- 1 day ago
I desperately tried to switch over from my iPhone to an OPPO. Here's how it fell apart :( Download the Saily app or go to https://saily.com/boss to get an exclusive 15% discount on Saily data plans! Use code BOSS at checkout.
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00:00Last month on a family holiday, I did a little experiment.
00:02I had my iPhone, as usual, but I also brought with me an Oppo Find X9 Ultra to take photos
00:07with.
00:07And I ended up so blown away by this phone, in more ways than one, that I had an entire
00:12midlife crisis.
00:14I made every arrangement to finally put my iPhone to rest the moment I got home and escape from the
00:19Apple ecosystem once and for all.
00:21That was a giant mistake.
00:25So I started this holiday with a very simple mission.
00:27Anytime I was going to take a photo on my iPhone anyways, I'd just take one on the Oppo too.
00:31What I didn't expect, though, is how much fun this was going to be.
00:34It got me thinking, the iPhone's camera system is kind of designed to be boring.
00:39Apple sells over 200 million iPhones every single year, and that's between not very many different models.
00:45So just because this one has a Pro in its name does not change the fact that it's designed for
00:50a mainstream audience.
00:51What does a mainstream audience need?
00:53Balance.
00:54Every aspect of the iPhone, including its cameras, is meticulously crafted around a never-too-much, never-too-little Goldilocks
01:02philosophy.
01:02Because that's the only way to make a one-size-fits-most device.
01:07Something for which it doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter which lens you're using,
01:10it doesn't matter what lighting condition, front camera, back camera, you just know that it's going to be dependable.
01:14If not exciting.
01:17And so what I noticed was, as soon as I started using this tool, that instead of being reliably good,
01:22was capable of exceptional,
01:24it all of a sudden made me care about what I was shooting again.
01:27Like this shot here, taken on the Oppo phone.
01:31It started to become a bit of a game on this holiday.
01:34I'd take these photos on both phones, and every time I'd show my family, it was the difference between,
01:38ah, thanks for taking the photos with the iPhone, and wow, you're such a good photographer with the Oppo.
01:43They stoked my ego, and that's the quickest way to my heart.
01:47And after a few days of this, I started to realise there was no point in taking photos on the
01:51iPhone if I had this Oppo around.
01:53So I just focused on using this.
01:55I started to play around with what was possible thanks to the Oppo's higher number of cameras,
01:59much bigger sensors, higher resolutions, and wider apertures to let more light in.
02:03I was taking stunning footage like this, which, let's be honest, was just never going to happen before.
02:09Not to mention this 10x optical zoom camera that can go a lot further than that, and feels borderline violating.
02:15You're taking shots that look like this, only to completely forget that this is how far away you shot them
02:20from.
02:21And the 6x zoom preset that produces my absolute favourite close-up macro shots of any phone ever.
02:27And so you can imagine at this point, having gone from son who owns lots of phones,
02:31to son who actually takes such good photos that he must take ours too,
02:35I started to wonder, why am I even using this iPhone?
02:39Why am I not using a phone that's tailored to what I love, and just permanently aura-farming with every
02:44clip I take?
02:45Plus, I actually capture content for a living, so wouldn't switching to something with crazy good cameras,
02:50and by the way, a battery that's nearly 50% larger too, actually just be a work perk as well
02:55as a life one?
02:58And what's intensified this feeling is the sheer gap in intelligence that I've noticed between the two phones.
03:03For example, I'm someone who strongly prefers to talk things out instead of typing.
03:08I like getting my thoughts out quickly, it just feels efficient.
03:11Plus, I get a lot of finger pain when I spend too much time on a keyboard.
03:14So on my iPhone, I'm constantly setting reminders using my voice,
03:18using dictation to give big chunks of feedback to my editors,
03:21or even when on a walk, where I always seem to have my best ideas,
03:25brain dumping into my Notes app as new things occur to me.
03:28Problem is, Apple kinda sucks for this.
03:31And it's only when you live with both Siri and Gemini at the same time
03:35that it dawns on you how much better an Android phone right now understands what you're saying to it.
03:40Gemini's not perfect, but it does get the words right,
03:43and you have way more control over the grammar too.
03:45So you end up with sentences that you could actually send to someone
03:48without looking like you learned English yesterday.
03:51Plus, Google specifically just announced that they are doubling down
03:53on their speech-to-text quality later this year with the new Rambler feature.
03:57That's me! I'm that Rambler!
04:00Yeah, can confirm.
04:02And with reminders, I just kind of come to expect
04:04that if I ask Siri to remind me of something,
04:06it's gonna completely butcher it.
04:08But that is now tomorrow's problem to figure out what I originally meant.
04:11It's been so refreshing for this to not be an issue with the Oppo.
04:15Or another example, let's say I'm in Salee,
04:17I'm buying an eSIM for my next trip.
04:19Kyrgyzstan.
04:21Oh my god.
04:22The Android gets me.
04:23iPhone, not so much.
04:25Point being, there are all sorts of benefits that you start to notice
04:28from the lurking presence of a higher intelligence on Android.
04:32Like yesterday, I was searching for a specific photo of Drisha and I.
