Which mobile phone should I buy?

Getting on for two years ago I bought a Samsung Galaxy S5 tied to a contract with Three UK (so the phone had all of Three UK’s cruft on, as well as the Samsung TouchWiz). It was one of the flagship phones when I bought it, and it can still hold its own, but as the end of the contract approaches, I am trying to decide which phone to get next. Some of the considerations are…

1. Software upgrades.

   This is one of the most significant ones. Once Google has released a new version of software, it has to be ported to the S5 by Samsung, adding all their bells and whistles, and then Three have to release it for the handset. I check for updates pretty regularly, and the latest for my S5 on Three is Android 5.0. Google may have released 6.0, but I haven’t even got 5.1.

   There have been minor security patches issued, but I’m not confident they cover everything that is in the newer software releases.

   When it comes to an Android phone, this will catch me out with just about anything other than the Google Nexus phones, which providers are best? I’ve heard OnePlus mentioned, and maybe the issue will be much better regardless of the phone provider as long as I get an unlocked.

2. Earphones

   At the start of the year I bought a set of Bose QuietComfort 20 earphones. There are two models, one with a remote control that’s compatible with Android, the other with an iOS compatible control. I bought the iOS-compatible version, expecting at the time that I’d be getting an iPhone next.

   It’s a significant investment, and if that steers me towards an iPhone, then it means buying a 6S, as the rumours are that the 7 will no longer have a 3.5mm headphone jack. The problem with that, of course, is that the 6S is now six months old, and I’d like the phone to last a couple of years.

3. Mail Client

   I hate all mobile mail clients. More to the point, I pretty much hate all mail clients. On my desktop I vacillate between Mac Mail, Outlook and, more often than not, ‘mutt’. I’ve never found a mobile mail client that works well. iOS Mail is the nearest there is, although ‘Nine’ on Android seems to be shaping up quite nicely too. I’ve tried quite a few — BlueMail, Type Mail, Gmail client, Outlook Mobile, the Samsung client on Android, K9.

4. Ecosystem lock-in

   I have an iPhone for work, I use a MacBook Pro daily, and I’ve also got an iPad Air 2 and a Mac Mini at home. I’m therefore very wary about ending up locked in to the Apple ecosystem. My Galaxy S5 keeps me aware of this, and encourages me to use solutions that can work across platforms (Office 365, Evernote, Simplenote, Google Docs, Dropbox).

5. Smart watch

   I don’t have an Apple Watch, I’ve (still) got a first generation Pebble. It works with both Apple and Android, and the battery lasts a week. Next.

6. Price

   I can’t bring myself to pay too much money for a device that realistically doesn’t have a life of much more than two years and is susceptible to being stolen or dropped or subject to some other damage (whilst I haven’t yet cracked a phone screen or had one lost or stolen, I know it will happen some day, especially now that I’ve written this).

At the moment, the candidates are:

I’m sure I can get better prices than these, but this is just from a quick glance on Expansys, Carphone Warehouse, Google Shopping, or the Apple store. I’ve chosen more storage for the iPhone because unlike the other devices, there’s no room for an SD card (although the Nexus 5X also has this failing, there is no option for more storage). If I buy from the Google Store, there is also a £50 discount available on the 5X and a £70 discount on the 6P until 6th May.

It’s making the 6P look rather attractive, but it does have the previous generation of processor (Snapdragon 810 rather than 820), even if the camera is more modern (1.55um pixels, but no OIS).