I ruled out most of the phones I had been considering on my previous exhaustive list of phones I might buy, and today I noticed that B&H is now selling the unlocked Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge for $475. Very interesting.
Here’s why I ruled out basically everything I was considering.
ZTE Axon 7: The camera’s just not good enough in low light. I’m a photo nerd and while I do have proper good cameras, I’m craving a good low light camera in my next phone.
Huawei Nexus 6P: It’s the same exact size as the LG V20. I did find a case that made the V20 manageable for me to hold but it didn’t offer much protection of the phone. It has 3 GB of RAM like my Moto X Pure. It’s generally fine, but I’ve experienced 4 GB of RAM on my wife’s Asus Zenpad 3S 10 tablet and it’s nice.
Moto Z Droid: The camera is a downgrade in all areas from my Moto X Pure. It’s probably never going to be updated, it’s SIM-locked to Verizon, and it’s not global compatible.
LG G6: Haven’t completely ruled it out, but it’s not really grabbing me. Even with the extra screen height, it’s a small phone, and it has some of the same annoying things that bugged me about the V20.
I do still like the Google Pixel XL, but the more I looked at refurb warranties the less a refurb appealed to me. With the Pixel 2 being announced on Oct 4, maybe the price on a brand new original Pixel XL will drop, but I kinda doubt the 128 GB will dip below $500. Sure the unlocked S7 Edge only has 32 GB of built-in memory, but unlike the Pixel XL, it has a microSD slot.
The LG V30 and Pixel XL 2 both interest me, but there’s no way in hell the price on either of these is going to be remotely close to $500 anytime soon.