The Galaxy S22 Ultra was my primary device since its launch earlier in the year. That is until I decided to buy the iPhone 13 Pro Max in July. One of my primary concerns with the Samsung flagship was its battery life. When I was using all its features — high refresh rate, maxed-out screen resolution, and more — it simply didn’t last as long as I needed it to.
I needed a phone to last me an entire day without battery anxiety, so I went with the iPhone 13 Pro Max. While my experience has been positive overall, there are a few things I miss deeply from the
The
While I was using the
It’s not just about architecture photography. I went to a late-night concert at a bar. I was standing in row three or four. Still, I was able to capture the singer’s images clearly, thanks to 10x zoom. You can look at the results above. And it’s not like the concert was in broad daylight. It was in a challenging low-light environment, where the
Plus, how cool is it to capture moon shots via your
The iPhone 13 Pro Max helped kill my low-battery anxiety. The
This is the primary reason I switched to the
I have almost all my information on my
Since smartphones have become more than just communicator devices, it is essential for them to last an entire day, especially if you are hopping around the city. And the
I am a work-from-home employee, but sometimes I work out of cafes. So I need my iPhone’s hotspot for at least three hours on the trot. In this situation, almost any of the other best phones available now would dip to levels that I’d require to charge it urgently. But not the
Even after a busy day, I have about 20% battery life left on my new big iPhone. For context, my busy day starts at 8 a.m. with 100% phone battery. It starts with playing songs as I get ready. I go out commuting in the metro and killing time while listening to songs, which is followed by walking to my favorite cafe with
After turning on the hotspot and working through lunch till 4 p.m., I exit the cafe to go catch up with a friend in the other corner of the city. I have no personal transport, so metro it is. I use the iPhone again to read on Kindle or doom-scroll through social media, and it’s already 5 p.m. We meet and celebrate (my friends and I always have a reason for celebration). And now it’s 9 p.m. To get back home, I get an Uber while music and doom-scrolling are my favorite ways to pass time in the cab. I reach home by 10:30 p.m. and still have 20% battery left.
I have never managed to kill the battery in a single day on the
One of the parts I thought I’d miss after shifting to the
My primary use case was clicking selfies with the button on the S Pen. After my shift to the iPhone, I’ll just use a 3-second timer to get that perfect selfie without any shakes caused by reaching for the button. Maybe I’m not the target audience for the S Pen, or maybe it just really isn’t as useful. And maybe Samsung knew this, so it killed the Note lineup and integrated it with the Galaxy S lineup. I guess we’ll never know. For my personal use, at least, bidding the S Pen farewell hasn’t been an issue whatsoever.
The
Overall, neither of these smartphones is better than the other. If the iPhone can last an entire day, the S22 Ultra can deliver never-before-imagined perspectives through a mobile phone camera. If the
I’ve been using and reviewing Android smartphones for at least a decade, and during that time, I’ve spent time with a massive variety of devices that mostly fall into three distinct categories: good, passable, and bad. But what about the ones that have really stirred my emotions in a negative way? The phones that have elicited a visceral, guttural response? I’m not talking about the ones I love, but the ones I’ve downright hated.
Here are the six models that have irked me the most over the last 10 years of using and reviewing smartphones, and the reasons why they’ve made this list.
Google Pixel 4
Google is rolling out a new Android 13 update that fixes 46 bugs and performance issues for the Pixel 7. The fixes range from squashing smaller bugs to larger, systemwide updates that do things like optimize battery life and overall performance, making this one of the most substantial Pixel 7 updates to date. While the update, Android 13 QPR2, provides a lot of fixes for the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro specifically, it also cleans up performance for the entire Pixel 6 line as well.
There are plenty of small fixes in the update. However, the bigger ones seem like they’re going to noticeably improve the user experience for all Pixel 7 owners on just about every front.
At Mobile World Congress (MWC) this year, new smartphones broke cover as one would expect. I won’t bore you with all the details; Digital Trends’ Joe Maring and Jacob Roach wrote an excellent roundup of all the best MWC 2023 announcements already.
One key quality-of-life-improving feature we picked up on as a theme was charging speed. Apple, Samsung, and Google, the mainstream phone brands by coverage (even if not all by sales), stick to a fast-charging average speed of just over an hour — even with the latest iPhone 14, Galaxy S23, and Pixel 7. By comparison, a phone from Xiaomi, Oppo, or OnePlus can get you moving in 30 minutes or even less. It’s time to demand more from our phones.
Fast charging exists — just not for you
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