thinking of buying a new (to me) smart phone

[swee'pea99]

£51. Including delivery. Immaculate. Really good phone too.

 

[Dirk]

Not necessarily a great example...

Maybe so. I'm no tech geek but I'm pretty sure most people would get the gist of what I meant.

 

[DCBassman]

Later operating systems take up more processing power. Earlier phones would either not have the ability to run later systems or would be stretched so far as to cause speed/reliability problems.
As an analogy - try running Windows 10 on a PC that previously came with XP installed as standard.

It's a very poor example, I'm afraid. A rooted Note 3 would happily accept and run Android Oreo. I know, because I've done this. This hardware doesn't date anything like old PCs once did, and even they do not date badly any more. I don't have any even remotely modern PCs, and only one oddball laptop won't run Win 10, and only due to odd graphics. Otherwise, it runs well. The rest were all XP or Vista machines (very capable ones, but still...), and there's not the hint of a problem running W10 v1809. The Note 3 on Lollipop is a good phone, period. Even if you can't easily remove the bloat, most of it can be easily disabled in Settings/Apps.

 

[Dirk]

It's a very poor example, I'm afraid.

Maybe so. I'm no tech geek but I'm pretty sure most people would get the gist of what I meant.

 

[DCBassman]

Maybe so. I'm no tech geek but I'm pretty sure most people would get the gist of what I meant.

They would, beyond doubt, but it's no longer as valid as it once was. Hardware is uber powerful these days.

 

[Dirk]

They would, beyond doubt....

Then the analogy served it's purpose.

 

[User6179]

my current phone is gingerbread too... i also only use a couple of apps.. but if it wasn't so old i might use five or six apps.

I think you can upgrade gingerbread to a later version but my phones internal memory is nearly full so I don't want to risk it, I need to delete stuff every few months at the moment as apps stop working, have about 4 gigs of free space on the sim but I cant move the apps that came with the phone.

 

[xzenonuk]

...but i don't really know much about smart phones.

An old workmate is flogging a samsung note 3. It's five years old and on Jellybean. Is this an outdated OS in this day and age?

TIA

if you can get it cheap i would probably go for it, bear in mind you may need a fresh battery for it, my dad had a note 3 and gave it to my mum and now my gran has it, still going good, can't remember if they changed the battery but i think they did.

im running a note 4 which is stuck on marshmallow and it is still snappy, i see no reason to upgrade it.

worth a mention though are nokia phones, they have android ones since their microsoft deal has expired, my mate has a nokia running basically stock android and has the latest version, seems a solid phone plus a lot cheaper than a samsung, if my note 4 breaks im going nokia

i still have a galaxy s3 with original battery and that still works btw although it is stuck on jelly bean and is really slow now

quite a few years ago my note 4 cost about 385 to buy it out right so a note 3 should be a ton cheaper.

samsung support their phones for a year or so then they leave you stuck on what ever firmware, android version they see fit, also they have tons of crappy bloatware and reskinned android.

thats enough from me im drunk lol

 

[biggs682]

Moto G5 user here and I prefer it over my partner's I phone

 

[Jody]

samsung support their phones for a year or so then they leave you stuck on what ever firmware, android version they see fit, also they have tons of crappy bloatware and reskinned android.

Not sure this is right. I fired my Note 4 back up yesterday for the first time in 8 months and it offered me an update. I'll run it again tonight and let you know what upgrade it is offering.

 

[Blue Hills]

Jellybean is probably a bit creaky these days, to be honest. Depends how much you want to spend.

I've got a Wileyfox Swift which cost me about £120 a couple of years back, and have a £5 per month "Goodybag" with GiffGaff who provide a free sim card. This phone is comparable in performance terms to the state of the art Samsung phone my wife has, but at a fraction of the cost and I'm not locked into an expensive monthly contract.

Wileyfox are currently selling their Swift 2 phones for under a hundred notes here, and it comes with Oreo, the latest Android.

I don't know how much your mate is willing to sell you his old Samsung for, but going for a new phone/latest Android may not be that more expensive?

Edit: Oops, sorry. The latest version of Android is Pie, which was launched in Aug this year. Oreo is still 5 years more modern that Jellybean though.

Never heard of those foxy folk but look interesting.

What's the build quality like?

And support guarantee in case you end up with a dud?

 

[Jody]

I'll run it again tonight and let you know what upgrade it is offering.

Who knows what it updated but the note 4 stayed on 6.0.1 so must have been a security update.

 

[DCBassman]

Should already be Marshmallow .

 

[Slioch]

Never heard of those foxy folk but look interesting.

What's the build quality like?

And support guarantee in case you end up with a dud?

The build quality is fine. I've used and abused it for a couple of years now and there have been no problems at all. My only very minor criticism is that the buttons on the side of the phone feel a bit "spongy" rather then a more positive "clicky" if you know what I mean.

I'll dig out the paperwork I got with it later on today and let you know what the warranty period is.

 

[MontyVeda]

if you can get it cheap i would probably go for it, bear in mind you may need a fresh battery for it, my dad had a note 3 and gave it to my mum and now my gran has it, still going good, can't remember if they changed the battery but i think they did.

im running a note 4 which is stuck on marshmallow and it is still snappy, i see no reason to upgrade it.

worth a mention though are nokia phones, they have android ones since their microsoft deal has expired, my mate has a nokia running basically stock android and has the latest version, seems a solid phone plus a lot cheaper than a samsung, if my note 4 breaks im going nokia

i still have a galaxy s3 with original battery and that still works btw although it is stuck on jelly bean and is really slow now

quite a few years ago my note 4 cost about 385 to buy it out right so a note 3 should be a ton cheaper.

samsung support their phones for a year or so then they leave you stuck on what ever firmware, android version they see fit, also they have tons of crappy bloatware and reskinned android.

thats enough from me im drunk lol

I ended up going for it. it looks in mint condition and the price was right.