The Chinese are starting to make high quality cheap phones

[txa1265]

Just as a follow-up ... we bought our boys each an iPhone 6 this weekend. Verizon was having a special 'Dads and Grads' deal, so we got $200 off, making the 64GB version $99. Add on the various fees and taxes and we still left the store paying <$300 for two brand new 64GB iPhone 6 phones for the kids. #winning

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Doesn't that force you to get more expensive plans for them? I'm wondering if it's really economical in the long run. I mean, why would telcos go out of their way to practically "give" you phones? In the end it must be they who win out. The numbers must favor them.

 

[txa1265]

Doesn't that force you to get more expensive plans for them? I'm wondering if it's really economical in the long run. I mean, why would telcos go out of their way to practically "give" you phones? In the end it must be they who win out. The numbers must favor them.

Not at all - our bill doesn't change at all. What happens is the boys are 'locked in' for 2 more years of contract with Verizon.

Now THAT is where they 'win' - they are trading off the phone subsidy (the normally $849 iPhone 6 64GB for $299) and the additional discount ($299 regular price for $99) in order to keep people locked into Verizon. Across the term of service they more than make up for that amount.

For us it is a no-brainer. Only Verizon has reasonable service in our area, and has top service where our older son is going to college in the fall, and at all of the top schools my older son is planning to apply to for next year. So ... they would be on Verizon anyway, we're on Verizon for the forseeable future ... so getting the phones that cheap ultimately works well for us.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

When I was in Tennessee earlier this month I looked at cellphone plan prices… there are many plans that are like $49.99 for UNLIMITED data, or for even less money???

It's absolutely unbelievable how the Canadian telcos rip people off. It's worse than almost any third world country and this is LITERALLY true. Even in Australia I was getting 500 MB of data and unlimited everything else for $2 a day. Even Australia, where the distance between towns and ensuing cost of the infrastructure over the wideness of the territory is extremely similiar to that of Canada, compares much favorably to Canada. And as for the UK and Scandinavia it is even more of a joke. When I heard French students who come to study at our universities talk about cellphone plans all they talk about is how much of an absolute rip off it is when they get unlimited everything for less than $20 a month in their homeland. They are extremely shocked when they see their options here. It's the same thing for the Internet too.

 

[GothicGothicness]

Well, I think we can completely debunk the nonsense that iOS is "faster" than android that txa posted without any sources what-so-ever, according to latest research android is much faster for surfing and internet ( what else do you use your smartphone for ), when surfing the web Samsung Galaxy S6 edge is the fastest and the iPhone 6+ is just on 25 place, here is the source:

http://www.internetstatistik.se/artiklar/mobil-surfhastighet-har-ar-de-popularaste-modellerna/

If there is anything I can't stand it is apple fan boys that claim apple is better without any source what-so-ever. Each time there is a test or real research done, it proves the iPhone performance really badly and the price / performance ratio is by far the worst.

And good job txa spreading nonsense without any source.

 

[txa1265]

Wow ... you have issues. You need to seek help about attaching such animus to an inanimate object like a phone.

As I have said, I had traditionally used Android phones, but now the entire family is on iOS. I use both Apple and Android, just like I use Apple and Windows and Linux for computers. I don't worry so much about my personal worth being tied to some pissing contest that I need to get so upset like you apparently do.

OK, so here is a bunch of benchmarks showing how the Apple iPhone 6 in general outperforms everything else - including the Galaxy S6 (released 6 months later) - at high performance tasks - http://bgr.com/2015/04/22/galaxy-s6-vs-iphone-6-performance-tests-gaming/

And ... here is one from this past week showing how the camera on the Galaxy S6 produces better images pretty much in every way than the iPhone 6, making it the best smartphone camera currently available. http://www.techtimes.com/articles/6...is-blind-camera-survey-settles-the-debate.htm

There are always sites that have incomplete standards, or aim to 'prove' something. My point was never that Apple was so awesome or blindingly better than anything else ... but instead that these cheap-o phones that were shown to be mostly using components similar to the Galaxy *S4* were not going to outperform the current generation devices - Android OR Apple. And frankly I shouldn't need to produce research to show that - no one is testing 2 year old devices against current ones.

 

[Myrthos]

I couldn't care less about these performance numbers. Most of the iPhone and Android devices are fast enough for what I want to do with it. So a phone that is even faster than I require it to be is quite irrelevant.
I've used both and for me the overall usability of an iOS device is so much better than an Android device. If it wasn't for the lack of iOS dual-SIM devices, I would not be using an Android phone.

 

[GothicGothicness]

Wow … you have issues. You need to seek help about attaching such animus to an inanimate object like a phone.

