Do you need to buy a premium device for a premium experience?

I bought a mid range device when I bought the Motorola Z2 Play a few years back. I since sold that phone but I also just recently bought the Motorola Z Power phone. That is a mid range device with a lower price point. Both phones have decent hardware in them, can do lots of great things for taking photos and have great play back for sound and video. But what are they missing from a premium device like the Samsung Galaxy Note 10+? Well basically, a stylus... maybe some performance improvements for playing graphic intense games on the phone.. maybe a touch more battery life thanks to Samsung's power management system. Both screens look vibrant with lots of color. Pictures look great on the screen on both phones and both take excellent pictures.

So why the Higher price tag for the Samsung? Well the Note 10 Plus is rated P68 for water resistance which means you could submerge it in fresh water for some time and retrieve it, dry it out and the phone will still function. As I found out this is not the case when it comes to salt water... anything goes if it goes in salt water. But the Motorola phone is not rated for water resistance like that so it only will be protected against splashes like from rain. Also the Motorola does not have NFC so no contactless payments from the phone. Plus you cannot wireless charge the Motorola. That is not a deal breaker for me. I rarely use wireless charging. I'm still not thrilled with it and feel like it's better for the battery to always charge with a cable. The motorola does have some things the Samsung does not, like an audio jack for headphones. You can use any headphones for that phone without needing a dongle to connect them in like you would with the samsung which is sans audio jack. One personal thing I like more on the Motorola is the fingerprint button on the back, it works 100 percent of the time! Samsung has the in glass fingerprint unit and it works but its 60/40 if it will read the print correctly. I hope they improve that design on future phones. Mid range inexpensive phones can offer great features but there are always trade offs that you have to look at when choosing a lower end device. But there are a wide variety of mid range devices that are affordable and will offer a user a great phone experience.

How many phones is too many? UPDATED

Do you love cell phones? Do you have more than 2 of them? For “backups”… sound familiar? Don’t worry you’re in safe company. I have said the same thing. I am currently up to 4 cell phones unless you count the dead flip phone that I have no charger for…? Ok 5… The flip phone is an LG Dare? I forget the name of that one. I also have an LG G7 ThinQ from 2 years ago. It is still a great phone and is being updated to Android 10 OS very soon according to the Android news feeds. It’s the lightest of the 3 phones and has the best night vision for taking night shots. They always come out so bright on this phone and the other phones have trouble with night shots.
My daily driver of a phone is the Samsung Note 10 Plus. It has become one of the best phones I ever used. The size is perfect in my hand and not hard for 1 or 2 handed uses. The battery life gets me through a day and a half even if I am using the phone heavily. The camera takes amazing photos and I have not even really used the video feature yet. OH and the screen looks amazing. I currently still have the original screen protector from Samsung on the phone. But soon I will be putting on a Zagg screen protector. Just as soon as I watch the video more to make sure I can install it right.
UPDATE: Took off the stock screen protector and installed 2 from a company that does glass protectors applied with UV glue. I do not recommend these types. If the phone gets cold at all from air conditioning the glue will give and you will be prone to potential damage. I also have the HTC U11 phone. This older droid was just updated to Android 9 which was shocking as most of HTC phone staff moved to Google. This phone is STILL getting updates. I turned it on to check on the battery for this article and there is a software update pushing through. This phone is the shortest of all the phones but also the fattest. It is slightly uncomfortable to use single handed. This was before they went “bezel free” so there is 2 bezels at the top and bottom of the phone. But this phone sounds amazing for music. It was enhanced for audio both from the speakers and for when you plug a set of headphones in.
The last phone I have is a Motorola G Power. I just purchased this phone for 250 bucks. It’s unlocked for any carrier and it has a huge battery in it. I used it for one day just trying to sign into everything and get setup and I was about 6 hours of screen time in. The battery still lasted for another day after that! The phone does not have NFC built in and it does not do Wireless charging. But the phone is a great cheap phone to get and store in a drawer in case someone needs a phone in a hurry. Moto has some great actions they setup to make the phone easier to use. Make a chopping motion with your wrist and the flashlight comes on. Twist your wrist and the camera comes on. The phone is ringing on the table and you’re in a meeting, flip it over screen down, the phone shuts up till you pick it back up.
I am working to set these phones up so I can switch back and forth at a moment’s notice. If the Samsung suddenly develops a hardware issue and has to be sent in to replace, I want to be able to take the sim out pop it into either the Moto or the LG and continue working. Most of my stuff is setup in the cloud for backup and syncing. The last thing I did not have in a cloud backup was my text messages and I thought it wasn’t a big deal but more and more text messages are being used in business and starting to become items of record. So I stopped using the default Text program on the phones and moved to Google’s messaging program. This way all my stuff is backed up to Google’s cloud and when I sign into a different phone it can sync all the messages up and I won’t miss anything. I was getting close to the limit of Google’s free 15GB of storage. So I opted to pay for the 100Gb of space on Google’s Cloud. This way the phones can be backed up to the cloud as well and its one less thing I need to worry about. This is a whole other topic but I also have a Microsoft One Drive cloud with over 100 GB of space on it that I don’t pay for. I am not for one or the other, I use whatever works best for my needs. So that’s all my phones. What do you have in your collection? Leave me a comment and let me know. Apple products welcome too… there is no better one here, its whatever works for best you. Which should be the goal of all technology.