What 2016 phones are you looking forward too ?

Are we ever going to see phones with removable batteries and SD cards again? I may be keeping my Note 4 for quite a while depending on what comes out next year. Love the note 3 and 4 I've had, but I think I'm going to be ready to jump ship from Samsung if they don't get their act together next year.
 
LG G3 = removable battery + microSD
LG G4 = removable battery + microSD
most every smartphone LG has made in the past 18 months = removable battery + microSD

I can't speak for any other brands in that respect but LG is the last best hope for those two aspects I suppose. Motorola has added a microSD card slot to the 3rd generation Moto G which is very nice, just no removable battery of course.

As for Samsung I doubt they'll backtrack anytime soon, unfortunately, but I'm over their hardware anyway and won't spend my funds on anything they produce ever again more than likely. I'd love to have a G4 as previously noted but that BlackBerry Priv is just too damned nice to pass up. Some people acquired theirs today and are already posting (rather lame) unboxing videos that really don't show off what it's capable of so far, hopefully that'll change over the coming days and weeks.

Yeah, I know the Priv doesn't have a removable battery which is a very important thing to me but it does have a microSD slot so that'll be fine as it is.
 
Seems like most OEMs are bringing back expandable storage now that Samsung has dropped it. HTC, Moto, LG, and Sony all supported SD card storage in their flagships and even mid range phones this year. Which I think is awesome and more important than a removable battery.

I don't care much about having a sealed battery anymore, as it's not really that hard to change the battery in a phone if it starts having issues holding a charge after a year or two. I just replaced the battery in my M8 after it kept dying with 15%-40% reported capacity left, even after several calibration attempts. This phone is allegedly one of the hardest phones to take apart and work on according to iFixit (scoring a 2/10 on repairability), but I just replaced the USB port/board and battery in it in like 30 mins and didn't have any big probs doing it. It went back together fine and you can't tell it was even disassembled. As for the rare times when I'll be away from power for a long time, those battery packs that will charge anything work fine for me. I got one for my wife to use when she goes out on jobs (she's a wedding photographer) and we've only had to use it a few times a year maybe.
 
Rumor: OnePlus 3 in the works with Snapdragon 820 and a 1080p display, alleged renders leak;
http://phandroid.com/2015/12/09/oneplus-3-renders-leak/

According to a popular Weibo leakster, OnePlus is working on a OnePlus 3. It’s slated to have Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 chipset and 1080p resolution, though not many details could be had at this point.

 
iPhone 7. Lag on Android (Samsung) has been annoying. Plus there really isn't anything on android that currently does anything that iOS can't for my personal usage. Could be different for others.
 
Just hoping for some significant performance improvements for SoCs used on the 5in phones.
The s808 is really only incremental, so maybe 2016 brings a bigger jump?

After using (and returning the 6P), I do wish I'd been able to retain the s810, but in a smaller form factor. If I had the s810, but in a 5in phone, I wouldn't be complaining right now.
 
I picked up two cheap Windows and Android phones on Black Friday to test the platforms (knowing the hardware is junk) and am not as displeased as I expected to be, however, iPhone 7 will probably be my purchase. It's pretty difficult to leave behind such an investment into a platform.
 
I think Microsoft will be coming out with a Surface Phone. I'm going to give that a shot if the camera is as good as my current Lumia 1020.
 
iPhone 7... though won't propably buy it, but will see, what will be upgraded in 2017 "s" version, as my contract ends in 2017.
 
0ptional said:
I picked up two cheap Windows and Android phones on Black Friday to test the platforms (knowing the hardware is junk) and am not as displeased as I expected to be, however, iPhone 7 will probably be my purchase. It's pretty difficult to leave behind such an investment into a platform.
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I left iOS after only two years, so that limits my 'investment' so to speak.
I'm curious though how much you've spent (software/hardware) that would make leaving so hard for you?

Some redditors were suggesting I try a Windows phone haha. I dunno - still seems like a super long shot for me to even consider, as I really do rely/enjoy the Google platform. At least with that, Google's apps are actually better on iOS than Android, so switching between the two is not nearly as bad as going cold turkey (Windows phone).

In particular, I was recommended the 950XL - but considering the size, I looked at the 950 non-XL (smaller phone, based on s808). Its performance numbers were not compelling, so can't say I was at all swayed haha.

