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Done a ton of research to pick the next phone. Still cannot decide. Help!

First of all welcome everyone, glad to be a part of this forum. I've been lurking XDA developers since long, long time ago back in the PDA era (HTC SPV M5000 anyone?).
I've owned my Galaxy Note 2 for over 2.5 years now and I'm tired of constantly running out of internal storage and the now-supar camera. I'm looking to buy a new smartphone that will check off many boxes, but if I could describe what I need in 2 sentences, it would go something like: a large-screened productivity workhorse with loads of storage and battery, and a good camera. And if it's future-proof, that's even better! I want a device that will last me for at least 2+ years.
Here's what I'm looking for:
- Screen size between 5,5" and 6"
- Internal storage min. 32 GB, needs to have a microSD card slot (unless it has 128G internal storage)
- Decent camera with OIS (camera should handle low-light shooting well)
- Decent UI (unlike the majority of community here, I don't really want to be flashing my phone with new ROMs or any of that, I just want something that works well right out of the box and is user-customizeable through custom home launchers etc)
- Great battery life (this is big for me, I'm often on the road, I listen to tons of podcasts, use mobile data, bluetooth, sometimes wifi tethering etc. I need a phone that can get me through a looong day)
- Fingerprint scanner
- Won't put a huge hole in my wallet (I wouldn't mind paying more for the perfect and FUTURE-PROOF phone but seems like there isn't one that checks off all the boxes. At the same time I'm trying to keep it below $500)
- A physical home button is a plus (and capacitive buttons! Just like in Samsung Galaxy series)
- Screen res. above 1080p is a plus (better for VR and I will probably try some VR in near future)
- Replaceable battery is a plus (plus extended phone cases, yay!)
- OTG support is a plus
- USB-C is a plus
- Dual SIM is definitely a plus
- No curved screens like on the Samsung Edge series
I looked at:
- Huawei Mate 8 - checks off most boxes, nice big battery but crappy, buggy, and not very customizable UI.
- Huawei Mate P9 Plus - very interesting camera-wise, the rest just like above
- LG G5 - also very interesting camera-wise, a bit smaller screen, and a battery that's way too small. Although replacable, I cannot imagine remembering to bring a spare battery with me everywhere.
- Nexus 6P - great reviews and everything, great software BUT I'm mostly based in China where ALL Google services are blocked, so it would probably be a big pain to have to rely on VPN the whole time. Also camera has no OIS, although I did read it's great. Another con: a bit expensive and not easily available in the 128G version
- Samsung Galaxy A9 Pro - the top contender for me so far. The 5000mAh battery is nuts and just what I need. Dual SIM and dedicated microSD slot. Affordable. But the big bummer: sub-par camera. Also a bit low on the DPI if I ever want to use VR. And no notification light (how am I supposed to know if I got notifications?)
- Samsung Galaxy Note 4 - a bit slower than the A9 Pro, smaller battery, but better camera. And the stylus - I could definitely use the stylus for more productivity. Just really not sure about investing in the aging technology. I want to get at least 2 years out of the new smartphone. Also I've read there's some issues with GPS that are hard to solve. Added benefit of possibility of extended battery case.
- Samsung Galaxy Note 5 - nice and seems like a significant upgrade from Note 4 but no card slot, and expensive at 128G. Still only microUSB v2.0 even at the high price point.
- LG V10 and LG G4 - very interesting propositions, reportedly good cameras, very mediocre batteries (and not too good power management it seems) at 3000mAh but both could be extended with a bigger battery. Pretty sure I would be fine with a little bulkier phone with a case that accommodates a 4000-6000mAh battery, but I would still need to keep it as slim as possible, I don't mind if it's not the slimmest phone but I certainly don't want a thick and heavy brick in my pocket. I've also read reviews of some of the extended battery cases and it seems like the battery quality can be a real lottery. The batteries lose their capacity quickly, and I think none of them can be charged using the Quick Charge 2.0
- ZTE Avon 7 - veeery interesting proposition, not the biggest battery but almost everything else knocks me out of my socks. 6GB RAM possible, 128G storage that can be expanded by another 128G (!), capacitive buttons in the higher version, an added benefit of insane speakers. The camera is reportedly not too impressive though, although I'm pretty sure it's better than the one in Galaxy A9 Pro. The main concerns: it's a very fresh phone, the UI is reportedly not very optimized, I can imagine there will be plenty of issues that ZTE will need to fix through software before this phone runs as smoothly as the Galaxy A9 Pro or LG G4 would. And I hate waiting in hopes. Also, being in China, I think it's a bit tricky to purchase the phone in International/European version that has a broader range of bands and doesn't block Google services. I've read through the entire 35 page thread on XDA about this phone and yes, it seems like you can get the Google services to work without problems but who knows what the next ZTE updates will do to that. The way I generally see it is Chinese UI = potential problems.
For the Galaxy A9 Pro or LG G4 I would just go to Hong Kong to buy them and enjoy a phone that doesn't have the Google services blocked. I couldn't find the ZTE Avon 7 anywhere in HK on the internet.
All in all if I had to go to the store tomorrow I'd probably need to choose between a Galaxy A9 Pro, the well-proven LG G4 with a great camera (but a need to buy a good extended battery case and ultimately ending up with a rather bulky phone), the Galaxy Note 4, and the ZTE Avon 7.
Any suggestions, thoughts, recommendations?

