Great priced phone for those that don't need the latest and greatest, from a bricks and mortar in the case of a warranty issue. Only 16gb but has a micro SD slot for expansion. Perfect phone to get your not overly tech savvy parents.
Yep, I class them as
those that don't need the latest and greatest.
Or if you want to stick to the Motorola family, there is a Moto Z ( black, local stock ) going for $559.20 C&C
with 20% off @ ebay The Good Guys.
@ozhunter68: My comment was more a complaint about the ludicrous prices Flagships go for, with not a whole lot of benefit for average users compared to this phone.
Yep, get that. Could not agree more. The only time I have purchased and used a "Flagship Smartphone" was when I snared a couple of LG G2's for $132 each ( one for me and mum ) when the old Dick Smith was closing down. Although nice to use with good camera etc. ( the best user experience for me at that time ), the lack of B28 & B5 really limited my use where I live.
Went back to using cheaper prepaid phones unlocked ( such as Huawei Y7 elite & Sony XA ) with full band support as for my use ( 3G/4G internet hotspot ) they work well enough.
Have splurged recently on a mid range Moto G5+ for the dual sim 3G/4G function and for my use feels like as good as it get's and super happy as if I purchased a flagship. I'm sure the G5 is also a nicer user experience if you don't need/want larger screen and extra features.
@ozhunter68: Sounds like you are of a very similar mindset to me!
I am currently on a Moto G3, and can't see anything on a flagship that would benefit me substantially.
I don't want a bigger screen, because I want to carry it in my pocket, and don't watch videos on it.
A faster chip is going to boost app opening by what, half a second maybe? My camera is good enough at this point.
Fingerprint reader and NFC would be nice, but for an extra $500, I'll pass.
And don't get me started on the (perhaps now thankfully reversing) trend of getting rid of the Micro SD slot!
If anything there's been an increasing trend in Micro SD cards for quite some time now, often as a dual SIM-SD second slot.
If you go to gsmarena's phone database and filter Android phones released in the last year with SD Cards, it's well over 90% of them iirc. I was surprised.
I have this phone and love tech. It is fast (never had a lagging app), battery lasts all day with high use, browsing internet is quick and easy, screen looks great, slim and light so never noticed in pocket and takes decent photos (not so much at night). Highly recommend for someone that just needs a phone for simple stuff.
Wow. I bought my G3 for just less than $500 several years ago. Still using it to this day. I'd imagine the G5 would be leaps and bound ahead of my aging G3. Awesome deal.
Oops. Just realised this was Moto G5, not LG G5. Awks.
If its like the Nokia 5 with the same processor, can be pretty underwhelming. Not the worst experience but sometimes it can get annoying.
What the Nokia overlay like, is it minimalist like on the moto or is it a bit more bloatware-ish.
Completely stock, just they have own colour of icons, all of them blue, but I put on a different launcher. Its ok for day to day use, but coming from a flagship, its just slow enough to be annoying. But they have been pretty quick with the updates, im on September atm.
If your in the app its fine and fast etc. It's only when multitasking and swapping between apps is when it shows its weakness of CPU.
I'm waiting for the 2018 or 2019 Nokia 5.
I just can't live with a Snapdragon 430.
Now that is patience if you can wait till 2019 for new model Nokia 5 to come out lol.
Pretty sure you won't need to wait that long, maybe releasing new slightly updated CPU/Ram models early to mid next year. Lot's of similar phones at that price point around, although I was also tempted to grab one cheap for the dual 3G/4G sim function and nice quality build. The only thing stopping me was weakish performance of the SD 430.
Agree, well built phone for the price if you can snare one on sale below $250 ( grey import most likely ).
Nearly pulled the trigger on one on ebay with dicount voucher for around $220 delivered but now went for another Moto G5+ from ebay Good Guys yesterday to upgrade my mums LG G2 after I am really happy with mine ( makes tech support over phone for older non tech people much easier when both have same phone on same O/S kind of true lol ).
Keeping my eye on the Nokia 6 when they are selling for low price.
Great price and looks a good spec for the price - wish it had NFC.
Anyone recommend a NFC phone sub $300?
There have been a few deals for the Sony Xperia XA recently, can be had for $99 + $25 or $50 unlocking fee (or sometimes no unlocking fee as some have discovered).
Few complaints about battery life in reviews but other than that it seems decent for a budget phone if your expectations about the display / camera are reasonable.
Good summary Nomadesque. Still on sale for $129 @ Coles this week if you can find stock, maybe ask for rain-check to lock in price.
Can also find a Moto G5+ for $299 or possibly less if lucky.
I actually bought the XA yesterday, $129 coles deal, and use it a little bit each day (not as my main phone, just needed a cheap phone with NFC for development).