04:36Being able to just type something vague like couple
04:38and trust that your phone actually gets that you mean
04:41two adults, maybe a baby, nothing more, is so useful.
04:45Now, of course, Apple will get smarter software and a better Siri.
04:49Probably soon.
04:50They have to announce big changes at this year's WWDC.
04:53They will make iPhones with better cameras and longer battery life.
04:56But my thought process was it could be months or even years
04:59before this better Siri and better software is actually on my iPhone
05:02and working well.
05:03And by then, will Google and Gemini be just as far ahead?
05:08It certainly seems that way based on the mountain of upcoming features
05:11announced at Google I.O. And frankly, I don't think Apple is ever going to close
05:15this camera and battery size gap.
05:17It doesn't make sense for them to because of the Goldilocks zone
05:20that they need to stay in to remain mainstream.
05:23So I dove in.
05:24I went through every single app I use on my iPhone
05:26and downloaded them one by one again.
05:28I painfully peeled away like 16 years worth of photos from iCloud
05:31and started paying for Google Photos,
05:33called my banks to re-authenticate my cards for Google Pay,
05:36re-logged into every single account and created new ones
05:39for those that I'd initially foolishly signed up for with Apple.
05:42Damn you guys for making it so easy to do that.
05:44This process was a reminder of just how locked into the Apple ecosystem
05:47you can become without really realizing it's happening.
05:51And that's without even talking about the whole shared iCloud library
05:54and iMessage stuff.
05:55Thankfully, in the UK, most people just use WhatsApp.
05:57It's things like, if I want to keep using my AirPods with this Oppo,
06:00I'd lose about 10 of their key features,
06:03like whatever I'm watching pausing when I take one earbud out.
06:05How with the iPhone, you can actually use the microphones
06:08inside of your AirPods as a portable lav mic
06:10to pick up your voice a lot clearer when you're taking video.
06:14And it makes a massive difference, as you can see,
06:17as we now flick to using the iPhone's in-built microphones.
06:20And probably the most useful, audio sharing.
06:22So both Drisha and I can both connect our pairs of AirPods to one phone.
06:26None of this is possible on the Oppo,
06:28at least on Oppo's current latest software.
06:30My MacBook would lose the ability to instantly paste something
06:33the moment that I've hit copy on my iPhone.
06:36And being able to use my phone's internet would just one tap from my Mac,
06:39as opposed to needing to go onto the phone first to activate hotspot,
06:42and then back onto the phone to turn off hotspot when I'm done.
06:44Not to mention the most painful loss of all, AirDrop.
06:47And then my Apple Watch?
06:49That would be literally dead on arrival.
06:51This will not even pair to an Android phone,
06:53which is really upsetting,
06:55given that this played such a core role in my recent fitness transformation.
06:58I was determined, though.
06:59So one by one, I found the best current workaround for each potential issue.
07:03And I am seven days into this being my main phone with my main SIM card in.
07:10And, uh...
07:10I screwed up.
07:12Now, of course, not everything I found is going to be an issue for everyone.
07:15But I just want to show you why this switch was such a bad idea for me,
07:18in case you see parallels with your situation.
07:21So first, there's definitely some nitpicks that have crept in about this Oppo.
07:24Things you don't realize when you're in the honeymoon phase.
07:27Like, for example, when you're buying a niche phone like this,
07:30it's really hard to get quality accessories.
07:32Like on my iPhone, not an ad, by the way,
07:34I love my TORAS brand case with this fancy stand.
07:37This is the best alternative I managed to find on my Oppo.
07:41It sounds absolutely atrocious when you rotate it.
07:44And literally just yesterday while using it, the backplate fell off.
07:50Yeah, this ain't it, chief.
07:51The Oppo regularly takes an extra second or two
07:53to figure out what app you're looking for in the universal search bar.
07:56So while I'm used to bashing in three letters
07:58and then instantly hitting the app icon I want,
08:00here, unless you wait, you actually end up going into the wrong apps.
08:04The apps themselves on Android do not feel as polished.
08:07Like, why with Uber does it feel like the categories are actually measured to fit
08:11within my display on the iPhone, but on Android I have to scroll?
08:13Why is the Boots logo every time I open the app
08:15high resolution on iPhone, but low resolution on Android?
08:19Why does NYT Games on iPhone get this custom fancy dock at the bottom,
08:22while Android gets this animation-less, personality-less alternative?
08:26Why does the British Airways app on iPhone remember who I am,
08:29but on Android it makes me log in again every single time I open it?
08:32Why on Google's own YouTube studio
08:35is the app better formatted to read your titles on iPhone,
08:38even though Oppo is set to minimum text font?
08:40And why does Android take me to the bottom of the page
08:42every time I switch views?
08:44These are all minor things that you could get used to,
08:46but I think anyone switching from iPhone to Android
08:49will notice their apps go from clearly the developer's first priority
08:53to, eh, it works.
08:56I've started to notice that Oppo's display
08:57is not as bright as the iPhone's.
08:59Kind of ironic, given that its quoted brightness is actually higher.
09:02And you know when those SMS verification codes come in?
