What phone are you using?

Galaxy S23 Ultra.

Are you happy with it? What are its best and worst qualities?

Absolutely love it. It’s only the second Galaxy model to be sold with the Snapdragon chip in 🇦🇺 Australia, after the S22. I had an S21 Ultra (Exynos) and decided to wait for the S23, because of the rumours that the cameras would be improved.

Glad I waited, and also very glad to have an included stylus, because I’m a photographer and designer, so the stylus is bloody useful!

I honestly can’t think of an downsides to this phone, I’m so damn satisfied with it.

Which phones have you had previously? Which were the best and worst of the lot?

As noted above, I had the S21 Ultra previously. I actually bought a Pixel 7 Pro when it was released, but after about a month I decided that while it was a great phone with some clever new features, I still preferred my S21 Ultra — so I sold the Pixel 7 Pro and went back to my Samsung!

Other previous phones, let me think… First modern smartphone was the iPhone 3G, followed by iPhone 4, iPhone 5S, HTC Desire, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Sony XPeria V, LG Nexus 5X, Google Pixel, Google Pixel 2, iPhone 11 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S10, iPhone 13 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, S23 Ultra.

Not sure if that order is exactly right… haha.

How often do you upgrade to a new phone?

Usually every year, to be honest, which obviously isn’t super responsible either financially or in terms of e-waste, but it really is my number one addiction. 😂

What other Android ecosystem devices do you have? Watches, headphones/earbuds, etc.

Galaxy Watch 4, Pixel Watch, Galaxy Tab S4 (now my son’s), Galaxy Tab S6 Lite (now my daughter’s), and a Galaxy Tab S8.

Oh, and the Chromecast with Google TV.

Do you also use any Apple products, or are you Android all the way? (And/or Windows, Linux, ChromeOS, etc.)

I have an iPad Pro A12X (pre-M1, annoyingly) for drawing with Procreate, and I still have my iPhone 13 Pro — mostly just for shooting videos for work, since phone gimbals integrate better with iOS than they do with Android (or maybe just Samsung). I also have a work-supplied MacBook Pro 14" M1 Max.

Lastly, I also have a pair of AirPods Pro that I bought for my iPhone but now mostly only use with my Macbook, and a pair of Beats Fit Pro that I absolutely love using with my S23 Ultra. I was tempted by the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro, but I really prefer buds with winglets for a more secure fit.

Nothing Phone 1.

For a mid-range phone, it’s fantastic. Really would recommend it.

Currently, I’m using a Motorola moto g100 and I’m happy with it. Good battery life, nice big screen, much improved performance compared to my last phone. Best phone I’ve ever owned. The main inconvenience is the location of the fingerprint sensor: I’d have preferred if it was on the front of the device somehow (definitely not on the back – I often have it lying flat on the table).

I also dislike the fact it can only remember five fingerprints while I have 10 fingers. Who thought that was a good idea? :þ

Previously I had a Moto G5+ and a Moto G. I guess you could say I enjoyed the quality and relative lack of bloatware of these Motorola phones, while being more affordable than some of the alternatives I was considering at the time I bought them.

Going further back, I had a HTC Desire Z (with a slide-out physical keyboard). I picked it as my first smartphone because I was hesitant to get rid of physical keys, but as it turned out I hardly ever used them. Looking back, this one was clearly the worst value for the money.

Since I switched to smart phones I’ve been upgrading every 3 or 4 years.

Before the smart phone era, I had an Alcatel device (can’t remember the exact model). I used that tiny near-indestructable thing for over a decade, only charging it about once a week. It was mostly an “in case of emergency” though, not nearly as heavily used as later phones, because it wasn’t really usable as a miniature pocket-computer (like smart phones are). Still, I was pretty happy with it at the time: the only reason I got rid of it was because the ‘0’ button broke, and in my country all phone numbers start with 0.

I also have an LG G Watch (Wear OS). A relative worked at Google when these were handed out to employees but didn’t actually want it, so I got it as a gift. It’s pretty old now: I’ve replaced the bands a few times and it won’t charge past 70%, but it still mostly works and the battery still lasts all day. I’m not sure if I’ll get another smart watch if and when this one finally breaks, though.

No Apple products, and my laptop runs Linux Mint. These days, I only use Windows at work or when helping relatives with tech problems (sigh).

What phone are you using?

Xiaomi Note 10 Pro

Are you happy with it? What are its best and worst qualities?

For the most part, yes! It’s got an extremely good price to performance ratio and has great battery life, great high resolution screen. But it’s got some extremely annoying bugs… For instance, sometimes it just randomly reboots, or worse yet, turns off and then takes several minutes to boot. There’s seemingly no discernible pattern to it. Sometimes the touch screen seems to get jittery as well, although it doesn’t majorly affect usability. Some recent update also messed up apps colors for certain elements, so yeah, not great software wise. If it wasn’t for the rather major issue with crashing I would have no problem recommending it wholeheartedly though.

Which phones have you had previously? Which were the best and worst of the lot?

I had a Redmi phone before that, before that I had an iPhone SE, iPhone 5, 4 etc. The Redmi phone was great for the price, similar to this one. The SE was also great, but all of my iPhones died in the same, bizarre way. They all started to crash with weird black and white stripes, eventually becoming unusable because of frequent crashing.

How often do you upgrade to a new phone?

When the old one breaks, basically!

What other Android ecosystem devices do you have? Watches, headphones/earbuds, etc.

None that I would call "ecosystem"y. It’s all intercompatible.

Do you also use any Apple products, or are you Android all the way? (And/or Windows, Linux, ChromeOS, etc.)

Windows as desktop OS.

• S23 Ultra
• Best is everything, worst is size.
• Xiaomi and Samsung. I can’t compare since they were at completely different price brackets.
• Usually every 3 years.
• Watch, buds.
• Windows but i miss linux