The holiday season is a great time for those sitting on upgrades to cash in on smartphone deals. It’s never worth it to pay full price because by the time you pry open that box, a newer version of the phone will probably be out.
It’s a crowded smartphone market — there’s the Optimus, Mega, X, XXX, Super Mega Optimus (OK I made up a few of those, but you get the point) — and not everyone wants to be ball-and-chained to an iPhone. Luckily our resident techie, Julia, decided to take a look at a few of the smartphones on the market so you don’t have to.
Disclaimer: Julia has tiny hands.
LG Optimus G
I was very excited to receive the LG Optimus G, not because of the phone itself, but because I haven’t played with an Android phone for a year or so. (I have very bad experiences with Android phones in the past.) However, I have generally positive things to say about the phone.
When the phone was given to me, I was unsure if it was a tablet or a phone. Its large size threw me for a loop and because of this, it was hard for me to use with my tiny hands. The phone did not fit in any of my pockets and barely into my smaller purses.
The screen is gigantic and not very sensitive, so I had to press a bit harder than I normally have to do with my iPhone to get it to recognize my touch. In addition, because of how I grip my phone, part of my lower thumb was pressed against the side — so the phone didn’t recognize me pressing the keys. It can only pick up one “touch” at a time making it hard to type. After a day or so, I adjusted to this and held the phone differently.
The phone is fast. I mean, really fast. I was able to run several games as well as most of my social media at the same time. In addition, whenever I get an alert, the home button would glow green to tell me, which is a nice reminder, since I can’t always feel it vibrate.
The gigantic screen was amazing to play games with! (I downloaded The Sims Freeplay and Tetris to check it out.) It was also really nice to use with apps like Tumblr, where the images all appeared with vivid and beautiful color. I read manga on the phone, too, and there was no need to zoom or anything. The image loaded largely and clearly enough for me to read an entire page.
The battery lasted me two and a half days without wearing out too much, though that was with minimal texting. I did however, play the games often and check my Facebook and other social media apps often. (Of course, keep in mind that batteries wear down over time. If you treat your battery nicely, it will stay nice!)
One thing that absolutely killed me about the phone was the side button that automatically brings up the LG Quickdraw app: a notepad that you can draw or write on. I have zero use for this and it irritated me because I kept accidentally pressing it.
Overall, I was upset to give the phone back because the huge screen made everything look so beautiful! It was hard to get used to at first, but after a day with it, I really liked it.
The Optimus G is free with a new two-year agreement at AT&T, $439.99 without a contract.
Samsung Galaxy Mega
The Samsung Galaxy Mega was an absolute delight to use. I’m typically pretty picky with phones that could double as tablets, but I can’t really complain about the Mega.
The phone is literally the size of my face and when I first had to carry it around, the size definitely bothered me. It doesn’t fit in any of my pockets, but it fit nicely in my purses and backpack. I tend to have a problem when it comes to typing on large screens like this, but I managed to type very clearly and easily on the Mega. I actually made fewer typos on this phone than I normally do on my iPhone.
I essentially used this phone as a tablet between my classes. I loaded up X-Men: First Class on it and took advantage of that huge screen, which displayed every scene of that movie beautifully. In addition, the battery managed to live through one day of full play and four extra days of just standby on my desk.
My only complaint about the phone is its camera. Each photo taken is very …tall. The pictures are way too long and are stupid looking when uploaded. If you don’t take your photos landscape, get ready for some wonky looking photos. The camera quality itself looked decent and all the different camera features, including best face, which takes the best photo out of multiple, were a cool touch. I personally would not use those features frequently but if you’re a photo buff, you might like it.
I would not get this phone for myself but if you’re into big phones and sweet camera features, this is the phone for you.
The Mega is $49.99 at AT&T with a new two-year agreement, $479.99 without one.
HTC One Mini
After I got the HTC One Mini, I had one question: Why is it called the “mini” when it’s the size of an average phone? The design itself it sleek and thin, which is different from most of the tablet-phones being released today.
The phone itself was pretty boring. It ran about as fast as a year-old iPhone 5, which wasn’t impressive at all. However, the display was bright and beautiful while I played games and loaded images. In addition the battery lasted a while, standing up nicely to my iPhone 4s.
Another feature that I thoroughly enjoyed was the built-in Beats audio. The sound quality that came from the phone was loud and clear; it was actually so loud that I almost dropped the phone in surprise when I was booting it up. The camera images were pretty clear looking, but after uploading them to my computer and opening the actual images, they were fuzzy and poor quality.
The HTC One Mini is an average phone in comparison to the rest of the smartphones on the market.
The One Mini is $99.99 at AT&T with a new two-year agreement, $429.99 without one.
