GoKunming Forums

Cheap phone advice.

GoK Moderator (5096 posts) • +1

I am thinking of buying a 2Gb Huawei phone for under 1000 new.

I am assuming 2Gb is enough for WeChat, email, and sat nav use. Am I correct?

michael2015 (784 posts) • +1

WECHAT
If you regularly purge videos, pictures, and conversations - 2gb should be fine.

Email
Depends on content and most especially attachments. IMAP will sync with your server - but you can configure that to only show last xx number of days/months, depending on the email client.

@taijijulia was advertising a near new condition phone - might want to check her ad history and maybe be prepared to buy a new battery depending on age.

SATNAV
Depends on if you travel frequently - as maps and locations tend to be stored in a history buffer, for increased access speed. Again - usually purge-able.

Geezer (1953 posts) • +1

In my opinion, no. I had a phone with 16G and kept bumping up against the limit. Latest android versions have a lot of features and crap apps are pre-loaded. I went to 32G internal storage and in two years same problem.

Now I have a Samsung Note 8 with 64G running android 8.0.0. I have moved every app I can to the SD card. I am using 32.3G. It shows what is labeled as "memory" of 6G with 3.5G used.

8.0.0 is pretty good at moving apps and from internal to the SD card. Sure are a lot of pre-installed junk apps that eat up space and can't be completely removed.

My advice: Pay for more internal memory and make sure the SD slot will take at least 64G or SDXC, never less than 32G or SDHC.

Wechat uses 434MB on my phone.

DanTheMan (620 posts) • +3

I think he must mean 2GB memory (RAM) as opposed to storage? WeChat is a bit of a hog on both the memory and storage fronts, but as long as you're not trying to use navigation, wechat, and email at the same time, I reckon you'll be fine. I have a Galaxy S9, still only has 4GB RAM and is very snappy for all sorts of apps.

dolphin (509 posts) • +1

Am I the only one who finds aliennew amusing?

I still have a dumb flip phone. Flip phones are more fun to use as an actual phone.

And nothing beats a laptop. Can you multitask on those phones? I have an iPad and it only lets you run one app at a time. Boring. Long live the laptop!

Sorry for trolling ...

Liumingke1234 (3297 posts) • 0

Smartphones are heaven sent for studying Chinese. Thes flip phones are great if you just want a telephone. Before smartphones I use to carry a phone and an electronic EC/CE dictionary. If you just want to just make phone call then get those phones that the elderly use with the big buttons, they're very cheap priced and the battery lasts for a long time.
A laptop is not as convenient

as a smartphone.

michael2015 (784 posts) • 0

Huawei et al have those brick phones - although they're slim, they look like mini iPads held up to your ear.

Recommend bluetooth or wired earphone/microphone. The phablets (fablets?) eat battery life and are monstrously huge (phablets aka fat tablets) - but have huge screens (about half the size of an iPad mini minus the super high resolution screen, but typically come with dual sim card slots - which also eat batteries.

Personally - I hate and detest voice calls and prefer text or voice messages whenever possible and convenient. Voice calls are intrusive both to one's self and the person/people next to you who are forced to listen to your private conversations (reality mobile phone entertainment?).

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