I have spent a couple of months looking for a new phone to replace my current one: LG G8. It's 2.5 years old and its fingerprint sensor packed up, and I fancy a new gadet. The camera is good, but it lacks a few nice widets like a good night mode and the portrait mode is early tech and is not suitable for important photos.
I am using H95 BT headphones most of the time, but as an audio nut, I would really like to have a good headphone socket.
Given the size of my lossless music collection, and I also have a fair sized amount of podcasts, radio, photos and tv on the phone, 512GB is really pushing it , and ideally I want a Micro SD expansion.
OLED is a strong like for me.
Android only.
I prefer no camera bump like my G8
I do not want a huge phone.
I toyed with folding screen models, as the Huawei Mate X2 is glorious, and can take a Nano memory card. It makes the Samsung Fold look like an unergonomic toy, and opens esentially flat. The camera is nearly as good as the P50, meaning state of the art for phones. But it is big even when folded, and the internal screen is far from scratch resistant (many of the demo units I've seen have marks on them.) There is no headphone socket and google does not run normally because of a hissy fit from a previous US administration. Also not exactly cheap.
Xiaomi 11 Ultra and Mix4 and lack headphones and expandable memory, but the cameras are great. Also the ceramic body is a temptation. I have a watch in this material, and it looks like new despite a 25kM/h smash into tarmac, so it keeps shiney. But these things are a bit of a distraction to an audiophile. Also they are a bit big.
Then there is the new Xperia Mkiii units. The 1 is a bit long, and I am liking the xperia 5 MkII size, if a bit narrow for typing, so I was going to wait for the Mkiii to surface and check it out. However the headphone out will not power some of my headphones without hacking it to remove the voltage limit imposed to pass EU safety. The screens are georgious, and not washed out as stated above. The cameras really appeal to me as an SLR user, as the UI is fantastic, if you delve. Results are good, even with only 12MP sensors, despite the those who want to burn out their retinas with overblown colour. People appear to have got used to silly levels of saturation on competitors.
Vivo X70 Pro Plus is a really nice bit of kit. Super fast, but maxes out at 512GB, and no headphone socket, but really leads everone on camera tech, including Huawei and Xiaomi. Available in a fun Orange.
Then in all my research, I found out that my G8 has it's default settings at 1080 resolution, despite the hardware being 1440. As the 2.5 year old battery easily lasts more than a day, I decided to switch this to 1440, and it looks like a new phone. Another search found that it is indeed a software issue that broke the fingerprint sensor, so that works again. So I started looking at technical details on the camera, and found a bunch of manual features I didn't know it had. I am getting some much improved results. The G8 is functionally the same as V60 which is really versatile, and only lacks the extra resolution of the main sensor (because I have the 3 camera version from Korea). Finally despite LG pulling out of phones, I have just received an Android 11 update!
So, I'm sticking with the G8 for a bit, as it feels like a new phone. It is a fine phone, with a better than average camera for its age, great form factor and an ASTOUNDING headphone output.
