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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2019
Despite a number of other reviews claiming this phone doesn't work on Verizon, I had zero issues. Just swapped the SIM over and it connected to both LTE and phone service. My guess is that the people that couldn't get it to work ordered from a third party and weren't actually getting the US version. I ordered direct from Amazon, and got the advertised phone.
The screen is the primary reason I was interested in this phone. It's beautiful. My last phone had a normie LED screen, and always looked washed out and inconsistent. This phone has a great OLED screen. It's the least expensive big-brand phone I could find with a nice OLED screen. It does not disappoint. Colors are vibrant and beautiful, and it handles very bright images and very dark ones really well. My only disappointment with the screen came from the aspect ratio: streaming video doesn't fill it up, and you end up with black bars on both ends as a result. That's just a matter of design, and no fault of the screen itself. I felt it worth mentioning because I ordered this phone primarily to improve my streaming video experience. It did, qualitatively, but the extra screen real estate is just wasted on black bars at the end. To be fair, the narrower aspect ratio does make it a lot easier to use as a phone...which is what it's for.
Performance is good. I'm not a power user. I mostly just use a phone to stream video, browse the web, communicate by text, listen to audio books/music, and maybe the occasional phone call. I'm not very demanding of a phone's CPU. I've only run into an issue with slight stutter browsing sites that had too many ads that were in the process of loading, but that'd likely happen on any phone. Everything fires up very rapidly and I have no issues navigating anything.
The camera is good enough. It's better than my last phone, especially at taking shots in darker rooms. It does a solid job of making everything look well lit. It does have it's limits. This isn't a Pixel. When I picked it up, it cost $200 less than the Pixel 3a XL, so I didn't expect it to hang in every regard. I don't take a lot of pictures with my phone, so this wasn't a huge priority for me anyway. It does a good job with the simple stuff I do take pictures of, though, so I'm happy with it.
Now, for the 100 ton elephant in the room: the fingerprint reader. It's not great. My last phone's fingerprint reader was located on the back, and it worked a lot better. My phone was unlocked before I'd removed it from my pocket because my index finger naturally found it's way to the reader. It was very organic. The location on this phone's fingerprint reader is really poorly thought out, and I suspect that's largely to blame for it's inconsistent performance. It's located where the phone's keyboard manifests, which makes it the dirtiest part of the screen. It sees the most finger traffic, so it accrues the most oils. That leads to some inconsistent readings.
I did notice that if the reader won't recognize your print a few times, you can just wipe your finger over it to clear it, then try again. That usually does the trick, and isn't as disruptive. The issue seems to be false readings of print contours from buildup of dirt/oil over the reader. I've also taken to wiping the screen off here and there. That has significantly improved performance of the fingerprint reader. It's probably a good policy with any phone for accurate keyboard registration.
I knew that in-screen fingerprint readers were a bad idea before I picked up a phone that had one, and I was right. It's more convenient when you've got your phone sitting next to or in front of you, certainly, but my phone's generally in my pocket. I grip the edges of it when I'm pulling it out, so in order to unlock it I have to move my thumb over to the keyboard after it's all the way out and level. It's clunky and inorganic to do one-handed, and will likely lead to some people dropping their phones. I do understand why it's appealing to some, especially if you work at a desk and keep your phone out and sitting on it. You can just touch the screen and it opens. For my normal use case it's just inconvenient. I'm hopeful that future phones will have both screen and back fingerprint readers to make unlocking under both use cases faster and easier, but I guess we'll see.
Another issue I have with the reader is that it can only store three prints. You can't do both thumbs and both index fingers. I opted to do my left thumb and both index fingers because I keep my phone in my left pocket. That made it easy to open on a desk with either hand, or at least less clunky with the hand I pull the phone out with.
I didn't bother with face recognition because I don't feel like something you can fool with a picture is smart enough to be considered security.
All in all, I'm very happy with my purchase for the price. If this were a flagship with those issues on the fingerprint reader, I'd have returned it. However, the fingerprint reader problems are manageable with a little care, and this is a budget phone. I don't expect perfection. Ultimately, the solid performance and beautiful screen are worth it. I'd recommend this phone to anyone looking for something with a really great cost:performance ratio. This phone is great if you're not looking to drop a mortgage payment on a cell phone.
