Smartphone Shopping: A Modern-Day Minefield

Smartphone Shopping: A Modern-Day Minefield?

by Justin W. Smith, 2021?

I’m performing a post-mortem for my smartphone, from a company I still admire. It was a high-performance gaming phone I bought because my previous phone was proven insecure, plus it overheated and died, about a month out-of-warranty. I think the underlying cause was a waning, irreplaceable battery, which forced me to use an external battery case, though it is entirely possible someone sent it a fork bomb, even though I refrained from root-kitting my phones, long ago. So I began to think an exposed heatsink in a phone is a neat idea, and bought the aforementioned gaming phone. Things were good, for awhile... ?

Until about a year and a half into ownership, when putting my tried-and-true best friend into a wet swimsuit pocket got the tiniest bit of water into its circuitry. It didn’t even get submerged. I’d done this many times before, but eventually, water seeped in, and the wrong part got wet. Despite encasement in a box of desiccants, my digitizer went wonky, and there were certain areas of the touchscreen that did not register. I used my poor phone like that for a few months, a?frustrating and tragic experience, until the touchscreen was replaced. ?

The cheap replacement screen, an internet supplier gamble, most certainly was not Gorilla Glass, and cracked very quickly. The death bell for the exposed heatsink gaming phone finally tolled, when my cat’s paw sent it from the bathroom countertop into the toilet. There is now toilet water in there, and I don’t want to put it next to my face, even if I could fully dry it out, without cracking it open again.?

But that’s the reality of smartphone ownership: A phone is going to last 2-3 years, tops. Eventually something will damage it, or even if diligent care is taken, and it’s a resilient design, it may still go obsolete,?unable to run the newest apps. If you’re really committed to the smartphone “trend”, it’s never going to be a one-time purchase. It’s more like a semi-annual budget. I acknowledged this long ago, and plan my purchases accordingly.?

Every year or two, those of the smartphone set must perform this renewal: a ritual sacrifice of money and time, to comparison shop. Obviously, I like to include a hard look at the admitted design flaws of the Previous Phone(s), in this ceremony. It’s also a good idea to apply the past to the future regarding likely usage, ie: “What am I likely to really do with my next phone?”?

Gaming phones are obviously cool. Their casings look unique. They have higher specs than normal phones, and tailored features, like shoulder triggers. But manufacturers have yet to make a seriously competitive gaming phone that is IP68 rated. Also, we should question the actual utility of a phone that can run 3D shooters. Is the user experience worth the extra expenditure? As it turns out, I’m usually more into sprite games, especially when playing on a tiny screen, with improvised touchscreen controls. Nor do I want my phone’s screen to be excessively large. I have to put this thing in my pocket, and big phones look dorky, like the giant PDA from Hampton DeVille.?

My previous phone was criticized, by co-workers, for being too conspicuous, and?of the “wrong brand”. Its back panel had a logo, which changed color, via LEDs. I thought the color-shifting logo was cool, in a vaguely cyberpunk?way. It ultimately attracted too much of the wrong kind of attention. Perhaps it looked immature, or even “gay”, to some.?Also, the manufacturer didn’t update the OS to Android 10, which caused more conflict at work, when I couldn’t install a company workspace on the phone, without re-imaging to a non-standard OS. ?

I didn’t put too much stock in some prejudiced people criticizing my phone’s country of manufacture, since most smartphones are Oriental in some way, and because it reeked of my Vietnam veteran father's criticism of anything Asian as, well, let's not say a slur that rhymes with "inky", but I was yet again taught a lesson about even the slightest bit of peacocking attracting?criticism. Also, such vainglory can make the user more noticeable to the seriously malicious. “What kind of phone is that, and who is the guy holding it?” is scrutiny I’d rather escape, in many situations.?

Like someone whose cat was recently eaten by coyotes, I began to look around, to see which other potential pets are out there. But I couldn’t take too much time, because “I need a new phone, now!” My first thought: clearly RAM and storage have gotten scarce, because there’s less available than in previous years’ models, yet inflation has component prices on a steady incline. So it’s a bad time to buy, for many reasons, but I had to buy something.?

For some dogmatic devotees, there would be no pain in this decision. “You want security, durability, and updated features? Just get the new iPhone.” Yeah, if you like iOS, arguably over-priced, under-powered hardware, and are comfortable missing out on Android exclusives. As far as extra security, all I can say for the Apple brand is they were uncooperative with the FBI, in a highly-publicized terrorist investigation, assuming that wasn’t merely a play, for the media.?A third-party company managed to crack the Apple product under investigation, anyway.