To follow-up on my previous post though, the 5X's poor write performance is highlighted as part of the s820 review haha. I think as long as that is addressed in the 2016 Nexus phones, then I'm going to just move to that, unless there is something better at the 5-5.2" size.
 
Mav451 said:
Just hoping for some significant performance improvements for SoCs used on the 5in phones.
The s808 is really only incremental, so maybe 2016 brings a bigger jump?

After using (and returning the 6P), I do wish I'd been able to retain the s810, but in a smaller form factor. If I had the s810, but in a 5in phone, I wouldn't be complaining right now.
Click to expand...

Thats the Sony Z5 Compact. 4.6-inch form factor with a SD810.
 
Microsoft Surface Phone. Please lord let them have all 38 uninspired plastic Nokia Lumia's out of the design pipeline by now!
 
Trimlock said:
This is the SoC they should of released instead of the SD810.

Still impressed with the GPU performance.
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Even Qualcomm admits to rushing out with the SD810 with ARM's big.Little design, which they have never liked. So this is old news.
 
CHANG3D said:
Even Qualcomm admits to rushing out with the SD810 with ARM's big.Little design, which they have never liked. So this is old news.
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How are performance numbers less than 24 hrs old, old news? Lol!

No one cares for the excuses behind the SD810 being terrible, fact is they just now got a good product ready to ship, which doesn't blow away the competition (Exynos, which is old now and ready to replace) in cpu performance.
 
The Snapdragon 820 looks like a nice jump, but at the same time... if those benchmarks hold up, it's disappointing in the grand scheme of things.

It used to be that there was a leapfrog between Apple's processors and Qualcomm's: one would generally be faster than the other for half a year, and then they'd switch roles. However, the 820 seems like it'll be catching up to Apple's A9 at best. It seems like the 2016 speed competition will once again boil down to Apple versus Samsung.
 
There honestly isnt much..

My LG G4 is so damn good I the only thing I would like more would be the same thing, but in a thinner lighter & smaller screen version.

The G5 may get some attention from me depending on the overall dimensions & if the camera is much better, but I doubt that it will end up being much of an upgrade considering that I dont ahve a payment on the g4 so it will take a fairly big upg for me to change.
 
Aurelius said:
The Snapdragon 820 looks like a nice jump, but at the same time... if those benchmarks hold up, it's disappointing in the grand scheme of things.

It used to be that there was a leapfrog between Apple's processors and Qualcomm's: one would generally be faster than the other for half a year, and then they'd switch roles. However, the 820 seems like it'll be catching up to Apple's A9 at best. It seems like the 2016 speed competition will once again boil down to Apple versus Samsung.
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I bet QUALCOMM will pull a Intel in this case and release a refresh to the product in record breaking time. The SD820 may have a short life span and we will see an SD825 to meet performance expectations.
 
Trimlock said:
I bet QUALCOMM will pull a Intel in this case and release a refresh to the product in record breaking time. The SD820 may have a short life span and we will see an SD825 to meet performance expectations.
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I suspect it might. This year was pretty rough, but I could see Qualcomm stretching its legs with multiple revisions if it's confident that the 810's design problems have been solved.
 
Surface Phone if it comes out in 2016. Because that thing is going to blow everything else out of the water.
Seems like Microsoft is the only company now trying to innovate. Every other company is just spec rushing. A little bit more processing power, a bit higher resolution, a tiny bit better camera, shit battery and so on.

As for now, getting a Lumia 950 XL in early 2016.
 
Nebell said:
Surface Phone if it comes out in 2016. Because that thing is going to blow everything else out of the water.
Seems like Microsoft is the only company now trying to innovate. Every other company is just spec rushing. A little bit more processing power, a bit higher resolution, a tiny bit better camera, shit battery and so on.

As for now, getting a Lumia 950 XL in early 2016.
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I don't think any Windows phone has the capacity to "blow everything out of the water" at this point. Even if they release the best phone ever made it's not going to sell.
 
How about ANY normal sized flagship around 5" @ 1080p that doesn't suck? The phablet/QHD craze and overheating SD810 ruined 2015 for me.
 
