slightly more hassle then this is the way to go.
 
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