UKH

Thought the UKC hivemind might be able to help.. I'm in the market for a new phone (handset only not contract). It doesn't get heavy use..mostly maps, OS maps, google, Komoot, a decent camera, bit of instagram, emails and webpage browsing and ideally not huge as i have quite small hands.

Looking preferably under £300 if poss. 

I've been slightly put off by a few that only have one OS update like the motorola ones though i have had a motorola phone in the past. My current Asus has lasted 6years or so!

Currently looking into OnePlus or Pixel types but there seem to be so many to look at. Does anyone have a suggestion or strong preference/positive experience with one? 

Hope this is ok to post!! 

Use this to narrow it down:
https://www.gsmarena.com/search.php3

I have long lived by last gen, or last gen refurb pixel in the "a" model line. 

Good enough. Fast enough. Cheap enough.

(Sending this from my 6a)

I've recently been looking for a new phone so I've done a fair bit of trawling. Best thing I've found in the sub-£300 category is a Google Pixel 7a for £258.

That was with Voxi (no, I'd never heard of them either). You have to get a SIM with them, but you can just cancel that the day it arrives so you have no ongoing costs. 

Same issue - same result! Older Google Pixel works just fine

I buy used phones. You can get a year old phone that looks like new for less than half the price of a new one. Last year's high spec is still better than this year's £300 phone.

Finding a small Android phone is tough. I've done a lot of of searching and if you want decent performance there are very few options. I've currently got a Samsung S10e that cost me £150. It was the smallest phone I could find. It's good but the battery life is a bit poor. I've got my eye on an Asus Zenfone for when this dies.

I've always had cheap phones. Weird makes like Xiaomi or the cheap Motos. 

Spec wise they are great but fail to deliver.

Things just done work, like Bluetooth connection dropping out, contactless payments being buggie, battery life reducing etc etc.

Don't chase specs, they only tell you half the story.

Most recent phone is a Pixel 6a and it's a million times better than the above brands. 

Only gripe with it is the fingerprint scanner is temperamental.

I'd still recommend one.

Dunno about Xiaomi, but Motorolas make up the vast majority of crash reports for our games, and we’re not the only ones to have found that. Another local company worked on tangent with the developer of our runtime and pretty much concluded dodgy hardware, or dodgy drivers.

iPhone 12/13 Mini?  The only good small phone I've had in years, though battery life isn't *wonderful*.  Good small Android phones disappeared years ago, most smaller Androids just aren't very good.

I can't speak to the new zenfones but mine's been going 5/6 years and just causing me problems because the operating system is out of updates otherwise I'd happily keep it!

To be fair I've never had a phone last more than 3 years. I would consider 5/6 years bloody good going and would happily buy the same again if I had a phone last that long. I'd be impressed if you can find something that lasts longer. At the very least the battery will be knackered and replacements unavailable by that point.

Pixels were great affordable phones before they disappeared up their own digital fundament. I switched to the OnePlus Nord 2T (a refurb) which is far more than adequate, good size and weight. It even has a switch on the side to select ring / vibrate / silent which is a pleasingly nostalgic feature.

The last sensibly sized Pixel was the 5. I've always used Nexus and then Pixel phones but the 6 was just too damn big. 

I'm now on an Asus ZenFone 8 and really like it.

On my third Moto in about 8 years (£200-ish ones) and I've experienced none of your issues myself, they've all worked just fine

My 5 year old iPhone 11 seems to be fine and my wife's iPhone 8 is also OK, albeit with a new battery that cost £20 last year from our friendly local phone shop.

I asked my son in law the same question a few weeks ago. I'm happy with the Readmi Note 12 that he recommended.

ive got one of these £120 ish new, bit heavy camera ok not brilliant, but im less worried about rain as it's 'rugged'

https://store.ulefone.com/products/armor-x6-pro

That's very helpful to know, thank you!

I got a Pixel 2 at launch, which has since been donated to a local charity that refurbs phones, and am now using a Pixel 6 also bought at launch. I'm on track for this one lasting till the 10 as well. Great phones, and the most recent ones have a commitment to many years of updates I believe. 