Now I usually like Sony phones, I have an XZ Premium as my main phone and my last 2 phones were Sony. I've always been surprised to see people say that Sony phones are bloated. The XZ Premium and my last xperia had almost not bloat-ware (just spotify, which I use).
But the XA is:
- Loaded with bloatware
- Slow (android update installations, browsing heavy websites, etc)
- Hot! It gets quite warm
I did some research and it seems the Mediatek processor (not Qualcom) is inefficient.
I would not recommend the Xperia XA. If you don't need an NFC chip, get the G5 instead. It's got a very lean interface and it's quite snappy.
The 32gb Moto G5 Plus is available from Shopmonk for only $277. It's a grey import from Singapore, but has all the Aus bands & NFC, etc. Bought one for the wife a month ago & it arrived around 10-14 days later.
Ordered one myself 10 days ago & it still says processing & they won't reply to my emails!
Argh: I just checked while writing this & there are no Moto phones listed anymore -reckon they're out of stock or something. Might have to do a PayPal refund soon.
Can't recommend Shopmonk - they are useless at communicating & would hate to have to deal with warranty via them.
Yep I have had a few 2-3 month later failures with electronics recently and decided anything over a few hundred dollars I will try to get a deal that has the return capability from a bricks and mortar store (unless the deal is too good to pass). Lease with a phone it is small and light and postage is low to return as long as the seller offers good communications and warranty.
I think the G5 Plus looks the best bang for buck with NFC. Shame the GG ebay deal is out of stock - I wonder if they will restock before the 20% off finishes - I doubt it..
Is this phone unlocked>?
Yes and it also has all the bands including band 28.
This is a top phone in almost all respects, however the dual SIM functionality is almost useless. I recently had a 2nd OVO SIM (the $1 Supercheap Auto deal) with unused data that I wanted to use up alongside my normal ALDI sim. However the G5 refuses to allow calls to my Aldi SIM when I activate the OVO in the 2nd slot (Note this is a documented issue with the G5 eg https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Moto-G5-Moto-G5-Plus/Moto-G5-G5…). So I have to go into settings and swap over depending on which SIM I want to use, meaning people can't call me when I'm on the internet on my mobile. My friend has the G5 plus and his handles dual SIM properly, so if that feature is important then the extra few $ for the G5 plus is worth it.
Thanks bought one for my Dad, good price.
Great phone, very easy to use, bought some for my parents last time.
Don't make the mistake I did, setup Android Pay and teach them how to use it in a shop, only to find that nothing happens when they tap it on the card reader because there's no NFC chip lol.
Good to know, thanks
9.5mm thick and snapdragon 430… no thanks, not even at this price point.
What do you recommend at this price then?
The Sony Xperia xa mentioned above
Great bezel, but full of bloat and a few reviews suggest screen is not that great. I'll check it out in person next time.
@Mr Unreliable: screen looks fine to me and I am coming from a z5. Sony isn't typically known for a lot of bloat but yeah there is some.
@Mr Unreliable: I bought one yesterday. Full of bloat, gets very hot, very slow.
The screen is excellent though (albeit 720p resolution)
@idonotknowwhy: Have you updated to Nougat yet? I have to say that for the 99 bucks I got the phone for, I'm impressed. It beats the Motorola in a number of areas including having NFC, form factor/size, front cam is 8Mp (if that matters to you), more bands, and you can almost buy two for the price of the motorola (albeit locked). Also you might find that it runs faster if not due to the higher clocked processor, because it's not as loaded with the lower res screen (although not sure how the Mali stacks up to the Adreno).
Maybe apart from upgrading the software you can root and remove some of the bloat?
For the benefit of others who want to compare: https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=7950&idPhone2…
@Jackson: yeah, I've upgraded, it's still slow. For my purposes it's perfect. Not going to root because I lose android pay if I do that. Hard to complain for $99 but imo, the Motorola is better overall (if you exclude price as a factor)
I thought Tuesday was the last day for the Xperia deal at Coles.
Xiaomi mi a1 I reckon
Can you get it for sub $200? Prices I have seen are like 50% more, much better specs though apart from no band 28
Does it have band 28? Do I even need band 28. On Optus work in city live in north shore.
Note 4x https://shopmonk.com.au/xiaomi-redmi-note-4x?storage=4072&co…
Hmm looks like they only stock the helio CPU version now. The one I bought recently from shopmonk was the snapdragon 625 still a brilliant CPU just no custom ROMs.
It's alright you can keep paying for flagships, someone needs to fund the R&D for the rest of us, thanks.
Haha yas!
Or for those who can't justify the cost of phones that offer little more for the average user…