finally ditching the old iphone 11, looking for a good chinese phone
I've had an iPhone 11 for about six years now, and it was used when I got it. The thing still works, but at this point in my life, Apple and iOS have caused me nothing but pain, I just found out that my phone corrupted almost a quarter of my images so that they cannot be exported and viewed on other devices, and I need a major change.
Before the iPhone, I previously had an inexpensive Redmi phone. I really enjoyed using it, it was inexpensive for the quality, and the only reason I switched to the iPhone was because I got it as a gift. It also had a pretty terrible camera and mic, which wasn't a problem when I had it but I was starting college at the time and wanted a camera upgrade as well.
Anyway, my point is that I have good experiences with Xiaomi phones before, so it would be preferable to upgrade to one of them or another comparable Chinese phone.
First and foremost though—I'm American. I know tariffs are heavy on China right now and I'm genuinely not sure how that will affect Chinese phone prices and if it would be smarter to just buy a Samsung or something for now—or if the price would be comparable for the quality even with tariffs. This also means I need a phone compatible with American cell service, specifically T-Mobile.
So I'd like some recommendations for Chinese phones. They don't need to be Xiaomi, but I'm already comfortable with that brand, so I lean towards it.
I'm not a very heavy phone user, so this is all I really need:
- Bluetooth connection (presumably available on most phones now but one can't be too sure I guess)
- Decent camera and microphone that can handle recording clean audio at a small concert venue & take decent photos in low light if possible.
- Largeish screen size (I've got bad eyesight, but I don't want it to be too big for my pocket or whatever)
- Nothing fancy. I don't want it to fold out into a bigger screen, I don't want it to have any unnecessary marketing features, etc.
- NO built in AI functionality if possible, but at the very least possible to disable.
- I'm a tactile button enjoyer, so optionally, the more physical buttons the better
- Optionally, I'd really love to have an aux port. I know a lot of phones don't have them these days, but I have an old ass car and there's no bluetooth, so I'm stuck with using an adapter for my iPhone right now.
- Also optionally, a micro SD slot would be nice
I don't have a specific budget beyond "affordable." Nothing too exorbitant. I don't know if under $500 is reasonable, but that would be preferable. Based on my previous $150 Redmi, I'd even hope for under $250 if possible.
Thanks to anyone that has recommendations!