A good solid smartphone is an essential for most people these days, but more so when you have memory difficulties. I held out with my last phone for 3 years, but it was time to move on.
I wanted a SIM-free handset of a similar size to my Nokia X20, on Android, under £300, with tons of storage and a good solid camera. I singled out the Samsung Galaxy A55, and I’ve now been using it since 6th December. How does it hold up?
The A55 is thicker than my X20, but shorter and wider, which I think I prefer. The first thing I’d recommend: buy a cover and case for the phone ASAP. The metal scratches easily, and the three rear cameras protrude a lot and causes the phone to rock when resting on a hard surface. It can slip out of your pocket easily when driving. A good plastic case and screen protector prevent a lot of this. Screen protector added or not, the A55 has a habit of throwing in some wild predictive text results. The spellcheck is remembering these typos and suggesting these instead of the correct spellings. The screen protector also stops gloves from working, the type of smartphone gloves that were developed to be used with phone screens. The clock timer only allows you to save 3 times from which the timer can count down. If you routinely use 4, you’re going to have to keep typing them back in.
The Omninotes app for some reason requires a password, which I have set up. I don’t know whether I’ve developed sausage fingers in my 40s, but I’m putting this password in and it really depends what mood the phone is in as to whether it’ll accept it. I’m somehow, seemingly, not getting this password right every time. I didn’t have this problem on other phones.
Like many new phones, there’s no mini jack port, so I use Wi-Fi headphones but I can’t get music to play through my car speakers. Doesn’t look like that’s a possibility at all now. No Wi-Fi in my car. The phone's built-in speakers are okay, but there’s no bass.
Issues aside, the A55 is storing everything I need, the 4 cameras are more than I have use for – the strongest is 50MP – and the 2.75GHz processor allows quick navigation between apps. These days a lot of smartphones are starting to become homogeneous – they’re either Apple or Android – and to stay afloat, they all need to have the same functions or they’ll die out (You seeing this, Windows? Of course not). It’s difficult for me to say anything about the A55 that isn’t available on other platforms or models. I can’t compare it to an iPhone because I’ve never had one. I don’t want to shell out that much, and I’ve been wisely advised to stick to what I know, which is Android.
Since 2010, smartphones have revolutionised my life and – for a large part – have made my memory difficulties unnoticeable to most people. It’s allowed me to store the information I need in written and pictorial form, in the calendar, notes app and even allows me to search WhatsApp conversations.
I can see myself using Samsung Galaxy for the foreseeable.
