Can Anyone Recommend Me A Tough Smart Phone

[Drago]

I would loved to have been at that marketing meeting. 'You want to call it a what?'😁

Id habe named it something appealing, like the Smith and Wesson Anvil Series Man case, Model .357

Would sell wellmin Texas, although Texans consider the .357 Magnum a bit of an effeminate round.

 

[fossyant]

If waterproofness (new word, (c) Drago Enterprises 2021) is nkt a major concern then makes sure whatever pyone ypu get next has an Otterbox Defender case available for it. Verympopular with coppers, SAR technicians, etc, who want to protect their phones from the rigours of work.

Work....

 

[si_c]

I've always gone for high end phones. I like them. I was on a ride with @ColinJ a few years ago and he commented something along the lines that he wouldn't like to use the phone I had as he'd be afraid to break it.

About 2 weeks later I broke it, it fell out of my pocket whilst at my desk at work and hit the legs of the chair side on and shattered the screen.

I couldn't justify spending a lot of money on a replacement phone so went to CarphoneWarehouse and replaced it with a £120 Motorola E5 and honestly I didn't really miss the features of the top end phone. Admittedly the camera was a bit weak but the battery life was good, the screen ok and I mostly just used it for reading CC anyway.

If it's of interest for you this video is quite an eye opener.

 

[ColinJ]

I've always gone for high end phones. I like them. I was on a ride with @ColinJ a few years ago and he commented something along the lines that he wouldn't like to use the phone I had as he'd be afraid to break it.

About 2 weeks later I broke it, it fell out of my pocket whilst at my desk at work and hit the legs of the chair side on and shattered the screen.

Oops, I jinxed you!

I couldn't justify spending a lot of money on a replacement phone so went to CarphoneWarehouse and replaced it with a £120 Motorola E5 and honestly I didn't really miss the features of the top end phone. Admittedly the camera was a bit weak but the battery life was good, the screen ok and I mostly just used it for reading CC anyway.

I am still using the old HTC One M8 that I bought when it was 2 years old, and that was 4.5 years ago, so it is pretty old as far as smartphones go. I paid £85 on eBay, compared with the £500+ that the previous owner probably paid when it was new. You can get them for about £40-45 now!

It has been a pretty good phone. Up until now, the major criticism that I have had of it is that the camera isn't brilliant. It is starting to struggle a bit with some overblown apps. The Guardian app is slow and so is the Amazon one. It is also running an old version of Android (Marshmallow) and is not officially upgradeable from that. I will upgrade next year when I get my pension. I may go for a 2 year old flagship phone again, and if not, it will be a lower price new phone. I still wouldn't dream of paying hundreds of pounds for a phone!

 

[Mike Ayling]

Was it in a case?

Many of the cases nowadays claim to withstand a drop from ??m so choosing the case may be as important as choosing the phone.

+1 for a case.

 

[carpiste]

Tough as old boots and very smart

 

[Drago]

Work....

I know, a disgusting word. Right up their with "moist" and "discharge"!

 

[si_c]

Oops, I jinxed you!

I'll accept your apology. Do you want me to PM you my address to send the replacement phone?

I am still using the old HTC One M8 that I bought when it was 2 years old, and that was 4.5 years ago, so it is pretty old as far as smartphones go. I paid £85 on eBay, compared with the £500+ that the previous owner probably paid when it was new. You can get them for about £40-45 now!

I had a One M7 and loved it, the dual speaker design was frankly brilliant. If I could get a modern smartphone that looked like that I'd have it in a heartbeat. RIP HTC.

I've got a Google Pixel now, which is made by the same team that made the HTC phones. The Pixel 4 is hands down the best smartphone I've used despite it's relatively weak battery life, the face unlock was spectacularly good.

 

[ColinJ]

I've got a Google Pixel now, which is made by the same team that made the HTC phones. The Pixel 4 is hands down the best smartphone I've used despite it's relatively weak battery life, the face unlock was spectacularly good.

Ah, excellent - that is the model of phone that I was considering for next year!

I just found someone selling an unused warranty replacement Pixel 4 on eBay for £190 so in 6 months time I ought to be able to find one for £150-ish.

I am not a heavy user of phones so battery life is not likely to be an issue, especially with wireless charging.

The camera looks a huge improvement on the M8. If I take a photo with the M8 of my bike outdoors on a cloudy day I pretty much can't see the bike and clouds at the same time. Either I can see the clouds but the bike is in the gloom, or I can see the bike but the sky is washed-out grey.

 

[si_c]

Ah, excellent - that is the model of phone that I was considering for next year!

I just found someone selling an unused warranty replacement Pixel 4 on eBay for £190 so in 6 months time I ought to be able to find one for £150-ish.

I am not a heavy user of phones so battery life is not likely to be an issue, especially with wireless charging.

The camera looks a huge improvement on the M8. If I take a photo with the M8 of my bike outdoors on a cloudy day I pretty much can't see the bike and clouds at the same time. Either I can see the clouds but the bike is in the gloom, or I can see the bike but the sky is washed-out grey.

