some of you have noticed that I am back to my Galaxy Note 9. that's not by
choice roll the tape
Sebastian here showing impressive speed setting up for his pool party that's
some great hustle from the veteran it sure is Jacob but here's where it falls
apart the airpods come out of the pocket right here and oh right into the dream
Sebastian knows that in seconds that pool water will kill them these
forgotten this phone is right here and it ends up fully submerged that small
error is going to cost him big Jacob you hate to see it Riley
a big mistake from a small small man he
is very small
okay I maintained that that was a controlled entry into the pool
but in my rush to finish my preparations I did forget about the phone which sat
in that soggy pocket for about the next half an hour and long story short I need
to buy a new one which is a completely foreign experience for
me the thing is growing up I used whatever was given to me by my parents
which was whatever came free on contract then whatever my work issued me then I
started this gig and I switched to using whatever I was reviewing at the moment
but the problem is I don't really review phones anymore so for the first time in
my life I'm going to be buying a new phone and in a giant role reversal move
I'm gonna let you guys pick it I'm probably going to regret this but I
solemnly swear to immediately buy and daily drive whatever gets the most votes
from our community give it the full review treatment for a month and then
report back to you on the experience all I need from you is a bit of your
time to talk about my requirements and
to talk about our sponsor there's nothing sadder than when your
brand new game doesn't run on your potato PC nothing is sadder than that
but it's a sadness that can be rectified by checking out build Redux at the link
below I love memes as much as you guys do but the thing is I use my phone for
work a lot and I can't be stuck on a Nokia 3310 or something so let's lay out
some ground rules one it needs to run a
recent version of Android or iOS sorry Windows Phone lovers two It's gotta have
a touch screen three it has to work on North American Cellular bands and four
finally if it's an Android phone I need Google Play Store support so that I'm
not spending half of my time role-playing as the APK Hunter with
those hard rules out of the way let's talk soft requirements and preferences
starting with operating system the benefits of iOS are many it often gets
the best versions of apps and better support for smart devices my ecobee
thermostats for example often fail to complete their Wi-Fi setup on Android
but they always work on iPhone and iOS
devices also get excellent long-term software support which can have real
world benefits even for frequent upgraders since the mishap I've fallen
back to my old note 9 and I would be having a much better time right now if
I'd gone with an iPhone 10 at the time this thing is leggy as heck
I'm also kind of curious to try out carplay I like Android auto well enough
but there are weird behaviors from time to time like random failures to resume
music playback and this weird interface issue I've had recently where it's
really hard to just get to the app list so maybe it's better on the dark side or
maybe it isn't having spent the last five straight years on Android at least
it's the devil I know though with that said I'm mostly familiar with the
Samsung skin so there could be a learning curve either way I mean I'm
sure I could seamlessly switch to a pixel or something but if I ended up
with our crusty China only skin that's cluttered with non-english language apps
and doesn't even have proper Netflix support that would kind of suck or
Sony's skin that honestly seems great other than the fact that for some obtuse
reason it doesn't allow you to move the back button over to the right hand side
other than that I don't actually use much of a customization that Android
offers so I am mostly indifferent to my operating system except I do care about
side loading a fair bit I recently imported a smart product that isn't
technically available in Canada and therefore doesn't have its companion app
in the Canadian versions of the app store or the Play Store so side loading
was the only way to get it oh and I guess the Android World offers
a lot more variety on the hardware side like if you want cool features like a
foldable screen or a built-in thermal camera Android is the only game in town
also I strongly prefer fingerprint ID to
facial ID it's not a privacy thing I just find it faster because before I'm
even looking at the phone it's unlocked I'm ready to go the last thing I'll say
on the software side is digital assistants might be a major
consideration for some people but as far as I can tell they pretty much both suck
donkey tail these days so um yeah
realistically call Quality is a way more
important thing to me I found myself dropping more phone calls than computer
parts lately with my full three okay cause the
I'm in Canada meaning that anything with strong reception for calls on the common
bands up here would definitely be a plus and oh this is a fun fact by the time
this challenge is over we should be capable of empirically testing cellular
reception in our EMC chamber so we'll be able to let you guys know if you picked
a good one or if you screwed me over
um another thing is speed this is a funny one because for the longest time I
felt like phones are all kind of fast enough but as it turns out
you regress far enough you do really
feel it now part of that is the stark
contrast with the more modern device that I've been using lately but a bigger
part of it is that while your old phone stayed the same the rest of the world
moved on everything from your apps to the websites you visit to even the
operating system it's running has gotten more complex and more demanding
I don't game on my phone though like the most demanding things I do are watch 4K
videos and load large spreadsheets in Google Sheets so as long as navigation
and loading times are Snappy I'm honestly not going to notice the
difference if you guys go for last year's model or if you kick me out with
a Snapdragon gen 3.2 2x2 or whatever as
for durability anyone around here can tell you that I live my life in a
Perpetual state of semi-distracted multitasking so while it is rare for my
phone to experience a full screen down concrete SmackDown
you can see from my longest surviving device here that I do drop my phone once
in a while a problem that is exacerbated by the fact that I prefer to go caseless
that means that the iPhone's robust accessory Market means very little to me
