Is speed top of your smartphone buying priorities?

Although I have an iPhone 5S, processor speed is not my top priority. Functionality, of both hardware and software, is more important. Nevertheless I’m delighted to read Which’s results, particularly after the iPhone 5’s dismal result last time.

Why do you suggest that one has to buy a service contract of £40+ per month for the latest iPhone? I pay only £9 per month to use my iPhone 5S. I think you’re confusing the price of the goods and the price of the service.

You’ve all heard the news?

http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/samsung-galaxy-s4-battery-issues-reported-7683514

Have you all heard this news…

http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/iphone-5s-issues-continue-as-accelerometer-problems-are-reported

Having the fastest is not my highest priority, neither is having the latest. The contract on my Galaxy S2 is about to run out and having looked around I’ve decided to keep it. It’s a perfectly good phone, does all that I require, has Android 4.1.2 which is pretty recent (I’m amused to see articles saying ‘Samsung Galaxy S2 Android 4.2 Update Prospects Look Bleak’). For now I’ll pay £10 per month to GiffGaff instead of the £27 I was paying to T-Mobile, or whatever an S4 would cost me now.
I’ll wait until it becomes unusable or new features which I really need become available. Then I can decide again what to do.
The whole upgrade thing is a gigantic con. How many of us really need the shiny new phone we’re offered as though we are being done a favour?

Any of you read this ?

http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/30/samsung-benchmarks/

Funny when the Samsung was fastest it was OK. Now Apple has taken the top spot …Does it matter !!

some people buy bottled water, other people pay £500+ for a mobile phone, whilst having a computer at home. You can fool all of the people, some of the time, and some of the people, all of the time, but you cant fool all of the people all of the time.

John, I agree with all you say and I’m pleased I’m not the last person in the land to buy one. Which? members are a discerning bunch of consumers and getting their opinions after they have owned a product for a few months would be invaluable. When I buy a product I usually wait a few months before reviewing it to make sure I’m not blinded by the joys of ownership. It sometimes takes a while to suss out the flaws or weaknesses or even the strengths. It may take me a year to figure out how to use all the features of a smartphone. The first hurdle is to buy one and I’m a way from doing that.

im looking to get a new phone for around the £100 mark, I had a nokia lumia 925 and hated it, and give it to my other half . Can anyone recommend anything, Are the Samsung Galaxy Ace any good ?

This obsession with speed may be just the after effect of when speeds were so low it was irritating. History is full of such obsessions however.

During the 1950’s it became the in-thing to have the largest black&white TV screen which 20 years later was tranfered to colour sets, and until around 4 years ago it became the trendy thing to stick a massive great flat TV on ones wall which took up so much room that it really did look naf but also made viewing difficult for a moderately sized room.

It is just another means to keep up with Jones even if one has to sacrifice other more important parameters such as battery life and it looks impressive when travelling by public transport.

I have had my iPhone 5s since just after the it’s launch in September 2013 and CPU speed is really not a big decision factor for me. In fact I don’t really care about that at all. I do care about a responsive user interface for sure, but I’m hardly going to run huge number crunching apps on the phone. I honestly don’t know why people bother running these benchmarks other than for just pure geeky curiosity. Surely the most important is what it is like to use?

If anything is missing – then it’s a good look at security and laying it out in layman’s terms. This is what really sets the 5s apart from both the competition and its predecessors. The security in the 5s is truly phenomenal and best of all, it’s transparent to the user.

You have to be careful what you buy. Which? gives Currys as cheapest for the i phone 5s. Carphonewarehouse gives the same price, but they have common ownership. However the latter says that the so called sim free version will lock on to the first sim card used (which Currys also say), and that it will not work with foreign sims. Either alone would make it useless to me.

I don’t call that sim free!

I wrote to the Currys / Carphone warehouse help line. A week later they replied that they wanted to speak to me, but had not been able to do so. They provided a manufacturer’s telephone number to resolve my problem. In the meantime I spoke to their help line, and was assured that both blocks could be removed in branch, but could not give the cost.
So I went to the Rhyl branch (Currys with an instore Carphonewarehouse section) and the charming young man said it could not be done. I left. That evening I looked up the John Lewis website, where it was the same price. The narrative made it clear that a foreign sim card could be used, and that different UK sim cards could be used. I now have a satisfied wife.
She has mentioned that she finds the key board a little small, but that is offset by a more convenient size.
I could have been returning the thing had I not read the website of both Currys and Carphonewarehouse thoroughly.

The logic behind the restriction baffles me.