So, I thought I’d kick things off here with some community building.
Quote this post with answers to the below!
What phone are you using?
Are you happy with it? What are its best and worst qualities?
Which phones have you had previously? Which were the best and worst of the lot?
How often do you upgrade to a new phone?
What other Android ecosystem devices do you have? Watches, headphones/earbuds, etc.
Do you also use any Apple products, or are you Android all the way? (And/or Windows, Linux, ChromeOS, etc.)
Samsung S21+ 5G
S20 Fe 5g, with SD865, 8GB RAM and 256GB Storage
What phone are you using?
One Plus 8
Are you happy with it? What are its best and worst qualities?
I am happy with the phone. I’ve had it for the past almost 3 years and it has served me well. The thing I love the most about this phone is the specs and the custom ROM community. 3 years later and this phone still holds up very well. It handles everything I throw at it; even the occasional Genshin Impact. The custom ROM community is also very active. My phone is still in good condition after three years. Battery is still holding up. I get about 5-7 hours SOT wifi on light usage. When using data and heavier usage (maps, spotify, max brightness) I get around 3-4 hours of SOT which isn’t that bad for a three year old phone. I plan on replacing the battery and using custom roms to extend my phone’s life.
Which phones have you had previously? Which were the best and worst of the lot?
s5, j7 prime My s5 was a hand me down from my mother. The phone worked fine but the the display would glitch out and turn off. The j7 prime was just garbage after about 6 months of usage. It was laggy as hell and I’m not sure how I survived with that phone for three years. It was definitely the worst out of the two.
How often do you upgrade to a new phone?
I don’t upgrade phones until the one I am currently using cannot handle my daily usage, or breaks. When my phone is no longer usable, then I am considering either going back to samsung or going pixel depending on if the charging and efficiency gets better.
What other Android ecosystem devices do you have? Watches, headphones/earbuds, etc.
I have a galaxy watch active 2 and galaxy buds plus.
Do you also use any Apple products, or are you Android all the way? (And/or Windows, Linux, ChromeOS, etc.)
I do not currently have any Apple products. I am using a windows pc and my laptop is dual booting windows 10 and ubuntu (windows just in case I have software that doesn’t work on linux).
I’m using a Picel 7 pro right now, coming from a Pixel 6 before this and OnePlus products before that. Prior to this phone my OnePlus 7 pro was my favorite phone ever and is a very close second to my current pixel. My least favorite phone was my Samsung Galaxy 7 edge, I hated that piece of garbage, it lasted less than year before the cpu was glacially slow.
I refuse to use any apple products, use windows on my work PC and my gaming PC, but use Linux on everything else (and will probably put my gaming PC on Linux soon as well).
I do admit that the Apple watch is a nice bit of tech, but I use a Garmin Fenix 6s pro since I mainly need a watch for tracking my running and cycling.
Currently have a Pixel 7 Pro with a Pixel Watch
Owned in the past a pixel 4a5G, an OG pixel (still use it to upload to my Google photos in original quality for free), a One Plus 6T, a Nexus 4/5/6
For tablets the only Android one was the Nexus 9 and I’m now using an Acer ChromeTab which runs Android apps (also have a Surface Pro 3 running on ChromeOS)
For watches I owned the moto360, the LG Watch Urbane, the Huawei Watch and the Fossil gen 5
On my PCs I only run things on LinuxMint outside of one spare laptop still on Windows
I’ve had my oneplus 8t for the last couple years and am very happy with it
Only interest I have in switch off of it would be for a folding phone, but those are just way too expensive atm
Pixel 7 Pro
My main PC is on Pop!_OS, Ubuntu based distro based on rolling kernel releases
What phone are you using? Pixel 4A
Are you happy with it? What are its best and worst qualities? Very happy with it. It’s still very quick - never felt a slowdown, it, was and still is cheap to buy, has a good enough camera, good enough battery life, love the back mounted finger print scanner, and is a good size.
Only real downside is it’s at the tail end of google’s security update support.
Which phones have you had previously? Which were the best and worst of the lot? Smart phones only - Moto X, nexus 4, nexus 6, essential phone, pixel 4a. Liked all of them, but I think moto x I liked the least & essential phone I liked the most.
