Techie Ramblings

Category: Phones

  • Smartphones – A hot take

    In a world that’s currently going mad I came across a post a couple of days ago that got me thinking. It was a group of Apple users actually panicking about these US import tariffs and what it could potentially do to the next generation of iPhone pricing. There was one user in particular that was outraged at the prospect that he might have to keep his iPhone 16 Pro Max for longer than a year. He had obviously become so accustomed to upgrading his phone ever 12 months that the mere idea that he would have to keep it for longer than this enraged him.

    Smartphones are a relatively mature tech segment nowadays, I’ve written about it at length but innovation has ground to a halt and upgrades are very small and incremental year on year. Back in 2012 we were seeing differences between yearly models that would be comparable to 5 years worth of revisions today. Stagnant would be an appropriate description but I’d argue it’s not a bad thing, for the end user of the products at least.

    You DO NOT need to upgrade your phone every year. In fact, I’d go as far as saying don’t need to upgrade your phone unless it’s broken. I’m saying this as much to myself as I am you readers, and I’m aware that the average person not interested in the tech space is not guilty of this. As tech enthusiasts we need to realise that the days of rapid developments and innovating features are gone from the smartphone segment. The excitement is dead.

    A better way of thinking of smartphones would be the same way the majority of us think of laptops. You use a laptop for as long as it works, if possible you replace the battery when it needs it and would only consider replacing the device when it no longer functions as you need it to. Unless you’re in a very small minority that still gets excited over new models of laptops, they are just tools. We need to shift our way of thinking about smartphones to this same philosophy.

    If all you’ve clicked on this article for was to find out my hot take you can stop reading now. TLDR: If you’re smartphone was made on or after 2020 and was a reasonable spec at the time, you don’t need a new one. Keep using it, stop looking at the new releases and save your money!

    A large part of what spurred me to write this post was my recent experience with an iPhone 11 Pro. I acquired the device after my terrible experience with the Samsung S25 to find out if iOS suited my current requirements better, as I’d tried a lot of recent Android devices and wasn’t happy. In short it did. But the unexpected discovery I made was that a device released in 2019; 6 years old was fast, did everything we would reasonably expect from a 2025 smartphone and with a replacement battery lasted me a couple of days between charges.

    It has a great set of cameras, has NFC for contactless payments, it’s design holds up well, the screen is very clear and has great colours and it runs the latest version of iOS therefor there would be no apps that are incompatible with this device. For 99% of iPhone users this phone has everything they need. Nobody needs the car crash that is Apple “Intelligence”, and you could live without a 120hz refresh rate. Aside from those two, which are arguably not even features there have been no meaningful additions to iPhones in the past 6 years.

    Comparing an older Android to now is a bit more difficult. Up until very recently Android phone manufacturers were not updating their phones past 3 years as a maximum. However a device that released in 2019 would’ve shipped with Android 10, and with 3 years of updates would’ve been updated to Android 13. Almost every app on the play store is still compatible with Android 13, so using a device from then would still be possible. The Pixel 4, Galaxy S10 and the Oneplus 7 were all released this year, and while none of them are officially supported by their manufacturers anymore they are still very usable today. Even Android version updates have become minimal to the point where I would struggle to tell the difference between Android 13 and Android 15 without delving into the device settings. Using the Galaxy S10 as an example; you get a high resolution OLED screen, 3 cameras, WIFI 6, wireless charging and a CPU that still gives todays mid range devices a run for their money. With most major Android manufacturers now promising 7 years of updates there should be nothing stopping us using one for a decade.

    With all the self justification in the world there is nothing stopping any one of us using a device until it is at least 5 years old. The battery will most likely want replacing at around the 3 year mark, but that’s not a hard job for the handy and an inexpensive repair for those that aren’t. I gather that a lot of people replace their devices when the battery no longer lasts as long as they need it to, and perhaps in 2027 when the EU mandate of user replaceable batteries comes in that will change.

    I purchased my iPhone 16e with the intention of following my own advice. Yes I could’ve continued using the iPhone 11 Pro for a little longer, but realistically iOS 18 is the last update it will receive. I am sick of setting up new devices so I wanted a device that I could keep for a long time, and I intend to do just that. The iPhone 11 Pro was gifted to a family member who was still using an iPhone 10R. The iPhone XR got treated to a battery replacement and was then given to a colleague who’s iPhone X had succumb to water damage, so even at or beyond the end of their life cycle these devices are still serving people well.

    The average replacement cycle of a phone globally is 2.5 years. At least in the UK, due to the ever increasing prices of the handsets the contracts are being stretched out to 3 years, so I imagine this will increase the average somewhat.

    A lot of average users are hesitant to sell their old devices, due to not being able to back up their data or concerns about a bad actor getting hold of their data. So rather than getting a second life they just sit collecting dust until they’re too old to be useful and then discarded. Arguably this is a worst case scenario for a smartphone, and these people in particular are the ones that should be encouraged to keep their devices for longer.

    I think what we’re seeing from phone manufacturers currently is desperation. They know they’re not innovating, and that the reason to buy a new smartphone regularly is diminishing. So they’re turning to marketing, relying on software features and gimmicks that could easily have been a software update on their existing models to sell phones. This won’t last forever though, I would hope that the average consumer will start to see through this veil and realise that there are not enough meaningful differences between a phone sold 5 years ago and now to justify the exorbitant cost that manufacturers are demanding.