Nebell said:
Surface Phone if it comes out in 2016. Because that thing is going to blow everything else out of the water.
Seems like Microsoft is the only company now trying to innovate. Every other company is just spec rushing. A little bit more processing power, a bit higher resolution, a tiny bit better camera, shit battery and so on.

As for now, getting a Lumia 950 XL in early 2016.
Click to expand...

How would it blow everything else out of the water when you don't even know what it'll be like?

Continuum on the Lumia 950 series is nice in theory... but as reviewers have pointed out, it's not the your-phone-is-the-computer paradise that Microsoft makes it out to be. I don't think putting an Atom chip in there would change much, either, since there would be only so many Windows apps that would run well.

I'm not saying it'll be bad, if it exists (it'd probably have a great design and at least one or two clever tricks), but the "Microsoft wins by default" attitude hasn't passed muster since 2001. It's especially tough to swallow when the company has had a chronic inability to 'get' mobile.
 
Aurelius said:
I suspect it might. This year was pretty rough, but I could see Qualcomm stretching its legs with multiple revisions if it's confident that the 810's design problems have been solved.
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Good news for them, they have a better design instead of that crap big.LITTLE thing ARM cooked up (which is more of a SERVER design than a consumer design).
 
Aurelius said:
How would it blow everything else out of the water when you don't even know what it'll be like?

Continuum on the Lumia 950 series is nice in theory... but as reviewers have pointed out, it's not the your-phone-is-the-computer paradise that Microsoft makes it out to be. I don't think putting an Atom chip in there would change much, either, since there would be only so many Windows apps that would run well.

I'm not saying it'll be bad, if it exists (it'd probably have a great design and at least one or two clever tricks), but the "Microsoft wins by default" attitude hasn't passed muster since 2001. It's especially tough to swallow when the company has had a chronic inability to 'get' mobile.
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Well considering Surface blows every other tablet out of the water, Android and iPad alike, I'd say there's a good chance that Surface Phone will be great since Lumia phones are right there with the competition.
I have been a long time Android fan. But, Windows as a mobile OS is so much nicer. I do prefer the customization of Android, and dislike that there are not many apps on Windows, but it looks and performs so much better.
And Microsoft is allowing developers to make a single app that will work on both Windows for PC/tablet/phone so there will most likely be a lot more apps sooner or later.
Microsoft is slow, but they are on a good path.
 
Too many limitations with toy iOS so it's only good for toying around with misleading synthetic benchmarks. For real world use it can't even render a simple page like the one below without dumbing down to lego blocks.

What it should look like if you use a non-iOS browser
https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/hour-of-code/hour-of-drawing-code/p/challenge-melting-snowman

Redirected to dumbed down lego block version on iOS
https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/hour-of-code/hour-of-code-blocks/p/challenge-waving-snowman

FAQ

https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/hour-of-code/hour-of-code-for-teachers/a/using-hour-of-code-in-your-classroom

Do the tutorials work on an iPad?​

The code editor does not work very well on an iPad
Click to expand...

Android is still the gold standard for mobile but I'm actually looking forward to a Surface Phone with full desktop capability that fits in my pocket. Like someone else mentioned I've been waiting for a Galaxy Note with pen running Windows x64.
 
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Nebell said:
Well considering Surface blows every other tablet out of the water, Android and iPad alike, I'd say there's a good chance that Surface Phone will be great since Lumia phones are right there with the competition.
I have been a long time Android fan. But, Windows as a mobile OS is so much nicer. I do prefer the customization of Android, and dislike that there are not many apps on Windows, but it looks and performs so much better.
And Microsoft is allowing developers to make a single app that will work on both Windows for PC/tablet/phone so there will most likely be a lot more apps sooner or later.
Microsoft is slow, but they are on a good path.
Click to expand...

The Surface tablets are good tablets... if you're most interested in PC functionality above all else. There are catches, however: there are things mobile OS tablets do better (battery life, portability, touch-native apps), and many of the Surface advantages are lost in the translation to smartphones. Desktop-level multitasking and similar processes are useful on a tablet, with a laptop-sized screen and a big battery; they lose a lot of their appeal when you can only really use one app at a time on a small display, and have a much smaller energy pack.

