Okay, old guys unite, what smartphone do you have?
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I'm about to wipe my iPhone 11XR something or other I got "free" from Sprint as part of their bundled offering, yada yada. You know the drill. To be honest, I would be completely happy with a flip phone. I use computers, I do not do face time on my phone and the vast majority of my calls/text messages are 2FA. The calls I get are 90% or more spam. The only other useful feature is being able to take a picture before I take something apart. I could do that with a $20 camera. The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf? Going out to buy lottery tickets. $500 for a phone plus $40/month give or take for service. This is absurd. Back to shopping.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
iPhone 15, free upgrade, business account. Mostly, I get free hand-me-downs. I stick with iPhones because my hearing aids have all been MFI (made for iPhone) for many years. Many HA's now work with Android. I am (sort of) brand agnostic. I have an old (very old) StinkPad, and almost as old (2014) MacBookPro, an iPad (hearing aids again) and my main system runs Debian with Windows and Linux virtual machines for the little development I still do. Got a second Dell workstation running ESXi, mirroring a clients set up and hosting surveillance cameras (NVR). A third, really old Dell Workstation running TrueNAS (only powered on for backups). Most of it works better than I do. I get a small discount on Apple stuff and think they make great hardware if you can get past the price. I use the iPad to VPN into the client's network and I can manage the ESXi system and the cameras from afar. Not to mention a drawer full of Pi's. Mostly, on the phone, I get superfluous texts from grandchildren and spam calls forwarded from Google vice (that I don't answer). I do use it to check cameras via VPN. I like it to keep in touch with children/grand children. Oops, make that Google Voice. I am too old for Vice.
>64 It’s weird being the same age as old people. Live every day like it is your last; one day, it will be.
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I'm about to wipe my iPhone 11XR something or other I got "free" from Sprint as part of their bundled offering, yada yada. You know the drill. To be honest, I would be completely happy with a flip phone. I use computers, I do not do face time on my phone and the vast majority of my calls/text messages are 2FA. The calls I get are 90% or more spam. The only other useful feature is being able to take a picture before I take something apart. I could do that with a $20 camera. The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf? Going out to buy lottery tickets. $500 for a phone plus $40/month give or take for service. This is absurd. Back to shopping.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Samsung A32 - I love it.
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I'm about to wipe my iPhone 11XR something or other I got "free" from Sprint as part of their bundled offering, yada yada. You know the drill. To be honest, I would be completely happy with a flip phone. I use computers, I do not do face time on my phone and the vast majority of my calls/text messages are 2FA. The calls I get are 90% or more spam. The only other useful feature is being able to take a picture before I take something apart. I could do that with a $20 camera. The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf? Going out to buy lottery tickets. $500 for a phone plus $40/month give or take for service. This is absurd. Back to shopping.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
I'm on my third Samsung. J-something then A20 now A22. Phone calls, text, camera. A few apps, mostly related to my role as an emergency service volunteer, no "socials". If I want to interact with anything on the web, I'll typically use it as a hotspot for a lappie or tablet. A heap of music to Bluetooth to my car. That's about it.
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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I'm about to wipe my iPhone 11XR something or other I got "free" from Sprint as part of their bundled offering, yada yada. You know the drill. To be honest, I would be completely happy with a flip phone. I use computers, I do not do face time on my phone and the vast majority of my calls/text messages are 2FA. The calls I get are 90% or more spam. The only other useful feature is being able to take a picture before I take something apart. I could do that with a $20 camera. The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf? Going out to buy lottery tickets. $500 for a phone plus $40/month give or take for service. This is absurd. Back to shopping.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
I'm happy with my Moto G84, it sometimes lasts a week on a battery charge. The G54 is even more of a bargain, see review: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Motorola-Moto-G54-review-One-of-the-best-smartphones-for-less-than-200-Euros.763189.0.html[^]
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I'm about to wipe my iPhone 11XR something or other I got "free" from Sprint as part of their bundled offering, yada yada. You know the drill. To be honest, I would be completely happy with a flip phone. I use computers, I do not do face time on my phone and the vast majority of my calls/text messages are 2FA. The calls I get are 90% or more spam. The only other useful feature is being able to take a picture before I take something apart. I could do that with a $20 camera. The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf? Going out to buy lottery tickets. $500 for a phone plus $40/month give or take for service. This is absurd. Back to shopping.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Old, yes - iPhone always!
