Phone for a teen

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SomePostman

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#250844 28-May-2019 11:40

My daughter has previously had a bargain basement phone for communications/security reasons, but now shes taking her first (supervised) excursions into the world of social media, playing games and watching media and her cheap android really is awful. It really does look like you took a photo on a potato.

She has a bit of money saved up and it looks like you can get a decent phone for $200- $300.

Some of the phones I've considered are:

1) Honor 10 lite

2) Xiaomi Redmi Note 7

3) Nokia 6.1

4) Samsung A10

If it was me, I'd get the Redmi note 7, seems like one helluva phone for the price. But that is a big phone for little hands... but seems like pretty much everything is 6" plus now.

Recommendations?

Handsomedan

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#2246922 28-May-2019 11:52

Asking my Teen son who is an avid consumer of phone reviews, he suggested the Xiaomi or Samsung from your list...

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rb99

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#2246972 28-May-2019 12:17

Might be worth keeping an eye on this -

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=97&topicid=250825

OTOH, two of our midgets have Note 5s and nobody has said anything about ads.

Would probably have to get from somewhere like gear best who have band 28 ones apparently if you care.

to stay under budget I imagine, and it helps to be patient, unless you pay a bit extra for postage. And wrap up well of course, returns for guarantees etc...

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Lias

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#2247052 28-May-2019 13:45

Worth considering that with the current status of Huawei, buying a Honor (Huawei sub brand) is probably not a good idea. Heck buying any Chinese brand is potentially not a good idea if you want ongoing support. I'd look at the Nokia / Samsung if I were you.

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sdavisnz

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#2247065 28-May-2019 14:05

Nokia has far better specs.

Voice gives context

SomePostman

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#2247146 28-May-2019 14:49

Lias:
Worth considering that with the current status of Huawei, buying a Honor (Huawei sub brand) is probably not a good idea. Heck buying any Chinese brand is potentially not a good idea if you want ongoing support. I'd look at the Nokia / Samsung if I were you.

Yeah I've been thinking about this. But it sounds like it's highly unlikely that they will kill access to play store etc for existing phones and even if they never do an update on the OS it's already at Pie and my daughter isn't likely to care about the version of Android it's on. But you're right, it's definitely something I need to take a considered risk on or not. If I'd spent a stupid amount on a P30 pro then I'd probably be much more worried

SomePostman

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#2247148 28-May-2019 14:54

sdavisnz: Nokia has far better specs.

Not sure what you mean by this... They're very similar specs. In what way?

SomePostman

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#2247152 28-May-2019 14:56

rb99:
Might be worth keeping an eye on this -

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=97&topicid=250825

OTOH, two of our midgets have Note 5s and nobody has said anything about ads.

Would probably have to get from somewhere like gear best who have band 28 ones apparently if you care.

to stay under budget I imagine, and it helps to be patient, unless you pay a bit extra for postage. And wrap up well of course, returns for guarantees etc...

Yeah I saw this thread and had seen online reviews sing the same. But I wonder if it doesn't function like that in nz Ruth the Ads because we're too small of a market to care? Sounds like you can turn it off with a bit of faffing around?

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SomePostman

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#2247155 28-May-2019 14:58

Handsomedan:
Asking my Teen son who is an avid consumer of phone reviews, he suggested the Xiaomi or Samsung from your list...

The Samsung is very tempting. Partly because it's easily available locally. But it sounds like the main appeal is the big AMOLED screen, the rest of it is a little underpowered in comparison

Handsomedan

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#2247173 28-May-2019 15:28

SomePostman:
Handsomedan:

Asking my Teen son who is an avid consumer of phone reviews, he suggested the Xiaomi or Samsung from your list...

The Samsung is very tempting. Partly because it's easily available locally. But it sounds like the main appeal is the big AMOLED screen, the rest of it is a little underpowered in comparison

Have you considered Oppo? Seems a lot of bang for your buck (I have no personal experience with them, other than playing in a store)...

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mattwnz

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#2247253 28-May-2019 16:42

I am both an android and ios fan. Have you looked at a refurbed iphone , maybe a 6s or SE, which you can possibly get for around the $300 mark? The SE is good for small hands. The cameras on them are good. The only thing is that I don't think the SE is getting ios 13, even though it is slightly faster than the 6s. Apparently the 6s should get it, but who knows, but the 6s is still quite a fast phone. My issue with cheaper androids, is just how laggy I find that they tend to get after a year or so. I got my father a nokia 5 over a year ago, and it just isn't all that smooth to use now compared to an iphone 6s, and the hardware and software just isn't as polished. It is also always getting softare updates, and restarts at inconvenient times. Then has enabled mobile data after one update, draining my fathers phone credit. If I was going android though, I would probably go for samsung, then nokia, and then Xiaomi. But we don't know what is going to happen with the trade war and if Chinese phone manufacturers are going to get software updates and services blocked in the future.