heywood on 17/1/2017 at 21:22
My wife and I are looking for new phones and could use some advice because there seems to be a dearth of pocket-sized phones on the market here in the US.
Her phone is a Nokia Lumia 1020. On Saturday, a Labrador retriever belonging to my in-laws decided to make lunch out of it and bit down hard enough to crack the corner of the display, so we have to replace it ASAP. Mine is a Sony Xperia P which is doing OK, but the current version of Sony's companion PC app fails to recognize it, and that was a problem recently when my contact list disappeared and the phone wouldn't save new ones, requiring a factory data reset to clear the problem. So I'm ready to move on as well.
Here is the problem: I like phones that fit comfortably in the front pocket of my pants and I can use easily with one hand. My current phone has a 4.0 inch screen. My previous HTC Desire had a 3.7" screen and nice rounded corners and was wonderful to hold and carry. A few years ago when my wife got her Lumia 1020, I thought "whoa, this is big". But when we went shopping around for phones on Sunday afternoon the only phones we could find under 5 inches were the iPhone SE and some cheapies with specs from 5 years ago. The stores are full of phablets now.
We do not want iPhones. I know some people love them. We love Macbooks and Max OS X, but not iPhones and iOS, and don't want to go down that road again. So I'm wondering what other choices we have. We want something that runs a current OS, i.e. Win 10 Mobile, Nougat, or Marshmallow upgradeable to Nougat. And with at least reasonable specs e.g. 3-4 GB RAM and 32 GB built-in storage. In my case, it has to be compact and with a decent camera. And in my wife's case, it must have a very good camera. That's the reason she got the Lumia 1020. 90% of the pictures we take of our kids are with a phone camera, so it's important.
After a night of research, I'm stumped. She's temped to overpay for a new old-stock Lumia 1020 from some Amazon seller, and I can't seem to find anything I would be happy with. If you know of something I overlooked, I would love to hear about it.
Matthew on 18/1/2017 at 09:57
Just to clarify, heywood, am I right in supposing that size-wise you ideally want something with no larger than a 5" screen, while your wife is willing to go larger? Or is she also looking for something with smaller than a 5" screen?
heywood on 18/1/2017 at 14:14
She is more flexible than I because she doesn't carry it around in her pocket. She prefers a phone about the same size as her current one, but could tolerate something around 5.0-5.2" as long as the screen is edge to edge. She balked at the 5.5" and larger phones that seem to be the norm these days. For me, even 4.6-4.7" is a stretch but I may have no choice.
heywood on 23/1/2017 at 22:43
Update for anyone who's looking for something similar...
The one and only phone that satisfies my original criteria is the Xperia X Compact. But I don't feel like it's worth paying $450 for a very midrange phone, with a 720p IPS screen no less. The Google Pixel with a 5.0” screen is just small enough to be comfortably front-pocketable, as long as I don't use a case. But it has no SD card slot, which pretty much forces me into the 128GB version for $750. Ouch. And no FM radio. I can get an unlocked Galaxy S7 right now for $570, which is a hair smaller than the Pixel, and the more rounded corners ought to make it a little more comfortable in pocket. That's where I'm leaning.
My wife went for the Lumia 950. It has a good camera, probably better than anything else out there except the Pixel and LG G5, a great looking QHD AMOLED screen, and premium class build. Windows 10 runs awesome on it. It's my favorite mobile OS, but woefully lacking in apps. Too bad nobody develops for it. Microsoft discontinued the Lumia line last month, but most Microsoft stores still have stock and they are discounting them. She got an AT&T branded one for just $299 which AT&T immediately unlocked.
Zerker on 26/1/2017 at 23:31
I honestly don't think you'll notice the screen density of a 720p screen at the size of the Xperia X Compact. Screen density has gotten a bit out of control lately, to be perfectly honest. I still have my 2013 Nexus 7 Tablet, which has a 1080p screen, and I can't discern individual pixels on that thing.
heywood on 1/2/2017 at 13:05
PPI is getting a bit out of control, I agree with that. The thing I'm more worried about with 720p is screen real estate. I have not seen the X Compact in person, and I won't be able to because it's not sold in any store, so I'm basing my opinion on the Z Compacts that preceded it. My Xperia P has a 4.0" display which is 540 x 960. The Z1 Compact had a 4.3" 720p screen, and it did not seem to offer any more screen real estate than the P. It looked like the same thing stretched to be slightly bigger. The Z3 Compact introduced the 4.6" 720p screen, and again it looked like the same thing just stretched even more. You can set a default font size but you can't control the size of any other UI elements. The Xperia P gave you a bunch of font size options (Tiny, Small, Normal, Large, and Extra large), but only Small and Normal looked reasonable in proportion to the rest of the UI. I'm using Small now. The Z Compacts omit the Tiny option, and with the font size set to Small you get the same amount of text on the 4.6" screen as I get on my 4.0" screen.
I also prefer an AMOLED screen. The IPS screens that Sony and Apple use just don't do black. Apple carefully avoids dark themes, so you don't notice this so much on an iPhone, except when viewing dark photos. But Sony is friendly to dark themes, and I happen to prefer them because I use my phone a lot in low light, and in those conditions it's really obvious that you're looking at a backlit LCD. If you turn down the brightness then contrast ratio really suffers and colors start to look washed out, and if you keep the brightness up for good contrast then it's like having a flashlight in the room. AMOLED screens are better able (much better really) to scale their brightness based on ambient light, and dark themes just look better on them under all lighting conditions.
Malf on 4/2/2017 at 00:06
If it's any use, my company got me an Experia Z5 Compact in our hardware refresh last year, and I've been getting on with it fine. It's fast, conveniently small, tough and has a pretty damn good battery life. To be honest, I never use the companion app on Mac/PC, instead using Google to sync all the important stuff like contacts, notes, photos and files.
Mind you, before this my last phone was a Samsung Galaxy S2, so I would probably have been happy with almost anything modern in comparison.
heywood on 6/2/2017 at 19:01
Thanks. How's the screen?
