2022 5G cell phones, best deals?

[Poppy]

We have had AT&T wireless for about 32 years. They are upgrading their network to 5G and my phone won't work on it. They sent me a crappy phone that will, but it doesn't compare to what I had. I therefore had to upgrade.

My daughter convinced me to switch from android to I Phone. I decided on the iPhone 13.
You can get credit for your current phone if you trade it in. My phone was not credit worthy. However one can get up to $800 credit depending upon the quality of your phone. I bought a iPhone X from amazon for about $300. It will get me a $800 credit when I turn it in. $800 happens to be the cost of the low end iPhone 13. So the $800 iPhone will cost me $300. I decided to go up one level in memory capacity, to 256 Gb which will cost me an additional $2.75 a month.

 

[bykfixer]

I keep 5g turned off on my phone.
I bought a 256gb iphone 12max for $5/mth less than I was paying for a 7max.

I went into the store to see about having the cracked screen protector replaced and they bought my phone right on the spot for like $800.

 

[Poppy]

Why do you keep 5g turned off?

It seems that they frequently change their deals.
Currently AT&T is only giving a $350 credit for a 7max.

Who is your provider?

I got a better deal yesterday than my daughter did a few weeks ago.
There is no going back.

 

[nbp]

Verizon gave me $800 for my iPhone 11 so last month I upgraded to a 13Pro 256gb. So i think it ended up costing me around $400 with the upgrades and fees. I write off phones as a business expense so I dont mind trading in after two years and spending a little extra. Need the deductions. I think they were giving that amount for basically any phone trade in. My mom got a new Galaxy for free after trading in her 2 yr old Galaxy and my Grandma turned in a very old iPhone, maybe a 6 I think, and got 800 for it too. So she got the 13 Mini for free.

 

[bykfixer]

My brother got some deal with AT&T not long ago but was so excited over baud rates or some such word dealing with signal strength, that by the time he had bombarded me texts of charts and graphs I did not care how much or what model etc. I think he still uses android.

I keep 5g turned off since I travel to all kinds of non 5g areas at a moments notice so I don't want the phone hunting for something not there.

 

[Poppy]

I waffled back and forth on whether to get the iPhone 13 with 256 gb, or the pro with 256 gb. I think the main difference is the better camera in the pro. Years ago, photography was a bit of a hobby for me with a fully manual Cannon AT1 35mm SLR. When I attended a wedding, I'd take a lot of pictures, and put them into an album as a gift. Then one day, I realized that I wasn't enjoying the reception, and I put my camera away.

I have thousands of photos in boxes that haven't been opened in 20 years.

I finally decided NOT to spend an extra $200-$300 to upgrade the phone's camera.

Years ago, TV used to be free, now we pay about $150 a month for the privilege of watching commercials.

 

[raggie33]

We had cell phones 32 years ago? My memory sucks

 

[idleprocess]

We had cell phones 32 years ago? My memory sucks

Circa 1990 probably would have been the bag phone operating on the AMPS network.

 

[bykfixer]

I waffled back and forth on whether to get the iPhone 13 with 256 gb, or the pro with 256 gb. I think the main difference is the better camera in the pro. Years ago, photography was a bit of a hobby for me with a fully manual Cannon AT1 35mm SLR. When I attended a wedding, I'd take a lot of pictures, and put them into an album as a gift. Then one day, I realized that I wasn't enjoying the reception, and I put my camera away.

I have thousands of photos in boxes that haven't been opened in 20 years.

I finally decided NOT to spend an extra $200-$300 to upgrade the phone's camera.

Years ago, TV used to be free, now we pay about $150 a month for the privilege of watching commercials.

Can't speak for the 13 but the 12 max camera has a 2.5x zoom lens where the 12pro has 2.0x but with either you can zoom up to 5x (and past) without reducing resolution of a photo enough to matter unless you do max zoomed crops. The sensor on the 12 max is just a smidge larger but again not that much.
My work phone is the regular with 1.0 and a wide angle 0.5. Again you can zoom into 3-5x without significant degrading as seen on a laptop screen.

I bought the max because it does just a bit better in low-ish light. They use what they call low light mode. Now that sounds nice, like you go from a 4.0 to 2.8 aperature. But in reality it goes from 1/4 second to 1+ second shutter speed. However the stabilization is outstanding.

I turn off low light mode and just brighten the photo a bit if it isn't like I want it because in the low light mode it prompts the photo to be bright. That's great unless you were after a photo of an object at sunset or similar lighting.

Anyway, you aint missing a thing in my view Poppy by not buying the higher end 'camera' option. Whichever iphone you get past an 8 has a really nice still camera feature. Can't speak for the moving picture camera.

 

[raggie33]

My old pixel 3a blows my mind in low light

 

[Poppy]

Can't speak for the 13 but the 12 max camera has a 2.5x zoom lens where the 12pro has 2.0x but with either you can zoom up to 5x (and past) without reducing resolution of a photo enough to matter unless you do max zoomed crops. The sensor on the 12 max is just a smidge larger but again not that much.
My work phone is the regular with 1.0 and a wide angle 0.5. Again you can zoom into 3-5x without significant degrading as seen on a laptop screen.

