Late last year I was looking for a replacement for my ageing Nokia Windows 8 phone. I am a very light phone user (mostly carry it in case of emergency), and am on a prepaid plan that costs $10/month. I had no desire to be on an expensive contract, as I don't need all the minutes and data, so I needed an unlocked phone that I could buy outright. I wasn't looking to spend that much - I wasn't necessarily looking for the cheapest phone out there, but something that had decent performance for the price.
As I've been happy with my MacBook, I first considered getting an iPhone. The SE is $469 in Canada, but the screen is a little too small for my ageing eyes. I preferred the size of the 6s, but at $599, it seemed a little pricey for an occasional use phone. I didn't like that it was missing the FM radio, expandable memory, and replaceable battery that my Nokia had.
I ended up getting a Motorola Moto e4. For $229, I got an unlocked phone with 5" IPS display, fingerprint sensor, headphone jack, SD card slot, 2800 mAh replaceable battery, FM radio (free music!), and GPS with offline navigation (very important when you don't have a data plan), running Android 7. It feels very fast and responsive. The camera is at least as good as my sister's iPhone 5s (but all phone cameras are poor compared to my DSLR anyway). I like that I can easily drag and drop music files onto the SD card (it plays iTunes m4a files just fine). For my needs, at least hardware wise, it was a better choice than the iPhone alternatives - and at half the price of the SE. I can't say that I particularly like Android that much though - it feels kind of unfinished - and there is a lot of Google bloatware that I have no use for, and wish that it would let me uninstall, but I can live with it.
I probably would have gone for an iPhone anyway, if Apple would have made a true budget model. As it is, $469 for the cheapest option is still too much, given it's limitations.
I respect your choice.
Are you sure your fingerprint not stored on a server somewhere? I’m sure mine not because I use iPhone. Even if Android stores it locally it’s not even close in safety to Security Envlave approach.
Replaceable battery is good but my iPhone 6s weights ~150 g while your Motorola is almost 200 g.
Android 7 is outdated version. You’re already behind. While my wives 5s runs iOS 11. Mine too of course. That’s why I know I have best security possible.
I have experienced managing Android device with SD cards and it’s horrible. Every action has save option. It’s a mess and not needed complexity where your data now lives in 2 different places. I have 64 Gb storage on my iPhone and I never need to think.
Radio? Really? Why you want radio where quality is bad, there’s no way to choose what to listen and there’s ads. There’s free ways to listen to music legally and have better experience.
I don’t know how dragging files to SD card is better than using iTunes where you can sync playlists, genres and make it work based on songs metadata like play counts or raitigs for example. Works over Wi-Fi too.
I pay £1 a week for my plan and don’t use data a lot. I just can’t afford it. (Buying devices without plan is cheaper than contract). Apple Maps uses much less data than Google and works offline thanks to caching, I just need to make a route while I’m on Wi-Fi.
Now be patient and notice how soon and how many software updates your Android phone receives. If you ever need to service support you have to note that too. I never had problems with support from Apple, they just give me new phone.
That’s why I pay more. Apple will never make “budget” model, they don’t compromise on quality of materials, software and support. You still can save with Apple by using device longer. My wife still uses 5s and it works.
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After watching these 2 videos, it won't make me change my mind to switch from Android to iPhone. If you can show me improvements such as durability, less issues on software and hardware side, weatherproof, battery life, clarity when talking on the phone and speed when using the browsers, yeah those are things that will make me interested. What I would like to see is a full keyboard which is what I see on Android and not on iPhone. I am not a fan of holding down the keyboard waiting for the numeric keys to pop up. When Apple introduced Animojis on the iPhone X as one of the big selling point to buy it, this is definitely not a selling point that would make me switch from Android or buying the X.
iPhone is energy efficient thanks to iOS and chip team. While having less battery size it works longer. Since 7 they started to increase capacity as well. Especially in X.
Apple started to add water resistance in 6s, and from 7 it’s water proof.
Durability improves as well, and you can get cheap replacements with AppleCare.
iOS has a lot of attention. I have no problems with 11 and 12 promises nothing new but more refinement and stability.
Safari is the fastest browser, it even beats desktop Chrome.
There’s 2 or 3 mics to do noise reduction when talking on phone. And if you use FaceTime Audio it’s super clear and nothing like phone quality.
You can install custom keyboards with numeric pad row.
