I need a new phone. My old Moto G Play has seen better days and it’s time to move on. People here were so helpful with suggestions that I’m trying again.
I want an unlocked cell phone that will work with any U.S. carrier for less than $200. I prefer a smaller phone that I can slip in my pocket. My experience with Samsung products hasn’t been great so I’m disinclined to get one of those but I’m open to suggestions.
I found this Moto G6 available for $150 at Costco. Anyone have better suggestions?
Also, I may as well think about a new plan. I’m on a $40 per month pre-paid unlimited plan from T-Mobile but I never use more than 3GB of data so I could go cheaper. Any thoughts there? Thanks in advance.
I’m researching something similar myself, so I’ve looked at a lot of phones. (I was looking to stay closer to $100.) But there are a huge amount of variables. What do you concider priorities? CPU speed? Screen size and resolution? RAM and internal flash amount? Camera quality? Avoiding the damn idiot notch or holepunch?
I would myself buy the Doogee Mix if it didn’t have a sub-par camera–if you don’t care about that, you could give it a look–5.5 inch AMOLED screen, 4 GB RAM, 64 GB flash, $135 at Amazon. CPU gets a single-core Geekbench score of around 900ish, IIRC.
Also, now looking at the Moto G6 you linked, I see that it is an 9:18 phone. Here is a calculator that will give you height and width of the screen going from aspect ratio and diagonal size. (Since screen width is the limiting factor in some of the things I do, at any given diagonal size measurement an 18:9 screen is inferior to a 16:9 one.)
(One more post) for instance the 5.7 inch 9:18 phone you linked has the same screen width of a 5 inch 9:16 screen (2.5 inches.) A 5.7 inch 9:16 phone screen would be 2.8 inches wide.
I got a G6 after a long list of Samsung phones. I like it and it only took me a short time to get used to the difference between the two.
As for a company, have you tried Consumer Cellular? My husband and I are now paying $54 a month for the same plan AT&T charged $130 for. And there’s an AARP discount of 5%. (You can join the Old Folks Club at any age. You don’t have to be 50.) CC uses the Verizon and AT&T towers so coverage is great.
Thanks Darren. A good camera would be my biggest priority. The camera is a real limitation on my current phone. As for processor speed, ram, etc, there’s nothing I do that my current phone doesn’t handle perfectly well so I guess I’m not too picky about any of that. Don’t care about the notch.
And thanks NotherYinzer for the Consumer Cellular idea. I’ll check them out since my T Mobile plan works fine for me now so T Mobile towers are perfectly acceptable.
FWIW, the phone I’m 99% likely to end up buying fails for two of your preferences–it is carrier-locked and it is Samsung. But I’ll mention it anyway, just in case.
It is the J7 Crown (S767VL.) It has 2GB RAM, 16 GB of flash, a 5.5 inch (9:16) screen at 720x1280, and a CPU rated at around 1200 on single-core Geekbench. Not top of the line, but for me that is the same RAM and flash as my current phone, a bigger, higher-resolution screen, and nearly triple the CPU speed. I would like more internal flash, but it supports MicroSD cards up to 400 GB (and might even support the 512 GB and 1 TB ones, who knows?) My current one tops out at 32 GB MicroSD, which is a crippling limitation. But one of the deciding factors for me is the (rear) camera, which is 13 MP and f/1.7, and is supposedly pretty good in low light. (The front camera is also 13 MP but I don’t know if the glass is as good.) The other reason it is my likely choice is because even though it cost $200 when it came out late last year, I can buy it brand new through Amazon for my carrier at 78 bucks.
I recently researched mid-range phones, and narrowed it down to the Sony Xperia XA2, the Moto G6, and the Nokia 6.1. All were fine phones for around $200. I went with the Sony and have been happy with it, but I considered them all worthy options.
Last night I was researching the specific CMOS used in the Samsung phone I’m considering, and ended up on this page. And wow, there is a whole world of cheap phones that you never hear of in the US. Here phones are sorted by bang per buck–I was very interested in the Xiaomi Mi A2 until I learned that it has no MicroSD slot, which is an instant dealbreaker.
I too got a Moto G6, though for me it was after using LG phones for the past several years.
I like mine just fine for the limited usage I ask of it, (calls, basic internet surfing, listening to music) and I was able to figure most of the features on it out very quickly as well, which for an extreme technophobe/lazy SOB like myself is actually really saying something.
I needed a new phone last year and went with a refurb iPhone 6s off eBay for $199. I was pleasantly surprised when I received it. I looked brand new, not a single scratch. It’s unlocked and I’m using Red Pocket pre-paid for $8.25/month (I don’t use much LTE data, usually on WIFI).
Mrs. Charming and Rested had a Sony a while back that worked pretty well for her. I’ll look into both of your suggestions.
That’s pretty much what I use mine for, along with navigation and a couple of low-demand apps. It’s the failure of the GPS on my current phone that has me replacing it.
That’s a good idea too but do they replace the batteries when they refurb them? I don’t want to deal with a half worn-out battery. I’m also not sure I want to deal with flaky eBay sellers.
The 6S can tell you how much battery capacity remains (not charge, but how much it can charge). Mine had 88% remaining which was a little disappointing but acceptable. Apple says anything over 80% is OK. Apple had a thing last year where they did battery replacements for only $29 so I had mine done just before new years.
If you find an ebay seller you’re interested in buying from you can send a message asking for remaining battery capacity. If they send you a phone with less than what they told you the ebay buyer protection should step in and let you return it for a refund (or money off to get a battery swap).
I’ve also looked at the Moto at Costco.
One question, if I may: I am a T-Mobile customer. Is it as easy as buying a new phone and swapping the SIM card or do I have to get the carrier involved?
(Sorry for the slight hijack, but I think it’s related enough not to require a separate thread.)
I’m interested in the answer to this as well, though I’m with Sprint. I’m thinking about replacing my phone, and I’d really like to do the transfer myself if possible. I don’t trust Sprint not to put all of their bullshit software on my new phone.
Get the Huawei P20 Pro. It’s really good - and as it’s not the current generation, the price has fallen a lot (the P30 Pro is now out).
Seriously, it’s a really good phone - I’ve tested a number of different Chinese phones - mostly ‘budget flagship killer’ types - and they have all been what I would describe as ‘good, but somehow flawed’ - Then I paid twice the current market price for the P20 Pro, and I was not disappointed at all.
Buying ‘last season’s model’ is a great way to get value for money. 12 months ago, people were drooling over it at 3 times the current price - it’s still good now.
I wound up with the Moto G6 from Costco. I haven’t set it up yet but I wish it still used the ubiquitous Micro USB chargers instead of whatever the new thing is.
I’ll update you with my experience once I set up the new phone. I will say that the last couple of times I went through this, I was able to do it all online without visiting a store.
I may be forgetting a detail or two but when I had Sprint, they didn’t require a SIM card. You just logged onto your account online, gave them the appropriate identifier from the new phone, followed the step-by-step instructions, and waited a few minutes for the phone to activate. I think there was also a process to move apps and files from the old phone to the new one. I think that gets managed through Android, and I don’t remember if I did that before or after activating with the carrier.
Switching phones on T-Mobile required me to get a new SIM card because my old one didn’t fit the new phone. If I remember correctly, I ordered the new SIM from T-Mobile and then set everything up online once I got it. It was a pretty painless process. Again, there was also a process to move apps and files.
When we switched from AT&T to Consumer Cellular, all we had to do was put in the new SIM card and the salesperson called in to make sure our phones were up and running. She gave us back the old cards but I’m not sure what to do with them.
Enjoy your new phone! Didja know it has an FM radio in it?