phone replacement fears and irrational angers

[cimorene]

My phone and waxjism's phone, which are Oneplus 5T twins (but hers is the red special ed.) are coming up on their 4th birthday in a month, which is creating increasing fear about when they will have to be replaced. My dread is largely driven by the knowledge that phones keep getting larger, and I hate that: the [Google+LG] Nexus 4 in 2012 was the perfect size for a phone (the screen was like 5.3"); the 5T is 6.4 or something like that, and nearly every comparable replacement on the market is 6.5+".

So anyway, last week my phone failed to receive some text messages without displaying any sign that there was a problem - I only knew because they were 2-factor authentication messages. They appeared as soon as I restarted it, but it's a worrying problem. A phone that doesn't receive communications has got to be replaced. So I started trying to learn about the current offerings from reviews and articles. (Initially hoping for some indication that a better option - that is, similar features but smaller - would be coming along in the near future, but on the contrary, they're still just getting bigger probably and unless you're in the Apple ecosystem you should probably forget about it.)

I learned some things!

• I learned to my dismay that Apple has introduced a mini version of the iPhone in the last two years (even smaller than the Nexus 4) - at the flagship end, so full of excess features and at a pricepoint I wasn't considering otherwise, but even though this is technically the fourth year since Apple introduced a smaller iPhone (a midrange one called the iPhone SE), no Android manufacturers are following suit: I read several articles on the subject and everyone seems to think it's unlikely to happen because of market forces and manufacturing costs. I've never considered an iPhone and this isn't enough to make me, but knowing that only Apple is making phones the size I want infuriated me. I'm much more angry at the market in general than I was when I just thought that nobody was making them at all. It's like the universe is fucking with me.



• It's surprisingly hard to make a decision when one option is your favorite color, but the other one is cheaper and better in every conceivable way. Like, the adult choice is obvious, here, but - it's so hard to picture myself with this other, not my favorite color phone instead of the one that's my favorite color! Ugh.



• Then this morning I said to Wax, "On the one hand, once something costs over 300 euros, another couple of hundred won't make that much noticeable difference. But on the other, I could buy the cheapest option and take the 200€ difference and also buy a new dutch oven, and you'd definitely notice that difference." And she laughed so hard that I ended up walking away, but later I had to come back and ask, because this statement seemed logical to me. "I guess from your reaction that there's something wrong with my logic," I said, "but I don't know what it is, so could you maybe explain it a little?"
  
  "That's not how money works," she said, still laughing.
  
  "I mean... that's how I've always thought of it... and it sounds normal for how my mom or my sister would talk about it..."
  
  "You don't magically have 200 more euros than before just because you didn't spend it on something that you didn't need anyway," said Wax. "But I mean, you can do it. You can buy a dutch oven if you want to. But not because of the phone." (Decision on the dutch oven is still pending.) (I mean, I guess I knew that already, in the sense that I could have bought a dutch oven before without asking her, even before the phone issue came up, and been confident she wouldn't be upset about it.)

Comments

[mecurtin]

The Otterbox that fits my phone comes in a color you like. We don't use phones without them, because clumsy. So maybe you can get the less expensive phone, and then put on an Otterbox in a good color?

[cimorene]

You know, I was gonna do that last time but I couldn't find a TPU cover in a solid color I didn't hate and I ended up just putting a sticker on the back of the phone and a clear case!

But one advantage of buying a Samsung like I did this time - extra responsibly! - , even a cheap one, is that it's a lot easier to get cases (and more importantly, screen protectors, because I go through probably ten to twenty of those per phone...).

[princessofgeeks]

Good luck. Every time I have to replace a phone I dread it.

[cimorene]

I almost cried like ten times over the past few days of googling!!! It was harrowing but I finally ordered the cheapest one that met my requirements this morning. And a case and screen protector.

[brownbetty]

Are you open to maybe putting a ROM on the phone, if you really like its form-factor? LineageOS is pretty friendly, IMO.

[cimorene]

I feel like the last time I looked into it that hacking still looked hard enough that I was afraid to brick a phone! But also, I think you can only do that with Android anyway. If you could hack an iphone and put an Androidrom on it, and if I was more used to overspending I guess, I would totally think it was worth it to get what I wanted at iphone mini size, but there really aren't any really great small candidates in Android - like, the small Pixel doesn't have 5G, and the ones that do aren't that small anymore; and the other smallish ones aren't small enough, and have other hardware issues.

[brownbetty]

I was thinking you could try putting it on your existing phones to see if it resolved the problem, I would be hesitant to do it on a new, $$$ phone.

But I've used that rom on a couple phones, and it's not too onerous.

[cimorene]

Oooh, I see! That didn't occur to me, but maybe it would. I did order a phone, but this makes an opportunity to attempt to install it, anyway.

[torachan]

I have an iPhone 13+ as my personal phone and an iPhone 7 for work and the 13+ is as large as I would want to get. I like the larger screen because it's nice (the 7 does seem too small to me now) but I have stubby thumbs and it's already difficult for me to reach across the screen with one hand. Anything larger and it would be impossible. Also I keep my phone in my pocket and anything larger would be annoying.

I'm really surprised no Android phones are making smaller ones, though, since the iPhone SE shows there's clearly a demand.

[cimorene]

My sister has a 13 Pro and she said the same thing. It's actually still smaller than most of the high-end Android phones now - they're just absolutely ridiculous. She said it's usable but occasionally she has trouble reaching. (But not enough to go as small as the Mini, for her. I totally wouldn't mind that size, but she watches tv on hers.)

And that's also why I googled it several times. I thought copying anything that succeeds is de rigeur in phones! But apparently the Android components market makes it harder - Apple controls their own production completely and they also waste more money sometimes, but I gather the SE is reusing manufacturing - components I guess? - from an older device. Apparently all the reviewers thought the 12 mini was a failure though because it didn't become a runaway bestseller or popular buzz item, and they were surprised when they then released the 13 mini (which apparently fixed the problems the 12 mini had had and is now flawless at the size, so all the android reviewers are saying you really should consider it anyway).

[krait]

Oooh, good luck with the replacement. (And the Dutch oven?) I toyed with the idea of replacing my phone in December, and ran into the same problem of "everything is sized for a lumberjack now, but WHY?"

So far I'm sticking with my old one, and have decided to worry about it if and when it dies. Replacing the laptop should probably be a higher priority for now...

[cimorene]

Right now apparently the Samsung flagship from last year - it's called S21 - is the smallest Android phone that doesn't have some glaring problems with it but it costs over 600 bucks which was way too much, and it's also still like 6,1" tall.

You can still get a Google Pixel 4a or 5 (no letter) or 5a on ebay/Amazon and these are just slightly cheaper than that, particularly the 4a is probably the best small-ish device, but it's more expensive than the Samsungs that have the same features (although as a Google device, it has a slightly nicer stock android feel and gets better updates).

Then there are some cheaper ones and some definitely worse ones like ... one of the Xperias and some sort of ... Samsung rugged edition something-something and at the Quite Quite Cheap end there's a couple of Moto G devices, but Motorola has such a bad update policy that everybody mentions it right away. So like they're the most affordable but they basically get updated like... once. Very bad for potential future bugs and apps would likely stop working over time after that. But then again, some people might find that a decent tradeoff because I think the Moto ones cost like 200 bucks or so.

[cimorene]

Which is why I just gave up on all of that and ordered the cheapest device I could find that met my important requirements, which was a mid-range Samsung with 5G and camera and battery life that aren't terrible (I accepted reviewers considering the backup cameras "so-so"). And it's huge which I hate, and also not my favorite color, but. Oh well.