r/cellphones

high(1kish), mid 500 ish, budget (300ish and below).

any super amazing deals you think are out there.

oh, don't feel the need to have to know about each range. can just do one (or none for that matter).

Anyone with experience of using an iPhone from Hong Kong in the US? I go back and forth between China and the US and am considering getting iPhone 17 from Hong Kong since I heard it has both physical Sim and eSim support. A little worried that iPhone from Hong Kong won't work as well in the US. Just want to see if anyone has any experience. My provider is Mint Mobile (T-Mobile)

Okay, so let me start off by saying even though I'm technically lumped in with the Millennial generation, I'm in my mid-30s, I didn't grow up with smart phones like younger Millennials and even the younger generations after us did, so I'm not well-versed in how they work like I am, say, a laptop computer or something, so I'm struggling with something and I can't quite figure out how to resolve it.

Lately whenever I add a new contact to my android (which is an LG model), texting/messaging with them almost always is set to RCS by default, which is a problem I didn't used to have before, but I do now. Although I am able to usually got into the settings whenever texting with such a contact and manually switch the messages to SMS/MMS, for whatever reason, those specific contacts always automatically switch back to RCS. This causes problems. In some cases, I can still receive/send messages in real time if the contact is RCS, but trying to send file attachments requires me to have my phone's wifi or data turned off (I keep both turned off, because I typically use my internet on my computer, and to prevent draining my phone's battery) - and with some specific contacts, I won't receive any texts they may have sent until I turn my wifi or data back on (like if one of my supervisors at work tries to text me to ask if I can come in on any given day to cover for somebody else who may have called out). I don't have any of these problems whatsoever with older contacts who are SMS/MMS, but like I say, for whatever reason, this only plagues contacts that have only been recently added to my phone (I'd say within the last year or two) that are set to RCS. Another unique problem it's causing too is one new contact in my phone is a friend/co-worker of mine who speaks Spanish; when I have her contact set to SMS/MMS her incoming messages are automatically translated to English, but when it switches back to RCS, her incoming messages are in her original Spanish, then I have to manually translate them on my end to read them (I'm still learning Spanish, so I still have a ways to go).

So, could somebody explain to me like I'm a kindergartner getting their first phone, or a biddy who's never used a mobile device before, how exactly I can switch these specific contacts to SMS/MMS permanently and stop them from automatically switching back to RCS? FWIW, I'm using my phone's default messaging system, not Google Messages or Facebook Messenger or anything of the sort.

So we have Apple Samsung Google Huawei as the top competitors of the cell phone industry. But when you sit back and think about it, you think of Sony and Microsoft and Nintendo of the top three competitors of the gaming industry and then you look at Sega and it's right there as the 4th because they died out and they're no longer a hardware business. They're more of a software business now. Who would you pick as a competitor that would be considered the Sega of the cell phone industry? My personal pic would be LG for how weird and quirky they were. They had good hardware. They just really lacked a lot of what the other competitors are happened. Google Samsung, Apple etc. So who do you pick? My pick is LG. What about you?

Hey, I’ve been looking into used mobile phones and I came across refurbished ones that were used as display models in stores, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. From what I understand, these phones were handled by a lot of people before being refurbished, so they’ve probably been touched, tested, and used more than a normal used phone. Even though they’re cleaned and reset, I’m wondering if that kind of use affects them long term. The price is tempting, but I keep thinking about small issues that might not show right away. I’ve seen people talk about how used mobile phones are graded and described, even in discussions where listings across places like Alibaba, Amazon and eBay come up when comparing condition, but it still feels like a bit of a gamble. I don’t want to save money now and deal with problems later. If you’ve bought a display model before, how did it hold up over time?

EDIT: thank you so much for your replies, they’ve given me a lot to think about 😊

I have had Verizon for over 5 yrs and looking at other companies now. I feel other such as T-Mobile and at&t offer better rates and give you free phones to switch over. Has anyone switched from Verizon to another carrier? How is the coverage and how has it been overall?

Just paid of my Verizon phone so was thinking of switching to at and t single line. What is the big difference and is it worth it. I will be using my old phone.

Heading to Ohio from Canada can anyone recommend a good E Sim to purchase? Only going for a week and cell service provider is Rogers if that has any barring.

Is it possible to get it connected to cellular? If possible I'd like to make that my daily phone and just have my smartphone for navigation/social - but want my cell phone & contact to be through my intensity.

Is this even possible?

Soo, basically my phone is around 2 years old, and the battery life is awful, in addition to the battery, the phone heats up randomly, especially when using the mobile network.

I'm located in the EU, so my game plan is to sell my phone (I guess I could sell it for around 150€) , add up.to~ 200€ and buy another used phone, so the budget is 400€.

