Hello and good evening. So we’ve got a couple active new users on the group/page and they’ve been asking questions so I felt the need to revisit an old topic. This one is simple, how to pick your next phone. Let’s get started!
Picking a phone is easy but it is also tricky. If you’re not careful things will quickly go downhill and they almost usually do go downhill for a lot of people.
In the past, like most people, I would walk into a shop and pick whatever was on offer or was trending at that time.
It is easy and straightforward however the road to destruction is also very wide and easy. The more you live, the more you learn. I have bought MediaTek MT6850 phones twice in quick succession in 2017 and even upgrading to a MediaTek MT6739 phone in 2018 didn’t help matters much.
It’s safe to say that I learned the very hard way.
Where most people get it wrong
Picking a phone requires more meticulous planning that just walking into a shop or asking tech people lazy questions. For many people, research is equal to asking vendors or sales people if a certain phone is good. These people are paid poorly and rely heavily on commissions to survive. If their saying yes would make you buy that phone and put some money in their pocket, do you think that they’ll say no?
Of course not. They’ll say yes and get that 5k ($4) commission and have some extra financial breathing room. This should be common sense by now but apparently, common sense isn’t very common. It might sound harsh and I mean no offense but a lot of smartphones are smarter than their users. Make it make sense.
How To Pick Your Next Phone
So there are 7 key areas that any one person could be interested in when smartphones are being discussed. You may like one or more of them. This post is how to sift through and get your desired phone.
It is easy (if you put your mind to it) and straightforward. The problem most of the time is that people are lazy and absolutely do not want to do the work for themselves.
So what are these areas? Well here goes:
- Body/Display
- Performance/Gaming
- Multitasking
- Camera/Video
- Network speed
- Battery life and charging
- Operating System/Updates
Body/Display
I’ll be a little biased here and say that I really don’t care about the body aesthetics. I don’t care about color or slimness. For me, so long as the display is 1080p and above with a decent colour representation. That’s enough for me.
I absolutely draw the line at 720p displays. Beyond that, I can’t be bothered about IP68 or drop proof/ruggedness. My phone’s go into a case and live their lives there safely. Gorilla Glass protection is also nice to have but I usually prefer to install screen protectors and not test fate.
In this area, whatever you do is entirely up to you. Other than phones with cooling tech, this section has zero effect on how your phones especially if it’s a low end device. Higher end devices come with much better displays so this should be the least of your worries. Here, you get what you pay for.
Performance/Gaming
A lot of people quickly discover the hard way that this is the part of a phone that they should be worried about. The chassis colours, size or position of camera islands and whatnot are not that important in the bigger picture.
What is important is the speed of your phone and how well it can handle applications.
The best and only to tell how well your phone would run is by checking the name of the processor or SoC. This is very vital information that companies try their hardest to hide from you. I will call their names because I have been demonetized so I have nothing to lose. Oppo and Realme are the biggest culprit here. But a special place in hell should be reserved for Oppo with the way that they brazenly defraud customers by misrepresenting specs.
Whenever you want to buy a phone, ensure that you know the processor that’s on board. If you see premium octa core high performance processor, please run for your life.
How to know the processor on your phone
A good way to spot the processor on a phone is by typing the phone’s name into Google and visiting GSMArena or Kimovil.
If you get the name of the processor, do another Google search of the top 100 smartphone processors and look at the list for where the processor can be found.
For example, let us do the Redmi 15 4G. If you do a Google search of the Redmi 15 4G, you’ll see that it is powered by the Snapdragon 685.
Then go to the list of the top 100 smartphone processors and look it up. I believe that whilst 149 is more than good enough for a light user, a heavy user should be looking at 100-120 on a budget
Those with a bit more money and looking for better performance should be eyeing 70-100. If a processor does not fall into any of these categories on the list then do not buy.
See: Top 100 Smartphone SOCs (Processors) 2025
Help yourself if need be
For Multitasking
Getting a good processor tackles half the problem. The second half is partly out of your control because the OEM chooses the RAM and Storage. The only thing that you can do is ensure that you buy a phone with LPDDR4X running at over 2300MHz coupled with at least UFS2.1. Please avoid eMMC 5.1, unless of course you’re a light user.
Another thing to look at her is to not buy anything below 6GB RAM. Take note that extended RAM, RAM fusion or RAM extension are all a lie. 2+2 is not 4GB, it’s 2GB. 3+3 is not 6GB, it’s 3GB. 4+4 is not 8GB, it’s 4GB. Be wise and be vigilant.
Camera/Video
This one is tricky but here’s three ways that I go about it.
- I look at the processor. Fast processors usually have good Image Signal Processors (ISP). It is a good pointer of how well the phone will perform.
- I look at the image sensor. The bigger the sensor and aperture, then the better the image/video captured
- I look at the track record of the company producing the phone and their image processing software.
These are usually good pointers to look out for. Other things include reviews as well although many could be paid for and biased.
Network Speed
This one is also dependent on the processor that you pick. Faster processors usually have faster modems which offer faster network speeds.
Battery life and charging
Just like with most things on a phone, battery life also depends on the processor. A good processor would conserve battery and heat less while a bad one would heat up and drain your battery.
Processors that are made in a 6nm process and newer than that usually tend to handle battery well. For charging speed, simply look at the charging wattage supported by the phone.
Finally we have OS/Updates
For this one, I have nothing to say. Just pick what works for you. If you like One UI, be my guest, but if you prefer HyperOS, I’ll support you. If you also want iOS, I won’t stop you at all.
I’ll drop more commentary on this later on but I’ll pause her for tonight. Darisall.
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