I previously made a post about jumping from one OS to another, but from a money standpoint this phone made the most sense. I had the option of either a corporate plan or a new-ish carrier in my area that is based on a well-established network. Due to the specials the new-ish carrier had, I got the phone for free with a data plan equal to my corporate plan instead of paying $300+ for the phone and paying the same amount monthly. Either way would’ve locked me in for two years, but that’s usually when I begin to look at upgrading anyway.
The iPhone XR I was looking at would’ve cost hundreds of dollars more, although a good chunk of that would likely have been recouped due to the better resale values of iPhones. Even that considered, I couldn’t pass up the pricing on this phone.
Initial impressions: nice. The screen is very nice, even after using the Samsung OLED from the S7 Edge. Performance is smooth, but doesn’t mean much when it’s right out of the box. Android Pie is pretty nice, and there are all sorts of little performance differences that really add up to a more satisfying experience (speed/accuracy of fingerprint reader, audio quality from the speaker/headphones, and I do like the Google Assistant button).
Because of the DAC, if you use wired headphones with your phone frequently, I think the G7 is an excellent option (I believe the same hardware is on the ThinQ and One).
The 32GB onboard storage is really small, but I have a 128GB card from my old phone that I moved onto this one. Unfortunately, after the OS upgrade I was forced to format, but it was all TV shows and stuff that I already had on my computer’s hard drive.
Only foreseeable issue is the 3000mah battery, which is pretty small for Android phones. I think Pie is supposed to have better power management, but we shall see over time as the battery degrades.
It’s not the top-tier CPUs and shit that you get in flagships but I don’t think I’d be able to point out the differences without having done all the research beforehand. If this experience goes well I’ll probably just stick with budget phones from now on.