I think we're still recommending the moto g.

In terms of value for money, the Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 is the only game in town. It trounces the Moto G in every respect. >>24345 If you want to go even cheaper, there are plenty of good Chinaphones these days (the VKWorld VK700 stands out from the bunch) although you won't get much in the way of customer service.

If camera quality is crucial, I might suggest the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom - it's more of a camera with a phone attached than a phone with a camera. With that said, I think you'd be better off with a value handset and a proper camera. You can find second-hand SLRs and Compact System Cameras on eBay for less than £100 that will totally demolish the image quality of any phone.

>>24392
You can import a 16GB Moto X for cheaper than an 8GB Moto G.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4-7-NEW-Unlocked-Motorola-Moto-X-XT1060-Smart-Phone-16GB-10-0MP-Black-/261643092229?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&hash=item3ceb24c105

It also has a faster processor, better camera, "active notifications" etc.

That's what I'd recommend OP.

>>24395

The old Moto X has a smaller and lower-res screen than the Smart Ultra 6, a smaller battery, a slower processor and GPU, and an older version of Android. If you get charged VAT on import then it's no cheaper, and you don't have a warranty with a UK retailer.

It's not a bad handset, but two years is a long time in technology.

>>24396
Not everyone wants a huge phone, and the resolution is perfectly fine for a screen of its size, as is the battery life.

I can't think of a single thing you'd conceivably want to do that the Moto X's CPU or GPU aren't sufficient for. And it isn't running an older version of Android. Unlike most Android handsets, the Moto X actually gets updates.

>>24397

>And it isn't running an older version of Android. Unlike most Android handsets, the Moto X actually gets updates.

My bad - the Lollipop rollout for the Moto X is happening as we speak.

>I can't think of a single thing you'd conceivably want to do that the Moto X's CPU or GPU aren't sufficient for.

OP mentions wanting to play graphically demanding games and run emulators.

>>24398
Which the Moto X's CPU and GPU are sufficient for.

>>24399

Depends on your definition of sufficient. I'd rather have eight cores at my disposal than two.

Anyway, this is turning into a nitpick-fest that I don't imagine is particularly useful to OP.

>>24400
The Moto G has more cores than the Moto X, the sheer number of cores isn't the important thing.

I agree about the nitpicking though, and would just say that, on-paper specs aside, what makes the original Moto X a great phone is that it was designed when Motorola were a Google subsidiary. I have kind of a love-hate relationship with Android, and most of what I hate is all the bullshit alterations OEMs make to both the software and hardware to "put their mark on it" and end up making it worse. With Motorola, Google made phones that complemented the experience of Android, rather than got in the way of it.

>>24401

That attitude is increasingly common, particularly amongst makers of off-brand phones. Many Chinese OEMs have realised that writing custom OS additions is an unnecessary expense, so they just ship stock Android. The Vodafone handset I mentioned is 100% stock apart from a few preloaded apps.

Ironically, the only manufacturer I have seen actually improve on Android is Xiaomi. Their custom UI is so nice that people are creating hacked ROMs to install it on other handsets, they push weekly OS updates and they provide a flashing utility if you want to install CM or stock Android instead. I'm a little surprised that Xiaomi handsets aren't better known in Europe and the US, but I guess they just don't care about such a relatively small market - they're now the world's third largest manufacturer by value and are set to overtake Samsung this year.

Wandering even further off topic, Xiaomi headphones are stupendously good value. Their in-ears cost less than a tenner, but you'd be hard pushed to find any aspect that's worse than a £100 pair of Shure or Sennheiser IEMs - sound, build quality, durability, even packaging. If I were a western hardware manufacturer, I'd be shitting it.

>>24402
Is it particularly difficult to get handsets or other electronics from this manufacturer in the West, or can they just be picked up off Amazon/eBuyer etc.?

>>24403

There are importers on Amazon and eBay who will sell you pretty much any Chinese-branded electronics shipped either direct from China or from a UK warehouse. I buy most of my Chinese electronics from sites like Dealextreme and Banggood - delivery can be a little bit slow sometimes (3-4 weeks) but prices are often absurdly low.

