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Need a new phone, again

Korth
Mayor / Maire

My beloved Moto G5 jumped out of my pocket, landed on a high-speed conveyer, got sucked into an industrial oven, then got crushed, cooked, and plastic shrink-wrapped by the hydraulic packaging machinery.  I wasn't quick enough to retrieve it until it emerged at the other end a few minutes later, lol.

 

The Gorilla glass is still perfectly intact, yay!  While my SD card and SIM card are also surprisingly undamaged, it seems their shielded slots were made of the only hardened metals in the whole phone, lol.

 

But the LCD module underneath the glass is spiderwebbed into a billion pieces.  The mainboard is a rounded epoxy slag hardened around half-sunken components (never seen an IC pressed flush into a PCB before, lol).  The battery exploded (that is, it leaked) stinky sticky corrosive goop everywhere.  The camera lenses have cataracts and look like they're inseparably fused into the bent and mangled aluminum chassis.  It's all quite unrepairable, and the cost of all the replacement parts would exceed the original cost of the phone anyhow.

 

So time for a new phone!

 

Need: Android, USB, SD, touchscreen, camera, WiFi, BT, GPS, accelerometer/gyro, 3G/UMTS/HSPA+ (850/1900), 4G/LTE (Bands 2,5,4,7,12/13/17/29,66), Dual-SIM

Would like: 3.5mm jack, FM radio, high screen resolution, beefy CPU/RAM, 2G/GSM

 

My Moto 5G served my needs well (and wasn't too pricey), but aside from the Gorilla glass it was evidently too flimsy for my lifestyle.  It definitely didn't fit well in my pockets.

 

I'm not a phone-addict - I mostly need the thing for voice calls, text, nav, quick browsing - I barely (if ever) use smartphones for gaming, streaming, or processor-heavy tasks, I use hardly any Data.  I'm not an Apple/iOS fan.  I'm willing to spend more this time around if it buys something robust enough to last years.

 

My short list:

Galaxy S9/S9+ ... best of the best, but way too pricey for way too many toys I'll never use

Moto G6 ... looks awesome! (and Moto G6 Plus looks even better but uncertain about specs, may lack full radio compatibility)

BlackBerry Motion ... also looks awesome, I'm just apprehensive after using old BlackBerry devices which were seriously junky

Cat S61 ... high cost but IP/MILSPEC hardened and ruggedized, plus it has FLIR (and other tech) which I could actually use at work

 

Any thoughts about any of these devices?  Or about others I should include on this list?

11 REPLIES 11

@srlawren

 

I'm an EE/BMET, in theory I'm supposed to design, build, and service medical instrumentation/appliances.  In practice I end up doing more industrial jobs than medical jobs, plus I end up doing a lot of analog work - fixing/calibrating scopes, spectrum analyzers, audio amps, high-power amps, VFDs, etc - and a bit of "electrician" or "millright" work when upgrading/installing (rebuilding) digital components into existing industrial platforms.  I do plenty of code, but it's mostly assembly or scripting stuff for programmable PLCs, MCUs, SoC/SBC boards, etc, the emphasis is not making things fun or pretty, it's just making things actually work (cheap) without any problems.

 

This water plant was a nightmare, high-volume high-speed heavy-duty-cycle almost nonstop, a mix of complex machinery from China, Japan, France, Italy, USA, and Germany ... five dramatically different/incompatible electrical systems, five different standards for sizing and bits and heads and sockets, documentation and tech support in four and a half different languages I don't understand, tons (literally tons) of improvised Rube Goldberg stuff welding it all together into a "centralized, cohesive, unified" system.  A brutally cut-throat industry but also sort of like visiting an episode of "How It's Made".  I had placed my phone onto the nearby belt because the floor was always inch-deep in water, but remembered at the last moment and quickly stuffed it into my vest pocket instead of securing it somewhere safer/smarter, same result either way haha.

srlawren
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@Korth very specific requirements--I get it!

 

Had to googlge SDIO and JTAG to see what that's all about.  If you don't mind sharing, what do you do for a living?  I'm a software developer that does consulting on business systems.  Not too familiar with hardware debugging!  😉


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I'll take some photos on my next phone ... my beloved old G5 was the only digital camera device I own, haha.  It's already been taken apart for inspection/salvage, but all pieces are accounted for.

