What midrange phone £250-350 (ish)
- Thread starter div0
- Start date
I might be mistaken, but I don't think the 4a has a fingerprint scanner; same as the standard 4.
This was probably a good shout but I missed the sale. No urgency whilst we're in lock down so I might just wait to see if they go on offer again.
I have an iPhone with work and that reassures me than I'm not an iPhone lover so the SE is out of the question.
The camera on my OnePlus 3 is knackered now - the auto focus fault (common issue) has reached the point of no return so the main camera on the phone is now useless. The OnePlus 8 is too pricey for my liking and I think I'd be perfectly happy with a mid-range phone now.
@batfink i bought the s10 lite whilst it was on sale for £371 (inc £35 trade in)
can confirm its snapdragon 855 with 8gb ram
so for "futureproofing" the chipset is much bettter than the a71
the a71 has the 4 camera solution, whereas the s10 lite only has 3 (doesn't have the telephoto lens) - looking at reviews the a71's photos may look slightly better
(though that being said, much better than motorola's phone - i'm coming from a moto z)
can confirm its snapdragon 855 with 8gb ram
so for "futureproofing" the chipset is much bettter than the a71
the a71 has the 4 camera solution, whereas the s10 lite only has 3 (doesn't have the telephoto lens) - looking at reviews the a71's photos may look slightly better
(though that being said, much better than motorola's phone - i'm coming from a moto z)
3-4x a year? and the s10 lite was only announced 3 months ago lol
bound to get cheaper
Lol. Thought it was older than that for some reason. I think I can wait. Both that and the A71 seem very decent value for money (when on offer)
The Pixel 4a should be out in May for £400. I would personally wait as it may tick the boxes. 3 years of software support, 2 years hardware support, solid feature set. It’s the phone I’m waiting for.
I'll look into that one a bit more. I like stock Android but isn't the battery life usually a weak spot on these phones?
OP - apologies for the thread hijack but my requirements/price point are very similar to yours so its all relevant.
Experience tells me that "in May" means around 28th/29th, just like manufacturers stating "released in Q2" means the last day of Q2
i was incidentally also holding out for a 4a...but decided to bite the bullet with the s10 lite instead
pixel 4a is rumoured to come with a 3800 mah battery (for comparison, a71 and s10 lite has 4500mah battery)
the base 4a is the one that's likely to hit the £399 price point - sd 730, 6gb ram, 64gb storage
for comparison:
uk a71 - sd 730, 6gb ram, 128gb storage
s10 lite - sd 855, 8gb ram, 128gb storage
camera quality, though, is an unknown - but one would suggest google may be better? that being said, one can sideload gcam on the samsung phones to take advantage of google's image processing...
Not a problem at all. I already hit the button on the A71 purchase.
Of the options mentioned since then, the S10 lite does look good, although lack of headphone jack is a minor negative for me personally.
The pixel 4a just lacks enough storage options for me. 64gb isn't really enough without any SD card support.
Happy if the thread helps you and others look at other options in this sort of price range. I'll update again when the A71 arrives in next couple of days.
Enjoying the A71 so far. Haven't used it a lot yet, so can't give much of an in depth review for now. But main things I'd comment on compared to my old Moto 5G plus are:
- fair amount of pre-installed Samsung sw that I disabled, but easy enough to do
- screen longer and narrower than I'd expected, but I guess just a change in aspect ratio used these days
- screen looks good
- battery charges really quickly and holds it well, can easily go a couple of days between charges for my normal use
- in-screen fingerprint scanner a bit hit or miss so far. Having problems with both thumbs being reliably picked up, other fingers ok. Had similar issues on old phone but maybe not quite so bad
Overall happy with my choice so far. Will update once used it a bit more.
- fair amount of pre-installed Samsung sw that I disabled, but easy enough to do
- screen longer and narrower than I'd expected, but I guess just a change in aspect ratio used these days
- screen looks good
- battery charges really quickly and holds it well, can easily go a couple of days between charges for my normal use
- in-screen fingerprint scanner a bit hit or miss so far. Having problems with both thumbs being reliably picked up, other fingers ok. Had similar issues on old phone but maybe not quite so bad
Overall happy with my choice so far. Will update once used it a bit more.
Your feedback on the A71 pretty much echoes my thoughts on the S10 LITE that I plumped for in the end:
- removed and disabled pretty much all the Samsung software. I've never needed it before so I don't need it now. I've kept OneUI running rather than going back to Nova. It seems ok so far;
- Great screen but not all apps are optimised for the additional length;
- Great battery life;
- Fingerprint scanner a bit hit and miss. So is the face unlock. The fingerprint scanner on my 3.5 year old Oneplus 3 was much faster and more reliable;
Also to add:
- really pleased with the camera. It takes some great shots;
- like the fact that Samsung prompts you when an app is using background location/data that is out of place so you can disable it easily;
- like the fact that you can really tweak the detail of notifications per app - sound on/off, vibrate on/off, app notification badges (which actually work, reliably!), lockscreen notifications on/off, taskbar on/off etc.
- Now I've got used to Android 10 gestures, there's no going back.
- It's big. Like really big.