#yeah it wasn't anything super useful unless you worked in sales lol

[tracfone]

hihihi i’m looking to switch to an android soon but there are so many options it’s so overwhelming, i was wondering if you had any opinions on brands or specific phones,,, idk why i’m asking you this i just feel like u have more Knowledge than me dhdhdj<3

Oof okay so I'm no expert here, but i HAVE had an unreasonable amount of phones throughout my lifetime (please do not be impulsive like my younger self i spent so much money on phones because i was obsessed. Do not be Me okay), so i definitely have Opinions™️. I'll try and help you out--

So really it depends on 1) how much money you're able/willing to spend and 2) what kind of features you care about. Personally i wouldn't recommend any android phone cheaper than $200, because they tend to be slow right out of the box and degrade extremely quickly. I have not had an android thus far that hasn't declined in battery life/speed after a year of owning it, but then again, that was before i had the money and autonomy to get myself anything better than hand-me-downs and free carrier phones. Flagships are also not worth it imo, as they tend to overcharge for specs you can get out of a midrange phone. Midrange really is the way to go, imo

My personal recommendation, though? Get a Motorola phone

This is the one i have right now, the moto g stylus 2021. I've had mostly good experiences with this brand. The battery life is excellent across the board (also they have turbocharging!!), and you get some pretty good specs for the money (mine is 4gb of ram with 128gb of storage. It cost $229 when i purchased it). Mostly i got it for the stylus so i could draw on the go; it's not the most precise (though it is more accurate than those cheap fat rubber tip styluses that you can find at dollar stores), but it does a pretty good job all things considered. My only complaint is the CAMERA....

When i bought this device i thought that the 48 megapixels meant that i would be getting a stellar camera but it....is....not lol.... it's barely better than my first Smartphone in everything but resolution, the colors are so washed out and gross and it's hard to get a non-blurry shot. Genuinely i don't know what happened, because the Motorola droid devices i had years ago had great cameras, but this is awful. I don't know anything about cameras unfortunately so you'll have to look that up yourself. Just watch a few reviews. But if you don't care about photo quality then this is an excellent value

Also, i recommend getting an unlocked phone just in case you want to switch carriers but keep your phone. If you don't care about that though or you're not the one paying the phone bill, mobile carriers very frequently have deals on midrange/cheap phones, especially if you're around your upgrade period (~every 2 years if you're on a carrier contract/leasing your phone from them), so potentially you could get a nice little device for free. One of my droids was a free upgrade from Verizon and that was a very nice phone

On the flipside i actually have a lot to wax poetic about regarding apple, even though this post is not about them....the durability and longevity of their devices are unmatched; you can have a phone from them from 6 years ago with minimal slowdown (though they stop releasing OS updates for old models eventually, but it takes a bit). Even though you can get better specs for your money elsewhere, their products are very optimized--idk how they do it. Camera quality is reliably good too. Also they have facetime which I'm pretty sure is one of the only HIPAA-compliant video apps left, and unfortunately in terms of privacy, you'd be hard-pressed to find better elsewhere......if you get an Android you get much better value but it's Google so y'know. There are downsides to both here

In terms of brands i DON'T recommend?? Samsung. Not worth it for the money for their flagships, and last i heard their operating system is bloated with ads. Like the kindle fire. Gross. Their cameras are pretty good, though

Anyways, i hope that at least answered some of your questions. I kind of got carried away here lol...this used to be my special interest so i have a lot of useless phone data in my brain