Alcatel 3v

Moto are as near vanilla as you can get. The TechRadar review of the Alcatel says it has “an ugly Android overlay that combines with the case to make the whole thing a bit Fisher Price”. However I’m no fan of the cheaper Motos either.

I really believe you get a way better phone by upping the budget a bit into the bracket you mention. I’ve had a G4 for a couple of years now and feel no desperate need to change it. The Mrs just got a G5 for £135 from Amazon and loves it. The G6 is probably a bit more than I want to pay but I’ll definitely be looking at the G6 Play when the time comes. My 19 yo daughter has a £165 Sony Xperia XA1 which she loves and the 23mp camera takes some good photos.

I’d go moto every time. It’s what I buy my kids. and The older ones have continued to buy (except The eldest where only apple will do!). I’ve been very pleased with them it was only The 2 and 3 moto Gs that I think went astray. The 1,4and 5 have been great.

Even the Moto Es are very good, (not looked at the last couple of genes mind), but I’ve recommended a couple to a few older peeps that wanted a cheap smart phone, for FB to speak to grandkids. And they have been fine. I also bought the wife a Moto E (second gen iirc had 4g) as a punishment for loosing her sgs5.

Instead of hating it, she finally realised what I’ve been saying for years about stock over touch wiz.

Not that either of us are running stock arm. We are on EMUI which looks horrid, so changed it with Nova and pixel icons. And I’m really loving the alot of the extras they have bolted on top of stock in the menus. Alot of fine controls over alot of aspects of the phone. Being away, they have come in very handy. Reminds me a bit of Cyanogen which I loved.

But get the moto g, save a few bob and get the five if you can’t stretch to a 6. The 5 is good, and the camera is very good for the price. As was the 4 tbh.

If you want to go mad, get a P20 Pro. Or a pixel 2. Or 4 moto g5’s.

I agree that what ever the update policy of Moto their speed of updates is awful. I bought my Moto G4 Play in February 2017, expecting to get the nougat update to 7.1.1 sometime in 2017. About two weeks ago I finally moaned to Moto ‘support’ about the lack of an update and suspecting that perhaps it was the terrible EE signal strength that was affecting things tried a Tesco SIM for a while. Still no joy, then on Sunday last with terrible timing 7.1.1 finally arrived. I doubt that it will make a huge difference to how much I put on the dog, but have to say the 7.1.1 appears to offer some advantages in screen clarity and a very slight improvement in speed of operation, even the EE signal appears slightly improved. So its is still one OS update behind the curve with security updates that hark back to April, but at least this year not last. At least it does not have too much cruft from unwanted unused rubbish. While you can disable so of the muck to clear screens, it still annoys the hell out of me that junkware hangs about to flourish back to life on many phones.

The security settings are what’s important – that’s what ticked me off with Sony ( and EE ) – I’m still on 6.01, although that doesn’t matter too much, but I’m still on the May 2016 security patch, and that does!!

Still looking to upgrade some time soon and the Moto G5 is still favourite atm.

Ed P wrote:

WileyFox are good at updates(recently updated mine to Oreo)

Does not help either myself or my missus, Ed. I have the original Swift and SWMBO has the original Spark. No chance of upgrades for either phone. When either/both phones need replacing, we will not be choosing a Wileyfox.

Yes I still get security patches Steve. Actually I have been very pleased with the WF Swift, as a first smartphone it has been good and I have learned a lot about Google services using it. Our Gert likes her Spark and has only small requirements from it: does not use data, just mainly texts and calls, with photos. We share our Google Photos accounts.

The only concern I have about WF, even after they merged with another company in March and have started up again, is that I wonder if it will crash and burn again.

My 11 yo gdaughter has the latest Swift 2x and loves it, we bought it for her last Chrimbo present. Now she also has a laptop, an 8″ tablet and a gaming desktop (13th birthday) built by her IT engineer big bro, she is in Device Heaven.

That is fair enough and I cannot argue with the logic, but when updates are offered as becoming available before you buy the darned thing it is over promising and under delivering when the updates come along very, very late to the party. I do accept that at £115 my Moto 4G Play phone was a cheap buy, with a possibly limited life of value, though a Nokia for about the same price point lasted closer to ten years. That probably ‘sort of’ set an expectation point in my life, though its need for OS updates was very limited, it just did everything I then needed. Perhaps my expectations moved too far for my own good?

If I paid north of £300 for a phone, I think I would expect a straight jacket and a big yellow van thing with blue lights…?

The 1+3 is an old phone now, I think they are up to 1+6, maybe 5 and 6 is about to drop. So you’re not going to find a 3 new. I think one plus usally sell their current model ad their flag ship, and the previous phone as thier ‘budget’ option, so you’ll be looking at a 4 or maybe 5.

Loved my 1+1, kept mine with cm os, instead of oxygen, after they had thier falling out. But I heard oxygen os is very good. They basically went to stock and ‘borrowed’ a few of cm tricks.