Techie Ramblings

Category: Tech

  • HMD 105 – Incremental upgrades

    From time to time I feel myself getting overwhelmed with technology. I’m very mindful and aware of my behavioral trait to be sucked into things to the point of obsession. Mobile games, social media, even just scrolling news can become unhealthy time sinks for me. I manage this in a few ways; I don’t do social media full stop, I only play games on my tablet which is too big and unwieldy to use at a moments notice or to leave the house, I disable the default apps and news scrollers that come with my devices and try to avoid browsing the websites.

    Even with these self imposed rules from time to time I sometimes start to feel like I’m spending too much time on my phone. Other times I feel like I’m just becoming too reliant on it. Most recently I felt like the Samsung S25 was so over the top with it’s data collection I was completely uncomfortable using it. When these things happen I like to spend some time using what’s referred to nowadays as a “Dumbphone”. I’d estimate I generally end up doing this once or twice a year, and do it for between a couple of weeks and a month. However in the past through Covid I did it for 6 months solid.

    My first purposeful dumbphone was a Nokia 105 that looked like the below:

    This phone still works perfectly fine to this day, but unfortunately 2G reception is getting worse and worse in my area and can’t be relied on.

    I then got the Nokia 110 4G 2023 model:

    This saw me through my last “Digital detox” but had some real flaws that lead me to end it prematurely out of sheer frustration. The keyboard seemingly just ignored about 20% of my button presses. This made typing a nightmare, more than going back to T9 predictive already was.

    So a few days ago when I decided I needed a break from smartphones and put my SIM in this phone again I was quickly reminded of it’s downfalls. Being seemingly one of the only people that don’t hold a grudge against HMD for using the Nokia brand I took a look at their now HMD branded web store and came across the HMD 105 4G, and HMD 110 4G. These are very clearly a continuation of the Nokia counterparts with the same naming convention. The differences between the two models are slim; the 110 has a 0.1MP camera and a ceramic coated shell, the 105 does not. I certainly wasn’t going to spend extra money on either of these features so opted for the 105.

    As can be seen below (unfortunately the old 105 can’t be compared as I lent it to a colleague for a detox of his own) the sizes between the Nokia 110 and HMD 105 are very similar, with the HMD 105 being slight bigger, but having bigger, more pronounced buttons and a much bigger screen:

    Aside from the lack of a camera on the 105 there aren’t really any differences, so I think a comparison is still fair.

    If you own a Nokia 110 4G 2023, and aren’t having any troubles with your keypad this probably isn’t a worthwhile upgrade. It’s very much an incremental upgrade, and lets be honest there’s only so much that can be done with the S30 operating system.

    That being said there are some differences. Texts on the HMD are now threaded, so makes for much easier tracking of conversations. The screen being bigger helps with basic web browsing and reading. Icons on the screen can now be rearranged, unfortunately still not removable though. The entire operating system has had a bit of a spruce up, with new settings, higher resolution and a less budget feel.

    There are some things that I would consider downgrades too: The auto power off/on has been removed. The weather app is gone. The unlock combination has become more awkward, with you now having to reach for the * key.

    Overall though I’m impressed. It’s everything I want from a “Dumbphone”. It allows me to call and text when I need to. It has a select few “tool” applications, a couple of very simple games (snake and blackjack) ignoring the trials and very little else.

    More importantly it doesn’t ask much of me. There was next to no setup of the device to be done, absolutely no accounts to sign into and other than calls, texts and alarms the phone cannot start sending me notifications. I can’t get invested into this device enough that it becomes invaluable to me, because it’s so simple. I know that “burner” phone has bad connotations, but this truly is that. It’s a tool. Other than your contacts (which you should have backed up elsewhere) if you lost this device other than your SIM card you wouldn’t really have lost anything of value. You wouldn’t be fearful that someone may find it and gain access to your entire life and all your secrets. And that is very refreshing.

    On a side note, this phone uses the BL-L5H batteries that have been used in previous models too. These are readily available online, and cheaply so the dream of having multiple spare batteries and being able to stay away from a charger for weeks is an achievable reality now!