Xiaomi are a premium brand, aiming directly at Samsung and Apple. They're miles cheaper than either, but not the cheapest of the Chinese OEMs. If you're after a real bargain, take a look at handsets by Doogee and UMI.

>>24404

But do they use English at all, or would I have to learn the Chinese glyphs?

>>24402
>>24404
Nice one mate.

So the Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 sounds like a good choice.

Just looking on the vodafone store now and trying to choose between these two:

http://shop.vodafone.co.uk/shop/pay-as-you-go/vodafone-smart-6-ultra-payg/sku86605-grey

and

http://shop.vodafone.co.uk/shop/pay-as-you-go/vodafone-smart-prime-6-payg/sku86176-grey

(before looking through the Choineez ones.)

>>24407

In terms of specs the ultra is hands down superior however that 5.5 inch screen sounds too big to me. In my experience a 4.7 inch screen is more practical as you can actually reach all of the screen while holding it - I say this with a 5.2 inch cock screen.

Anyway go to the shop and ask to have a whirl with the ultra - they'll never say no...

Oh and you realise it's going to be locked to Vodafone right?

>>24405

Android works in whatever language you like, you just select it from the settings menu. All the Chinese Android gadgets I've used had English set as the default language out of the box.

Some Chinese phones don't have Google apps preinstalled (Google services are blocked in China), but it only takes five minutes to install the Play Store if it isn't there; either you download the APK, or you run a Google Installer app from the app store that came with the device. Some sellers will preinstall the Play Store on phones being sold for export - check the item description or ask the seller.

>>24409

Unlocking costs less than a fiver on eBay, you just send them the IMEI and they send you an unlock code. Vodafone will give you an unlock code, but they charge £20 and make you wait 30 days after activation.

Not OP but is there a big difference between the Moto E and Moto G? I can get a Moto E for £75 from Virgin but will the performance be significantly slower? I guess as long as it's a bit faster than the iPhone 4 given to me by work that will be good. Apparently the camera's not great but I've got a DSLR for taking decent pictures anyway.

>>24418

The Moto E has a significantly lower-resolution display than the Moto G (540x960 vs 720x1280), but otherwise has very similar performance. It's a good phone for £75, although I think that the Vodafone Smart Prime 6 or the EE Harrier Mini offer slightly better value - you get 4G and a significantly sharper screen for basically the same price. Going for the Moto E would be a perfectly reasonable choice if you trust the Motorola brand, or if you need dual SIM capability.

>>24419

Cheers. The main reason I'm looking at the Moto E is because I've already got a Virgin SIM contract, and don't really want to go through the hassle of unlocking the other phones you mentioned, which I assume are locked to Vodafone and EE respectively. I'm a lazy consumer.

>>24420
Unlocking a phone requires almost zero effort. There's a ton of ebay sellers doing it for pennies these days.

So I found a Samsung Galaxy Ace 4.

I want to keep it, what do I need to do to make my bitch?

>>24422
Say 5 Hail Marys and question why you think you have the right to keep someone else's phone.

>>24423

I don't know about you, Phonetheiflad, but I always do the opposite of what a Catholic tells me.

>

>>24423
What right do they have to keep something they can't look after? Or whatever.

>>24424
I prefer Phonefinderlad...
Its got one of those shape swipe doohickeys to unloock. The puzzle grows deeper.

>>24425
>Its got one of those shape swipe doohickeys to unloock.
Almost as if someone wanted to stop you from using their phone.

>>24422
It's somebody else's and it's a shit phone anyway, you turd. Hand it in where you found it.

>>24426
Yeah, Funny that.

>>24427
I reckon I will. Turd.

Maybe you could flash it?

>>24425
You need to find the recovery menu - on some (most?) phones including earlier galaxy aces this can be done by holding one of the volume keys when powering on. Once you're in recovery you can factory reset and reboot to start using it.

>>24430
Wait, we already have a Phonethieflad? Well that leaves us in a quandary.

For all we know the phone contains the only copies of pictures of the birth of the owner's child, or of a beloved now-deceased relative. Or documents vital in the running of an independent business or community social project.

Basically I love it when lives are destroyed by some scrote's short-term self-interest, I consider it a damning indictment of the value of all collective effort to save humanity from itself. So whatever you do Phonethieflad don't hand it in, just factory reset it and play San Andreas on it.