The camera is excellent. It's got quite a few features such as night sight which work really well - I appreciate you can probably get the same effect with a proper camera and the right settings but I'm very much in the point and shoot and what comes out is what comes out. Just an example of it are the two shots below taken a few seconds apart with night sight on and off.

 

[Mike_P]

I have a tough shockproof case on my phone along with a screen protector - it's been dropped including falling off the handlebar without any adverse effects. Have a look on eBay for one for whatever phone you get.

 

[ColinJ]

I just found someone selling an unused warranty replacement Pixel 4 on eBay for £190 so in 6 months time I ought to be able to find one for £150-ish.

What actually happened was that on Friday I spotted a Pixel 5 on ebay offered as BIN for £250, but offers invited. Given that the reason the asking price was so low was that IT DIDN'T ACTUALLY WORK AS A PHONE (!), I thought it overpriced, contacted the vendor, said so, and offered £190. To my surprise, my offer was accepted!

The phone arrived yesterday and is in immaculate condition except for the stated fault - that the main microphone was not working. I had a pretty strong feeling that I would be able to sort the problem out. I was right. It took me a couple of hours of messing about but now I have a fully working phone less than 15 months old bought at a bargain price.

I really like this phone. I am still setting it up and learning how to use its many new features.

The only negatives so far are the so-so speakers, but I was expecting that. I can live with them.

 

[fossyant]

I'll always recommend a flip case type case for any smart phone. Mine's a 'robust' version with dadded corners and more or less doubles the depth of the phone. I am a clumsy oaf though.

 

[si_c]

What actually happened was that on Friday I spotted a Pixel 5 on ebay offered as BIN for £250, but offers invited. Given that the reason the asking price was so low was that IT DIDN'T ACTUALLY WORK AS A PHONE (!), I thought it overpriced, contacted the vendor, said so, and offered £190. To my surprise, my offer was accepted!

The phone arrived yesterday and is in immaculate condition except for the stated fault - that the main microphone was not working. I had a pretty strong feeling that I would be able to sort the problem out. I was right. It took me a couple of hours of messing about but now I have a fully working phone less than 15 months old bought at a bargain price.

I really like this phone. I am still setting it up and learning how to use its many new features.

The only negatives so far are the so-so speakers, but I was expecting that. I can live with them.

I very much like the Pixel series, but then I was a big fan of HTC phones as well (HTC One being a great phone too), until Google bought their design team.

I've got a Pixel 4 which is a fantastic phone, let down slightly by poor battery life, and I'm now using the Pixel 6 Pro, another great phone.

Like all mobile phones they have dreadful speakers, but for the size of device they are OK. I rarely use the speakers though, much prefer headphones.

Out of curiousity what was wrong with the microphone?

 

[ColinJ]

Out of curiousity what was wrong with the microphone?

I'll link to what I posted in the old fogeys members of more senior years thread...

Facing the screen of the new phone - there is a slot for the mic on the left side of the bottom edge of the phone, and an identical slot near the right side which has one of the phones 2 speakers behind it. I shone a torch on the 2 slots and used a magnifying glass to get a good look. Both slots have a very fine wire mesh covering them inside. I assume that is intended to protect the mic and speaker, maybe even improve the waterproofing? Anyway, the mesh covering the speaker is damaged. The one in front of the mic isn't.

My guess at what has happened? I think the phone was working fine until some crud got onto the mesh in front of the mic. Maybe the speaker mesh too. I think the crud muffled the mic, and maybe the speaker. I reckon the original owner (OO) did what I did and Googled for an answer. Various people suggested scraping crud out with a pin. I think that OO started with the speaker grille, intending to scrape both but (s)he was a bit ham-fisted and tore the fine mesh. They then decided not to mess any further with the phone and to sell it before any more damage was done. Probably taking the opportunity to upgrade to a new phone...

The speaker isn't damaged and you can't see the damaged mesh unless you shine a bright light into the slot and have very good eyesight, or use a magnifying glass like me. I think the mic mesh is still clogged. I very carefully scraped it and have managed to achieve about a 25% improvement in mic output. Further cleaning might well yield further improvements. If I don't manage to restore the mic function enough that way, I will try the nuclear option - deliberately cutting a small hole in the mesh to let more sound through to the mic. (Or destroy it completely! )

Anyway, the big news (drum roll)... tapping and blowing the phone didn't work so I decided to give gentle scraping of the mesh a go. I used the pin on the SIM removal tool to do that and... I killed the mic altogether - I couldn't even pick up a sound when shouting into the mic!

But wait... that was good news. That mesh is obviously incredibly sensitive to disturbance. If it is that easy to make it bad, I should be able to make it good. I persevered, and eventually fired up the recorder app again.

He shoots... HE SCORES!!!! I have only gone and got the damn mic working.

I couldn't believe it. One very gentle scrape was enough to kill the mic and a second was enough to totally revive it. I suspect that this problem may return in the future, but if so I have my trusty SIM removal/mic mesh scraping tool ready for some more tech bodging action!