2021-10-11

My path to the S8 replacement.

So my trusty Samsung S8 died the other day without any apparent reason. It was just charging and all of a sudden in the middle of the night it starts screaming (well beeping really loud) and the screen flashes. Half drunken I just pushed the power button to shut it off. That is the last thing I ever heard of it. It was dead from the next day. I have insurance, however because the phone is "too old", there is no way to have it repaired. The only option is a A42 as a replacement phone. This sounds good, as it is a new phone and thus gets a somewhat recent Android version, however being an "A" phone from Samsung - it lacks a lot of features that my S8 had. I was never a big fan of the "Samsung Experience" (quite an awful experience imho), but I found multiple work-arounds via 3rd party apps to make it bearable (Nova, other keyboard, Bixby-button work-around app, force uninstall some apps via USB).

That made think: What are the average peasants options?

I came up with these for me:

The somewhat affordable droidProsWeightConsWeight
Google Pixel 5a
No bloatware - no "custom" experience - no extra assistants5Relatively expensive for the average peasant4
Big modern screen4You submit to the digital overlords1
Good stereo sound - headphone jack3Big and chunky2
ScoreFingerprint sensor that "just works"5No Wireless charging2
16
Very good cameras2The side buttons are not very ergonomic1
Long software support expected2
USB-C1
5G support1
Multilingual (Keyboard, Interface, Assistant)3
Total26Total10
The DoCoMo "replacement" for the S8ProsWeightConsWeight
Samsung A42
Big modern screen4Bloatware OVERLOAD 5
Headphone jack1Awful speaker - MONO3
Pretty good cameras2under screen fingerprint scanner (works about 50% of times)2
ScoreCheap4There will be 0 feature updates / OS updates and security updates will be months late (I know from S8 experience)2
-9.5
USB-C1Only Japanese and English of the relevant (for me) languages are supported. (No German, No Español, No Pусский)3
Pitty for non big IT company0.5No wireless charging2
The side buttons are not very ergonomic and "inverted"1
Extra malus for the system stability, random crashes and quirky work arounds to get basic apps like youtube and casting to work3
No 5G1
Total12.5Total22
5 year old device from appleProsWeightConsWeight
Refurbished IPhone 8
Cheap4Small, but good screen2
Good stereo sound2No Headphone jack1
Still surprisingly good camera2Thunderbolt1
ScoreFingerprint sensor that works best5used (battery not 100%, might not have as much life left as a new one)4
12
Multilingual support (really good with Apple)3outdated specs (C/GPU slower than modern)2
Wireless charging2No 5G (of course)1
Long software support2
Ergonomic side buttons - quiet mode switch1
Great integration with Mac2
Total23Total11

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