The jury's out on unified apps, I think. I could see some app developers creating mobile Windows versions when they feel there would be little effort to port it from the desktop. My concern is that devs may balk if there's more than a light amount of work involved, or might not bother at all if their service runs well enough on the desktop web. Microsoft's track record at spurring modern UI-based Windows app development on both PCs and phones is, frankly, terrible... I'm not counting on a renaissance merely because you can write those apps for both device types at once.
 
Skipping next gen phones. Waiting for 6.0 from LG so we can get an updated cloudy rom. My LG does everything I need. Will get a fresh battery and nice 32gb or 64gb SD card. I don't play games on my phone minus hearthstone and a few others.
 
Samsung W2016

My favourite phone was the 'rola V3i, the Samsung W2016 is the closest thing I've seen yet.

Just the price is a little high. The V3i wasn't cheap either, was one of the most pricey ones I'd seen on market for a while when I got mine.
 
xIronCrossx said:
iPhone 7. Lag on Android (Samsung) has been annoying. Plus there really isn't anything on android that currently does anything that iOS can't for my personal usage. Could be different for others.
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Hope they tweak iOS a bit more before you get it.. I helped my bro set up his 6S+ he got over BF weekend and it was lagtastic while multitasking. It was like it was running at 15 FPS or something for all the transitions and scrolling in the multitask menu. I'd seen some vids of others on youtube pointing it out as well, but saw in the comments that disabling the transparency effects fixes it, but it didn't on his phone.

Otherwise I don't see any speed/lag difference between iOS or Android at this point. My almost 2 year old M8 was opening/swapping apps just as fast as his 6S+. Same story with my wife's GS6. But yeah, previous Samsung phones without the UFS 2.0 memory were pretty lagtastic as well, I know her GS4 before was.
 
T4rd said:
Hope they tweak iOS a bit more before you get it.. I helped my bro set up his 6S+ he got over BF weekend and it was lagtastic while multitasking. It was like it was running at 15 FPS or something for all the transitions and scrolling in the multitask menu. I'd seen some vids of others on youtube pointing it out as well, but saw in the comments that disabling the transparency effects fixes it, but it didn't on his phone.

Otherwise I don't see any speed/lag difference between iOS or Android at this point. My almost 2 year old M8 was opening/swapping apps just as fast as his 6S+. Same story with my wife's GS6. But yeah, previous Samsung phones without the UFS 2.0 memory were pretty lagtastic as well, I know her GS4 before was.
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Has he updated to iOS 9.2 yet? I haven't heard of any stuttering issues on the 6S/6S+ to start with, but I know 9.2 improved performance on an older iPad Air.
 
Aurelius said:
Has he updated to iOS 9.2 yet? I haven't heard of any stuttering issues on the 6S/6S+ to start with, but I know 9.2 improved performance on an older iPad Air.
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Dunno about now, this was a couple weeks ago on BF weekend. Pretty sure I checked for lastest updates and it was still on 9.1 or something. The vids I saw on it seemed like it was only an issue on the 6S+ though, not the 6S.
 
T4rd said:
Dunno about now, this was a couple weeks ago on BF weekend. Pretty sure I checked for lastest updates and it was still on 9.1 or something. The vids I saw on it seemed like it was only an issue on the 6S+ though, not the 6S.
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Ah -- well, 9.2 only came out a few days ago, so I won't be surprised if that issue is gone by now.
 
I picked up a Note 5 on BF weekend at BB. I cant believe how much I love this phone. Zero complaints. It's fast like an AOSP rom, and has excellent battery life. Hour and a half to full charge is pretty bad ass as well. Nova launcher took care of the 'Wiz.
Ill have this one till this time next year.
 
T4rd said:
Dunno about now, this was a couple weeks ago on BF weekend. Pretty sure I checked for lastest updates and it was still on 9.1 or something. The vids I saw on it seemed like it was only an issue on the 6S+ though, not the 6S.
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Maybe he got a Samsung fabbed A9 SoC instead of TSMC... LOL. Sorry!

As for iOS 10... here's a good article about my wish list:
http://9to5mac.com/2015/12/11/opinion-top-10-android-features-ios-10-should-steal/

But the #1 wish that isn't even on that list is DEFAULT APPS!

Dammit Apple. I hate your Apple Maps.
 
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