As I have said, I had traditionally used Android phones, but now the entire family is on iOS. I use both Apple and Android, just like I use Apple and Windows and Linux for computers. I don't worry so much about my personal worth being tied to some pissing contest that I need to get so upset like you apparently do.

OK, so here is a bunch of benchmarks showing how the Apple iPhone 6 in general outperforms everything else - including the Galaxy S6 (released 6 months later) - at high performance tasks - http://bgr.com/2015/04/22/galaxy-s6-vs-iphone-6-performance-tests-gaming/

And … here is one from this past week showing how the camera on the Galaxy S6 produces better images pretty much in every way than the iPhone 6, making it the best smartphone camera currently available. http://www.techtimes.com/articles/6...is-blind-camera-survey-settles-the-debate.htm

There are always sites that have incomplete standards, or aim to 'prove' something. My point was never that Apple was so awesome or blindingly better than anything else … but instead that these cheap-o phones that were shown to be mostly using components similar to the Galaxy *S4* were not going to outperform the current generation devices - Android OR Apple. And frankly I shouldn't need to produce research to show that - no one is testing 2 year old devices against current ones.

To be honest I care very little about phones, as I use them much less than most people. What I don't like is these apple people who claim that their phone/computer/pad is the best no matter what without any form of proof, however if they provide detail proof, like your article that the iPhone 6 is better for gaming I have no issues with it. I also think the screen resolution of that Samsung phone is ridicules and almost none can notice the difference and it causes bad performance as well.

If you are to claim something just have something to back it up with and I am fine with it.

 

[lostforever]

All this apple v Android debates makes me want to go back to the old Nokia 8210. I think its the best phone ever made for my needs!

 

[txa1265]

To be honest I care very little about phones, as I use them much less than most people. What I don't like is these apple people who claim that their phone/computer/pad is the best no matter what without any form of proof, however if they provide detail proof, like your article that the iPhone 6 is better for gaming I have no issues with it. I also think the screen resolution of that Samsung phone is ridicules and almost none can notice the difference and it causes bad performance as well.

If you are to claim something just have something to back it up with and I am fine with it.

The problems I had were:
- I didn't try to make grand claims about Apple - it was because you in particular were making very specific anti-Apple "they are the worst crap ever" statements, all I was saying was that the top end devices are all excellent performers. When the iPhone 6 launched it was mostly the top performer ... now the Galaxy S6 is tops in many areas, and so on.
- Because I dared say ANYTHING positive about Apple, you flamed me and demanded proof.
- My further point is that you always need to 'follow the money'. If we know that Apple and Samsung and HTC have build prices (not counting R&D and marketing) of $200+ per phone, and someone is selling *at retail* a device for less than that - and doesn't own manufacture of any components ... well, it is simple economics that either they are losing HUGE amounts of money, using sub-standard components through the 'non-spec' signal paths, or some combination of those.

Ultimately none of it matters - I don't like linking to performance tests because people use them as 'ego checks' ("see, my phone IS the best") rather than just helping understand relative performance.

SO much of it is subjective - I know people who have no issue with the iPhone having 1GB of RAM, but especially after using the iPad Air 2 for a few months I definitely notice it in terms of content reloads when app switching. But think about that - I am nit-picking to such an incredible detailed level ... and comparing and contrasting between devices with such incredible performance that it is all just luxury-level whining.

 

[txa1265]

When I was in Tennessee earlier this month I looked at cellphone plan prices… there are many plans that are like $49.99 for UNLIMITED data, or for even less money???

Before you hate me too much ... my family plan for the 4 of us costs about $235 including taxes and fees even after the decent discount I get through my company ... and while I have truly unlimited data (as opposed to the 'unlimited' stuff most carriers have that gets throttled based on how much you use), my wife and kids only get 2GB/month.

 

[GothicGothicness]

The problems I had were:
- I didn't try to make grand claims about Apple - it was because you in particular were making very specific anti-Apple "they are the worst crap ever" statements, all I was saying was that the top end devices are all excellent performers. When the iPhone 6 launched it was mostly the top performer … now the Galaxy S6 is tops in many areas, and so on.
- Because I dared say ANYTHING positive about Apple, you flamed me and demanded proof.
- My further point is that you always need to 'follow the money'. If we know that Apple and Samsung and HTC have build prices (not counting R&D and marketing) of $200+ per phone, and someone is selling *at retail* a device for less than that - and doesn't own manufacture of any components … well, it is simple economics that either they are losing HUGE amounts of money, using sub-standard components through the 'non-spec' signal paths, or some combination of those.