    UPDATE: After some more real world usage I have noticed a couple of things that have annoyed me. The first is that ringer and ringtones, there are only 4 ringtones to choose from and none of them are attention grabbing. I missed 3 calls over the weekend, even with the phone on max volume in my bag I didn’t hear the phone while walking. The 2nd and this is not specific to this phone, it seems to apply to all recent button bound phones and this is the emergency dialler. If the phone is locked, screen off and in a pocket it only takes catching the 9 key to begin dialling. 3 accidental presses of this button and you will begin to call the emergency services. This essentially means the phone is unsafe to keep in a pocket. I would not want to put additional stress on the emergency services or get in trouble for accidentally dialling them. We are nearing double digits on the amount of times I’ve pulled the phone out of my pocket to find that the screen is on with a 9 already in the dialling screen.

    Feature phones of the time didn’t have this problem, why do we have it now? What is the point of a key lock if it doesn’t apply to one of the keys?!

  • OneUI 7 – Privacy hell

    My initial experience with the Samsung S25 hasn’t been what I’d define as smooth.

    On a hardware front I cannot fault it. The battery life is relentless and even with performance mode on light, and power saver on the phone is far faster than I actually require. The camera produces nice results, especially with the AI enhancements minimized too.

    My problem is with the software. When OneUI 6 was the latest version of Samsung’s mobile OS I would’ve told anyone that asked that it was, in my opinion the best Android skin on the market. The level of refinement, while still giving lots of room for flexibility and customization was unmatched.

    The flexibility and customization points still stand true, but I feel the refinement has taken a knock. Unfortunately the whole OS is starting to feel like one big advertisement platform, not far from how Facebook felt the last time I used it.

    I must’ve factory reset the device 3 or 4 times before I felt like I had the device setup properly. Immediately from the first power on you are absolutely bombarded with requests to give permission for anything and everything. The phone then takes it upon itself to install 10-15 bloatware apps, whether you agree to it or not. Previously this was a quirk only reserved for budget phones, but it seems to have made it’s way into Flagships! Once you get past that the phone will pester you to turn on multiple AI features, each with a disclaimer that this will be in exchange for your personal data. If you don’t agree with this you’re just locked out of entire menu items, when tapped you’re brought right back to the request again.

    The telemetry and data collection has just got out of control, and due to EU regulations that permission must be granted to do this, Samsung just absolutely bombard you with requests, hoping that you’ll cave in.

    This has left me feeling very uncomfortable using the device. On my initial setup attempts I tried using the “Universal Android Debloater” to remove the majority of this, hoping I’d feel more comfortable using the device knowing these apps were gone. Where I’ve had success with this on other devices, this one was a disaster. The device simply refused to work. A couple of times this even soft bricked the device, just showing a black screen until I factory reset it from recovery. Bear in mind I wasn’t disabling anything important like knox or the dialler, just random 3rd party apps that should never have been on the device in the first place.

    I made a journal entry yesterday, stating that I had a strange urge to go back to using a dumbphone for a while. I didn’t really understand why though, my screen time is low, and I haven’t been excessively browsing the web or playing games on the device. It was a persistent feeling though, so I obliged, popping my SIM into my Nokia 110 4G. I used it for the remainder of yesterday and the entirety of today, relegating the S25 to being switched off in my bag.

    Honestly it felt like a weight had lifted, and I still wasn’t sure why. It was only after journalling again this evening that I realized the subconscious motivation for wanting to do this. It’s the S25, more so OneUI 7.

    I deleted all of my social media accounts a long time ago, for the simple reason that their blatant data collection, and the fact you feel like a product made me uncomfortable, a strange unclean feeling that’s hard to describe. That’s exactly the feeling I get when I use the S25. The data collection, and desperation to be given permission to harvest that data is so blatant and relentless it completely tarnishes the experience of using the device.

    I imagine that for someone that simply doesn’t care about this the experience of using the device would be excellent. The AI features are so baked into the operating system that it’s near impossible to avoid using them, each of the notices you agree to would surely add some convenience to the user experience. But knowing how valuable this data is, the sheer amount that is being collected and the number of companies it’s being sold too makes the device feel like an enemy rather than an ally.