Galaxy S10E or the Mi 9

Straight to the point, I'm looking to purchase one of the phones but I'm not sure which to get. I'm mostly looking into the selfie camera and XDA support so yeah not sure which one

Supracer said:
Straight to the point, I'm looking to purchase one of the phones but I'm not sure which to get. I'm mostly looking into the selfie camera and XDA support so yeah not sure which one
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I will go for Xiaomi mi 9. Wide angle camera, Dual SIM, Amoled, My mother toung, Call recorder and great price. Only missing 3.5 aux but I will survive. BB Oneplus....

My list:
Mi9: Most likely better AOSP support, cheaper
S10E: better screen, 3,5 jack, smaller size

I'm also thinking about buying either the Mi9 or S10E. At the moment, I'm slightly leaning towards the Mi9 because of the price and also because I don't really like Samsung's software.
That being said, Samsung has improved radically over the past years and Xiaomi is not exactly delivering mint Android either.
As for the size: Would love to buy the Mi9 SE but it looks like it's not going to be available in Europe and that it will also lack the necessary 4G bands to make it work properly.

ljo13 said:
I'm also thinking about buying either the Mi9 or S10E. At the moment, I'm slightly leaning towards the Mi9 because of the price and also because I don't really like Samsung's software.
That being said, Samsung has improved radically over the past years and Xiaomi is not exactly delivering mint Android either.
As for the size: Would love to buy the Mi9 SE but it looks like it's not going to be available in Europe and that it will also lack the necessary 4G bands to make it work properly.
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Would definitely go for the Mi9. Depending on region Samsung has decided to use their Exynos variant in comparison to Snapdragon 855.
We all know the Exynos is faster than the Snapdragon 855 but with regards to power efficiency, we are still unsure. Last years Galaxy S9 Exynos variant suffered from severe battery issues which ultimately resulted in me returning my S9 within the cooling off period.
The Mi 9 is very attractive with its Snapdragon 855 and scores well on gsmarena battery test even beating the p20 pro (4000mah) which I currently own and would not sell apart from sh** selfie camera being worst ever. Ultimately Samsungs decision to only ship Exynos variant phones within the UK is a shocking one.
We should be given the choice

Mi9 I've just received mine.
I was going to get the S10+ but when I seen this and the price tag my mind was made.
Screen is great,cameras front and back are brilliant, it's so fast and smooth it's unreal. Fingerprint scanner is very good it's so quick and accurate nothing like OnePlus 6t that was dreadful for me.
Only think this device doesn't have for me is dual speakers, IP rating, SD slot.

Buy Mi9 Only if you dont mind the lack of OIS....camera at night is a joke.i sell mine for that after just 24 hours!!!

Z953RR said:
Buy Mi9 Only if you dont mind the lack of OIS....camera at night is a joke.i sell mine for that after just 24 hours!!!
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Agreed, camera so far one of the aspects I'm slightly less pleased with, especially coming from the Pixel 2 xl. However, a Mi 8 gcam port works already and so does night sight, which even though its not meant for this device works pretty well. So I'm definitely gonna be patient and follow its development as great things await us I believe! Would be great if we can use the telephoto and wide angle cameras with the gcam port!

I have installed gcam in mi9 with night mode... quality better BUT NOT with low light.you need a tripod ..theres not optical image stabilization (hardware)

mulkman said:
Would definitely go for the Mi9. Depending on region Samsung has decided to use their Exynos variant in comparison to Snapdragon 855.
We all know the Exynos is faster than the Snapdragon 855 but with regards to power efficiency, we are still unsure. Last years Galaxy S9 Exynos variant suffered from severe battery issues which ultimately resulted in me returning my S9 within the cooling off period.
The Mi 9 is very attractive with its Snapdragon 855 and scores well on gsmarena battery test even beating the p20 pro (4000mah) which I currently own and would not sell apart from sh** selfie camera being worst ever. Ultimately Samsungs decision to only ship Exynos variant phones within the UK is a shocking one.
We should be given the choice
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I'm not so sure about "Exynos" is faster than 855, of course maybe Samsung phones with Exynos feel faster than Snapdragon?

