My Next Phone 2023, Part 1

It’s been a little over a year since I last blogged about my new phone, the Galaxy S21.

Since then, things have only gotten worse. The phone is really slow and buggy, the camera app lags tremendously, the battery life isn’t what it was, and ultimately I really have a hard time of using it.

Therefore, I have decided to switch again to a new phone. That’s despite my S21 getting a guaranteed 4 generations of Samsung updates!

This time, the blog is going to be much shorter – due, in part, to time constraints, and the fact that my mind was pretty much made up earlier this year when Samsung released the Galaxy S23 series.

Shortlist 2023

My choices this time were:

iPhone 14;
iPhone 14 Pro;
Galaxy S23;
Sony Xperia 5 IV;
Sony Xperia 10 V; and,
Asus ZenFone 9.

Big phones aren’t for me

I’ve discussed at length in previous blogs about my preference for small(er) phones, meaning I won’t even consider many other devices due to their enormous physical size.

I don’t care about the greatness of either the Galaxy S23 Ultra, or the iPhone 14 Pro Max – as they’re waaaay too big for my hands, with normal usage I would simply be dropping them every day. No case would ever be good enough to cope with that much abuse!

Much of that isn’t with having small hands, but the fact that all phones tend to have weight evenly distributed along the whole chassis.

With a smaller phone that’s not a problem, as I can support most of the weight with one or two hands.

But with a bigger phone, it’s a problem – especially so, because of where the cameras are located… at the top!

I found with my old Galaxy S9+ that the weight at the top of the phone was tipping it out of my hands, meaning I would have had to [uncomfortably] use it with one hand at the bottom, and one hand at the top.

Which I never did, because that’s stupid.

And that’s why I nearly dropped it on the first day on hard concrete, on my way to the local store to buy a care for it…

Therefore, as with previous years, only their smaller siblings are on my shortlist.

In the spirit of keeping things short, that’s part 1, onto part 2!

– Chris JK.

KPH tech blog