Vocal Voices

So my Chinese clones have been getting older and older. My phone stack is my phone, backup phone in case my phone dies/is lost/has significant issues then a work phone. Yep that is 3 phones.

So two weeks ago my phone started deciding the mic was not going to work. Now I could use the backup phone (and did), but Mrs S doesn't recognise the number and it becomes a pain when she phones me and gets all bend out of shape because she can't hear anything.

I would have replaced them ages ago but the problem is nobody makes a phone with a single 6.9" screen any more. Yes you can get foldable phones with huge screens but they are "seriously" expensive. I buy relatively cheap so not a big fan. My work phone was just short of £300. My backup phone was around £450 but my main phone was £200. I do have another one but I just had to put a new screen, battery and charge port in it. So I'm not overly keen on relying on it long term.

This left me in a dilemma. I had a look around at folding phones (#1 son has one needless to say). Samsung £1,800. OnePlus £1,800. Honor £1,700, Google Pixel Fold about to be superseded very soon.

As you can imagine I was rather unwilling to splash out this much cash. Even if my main phone was around 5 years old and has saved me a small fortune in that time.

After doing a bit of looking I found that I could get the Honor with a £200 cashback on my old phone trade in. In fact they just gave me £200 off and don't want my old phone. OK, I'm down to £1,500. Still not looking good.

Then I realised that if I subscribed to their Honor club there is a deal which expires in the next 3 days and I get £300 off. No you don't have to pay annually or anything, just subscribe to their club. OK we're down to £1,200. This is looking more interesting but still body part exchange as far as I'm concerned.

Then looking at the deal a bit further, with the £300 off limited time deal you also got a pair of B&O bluetooth headphones. They say the RRP is £499 but a quick check on eBay says it is the standard variant not the super expensive variant and average selling price is around £250.

Now £950 is looking more like the thing. OK you still need to splash out £1,200 but you can get another £250 off.

So I decided to buy it. I got it 2 days later. Well I got the phone 2 days later. After a query I found out that you have to wait the 14 day online return period before you can request the headphones (link sent). To be honest I think this is a good idea and protects Honor from scammers. So I'll wait and get the headphones and flog them on eBay and push the money back into the credit card.

The phone is good, excellent screen, camera is better than I will ever need, it comes with 4 Android version upgrades (important although 14 is already out and will consume one of those), plus 5 years of security updates.

I'm still feeling a bit miffed about paying out £1,200 but I can't say I'm disappointed with the phone. Just the usual pain of logging back into all the apps which had saved passwords on which are now not saved.

I missed a bit. It is also ultra light and thin for a folding phone that has two screens.

Front compared to an iPhone 14



Open.



Comparison of thickness.

L Samsung Galaxy Fold, middle the Honor, Right the google.



Final specs, it has 16GB RAM and 512GB storage. Trying to get that takes the other phones higher.

Apparently Xiaomi will bring the Mix fold to the UK soon for around £900. Too late too late...

I have had loads of phones from Sony-Erisson, Nokia, Blackberry, Motorola, a few Chinese clones, a Samsung S7 and now a Samsung A33 5G.

What I have found with all the smartphones is that they eat the battery, even on standby, sometimes needing charging every day.

However, the latest A33 5G lasts four or five days, has a 48MP main camera and 13 MP "selfie" plus three others. It has Dolby Atmos sound and a 6'4-inch 90 Hz super Amoled display. It currently runs on Android 14 but is upgradeable to future Android versions. It is dust, splash (1m for 30 mins) and drop resistant.

I got mine for £180 with a gift code from Appliances Direct.

And Suff, you really do need to resize your images to something like 800x600 before posting so that we can see them in full. Ta.

I bouight my phone in 2022. It is a Google Pixel 7 Pro. I cant remember what I paid but I did get a discount as I did an exchange with my previous phone.

It works for me. I did nor want a Samsung or Chinese phone.

WM the images are links. I don't think we have the advanced image control on links.

Also my screens I'm using here are UWHD and UHD 34" and 27" so it doesn't look so bad for me...

On the Samsung A series I see their value and Mrs S has one. But they are simply too small for my deteriorating eyesight.

I'm ending the day with somewhere between 65% and 94% depending on how much I use it. 4-6 hours of browsing and reading books took me down to 65%. The occasional look at the screen and it is 94% at day end. Apparently when I get Android 14 later this year that will drop even further as they have done a LOT of work on power consumption when in the background.

The batteries on this thing are the thickness of a credit card. The tech is very much up to date and apart from waterproofing and ultra camera ability (it is a dual 50mp camera and a 20mp zoom with two of the lenses with OIS), is really pretty good. All the reviews I saw said that because it had a 2022 release processor and didn't have 10x optical zoom, that it was a bit expensive. Hence all the deals which bring the price down.

Headphones were missing when I got the phone but I found out that you have to wait 14 days and then click a link, support were very quick with this. I agree with this. With a 14 day return on all online sales, sending the free headphones before the person accepts the phone is only going to cost them money.

After a week of using it I have a phone with a larger screen, which folds up to smaller and fits in my pocket better. It has the same battery capacity but significantly more battery life and the performance, as you would expect from a phone 5 years newer with a flagship processor and not a budget one, is dramatically better.

But, in the end, I don't use it any differently. So price is still are real pain point I have chosen to accept.