Previously on Lemmy:
Past Discussions:
Every hobbyist forum needs their own guides and resources, and we are no different. I think it’s finally time for us to all pitch in and make an Android buying guide that’s 100% Lemmy over the next couple of weeks, since buying recommendations are commonly requested here, and it’s also a way for us to get more friends to talk Android with.
So, over the next couple of weeks, we are going make our own guide piece by piece: Low-end, Midrange, High-end, and Android Accessories.
We are going to use the following price range definition in terms of USD, use this as a general guideline for price range estimates in your local currency, (Probably not a direct conversion, since purchasing powers are different in different countries.)
- Low-end: 0-300 USD
- Midrange: 300-700 USD
- High End: 700+ USD
Rules are simple:
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For all top-level comments, you should include the model and brand of the phone, your own recommended price range (i.e. This phone would be a good deal at 200 dollars, OK at 250, but a terrible deal at 300.), and anything else you would like to add to justify your recommendations.
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No direct links to products. Prices changes too much, and having affiliate links opens up another can of worms about how sincere our recommendation intentions are.
And we are going to start with the hardest price range to recommend first: Midrange.
Have fun.
Guess I’ll start.
Google Pixel 7a, which MSRP for 500 USD, but 450 is currently a very good deal.
Looks to have a great camera for the price, clean software with long support, but a bit weak in battery life.
Also, no headphone jack, unlike some of the other “a” series Pixels.
is there something similar but has expandable storage (headphone jack would be a bonus).
Another benefit is support for degoogled software (ironically) such as e/OS/ and GrapheneOS, if that’s your thing.
Seconding the Pixel 7a (which I own right now) 😁
At $450 you get literally a high-end phone that’s priced like a mid-range one because it does not feature a glass back (which is a plus IMO, as that’s one thing less you have to worry about breaking) and doesn’t have an optical zoom (can be a deal breaker). The size is also just right, as it’s the most compact one out of the Pixel 7 series.
You also get guaranteed updates until May 2028. And as with most Pixels, you have the best support for ROMs like GrapheneOS.
As for battery life, it seems to be due to the Android 13 version. The Android 14 beta yields a much better battery life thanks to the optimizations that they did.
I had the pixel 6. Is the 7/7a less glitchy? There were constant weird issues with the 6. Which, tbh, I could mostly get past. The reason I swapped out was because of lack of HDMI support. I can’t always use Chromecast, and I like being able to mirror my screen to a monitor I have on my sewing table.
Can you elaborate on those glitches? I haven’t had any noticeable issues with my 7a. As for Chromecast, I haven’t tried yet so I can’t really say.
It’s been a while since I had the phone, but iirc it would drop wifi constantly, Bluetooth would occasionally and randomly cause the phone to seize up and you had to do a hard reset, you could only have a Bluetooth device connected to it alone, if the device was also connected to something else no audio would play from either device (I think that had a work arojnd in dev option, but i dont recall what it was), the screen would go unresponsive if you had youtube playing in background mode, and a handful of other things.
Most of them were worth it just for the Hold For Me feature, though. Lol. God I miss that.
I believe that depends on whether the device supports multipoint connectivity? I have Pixel Buds A earbuds and I know I can’t have them connected to more than one device because they don’t support that.
As for the rest, I think it’s highly likely that you got a faulty unit.