Budget phone recommendations

Samsung A15, bought wife one and it's a good phone around R3500 on Takealot
 
RedViking said:
Definitely the Samsung A series , whatever is in the budget. Definitely not a Xiaomi as they have endless issues. I've bought so many Xiaomi's for myself and family and they all have issues.
Click to expand...

It sucks that Xiaomi is giving so much problems these days.

My Redmi Note 10 Pro is from about 2.5 years is still going strong.
 
I got me a galaxy A15.
Needed a budget phone with some longevity (samsung's android updates) and without the spyware the like of cheaper chinese brands have.

I knew it was coming without a charger, but then i thought I just use one of the current chargers around the house.
To my surprise though the phone comes with type C to type C cable !!

So now i have questions if i can use one of the existing type A to type C chargers?

One Huawei charger that came with P10.
One Cubot charger that came with Cubot phone (some fong kong brand that was really cheap for being IP68 rates phone, and yes it paid off when kids jumped in pool with phone :) )

And then fong kong charger, with usb A to multi USB cable, i use for my Hisense C30 rock, which i still love, as it does all i need to do, IP68 rates, but only Android 7 which only reason i got new phone.

So will it harm the new galaxy A15 in anyway to charge with any of these chargers?
Can i use that multi usb cable to charge the A15 at work via laptop?
Can i plug type C cable into my Probook 450 G7 type C port? I read alot of people saying doing this , the phone charges the laptop :)

Yes i could prob just buy the samsung charger, but jeesh, R500 for the charger when i paid R2800 for the phone seems a ripoff...
 
dalkill said:
I got me a galaxy A15.
Needed a budget phone with some longevity (samsung's android updates) and without the spyware the like of cheaper chinese brands have.

I knew it was coming without a charger, but then i thought I just use one of the current chargers around the house.
To my surprise though the phone comes with type C to type C cable !!

So now i have questions if i can use one of the existing type A to type C chargers?

One Huawei charger that came with P10.
One Cubot charger that came with Cubot phone (some fong kong brand that was really cheap for being IP68 rates phone, and yes it paid off when kids jumped in pool with phone :) )

And then fong kong charger, with usb A to multi USB cable, i use for my Hisense C30 rock, which i still love, as it does all i need to do, IP68 rates, but only Android 7 which only reason i got new phone.

So will it harm the new galaxy A15 in anyway to charge with any of these chargers?
Can i use that multi usb cable to charge the A15 at work via laptop?
Can i plug type C cable into my Probook 450 G7 type C port? I read alot of people saying doing this , the phone charges the laptop :)

Yes i could prob just buy the samsung charger, but jeesh, R500 for the charger when i paid R2800 for the phone seems a ripoff...
Click to expand...
Where did you get the A15 for R2,800?
 
dalkill said:
I got me a galaxy A15.
Needed a budget phone with some longevity (samsung's android updates) and without the spyware the like of cheaper chinese brands have.

I knew it was coming without a charger, but then i thought I just use one of the current chargers around the house.
To my surprise though the phone comes with type C to type C cable !!

So now i have questions if i can use one of the existing type A to type C chargers?

One Huawei charger that came with P10.
One Cubot charger that came with Cubot phone (some fong kong brand that was really cheap for being IP68 rates phone, and yes it paid off when kids jumped in pool with phone :) )

And then fong kong charger, with usb A to multi USB cable, i use for my Hisense C30 rock, which i still love, as it does all i need to do, IP68 rates, but only Android 7 which only reason i got new phone.

So will it harm the new galaxy A15 in anyway to charge with any of these chargers?
Can i use that multi usb cable to charge the A15 at work via laptop?
Can i plug type C cable into my Probook 450 G7 type C port? I read alot of people saying doing this , the phone charges the laptop :)

Yes i could prob just buy the samsung charger, but jeesh, R500 for the charger when i paid R2800 for the phone seems a ripoff...
Click to expand...
All those options will work, just use the one that charges the fastest.
 
takealot had it on special for like R3200 at the time.

