The 3 year old phone..

[rayinpenn]

The kids , young adults destroy theirs because of heavy use or in the past dropping it in the creek. Did you know people write books on their phone? It must be a generation thing as I find typing on it extremely frustrating. The kids are on them all the time. It seems sharing the mundane minutes of their lives but I really have no idea what they are so intently writing.

The Mrs and my Android phones made it to three years. With prior phones It was like clockwork once the phones were off contract the battery would die, failing to keep a charge.
Battery management and batteries have clearly improved. I’ve looked you can replace the battery for $100.

When the time for a new phone arrives I am thinking of eschewing the $450 phones and going for a budget model. My needs: texting, calling, the internet, weather and directions.

Has anyone tried a budget friendly model? Willing to share.

 

[Montecfo]

The kids , young adults destroy theirs because of heavy use or in the past dropping it in the creek. Did you know people write books on their phone? It must be a generation thing as I find typing on it extremely frustrating. The kids are on them all the time. It seems sharing the mundane minutes of their lives but I really have no idea what they are so intently writing.

The Mrs and my Android phones made it to three years. With prior phones It was like clockwork once the phones were off contract the battery would die, failing to keep a charge.
Battery management and batteries have clearly improved. I’ve looked you can replace the battery for $100.

When the time for a new phone arrives I am thinking of eschewing the $450 phones and going for a budget model. My needs: texting, calling, the internet, weather and directions.

Has anyone tried a budget friendly model? Willing to share.

I thought $450 WAS budget friendly with iphones and Galaxy over $1000. Those do not seem worth it to me. DW has a Galaxy but we got them at half price a few years ago.

If you are an android person the Pixel 3a at $300-350 is a darn good phone. Lots of storage, no bloatware, great camera.

I think DW is getting the Pixel 4a, which is around the same price.

 

[MichaelB]

Thread moved to the technology forum.

Here’s a very recent thread on phones you seem to have missed. https://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f54/replacing-a-broken-tracfone-105918.html There are other iPhone threads as well. Try a search or browse the thread titles.

 

[brett]

I bought a Motorola Moto phone three years ago. Still fine. Use it as you do.

I went to PCmag's cell phone review at the time and selected a model that was for sale on Amazon at a good price and was one of the editors's choice for low cost cell phones.

I paid $110 USD. Recently saw some in our Costco store. About $125USD. They seem to come and go at Costco.

 

[Ole Red 29]

We buy recent model refurbished iphones from ebay. They are about half the price of new. We are sure to buy them from a company and not an individual. We have never had a problem with one of these phones.

 

[REWahoo]

+1 to the Motorola "G" series budget phones that sell in the ~$200 range. DW and I have both been using them for the past several years without major problems.

 

[DenverGuy42]

my wife and I both just got a pixel 4a - $350 - and love it so far. Fast, excellent camera. Even has a headphone jack still.

 

[OldShooter]

I love the early adopters who eat all the depreciation. My guess is that many are the ones that don't understand LBYM rather than the ones (like most denizens here) who do.

Pretty much all of our phones have come via CraigsList in the $100-200 range. These have been the Google Nexus or Pixel phones with box-stock Android. This morning I see a Pixel 3a XL there @ $200 though I'm not in the market. According to Wikipedia, my current Nexus 5X phone was introduced in the fall of 2015. So, maybe up to 5 years old and it works fine.

I don't think I have ever gotten or bought a phone through a carrier.

 

[Scrapr]

I bought a Pixel 3a XL since it was travel friendly. My old phone I would use about 3 gigs of data. All of a sudden on the Pixel I was using 5-6 gigs. I don't know why the difference. I suspect it has to do with memory. I listen to podcasts as I drive. And some music. I think the Pixel was streaming it. And the old phone was using memory. But that's just a hunch. I have a LG Stylo 6 now. Since nobody is traveling I just put the Pixel on the shelf until it's time to go. The Stylo was about $200. I have had Stylos for several years & like them.

 

[aaronc879]

I spent around $100 for a Tracfone smartphone around 6 years ago and still going strong. It's only 8GB which is a pain since I can't have more than a couple Apps but I get by. I'm not paying $1000 for a phone

 

[Music Lover]

You can get a new Samsung A11 for about $150

 

[Sunset]

My best budget phone was a Microsoft OS one, cost me $30, and has a replaceable battery which cost $15 last year.
I still use this for traveling only.
It is a smart phone with all the bells and whistles, just not a popular OS.

I have my new regular phone which is an Android phone (I switched to Android as it has lots of apps and the Microsoft didn't as Microsoft phased out their phones).

My regular Android phone a Moto G6 cost me $150 about over a yr ago. Still working fine. I wish it had a replaceable battery and then it would last many many years.

When the time comes , I may pry it open and attempt a battery replacement, but not for another year or two.

 

[meierlde]

Note that if you are seriously into needing to type on a phone,you can buy a bluetooth keyboard for the phone and type on it. (either a full sized keyboard or a smaller one.) some tablets already come with a keyboard or an accessory. (it is fairly easy to pair a keyboard with a phone).

 

[njhowie]

Has anyone tried a budget friendly model? Willing to share.

You can do that in the near term, but I think over time, because of the way the world is evolving, you're going to want the most up to date smartphone you can reasonably afford.

Within 5 to 10 years at most, paper money usage is going to be almost non-existent, physical credit card usage is going to go way down as well. The government, banks, credit card companies, and anything finance related will be moving everyone and everything digital.

