So you’re thinking of buying a new phone, but there are so many options out there. How do you make sure that you don’t spend more money than you have to, but at the same time you still get everything that you need?
Now, one of the most important things to do when choosing a phone is to actually hold and use it before you buy. I know it’s not always practical. Sometimes the phone isn’t available where you live and sometimes you wanna order a phone as soon as it becomes available so you can get it on release day, but remember that this is a device that you’ll be handling all day, every day.
So you wanna find out, is this phone comfortable to hold? Like how do the edges feel, is it slippery? Can I use it with one hand and do more than just pick it up, look at it, and put it back down? Surf the web, send a text, play a game, maybe the corners dig into your hands, or maybe you don’t like how the camera module rubs against your fingers.
You’re not gonna know these types of things by only looking at the phone online. Now, unless this is your first phone, you’ll immediately notice differences between what you have right now and this new option and you should be able to very quickly decide whether these differences are negative or positive.
Display
Next, let’s talk about the display. There are four things that I want you to think about starting with the size. This will obviously have an impact on ergonomics which we already talked about, but now I want you to think about it more from a usability perspective, and don’t worry about foldable phones right now I have a dedicated section for that, and as far as the size, I want you to think about the types of things that you’ll be doing and whether you’ll get a better user experience with a larger display or a smaller one.
So for example, you might find that you love playing games, watching videos, and doing work on larger displays, but smaller ones give you a more portable and comfortable phone for texting and just for general everyday use.
Now, the second aspect to consider is the type of the display and there’s a lot of confusing acronyms like LCD, OLED, AMOLED, Retina, Liquid Retina, Super Retina XDR, and it’s enough to confuse anyone.
Though some displays are more efficient, some get brighter, some are more colorful, and some may offer darker blacks or better contrast ratio. Now, personally, I want a display that is as bright as I can get because it’s gonna be easier to see it outside and it’s going to handle reflections better, and I also want the nicest looking display that I can afford.
I don’t worry too much about specs there, what’s more important to me is to get a display that looks good to my eyes and with my preferences. Now, the third element to consider is resolution. So a higher resolution display has more pixels and it can produce a sharper image, but at the same time it uses up more power.
It’s also important to mention that there are diminishing returns when you get to very high resolutions because our eyes can only see so much of a difference at a typical viewing distance for our phone.
Now, the fourth and final display feature is the refresh rate, and this actually does make a difference. Refresh rate is a measurement of how many times per second the display refreshes or creates a new image.
When we watch a video, it looks like the display is showing actual motion, but it’s actually just showing individual static images fast enough to where it appears to be continuous. So a 60 Hertz display refreshes 60 times per second, 120 Hertz display refreshes 120 times per second.
A faster refresh rate creates a smoother and more fluid user experience, especially when you’re scrolling or seeing different animations. There can also be an improvement when you’re gaming as long as the game can actually take advantage of the higher refresh rate.
Now, some phones have an adaptive refresh rate, which means that they can raise or lower the refresh rate in real time based on what you’re doing, that way you can get the best performance when you need it and then when you don’t, you can save on battery life.
Battery Life
Speaking of battery life, it can be a really important factor for some people and there are three critical aspects to consider when you look at battery life.
So the first is how each brand actually talks about it. So some brands use milliampere hour and then they talk about battery capacity, and other brands talk about hours of use and you need to be careful in both cases.
So for example, if we look at the Samsung Galaxy S22 line, we see that as we move from the S22, to the S22 Plus, and then finally the S22 Ultra, the battery keeps getting bigger, but even though they all use the same processor, that doesn’t mean that we’re necessarily getting longer battery life with the higher capacity.
We’ve got variables here, like different display sizes, peak brightness resolution, and different camera systems, which are going to impact battery consumption. Now, Apple, on the other hand, talks about hours of playback.
So for example, we have video playback, streamed video playback, and audio playback, but don’t let those numbers lead you to believe that these are anywhere near the types of actual real-life use hours that you’re gonna get.
I recommend watching some battery comparisons from creators that you trust and then use those to get a sense of the overall performance, while at the same time, I want you to think about how those tests compare with what you do in real life.
Now, I’ve done several battery drain tests on iPads and Samsung tablets and I’m working on some phone comparisons as well. Now, the second factor to consider is how important battery life is for you. Now, typically, it’s not a huge factor for me because I’m at my desk or in the studio most of the day, so I always have an opportunity to charge my phone.
Now, the one area where it does impact me is gaming, which really eats up battery life. Now, on the other hand, if you’re on a job site all day and your phone is on you and you don’t have the opportunity to charge it, then it may be really important that your phone has better battery life.