I bought the max because it does just a bit better in low-ish light. They use what they call low light mode. Now that sounds nice, like you go from a 4.0 to 2.8 aperature. But in reality it goes from 1/4 second to 1+ second shutter speed. However the stabilization is outstanding.

I turn off low light mode and just brighten the photo a bit if it isn't like I want it because in the low light mode it prompts the photo to be bright. That's great unless you were after a photo of an object at sunset or similar lighting.

Anyway, you aint missing a thing in my view Poppy by not buying the higher end 'camera' option. Whichever iphone you get past an 8 has a really nice still camera feature. Can't speak for the moving picture camera.

Thanks Mr. Fixer.
Yeah, I don't think that the 13 basic camera is as good as the 12Pro camera. It doesn't matter to me. I think that they are a 12 Mpixel camera. My recently replaced was a Huawei 10 Mpixel camera, and I shot it with a lower resolution to save space. Besides I didn't plan on making anything larger than 8x10 prints.

The specs for the iPhone 13 basic camera are:
12 MP, f/1.6, 26mm (wide), 1.7µm, dual pixel PDAF, sensor-shift OIS
12 MP, f/2.4, 120˚, 13mm (ultrawide)

With a lens opening that large is should do well in low light.

A f 4.0 must be for the zoom lens, that the basic model 13 does not have.
Someday when I am bored, I'll look into the various functions of the camera and its special effects.

 

[Poppy]

We had cell phones 32 years ago? My memory sucks

Maybe not you, but I had one the size of a brick. Maybe it was a little less than 32 years, but who's counting?

 

[adamlau]

I keep 5g turned off on my phone.
I bought a 256gb iphone 12max for $5/mth less than I was paying for a 7max.

I went into the store to see about having the cracked screen protector replaced and they bought my phone right on the spot for like $800.

I keep it off for another reason: To extend battery life. 4G LTE works just fine in most areas.

 

[bykfixer]

Same here adam.
Heck I'd use 3G if they hadn't turned it off in my area. For a while 3G was faster in my area because nobody was using it anymore. The 4G was really slow due to everybody using that instead of 3G.

 

[Poppy]

Years ago, in my area there were a lot of holes in cell coverage. Sometimes Verizon would have a signal, but not AT&T, and in other locations, AT&T would have signal, and not Verizon. My town had a moratorium on building new cell towers, and gradually, as AT&T switched to a new network, cell coverage for my phone dwindled, until I had to upgrade to a phone that would support the newer network.

From what I read... 4g and 5g can and will run concurrently for decades.

 

[raggie33]

Are there any cheap phones that sound great thru headphones

 

[PhotonWrangler]

The 12 pro and 13 pro include a Lidar sensor on the back of the phone. It's stated purpose is to help with autofocus in low light, however it opens up a whole new realm of possibilities in terms of producing 3-D scans of objects and rooms as well as centimeter-accuracy measurements. If you have a pro, look at Polycam or Room Scan Lidar apps. It will blow you away.

 

[Megatrowned]

Are there any cheap phones that sound great thru headphones

If your looking for good sound from a phone, you'll want to look into an external DAC and wired earbuds or headphones. Then the sound quality will largely depend on how good the source material is. I use one from Monoprice called the Monolith. I really like how it sounds, both for my phone and in my stereo setup. It punches above its price. Also, TinHiFi makes some relatively inexpensive earbuds that sou really good.

 

[raggie33]

Cool ill look into it

 

[Poppy]

I have found that converting from an android phone to an iPhone is challenging.
My daughter helped me and we installed an apple app that transferred data, photos and contacts, but it didn't go flawlessly. It took a few hours, and stopped twice in the process due to transmission error.

I ended up with three to five of each of my contacts, and it took a good amount of experimentation to eliminate the duplicates. Finally my daughter figured out that it was pulling contacts from a few locations: my android phone, google contacts, and email.

I also have in some instances 3 copies of photos. And I can't find them in my iCloud. Again my daughter will have to come to the rescue.

My android phone had an earphone jack. Using a mini plug stereo cable, I could plug it into my car's radio, and stream music, get directions, speak with "OK Google", and make and receive calls. No problem.

The iPhone has a single "Lightening" jack, and with an adapter, I can plug it into my car's radio. BUT directions, and phone calls don't go through the car's speakers, or if they do they are so low, one can barely hear them. Streaming music is no problem.

Now that I have this "Upgraded" iPhone, I will have to install the bluetooth radio that my kids gave me for Christmas. Installation was supposed to be a part of the gift. I didn't know that meant... self installation

Fortunately they got the same brand JVC as what I have in there now so all I have to do is match the colored wires to the same. 14 -18 wires. I pulled the radio yesterday and the wires. Perhaps later tonight, or tomorrow, I'll make the wire connections.