There's a weird no man's land in the middle of the smart phone market.
People who are really into the latest tech seem to be more than happy to shell out a thousand bucks or more for the next generation of high end handsets. Either that, or if you're on a really big plan, your telco might upgrade you automatically.
At the other end of the price range, there are phones posing as smart phones, but they're not really smart at all, usually under powered, running on outdated software with terrible battery life and virtually no storage.
My mum has one of these. She thinks it's a rocket ship. But then, her last phone was a tin can and a piece of string.
The good news is, you can find a middle ground, if you're prepared to make a few compromises...
The first thing I noticed when I picked up the Huawei P8 Lite was how easy it is to pick up. While the spec sheet would suggest it's actually only a few grams lighter than its high-end cousin, the P8, I swear the difference is totally noticeable. This may also be due to the plastic back cover as opposed to the metal one on the P8. Yes, the P8 feels more solid, but the P8 Lite is... well... light. Initially, that was one of the few differences I could detect.
When I reviewed the P8 a few weeks back, I was impressed enough to suggest it was a serious contender to the likes of the top-end Samsung, Apple and LG phones. Likewise, the P8 Lite has many things to commend it to buyers in the sub $400 category.
Firstly, it's a really sharp looking phone. In fact, it's almost identical to the P8 with the same minimalist design; very slim with the same rear-facing camera situated flush in one corner.
That 13MP rear camera is an excellent camera for a phone in this price bracket, although the forward-facing camera is a significant step down. Not a problem for me as I have said before, the lower resolution my selfies are, the better. For everyone.
Another important bonus the P8 Lite features is storage space. Unlike the paltry 8gb of on-board storage you get with some other handsets in this price range, the P8 Lite boasts a healthy 16gb, with a slot for microSD expansion. That's good news with the latest Lollipop OS taking up a fair chunk of space all on its own, before you even start adding apps, music and videos.
Speaking of video, the display is only HD, not Full HD, but given the screen is a little smaller than what I'm used to, you really only notice the difference in a side-by-side comparison. However, that screen is indeed only 5 inches and given many phones start at 5.2 these days, I felt a little squeezed. Widgets I normally use to control music and podcasts become quite fiddly to access on a screen that size. Funny how quickly we get used to new tech; it's not so long ago a 5 inch screen was considered massive and a bit show-offy.
Given the step down in processing power, I was worried about the P8 Lite's ability to stream video and audio. Would it maintain a steady bluetooth connection? Was Chromecasting content to other devices still an option? I was pleasantly surprised to discover the connectivity in all these situations was very stable, although video files from other sources did take a while to get going sometimes.
There's no NFC function on the P8 Lite for file-sharing between devices, but I almost never use this feature anyway. I'm beginning to wonder if it's one of those things engineers thought would be a good idea at the time but never really caught on.
By now I know what you're all dying to find out; how did the P8 Lite perform playing Minion Rush? To be honest, not the best. The lower-spec screen just didn't feel as responsive to my lightning fast reflexes. The handset wasn't very sensitive to tilting controls and worst of all, the game actually glitched on the odd occasion, usually resulting in dire consequences for my minion. Either that, or I've finally reached a level of the game that's simply too difficult for me. Either way, if you've come to love playing HD games on your phone, you'll probably need to choose something with a bit more grunt.
That's really the biggest criticism I have of the P8 Lite; its basic lack of power. If you're only planning on doing one thing at a time, it's more than up to the task - multi-tasking though? Not so much.
I also stumbled across a wee issue with the P8 Lite's attention span. For some reason it was happy to run my fitness app for an hour when I was wearing it in an armband on my run, but if I left it in my bag at the gym it would give up recording my Body Attack class about 15 minutes in. No idea why. I mean, I can relate to wanting to give up and go home 15 minutes into a workout... but I usually don't.
Battery life is not really an issue, either negatively or positively. The Lite has a smaller battery than the P8, but it's not driving as much display or processing so a charge lasts about as long, generally long enough for a day's use which is pretty standard. I felt like it was slow to charge, but maybe that was just my frustration at being forced to deal with yet another handset without the option to charge wirelessly. I thought we were supposed to be living in the future!
My pet power peeve aside, the P8 Lite is an elegant-looking phone with plenty of functionality for the money. It's an option well worth considering if you can't justify the spend on the latest high-end features you might never use.
Click here for more information on the Huawei P8 Lite
PART II OF A 2 PART STORY...
We all knew his little brother of course, the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. Made quite a splash when he arrived on the scene earlier in the year.
No-one had ever met a phone quite like him; all smooth lines and curved edges. Some said he was the best looking phone they'd ever seen. The others, well they were thinking it.
This was something new though. Something exciting. Something... dangerous.
Who could have guessed his brother would be bigger?
Now they're lining up to take on the Galaxy S6 Edge+ from Samsung.
Edge+ was everything his little brother was and so much more. Slim like the S6 Edge, but taller, broader. So much more screen (5.7 inches in fact) but all perfectly in proportion and wrapped sensuously around the sides the way only the Samsung family knows how to.
And he wasn't just a pretty face. Sure, he had his brother's looks but he certainly had his sister's functionality to boot. I told you about her amazing host of talents last week. Well short of making an S Pen appear from nowhere, the Edge+ could do pretty much everything the Note 5 could do, just looking so damn hot the whole time he's doing it.
It wasn't long before all the other phones were feeling pretty jealous, if not positively flat. Literally flat. Their screens were all flat while his was curvy. Curvy is always more sexy than flat. Curvy doesn't just look sexy. Curvy feels sexy.
