u/TheWarriorWeazle

I'm looking at replacing my OnePlus 8T I've had for about 6 years, and I'm struggling to narrow down what I actually want, so I thought I'd ask here rather than just looking at the usual "best phone" lists.

My original budget was around £600, although I've got some wiggle room if there's a good reason to spend more. I do think the current phone market is generally over-inflated though, so I'd have a hard time justifying much over the £800 - £1,000 region, unless the phone is genuinely exceptional.

The main things I'm looking for are good battery life, a clean OS, expandable storage (not a deal breaker), and a really good camera (particularly good video/slow-motion capabilities)

Battery life is important because I'm about to start working full-time as an R&D Technician, and I travel around quite a lot of Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. So I'd rather have a phone that can comfortably get through a long day of work, travelling, etc. without me having to worry about charging it.

The camera requirements are probably the slightly unusual part.

I do archery coaching as a hobby, and although my coaching hours are going to reduce quite a bit now that I'm starting full-time work, I still want the phone to be good for it. I normally film/photograph an archer and then review it with them a couple of minutes later, rather than needing live/delayed playback.

Most of my work is at around 5–10 metres away from the subject, although occasionally I'll be around 10–20 metres. I also film from quite a few different angles depending on what I'm looking at, most commonly side-on (roughly 3 o'clock relative to the subject), but I'll also use 6, 7, or 9 o'clock positions.

The things I'm trying to capture aren't necessarily pretty footage. I'm looking for small details like:

• Finger/string release
• Flinching
• Bow hand movement
• Small movements during the shot
• General shot execution

So having a high frame rate is really important as some of these happen in fractions of a second. 120fps would be the minimum I'd ideally want, and higher is obviously useful.

At the same time, I need enough resolution that I can zoom into the footage afterwards without it turning into a complete blurry mess. I don't necessarily need a huge optical zoom, but a good telephoto camera would obviously be useful when I'm further away or want to focus in on specific motions.

Outside of coaching, I want something that is just a really good everyday phone. I've genuinely really enjoyed using my OnePlus 8T, particularly the OxygenOS experience. I like Android and I'd prefer something that feels relatively clean and doesn't have loads of unnecessary apps/features getting in the way.

I'm also trying to avoid AI features. I realise that's probably becoming impossible with modern phones, so I'm not expecting to find a completely AI-free phone. What I'd ideally like is something where I can disable or ignore most of the AI features rather than having them constantly integrated into the way I use the phone.

The current OnePlus situation is making things more complicated. I really like OnePlus, but with them pulling back from the European market, I'm concerned about buying a phone that might leave me with limited support or availability a few years down the line. That's probably the biggest reason I'm looking at alternatives rather than just buying a newer OnePlus model.

At the moment I've been looking at:

• OPPO Find X9
• Sony Xperia 1 VII
• Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra
• OnePlus 15

The OPPO stands out because it offers a lot of what I like about the OnePlus hardware, while actually being a company that's still operating in the UK. The downside for me though is ColorOS and the increased amount of AI integration.

The Sony interests me because of the camera/video side of things and the much cleaner approach to software, but I'm not sure how good it is as an everyday phone compared with something like the OPPO or Samsung.

And Samsung seems to be the obvious "does everything really well" option, but I'm not sure I'd enjoy One UI and all of the AI integration after being used to OxygenOS.

So, if you were in my position, what would you go for?

I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who actually own/use these phones rather than just general spec comparisons. I'd also be interested in suggestions for phones I've completely overlooked.

I know it's a bit more niche, but if anyone has actually used one of these phones for sports coaching/recording high-frame-rate video, I'd especially like to hear how well it works in practice. Specs are useful, but I'm much more interested in whether you can actually scrub through the footage and zoom into something like a finger release without the footage falling apart.

Thanks in advance for any information/help, and sorry for the long post!