This is perhaps the most basic device relative to the year purchased, and it is a stark contrast to the Oppo Find x8 Pro that came before it.
It has been a tool to reset my expectations and a realization of my actual requirements.
It turns out I don’t need a £2000 flagship, what a surprise! What I need from a phone is fairly simple:
- A device that is comfortable to hold and pocketable.
- NFC for contactless payments
- Android operating system for flexibility, RCS chats and Quick share.
- A reasonable camera for photo taking when I don’t have my DSLR handy.
- Quality video camera, the DSLR is unable to take video.
- Long battery life. I am at the point now where I don’t even want to see the battery percentage. It just needs to last the full day and go on charge overnight.
This phone manages all but the last 2 points. The camera is not up to the task. However in every other area it performs admirably. It’s never slow to the point of being annoying, it’s very stable in that apps do not crash and it doesn’t need rebooting, the screen is decent and it’s never not lasted a full day on a single charge.
For the £60 I paid for it this phone is hard to fault. I have written a full review of the phone here, but this post isn’t a review it’s more how the phone has fit into my life. Will it be my daily driver for the long term? Probably not. With a young son I regularly want to capture quick photos and videos and this phone really isn’t up to that. In anything less than optimal lighting this produces very noisy and blurry results.
The way I’m choosing to think about this is in 10 years time will I be happy with the 2025 version of me choosing to use this phone, and take pretty poor photos/videos? I’m going to guess I won’t. I am fortunate enough to have disposable income, and making a conscious choice now to make a purchase for a long term handy camera that’s always in my pocket might be a good call.
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