minis and pros and promaxes and pixels
and flips and folds look if you're not
careful the deluge of new smartphones is
here is enough to drive one a little
batty i'm chris velasco with the
washington post's help desk where we
help you make sense of the tech in your
life and over the last few weeks i've
been living with five of the latest and
greatest smartphones out there the
samsung galaxy z flip 3 the iphone 13
and 13 pro and google's new pixel 6 and
pixel 6 pro
if you think it might be time to upgrade
your phone let me try and save you a
little time let's start with the 800
iphone 13 and the thousand dollar iphone
13 pro if there is one reason to upgrade
to these things it is battery life if i
forget to plug in my phone before i go
to bed after using it all day i still
want to be able to use it first thing in
the morning at least for a little while
the iphone 12s
they struggled with that but the 13 and
13 pro pulled it off with no problem
because both of these phones have higher
capacity batteries if you're a stickler
for image quality and video the pro
might be worth the upgrade that's
because apple used a new larger sensor
for that main camera which makes for
better photos and video especially in
low light
and if you want the ability to get
closer to your subject without actually
moving
only the pro phones have telephoto
cameras
and there's one thing that tends to be
forgotten so i want to bring it up here
software support is really important and
iphones generally get five years worth
of software and security updates which
is better than basically any other phone
we'll be talking about today though
google is starting to get close if your
phone is on its last legs the battery
and camera improvements here might make
the iphone 13 and 13 pro a worthy
upgrade but remember on the whole
neither of these phones feel like
dramatic updates so no one's going to
blame you for waiting to see what
happens next year
next up the pixel 6 and pixel 6 pro
which full disclosure have quickly
become my favorite android phones of the
year and that's thanks to a few things
the pictures that come out of the main
15 megapixel camera that both of these
phones have those are excellent thanks
to google's focus on improving camera
quality with ai to get the best
experience though you'll have to pony up
for the pixel 6 pro because it's the
only one of these two phones with a 4x
optical zoom camera the pixels are also
packed full of really clever features
some of which are made possible by
google's new tensor processor
so far i've used those features to erase
people from the backgrounds of my photos
to dictate my text messages faster and
more accurately than i've ever seen and
i even get tentative wait times on the
screen when i call my bank
these don't always work perfectly but
they're helpful in ways that iphones
just don't know how to be right now
it's also worth noting these phones are
pretty cheap as far as fancy smartphones
go the pixel 6 starts at 600 for the 128
gigabyte model and the pixel 6 pro
starts at 900 so they both undercut the
sort of comparable iphone i don't love
everything about these phones though
both have fingerprint scanners under the
screen which don't always work on the
first try and it's worth noting these
phones are pretty big the 6 pro has a
6.7 inch screen and the pixel 6 has a
6.4 inch screen but they're both pretty
close in size which means they're both a
handful if you have small hands believe
me it's in your best interest to go to a
store and pick one up first finally
there's the thousand dollar samsung
galaxy z5 which is one of the first
foldable phones you might actually want
to buy
i'd say it's the most portable of the
big phones out there because of how it
folds in half and because it's screen is
more tall and narrow than wide it's
really comfortable to hold on to with
one hand
and despite all of the concerns about
how well a phone with a bending screen
can hold up in the real world this thing
still works as well as it did on day one
even after i accidentally mind you
dropped it a lot
to me at least there's really one thing
holding the z flip 3 back and that's
it's battery life the iphones and the
pixels they both cleared the whoops i
forgot to charge it before going to bed
test just fine but i routinely struggle
to get even a full day's use out of the
flip
so where does all of this leave us
for most people the regular iphone 13
and pixel 6 are great options the stuff
you'll find in the pro models are nice
to have but not game changers and i
don't know that you always have to pay
for it
and if you really want a folding phone
look the z flip 3 has a lot of charm but
you have some very real compromises to
live with
if you have more specific questions
about what phone might be right for you
or how these things work
trust me we are here to help send an
email to your help desk at washpost.com
we'd love to hear from you and we'll get
back to you as soon as we can
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