planning to buy budget flagship this october. zenfone 5z vs xiaomi mi 8 which one is better and why?

[Big Boar]

hello people! i decided to buy a budget snapdragon 845 phone this october and i have eye on xiaomi mi 8 and zenfone 5z. i don't have interest in oneplus 6 because of poor speaker and its hard to buy in my location. what makes zenfone 5z better? and what makes xiaomi mi 8 better?
people says that xiaomi mi 8 has better screen because of sumsung super amoled screen, with deep blacks and color accurate but amoled also said deteriorates over time, is there a way to prevent it? i haven't own amoled phone so i don't know, this is one of reason why im having second thoughts of buying xiaomi mi 8.
also is the sound quality of headphone via usb type-c is great? i don't mind lack of headphone jack as long as i can use the usb type-c with great sound quality.
Finally the phone quality, can i trust it to last 3 years from the day i bought it? people says mi 8 has top class quality materials, i wonder if it last for 3 years along with super amoled screen. i have zenfone 3 from 2016 and its still looks new and runs fine so it seems i can trust asus to last long.
thank you for helping me decide!

 

[psionandy]

If you're buying in October, i'd wait till September to make up your mind.

 

[Hadron]

I agree that if buying in October I'd not make the decision until closer to the time. Things change, either new phones come out, prices change, or problems with one or other might become apparent as more people have real world experience.

I can't comment on either of the 2 phones you name as I've not seen either in real life.

As for AMOLED, the first thing to remember is that it's just a technology, and there are good and bad examples of it. Colour accuracy is not guaranteed, indeed AMOLED is commonly associated with unnatural saturation (it doesn't have to be, but many manufacturers set it up that way). AMOLED will deteriorate over time, but it depends on how you use it and how long you intend to keep it. If you run it at high brightness it will degrade faster. If you keep it on for long periods at high brightness with static images on the screen you run the risk of "burn in". In terms of personal experience, I had an AMOLED phone from 2010-2013 and it had a noticable green tint after 3 years (due to blue LEDs degrading faster). But you didn't notice it most of the time because it was a gradual shift in colour, and you rarely compared directly with another display. The technology might be better now, but it will depend on the particular panel used by the phone how long it lasts, so I can't make any blanket promise. I'm using another AMOLED at the moment, but it's only 8-9 months old so too early to say anything there. I did not however suffer burn in with either phone (so far).

Personally I think both the pros and cons of AMOLED are somewhat overstated. The blacks are only better in dark rooms - in daylight you see the colour of the substrate in "black" images, which is usually a dark grey rather than black, and no better than a good LCD. But if you use it for watching videos in dark rooms (I don't) then the blacks will be better (since then you can't see the substrate colour, and just see the lack of emitted light). Colour accuracy depends on how it is set up by the manufacturer, and what options they give you to adjust it. Resolution is lower than an LCD with the same number of pixels because the sub-pixel structure is not an RGB grid as it would be in an LCD - which will only matter if you have good eyes and are fussy about these things. But equally the burn-in issue is not as big as it is often made out to be, unless you abuse the display (or are just unlucky and get a bad panel). I'll be honest, having used both I would not consider AMOLED vs LCD to be a significant factor in choosing a phone myself, and would always judge it on the individual display. In other words, there's no substitute for seeing the thing yourself before buying and deciding whether you are happy with it, and that is more important than the technology used. But if you have a particular use (e.g. watching stuff in dark rooms) it may be more advantageous to you.

But a lot of marketing money has gone into spreading the idea that AMOLED is always better, and a lot of people have absorbed that as "accepted wisdom" without ever questioning it (which was of course the idea).

 

[mikedt]

If you're buying in October, i'd wait till September to make up your mind.

I agree, it's only June and four months can be a long time in China phone terms, with devices arriving and going every few weeks.