How I choose the best phone for 2017–2020
Comparison of iPhone 7, 8, X, Samsung S8, OnePlus 5 in very detailed charts.
The main problem today is choice. We have some many great products and companies to choose from, that it’s hard to decide which is best.
Since I struggle to find the best phone for me, I decided to create a table comparing the most top phones. Then I thought it could be useful to more people so I translated it from to Spanish and Russian.
The table includes the most important characteristics like price, screen size, memory, processor, battery, camera. I also thought in terms of approximate usage years, official updates support, and cost per month which is important to take into account for those who is scared of $999 price of iPhone X.
The compared phones are:
- iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 plus, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 plus, iPhone X
- Google Pixel, Google Pixel 2, Google Pixel 2 XL
- OnePlus 5, Samsung Galaxy S8
Here’re the different comparison tables:
I know there’re lots of others top Android smartphones like Nokia 8 or Nokia 9, HTC, LG G5, LG G6, Samsung Note 8… But in my opinion they’re quite similar to the ones I analysed.
iOS vs Android
For me it’s also about choosing between Android or Apple iOS phone. After many years of Android usage (my last phone until today is LG Nexus 5), I also tried iOS OS and I liked it. In past I liked the possibility Android offers to customise the whole phone. But today I care more about great design both UI and UX, stability, security, privacy and durability. With Android(Google) we used to have better prices because we were selling our privacy to Google. Nowadays you see top Android phones and the price is almost the same as Apple. So why keep buying Android?
Screen Size
You’ll see that I sorted the phones and highlighted in green the ones that fit better to my hand. I tried Nexus 6P and to me it’s too big. I like being able to reach most areas of the screen with one hand.
Security
Regarding security, I like the iOS approach to isolated storage for every individual app. So for instance if you have some music downloaded or important pdf documents, the apps can’t access that information as easily as on Android. On Android any app can access the public storage space which is shared.
Chinese phones… OP5 is a great phone. However it’s brand is not inspiring any trust in me. I am not sure if the company can close tomorrow leaving my phone’s without support. Or what data are they uploading to their servers since it’s a modified Android OS. Here I trust more Apple (for now).
Small details that also matter
Worth it paying 1000 US dollars every 3 years for a phone?
It’s hard to believe but the price reached $1000. What to expect in 5 years? Will the phone cost more than a car? How do we feel about paying for a piece of intelligent metal that we’ll throw away in 3–5 years?
I started thinking about how many years the phone will last. I’m not gonna discuss programmed obsolescence topic here, but let’s consider just official software support. Apple ensures 3 years of support. Let’s review the past phones and iOS versions to understand if that’s true:
Today is iOS11 and Android Oreo. Will my phone get iOS 14?
I’ve seen Statista iOS release charts, but they don’t cover all I needed so I made the table myself.
Things that still disappoint me about Apple’s top phones:
- iPhone X notch issue. It’s just not comfortable. What designers thought about?
- Glass body issue
- Battery issue
- Growing price and “programmed obsolescence” forcing people to upgrade their phones every year
Finally, after all this comparison, I thought the best phone for me is iPhone 8. I discarded iPhone X and 8 plus for the price, (notch), and too big size for me. iPhone 8 is pretty new and will last hopefully until 2020 or more. However then I spotted a little detail: the glass body. Because of the drop test I decided to stick with iPhone 7 finally. I don’t think it’s worth paying the price of wireless charging with less durable body.
That’s it. Hope you’ll find this interesting and share this post with yours.