Camera phone vs my dedicated camera question..........

[Veducci]

I need advice . I`m admittedly elderly and get by with my cheap $15 monthly flip phone (awful IQ) and my NX 3000 w/kit 16-50 lens. (excellent IQ)

It would be nice to carry just one device with the ability to phone and take decent pictures with Iphone quality or something nearly as good. That said , I do not see a need for internet service .

Certainly I can afford a decent Iphone or something similar but I`d also have to make a considerable jump up in the monthly cost of a phone plan that allows use of a good camera-phone that might somewhat satisfy my needs. I just don`t want to have to pay $50 a month when I only ever use less than 100 min a month in calls.

My question is is there an inexpensive plan that includes a good phone w/ respectable IQ or the option to purchase one ? Or am I simply stuck with having to live with a cheap flip phone unless I spring for a more costly monthly plan?

 

[yardcoyote]

Consider a pay as you go plan that allows you to bring your own phone. All the big companies have them, and there are plenty of secondary services as well. Then you can shop for the best deal on the plan and the phone separately. The Nexus 5, for example, is a great smartphone with a pretty good camera and excellent included software and it's on closeout sale right now for a ridiculously low price. I've had mine for two years and it has served me very well. Don't assume that the very expensive iPhone is automatically the best phone for you.

 

[Veducci]

Consider a pay as you go plan that allows you to bring your own phone. All the big companies have them, and there are plenty of secondary services as well. Then you can shop for the best deal on the plan and the phone separately. The Nexus 5, for example, is a great smartphone with a pretty good camera and excellent included software and it's on closeout sale right now for a ridiculously low price. I've had mine for two years and it has served me very well. Don't assume that the very expensive iPhone is automatically the best phone for you.

Thanks ! I did the research and found a plan that looks good.

Consumer Cellular has the Apple 5s for $200 and a $37.50 a month plan with 750 min + what should be more than enough of text and data + damage ins. . That includes a second large easy to read flip phone for my wife who rarely uses it. All this and not being locked into a 12--24 mo contract.

 

[yardcoyote]

The Other Old Pentaxian and I are on a two line pay as you go/no contract plan with a shared data pool and it works out really well. In my opinion, long term contracts with "free" phones are going to be a smaller share of the market in the future, at least among those of us who don't have to have the latest and greatest new phone every year to impress our friends!

 

[EthanP99]

I need advice . I`m admittedly elderly and get by with my cheap $15 monthly flip phone (awful IQ) and my NX 3000 w/kit 16-50 lens. (excellent IQ)

It would be nice to carry just one device with the ability to phone and take decent pictures with Iphone quality or something nearly as good. That said , I do not see a need for internet service .

Certainly I can afford a decent Iphone or something similar but I`d also have to make a considerable jump up in the monthly cost of a phone plan that allows use of a good camera-phone that might somewhat satisfy my needs. I just don`t want to have to pay $50 a month when I only ever use less than 100 min a month in calls.

My question is is there an inexpensive plan that includes a good phone w/ respectable IQ or the option to purchase one ? Or am I simply stuck with having to live with a cheap flip phone unless I spring for a more costly monthly plan?

Consider the panasonic cm1 as your phone of choice. 1" sensor in a cell phone!

 

[richiebee]

How do you feel about losing the ability to zoom?

 

[Veducci]

How do you feel about losing the ability to zoom?

Gone are the days when I used my D2H with costly zooms shooting sports as the grandkids are in their 20`s now.

Looking at most of my pic`s these days I mostly shoot immediate subjects at wide angle.

 

[Veducci]

Consider the panasonic cm1 as your phone of choice. 1" sensor in a cell phone!

That looks like a decent alternative and a good suggestion but it looks to be twice the cost of the Apple 5s.

As suggested by yard coyote , I don`t require the latest and greatest.

The quality of images and video clips displayed on a good smart phone by others almost always blow me away , especially when I consider the time I spend downloading , converting, correcting , etc each and every image and often printing them out.

Much less of a need these days and I have finally come to realize how a smartphone with decent IQ is killing the camera market.

 

[noflashplease]

I need advice . I`m admittedly elderly and get by with my cheap $15 monthly flip phone (awful IQ) and my NX 3000 w/kit 16-50 lens. (excellent IQ)

It would be nice to carry just one device with the ability to phone and take decent pictures with Iphone quality or something nearly as good. That said , I do not see a need for internet service .

Certainly I can afford a decent Iphone or something similar but I`d also have to make a considerable jump up in the monthly cost of a phone plan that allows use of a good camera-phone that might somewhat satisfy my needs. I just don`t want to have to pay $50 a month when I only ever use less than 100 min a month in calls.