ted presley said:
I'm not so sure about "Exynos" is faster than 855, of course maybe Samsung phones with Exynos feel faster than Snapdragon?
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This years exynos has also failed in terms of battery life.
The snapdragon 855 is way more efficient than the exynos

mulkman said:
This years exynos has also failed in terms of battery life.
The snapdragon 855 is way more efficient than the exynos
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Exynos is only better in singlecore (multicore is faster in 855) but exynos does that at the expense of a lot of heat and battery. Also the GPU in 855 is like 2 generations better than exynos.
yes, my s9+ exynos still does beat the mi9 in single core. but the s9+ gets beaten in gpu tests even by my older mix 2 NON S (snapdragon 835!!.. not 845!!) 855 gpu is a beast. Exynos s10 gpu is just slighty better than s9 exynos because they did improve the power per core.. but removed like 40% of the cores... (g72mp18 vs g76mp12)
and that single core perf. is irrelevant.. My mix2 with a good rom is AT LEAST as fast as the s9+ in app opening, web surfing etc.. believe I tested.

SecurePhone 2021

Hi All,
2021 is here and I'm concerned about my privacy (finally).
I'm looking for a phone with good specs, capable of being run on Verizon in the US, and won't break the bank. ($500 is my ceiling)
I've looked into this year's budget offerings but been slightly disappointed with them enough to avoid them. What seems to be the best bet is a 1 or 2 year old flagship device.
I used to root and rom until vzw started locking the bootloaders on their Samsung lineup. I unfortunately went to iPhone a few years later, but now that I'm turning out to be more privacy minded over convenience, I've returned to the idea of purchasing an android to flash a custom privacy minded rom.
As I've been out of the game for so long and my preliminary research has been unfruitful, I waned to ask if you could point me in the direction of a few phones and roms that would run on verizon.
Thanks in advance!
jonnyboiii

You could get a used Note 10+ but it probably be around $650 from a reliable source like B&H Photo. Note 9's are less.
I go for something running on Pie as Q and up are screwed to hell in my opinion. With Pie you can use the freeware app Karma Firewall to lock it down as all it's features like logging are fully functional.
Between Samsung and Android the last year has not had many good offerings.
If I had to replace my 10+ now I be very tempted to go with another 10+... that's how bad the newer models/OS's are. I don't recommend any of the new Samsung phones as my overall impression of them is they're unacceptable.

blackhawk said:
You could get a used Note 10+ but it probably be around $650 from a reliable source like B&H Photo. Note 9's are less.
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Been looking into that phone in particular; perhaps I should go into the subforum Q&A, but...
It looks like there are no ROMs really available for the Note10. I could only find one ROM and some recoveries in the subforum. Didn't there used to be subforums for carrier specific models?
Apart from the Pinephone, is there a privacy-minded ROM that you know of? Just needs to be able to run on some decent phones.

jonnyboiii said:
Been looking into that phone in particular; perhaps I should go into the subforum Q&A, but...
It looks like there are no ROMs really available for the Note10. I could only find one ROM and some recoveries in the subforum. Didn't there used to be subforums for carrier specific models?
Apart from the Pinephone, is there a privacy-minded ROM that you know of? Just needs to be able to run on some decent phones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It can be a little hard to find:
Samsung Galaxy Note 10+
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ is a 6.8" phone with a 1440x3040p resolution display. The Exynos 9825/Snapdragon 855 chipset is paired with 12GB of RAM and 256/512GB of storage. The main camera is 12+12+16MP and the selfie camera is 10MP. The battery has a 4300mAh capacity.
forum.xda-developers.com
I'm on a AT&T stock 10+ 512 gb/Pie. Don't get the 5G variant but the 512 gb variant running on Pie is sweet. I recommend you stay on Pie.
Q and 11* are fqcked up and you will take a performance/functionality hit.
A very fast/stable, rock solid phone. 6o hz screen refresh rate but a drop dead gorgeous display.
No 3.5 mm jack so you'll want a pair of Buds+ or Buds Pro for it.
I simple use Package Disabler Pro, Karma Firewall and settings to lock it down. No force reloads due to malware yet.
I don't root and with this phone running on Pie it's not needed. Be nice but most likely be a time gravity well for me.
* the newest phones have faster ram and cpu but Android 10 and 11 handicap the faster hardware by using more cpu cycles. If you're tired of the Apple trip I'd stick with Pie

General A52 quick review

I bought one for a family member. I ha e s21 ultra. I think the a52 is a fantastic device. It hardly feels any different to my s21. A few things missing (dex, wireless charging, 100 million x useless zoom etc). For $350 it's outstanding.