In my experience, being under surveillance, or even being suspected of being under surveillance, can be terrible for one’s social life, as well as a threat to one’s intellectual property. Most people want a phone that’s secure from ze government. That might not actually be possible, if they take an interest in you. "So, stop looking so attractive!" is the advice of predatory culture. At the very least, you want a phone that is secure from everyone else, like its manufacturer,?all the included software companies, and independent hackers.?Otherwise, anyone could be surveilling you, beneath the carrier level, which itself is subject to breaches, and mostly out of the subscriber’s control.?

As far as I know, the security of a phone depends on kernels, drivers, and hardware design. Is a proprietary kernel secure? Are the drivers for that hardware secure? We kind of have to take their word for it. Android is much more open-source, so if you really want to dig into it, you can check it out yourself. There’s a large community of developers, involving many security experts, but the hardware, and hence the drivers, are variable, on Android phones, so that’s a security factor. Many swear by brand names, on these matters. I think the more popular a brand of phone is, the more likely it’s already been targeted, the more known exploits for it there are, on the dark webs. ?

Also, we must consider whether the apps on the phone are insecure. Managing microphone and camera permissions, running packet-sniffing apps to see where all the traffic is going to and coming from, and finally: is the marketplace secure? Do they not let malware into the app store? The Android marketplaces tend to fail on that more often, recently with a QR code reader now needed to view menus at many restaurants. We also have to question our voice-control providers, which can be an “Alexa, Siri, or Google?” debate. And which is easiest to truly deactivate??

I?narrowed my wants down, after reading several articles about all the phones out there, and even considering some off-brands from Chinese upstart companies on questionable marketplaces. What I decided: I want something waterproof, powerful, but not more power than I really need. Also, plenty of storage, and a decent-capacity battery, with fast-charging. Having the ability to accept additional storage cards, and replace batteries, often makes a phone less waterproof. Managing internal memory seems a horrible chore, and running out completely a terrible tragedy, but how much storage can one use, before something happens to the phone, or it goes obsolete? A high capacity of empty storage on a broken or obsolete phone is a waste, and local storage has become less necessary, because of cloud back-ups.?

I also had to give some consideration to the processor. Qualcomm Snapdragons seem to be very popular. I did also look at a few phones with ARM processors. ARM is about to be acquired by nVidia, and I’ve always suspected nVidia allows the government to screen-capture their users. I do recall top brass bragging to the press about being able to do that to any video card, though their statements were later redacted.?Point is: any company creating an administrative monopoly is to be avoided.

So in addition to not believing hardware is necessarily insecure, simply because it comes from the Chinese, I also don’t believe hardware is necessarily secure, just because it supposedly comes from America. Also, most of nVidia’s components actually come from Taiwan, the DDR memory ICs often being a limiting reagent in their manufacturing process. Suffice to say: the potential administration of some companies, and whoever leans on them, scares me away.?I'm probably a lot more relevant to Americans than to foreigners, so I think of American administration as far less detached.

Those who try to separate business from personal communications might like to have a dual-SIM phone, Slot 1 being for a more permanent number one is known by, in the waking world, and Slot 2 being for a disposable number, which changes often. Others may find that feature totally unnecessary. GSM vs CDMA is also a consideration, but CDMA might be going extinct.?Obviously there are those paranoid about 5G, but I'm not one of them, even though I don't think everything transmitting, on Earth or in orbit, is benign.

Finally, some consideration should be given to the phone’s camera. I’m not a professional photographer, but I do take pictures, mostly so I will remember places I’ve been, and people I’ve met.?Not everyone has the sense of composition that goes into creating a good photo, but at the very least, you don’t want your hardware to make your pictures look worse.?My previous phones had decent cameras, but not perfect. The focal point of the lens is an object of consideration, in addition to the megapixel count. The screen’s resolution and refresh rate are also important factors in video output. ?

Weighing those factors, I picked a phone and ordered, but I’m not going to endorse what I bought, because I think it’s bad security policy. Nor will I plug the people from whom I purchased it, but I do recommend you price-shop at several sites, to get the exact phone you want, at the lowest possible price, all things considered. I also recommend buying new in sealed box, to be more sure it hasn’t been tampered with, by a third party. I ended up paying?extra for quick shipping, and the least conspicuous color. In fact, I’m now planning to obscure the logo and obstruct the cameras, with a plastic case. Will I be satisfied? Only time will tell. I always find something wrong with everything. That’s my job.