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I'm about to wipe my iPhone 11XR something or other I got "free" from Sprint as part of their bundled offering, yada yada. You know the drill. To be honest, I would be completely happy with a flip phone. I use computers, I do not do face time on my phone and the vast majority of my calls/text messages are 2FA. The calls I get are 90% or more spam. The only other useful feature is being able to take a picture before I take something apart. I could do that with a $20 camera. The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf? Going out to buy lottery tickets. $500 for a phone plus $40/month give or take for service. This is absurd. Back to shopping.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
LG Q6
"If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization." ― Gerald Weinberg
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I'm about to wipe my iPhone 11XR something or other I got "free" from Sprint as part of their bundled offering, yada yada. You know the drill. To be honest, I would be completely happy with a flip phone. I use computers, I do not do face time on my phone and the vast majority of my calls/text messages are 2FA. The calls I get are 90% or more spam. The only other useful feature is being able to take a picture before I take something apart. I could do that with a $20 camera. The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf? Going out to buy lottery tickets. $500 for a phone plus $40/month give or take for service. This is absurd. Back to shopping.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Samsung A53. It was my wife's phone, but she wanted mine. (Samsung S20) I use it for 2FA and playing some games. (Candy Crush, just passed level 6000) :-D
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I'm happy with my Moto G84, it sometimes lasts a week on a battery charge. The G54 is even more of a bargain, see review: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Motorola-Moto-G54-review-One-of-the-best-smartphones-for-less-than-200-Euros.763189.0.html[^]
Got a G54 at Xmas. Just put it on charge as it was down to 20% after 5 days. To me, battery life is a biggy. Yes, it can be a little idiosyncratic sometimes but does pretty much all I need for a fraction of the cost of models with very similar specs.
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I'm about to wipe my iPhone 11XR something or other I got "free" from Sprint as part of their bundled offering, yada yada. You know the drill. To be honest, I would be completely happy with a flip phone. I use computers, I do not do face time on my phone and the vast majority of my calls/text messages are 2FA. The calls I get are 90% or more spam. The only other useful feature is being able to take a picture before I take something apart. I could do that with a $20 camera. The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf? Going out to buy lottery tickets. $500 for a phone plus $40/month give or take for service. This is absurd. Back to shopping.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus. Bought it just before the S24 came out as it was on sale. Nice phone, big enough display for my vision issues. I'm a long-term fan of the Samsung Galaxy product line. I've had an S5 and an S9 Plus, all of which have been very sturdy and reliable. The only reason I replaced the S9+ was that I'd replaced the non-replaceable battery once (YouTube worked a treat), and didn't want to go through the painful process again when the new one wouldn't hold a charge for a full day.
Software Zen:
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I'm about to wipe my iPhone 11XR something or other I got "free" from Sprint as part of their bundled offering, yada yada. You know the drill. To be honest, I would be completely happy with a flip phone. I use computers, I do not do face time on my phone and the vast majority of my calls/text messages are 2FA. The calls I get are 90% or more spam. The only other useful feature is being able to take a picture before I take something apart. I could do that with a $20 camera. The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf? Going out to buy lottery tickets. $500 for a phone plus $40/month give or take for service. This is absurd. Back to shopping.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
My wife & I replaced our last phones (Moto G Stylus SG), which both developed problems at the 2 year mark. There was a great sale on the Pixel 8 Pro, it had good reviews, so we went with it. It's an ok phone. I use a phone for calls, personal email, photos, and web browsing. Occasionally as a weak flashlight. I don't install many apps, as it's very common to request access to my contact list, which I veto. Some years back the LinkedIn app uploaded my contact list, and I had a few ugly conversations with their tech support regarding deleting my information. I doubt that they actually did, but in any case, I uninstall most apps that request my contact list.