    Just a week into owning the device I already dread when I have to turn it on for a task I can’t accomplish on the Nokia. I know the second it connects to a network it will be contacting an eye watering amount of servers, relaying whatever it’s managed to scrape from my usage, be that location, usage patterns, interests, search history, nearby devices or even microphone and camera data. We already know that Samsung send themselves actual screenshots of your display on their smart TV’s at an average of 1 FPS, so is that such a stretch?

    I knew Samsung were greedy when it came to user data in the past, but this really has reached new levels. I see average users raving about their new Samsung devices, showing off the features they’ve happily agreed to, completely oblivious to what they’ve signed away in exchange. In some ways I’m jealous of them, ignorance is bliss as they say. Unfortunately I can’t just turn a blind eye to it.

    I’m going to cross my fingers, and just hold out for a Lineage release for the device. After all the bootloader is still unlockable, which is the only redeeming feature for this device at the moment in my mind. In the meantime I may even just reset the device and put it back in it’s box, it really does creep me out that much.

  • Consumerism – is the 2nd hand market making our buying habits worse?

    Picture the time before the internet made it’s way into all of our homes. When you decided you didn’t need or want something you owned anymore you had only a handful of options:

    You either gave it away or sold it to someone you knew, donated it to charity/disposed/recycled it, or you sold it at a car boot/garage sale. The most likely fate for most things was the bin, or just keep using it due to it either being undesirable to others or the effort to sell being too high. With the internet came a different option. Easy resale.

    Currently we’re spoilt for choice for options. We have eBay, Vinted, Gumtree, Craigslist, Amazon, Depop etc, we also have hundreds upon thousands of companies that offer easy to use services that will buy your goods for a fixed price. These companies will then either refurbish the product and sell it on, or simply resell it with a warranty.

    With that in mind, surely this would be a success story of the internet in the name of sustainability, extending the lifespan of pre-owned devices thus preventing landfill and reducing the demand for new products? Not so fast. In classic capitalist fashion, this has only served to benefit companies and boost profits even more.

    Take a look on eBay, Vinted, or any company selling refurbished or used products and you will see the market is absolutely flooded, in particular the tech space. Phones, laptops, wearables, cameras are available refurbished and used by the boatload. Obviously there is a market for them but clearly the demand does not match the supply from the sheer number of these products for sale.

    How then is this serving companies and driving ever increasing profits? The answer is quite simple, and easier explained with an example. A person buys an iPhone 16 Pro Max for £1500. After a year this phone may still be worth £1200 in good condition on the used market, the person sells their phone for that amount, resulting in a total cost of ownership for the year of £300. That person then goes out and buys an iPhone 17 Pro Max for £1600, confident in the knowledge they’ll be able to resell it for a good price in another years time. Apple would still make £3100 on the sale of these two devices, and of course they would rather have two people buy brand new phones than one of them buying used but one sale is still better than none, and thanks to the used market that initial customer is more likely to make another purchase sooner.

    On a smaller point for sustainability we also have to consider the resources needed to keep shipping these devices to their new owners. Using iPhone as an example again, if an iPhone has an average lifespan of 6 years it’s feasible that the first owner might keep it a year, the 2nd for 2 years, the 3rd for 3 years then it might be sent to a recycler and sold for parts. That’s 4 times the device has been shipped, maybe even into double figures when broken down for parts, potentially cross country or internationally. Items in their original packaging fetch more value too, so consumers are increasing the package size and weight in turn requiring more resources to ship.

    This almost guaranteed resale value depends heavily on condition though, with pristine devices fetching much more than ones with signs of heavy use. This leads consumers to buy cases and screen protectors, which in turn consume more resources with most cases being produced with by-products from the oil industry and glass requiring lots of resources to run the furnaces.

    If these second hand markets didn’t exist what would happen to that iPhone 16 Pro Max? Well for starters the consumer may have not purchased it in the first place. Knowing that the device would cost £1500 with no return may put the consumer off, pushing them towards a more budget oriented option. Assuming it didn’t though, the consumer would be much more likely to keep the device for a longer period of time. When they were finished with the device it would most likely be handed down to a family member, requiring no courier to move it. The condition wouldn’t be as much of a consideration either as it wouldn’t be a monetary transaction.

    With this in mind, and companies now offering up to 7 years of updates to their devices, do we really think they’re hoping for people to keep using their devices for this length of time without making another purchase? Absolutely not. They’re offering this to increase buyer confidence that their devices will hold better value on the 2nd hand market, encouraging them to upgrade even more often.

