Breaking news!

[Chris Hogg]

I think he had a message from his phone company (?Vodaphone?).

Useful, thanks. I'll let him know about the SIM card.

[Max Demian]

Did they actually say they are discontinuing 2G? He may have misunderstood.

It's easy to change phone providers while keeping the same number.

(In that case he should keep his contacts in the phone memory as the new provider will send a new SIM.)

[Robin]

May well have been a message about the end of /3G/ in 2023 which they have announced. End of 2G is later - but for all other than O2 very possibly well before 2033.

[Chris Hogg]

Dunno! I'll ask when I see him next week.

OK. Thanks.

[Chris J Dixon]

My new Fitbit needs Android 10 or above for all its features to be available, which is well beyond the reach of my aged hand-me-down S5.

Looks like I need to go shopping. I really don't need anything special, as it spends at least 95% of its time plugged in and ignored, but don't want to be stuck with something pared down beyond the sweet point of best value.

One of the key needs is that it is good for actual phone calls.

Any specific recommendations?

Chris

[GB]

I have a Motorola G7 Power that's probably 3 years old now. It has Android 10, and works nicely enough for me. I only need to charge it a couple of times a week, which is good. It cost £100. The camera is mediocre, but it seems to be good at the basics like, umm, telephoning people.

If buying now, I might look at 5G.

The cheapest Which Best Buy is the £300+ Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE

If you want a lot cheaper than that, Motorola is probably a good brand to look at.

[Pancho]

I have had Moto G50 for nearly a year. It is 5G it works, when 5G is available, i.e. not that often where I am. Good 5g = 140 Mb/s speed test. Battery is good 5000 mAh. Last all day with GPS sat nav on.

Amazon £214, gone up a bit since last year :-(

[Andy Burns]

Pixel 5a, 5G isn't available yet in any places it'd be useful to me, a couple of miles down the road I managed to get 346Mbps out of it, battery will last 3 days though not with GPS running all the time, if it's in the car it's generally on charge for the android auto USB connection.

[Pancho]

I was put off Google phones after problems with the Nexus 5. The phone was great, the entire family got one. 2-3 years later they all stopped working, one by one, boot loop. It was due to some faulty soldering or component or something. A recognised flaw, but too much effort to do anything about past the 2-year warranty. I expect a bit more than 2 years use from a phone, or if not, I want to have broken it.

[Animal]

5G is a china only thing. And 5G customers there are IRL on 4G in nearly all cases. 5G makes no sense.

£300 and cheapest are pretty far from each other

[SteveW]

Really? We have new masts in the area and 3 is offering a 5G router as a replacement for ADSL/VDSL/Cable/Fibre.

[Andy Burns]

It may be more prevalent in China and USA than UK, but have you not noticed the forest of new 5G masts popping up everywhere?

I suspect anyone who uses mobile data at all, but doesn't go 5G with their next replacement, will regret it during the lifecycle of that phone ...

[Robert]

+1 Used to be the case when VCRs came out and you needed to record a program.

[Robin]

I have neighbours using 5G for their broadband: 80-90 MBps and no problems with buffering on Netflix etc.

[charles]

My iPhone was picking up 5G in Dublin as well as in parts of London.