The screen is the primary reason I was interested in this phone. It's beautiful. My last phone had a normie LED screen, and always looked washed out and inconsistent. This phone has a great OLED screen. It's the least expensive big-brand phone I could find with a nice OLED screen. It does not disappoint. Colors are vibrant and beautiful, and it handles very bright images and very dark ones really well. My only disappointment with the screen came from the aspect ratio: streaming video doesn't fill it up, and you end up with black bars on both ends as a result. That's just a matter of design, and no fault of the screen itself. I felt it worth mentioning because I ordered this phone primarily to improve my streaming video experience. It did, qualitatively, but the extra screen real estate is just wasted on black bars at the end. To be fair, the narrower aspect ratio does make it a lot easier to use as a phone...which is what it's for.
Performance is good. I'm not a power user. I mostly just use a phone to stream video, browse the web, communicate by text, listen to audio books/music, and maybe the occasional phone call. I'm not very demanding of a phone's CPU. I've only run into an issue with slight stutter browsing sites that had too many ads that were in the process of loading, but that'd likely happen on any phone. Everything fires up very rapidly and I have no issues navigating anything.
The camera is good enough. It's better than my last phone, especially at taking shots in darker rooms. It does a solid job of making everything look well lit. It does have it's limits. This isn't a Pixel. When I picked it up, it cost $200 less than the Pixel 3a XL, so I didn't expect it to hang in every regard. I don't take a lot of pictures with my phone, so this wasn't a huge priority for me anyway. It does a good job with the simple stuff I do take pictures of, though, so I'm happy with it.
Now, for the 100 ton elephant in the room: the fingerprint reader. It's not great. My last phone's fingerprint reader was located on the back, and it worked a lot better. My phone was unlocked before I'd removed it from my pocket because my index finger naturally found it's way to the reader. It was very organic. The location on this phone's fingerprint reader is really poorly thought out, and I suspect that's largely to blame for it's inconsistent performance. It's located where the phone's keyboard manifests, which makes it the dirtiest part of the screen. It sees the most finger traffic, so it accrues the most oils. That leads to some inconsistent readings.
I did notice that if the reader won't recognize your print a few times, you can just wipe your finger over it to clear it, then try again. That usually does the trick, and isn't as disruptive. The issue seems to be false readings of print contours from buildup of dirt/oil over the reader. I've also taken to wiping the screen off here and there. That has significantly improved performance of the fingerprint reader. It's probably a good policy with any phone for accurate keyboard registration.
I knew that in-screen fingerprint readers were a bad idea before I picked up a phone that had one, and I was right. It's more convenient when you've got your phone sitting next to or in front of you, certainly, but my phone's generally in my pocket. I grip the edges of it when I'm pulling it out, so in order to unlock it I have to move my thumb over to the keyboard after it's all the way out and level. It's clunky and inorganic to do one-handed, and will likely lead to some people dropping their phones. I do understand why it's appealing to some, especially if you work at a desk and keep your phone out and sitting on it. You can just touch the screen and it opens. For my normal use case it's just inconvenient. I'm hopeful that future phones will have both screen and back fingerprint readers to make unlocking under both use cases faster and easier, but I guess we'll see.
Another issue I have with the reader is that it can only store three prints. You can't do both thumbs and both index fingers. I opted to do my left thumb and both index fingers because I keep my phone in my left pocket. That made it easy to open on a desk with either hand, or at least less clunky with the hand I pull the phone out with.
I didn't bother with face recognition because I don't feel like something you can fool with a picture is smart enough to be considered security.
All in all, I'm very happy with my purchase for the price. If this were a flagship with those issues on the fingerprint reader, I'd have returned it. However, the fingerprint reader problems are manageable with a little care, and this is a budget phone. I don't expect perfection. Ultimately, the solid performance and beautiful screen are worth it. I'd recommend this phone to anyone looking for something with a really great cost:performance ratio. This phone is great if you're not looking to drop a mortgage payment on a cell phone.
