Because I am such a smart a## who believes I can see the future. I sold my samsung note 9 for an upgrade. And when I did that I was pretty sure i will get oneplus 8 pro this time as I have had enough of that crappy Exynos we get in India on samsung flagships.
But….because of my smart ass and these frigging irritating flash sales, even after trying twice I could not buy the oneplus 8 pro yet. And now the ongoing display issues being listed all over the web, I just might skip it.
So all this, while I have been using my backup phone, which is more like my google, maps phone on the bike as my primary phone right now. And such a shocker this phone has turned out to be that I have lost almost 80% of my hair.
Technology has grown quite fast and we are seeing excellent performance processors on both budget and super-budget phones these days. Especially on those lower mid-segment priced devices. There are 2 phones in question here which are crucial to mention as this is how I will prove my point. As I just love proving my point.
There is, and I swear I am gonna speak its full name only this once – asus zenfone max pro m1 which was launched back in May of 2018. And, remember moto? Its moto z play which was launched back in September of 2016. Both had good processors on it. But of course the one on asus was newer and should be faster. It runs a snapdragon 636 on it as compared to snapdragon 625 which is on the moto.
So yeah, theoretically the snapdragon 636 phone should perform better. And as also both these phones now run almost stock android layout, they should also feel the same in daily tasks. The asus phone was updated recently to android 10 and I believe that alone should be enough to appreciate asus for its crazy support even to this budget phone.
Apart from differences in cameras, built quality, and other nitty gritty features, the newer phone should perform better as both the phones almost run stock uis on them.The asus phone was launched at somewhere around 12000 indian rupees, or 160 us dollars but then it faced several price drops. And the moto z play back in its time was around 25000 indian rupees or 350 us dollars.
Now I don’t know what kind of components were used in these phones as I am not a disassembly engineer like jerryrig but here are my observations. The asus phone has failed miserably. Now if I list the all the problems here you would wonder how such a phone can even exist in the market. The phone has tested my patience even when it was sparsely used so I am not sure wtf is happening.
Not only does it keep dropping wifi on it at random spots in the house, which never ever happened on my note 9 or happened on the moto z play on the same wifi bandwidth, but I have also seen terrible network reception on the phone during my phone calls. On wifi calling, people on the other end just cant hear me even if I am standing close to my wifi router. Which is frigging strange. I mean WHY WHY WHY is this happening?
Also, with or without wifi calling, if I just put it in my pocket, the other person can’t hear me. Whatsapp call etc are fine, but even reconnecting the wifi takes some good 15-20 seconds too. And bluetooth connectivity again takes its own sweet time.
The apps, sometimes take a lot of time to load. Like a lot, I am not even comparing it to moto z play right now but just generalising how fast or slow the asus phone actually feels. I mean is the snapdragon 636 on the asus really underperforming this bad even when its running on the stock ui OR its just that these updates were never optimized well enough but just passed on to us maybe. I do wanna mention that I had done a complete hardware reset after the android 10 update, so those little bit of tiny bugs here and there couldn’t be the reason too.
I can also talk about some of the good things like the battery is just frigging amazing. And few more things, but that wasn’t the point of this video. The good things die under wraps when you just cant simply talk to the person at the other end on the phone.
So a mid segment device which has been used like crazy is still holding strong and well with an older android version on it. So this clearly states how well optimized moto z play was when it comes to having kind of quality components it had inside of it.
On the other hand, this sparsely used, better running processor, and the latest android UI running phone has just shocked me how terrible your experience could be with a super budget phone in the long run. I am not saying all of the Asus phones would be bad or all of the moto phones will be good, but these phones, in particular, has thrown light on few things which I expected every manufacturer to take care of from day 1.
And yes I could have rooted the phone and put a better, faster rom on it. But that was not the point. The official updates SHOULD have stable connectivity on the phone right? So make sure before you buy your next phone, you follow those reviews which do state how the basic features like, network connectivity, calling etc are on it before you invest in something with a higher refresh rate which just kills the basic function of the phone if the modem inside of it is crap.
So let me know what you guys think? Also share some of the super-budget phones you have been using for some time now and how they have been fairing in the long run.
That’s all for today. Stay safe peeps. MuBot out.