>>24432

I can't bring myself to agree with the sentiments expressed in the last paragraph there.

You should sell it to CeX.

>>24432>>24433

I lost a phone recently and because I hate the future I never backed up my photos to Google's cloud service. While my phone was happily FDE encrypted I still lost a bunch of photos of my mate's missus and about 150 photos I took of my other mate's bulldog while suffering from a near-fatal drugs episode. The phone was replaced gratis because it was a work phone, but I still mourn the nudes and dog pics. Phones are cheap; hand them in because the memories on them are often worth far more than the phones themselves.

>>24434

That does seem a shame that you lost all those nudes and dog pics. It would be nice if there was some sort of app which would force anyone cracking a phone to upload all nudes and dog pics stored on it to an encrypted/private cloud that only the previous owner would have access to, so even if the phone's lifted and irrecoverably run to Tajikistan , they'd still be able to recover all the nudes and dog pics, being as you say, nudes and dog pics are worth so much more than a phone.

>>24435
'Nudes and dog pics' should be a wordfilter for something.

>>24434
>it was a work phone, but I still mourn the nudes and dog pics
Have a word with yourself, lad.

>>24437

You mean you *don't* keep nudes on your work phone?

>>24437
Let's not cast judgement before we know the facts. Those nudes could be relevant to his occupation.

>>24435

> It would be nice if there was some sort of app which would force anyone cracking a phone to upload all nudes and dog pics stored on it to an encrypted/private cloud that only the previous owner would have access to

Being the miserable cretin that you are, you obviously totally managed to miss the part of my post where I said:

> because I hate the future I never backed up my photos to Google's cloud service.

Substitute "Google" for Dropbox or whatever service you fatuously and ignorantly assume to be secure.

>>24437
>>24439

One of the major perks of being a company director is that no one gives a flying fuck what you have on your phone as long as it's encrypted and you don't back it up to cloud services.

>>24440

Look, I realise you're very upset about losing the nudes and dog pics but now that you have lost the nudes and dog pics there's no need to take it out on me. Your distress at losing the nudes and dog pics seems to have completely coloured how you read my post regarding the nudes and dog pics because you seem to have both read into and misread what I was suggesting happen, vis-à-vis the uploading of the nudes and dog pics being done automatically when the phone is broken into, so the loss of the nudes and dog pics not being your fault and the encryption of the nudes and dog pics, regardless of the secureness of the service chosen. You fat idiot.

>>24441

> being done automatically when the phone is broken into

Sadly it was never broken into, it was lost with about 2% battery and with FDE enabled. There was nothing to be done but mourn. You cheesy mong.

So I had my heart set on buying the moto g, I just wanted to check if it came with the standard audio jack and I found this:

http://visi0nary.de/?p=30

and then this:
http://www.androidauthority.com/moto-g-problems-518418/

Does any handset have its problems or is the Moto g especially bad? I know not all handsets will get every problem but my last phone was a piece of shit so I'm just erring on the side of caution.

>>24443
I have the moto g 4g version, and I think (but I'm not sure) that the metal contact on the headphone jack looks a little more substantial than in those photos, so that might be fixed now.

However I do definitely have software-related audio issues, such as one time the audio stopped working, whether I used the jack or the speaker all I could hear was a faint, which was fixed by rebooting it. Compared to my mp3 player the sound quality is fairly mediocre at best too.

>>24444
Would you buy it again if you had the choice?

>>24443

No hardware is perfect. Hardware that sells in huge quantities is subject to a much greater degree of scrutiny. Apple hardware is of very high quality, but any design flaw will affect a disproportionately large number of people due to their small product range and enormous sales.

The Moto G is a nicely built phone and I wouldn't be particularly worried about quality. I wouldn't be inclined to buy one today, purely because there are better value options available, but that's an issue of specs rather than quality or durability.

Ok thanks to your shilling great advice ladm8s, I picked up a moto g.

Initial thoughts, I agree it is bigger than our cocks palms and it's a pain to install CM on it but that's because I've got the bloody Thea model. I'll get there eventually though.

>>24447
One more thing, it's really hard to remove the backcover. The people who designed this thing are dipshits.