    Companies often claim to be acting in the name of sustainability, however sometimes it requires more analysis to get to the true motives. A shareholder owned company will only ever act for one of two reasons; the potential for more profits or government legislation forcing them to do so.

    Personally I’m not guilty of buying new devices, but I am guilty of enabling the people that do by purchasing the 2nd hand devices. I’m also guilty of buying cases and screen protectors to keep the device pristine to preserve the resale value onto it’s third owner. Considering the first owner most likely purchased these accessories too the footprint of these devices just keeps growing.

    Can we actually break this cycle? Probably not. It would be a step backwards to stop the resale of devices, and would be very anti-consumer. What’s needed is a change in mentality, only spend what you are willing to spend without the promise of money back. We also need to make conscious effort to keep our devices for longer periods of time. The most environmentally and financially friendly thing we can do is to not buy anything at all. Obviously that’s not realistic, so interpret it as buy as little as possible whether that be new, used or refurbished.

  • The war on bootloader unlocking

    As someone who likes to mess around with my electronics I’ve unlocked my fair share of bootloaders on Android smartphones over the years. I don’t know if this was commonplace but on the first Android phone I had (Samsung Galaxy Y) I’m not even sure it had a locked bootloader, I certainly didn’t need to unlock it to root and install custom ROMs!

    A locked bootloader has it’s place, and it’s purpose originally was to ensure that the operating system and other partitions were running signed code, giving you the security of knowing that your system was as the manufacturer intended and hadn’t been tampered with.

    Previously this could be unlocked easily, usually simply with a toggle in the system settings, followed by a fastboot command.

    In 2025 this is now somewhat of a rarity. Google, Samsung, Nothing and maybe a couple of other smaller manufacturers still offer an easy unlock process with no strings attached. Increasingly though we’re seeing more and more manufacturers put hurdles in the way of you unlocking the bootloader, assuming that they aren’t blocking it entirely.

    Xiaomi and Motorola insist on having to go through hoops on their website, waiting for periods of time and submitting codes before being granted the ability to unlock. HMD, Oppo, Honor, Asus and more make it completely impossible to unlock your bootloader. Full details of this can be seen on the “Bootloader wall of shame” here.

    Okay, so manufacturers want to stop us unlocking the bootloader, what’s the problem you might ask? The problem is a fundamental one, and let me ask a question in response: If we buy a product, do we own it entirely? If you answered yes then we should be able to do whatever we please with it. Applying this logic to a desktop computer, you would not be happy if your newly purchased Dell or HP desktop was locked down so that you couldn’t install an operating system of your choice, would you?

    In my eyes phone makers are preventing bootloader unlocks for one of two reasons:

    1. They want to prevent you from updating the device to more recent versions of Android than they released, therefore forcing you to buy a new phone (hopefully from them).
    2. They want to keep you using THEIR operating system.

    I have a feeling that the 2nd option is most likely. With extended update promises now reaching 7 years in most cases I don’t really think that phone makers care if you buy a new phone from them or not, they just want you using their operating system. The reason for this, data collection. I have a feeling, based on facts of smartphone telemetry that far more money is made from our personal data than is ever made from the purchase price of the device.

    Imagine a stalker giving his victim a mobile phone as a gift. The person might be happy to receive a new phone, but the stalker will be even more happy that their victim is using it. They will now be able to track location, maybe listen to the microphone, look through the camera, see what the victim is searching. At this point the stalker wouldn’t even care about how much they spent on the phone, because the data they gain on the victim is more valuable to them.

    While this sounds extreme this is exactly the same dynamic that we have with tech companies, only we as users get a worse deal because we have to pay for the device initially!

    Don’t believe me? As I always say, don’t take my word for it and do your own research, I only wish to get you thinking. Take a look at some of the default permissions of the inbuilt apps on your phone. Go one step further and log the network traffic leaving your phone on a regular basis. It’s truly alarming just how many domains a smartphone will contact on a near constant basis even without user input.

    Unfortunately I can’t put a value on the data collected from a user over a devices lifetime because we don’t know in full exactly how much data is being collected on us. However, the lengths manufacturers go to to prevent us removing their software gives me a good idea.

