Midrange phone for music and photos

Ysmalari · 1 Feb 2021 at 16:54

I've been trawling reviews opinions and anything else I could find regarding phones that have decent audio for headphones.

I'm using Bose QC ii headphones, mainly in Bluetooth mode but occasionally in wired mode, on my admittedly crappy Honor 10 and I'm fed up with the sound quality. I've got the paid version of Poweramp and have tweaked the EQ as much as possible but frankly it still sounds very treble heavy with little impact.

Additionally the camera on the Honor 10 is pretty awful and it'd be nice to have a better option.
So after a 2.5 years I think it's time for an upgrade.

I prefer to buy outright rather than contract so budget wise I'm firmly in the midrange - between £300 to £500 - and I'm definitely in the android camp. Reviews rarely mention headphone audio quality so I'm hoping someone here might have some advice?

Ysmalari · 1 Feb 2021 at 16:58

It wouldn't be a deal breaker if it didn't, just a nice to have.

Ysmalari · 2 Feb 2021 at 09:20

Interesting choice, I hadn't really looked into the Xiaomi phones so I'll do some reading on it.

Thanks

Ysmalari · 2 Feb 2021 at 12:33

I think I've narrowed down my options on this partly because I'd also like a phone that's less than 160mm tall and this somewhat limits the choices apparently

From even more research I think my options are:
Pixel 4a
Pixel 4a 5g - is the extra cost of the 5g worth it?
Samsung s10e
Oneplus Nord - just about in the size limit but no headphone socket and mixed views on sound quality.

Any opinions on these?

The Xiaomi and Realme options are intriguing but they're all quite large.

Ysmalari · 3 Feb 2021 at 12:16

DataVampire said:
As far as I'm aware for music playback you cannot get better than a lg phone. but in all seriousness. just get whatever phone you like for other features than music and then just buy a mobile dac plenty of them and go from cheapish to silly amounts, most new dacs have either usbc or MicroUSB to plug into the phone, and they also then give you a headphone jack. Fiio do some good starter dacs which from what i have seen and read are better than the lg phones.

Thanks very much that's very useful info.
If I'm not happy with the audio output of the new phone then a USB C DAC may be the answer.

I had been checking for LG options but they seem like gold dust in the UK with only a few decent options on ebay; I'm always wary of buying high value items from there.

By chance I spotted a Pixel 4a 5g on Amazon warehouse for £100 less than normal, the condition is supposed to be perfect apart from some packaging damage. Worth the punt I thought as I can just return it immediately if there's a problem.