Mobile Phone replacement guidance sought

[DickP]

Hi,

I have a Samsung A3 2017 mobile phone, which I have had since early 2017. I have been very happy with the phone and the contract expired sometime last year.

I am conscious the phone may be reaching the end of its service life, as I had a bad experience with its predecessor (Samsung S4 Mini) which spontaneously failed at roughly four years old and was declared beyond economic repair by various phone shops. I have also noticed that even with careful app management, the battery life becoming poor and it no longer handles exposure to cold weather (so much I found that sometimes to revive it during winter I had to sit on it with the car's heated seat on!).

Since last year I have been occasionally browsing for a phone to replace the A3 2017 if it were to fail completely. However I have not found anything on at contract for a similar price and similar (or better) performance spec than the A3 2017.

Have all the mainstream phone brands cut down on their mid range phone performance to bolster their flagship model sales?

Are there any recommendations of a sub £30 month contract phone which betters the A3 2017 and is also as water resistant?

Does anyone know how well the new iPhone SE 2020 stacks up against it?

Thanks!

[anonymous-user]

This is PH; it'll settle into those who think you need the highest spec £1500 iPhone or you're a peasant and probably a nonce, and those thank think phones reached perfection with the Nokia 6310i and if you want anything else you're a showoff and probably a nonce.

Get another Samsung A phone or the iPhone SE. Both are good, the SE will have software updates for 5+ years at least though, which is a good thing.

[anonymous-user]

The SE outperforms most Android flagships, and will be supported for many years without much slow down (that’s my experience of iPhones anyway). iPhones also hold their value well, so in theory over a longer term one of those might cost you a fair bit less than a similarly priced Android phone.

However, there are also lots of very good Android phones for the same money (not just limited to the Samsung A Series). Just depends on what you want really.

[Evercross]

Go SIM only and take a look at one the offerings from Xiaomi. Their RedMi range is probably the best price/performance on the market and you will be getting software updates for years to come, just like Apple.

Xiaomi also hold their value well because of the levels of support.

I gave up on Samsung years ago because of all the cruft that comes installed on them.

[Mr Pointy]

Do you have to buy a new phone on contract? Why not buy a second hand phone outright & change to a SIM only contract.

[Dolf Stoppard]

I'd go Pixel 4. Updates straight from Google, water resistant and a brilliant camera. No bloat ware - so Android as it's meant to be and unlimited photo uploads. I keep thinking I'll ditch the Pixel line and go for something flashier, but they just work so well I can't bring myself to do it.

[DickP]

Mr Pointy said:

Do you have to buy a new phone on contract? Why not buy a second hand phone outright & change to a SIM only contract.

Hi

I am now on a SIM only with the A3 2017 at £15 a month with 10GB data and unlimited minutes and texts.

Not averse to SIM only phone options.

Will take a look at those suggestions guys.

Thanks!

[nikaiyo2]

DickP said:

Hi,

I have a Samsung A3 2017 mobile phone, which I have had since early 2017. I have been very happy with the phone and the contract expired sometime last year.

I am conscious the phone may be reaching the end of its service life, as I had a bad experience with its predecessor (Samsung S4 Mini) which spontaneously failed at roughly four years old and was declared beyond economic repair by various phone shops. I have also noticed that even with careful app management, the battery life becoming poor and it no longer handles exposure to cold weather (so much I found that sometimes to revive it during winter I had to sit on it with the car's heated seat on!).

Since last year I have been occasionally browsing for a phone to replace the A3 2017 if it were to fail completely. However I have not found anything on at contract for a similar price and similar (or better) performance spec than the A3 2017.

Have all the mainstream phone brands cut down on their mid range phone performance to bolster their flagship model sales?

Are there any recommendations of a sub £30 month contract phone which betters the A3 2017 and is also as water resistant?

Does anyone know how well the new iPhone SE 2020 stacks up against it?

Thanks!

Have a look at www.mobiles.co.uk they usually have the best deals, they are part of Carphone Warehouse so completely safe and real to deal with.
You can get an iPhone SE from £22 a month... depending on how much data etc you need.

OR have a look at the refurbished phones.

If you have a £30 a month budget it makes no sense to suffer Android, if you wanted to spend £30 in total it makes sense.

[Chicken_Satay]

DickP said:

I have a Samsung A3 2017 mobile phone, which I have had since early 2017. I have been very happy with the phone and the contract expired sometime last year.

It's interesting you've posted this because I have the exact same phone and I've had it for the same length of time.

The biggest difficulty I have with it is the lack of internal memory. I constantly keep having to move things to the SD card and you can only run a limited number of apps because of this too.

I was probably going to buy the Samsung A51, handset only, but then I found out it isn't waterproof. There doesn't seem to be many waterproof phones on the market right now, so it's almost as if design and technology has gone backwards. Those that are waterproof are particularly expensive and I prefer to buy a mid range phone since it's a depreciating asset and the tech gets outdated quickly anyway.

Additionally, the new phones are too damn big. The A51 is slightly longer and wider than the A3 and I don't want that. I want a compact phone that fits in my pocket easily!

In the end, I've just decided to run my A3 for as long as possible before it breaks/completely runs out of memory/something more suitable comes on the market. I'd like to get another year out of it.

[Chicken_Satay]

DickP said:

I am now on a SIM only with the A3 2017 at £15 a month with 10GB data and unlimited minutes and texts.

Do you actually use that much data? If so, is it because you travel a lot in places there is not WiFi? If you're not using the deal to it's capacity, why not get a cheaper one, and put the money saved towards a newer, better phone?

[DickP]

Thank you for the link to that phones website. Looks to get better deals on there than can be found on the providers website direct.

As for data usage, I have used up to 7gb of my monthly allowance so I think 10gb is now about right. I think it's an issue with instagram and similar apps being quite data heavy, even though I generally have auto videos disabled.

My experience with the limited on board memory of my A3 2017 is the same as stated - I have to keep as many apps on the external card as possible and transfer their storage there (if the app lets me). But every time the app updates, it defaults everything back to the phone memory!

I will have a browse and thanks all for your help.

[Mr Pointy]

Music Magpie have a wide range of secondhand phones so maybe have a look there. Many come with 12 month warranties so you have some protection.