    Android is going down a slippery slope currently. The allure of Android has always been it’s freedom, especially when compared to iOS, but slowly we’re seeing that freedom be eroded. Piece by piece our abilities to do as we wish with our devices is being removed. Currently even if we are able to install an operating system of our choice it will be with strings attached. Google now bake a “Play Integrity” API into their operating system for apps to utilize. Essentially this interrogates the device, and if it detects an unlocked bootloader, custom rom or root access it allows developers to block access to their application. The most common application of this API is with banking apps. Will you really go to the length of playing with Magisk modules and potentially even owning a second device for banking just to use a custom ROM? For the majority the answer is no.

    It used to be easy to get around these checks, but it’s getting harder and harder by the day. At this point less people with bother unlocking their devices even if they have the ability to. With my current Samsung S25 I have every option to unlock the bootloader, root and install a custom ROM if I wish, but in doing that the device would burn a physical fuse, locking the device out of all of the Knox features, other features of the phone will only work under Samsung OneUI. This would essentially destroy the resale value of the device, and the features I’d lose would make using the phone difficult.

    With my current device I will have it for 7 years, but I have a bad feeling that when I come to upgrade the landscape of privacy and freedom over the devices we buy will be even worse than it is now.

  • Samsung S25

    I didn’t expect to be adding to this series so soon, but with a family holiday coming up where I would like to capture a lot of photos and videos (there are reasons for this I won’t go into) the need for a capable handy camera became more pressing.

    The S25 256GB retails for £849 in the UK, which seems like a lot of money but then I suppose it’s probably the cheapest phone for sale with the Snapdragon 8 Elite. For whatever reason these are selling new, sealed in the box on eBay for around £510 for the 128GB version. I was able to get mine which is the 256GB version, unused with the seal broken for £540. With over £300 off the retail price this pricing is only £40 more than the upcoming Samsung A56 which seems like an excellent deal.

    This phone ticks a lot of boxes for me:

    • It is a compact device by 2025 standards.
    • It has a set of very capable cameras for photo and video.
    • It has the Snapdragon 8 Elite which is the most powerful chipset currently available.
    • It’s very power efficient giving great battery life and excellent standby time even though the battery is only 4000mAh.
    • Samsung are offering 7 years of updates with this phone so I can keep it for a long time.

    To help the last point I’ve opted for a case and screen protector this time around. I don’t fancy paying for an OLED screen replacement any time soon!

    The strange thing is that other than the cameras which were the driving force behind the purchase, the S25 serves to highlight just how good a deal the HMD Pulse is. Yes the screen, haptics, build quality and speakers are better on the S25, but at it’s core the HMD can do the majority of what the S25 can, at least in my use case: I don’t use AI, I have no need for it and would rather not trade additional privacy to have it. I don’t do any mobile gaming on my phone, I have devices better suited to gaming. None of my tasks are particularly intensive either.

    One thing I have missed and I’m glad to have back is OneUI. Regardless of my opinion on Samsung’s practices, their greed and other issues they really have nailed their operating system. It manages to be more feature rich and customizable than any other Android skin, while still being a very well organised, intuitive experience. I may only feel this way because it’s the mobile OS I’ve spent the most time with.

    While I don’t regret this purchase at all, because it was a good deal and I needed it, I do still need to get my impulse buying under control. I didn’t spend much time thinking about this purchase and when I came across the deal I bought it immediately. Following some tips online I’ve implemented a purchasing delay, something I’ll write about separately but I think it’s something that could help a lot of us be more intentional with how we spend our money.

  • Boycott the Exynos!

    With the launch of the original Samsung Galaxy S Samsung began plaguing worldwide markets with their Exynos chipsets in the S series.

    Any market outside of Canada, China, Japan, Korea and the US will get an Exynos chipset in their S series (apart from a couple of exception years) where the others will get a Qualcomm Snapdragon.

    What is the reason for this? There are varying theories on this but from what I can gather (please do your own research too) it boils down to two things.

