New smart phone

WTF has happened to the prices of new handsets in the last few years?

I’m paying £11 a month for a sim only deal with EE as my current phone is now out of contract, that includes 4g of data + unlimited calls and texts. I never use more than 4g as I’m on wifi most of the time.

A new S8 or preorder S9 or a Note 8 (which I quite like the look of) are £58+ with a £100 upfront payment. Google pixel 2XL is the same.

((58 - 11)*24)+100 = £1228 for the handset itself, wtf is that? - EE’s margin on this stuff must be astronomical! I can buy the Pixel 2 XL for £630, and the note 8 for £870 from Carphone warehouse, so a massive saving there which is an option. But I’d rather not fork out that much is one go.

So here’s the question - I’m after a handset with a big screen and decent camera. Are there any ones that I should look at which aren’t premium brands before EE shaft me?

I honestly don’t have much of a clue anymore.

Are Huawei ones any good?

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Go for a slightly older phone and you’ll get a much better deal, S6 or S7 maybe. Both have great cameras.

I have an Samsung S7, and although I do not use it, to anywhere near it’s potential, it is a very nice phone.
You can get one for less than £250.

Thanks. I realise i can get an older model for less. That is what i have now, a 3yr phone.

Im interest to know if any of the current crop of none premium brands are woth considering.

I have had a BLU VIVO 5R 4G LTE SIM-Free Smartphone (32 GB and 3 GB RAM) - Grey
by BLU for 6 months, I find it to be excellent, and cheap.

My current phone is Android 7, 5.2" screen, 16 MP front and rear cameras, dual SIM and cost me £85 new. I’ve owned it for 4 months now and it hasn’t missed a beat.

Easily as fast / slick to use as my old iPhone SE, and I much prefer it.

The name of this wonder device - Cubot Note Plus. Love it.

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I’ve got an Alcatel POP4 for £7 a month, inc 1 hour calls/unlimited texts/0.5GB data.

The reason it is so cheap is because it’s shit.

Avoid.

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I bought a Blackview S8 from Amazon for less than £200. It is dual-SIM with Android 7.0, 64 GB of memory and 4 cameras. Basically a Samsung Galaxy S8 copy for a lot less money. So far it’s very good.

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Prices are completely insane.

Apparently Apple have had gash sales of the X because all of a sudden people have realised a grand for a phone that does facial expression copying emojis might be a bit fucking mental.

The smartphone industry is about to hit the buffers and in the same way that tablets and PCs have recently, largely because there isn’t any innovation happening.

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My iPhone 5 battery finally gave up so I got a Huawei a couple of months back and love it. I obviously don’t buy new phones constantly so know nowt.

I suppose it all depends on what you want from a phone.

Yes it does.
I just fancied a new handset with a bigger screen and decent camera, i do like taking pics with them.

The latest google phone’s camera is superb, but the money you have to pay for it in contract makes it almost impossible to justify.
I may buy a handset outright and just say on a sim only deal, can get the LGG6 for £399 that has a very good camera.

@browellm glad it’s not just me that thinks contract phone prices are mental.

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^^^^ This.

Saturated market with little innovation.

The cheap (£150-200) phones are very good tbh. Or you can get the OnePlus 5T for £450, which is close to premium quality for half the price. LG tend to be well discounted.

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I would also like to have a gander at the new Nokia 8 which supposedly delivers a vanilla Android experience and is well priced.

Not being funny but my sub £100 phone is a vanilla Android implementation and is as good (if not better) than the majority I have tried.

The screen is high end too.

The Razer phone should be great, and comes with a comedy 100GB per month for only £30

I went through this last year…
Eventually I bought an LG V20 - it’s not a UK released model so I bought a Taiwan spec one that was warehoused in France for about £260 with no extra duty.
And it’s most excellent; Android 7.0, dual sim, “high definition” DAC designed by B&O, camera with manual operation (and auto if you want it), 128Gb, “MilSpec” drop tested and, most importantly, a removable battery.

Buy an unlocked phone and sign up for a SIM only deal for the lowest total cost over 18 or 24 months.
Laptops direct do open box SIM free phones at good prices. I got a Samsung s6 and s7 and they have been excellent, supposedly returns but arrived as new and untouched.

I got a Moto G5, excellent phone. There are plenty of SIM only deals. I pay £6 with Plusnet.