How often do you upgrade to a new phone? When my previous one is broken or the OS gets too slow.
What other Android ecosystem devices do you have? Watches, headphones/earbuds, etc. Tablets is all.
Do you also use any Apple products, or are you Android all the way? (And/or Windows, Linux, ChromeOS, etc.) No apple products. I won’t pay premium prices and I’m pretty set on the Google eco system for better or for worse. Have a few windows OS computers either that I built or use for work.
I bought a refurbished pixel 2 earlier this year. My pixel 4a got damaged and I decided I was gonna try a refurbished phone. Reasons were: I wanted to spend less money on phones, I wanted a ‘small’ android phone, and I was already familiar with the pixel 2 since my friend used to have one.
I knew what the phone looked like but I still had to get used to this phone’s massive chin and forehead! It’s also my first phone without a headphone jack, so I had to figure out how to connect it to my car’s sound system with a Bluetooth receiver. O was already using wireless earbuds so that was no hassle. All in all the transition was pretty painless, so I’m not gonna look for a 3.5mm jack in my next phone.
I bought it for about 120€, which is 50% of the price for a new pixel 2 64GB at this moment. I’m pretty clumsy and always keep my phone on me, even during my job which is pretty physical at times, so my phones don’t tend to last past 2 years. That feels pretty wasteful when I say (type) it out loud so I think I’m gonna stick to refurbished phones. Maybe I’ll follow the release of pixel phones, only with a 4-5 year delay 😁.
One big downside of refurbished phones is that apparently they don’t always replace the battery! They test them and decide per phone if it’s necessary or not. Apparently I got pretty unlucky because my battery wasn’t amazing to start with and degraded pretty fast. I might have to learn how to do the replacement myself, that’s always been something on my list.
If you’re considering buying a refurbished phone to save money or to be less wasteful, I can recommend it, but keep your eye on the battery and check if the warranty covers it.
I’m using the OnePlus 9 Pro right now, and I’m really happy with it. I switched from iPhone X to OnePlus in August 2022. I thought iPhones were better for 5 years, and I was wrong. I had iPhone 5, 5s, 6 and 7 before. Usually I upgrade to a new phone every 2 or 3 years. My Nothing Ear(1) and PC on Linux fits into the android ecosystem very well
Phone I’m Using:
Samsung A50
Am I Happy with it:
Yes, it has been fully capable of performing the daily tasks that I throw at it. Only downsides really is that it no longer receives support from Samsung.
What Phone Did I have Previously:
My previous phones were a LG Q6 and I believe an iPhone 6 or 7. Honestly as much as I love Android, the iPhone was leaps and bounds better then what the LG Q6 was able to provide. That’s mainly more a statement of how bad LG was at making actually interesting phones that were good.
How often do I upgrade:
My A50 is a hand-me-down so atm I don’t really decide when I get a new phone lol.
What other Android Ecosystem Devices do I have?
If it counts, Google Home Mini (have had it for quite a few years)
Do you have any Apple products and/or Microsoft, Linux, etc…
No, I don not own any Apple products of any sort. I own an Xbox Series X, a Windows Laptop from Asus, a Google Home Mini along with a Amazon Alexa (well technically that wasn’t mines originally I’m just “borrowing” it because it was just left disconnected.) Lastly I have a pair of Jabra Elite 3’s which have been pretty good.
Currently, I’m using a Motorola moto g100 and I’m happy with it. Good battery life, nice big screen, much improved performance compared to my last phone. Best phone I’ve ever owned. The main inconvenience is the location of the fingerprint sensor: I’d have preferred if it was on the front of the device somehow (definitely not on the back – I often have it lying flat on the table).
I also dislike the fact it can only remember five fingerprints while I have 10 fingers. Who thought that was a good idea? :þ
Previously I had a Moto G5+ and a Moto G. I guess you could say I enjoyed the quality and relative lack of bloatware of these Motorola phones, while being more affordable than some of the alternatives I was considering at the time I bought them.
Going further back, I had a HTC Desire Z (with a slide-out physical keyboard). I picked it as my first smartphone because I was hesitant to get rid of physical keys, but as it turned out I hardly ever used them. Looking back, this one was clearly the worst value for the money.