    1. Maximising profits. In markets where Samsung have less competition and more market saturation (read where they can get away with it) they will use their in house chip, keeping production in house maximises profits and minimises external licensing fees.
    2. A bargaining chip. By continuing to develop and apply the Exynos chipsets to devices Samsung keep the pressure on Qualcomm. They have a “special relationship” with Qualcomm. This agreement prevents Samsung from selling their Exynos chipsets to other manufacturers (big win!) while giving Samsung guaranteed access to Qualcomm chipset supply and in some cases even slightly tweaked versions that no-one else has access to.

    Why is this a problem? After all monopolies are never a good thing. Competition is what spurs innovation, and keeps prices in check.

    The problem is cost and lack of choice.

    Without exception every Exynos chipset has performed worse than it’s Snapdragon counterpart (again, please do your own research to confirm this, don’t take my word). Not once has the Exynos managed to best the Snapdragon in benchmarks although some years it has come close. In day to day usage the gap widens, with Exynos chipsets being notorious for overheating, having excessive battery drain and worse modem performance.

    Despite this the markets that drew the short straw and received an Exynos variant get no price concession, costing the same or even more in some cases than the Snapdragon versions. Had the user been given the choice to buy the Exynos for a slightly lower price I would be more accepting of this.

    Samsung clearly know they aren’t up to par too. We thought the dark days were over when the S23 series was released. There was no Exynos version, all markets worldwide got the Snapdragon 8gen 2 chipset. Sadly it didn’t last, when the S24 series launched we were back to Exynos. Strangely though the S24 Ultra got the Snapdragon 8gen 3 regardless of market, seemingly an acknowledgement from Samsung that their Exynos chipset wasn’t worthy of the “Ultra” name.

    With the launch of the S25 series we’re back to the whole world getting Snapdragon 8 Elite chipsets. While nothing much has changed from the S24 series the base model S25 and S25+ will benefit massively from this. Coupled with the supposed 7 years of updates and this becomes a fairly lucrative deal. In comparison I highly doubt that the Exynos bound S24 series will last through their 7 years of updates.

    Even though I stated that Samsung are bound by Qualcomm to not sell their chipsets to other manufacturers, it has still technically happened. Google’s “Tensor” line up are developed in the Samsung foundry and are actually modified versions of the Exynos chipsets. Read a little into user reviews of these phones from the Pixel 6 upwards and you’ll see swathes of reports of overheating, poor performance and modem issues. Thankfully it is reported that Google are moving their chipset development over to the TSMC foundry (responsible for Mediatek), which have come on leaps and bounds in recent years and are now a true competitor to Qualcomm. Fingers crossed they see good results.

    Unfortunately the average consumer knows nothing of this, and sales data backs that up. Despite worse performance and a higher price the S24 series sold more in Exynos markets than the S23 did. I highly doubt this will be the last we see of the infamous Exynos, and unless Samsung see a hit to sales when they try their luck they’ll carry on doing it.

    If you’re reading this blog you are most likely not an average consumer. When Samsung release a phone with an Exynos variant I urge you not to buy it. Hold on to your current device and await a Snapdragon release. Big reviewers will always downplay the issue because they’re paid to do so. It’s only a few months down the line when honest opinions start to pop up and they’re always the same. If the whole world gets Exynos as the only option then we’ll need to rethink Samsung as a whole, but for now protest this with your wallet.

  • HMD Pulse

    Image credits hmd.com

    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.

  • Oppo Find x8 Pro (Global)

    After getting bored of the lack of innovation from the conventional brands available to western markets I decided to look to the east. I’d seen devices from Xiaomi, Honor, Vivo, Oppo and Oneplus and they all looked to be making leaps where our more well known brands have been making calculated baby steps.

    I settled on this Oppo Find x8 Pro, global edition. UK brands could learn a thing or two from these brands. This flagship arrived with an 80W charging block, a quality protective case AND a screen protector pre-applied.

    Undoubtedly this was the most capable and premium smartphone I’d ever owned and it cost me £400 less than an S24 Ultra. The cameras were the best I’ve ever seen on a smartphone. The battery life was immense and the phone was so speedy in day to day use. This truly was an enthusiasts phone that made no compromises.

    The operating system is very different to the likes of “Pixel Experience” or “One UI”. It has a lot of features crammed in and is quite unfamiliar at first. It feels more like iOS in it’s layout and theme.

