Help me chose a Galaxy S2 replacement

[rodenal]

An off topic thread on motors actually prompted me with this, don't normally even look in the mobiles forum.

So my S2 has seen better days, looking a bit battered, could be doing with a new battery, starting to get very hot regardless of rom used and tbh I'm bored of it.

Has been running a slim 4.2.1 Slim rom for a good few months now so relatively up to date OS wise meaning I'm not going to get (nor am I expecting) any kind of drastic core operating differences with a newer Android phone.

I'm having a really, really difficult time picking a device to replace it with for a few reasons:

• 
  Size, the S2 is plenty big enough and I'm just not interested in anything substantially bigger. The likes of the S4 are just that little bit too big in terms of width x height - I don't really care about thickness
  
  Price / contract length. I'm not taking a 2 year contract, not interested in paying more than about £35 a month (though don't mind putting a bit down for the phone) and I'm certainly not spending £5-600 of my hard earned up front on a handset. 500mb of data is also nowhere near enough so I need unlimited or at least a couple of gig
  
  OS - I'm used to and like android, not interested in ios (have never got on with it) and haven't used a windows phone since about 5 years ago. So whilst i'm not set on Android it's looking like that's the way I'll be going

I've kind of narrowed it down to a nexus 4, but then when I manage to find one to actually look at it's hardly substantially smaller than the S3/4 and I don't really want to buy one only to find a new nexus announced next month.

The mini s4 / htc one would be tempting too if only they had an actual spec list that was more impressive than the S2!

So I'm a bit stuck really, ideas welcome!

 

[dasyad]

The mini s4 / htc one would be tempting too if only they had an actual spec list that was more impressive than the S2!

They do

Problem with the S4 Mini is that you may as well pay a bit more and get a HTC One, or pay a bit less and get a Nexus 4.

I sympathise with size issues, I too have a S2 and don't really want anything bigger for my next phone. But then again I change my mind every day

 

[rodenal]

Ok so they're a bit better but it's not exactly a massive jump considering the likely cost of the handset.

I think the nexus is looking like the way forward tbh, just seems a bit....big!

 

[dasyad]

Ok so they're a bit better but it's not exactly a massive jump considering the likely cost of the handset.

I think the nexus is looking like the way forward tbh, just seems a bit....big!

That's the thing, you're not going to see massive jumps really. All we've had over the past few years is more RAM, more storage, sharper screens and CPU powah. I guess a lot of the bigger jumps have been in software improvements and efficiency of the processors.

Personally I think all of the above make it a decent upgrade for the money. If you're going Android I'd be choosing between Nexus 4, HTC One, Galaxy S4 and maybe even that Oppo Find 5

 

[Buttkicker]

The trouble is that the S2 is a great phone my wife still has it and it is like new and has never really missed a beat since the day she got it.. and it still stands up well next to the latest smart phones - I have a Galaxy Note which is great and my daughter has an S3 and to be honest in day to day real life examples there is nothing between them externally bar the screen sizes

For £35 a month you can get just about any phone on the market if you shop around - I have been looking at various phones in the shops in recent weeks and there are some real nice looking phones about currently on sale
the Blackberry Z looks really nice but not much of an upgrade from what you already have the Sony experia Z also looks the part but is bigger than the S2
must also add that the top end Nokia windows 8 phones look really nice as well

 

[rodenal]

Ended up with the Nexus 4, took a 24 month contract in the end but at £24 a month so I'll just buy it out / buy a new handset whenever I'm done with it.

Very pleased with it so far, other than the better screen it's not vastly different to the S2 running the 4.2 slim rom though that's exactly what I expected. The problem I had with my S2 is with the custom 4.2 rom it started to slow down an awful lot after a couple of weeks, I found the same with any of the JB roms that had a nicer interface than stock.

I put the samsung released 4.1 back onto the S2 last night then re-rooted it, makes the interface look very old comparatively.. Not sure whether I should keep it rooted to sell it, can always ask the buyer I guess.

Ended up getting a Nexus 7 32gb for £150 with some of the money I was going to use on a handset too - I know the new one is due out soon but happy with it regardless!

 

[Pawnless Endgame]

I know it's too late now because you've got the Nexus 4, but with my S2, I bought extra batteries for it. 2 spares + charger for £20 from one of those dodgy Hong Kong sellers on eBay. If you can wait for the 1-2 weeks it takes, then it's a good buy. The advertised mAh (battery capacity) is higher than the stock battery and doesn't live up to the claim, but in practice they do run for about as long as the stock battery and that's good enough for me. I keep one in my wallet. Very useful when you're stranded without a charger and/or socket or if Virgin Trains decided to turn off their laptop/phone outlets lol.

 

[rodenal]

It was fine on the stock rom to be fair, but once you're used to a nicer interface with better sized icons etc its hard to go back. Every rom or even the better launchers caused a real drain. Better battery would have helped but I was bored anyway.