Which phone should I get?

[James Byrne]

I've had my Moto G4 for a year now, and I'm looking for a bit of an upgrade. I've been looking at phones and three main ones have really come down to my final decision.

They are the, HTC One M9, Sony Xperia XA Ultra and the LG Nexus 5X.

I'm really stuck on which one to choose, as they all have their own pros and cons. e.g. the Xperia has great camera performance, One M9 super performance and the Nexus 5X has the beauty of constant updates and stock android!

Please let me know your thoughts and why.

Cheers!

 

[James Byrne]

I've had my Moto G4 for a year now, and I'm looking for a bit of an upgrade. I've been looking at phones and three main ones have really come down to my final decision.

They are the, HTC One M9, Sony Xperia XA Ultra and the LG Nexus 5X.

I'm really stuck on which one to choose, as they all have their own pros and cons. e.g. the Xperia has great camera performance, One M9 super performance and the Nexus 5X has the beauty of constant updates and stock android!

Please let me know your thoughts and why.

Cheers!

Any other phone suggestions would be good, but not to break the bank!

 

[Deleted User]

I wanted to replace my Nexus 5, which I've had since 2014, with a 5X, but the seemingly high potential of the bootloop happening and no transferable warranty from LG make it too risky for me. It's a shame, because I did get hands-on with one and really liked it.

I then tried an LG G5, which was a nice phone and took great pictures, but I didn't like LG's Android skin, tweaks or bloatware, and the screen retention was really bad, so I returned it for a refund.

I decided to increase my budget a bit and have now got a OnePlus 3T (128 GB Midnight edition), as its spec is great and its Android isn't far from Google's Nexus Android, with a few nice additions and not really any bloat. For me, the Nexus 5 is the perfect size phone, so I'm finding the slightly bigger 3T is taking a bit of getting used to with one-handed use and carrying it around in the same pockets as the Nexus 5.

I would have liked a Pixel, but they cost more than I wanted to pay for a phone right now and as much as I prefer Google's Android experience and the size of the non-XL Pixel, the 3T's higher spec, bigger storage and not overly messed with Android for less money won me over.

The 3T is the fist Android phone I've had with a front fingerprint sensor and now I think I would find a rear placed fingerprint sensor less convenient. Rear ones are easy to use when holding the device, but not so convenient for accessing the device when it's placed on a desk.

 

[lion7718]

I upgraded from the Nexus 4 to the Nexus 5X without any problems.
For me, the 5X is a sturdy phone...never had any problems with it.
If you buy the 5X, it will update to Android "O" soon...this will probably also be the last OS update.

 

[Patrick Kelly]

I've read some posts and some blogs which state, or imply, that the bootloop problem is inevitable with a Nexus 5X. I don't buy that. I don't know the percentage of failures but it's certainly not common.

One advantage of the Nexus 5X is that it will have Android O, Android 8.0, in a few weeks. The others, maybe next year. Maybe never.

 

[Hadron]

I don't know about the XA Ultra, but I'd not expect the HTC M9 to get Android O - it's more than 2 years old now, and HTC only guarantee flagships 2 years of OS updates (though security patches may come after that). So if Android O is important to you that could be a factor (heretically I don't think OS updates are quite as important as people make out - I'm still running Lollipop on my phone - though the updates are the major reason for my considering a Pixel as a possible replacement. If that sounds inconsistent to you, that's the human condition).

 

[SiempreTuna]

(heretically I don't think OS updates are quite as important as people make out - I'm still running Lollipop on my phone - though the updates are the major reason for my considering a Pixel as a possible replacement. If that sounds inconsistent to you, that's the human condition).

Not sure that's heretical, more exactly what Google have been trying to achieve over the last few years

They rather belatedly realised that O/S updates weren't making it through to customers so started migrating as many of the fancy new features as possible to the (frequently updated) apps instead of lumping them all together in the (infrequently or never) updated O/S.

I'm just as inconsistent as you, though: I have seen all of the above, been disappointed with how little there is that seems new in the various O/S updates, but I still really want my next phone to get O/S updates as quickly as my N4 and N5X got them

The problem is that the Nexus range has trained me to expect a mid-range phone to do everything I want so I just can't bring myself to pay the premium price for a Pixel.

It's a hard life being tight as duck's derriere