I recently got the Pixel 6a, also looking for a smaller handset at a similar price (think it was around 300). It's not quite perfect for one-hand use but a lot of the other models seem to be worse (I remember one actually hurt my hand to hold it to my ear to make a phone call. Seriously, who are these giant-fingered people, and how do they expect me to take a selfie at the top of a route now??)

A few thoughts, from someone very untechnological and easily grumpy: 

- Better battery than my previous Samsung A40, but could still be better. Runs down within the day with a lot of use but may not bother you if not using too much. Nb the A40 is far from cutting edge, so I would expect an improvement.

- Camera OK. (Not great in low light, but better in good light than the A40.)

A few gripes:

- No dual SIM slot or headphone jack, though I'm told those are no longer common for any phones (gah).

Some things I've found annoying in moving to a Google phone though, rather than another Android, which may or may not bother you.

- No longer having an email app which isn't Gmail. I don't use Gmail as my primary email account, the Outlook app which I downloaded is so bad as to be almost unusable (no working search function), and other apps seem to be all ads. 

- Don't seem to be able to make photo albums on the phone itself rather than immediately on Google drive. This means that if you're then trying to upload photos somewhere like Facebook, it doesn't recognise your albums. Might not be an issue for people who don't take a lot of photos, but for me having everything mix together in a massive soup that's hard to sort through really winds me up (and if you upload from the photo album, it changes the order).

If those don't bother you, it might be fine for you. 

The new OS Maps now takes five years to load (almost useless to use on the go), but I'm pretty sure that must be an OS problem. 

Phones seem to last months rather than years for me, but that may be due to my habit of doomscrolling UKC in steamy bathrooms...

Yeah I forgot to add that to my review - the fingerprint scanner is useless so unlocking takes forever. My A40 had it on the reverse, which seemed to be more sensitive. The Pixel 6a one never seems to work when I need something, which can be quite maddening, apart from suddenly working every time I unlock my card details. I honestly don't know why...

Me too - I just replaced my Moto G8 Power with a G54.  I'd dithered for weeks while the price was £160, then ended up buying it just after the price went up to £180!  Got 3 years of trouble-free service from the G8.  G54 seems great and gets very good reviews.  This is my 4th Moto - all been good!

My kids currently have Pixel (6 and 6a) and seem very happy with them.  OH has always had iPhones - again, she's happy with them (seem to last a long time if you're not spec-chasing)

The Pixel 6a (and many other pixels) have dual SIM capability if one is physical and the other is eSIM.  This was my one gripe about it that was resolved more recently as more providers are able to offer eSIM (in my case, it's giffgaff).

The problem I have with the Pixel 6a fingerprint reader is unlocking it at night, because the illumination of the fingerprint sensor in the screen is like a tiny spotlight beaming into my eyeballs.  I'd prefer the sensor on the back as it used to be, but you get good at aiming your thumb better to block out most of the light.

Almost on cue i initially disliked rather than liked your post because my one handed typing couldn't reach the like button!! 

Thank you, hadn't thought about use of google drive/outlook etc. I use OneDrive for my photos mostly so may need to look into this a bit more hoping google doesn't semi-block microsoft use on its phones!

Moto G62 owner here. Also absolutely no issues with Bluetooth, contactless, battery or fingerprint scanners. Also no bloatware or annoying features.

Yeah that's true. At the time I bought it I was using two physical SIMs (my old phone didn't have eSIM), but I've now got that workaround. Nb I think I found that some don't over eSIM - I can't remember if it was my rolling O2 contract or Giffgaff I had at the time.

Oh and it doesn't allow a memory card - I assume these are also being phased out anyway but I seem to keep having to buy extra space on Google Drive as apparently I have too many photos (of course the difficulty of making photo albums on my phone doesn't help me sort through them!).

Seems like we have the opposite problem with the fingerprint reader but it's basically just a bit pants compared to the old way.

I am very much a dinosaur though so there may be other workarounds I don't know of - no idea about One Drive I'm afraid - and it may well be that a lot of these issues are common with current phones rather than just Pixel specific. I am not entirely over the demise of the Nokia 3330.