Just like the Note 5, the camera on the Edge+ is Samsung's best yet, so easy to use, starting instantly with a double tap of the home key. The HDR setting produced some of the best low-light photography I'd ever seen from a phone.
After a few hours, the other handsets began to wonder if there was anything wrong with the Edge+ at all. Surely all that processing power and the massive screen would suck up the battery. It must only be a matter of minutes before he'd run out of steam.
But no. The Edge+ had stamina. He had no problem lasting the day and into the night, no matter how many levels of Minion Rush I subjected him to.
What's more, he was the fastest charging phone anyone had ever seen and like all those Samsung guys these days, he could charge wirelessly and still top up his battery super quick.
Suddenly I was struck by a terrible realisation... this phone was too good for me. I wasn't stylish enough to hang around with the Edge+! What's more, my fat, clumsy fingers were starting to cause trouble.
The first problems surfaced when I was watching video. Nothing wrong with the quality of the play-back or the streaming capabilities, that was all outstanding. However, because the display reached all the way to the very edge of the handset and beyond, I kept pushing the on-screen progress bar instead of the play/pause button, accidentally fast-forwarding or rewinding my video by minutes at a time.
Meanwhile the Edge+ humoured me by letting me play out my Minion Rush obsessions repeatedly, but there were many times I lost lives simply because my clumsy club-hands couldn't quite grasp the phone without oozing onto the screen, causing my minion to run in the wrong direction.
That's the problem when you have a handset that's basically all screen, you simply can't keep your hands off it. Oh, I wanted the Edge+ to be my best bud, but I had to face facts; I was holding him back.
The Edge+ deserved someone better than me. Someone worthy of a 5 megapixel selfie. Nobody wants to see an ugly mug like mine in that high a definition.
So I let him go. I gave him his freedom. He was born to run with the cool crowd. A high performance sports car of a phone like that was never meant to live in a hatch-back, Corolla world like mine.
The other phones were glad to see him go. He made them feel second best, obsolete. To be honest, the Edge+ made me feel a little obsolete myself.
If only you could upgrade humans the way you can with technology. I could trade up to some 2015 hands with more nimble fingers and a gentler touch.
Then I'd be worthy of a phone as classy as the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+.
Silly name of course. Far too long.
Click here for more information on the Samsung GS6 Edge+
PART I OF A 2 PART STORY...
I thought we were happy, the 3 of us. Me, my trust Galaxy S5 and my Gear 2 Neo smart watch. Together we were connected, you know? In sync.
We all just had so much in common; the same fitness regime, moved in the same social media circles. Played the same music. We even kept to the same schedule.
We were good together. Really good.
Then the new girl came to town and everything changed.
Now I wish I'd never met the Galaxy Note 5 from Samsung.
Oh, we all wanted to connect with her at first, she was irresistible. So slim and yet plenty of size in all the right places, if you know what I mean. (Before you really get the wrong idea, I'm talking about a massive 5.7 inch display that just won't quit... well, not before it gets to the very edge of the handset, anyway)
And the things the she could do! The hidden S Pen in the same beautiful gold finish as the phone, making handwritten notes so easy. I was saving notes as appointments, converting them into text, making lists. I didn't even need to turn her on to use the S Pen - the Note 5 was good to go the moment you popped the pen out. (That's not a euphemism. You literally pop the S Pen out)
It wasn't just notes I was taking with that S Pen either - like the Note 4 I could use the pen to highlight both text and pictures, or parts of pictures. Only now, thanks to the Note 5, I could even scroll through multiple pages from websites and paste them into my own documents and emails.
The Note 5 did everything I wanted. Clear photos in low light? Not a problem. Live broadcast video to Youtube? A cinch.
Perhaps the most alluring thing about the Note 5 was her ability to last all day long... on one charge. I'd never encountered battery life like it. In spite of her large screen and powerful processing speed, she was slow to drain yet quick to charge.
"At long last!" I thought, "Finally a phone who really understands me. Real, quick, dependable wireless charging. It's a miracle." While everybody else glazes over whenever I bring up my favourite subject, the Note 5 just said, "Sure. I'll do wireless charging. And I'll do it faster than ever before."
Just like that, I was lost. This was the phone I'd been waiting for. Oh, sure she was a bit longer than my S5, but not much wider. Besides, who wants to hide something so beautiful away in their pocket? I wanted everyone to see me with the Note 5. I wanted to show her off.
Ah, the times we had. The levels of Minion Rush we completed together. But nothing this good can last forever and sadly, all review periods must come to an end.
Like a refugee camped outside a Budapest railway station, I had to send her back where she came from. Parting wasn't sweet and there was a fair amount of sorrow.
So I returned to my S5 with my tail between my legs and everything seemed fine... at first. It wasn't until I tried to pair my Gear 2 Neo smart watch back with the S5 I realised everything had changed. Initially I thought I was imagining it - bluetooth devices don't always get along straight away; sometimes you have to switch off a few times before you can really get their attention.
No, it wasn't till I went running I realised how much my watch really wanted the Note 5 back. It simply refused to talk to my fitness app and that was that.
I have to admit, I know how it feels. Sure the Note 5 had her faults, but not many. For example, I couldn't touch her without smearing her surface with greasy fingerprints, but that might have been more my problem than hers. Yet again, Samsung had released a phone without landscape functionality on its home screen but now I'm just searching for small little niggles to ease my pain.
I miss her. I miss her real bad. Maybe with time I'll get over her. But I'll never forget those few glorious days with the Galaxy Note 5.
And neither will my watch.
Click here for more information on the Samsung Galaxy Note 5
