What Mobile?

[Spinal]

I'll admit to being out of touch with current mobile phone trends... but I will be needing a new phone soon to replace the one I currently have.

So, here's a question... on a budget of £300 roughly, what sim-free phone would you buy? I travel a lot (for work, with a work phone), and talk very little, so contracts don't usually work for me.

M.

 

[V12]

I bought my Nexus 5 on release day for £295. It is a cracking phone. If you use your phone as a mp3 player or as your primary camera then it may not be the best for you due to lack of sd card slot (16GB is more than enough for me). But it is lightning fast, excellent screen that knocks spots off the apple alternatives and it feels very premium in your hands.

The best bang for buck phone at the moment is the Motorola Moto G. It is incredible the specification and the quality they can produce for a phone that can be had for around £100. It really is leaps and bounds ahead of anything in it's price range and will give a lot of mid range phones a run for their money.

 

[Sp!ke]

Agree about the Nexus 5

An alternative would be to try and get a second hand galaxy S4 for £300 or perhaps a Galaxy Note 2. I have both and find that the screen size on the note is superb - the only downside being that it is only just trowserable.

 

[Markjames]

I bought my Nexus 5 on release day for £295. It is a cracking phone. If you use your phone as a mp3 player or as your primary camera then it may not be the best for you due to lack of sd card slot (16GB is more than enough for me). But it is lightning fast, excellent screen that knocks spots off the apple alternatives and it feels very premium in your hands.

The best bang for buck phone at the moment is the Motorola Moto G. It is incredible the specification and the quality they can produce for a phone that can be had for around £100. It really is leaps and bounds ahead of anything in it's price range and will give a lot of mid range phones a run for their money.

I also have a nexus 5, does everything I need it to and plenty more. Camera is not the best but everything else about it is as good if not better (in my opinion) than apple products. Had an iPhone 4 for 3 years previously. I paid the extra £30 and got the 32gb version as I tend to put lots of books and films on it when going on holiday.

 

[Spinal]

How does the nexus camera compare to the iphone5 camera? I have the iphone5, and must admit I do use the camera quite a lot... especially in meetings where it makes copying a large whiteboard quite easy.

 

[KillerHERTZ]

Nexus 5 no question, im currently on my Nexus 4 with a 1 month rolling contract with Tesco which is great.

 

[V12]

Since the last update, the camera is much better.
It will fair well against all phone cameras out there in reasonable light condition apart from the beasty nokias.

I only find low light situations to produce poor pictures, but isn't that the case with all phones to some extent?
The camera hardware used is pretty good and rumours are that there is yet another software update coming to improve the camera some more.

If you're really concerned then it may be worth going through some of these.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=nexus+5+sample+photos&espv=210&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=PjTmUrKmLcrNhAeU0IE4&ved=0CC8QsAQ&biw=1920&bih=979#imgdii=_

 

[V12]

On the contract side of things. I have been toying with getting an Ovivo sim as nearly all my calls are in-bound. Worth having a look at if you are a low user. That or Giffgaff both seem like excellent VFM for the low user.

 

[Markjames]

This is a couple of photos I took on my nexus 5 over the weekend.

 

[Spinal]

I have a T-mobile "mispriced" SIM which I plan on using... £0 per month, 18 month contract, and gives me more minutes, texts and data than I can use.

Thanks for all the comments, I think I'm going with the nexus5! The thing that's sold it for me is something that is totally "useless" - the wireless charging. On the iphone I had a plethora of broken charging cables...

Now I just need to find the best place to buy it... I'm not in a rush, as I probably wont be giving up my iphone for another month or so...

M.

 

[ringway]

An alternative would be to try and get a second hand galaxy S4 for £300 or perhaps a Galaxy Note 2. I have both and find that the screen size on the note is superb - the only downside being that it is only just trowserable.

I agree. I went from the excellent Galaxy S2 to a Galaxy Note 3 which is a great piece of kit but it is just too big.
Although it just about fits in my front trouser pocket it is difficult to use one-handed even though there is a clever option to shrink and move left/right the keyboard on the screen.

I wish I had the S4 Active because I'm the sort of idiot who would benefit from it being a truly waterproof phone - it can be left in a metre of water for an hour without any damage occurring, although I can't think that I would ever make use of its underwater camera.

 

[Spinal]

I agree. I went from the excellent Galaxy S2 to a Galaxy Note 3 which is a great piece of kit but it is just too big.
Although it just about fits in my front trouser pocket it is difficult to use one-handed even though there is a clever option to shrink and move left/right the keyboard on the screen.

I wish I had the S4 Active because I'm the sort of idiot who would benefit from it being a truly waterproof phone - it can be left in a metre of water for an hour without any damage occurring, although I can't think that I would ever make use of its underwater camera.

That's a good point... I have washed more than one of my phones before... the last being an iphone (luckily the battery was totally depleted, so it survived).

I'll have a look at the S4 active later...

M.

 

[Sp!ke]

Otterbox now do a series of 'preserver' phone cases for many mobiles that are IP-X8 rated (waterproof to 2m for 30 minutes).

 

[kingdave]

It's got to be worth looking at the moto-G - available for around £100 on payg tesco mobile and I hear unlockable for pennies. Reviews talk this phone up - supposed to punch well above it's price point.

I'm tempted to get one, only downside I can see is no sd slot.

 

[V12]

Will be getting a moto G for the wife in the next couple of weeks.
I'll post back my thoughts.