Do you really need a good phone if you don't play mobile games?

[SoslanVanWieren]

I have a switch and a 3ds so i have no need to play games on my phone.

 

[DarkFlare69]

Yes, I don't play games on my phone and it's very easy to tell a difference between a low end phone and a high end one just by using it. Browsing the internet is better, less freezes, things seem snappier.

 

[SoslanVanWieren]

Yes, I don't play games on my phone and it's very easy to tell a difference between a low end phone and a high end one just by using it. Browsing the internet is better, less freezes, things seem snappier.

Yes but you don't need very good specs for that.

 

[DarkFlare69]

Yes but you don't need very good specs for that.

Yes, you don't need good PC specs either to run PUBG at 1fps. As I said, things seem noticeably quicker on a high end phone than a low end phone and I definitely am glad to have spent the money over using a cheaper one.

 

[SoslanVanWieren]

Yes, you don't need good PC specs either to run PUBG at 1fps. As I said, things seem noticeably quicker on a high end phone than a low end phone and I definitely am glad to have spent the money over using a cheaper one.

Yes but the specs in the phones are to over kill if your not going to be playing games on it even low end phones are enough today for browing

 

[lampdemon]

No. I've been using a hand me down Nexus 5 for a few years now and the browser works fine.

It can handle some 3d games but it gets really hot, but I mainly just play FE Heroes on it.

 

[FAST6191]

There are more things than games which are demanding of computing resources -- video encoding, types of 3d modelling, graphics editing, some types of audio bothering...

You also have the question of does the higher end phone have anything else which might make life better? Hardware able to handle small demand spikes (like might have on the UI, or if you want to have 40 things updating at once) is a start but if I am designing a cheap phone I am probably not going to do a nice speaker and microphone.

Personally I opted for the simpler question of "do I need a phone?" and the answer was no.

 

[SoslanVanWieren]

There are more things than games which are demanding of computing resources -- video encoding, types of 3d modelling, graphics editing, some types of audio bothering...

You also have the question of does the higher end phone have anything else which might make life better? Hardware able to handle small demand spikes (like might have on the UI, or if you want to have 40 things updating at once) is a start but if I am designing a cheap phone I am probably not going to do a nice speaker and microphone.

Personally I opted for the simpler question of "do I need a phone?" and the answer was no.

you'd do video editing and ed modeling and stuff like that on a pc its much easier to do it on a pc.

 

[Dionicio3]

you'd do video editing and ed modeling and stuff like that on a pc its much easier to do it on a pc.

Some people want to quickly edit things on the go where a desktop or even a laptop isn’t an option.

 

[CallmeBerto]

I got an S5 used on ebay for about 120 USD. It does everything I need it to do with no issues.

I only play 2 mobile games and they don't require powerful phones.

Best phone ever no issues.

 

[SoslanVanWieren]

pc and switch is really all you need

 

[Dionicio3]

pc and switch is really all you need

No, that’s not true at all.

 

[FAST6191]

you'd do video editing and ed modeling and stuff like that on a pc its much easier to do it on a pc.

I would but it depends what you do.
If you do stuff out in the field.
Last year some time a guy came round to take measurements of the old house I was in and had a tablet with him to put all the info on site rather than having to go back to the office and recreate it there. Seemed like he had a great workflow boost from that.

Similarly some of the nicer cameras on some phones when paired with the similarly nice, if small, screens with good colour reproduction make for a reasonable editing platform. Even more so if you want to crop, fiddle with the colours, put another side by side, stick some text on and send it off.

Video wise then yeah if I am doing a complex restoration and graphical manipulation I want my PC but for simply cutting up some things, putting a title card in, maybe a subtitle here and there and stitching it all back together a phone can do that just fine.

 

[Edgarska]

Not really, but it depends on what you do. Cheaper phones will have cheaper components in general, so if you don't play phone games but want phone pictures/video that don't look awful, you'd need a decent phone.

With that said, there are many mid-range phones that are fairly powerful and have not-great-but-still-decent cameras.
Regarding a high-end phone doing things faster than a low end phone, it isn't as noticeable today as it was a few years ago, unless you're talking about an absolute bottom of the barrel phone.

Speaking from experience, I have an LG Stylo 2 Plus, it's about as middle of the road as it gets, crappy camera, so-so gpu and cpu, only 2GB of ram, but I couldn't justify the cost of a higher end phone for my personal use. It does have trouble with Sketchfab, but other than that in day to day use it doesn't feel slow.

One thing to keep in mind is that the absolute cheapest phones will usually have a very short life, so I'd still recommend buying at least something from a reputable brand, cheap electronics are expensive in the long run.

 

[SoslanVanWieren]

Not really, but it depends on what you do. Cheaper phones will have cheaper components in general, so if you don't play phone games but want phone pictures/video that don't look awful, you'd need a decent phone.

With that said, there are many mid-range phones that are fairly powerful and have not-great-but-still-decent cameras.
Regarding a high-end phone doing things faster than a low end phone, it isn't as noticeable today as it was a few years ago, unless you're talking about an absolute bottom of the barrel phone.

Speaking from experience, I have an LG Stylo 2 Plus, it's about as middle of the road as it gets, crappy camera, so-so gpu and cpu, only 2GB of ram, but I couldn't justify the cost of a higher end phone for my personal use. It does have trouble with Sketchfab, but other than that in day to day use it doesn't feel slow.

One thing to keep in mind is that the absolute cheapest phones will usually have a very short life, so I'd still recommend buying at least something from a reputable brand, cheap electronics are expensive in the long run.

if you want good looking photos you should buy a stand alone camera.

 

[Edgarska]

if you want good looking photos you should buy a stand alone camera.

Obviously, but not everyone carries their camera everywhere. By that logic you don't need a cellphone, a landline is more reliable.

 

[Arras]

I own and can recommend a Motorola G5. Very nice phone for relatively cheap. I absolutely do not recommend getting a bottom of the barrel "how cheap can I go" phone - I had one of those and it was just horribly slow, felt very unresponsive and in general was a complete pain to use. You obviously don't need to go high end, but going something above the complete garbage phones is a good idea.