but if I could get something that similarly uses extra strong Modern Glass
from Corning it might keep something like this from happening or actually
failing that strong repair ability would be super cool maybe something I could
easily take apart with my trusty stubby Screwdriver from lttstore.com easily
replaceable or not a high refresh rate screen is a plus for me but going back
to 60 hertz also hasn't bothered me nearly as much as I expected so I guess
it's not a top priority and while we're at it I also don't really care about
having the boostiest maximum brightness I need to be able to read it Outdoors
but having a neutral color profile available to me is way more important I
like to view content whether it's a web page or a TV show as the Creator
intended and I don't like having my colors mucked around with a folding
display is another Plus for me I've grown very accustomed to remoting into a
PC and being able to actually see what I'm doing but after three years honestly
I'm also kind of ready for a change so
one thing I don't want to give up though isn't always on display it is really
nice my phone's on the table to be able to like discreetly check what time it is
in the middle of a meeting without having to look at my wrist or click on
my phone and speaking of clicking I also really like having a quick way to access
the camera without waking the device first my preferred method is a double
press on the power button but I guess I could learn something else if I really
needed to on the subject of cameras I feel like a bit of an anomaly here but I
don't really care much about fancy features or shooting modes and I almost
never use alternate lenses because usually they have a lower quality sensor
behind them and to my eyes the main shooter with a bit of CSI enhancement is
usually a better bet anyway with that said I do know that some recent devices
do use multiple high quality sensors so
that's something that could be kind of fun to check out I'm also not a big
selfie guy on the rare occasion that I do really care about the quality I'll
just turn the camera around and then no scope it which by the way shout out to
the Samsung S Pen for making this way easier to do because you don't have to
mash the volume button in order to take the shot which especially at night helps
you keep it much steadier and is way faster than just waiting for a countdown
timer every time you make a hand gesture and hoping that you've counted it right
in your head because you can't see the screen I also don't record a ton of video on my
everyday phone I do have an iPhone that I keep around for when quality matters
and I have a production crew from when quality really matters but I do grab
impromptu clips of my kids and pets sometimes so it never hurts to have
decent video quality this is a bit of a tangent but as
someone who backs up my original quality photos manually to my server USB speed
does matter for me most iPhones and even some newer Android phones run at ancient
USB 2 speeds it's meaning that I would need to leave my phone hooked up to the
computer for a long period of time to complete a transfer so USB 3 would be a
big plus for me on the subject of the charging port for
better longevity I never use wireless charging and I don't even use fast
charging if I can avoid it I don't care about any of that 5 volt one amp for
life baby but that doesn't mean I wouldn't benefit from something a little more modern than
this I mean I'm not the heaviest user the five-year-old battery pack in here
is still comfortably getting me through the day but the full three especially
with how much I use that large inner screen would sometimes fail to make it
to bedtime with the battery saver 85 maximum charge mode that I use so
something with a little bit more endurance would be nice I don't
typically watch movies on my phone but I do often watch TV and for that I do like
to have stereo speakers that are loud enough to clearly make out dialogue for
music though I almost exclusively use my in-ear wireless headphones when they
aren't at the bottom of the pool so loudness and sound quality as a
Bluetooth speaker replacement is not terribly important to me I do find
myself speaking of wireless headphones missing the three and a half millimeter
Jack sometimes though having one of those might be nice but funnily enough I
almost never miss the micro SD slot the cards are just so prone to corruption
and performance issues that even on phones that supported them I absolutely
like this one I've basically never found myself using them in the long term
what else is there to say uh for obvious reasons waterproofness would be a plus
Apple's 3D scanning hoo-ha is kind of cool though I've used it a grand total
of twice um once to scan my office for a VFX
company to put an explosion in it for a reason that will remain undisclosed and
then once to get fitted for the big screen Beyond VR headset so at a rate of
0.75 uses per year then I think it's the kind of thing that I can just borrow an
iPhone from a friend or colleague for whenever it comes up
I'm trying to think of some examples of phones that I really liked or really
hated um I loved the iPhone 4 for its one hand
ability I'd be pretty interested to try out a small phone again for a bit so
it's unlikely that I would switch to it permanently just because of work and
needing a big screen I loved the iPhone 6s it was just so Snappy at the time
compared to everything else in 3D touch was so cool rip and then on the Android
side the Droid Turbo HTC One note 9 and
fold 3 are all fond memories for me actually I can't really think of
anything that I've hated like that's a really strong word but
um super heavy clunky stuff like the Razer phone that's never really floated
my boat for those of you who have made it this far I really appreciate your
time you are truly gentle folk to care so much about the recommendation that
you're about to make we're going to have a link to our unofficial subreddit
thread where you can add or upvote your recommended devices I also appreciate
your optimism your faith and the rest of the community to do this same as you're
doing it warms my heart even if I know deep down that I'm going to end up with
some phony mcfone face thing that factors in absolutely nothing of what
I've just said or I don't know maybe you beautiful thoughtful Souls will prove me
wrong like how we use the wrong segue to our
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don't you check out this recent video where we showed 10 of the weirdest
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