Monday, July 20, 2015

Chai Time: Jumping Ship to Sony-Phil Monnier

After a tumultuous two year relationship with my Moto X 2013, it is time to consider a new phone. This time, I’m not considering Motorola for my daily driver (it’s not you Moto, it’s my carrier. Sorry). That’s right, I’m jumping ships. Or  considering the phone I have in mind, I’m jumping to a submarine. The phone which will have the honor of becoming my next device will be waterproof. The honor is awarded to the Sony M4 Aqua. First of all, you may be wondering: why a “mid range” device, instead of a flagship? There’s a one word answer: budget. It is extremely more affordable than the Z3 or Z3 compact (which I had lusted upon for a long time, until I found out its cost). In addition, bear in mind that the M4 has a 64 bit processor, 2GB of ram and expandable storage. That’s not shabby at all, plus I’m finally having my music collection (20+GB) on a portable device. Being there so many worthy competitors, why did I pick this? Let’s take a look.

Sony Xperia M4 Aqua/CNET


Samsung Logo/Samsung


Why not a Samsung device? Firstly forget about the S6 phones. Too expensive for my budget. I am not a fan of the curved edge, in my opinion it would cause discomfort in my hand. The normal version, although it is quite pretty, is quite pricy. Then why not an E phone? Even though Samsung toned down Touchwiz, I still find it unappealing and unnecessary.
Telcel Moto G/Cellular Actual


Motorola is totally out of the question. If you read our previous article of owning a Moto X in Mexico you’ll understand. These days I don’t understand the relationship between Telcel (Mexico’s biggest phone carrier) and Moto. They apparently broke relationships, yet you can still find the X2014  in certain stores. I wouldn’t mind going for it, but there is a point to Sony’s advantage. After about a year of Lollipop, I’m still running KitKat. Be it my carrier’s fault or Moto’s, I don’t care. The M4 ships with Lollipop out of the box, and other Sony devices which formerly ran KitKat (Z Ultra and Z2  among them) have been updated to Lollipop. It seems that Sony manages to update devices even with this ridiculous carrier. Sony wins this match.

HTC Logo/HTC


Yeah, not even in your wildest dreams. The customer service (in Mexico, at least) is a terrible, terrible joke. My father once bought an HTC One X a few years ago. The phone was brilliant, until one afternoon while using maps it crashed. It then entered a bootloop. I managed to fix it for him, yet he managed to crash it again while using maps (something I told him not to do) and went into bootloop again. My father’s stubbornness isn’t the point. The point is that, we had the phone switched 3 times. Once to another phone that crashed in the same manner. The second time, it was to a phone which was another carrier’s model and was packed with it’s bloatware. The third and final time, it was for a phone with a scratched camera. We gave up, and that is when he purchased the Sony Xperia Ultra (Sony phone, no surprise).

There are many other brands, such as Huawei and LG. I am not trusting my new device to either of those brands, or other newer chinese brands because of their lack of presence in my country. Those are the three main contestants when it comes to my opinion. Sony manages to stand out by packing bloatware which does not intrude with your experience, a beautiful design, quick updates with my carrier of choice and a good customer service which has a strong presence locally (plenty of Sony Stores). Sony offers the complete package of my desires. 

Considering a Sony product yourself? Let us know which one on Twitter @masala_tech, and remember to keep things spicy! 

By Phil Monnier