Now, the third thing when we’re talking about the battery is the actual charging, which comes down to how fast you can charge your phone, both wired and wirelessly, and does your phone have additional features like smart charging or even something like reverse wireless charging, which lets you charge another device using your phone.
Audio
Now, before we get to the camera, which is obviously a major deciding factor, audio is another important consideration, especially if you use your phone to watch videos and play games. So first of all, does your phone have a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack, so you can use wired headphones?
I almost exclusively use wireless headphones so it’s not a huge deal for me, but I know that a lot of users still prefer wired ones. Next, if you plan on using the speakers then how good are they? If you use them for gaming, can you detect which direction sounds are coming from? And then for movies, how full and rich is the sound? Regardless, if you’re looking for a significantly better audio quality than your cell phone can output, then you should check out the Bose portable smart speaker.
Camera
The first is more conceptual and it’s the idea of how good is good enough. If you’re not really into photography and you rarely use the camera on your phone, you’re just happy to capture the moment, the truth is that almost any phone today has a good enough camera to help you remember a special occasion.
The second approach is that you only get one chance to capture a moment and then it’s gone, so why not get as good a quality as you can? Now, camera systems in mobile phones offer a ton of features, but it’s critical that you think about what’s important to you.
Do you mostly shoot photos or videos? Is the audio quality important? If you take photos, do you shoot mostly portrait-style photos? Do you like to shoot close-up macro shots or do you need a good telephoto camera for capturing things that are far away? Also, how important are things like night photography and low-light performance? I recently did a comparison of the S22 Ultra and the iPhone 13 Pro Max, and these are the types of things that I cover in that video.
The last camera-related topic is that nowadays software in the phone is just as important if not more important than the hardware and that’s not to say that hardware isn’t important, but if you have good enough hardware, computational photography and video have come so far that they can help anyone take better photos and different phones have different capabilities.
Processing Power
Now, processing power is something that’s gonna matter to some people more than others. The reality is that most users aren’t pushing their phones to the limit on a regular basis, and it’s also important to know that as the phone heats up it’s going to reach a point where it has to throttle back performance in order to protect the chip.
So higher peak performance doesn’t always translate into higher sustained performance in a meaningful way. Again, if you’re a more casual user this isn’t really going to matter, but if you play very demanding games for long periods of time, for example, processing power, RAM, and thermal management are definitely things to consider, and that sort of brings me to price.
Flagship models are going to have the best camera modules and the most powerful processors. So they’re a good option for someone who wants the latest tech, but a lot of people can’t or just don’t wanna spend $1,000 or even more on a phone.
The good thing is that budget and mid-tier phones are constantly getting better and closing the gap. Now, the operating system can also be an important factor here, and it pretty much comes down to Android versus iOS.
Android, which is made by Google, will give you a lot more choices when it comes to phones, it’s highly customizable, and you can really tweak the user experience to get exactly what you want. So ultimately you have more freedom in terms of prices, hardware, and software features.
Now, the downside is that different brands layer their own software on top of Android, so the user experience isn’t as consistent. Also, some apps aren’t optimized as well for Android and some popular apps are only available for iOS.
Now, in general, iOS offers a more simple and intuitive user experience, it’s consistent across carriers, there are a ton of super well-optimized apps, there’s a lot of overlap with iPadOS, and there is outstanding long-term support, so you can keep your phone for years and then still get OS and security updates.
The downside of iOS is that it’s a much more closed-off operating system. So you don’t get the same level of granular control and customization options and there’s a much more limited number of models available, and in both cases, it’s important to consider the rest of your devices and think about whether you need features like wireless file sharing, screen sharing, and then various continuity features.
So definitely think about how this phone fits into your ecosystem, and another personal choice has to do with authentication. Like do you have to type in a password or a passcode every time? Is there a fingerprint sensor? And then if so, is it positioned on the display, on the back, or on the power button? What about face recognition? Like how secure is each particular implementation?
I love the face ID on my iPhone and I also love the on-display fingerprint sensor on my S22 Ultra so it really comes down to how you use your phone and what works best for you. Now, foldable phones are interesting because they offer a larger display in a more compact form factor and there’s no question that they have a real wow factor to them.
They are super fun to watch videos and to game on, they can be more useful for multitasking, and you can see a lot more without having to scroll, and the downside is that they tend to be more expensive than other devices with similar specs.
They usually don’t offer the best camera systems and they’re noticeably thicker than your typical phones. Now, you should watch this comparison or this review of the Galaxy Z Fold.