Since I switched to smart phones I’ve been upgrading every 3 or 4 years.
Before the smart phone era, I had an Alcatel device (can’t remember the exact model). I used that tiny near-indestructable thing for over a decade, only charging it about once a week. It was mostly an “in case of emergency” though, not nearly as heavily used as later phones, because it wasn’t really usable as a miniature pocket-computer (like smart phones are). Still, I was pretty happy with it at the time: the only reason I got rid of it was because the ‘0’ button broke, and in my country all phone numbers start with 0.
I also have an LG G Watch (Wear OS). A relative worked at Google when these were handed out to employees but didn’t actually want it, so I got it as a gift. It’s pretty old now: I’ve replaced the bands a few times and it won’t charge past 70%, but it still mostly works and the battery still lasts all day. I’m not sure if I’ll get another smart watch if and when this one finally breaks, though.
No Apple products, and my laptop runs Linux Mint. These days, I only use Windows at work or when helping relatives with tech problems (sigh).
Reminds me of the olden days of r/Android where threads like this were a blast!
What phone are you using?
Following in the footsteps of Captain2Phones, I am simultaneously using a Google Pixel 6a and a OnePlus 7 Pro.
Are you happy with it? What are its best and worst qualities?
Pixel 6a is the best phone I’ve ever used, including flagship iPhones. I love the camera bar design and the whole look of the phone’s rear while I don’t particularly like the chunky bezels and the hole punch. I have been spoilt by the fantastic uninterrupted curved display (yes, you read it right. I like curved screens) of the OnePlus 7 Pro. It’s smooth and the cameras are great. I love the animations and the overall look of Material You. It’s a really good phone.
As for the OnePlus 7 Pro, it was the best phone I had ever used until they ruined it all with their subpar software updates which made the phone literally a chore to use. I still use it and like it, but the experience it heavily marred by the atrocious software experience of the new OS which is nothing like OxygenOS.
Which phones have you had previously? Which were the best and worst of the lot?
Have had flagship iPhones for several years until I got the OnePlus 7 Pro. The Pixel has to be the best phone, a shitter Micromax that I had a decade ago has to be the worst.
How often do you upgrade to a new phone?
Every 2/3 years.
What other Android ecosystem devices do you have? Watches, headphones/earbuds, etc.
Not a big fan of smartwatches. Well, a big fan of the smartwatch tech, but not a big fan of wearing one over a traditional watch. Have several fitness bands made by Android OEMs (though none of them run Android) and several true-wireless earphones and headphones by Anker and Soundpeats that I use with my Android devices as well as my Windows devices.
Do you also use any Apple products, or are you Android all the way? (And/or Windows, Linux, ChromeOS, etc.)
Not at the moment. But my next computer will be an MX Macbook Pro.
I use the Pixel 7 Pro
I love it. The cameras are unparalleled, the software is excellent, and the experience is pure. Battery life isn’t nearly as bad as people say, but it could be better.
Last few phones: iPhone 5c, Galaxy S5, Nexus 6P, Pixel 2 XL, Pixel 5, Pixel 6 Pro
Worst was the 6P, because it bricked itself (though I got a few hundred dollars back in the class action lawsuit), but it was excellent aside from that. iPhone got a dead pixel within a month, but they replaced it, Galaxy was sturdy but software was awful. Best was Pixel 2 XL, I still use it as a backup sometimes.
I get a new phone every year if the trade-in deals are good.
I have the Pixel Watch and Pixel Buds. I mainly use the Sony XMs though for headphones.
I have a 14" MacBook Pro M1 Pro. Got it for the insane battery life, but I’m mostly a Windows/Linux user still.I have an iPad, it isn’t bad, but I miss the affordable Android tablets of old (Nexus 7 rocked). I don’t have any desire to move to iOS.
- Motorola G30
- very happy! battery life (2.5 days) and weight (prolly due to the bit battery)
- a string of Motorolas (I like the fact that it has the purest of the Androids)
- as soon as it shows it is ageing (around 2 years)
- none
- ChromeOS on 2 chromebooks: Lenovo Flex5 and HP 11a na0120nr