Which phone should I pick?

matejdona

Prominent
Oct 22, 2017
11
0
510
Good evening,

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, my Lenovo A536 got stuck in boot loop and then got into recovery mode, which I haven't been able to leave, and my attempts to flash the OS only bricked it completely. I've been looking for a new phone since then. I don't want another low-end device, so I'll increase my budget. After many hours spent on comparing various devices, reading reviews and going through benchmarks, I was decided to buy the upcoming Xiaomi Redmi Note 5, which by their words should be available in my country by the next month. However, yesterday I've stumbled upon HTC U Ultra. According to what I've read, it's an unsuccessful flagship from the last year. It scored about 170K points in AnTuTu, 50K more than RN5 with its 120K. At about 8000 Czk (400$) in a reputable store, it is slightly more expensive than RN5, which when launched should be available from 6500 Czk (325$). I can't decide which one to buy. There are a couple of things I'm concerned about in case of the U Ultra. I have BT headphones, which support connection through 3,5mm connector in case I ran out of battery, so while I'm not happy about the connector's absence, I can get over it. What I'm more concerned about is the battery life. I don't expect the quad-core SD 821 to be very power efficient, so I don't know if the 3000 mAh battery will be sufficient, especially after some time. Another thing is OS updates. One of the things I like about Xiaomi is their support even for older devices. According to an article that I've read a few days ago, they're still updating phones up to 6 years old. On the other hand, almost every time I see a post by Huawei on Facebook, someone is complaining that once they release a new generation of smartphones, they almost immediately stop updating the previous one, and for example, the A536 I had before only received two small updates over the two and a half year I had it, so I don't know if I can trust HTC in this case. As for the rear camera, I found a few photos taken with both devices, and I think I like the pictures shot by RN5 a little bit more. As for the front camera, I honestly don't care about that.

Which one do you think I should buy? 400$ is a little bit more than I first intended to pay, so if you think the U Ultra is not that much better for the extra money, I'd rather go for Redmi Note 5.

Thank you for all advice.

PS: Feel free to unleash the full power of your inner grammar nazis upon me. I'd like to improve my English, so if I made any mistakes I should know about, I'd be happy to if you told me. :)
 
There is one phone which is less known, thats One Plus. You can order it directly from China (From their official webiste) and it should come in a week or two (Depending where you live).

I've unbricked many phones (Oh and by many i mean 10 :p ), yeah sometimes failing. Every phone has "backup" mode and its called Download mode, that should resurrect your phone with proper software and method,
The real way to Recover your phone is look up to XDA Developers, they have basicly everything.
Just make sure that you download RIGHT Rom for your phone as they are variarity between same models (Sometimes).
 

matejdona

Prominent
Oct 22, 2017
11
0
510
I'm guessing that you've meant the OnePlus 3T, right? Not only have I not been able to find a way to buy it directly from their website, but none of the shops in my country is offering it either. Aliexpress is the only website where they're still offering it. The price of 336$ might be really good, however since they'd ship it from a warehouse outside the EU, not only would I have to wait for 17-25 days for it to arrive, but I'd have to pay the tax as well, so in the end it would end up being even more expensive than the HTC. Not to mention that I'd have no warranty in case it broke.