    For me though it was the external design that lead me to not keeping it. It feels like a very hard device to protect. The camera array protrudes a lot, and is essentially a big circle of exposed glass. The screen is curved, not majorly so but enough that screen protectors are difficult to get right. Adding on to that the phone is very heavy to start with, so throwing either a bulky case that covers the camera or a regular case with a glass camera protector and the phone becomes unwieldly.

    I did try for a short time to use the phone without any protection, just trying to enjoy it and it’s design but I couldn’t. The anxiety caused by knowing how easily it could break got the better of me. This is an enthusiasts phone that makes no compromises to offer the ultimate specifications and performance. Unfortunately it turns out that I do need some compromises!

  • Samsung A55

    The Samsung A55 was what I purchased after the S24. I actually don’t have much if anything bad to say about this one. Even it’s Exynos chipset didn’t cause me any issues (shock!).

    It’s the Flagship of Samsung’s A series devices. Compared to the rest of the A series I’d say it’s more of a budget S series device. After all it has an Aluminium and glass body, a big OLED panel, 8GB of RAM and a main camera with OIS. It even has a Micro SD slot, something that the S series don’t.

    It has some cuts though from the flagship range, as would be expected. There’s no wireless charging. The bezels are bigger. It has a shorter update promise (still 4 years of OS upgrades). Other than that there’s not much downgrade.

    For the average person this would probably be the Samsung to get. They’ll still feel like they’re getting a premium device, but with a much smaller price tag. Being honest, even to me this device felt premium.

    At launch this phone was arguably a tough sell with it’s pricing. The 128GB model was £439 and the 256GB was £489 (I can’t imagine they sold many 256GB models with expandable storage!). Quite quickly though this phone started popping up for much lower prices where it became almost irresistible. I picked mine up for just £225 new, unboxed.

    For once with Samsung using Exynos chipsets this device performed well, and the battery life was good. I’m not sure what they had done differently with this one but I’m assuming it was a fluke as they made a complete disaster with the Exynos 2400 in the S24. The camera was very good too, it could produce decent photos and videos even in low light. This is a phone I do regret selling on, and I can’t even remember the reasons I did so at this point.

    On the plus side I sold the device for the exact same value I’d purchased it for, so nothing was lost! This seems to echo a lot in these turbulent few years of excessive phone ownership. Thankfully I’ve never lost a considerable amount of money. Because I was always careful with my devices, and generally never purchased them brand new (if buying outright) they always sold for either the same or only slightly less than I’d purchased them for. Looking back over the last 4 years I’d guess I’ve only lost a couple of hundred on reselling these devices in total, something that most people would blow on a couple of nights out on the drink! (If you hadn’t guessed I don’t drink, I don’t like the unpredictability of drunk people and don’t like the after effects the next day)

  • Samsung S24 + S24 Ultra

    These were two devices I owned one after the other, The S24 Ultra first followed by the S24 base model. Both times these were bought as part of a SIM contract, and both times when I had to go through the returns process I had an absolute nightmare.

    The S24 Ultra was the most uncomfortable phone I’ve ever held. It’s tablet sized and has really sharp corners. This was a 2 handed phone every time, and it had some serious weight too. The camera was a noticeable downgrade from the S23 Ultra’s which disappointed me. Coupled with strangely poor battery life it and went back within my 14 day returns window. The network completely messed up my cancellation and left me without my number that I’d ported in. It took me over a month to get this back.

    After the dust had settled I saw a really good Black Friday deal on the base model S24, with the same network. I placed the order. Initially it got cancelled because I’d previously had issues with the S24 Ultra. I wish I’d let them cancel the order completely as this one was even more disappointing. The company initially shipped it to the wrong address. I then had to drive 20 miles to the nearest Curry’s store, and wait an hour there to take delivery. The phone was a much more manageable size, but having a smaller battery coupled with the Exynos chipset was just a recipe for disaster. For the 3 days I used this phone I had to charge it 2 or 3 times a day. It was a permanently hot, stuttering mess. Again I returned it in the 14 day window and went through exactly the same problems with trying to reclaim my phone number. After about another month of back and forth, and them sending me cheques and credits as apologies I finally had my number back and I was free to go.

    There are two things I learnt from these experiences. Never buy a phone with an Exynos chipset, and never buy a phone through iD mobile.