Ultimately none of it matters - I don't like linking to performance tests because people use them as 'ego checks' ("see, my phone IS the best") rather than just helping understand relative performance.

SO much of it is subjective - I know people who have no issue with the iPhone having 1GB of RAM, but especially after using the iPad Air 2 for a few months I definitely notice it in terms of content reloads when app switching. But think about that - I am nit-picking to such an incredible detailed level … and comparing and contrasting between devices with such incredible performance that it is all just luxury-level whining.

Ok, fair enough. Although I did not claim it was the worst crap ever I was mostly upset by the insane costs of the adapter I bought and inflated prices apple takes for everything, I probably came out overly negative. It also came out as a rather grand claim that "apple" will always be faster than these cheap phones with better specs, however now that you posted the benchmark I can see what you mean, if even S6 is slower than apple iOS on iPhone 6 in games, surely these phones will be to, with that I agree of course.

 

[txa1265]

haha Sounds good to me, GG.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

txa it's true a lot of cheaper Chinese phones have many components that are slightly more dated or less expensive, but I don't think it's the case for all or that it necessarily means the performance level is equivalent to old devices. Most of these Chinese phones for instance have Mediatek systems-on-a-chip which support 64 bit and have higher speed than older ones by Qualcomm that were in these older devices. Just because of that it's not a completely similar comparison.

And like you say, the average Joe doesn't need anything more. It's a phone. It's good enough for 99% of users.

 

[txa1265]

txa it's true a lot of cheaper Chinese phones have many components that are slightly more dated or less expensive, but I don't think it's the case for all or that it necessarily means the performance level is equivalent to old devices. Most of these Chinese phones for instance have Mediatek systems-on-a-chip which support 64 bit and have higher speed than older ones by Qualcomm that were in these older devices. Just because of that it's not a completely similar comparison.

And like you say, the average Joe doesn't need anything more. It's a phone. It's good enough for 99% of users.

Totally agree - from what I have been reading, these guys have been really smart about where to compromise and where to put more money. It is still all scaled back to less than say the Galaxy S6, but some of them are better than the S5 - which is still a darn fine phone and performs great.

 

[txa1265]

Here is an interesting review of the $200 Xiaomi Mi 4i ... overall a really solid sounding phone held back by the older OS.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015...best-specs-for-200-but-not-the-best-software/

 

[Humanity has risen!]

After all this time I finally received the phone. It works really great. Good screen, pretty design and solid case, very comfortable in the palm of your hand, very very slick and fast OS, as few apps as possible (it's basically AOSP + Google Play)... there is even a permissions system built-in! No need to even install CyanogenMod for that.

I took a few pictures while I was walking outside, the camera is pretty good (although it seems like it has a bit of trouble to focus, although it will probably be fixed in a later OTA update):

For $197, what you get really is extremely, extremely impressive. There's no reason to pay through the nose for a phone ever again or to get one of these rip-off plans.

 

[txa1265]

Cool pics - and the phone sounds great! Keep us posted as you get more time playing around. I understand it is Android 4.x rather than 5.x? Is that true (or is it other devices I've read about)? What sort of data / phone plan are you using (apologize if you mentioned already)

As an aside I picked up the Amazon Fire Phone last week - they were having a deal, I had some expering credits, etc ... It is OK, but I really feel like they should have started where they landed ... sub-$200 phone unlocked. (the sale was $159 for the brand new phone). I will take some pics and post .. but ultimately this is likely to be used as a $20 MP3 player for my car

 

[Humanity has risen!]

No it is Lollipop. They are porting a lot of custom ROMs actually and are very open to their customer rooting and modifying the device (although it is hard to do with the MediaTek SOAC).

For my phone data plan it is 1GB of data with 400 minutes in business hours, unlimited the rest of the time, unlimited texting, for $36. I don't care for having much data, I never look at videos on a mobile connection, almost never download any file and use Opera Mini or UC Browser for all that isn't an e-commerce site.

The Amazon Fire Phone was just plain stupid, it was very overpriced, had a very low resolution screen for that price and the specs were not very good. I would get a Chinese phone well before something like this even on sale.

 

[txa1265]

Cool that it has Lollipop! Must have been a Lenovo phone or some other Chinese phone that was still using 4.x. That really makes a big difference.

On the Fire phone, tell me how you *really* feel Not disagreeing ... I am very invested in the Amazon/Android ecosystem, and still find it one of the most pointless devices I have ever used. And I agree - even for people who got the sale price and actually paid <$200 unlocked ... still not a bargain. The second gen Moto E I bought last month for $50 unlocked (came with a $25 Best Buy reward certificate so I really only paid $25) was a MUCH better phone.