 

lol, I didn't chase my phone into danger.  My main worry was actually that a phone (or a broken phone) could halt or damage or contaminate the machinery internals.  A "clean manufacturing" water bottling plant, and once my phone sped away (on high-speed conveyors which moved at about my top sprinting speed) beyond the oven curtain (where I dared a last quick attempt to poke it out with a handy stick) it was condemned to endure two high-temp shrink wrap processes, the carton folding machine, and the evilly overzealous auto-palletizer.  I had just finished reprogramming a bottle lane sorting machine so I'd already removed my locktags but hadn't yet enabled all the software controls (or E-stops) and wanted to do a quick test run before closing all the panels.  My phone chose this moment to make its escape attempt while I was stretched and overbalanced trying to place a DMM probe onto an awkward test point.

 

USB port is required (any kind, any form factor, I have adapters).  I run certain softwares when reading or writing or controlling industrial parts in situ, and I often use a USB-to-RS232 adapter for this purpose.

 

SD slot is required (any type, any form factor, I have adapters).  I often use (real or virtual) SDIO functions through a JTAG device interface - my SD issue isn't memory capacity, it's I/O compatibility.  I don't really want to lug around another device (like a laptop), my tool bag is already heavy enough, lol.

 

Dual-SIM is highly desired.  It means that I can keep my work and personal numbers separate and simultaneously active without needing to carry two devices.  Having two dedicated SIM slots and one dedicated SD slot would eliminate almost all of my clumsy tiny card swapping with greasy fingers in dirty environments.

srlawren
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@Korth with 256GB available [on the OnePlus 6], who needs an SD card??  🙂  

 

You know that I'm a die-hard fan of the newer OnePlus devices (OP3 and newer).  If I didn't already have a 5T, I'd be all over an 8/128 OP6 in Midnight Black.  Still gets my vote, despite the lack of SD.  


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@Korth wrote:

Samsung's S9/S9+ (and S8, etc) are the easiest of the bunch to find tons of reviews about.  The latest-and-great flagship Android smartphones, every cellphone enthusiast (who doesn't prefer an iPhoneX) talks about them in detail.

 

Moto's G6 is still new and largely un-reviewed, though at least I have experience with the G5.

 

Has anyone used this BlackBerry device, or Cat S61/S60/S41/S40 devices?


@Korth, lucky nobody was injured.  Pretty foolhardy to try and rescue a phone from being swallowed by a machine.  I would value my appendage way more than any phone that I have every bought.  Anyway, none of the Samsung and Blackberry offerings have dual SIM and micro SD.  So why are they on the short list?  You suggest that you are somewhat easy going on phone selection.  I dare say by specifying dual SIM and micro SD slot shortens the list a lot.  Good luck finding that needle in the haystack!

Jorno
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

@Korth, is it too macabre to share photos of your beloved phone?

Samsung's S9/S9+ (and S8, etc) are the easiest of the bunch to find tons of reviews about.  The latest-and-great flagship Android smartphones, every cellphone enthusiast (who doesn't prefer an iPhoneX) talks about them in detail.

 

Moto's G6 is still new and largely un-reviewed, though at least I have experience with the G5.

 

Has anyone used this BlackBerry device, or Cat S61/S60/S41/S40 devices?

meocon
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

@Korth for me I recommend Samsung A8. It’s not too pricey and have all things you need for 🙂

closng
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

I peresonally upgraded from my Lumia 950XL to a Saumsung S9 this past weekend. Reasons being that it had the features I needed (wireless charging, SD card expansion, good camera, headphone jack). The phone itself is gorgeous and the size is perfect for me. Still playing around and getting used to Android.. 🙂

 

But I don't think the Canadian version meets your requirements as only the Exynos (international) version will support dual sim...

@ShawnC13

 

I did look at the OnePlus 6, one of the last (and hard) cuts off my short list, lol.

 

I've ruthlessly excluded every device which doesn't meet my core specs - in this case no LTE Band 13 and no SD slot (when both SIM slots are populated).  These are basically trivial details, but I might as well focus on my present/predicted hardware needs and I gotta draw the line somewhere to narrow down the horde of devices somehow, lol.

 

The Moto G6 doesn't have these "limitations" (as arbitrary as they may be) ... and it seems to me a similar device (with similar specs and similar toys) at a similar cost ... "similar" in the things I would actually use, anyhow ... so the OnePlus 6 seemed redundant, even though it has a few merits (like faster SoC/CPU/GPU and bigger RAM) the Moto G6 lacks.

 

https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=9109&idPhone2=9000&idPhone3=9001

ShawnC13
Oracle
Oracle

@Korth, have you done any reading on the OnePlus6?  Everything I have been seeing on that phone has been extremely positive.

 


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