To be frank, I was close to chose A52 over S20 FE but S20 FE just head the things that were more important to me and at a given price, the best choice.
However, as someone who used A50 for the last two years, I would recommend anyone to go with A52, rather than A70+ (whatever people say, A50s get much bigger improvement and power with each version than A70s which are more expensive for less gain)

Sentelin said:
To be frank, I was close to chose A52 over S20 FE but S20 FE just head the things that were more important to me and at a given price, the best choice.
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I was also choosing between the A52 and the S20 FE.
Picked the A52, it came down to four things:
Price, I could comfortably afford the S20 FE 4G max.
SoC, S720G is weaker compared to the Exynos but it's not as dramatic of a difference as with the S720G vs the S855 or S865 and it's way more battery efficient.
S20 FE's digitizer issues, I'm not spending that much money to have a subpar experience with ghost touches.
Software support, the A52 just launched with Android 11, it'll get one more Android version and a year more of security updates.
I also went for the A52 LTE, I don't care about 5G and the SoC difference wasn't nearly enough to justify the extra cost of the A52 5G.

VonSparq said:
I was also choosing between the A52 and the S20 FE.
Picked the A52, it came down to four things:
Price, I could comfortably afford the S20 FE 4G max.
SoC, S720G is weaker compared to the Exynos but it's not as dramatic of a difference as with the S720G vs the S855 or S865 and it's way more battery efficient.
S20 FE's digitizer issues, I'm not spending that much money to have a subpar experience with ghost touches.
Software support, the A52 just launched with Android 11, it'll get one more Android version and a year more of security updates.
I also went for the A52 LTE, I don't care about 5G and the SoC difference wasn't nearly enough to justify the extra cost of the A52 5G.
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The thing is, I don't care about SoC Exynos990 does more than a fine job for me (including gaming, some of which are demanding games, with barely any noticeable difference in performance ) , battery is holding off the entire day which is another thing that is more than enough, considering everything.
Digitizer issues never experienced, as far as I am concerned those are defects a few units had and the majority didn't.
I am not getting hung up on Android OS, since it's covered 3 versions (until android 13), which by that time I will be replacing the phone anyways, with an upgraded model. Or in case I don't for some reason, there will be polished and much better kernel optimized custom roms on XDA that will likely keep up to the latest Android version.
And I had a chance to test A52 in comparison to my choice, guess what? S20 FE 4G just fairs much better, despite so-called subpar SoC and etc in every area. (not benchmarks and etc, the actual real experience). And as for security updates, they will be roll out as part of Google play OS upgrades, pushed from Google mainstream pipeline, so you will never have to worry about security upgrades - even if we don't get major OS updates past 3 Android versions, security updates are no brainer
There is however caveat to all of this. A52 is an incredible budget phone that I would recommend to everyone who is on the verge of buying (especially for those who are upgrading from A50-51). It cuts pretty close to high end model for really affordable price

Starting a movement: Tell Samsung “Make small budget phones!”

As a budget phone owner who’s not looking to spend more than $300 (or $400 at most) on a new device, it was with great interest that I saw the recent release of the Samsung Galaxy A23 5G. It has good specs for its price and it seems like it would be a very decent phone all around. So it was with great dismay that I noticed the overall size of the phone... 6.5 inches from top to bottom. Once again...
Is it just me, or is there a significant group of phone owners out there who want phones that actually fit into smaller pockets, don't fatigue the hands, and can be used with one hand when needed? I want a phone, not a tablet or a “phablet”!
When it comes to its S-series, Samsung releases a small version each year, along with a bigger sized “Pro” version, and an even bigger “Ultra” version. But when it comes to the A-series phones, almost every single one of them is bigger than the S22 Ultra! In the recent American A-series model lineup, this applies to the A02s, A03s, A12, A13 5G, A23 5G, A32 5G, and A42 5G, with only the A52 5G and A53 5G being slightly smaller at 6.3 inches. And the S21 FE is only slightly cheaper than the S22. Way above a budget price.
I can’t be the only one who wishes that there were some A-series budget phones whose sizes were similar to the 5.75 inch Galaxy S22, or at least under 6 inches from top to bottom. I was even considering the (6 inch) Pixel 6a until seeing the many reports of its overheating and network connectivity drop issues.
Just as a practical example, Samsung can make a Galaxy "A23s" 5G which can have the same Snapdragon 695 chip as the regular A23 5G. Just the overall phone size (and battery if necessary) will be smaller.
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In light of the above, I call on anyone who would also like such phones to call Samsung’s sales department at 1-855-726-8721 and politely request that they start making such devices, and explain that they will attract many compact phone buyers who can’t afford to shell out $700 or $800, but would be very interested in getting a Samsung A-series phone if only there were smaller options available, just like there is in the S-series.
If Samsung sees that there’s a big enough demand for it, they will start producing such phones so as to reap the earnings from this new customer base!
Please share this page and spread the word far and wide, so that we can get as many people as possible to effectuate this change!
P.S. Leave a comment with any additional ideas that you think may help the cause.