Android

It's time to stop thinking a phone should be premium

Premium phones make little sense, based on what I've seen everyone puts them in cases anyway. "Premium materials" are slippery and "premium thinness" results in insufficient battery capacity so accessories like phone rings get put on them, and people carry around external battery packs.

Why not just make a grippy, practical phone that I can use as a tool, with removable batteries, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and expandable memory?

It's time to stop thinking phones are anything but commodity hardware with variable degrees of shittiness. There are no such things as premium phones, just premium prices.

FINALLY someone gets this. I don't care about the "premium look" whatever that means, I just don't want my phone to break when I accidentally drop it. Which is why I always put a case on my phone

In fact, I'm pretty sure phone manufacturers started putting glass on the back of phones specifically to make them less durable so that customers buy a new phone sooner

It's funny that we buy these metal and glass phones and then protect them with rubber and plastic cases.

New phones are made to show wear so that they lose resale value.

I never thought they couldn't. Glass phones were an absolutely ridiculous idea.

"Glass is glass, and glass breaks" I want a metal back phone. I don't care about wireless charging.

• 8GB ram
• 250 GB memory
• ">6000 mah" battery. Thickness doesn't matter.
• Fast charging
• 120hz display

Can anyone suggest me an Android that has all these?

I find the cheap phones are often the "premium" ones.

Those are the ones with plastic backs, headphone jacks, multiple SIMs, smaller size, lighter weight, good physical fingerprint readers, etc.

Nice to finally see a review stating what I've been thinking ever since the Samsung Galaxy 2 was scorned 13 years ago by reviewers for having a plastic back, and not having the premium feel of the much more fragile iPhone.
Ever since it's like a conspiracy of reviewers hailing the premium feel of metal unibodies or glass backs, despite the clearly lower quality of those materials, while dissing superior plastic bodies that weigh less, has way better shock absorption, is less bulky, and is less slippery and therefore less prone to drop out of pockets or bags.
The main reason it feels more "premium" is the extra weight, which is clearly detrimental to usability.

It's like cheap stuff like cheap loudspeakers, where they have iron bars in them to ad weight, to make the speaker "feel" better. Where a speaker with a stronger (magnet) may actually be better.

But with phones it is 100% people fooling themselves, if they think heavier is better, and fragile glass is somehow better than sturdy quality synthetics.

I've been saying this for years. Use nice textured recycled plastic. The amount of cool textured and nice feeling materials out there is insane.

Gimme a plastic screen too. If someone is concerned about scratches they can add a glass protector. Those people already do anyway. There are even plastics that could be used that would resist scratches incredibly well.

Then my whole phone is flexible and nearly unbreakable.

Phone material stopped mattering the moment camera bumps became a thing. Now, nearly everyone slaps a case to balance out the bump.

That said, I miss my completely mirrored-back Sony Xperia Z5 Premium.

I certainly would prefer a plastic backing than a glass one. Why the fuck does every phone have to be encased entirely in glass? It breaks and it's slippery as fuck, making it more prone to slip out of your hand and break. It's so ubiquitous and universally fucking stupid that I am convinced it's purposely designed so you will drop and break it so you have to pay to fix or replace it.

Every heavy duty aftermarket phone case is mostly plastic and rubberized silicone. Because that shit is 1000 times more durable and shock resistant than glass. Glass's great only for being scratch resistant. There's no reason that every phone couldn't have an otter box-like outer shell built in.

Loved my Nokia Lumia phone back in the day. Plastic body and glass screen. Solid af.

You know what's funny? I dream of a form factor like the Nintendo Switch: fully plastic, even the screen, so I could put a high quality glass screen protector like the one I have on the console. The thing is a tank, surviving many falls without a single damage, and I had to swap the protector once in all these years I have it.

High end plastics are by far the superior material from any usability perspective. I hate glass phones, and the first glass phone I bought of course broke in only 4 months! Where I'd never had a phone break on me before. And any of my older plastic phones would probably barely have noticed the tiny drop that broke my glass back phone.
Now I have an added plastic cover, which is ugly, and makes the phone unnecessarily bigger than if it had a quality plastic body instead of the moronic glass.

I will never buy anything but phones with a plastic back in the future. Problem is that often the only alternative is vegan leather, which is also not as durable and will show wear way before a high end plastic back.

Fuck plastic & the oil industry where it comes from.

nah phones aint premium until the price is lower f*cking phone costs so you dont have to spend half a months salary just to not have it become junk in 3 years and not be a buggy mess at launch premium is not paying an arm and a leg and not having your every move tracked and sold to the highest bidder

It's time to stop deciding what other people should like.

I will die on the hill that metal unibody phones felt the most premium. Especially Huawei had a few that had a super smooth surface that almost felt like glass.

I can't think of anything plastic that I'd consider premium, let alone a phone.

EDIT: Wait, Legos.

Lumia 800 was the most premium feeling phone I’ve ever had. It also felt indestructible.