My question is is there an inexpensive plan that includes a good phone w/ respectable IQ or the option to purchase one ? Or am I simply stuck with having to live with a cheap flip phone unless I spring for a more costly monthly plan?

It really depends on which carrier has the best reception in your area? Hypothetically, you could get a prepaid Android handset with a year of service and 1,200 minutes/1,200 text and a truly measly 1.2 GB of data, for under $100. That's a smartphone with a year of service.

An example with service from AT&T/or T-Mobile towers:

http://www.hsn.com/products/lg-treasure-5-android-tracfone-bundle-w1350-minutes/8060611

An example with service from Verizon towers:

http://www.hsn.com/products/lg-ultimate-2-android-smartphone-bundle-tracfone/8034963

Annual service is about $100 by itself, but cheaper with the included entry level smartphone. Go figure?

There are phones like the $300 Motorola X Pure that can use any carrier, even that sort of $100 annual prepaid plan. Just keep in mind that iPhones tend to be very expensive for the hardware you get and actually have very small 1/3.2 inch sensors. The X Pure has the same size of sensor as a consumer point-and-shoot compact camera, a much larger 1/2.33" sensor.

 

[rstone]

If you are in the USA consider US Mobile. I pay $9/month for 100mb data (I rarely use data as I have Wi-Fi at home and work) 100min/month for phone and 100 text msg.

It's not for everyone but the best part of this plan is you can add min/data/text as needed through out the month. No Contract.

For $199 I purchased the Huawei Honor 5X ... I'm very happy with this setup and I think US Mobile uses T-Mobile towers which work pretty good imo..

 

[Lord Brain]

If you're interested in a prepaid plan, T-mobile offers 1000 minutes for $99, and they roll-over at the end of 1 year if you refill.

If you're looking for an affordable monthly plan with data, consider Google's Project Fi. All you need is a Nexus 5X phone or a Nexus 6p phone. Both have very good cameras.

 

[GodSpeaks]

Lots of smartphones with very good cameras today. The bigger issue is your phone data plan which you would have to discuss with your provider.

Another question, do you want the ability to 'share' the photos/videos you take with others. I am 65 and my mother is 92 this year. A few years back I gave her a smartphone and also set it up for her and taught her to use it.

At first she found it frustrating, but with persistance she has become proficient with it. We now communicate almost daily via WhatsApp. I frequently send her photos of my activities, and she sends me photos when ever she encounters a problem of some kind (usually her computer :-D ).

WhatsApp will do WhatsApp to WhatsApp calls free (just the internet useage), and the Line app will do video calls also.

My data package is just less than $2 a week with 1GB of data. So I am getting 4GB a month for less than $10. I rarely make voice calls and 99%+ of my messaging is done via WhatsApp. I rarely use my phone for internet browsing.

In any event it's been great as we live on almost opposite sides of the world. Compared to mum and I, my two younger sisters are luddites and somewhat curmudgeonly. LOL

The Asus Zenphone Zoom is an interesting smartphone.

 

[GodSpeaks]

How do you feel about losing the ability to zoom?

Don't have to lose the ability to zoom...

Zenphone Zoom ZX551ML

It has a 3x OPTICAL zoom. 28-84mm eq f2.7-4.8.

Camera specs are not bad and the phone specs are pretty good too.

 

[noflashplease]

If you're interested in a prepaid plan, T-mobile offers 1000 minutes for $99, and they roll-over at the end of 1 year if you refill.

If you're looking for an affordable monthly plan with data, consider Google's Project Fi. All you need is a Nexus 5X phone or a Nexus 6p phone. Both have very good cameras.

It really depends on local coverage. Where I live, T-mobile is hopeless unless you're roaming onto the AT&T network. Sprint has great reception along the interstates but hopeless in other places. Verizon has the best network nationwide and owns the best frequencies for reception through walls, although that doesn't do someone any good in one of the handful of regions where Verizon has poor coverage. It's really hard to generalize about cellphone companies.

 

[noflashplease]

How do you feel about losing the ability to zoom?

Don't have to lose the ability to zoom...

Zenphone Zoom ZX551ML

It has a 3x OPTICAL zoom. 28-84mm eq f2.7-4.8.

Camera specs are not bad and the phone specs are pretty good too.

--
The greatest of mankind's criminals are those who delude themselves into thinking they have done 'the right thing.'
- Rayna Butler

I really wouldn't touch any phone with an Intel Atom x86 processor. There are plenty of reasons why Intel just dumped that entire product segment. For mobile devices, x86 never could compete withe ARM, although ARM doesn't scale up very well for higher end applications. It's also worth pointing out that Android OS isn't optimized for x86 and the likelihood of long term updates is significantly diminished with the death of the Intel Atom line.

