I need a new cell phone. I rather want something in a mid-range, and I’d narrowed it down to a Samsung A51 and a Pixel 3a.
The Samsung is… okay. Standard. I’ve had a Galaxy S5 for the last many years and it’s been fine. The camera appears to be fine but not great, especially in low light. It’s kind of a big phone, a little too big for me. It does have removable memory storage, which I really like.
The Pixel seems like a really great phone. It’s got a camera that people seem to agree is fantastic. People seem to just really like it. It is the right form factor for me. It doesn’t have removable memory, which is too bad, but I could live with that. It basically seems like an almost-perfect phone for me.
…except that a certain number of people report a problem with the speaker. Not everyone, not most people, but a sizable number. From reviews I guesstimate a few percent?
Normally I’d just roll the dice and hope I get lucky, only part of the idea here is for me to have a reliable phone just in case, well, things are rather uncertain right now. Also, normally if my phone stopped working I’d just swap the sim card into an old phone, but I’m moving from a micro sim to a nano sim so I dont’ have any other phones that would take that card.
So I think I have to not get the Pixel, much as I want to. Anyone have experiences with either of these phones? Something else you prefer?
I’m not sure how different the A51 is from the A50, but if it’s anything like the A50 I would strongly not recommend it. I have an A50 now (brand-new, too) and it is slow, clunky and inefficient in so many ways.
Samsung’s come with (or at least they used to, & I think they still do) a metric crapton of bloatware, a lot of which you can’t disable &/or remove unless you root your phone.
You’re also going to get Android updates both quicker & for longer on a Pixel than with a Samsung phone.
Yeah, I’m intrigued by that, and I’d only have to wait a couple of weeks, it sounds like, which I think is doable. I worry about whether it would have the same speaker problem, though… hopefully they got enough complaints about the 3a that it’s fixed in the 4a??
LOL. I meant that the A51 is too big for me. The S5 isn’t too bad. I actually made a cardboard cutout of the A51 to make sure it would fit in my pocket, which it… barely does.
If battery life is important the Moto G Power lasts up to 3 days, which is very useful. It also has a sdcard slot and headphone jack. It is a pretty big phone, as big as my old Galaxy Note 4.
My sister has the Pixel 3a and she absolutely loves it. She hasn’t reported any speaker issues and she always has issues with technology.
My mother has some Samsung A or J model, I’m not sure, and it’s super clunky and slow. The Pixel 3a is pretty much a flagship phone in a little package.
I have the Samsung S10e which has come down in price since its release last year. I really like it and Samsung has gotten way better at updating Android versions. And, it’s pretty easy to turn off all the bloatware.
If price and camera are more important, I’d get the Pixel 3a. If size or performance is more important, consider the S10e, because it’s a little smaller than the 3a and has a faster chip (I think). It also has a slot for external memory. Samsung’s latest user interface is getting very good reviews.
I don’t know what the 4a will look like, so if you’re not desperate, then hang on for a couple of weeks.
I just bought an unlocked Pixel 4 (not a) directly from Google. It was $500 and it’s fantastic. Granted, I skipped the last generation (my previous phone was an LG G6) but the new native version of Android is incredibly intuitive and the gesture controls are definitely going to become A Thing going forward.
It’s true that my S10e from Best Buy was a Verizon model, but I was able to uninstall all kinds of stuff – Facebook, Verizon Maps, Verizon Messages, some pre-loaded games, other stuff that’s long gone. In the past, with previous Samsung phones, I could only disable stuff I didn’t want, but this time I could uninstall it. I didn’t try uninstalling certain Verizon software that I actually use (the manage-your-account stuff) and I haven’t tried uninstalling Samsung-specific bloatware (their e-mail app, for example).
That’s a good point about not buying it from Verizon. Soooo much bloatware on my Samsung. It looks like the Pixel 3a isn’t even available on Verizon, so I guess I wouldn’t be able to anyway
I was looking at the 10e! Hmm, that sounds like a good option too.
I think it’s a little smaller, although the screen is the same size or larger. I really like it, and Samsungs get better third-party support in terms of cases and other stuff. Not as good as iPhones, but pretty good.
For battery life, I only charge it to 80% at night and then shut it off. Then, it usually has 25-40% left at the end of the day. On the other hand, I’m not that intense of a user.
Could this be true for the Pixel 4a? I was under the impression that all Pixel phones are unlocked phones and not specific to any one carrier. I have a Best Buy gift card that I was hoping to use to purchase the Pixel 4a when it comes out but now you’re making me wonder if I should forgo the gift card and purchase the 4a directly from Google.
AIUI, they are unlocked phones but they’re selling the ‘Verizon’ model, which includes the Verizon bloatware, the same as if you went into a Verizon store & bought a phone (outright) & then activated on AT&T, Sprint, TMO, or another carrier; it would still have the Verizon bloatware that you can’t remove w/o rooting the phone. Unlocked means you can use it on most (all?) carriers & has nothing to do with what apps are preinstalled.