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I'm about to wipe my iPhone 11XR something or other I got "free" from Sprint as part of their bundled offering, yada yada. You know the drill. To be honest, I would be completely happy with a flip phone. I use computers, I do not do face time on my phone and the vast majority of my calls/text messages are 2FA. The calls I get are 90% or more spam. The only other useful feature is being able to take a picture before I take something apart. I could do that with a $20 camera. The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf? Going out to buy lottery tickets. $500 for a phone plus $40/month give or take for service. This is absurd. Back to shopping.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Another old ex flip phone user, the last flip phone I had broke in half 2 years ago and my wife made me get a smart phone so I bought the cheapest one I found on Amazon, a Samsung Galaxy A03 Core for $200-ish and I'm still getting used to it, but I do like it and would probably not go back to a flip phone now. The only thing I will never get used to is how much bigger than a flip phone it is. Yes, being a dinosaur is tough sometimes ;P
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I'm about to wipe my iPhone 11XR something or other I got "free" from Sprint as part of their bundled offering, yada yada. You know the drill. To be honest, I would be completely happy with a flip phone. I use computers, I do not do face time on my phone and the vast majority of my calls/text messages are 2FA. The calls I get are 90% or more spam. The only other useful feature is being able to take a picture before I take something apart. I could do that with a $20 camera. The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf? Going out to buy lottery tickets. $500 for a phone plus $40/month give or take for service. This is absurd. Back to shopping.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
iPhone 13 Pro. It works, I'm happy with it. No reason the change either the model or eco=system.
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
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I'm about to wipe my iPhone 11XR something or other I got "free" from Sprint as part of their bundled offering, yada yada. You know the drill. To be honest, I would be completely happy with a flip phone. I use computers, I do not do face time on my phone and the vast majority of my calls/text messages are 2FA. The calls I get are 90% or more spam. The only other useful feature is being able to take a picture before I take something apart. I could do that with a $20 camera. The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf? Going out to buy lottery tickets. $500 for a phone plus $40/month give or take for service. This is absurd. Back to shopping.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
A paid off S21. Works great, does everything I need it to do. From a pure telecom POV, I could get by on a flip-phone. But there are apps that I need to have. Waze, Smart home stuff, banking, and lately shopping, like grocery apps or scanning items in stores where you can't find the price and store help isn't around. Admittedly, it's also nice to be able to take some pics and while I could do that on my camera, I'd have to remember to take it with me and carry it around.
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I'm about to wipe my iPhone 11XR something or other I got "free" from Sprint as part of their bundled offering, yada yada. You know the drill. To be honest, I would be completely happy with a flip phone. I use computers, I do not do face time on my phone and the vast majority of my calls/text messages are 2FA. The calls I get are 90% or more spam. The only other useful feature is being able to take a picture before I take something apart. I could do that with a $20 camera. The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf? Going out to buy lottery tickets. $500 for a phone plus $40/month give or take for service. This is absurd. Back to shopping.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
iPhone 13 mini. Why are all the phones so huge? I don't want my phone to be the size of a tablet. Generally I'm not interested in surfing the 2" web - if I am doing something other than phone calls and messaging, I will move to a real computer. --Cranky old lady
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I'm about to wipe my iPhone 11XR something or other I got "free" from Sprint as part of their bundled offering, yada yada. You know the drill. To be honest, I would be completely happy with a flip phone. I use computers, I do not do face time on my phone and the vast majority of my calls/text messages are 2FA. The calls I get are 90% or more spam. The only other useful feature is being able to take a picture before I take something apart. I could do that with a $20 camera. The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf? Going out to buy lottery tickets. $500 for a phone plus $40/month give or take for service. This is absurd. Back to shopping.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Samsung S8. Had it for 7+ years. Still working fine. Battery life is still ok, but I need to recharge every day.
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I'm about to wipe my iPhone 11XR something or other I got "free" from Sprint as part of their bundled offering, yada yada. You know the drill. To be honest, I would be completely happy with a flip phone. I use computers, I do not do face time on my phone and the vast majority of my calls/text messages are 2FA. The calls I get are 90% or more spam. The only other useful feature is being able to take a picture before I take something apart. I could do that with a $20 camera. The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf? Going out to buy lottery tickets. $500 for a phone plus $40/month give or take for service. This is absurd. Back to shopping.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Microsoft Lumia 950. It cost a little over $100 and keeps me from having to engage in Big Tech's iPhone/Android duopoly. Does all I need it to do. Since Microsoft is steadily turning off more and more of its features through forced 365 subscriptions and certificate extortion, I'm thinking about upgrading to an HTC smartphone for $261 which was produced in 2012. I'll give it another few years, though, just to see what happens. Don't wanna be too hasty here.