Not OP, but inspired by this thread I bought a refurbished Moto G from Argos for £80.

Though I was assured it had been tested as being in full working order, there's this annoying fault where the top of the screen will respond as if it's being touched, when it is not being touched, almost constantly. Though this may obviously seem like a hardware issue, some sources online are suggesting its a firmware issue.

I've tried unsuccessfully to upgrade the firmware using USB debugging and commands I don't really understand, but I will most likely just return it and get a refund. This is particularly frustrating because I needed a new phone to take on holiday on Wednesday.

Anyway it's a really nice phone otherwise (presuming that the fault I am experiencing is just a result of a poor refurbishment), and I will most likely just be buying a brand new one in the coming days.

>>24448
It's actually pretty simple. Put your middle finger in the groove in the back and pull up with your thumb on the plastic round the USB port.

>>24487
Tesco are selling Sim free ones for ~£130 with next day collection.

>>24491

I'm bad at learning from my mistakes so I bought another one off Amazon for £80. The box was damaged but the phone itself was ostensibly new.

I need a new phone as this one's dying. Anything that isn't Apple, refurbished is fine. What are your hot tech tips for a new mobile?
Ideally something I can jailbreak/fuck about with to make it more secure.

>>27206
Budget? Requirements?

I've had a POCOPHONE F1 as recommended by otherlad and it's decent for the price, and has official bootloader unlock/root blessing from Xiaomi.

>>27207
>Budget?
Dunno, few hundred quid max?
>Requirements?
Nothing fancy. I mostly use the browser, messaging and maps apps.

>>27209
If camera, waterproofing, or a fancy OLED screen aren't important to you then as I say, POCOPHONE. Snapdragon 845, 6GB of RAM and a decent battery. Oh, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

>>27210

The Pocophone is a brilliant phone, but it might be overkill for a lot of people. The Mi 8 Lite is just £140 from the Mi store with the code 20OFF. That's a frankly silly price for an excellent mid-range phone. The Pocophone has better cameras and a faster processor, but it's also more than twice as expensive.

https://event.mi.com/uk/travel2019/sales

https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/xiaomi-mi-8-lite

https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/review/android-smartphones/xiaomi-mi8-lite-3686190/

>>27206

Probably doesn't meet your requirements exactly, but the google pixel 3a is a brilliant piece of kit.
Sim-free it's £400, but on a contract it's being deep discounted right now, you're looking at a £22 contract with 4GB data and no upfront cost.

>>27212

The Pixel devices are probably a good choice if you're planning on faffing about with custom firmware, as they have the best support for stuff like GrapheneOS. Bit pricey given the specs, but the cameras are superb.

Ordered the Mi lite. It's even cheaper on Argos eBay with a guarantee.

It arrived. What interesting things can I do with it? Specifically I'd like to remove as much Google-or-similar tracking/functionality but retain the ability to use Whatsapp, a browser and some sort of mapping app. It's preloaded with some Mi Cloud proprietary shit that I don't want either.

>>27216
Sounds like you'll need to dick around with a custom ROM.

I'm quite used to the quirks in MIUI but it is very 'Chinese' in parts. I remember this 2016 Olympics thing installing itself on my phone without being asked.

>>27236
Found out I need to wait 360 hours before it'll let me unlock it in order to flash it with a new OS which is outrageous.

>>27238
Christ, that is a long fucking time. Can you spoof it or something?

>>27239

I'm pretty sure he must have made multiple failed unlocking attempts.

>>27239
No idea how I'd go about that.

>>27240
Not that sort of unlocking.

>>27240
Nope, it's a thing they've done to interfere with the grey market. 360 hours before unlocking the bootloader, and 720 hours before you can unlock another device. It hasn't really helped because the resellers have been cracking them open to use the on-board reprogramming pads to do the flashing.

>>27243

I could have sworn that last time I unlocked the bootloader on a Xiaomi phone it was a 72 hour delay.

>>27244
I think it's just the Pocophone that has the 72 hour wait, the rest is a month.

>>27236
> I remember this 2016 Olympics thing installing itself on my phone without being asked.
Bugger to that.
I would have exploded right there if it happened to me. Fucking bellends.
>>27245
Android One phones don't have any time limits, I think.