    We’re seeing a similar issue to what has happened to the car market. Buyers have got so used to buying their cars on finance that the actual selling cost is irrelevant to them, as long as they can afford the monthly bill they’re happy, regardless of the clauses or the duration of the contract. With this, people are now spending eye watering monthly sums of up to £1000 on cars they really can’t afford to put fuel in, let alone maintain, and while the cars are still selling the manufacturers will keep raising the prices.

    For most it would be unthinkable to spend £1500 outright on a smartphone, but for around £40 a month for 3 years that suddenly seems a lot more palatable. Add in the SIM part of the contract and it’s not uncommon to see £100 a month phone bills. If customers can start breaking out of these contracts, and only have to pay for their data, minutes and texts for less than £10 a month I doubt many of them would want to go back to their big bills, especially in the economic climate we face today.

    This is wishful thinking, but a major turn like this in customer spending might just force smartphone manufacturers to drop their prices, and potentially move away from annual or even biannual release cycles.

  • iPhone 16e – I guess I was wrong

    I am humble enough to admit when I was wrong, and I’m not someone who tries to cover my tracks and pretend things happened. When the iPhone 16e was announced I made this post: https://blog.sm1th.uk/index.php/2025/02/20/iphone-16e-reality-check-needed/

    A lot of what I wrote holds true, the GPU does have one less core and the £599 price point is arguably too high, this also is absolutely not a continuation of the “SE” line however it does draw similarities to it. However what doesn’t appear to be justified was my concern about the C1 modem. It has held up to testing to be just as good as the Qualcomm modem it replaced, and the efficiency claims seem justified.

    After my recent terrible experience with the Samsung S25 my affinity towards Android as a whole took a massive hit. At this point I feel like the only reason exists any more is to harvest user data. The Android device you buy doesn’t matter, nor how you use it. My post on bootloader unlocking (read here) highlights this; the manufacturers and Google are desperate to keep you using their software, to collect your data. Say what you will about Apple but they are more careful with user data than Google, and their recent run in with the UK government only reinforces this fact.

    I’m also at a point in my life where free time is limited. I don’t want to spend my time configuring devices, resolving issues, customising layouts and finding apps to solve problem. I’ve lost what was a passion for smartphones, and with that my desire to get the new release year on year has gone with it. I just want a device that’s easy to setup, reliable and that will last a long time. So with that in mind I went cap in hand back to Apple.

    Initially I bought a new, sealed box iPhone 16e from eBay. However upon unboxing this phone it was MDM locked and quite clearly stolen, so I immediately returned it and decided that I would only buy new from a trusted retailer. My options for a new iPhone were last years iPhone 15, the iPhone 16e, the base 16, 16 plus or Pro/Pro max. With longevity in mind and the 15 already being locked out of features that was off the cards immediately. The Pro/Pro max were also quickly discarded as options due to their pricing and functionality that is overkill to my use case. Comparing the iPhone 16e and iPhone 16 was a little more difficult. The benefits of the iPhone 16 that are notable are an ultra wide camera, Magsafe, an extra GPU core and the dynamic island. None of these are particularly important features to me, and the better battery life of the 16e was a more important feature. With that decided I ordered the white iPhone 16e with 128GB storage.

    Setup was what I’d expect from an iPhone, very simple and easy. Within about 10 minutes I had the phone setup as I needed it. I was particularly impressed with the native support for CalDAV and CardDav, meaning I could sync my calendar and contacts directly from my Nextcloud installation. Aside from my cross platform notes and banking apps there was very little I needed to install that wasn’t already on the device. Apple still provides alternatives to using it’s iCloud service for everything, I can backup the device directly to my Mac Mini, and photos can be imported and then backed up to my external drive.

    The battery claims I’ve seen floating around in forums are justified. Apple devices have always been great at standby usage but this one didn’t even lose 1% overnight. Coupled with it using very little during screen on time and I’m very impressed. Being plugged into my car twice a day for carplay may actually give it enough charge that I never need to additionally charge it up.

    Performance is also as I’d expect. It’s fluid, keeps recent apps in memory for far longer than I’d have ever expected and needs next to no user input to maintain this performance long term. I’ve only had limited testing of the camera, and this was outdoors in good lighting but the photos and videos it has produced so far are excellent. Playing back one of these videos I was amazed at the quality of the audio, the microphone and speakers on this device are fantastic.

    People have said this is the phone Steve Jobs would’ve made if he was still alive. While I don’t know if that’s true the design is certainly nicer than the other recent releases from Apple. The one camera and lack of a stove top looking arrangement lends itself to a minimalistic look that we haven’t seen for almost a decade. The matte glass back in white, and silver matte aluminium frame make this a very appealing device that feels great in the hand.

    Another welcome benefit is the aftermarket support. I had a wealth of high quality cases to choose from, and the screen protector choices were endless thanks to it sharing a screen with the iPhone 14.

    I did not expect to find a device that I’d be so happy with, and that will be my long term primary device in something that I was initially so critical of. It just goes to show that we should stay open to new information and opinions even when we think our mind is set.

  • 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.

  • 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)