Just some feedback i got from Samsung South Africa.

They did not confirm i could use the Huawei charger, because they don't know the specs :cautious:
I mean I can understand them not Ok'ing the fong kong charger, but Huawei is at least a known brand.

They did however OK the use of the usb A to usb C charging with the laptop.

And i also tried the usb C port on my Hp Probook 450 G7. Although the manual does not say port will provide power to device as it does explicity with the usb A port... when i plugged it in, the phone started charging.

TO be safe I'm going to stick to laptop charging to not give them reason to void the warrentee.
 
Last edited:
RedViking said:
Definitely the Samsung A series , whatever is in the budget. Definitely not a Xiaomi as they have endless issues. I've bought so many Xiaomi's for myself and family and they all have issues.
Click to expand...

Insint said:
It sucks that Xiaomi is giving so much problems these days.

My Redmi Note 10 Pro is from about 2.5 years is still going strong.
Click to expand...

In 2 months and 2 days my Redmi 9T will turn 3 ! ; surprised it's lasted this long as this particular model was notorious for the "deadboot" issue.

www.change.org

Sign the Petition

Deadboot issue on Poco M3 and Redmi 9T
www.change.org www.change.org

So far, mine hasn't suffered the same fate.

I'd like to consider another Xiaomi with similar features next time around (3 finger swipe for screenshots ; easy, built-in access to "Cleaner" and "Boost speed" functions), but if the sentiment is now to move to Samsung (with long/er updates, especially security ones) I'll likely go that route instead.

I setup a cheaper Samsung model than the one mentioned above, recently, and it's not as bloated as they apparently were in the past so a more expensive one seems promising once I need to change the Redmi.
 
BCR said:
I setup a cheaper Samsung model than the one mentioned above, recently, and it's not as bloated as they apparently were in the past so a more expensive one seems promising once I need to change the Redmi.
Click to expand...

I was surprised when i setup the A15, that it was a bit more bloated than expected.
Apps like Facebook, Youtube Music, Some gaming hub thing etc... but the biggest red flag for me was the tiktok pre-installed. that app to me is quite dodge.

Why can't the manufacturers not just give phone with basic functionality needed by phone and you install app you need.
 
dalkill said:
I was surprised when i setup the A15, that it was a bit more bloated than expected.
Apps like Facebook, Youtube Music, Some gaming hub thing etc... but the biggest red flag for me was the tiktok pre-installed. that app to me is quite dodge.

Why can't the manufacturers not just give phone with basic functionality needed by phone and you install app you need.
Click to expand...
App developers most likely pay them a small fee to have their apps installed

In the case of a company like Samsung that's a few 100 million per year annually.
For the app developers, an easy way to get exposure.
Win-win, for the companies at least

They figure, if the user doesn't like it he'll simply uninstall.
I'm sure if you had to enquire they'd have some story of how it helps them to keep device costs down.
 
IssiAmd said:
App developers most likely pay them a small fee to have their apps installed

In the case of a company like Samsung that's a few 100 million per year annually.
For the app developers, an easy way to get exposure.
Win-win, for the companies at least

They figure, if the user doesn't like it he'll simply uninstall.
I'm sure if you had to enquire they'd have some story of how it helps them to keep device costs down.
Click to expand...
That's reasonable for the apps which can be deleted. But the ones which can't be deleted are a nuisance. The Universal Android Debloater sort of gets rid of them.
 
As you go higher in the series, do you get less bloat?
My wife has the Samsung A35 and I have a Huawei P30 lite and my phone still blows it out the water in terms of usability. In fact performance wise as well not sure why. Also having a earphone jack is nice. The Huawei also charges faster. Also the Samsung has this annoying fisheye lens effect on by default; from what I can see takes some work to disable it.

Be that as it may, I'm struggling to find something better than the Samsung in the SA market (with local support).
 
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