New Phone Decision

[Yesevil]

(Admin, I appreciate this is probably in the wrong section, but wasn't sure exactly where to post)

Time has come to upgrade my trusty S7, and I'm currently looking at 3 options.

I'm after lowering my monthly bills so won't be getting one of the latest phones out.
I'm currently torn between these 3

OnePlus 5T
Xperia XZ Premium
LG V30

I know none are probably a massive upgrade from the S7, but I need to lower my bill.
I'm really tempted by the OnePlus but have a slight concern that I'd miss the expandable storage (although I am looking at the 128gb).

Phone is generally used, for browsing, light gaming, photos of the kids etc etc.

Any advice, guidance, opinions would be very welcomed.

Thanks in advance

 

[Hadron]

If storage is a concern, an obvious question is "how much are you currently using (internal + sd)?". You'll want some headroom of course, but if your usage is comfortably less than 128GB (a subjective criterion) and you don't anticipate it overflowing in the time you'll use the phone then the lack of SD shouldn't be a show-stopper. I'd prefer SD expansion, but have been living without it since 2013 (currently using a 128GB Pixel 2, with about 80GB free - which means I'm not worried, but I would be feeling slightly uncomfortable if I'd bought a 64GB model and already used 3/4 of the space).

Wherever you store your data you need backups: SD cards fail, phones can be lost/stolen, so data on SD are not really much safer than on internal storage (if at all).

 

[Yesevil]

If storage is a concern, an obvious question is 'how much are you currently using (internal + sd)?'. You'll want some headroom of course, but if your usage is comfortably less than 128GB (a subjective criterion) and you don't anticipate it overflowing in the time you'll use the phone then the lack of SD shouldn't be a show-stopper. I'd prefer SD expansion, but have been living without it since 2013 (currently using a 128GB Pixel 2, with about 80GB free - which means I'm not worried, but I would be feeling slightly uncomfortable if I'd bought a 64GB model and already used 3/4 of the space).

Wherever you store your data you need backups: SD cards fail, phones can be lost/stolen, so data on SD are not really much safer than those on internal storage.

Fair point mate, I'm currently only using around 60-70gb so the expandable storage kind of becomes redundant if I get a 128gb I suppose.

Is there any of the above phones that you'd personally recommend as an experienced android user?

 

[Hadron]

They're all a bit big for my tastes, so I've not actually used any of them.

The V30's audio capabilities would appeal to me, and it has SD expansion.

The 5T is a little more compact, will get updates faster but perhaps not for as long (OnePlus may up their game in that respect, but we can't know at the moment), and is the only one without water-resistance. If you are interested in custom ROMs this would probably be the best of the three for that type of thing. A friend of mine who has the 5 is very happy with his.

The XZ Premium is probably the one I'm least familiar with. Sony phones have always seemed solid devices to me, it's just that if I were buying one it would be at the other end of the size range and so I never paid much attention to this model.