Do you have any recommendations regarding this? My biggest fear is buying a phone with the same awful battery life. I already had Oneplus 9R, and the battery there was the same, but at least the fast charger saved the day. As you understand my priority is the battery and not heating up in daily tasks, and the second priority I guess phone speed.

Thank you all!!!

I work at a DV shelter and often times a good safety plan is to set up a go phone, or they enter shelter and just don’t have a phone. The issue is the set up. My agency buys go phones that take hours to set up. Time is not a luxury we have. Does anyone know of a go phone that literally turns on and works without a whole lot of set up steps? It’s really frustrating to think you’re removing a barrier then add one bc caseworkers are not cell phone technicians. Help!

*Edit to add:
we currently use cricket phones and we have a very hard time getting them activated.

Anyone know anywhere i can get a good deal on galaxy phone? Prefer something like 23 or higher.. im on tmobile phone plan and if i get through them; my bill will likely go up

I have rocked a LG V60 since they were new. wife & myself, several LG's before that. My charge port is as sloppy, the rear glass is cracked up badly and the front screen has a crack as of recent from a drop even with protection glass :(

So, is there an android phone that still uses sd cards for storage?

anything that makes battery replacement less of an ordeal? (really hate the sticky pad glue in design this lg has). i doubt it lol

be able to side load apps (theres atleast one that was pulled from the store due to political sanctions).

needs to work with att network.

seems there are alot less phone options these days and even less "features" with them.

edit: after more reflection, maybe i dont need the sd card as much as i want to cling to it; i can always export data to my backup location vs using the sd card which can fail just the same as anything else. im "getting old" now lol i feel the desire to want what im familiar with lol. i dont game, not a power user, just like the thing to work, not be a hot snail with a 4hr battery life, and not break in two if i say BOO at it in the dark lol

ideally a device that isnt a spy on the user type would be great but thats a different can of worms.

I'm having a hard time understanding why someone would come up with what sounds like a fantastic ideal that would allow you to show your mobile device screen content on a larger screen but then make it so it's only possible if that larger screen has its own Internet connection to accomplish the task.

When 99% of people who would consider using this would only be thinking of using it because they have no other way to get that content on that screen in the first place. Meaning the tv has no internet connection and no possible way to show Internet content on it,

So to me, this type of mirroring is absolutely pointless if I have to have my TV connected to the web, why not just use a computer and connect it my tv if have to pay for the service anyway, why would I want to use my phones data and my Internet data by a router and fuck with connections and more shit just to do what's there already, or why not transfer files to my computer to see it?

I can see if the dev who came up with the idea based it on the fact that the TV has no internet connection and the user has no computer with home internet service and was using their phones HOTSPOT connection as the way to pull this off, they'd really have a useful idea that most everyone would be grateful for and it would be used very often. By not considering this one and only use that so many seem to think is the only use for this idea it makes me wonder exactly why they missed the most important use?

Since HOTSPOT is basically mobile WiFi, what is the difference between the WiFi sources that the idea is using? By not allowing the HOTSPOT to act as the Wi-Fi connection that the TV and the device are both connected through it simply makes no sense to even consider using it for anything.

I'll bet that 99% of people that want to use mirror thought that it was able to mirror the screen of their phones to a TV directly, and why would they not think that? It makes little sense to want to use it for anything else! Once you find out that you need home Internet service to do this "mobile casting" it becomes a useless feature that will just be using data on your phone device plus data on another service to do what you can do by only using the one service. If I want to see pictures on my tv. I'll just transfer to my computer and then use it to see them for free, no need at all to ever need any connection to the web to do it!

Is mirror just a scam to try and intercept user content and be able to track where they are and what they're seeing? I can't think of any other reason to set up a useless and costly idea, it offers the convenience of a medical operation and added cost to do it while degrading the picture and hasdje of trying to even get it to work properly when there's other more practical , easier and better quality ways to do it.

So why is the mirroring not set up to use hotspot as everyone has been mislead to believe? I know I'm not the only one who's thinking this, but I'm sure there's some ridiculous explanation that goes into all kinds of technical words that won't be effective on the actual reason for completely missing the intended use of this idea that's been touted as a great option for so many years. It's been part of the most misleadung advertising I've ever seen for any devices since it's inception, and it's no wonder why it has never caught on and only created pissed off customers who even if they have the needed parts to do it, find out they are never using it no matter what.

Wouldn't it make sense to make another version that's based solely on hotspot connections and become a millionaire over night or is there something I'm not knowing about harvesting user data that would be bypassed and not enrich sine big entity. I'm sure there were others made using that idea but were bought out to stop them since they would not be able to collect user data and burn up twice the data in the process,

What good is it to offer useless programs that pretend to offer a very good idea until it's implemented and only then do users find out they've been lied to or at least not fully aware of the idiocy of the implmentation and requirements needed to do it. Anyone who has any cimmin sense can see why mirroring is not a good idea or has any practical use.