In short, that Zenphone Zoom is an orphaned product. Sad that Asus jumped on the Intel Atom bandwagon, but they really are marginal in the smartphone market to begin with.

 

[Lord Brain]

If you're interested in a prepaid plan, T-mobile offers 1000 minutes for $99, and they roll-over at the end of 1 year if you refill.

If you're looking for an affordable monthly plan with data, consider Google's Project Fi. All you need is a Nexus 5X phone or a Nexus 6p phone. Both have very good cameras.

It really depends on local coverage. Where I live, T-mobile is hopeless unless you're roaming onto the AT&T network. Sprint has great reception along the interstates but hopeless in other places. Verizon has the best network nationwide and owns the best frequencies for reception through walls, although that doesn't do someone any good in one of the handful of regions where Verizon has poor coverage. It's really hard to generalize about cellphone companies.

Good points.

The ideal thing to do is to query friends/acquaintances on their experiences with coverage and use that information in concert with the coverage maps the companies provide.

Google Fi seamlessly switches between T-Mo and Sprint, and is likely to be useful in most metropolitan areas.

Verizon definitely has the best network, and they certainly charge for it!

 

[noflashplease]

If you're interested in a prepaid plan, T-mobile offers 1000 minutes for $99, and they roll-over at the end of 1 year if you refill.

If you're looking for an affordable monthly plan with data, consider Google's Project Fi. All you need is a Nexus 5X phone or a Nexus 6p phone. Both have very good cameras.

It really depends on local coverage. Where I live, T-mobile is hopeless unless you're roaming onto the AT&T network. Sprint has great reception along the interstates but hopeless in other places. Verizon has the best network nationwide and owns the best frequencies for reception through walls, although that doesn't do someone any good in one of the handful of regions where Verizon has poor coverage. It's really hard to generalize about cellphone companies.

Good points.

The ideal thing to do is to query friends/acquaintances on their experiences with coverage and use that information in concert with the coverage maps the companies provide.

Google Fi seamlessly switches between T-Mo and Sprint, and is likely to be useful in most metropolitan areas.

Verizon definitely has the best network, and they certainly charge for it!

Google Fi is absolutely fascinating, but it's very new. I would like to see Google succeed, if only to provide more competition among cellphone carriers. In an ideal scenario, Google Fi gets millions of subscribers, Google pays huge carriage fees to T-mobile and Sprint and they build out their networks and become truly competitive in terms of both coverage of price, driving down costs for everyone. In this fantasy scenario, Americans have the sort of cellphone service that other developed countries have. At the moment, the only country I've been to with worse and more expensive service is Canada.

Coverage maps tend to be very accurate these days, at least from my personal experience. I'm not exactly fond of AT&T and Verizon as corporate entities, but they are the "big two" when it comes to owning frequencies and having the appropriately cited towers, at least in my area. Of course, one is better than the other where I live, but that's a local situation.

 

[1057truth]

With cell phones there is no free lunch. You can get a no contract pay as you go plan, but you'll have to buy a phone up front - a phone that's unlocked for the service provider. Or you can go with a contract phone, and get a top of the line phone with subsidized pricing - that means you can get a $600 phone for around $150 or so, but you'll be stuck in a two year contract.

I have a Samsung Note 5 , the camera is very decent, I'd compare the output to a top end compact P&S from about 4 years ago. Good but not great. I guess it all depends on your expectations.

 

[MRM4350]

Consider a pay as you go plan that allows you to bring your own phone. All the big companies have them, and there are plenty of secondary services as well. Then you can shop for the best deal on the plan and the phone separately. The Nexus 5, for example, is a great smartphone with a pretty good camera and excellent included software and it's on closeout sale right now for a ridiculously low price. I've had mine for two years and it has served me very well. Don't assume that the very expensive iPhone is automatically the best phone for you.

Thanks ! I did the research and found a plan that looks good.

Consumer Cellular has the Apple 5s for $200 and a $37.50 a month plan with 750 min + what should be more than enough of text and data + damage ins. . That includes a second large easy to read flip phone for my wife who rarely uses it. All this and not being locked into a 12--24 mo contract.

My wife and I use Consumer, and here in Washington they resell both AT&T and T Mobile air time (the SIM card). So you should make sure that coverage is available where you will be using it. We both use Android phones. I bought a Motorola from Consumer, and a Samsung unlocked S4 for my wife.

 

[GodSpeaks]

How do you feel about losing the ability to zoom?

Don't have to lose the ability to zoom...

Zenphone Zoom ZX551ML

It has a 3x OPTICAL zoom. 28-84mm eq f2.7-4.8.

Camera specs are not bad and the phone specs are pretty good too.