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I'm about to wipe my iPhone 11XR something or other I got "free" from Sprint as part of their bundled offering, yada yada. You know the drill. To be honest, I would be completely happy with a flip phone. I use computers, I do not do face time on my phone and the vast majority of my calls/text messages are 2FA. The calls I get are 90% or more spam. The only other useful feature is being able to take a picture before I take something apart. I could do that with a $20 camera. The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf? Going out to buy lottery tickets. $500 for a phone plus $40/month give or take for service. This is absurd. Back to shopping.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
I'm going to sound hip and old at the same time. To me, the height of cell phones was the Lumia 850XL with Windows 10. Since then, I've been forced to choose between Android and iOS, so I pick Android. I use Square Home as my launcher because it gives you the best "Windows 10-like" experience. I've heard of people using Windows 10 on a Surface Duo, which may be ok, but what I would really want is Windows 11 + Windows Subsystem for Android. But I need a phone that isn't a DIY project, so I got the next best thing, which is a Samsung Galaxy Z-Fold 5. Someday the screens on these phones won't break for no reason, and when that happens I will get one for my main phone and tinker with my Z-Fold 5.
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I'm about to wipe my iPhone 11XR something or other I got "free" from Sprint as part of their bundled offering, yada yada. You know the drill. To be honest, I would be completely happy with a flip phone. I use computers, I do not do face time on my phone and the vast majority of my calls/text messages are 2FA. The calls I get are 90% or more spam. The only other useful feature is being able to take a picture before I take something apart. I could do that with a $20 camera. The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf? Going out to buy lottery tickets. $500 for a phone plus $40/month give or take for service. This is absurd. Back to shopping.
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
Another old guy here. My philosophy on phone purchases is the same as for automobiles: I buy the most basic product offering from a company I know I can (reasonably) trust for quality and drive it until the wheels fall off. I currently have an iPhone 12 (and a 2015 Toyota Tacoma and a 2011 Camry).
There are no solutions, only trade-offs.
- Thomas SowellA day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do.
- Calvin (Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes) -
I'm going to sound hip and old at the same time. To me, the height of cell phones was the Lumia 850XL with Windows 10. Since then, I've been forced to choose between Android and iOS, so I pick Android. I use Square Home as my launcher because it gives you the best "Windows 10-like" experience. I've heard of people using Windows 10 on a Surface Duo, which may be ok, but what I would really want is Windows 11 + Windows Subsystem for Android. But I need a phone that isn't a DIY project, so I got the next best thing, which is a Samsung Galaxy Z-Fold 5. Someday the screens on these phones won't break for no reason, and when that happens I will get one for my main phone and tinker with my Z-Fold 5.
I loved my first Windows phone. The hardware on my last Windows phone was horrible. MS could never get group text messaging right, otherwise I really liked the way the OS worked on a phone.
There are no solutions, only trade-offs.
- Thomas SowellA day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do.
- Calvin (Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes) -
I loved my first Windows phone. The hardware on my last Windows phone was horrible. MS could never get group text messaging right, otherwise I really liked the way the OS worked on a phone.
There are no solutions, only trade-offs.
- Thomas SowellA day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do.
- Calvin (Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes)I switched away from Apple products around the time the Lisa flopped. I'm now on a ZFold 4 from Samsung (started on a 3 a few years back and am waiting for the 6 - the 5 is hardly an upgrade). I know it is expensive but I use it for my 6 email accounts (Outlook app) and reading my Kindle Unlimited subscription. My big fat fingers always hit 5 keys on a small screen while simply holding the phone so I love the large keyboard when it is opened. Almost did a Microsoft Duo but was told you have to open it to see who is calling. Too hooked to change now assuming they improved it. I was a Windows Phone lover until it died. Android is the lesser of the evils in my book. I've always hated proprietary hardware with no alternatives. If I get upset with Samsung there are plenty of other Android phones to look at. I use Microsoft Launcher personally. Sadly, you have to sell yourself to some cloud service or other these days to make it in this AI-frenzied world (I don't use AI). Been developing software for 41 years so I think I count as an old Caucasian male.