If you have a budget friendly model, it's not going to be sufficient for doing anything other than making/receiving calls and text messages. Today it's easy for many of us to say that's plenty. However, over the coming decade it will not be.

 

[OldShooter]

You have a crystal ball? IMO your statements are speculative, not facts.

Probably they will not become facts IMO. First, technology providers want ubiquity for their apps. They are going to include as many legacy phones as possible. Second, market growth is in third world countries like Africa, where phone banking and payments are already much more common than in the US, and where incomes militate against buying the super smart and expensive phones. Third, our phones right now do quite a bit more than "making/receiving calls and text messages." All of those things and more will still be available in the future.

And, regardless, I'm not going to worry today about "5 to 10 years" in the future. I'll just own what I need today, needs that are more basic than my phone, and wait to see how things trend. As many people have famously said, predictions are hard, especially about the future.

 

[Major Tom]

+1 to the Motorola "G" series budget phones that sell in the ~$200 range. DW and I have both been using them for the past several years without major problems.

+1 to this. I've had 3 Moto G phones. All have been good, with the exception of one annoying issue on my current one, the Moto G7 Power. People at the other end of phone calls, whether through the cellular network, or using FB Messenger, occasionally report poor and "muddy" voice quality from my phone. This seems to be a known issue with this model. I've tried various fixes, including not allowing Google to access the mic. Some of the fixes seem to work for a while, but there has been no definitive and permanent solution, leading me to wonder whether it's a hardware issue. Funnily enough, I have a Visible R2 phone on another account that cost all of $19 new, and has crystal clear call quality!

I would be prepared to spend up to ~$400-450 on a phone if it had an excellent camera but, so far, my little compact Ricoh GRII, with it's APS-C sensor, trumps the image quality of every cell phone in existence.

 

[njhowie]

You have a crystal ball? IMO your statements are speculative, not facts.

Think what you like. My speculation is likely much better than yours - time will tell.

 

[aja8888]

We buy our phones used from swappa.com (https://swappa.com/), usually 2 years old, in mint condition. Never had a problem.

 

[Ian S]

We've always been able to snag a deal on top of the line Samsung phones - last deal was buy BOGO deal on our Galaxy S8+ phones three years ago. Love our phones and don't have plans to get new ones anytime soon. FWIW, no way will we spend $1000+ on a cell phone. If we can't find a good deal when we need to we will look at lower priced phones instead of top-of-the-line ones.

 

[FIYes]

There are some great budget phones out there. Just put some time into shopping and reading reviews. I had good luck with a Moto G phone, but I know some people have not. See the broken Tracfone thread. I have that same phone, Moto G6, bought factory unlocked from Costco for $180 November 2018. I liked the G6 so much, that I bought another one in Tracfone bundle this summer.

Probably my best value was a LG Phoenix 2 that I bought new on Black Friday special for $30 and used as my daily driver for two years.

Last year I bought a Samsung Galaxy S9 and plan to get a few years out of it. So I am not currently ultra budget, but there are good, very low cost phones out there depending on your needs/wants.

My recommendation is determine a couple of budget models that appeal to you and start looking at Black Friday sales. I wouldn’t buy a phone based on what you might need in four or five years, because any phone you buy will be to some extent out of date in that time frame.

 

[target2019]

The budget model is the one you have and is paid for!

But seriously, get a Pixel. I scrimped and used hand me down ipones or cheap Androids forever. Daughter talked me into new phone, and I don't mind the ridiculous price.

 

[travelover]

I have a Galaxy J3 Orbit that I use with PagePlus. It was cheap, does all I need and has a removable battery. https://www.pagepluscellular.com/phones/samsung-galaxy-j3-orbit/

 

[W2R]

Three years ago I switched to Cricket Wireless ($30/month unlimited phone and texting plus 2 GB data/month free). Cricket gave me a free LG smartphone for porting my phone number over to them from Verizon.

My needs: texting, calling, the internet, weather and directions.

My free Cricket phone has calling and texting and internet, and a weather app front and center. But I never need directions so I don't even know if it has whatever would be needed for that.

Love my phone, love Cricket. (Thanks again for the suggestion that this plan might fit my needs, REWahoo!)

My free LG phone is fine so far. When it craters, I can get a new LG phone from Cricket that looks pretty much the same, for $79.

 

[OldShooter]

... But seriously, get a Pixel. I scrimped and used hand me down ipones or cheap Androids forever. Daughter talked me into new phone, and I don't mind the ridiculous price.

What did you gain that makes it worth the extra money?

 

[mpeirce]

Did you know people write books on their phone? It must be a generation thing as I find typing on it extremely frustrating.

There are a couple of reasons typing can be frustrating:

1. Screen size. The size of the keys are determined by the size of your screen. Small keys are harder to tap. So try using a phone with a large enough screen.

2. Practice. Often folks rarely type on their phones and never get good at it. Practice makes perfect.

3. Try predictive text. People who type fast on their phones let the phone predict their typing and tap the suggested entire word instead of typing each letter. The AI is your friend.

4. Try slide typing. Most phones allow you to slide from letter to letter without picking up your finger and pecking at each key. Again allowing the AI to do the typing for you makes for faster and more accurate typing.

5. If actually typing just doesn't work for you for whatever reason, try dictating. Tap the voice icon on your icon and just say what you want to type. This works great.

Stop complaining and figure out what works for you!

Personally, I dictate more than I type. It's fast, amazing accurate, and just easier than typing.