Updated: Smartphones. Are You Paying Too Much? Most Likely, Yes.

For the first time I can recall, yesterday I had a smartphone “issue”.

I have never subscribed to the “I need the latest and greatest” smartphone theory, and probably the closest I came was when the Blackberry reigned supreme. Ah memories …

To my way of thinking, as long as my smartphone can make calls, take calls, get and send emails and uses a basic web browser, then most of what I need is done.

The only other consideration is that it runs the apps I need to do the things I do and if so, along with basic stuff such as banking, MyGov, some social media stuff and my ever-trusty OneNote, then I am a happy camper.  So far, a basic Samsung phone has sufficed. For the last 5 years I have been using a Galaxy A70, but a few weeks back it started to play up and wouldn’t charge properly, so was retired in favour of a Samsung Galaxy A05.

And everything was upper dooper hunky dory.

Until yesterday that is.

Y’see I was prepping a DJI NEO for testing and review and this of course necessitates having the DJI Fly app on your smartphone in order to get everything initialised correctly.

Now, downloading the DJI app in the past has always been a bit of an ordeal, primarily as – depending on your definition – the version available in the Google Play Store was either corrupt, full of bugs, a piece of planted malware, or worse. (This does not apply to the iOS version by the way).

To get around this, the wise person downloads the version for Android from the DJI website, either directly or via the QR Code in the manual.

In my case with the Samsung Galaxy A05, the download would get to either around 350MB of a 540MB download and die, or would download and not install saying that it was for a version of Android earlier than mine, which is version 15.

Out of curiosity, after about 5 failed attempts (and the DJI servers are notoriously slow) I downloaded the app to my 2-year-old Samsung tablet and installed with no problem. A second test on an older Huawei phone also downloaded and installed with no issues.

To accept once and for all then the A05 was the culprit and not the app, I attempted a final download and again, although it did download, it would not install. Ergo, the logical conclusion is that this phone is not compatible.

(And of course, IF I had bothered to check on the DJI website under device compatibility, I would have found this out immediately before you mention it in Comments below).

Whilst this is a point worth remembering, I think it is also important to point out that in many cases spending $1500 or more on a smartphone is not necessarily a wise move. Sure, if you want to be seen to always have the latest and greatest, knock yourself out – it’s your money.

But in practical terms, especially if you are heavily into video and photography, my take would be to get the least spec’d smartphone you need to do the job and spend the saved $’s on a camera or accessories.

The smartphone will never replace a dedicated camera or video camera for a variety of reasons including aperture / shutter speed / focusing inflexibility, sensor size, ergonomics and lens quality among others.

It’s interesting how many people think a GoPro (or similar) is a sort of “universal camera” It’s not for a variety of reasons (many the same as a smartphone, but primarily due to terrible low light performance and lack of zoom).

In truth, the smartphone is far more a universal camera, but to repeat, will never replace what you can do, and the results you’ll get, with a dedicated mirrorless or camcorder.

Addendum:

Maybe I should have worded that a bit better. My ‘basic’ needs can actually be quite complex. My budget smartphones up until now have sufficed ‘basic’ needs, but have also successfully controlled lighting systems, gimbals, cameras, home AI devices, connected to audio streaming and mixing consoles, video consoles, my car of course and many other more-than-the-average other gizmos, gadgets and services. In – what – 10 years – this is the only time I can recall being tripped up. So my point is that PROBABLY in many cases, people are paying FAR more for their smartphone than they need.