09:05I've got very used to them consistently appearing on my keyboard,
09:08so that all I need to do is tap half the time on the Oppo?
09:11They just don't.
09:12All of these things, I would class them as irritating but tolerable.
09:16This, though, is where this transition started to break down for me.
09:19There's still no good alternative to AirDrop.
09:22It's pretty clear that Google's working on it,
09:23and very impressive that they've already got to a stage
09:26where they've reverse-engineered AirDrop
09:27to make new Android phones compatible with it.
09:30So I can now pull up a file on this Oppo
09:32and send it to my Mac via Quick Share,
09:33and my Mac will receive that file as if it were from an iPhone using AirDrop.
09:37It is seamless, but it's much slower on Android
09:40than when you're doing apples to apples.
09:42There's another popular option called LocalSend,
09:44but it's buggier and just fails for no apparent reason a third of the time.
09:48I feel like I've gone through every single recommended option.
09:50They're either slow, unreliable, or filled with ads.
09:53So I'm back to Quick Share.
09:54It's the best option,
09:55but you can also see how potentially quadrupling the amount of time
09:58I'm waiting for my files to transfer
10:00doesn't feel like a sensible life decision.
10:03Of course, I could just ditch the MacBook 2 and go Windows,
10:06but as a general-purpose laptop,
10:08I will die on this hill.
10:10Nothing beats the MacBook right now.
10:11I've realized another pretty fatal flaw in my plan.
10:14So obviously a big part of the reason that I shifted from iPhone to Oppo
10:18was the rear cameras.
10:19But in doing so,
10:20I also kind of just assumed that the front camera would be as good as the iPhones.
10:26It isn't.
10:27And that's kind of annoying
10:29because half the time when I'm filming shots on my phone,
10:32it's because I don't have a camera person with me,
10:34and so I need to see what I'm doing.
10:37You know how we talked about this idea of the iPhone being such a balanced phone
10:40and then me proceeding to say that that doesn't matter to me?
10:45Well, now's kind of where I eat my own words
10:47because I think it does.
10:49I actually think there's something very nice and useful
10:52about having this parity on all of your cameras
10:55because when I'm shooting clips on my phone,
10:58if I'm being really honest,
10:59I want it to look nice,
11:01but the most important thing is that it doesn't look bad.
11:04And so which phone allows me to better ensure that?
11:08That's actually the iPhone.
11:09It's not looking good,
11:10but this has been the most critical blocker for me.
11:13So switching out the earbuds has been fine.
11:15If anything, I've upgraded from the AirPods Pro 3 to the Sony XM6s,
11:19and I love these things,
11:21but it's having to swap the watch that's become a problem.
11:23At the start of this search,
11:24I was excited by the idea
11:26because the Apple Watch has its flaws.
11:27This switch up was my chance to fix them,
11:29but then I started to go through the options.
11:31I checked out Garmin smartwatches,
11:33but their user interface is so laggy and unpolished.
11:36There's the Google Pixel Watch,
11:37but after I tested it at the Sidemen charity match
11:39and it claimed that I'd burned over 2,000 calories in two hours,
11:42I don't have a lot of faith that I could rely on it,
11:45especially since calories are one of the very few things
11:48that I need from my watch.
11:49There's the Oppo watches.
11:51You know, in theory,
11:51they should have very good synergy with the Oppo smartphone.
11:54But wait, no one uses this product.
11:57Literally, there isn't one review on Amazon UK.
11:59So there's just no way that this watch
12:01is going to be well-supported within third-party fitness apps
12:04and on gym equipment,
12:05a function which I use all the time, by the way,
12:08to make sure that I'm getting the stats
12:09from both the watch sensors,
12:11but also the settings of the machine
12:12so you get the most accurate results.
12:14The Whoop band seemed promising.
12:16I know enthusiasts swear by it.
12:18So I went and bought one, set it up,
12:19used it for like five days.
12:21Did not like it either.
12:23It's not that it's bad.
12:23It's just not for me.
12:25I have simple needs.
12:27And Whoop gives you so much information
12:29that sometimes actually comes at the cost
12:31of the clarity of the simple stuff.
12:33Not to mention how still having to wear something on your wrist
12:36without getting any of the perks of a smartwatch,
12:38like being able to set a quick reminder,
12:40see your heart rate,
12:41or hell, check the time,
12:43feels like such a waste for me.
12:44So eventually I caved.
12:46I sucked it up and bought the one smartwatch
12:48I'd been avoiding the whole time.
12:50The Galaxy Watch.
12:51The watch where they forgot that the screen was a circle
12:54when designing the body.
12:55And even this,
12:56it's not working out.
12:59While I am working out.
13:00See, for the first three months of this year,
13:02you might know I use the Apple Watch
13:03to track a strict exercise plan.
13:06And the changes I saw in my body composition
13:08lined up almost perfectly
13:09with the calories that this watch said I was burning.
13:12And now for the 30 days after that,
13:14I've been using the Apple Watch calorie numbers again
13:16to try and maintain the weight that I'm at.
13:18And so the fact that in that time,
13:19my weight hasn't gone up or down one bit
13:22shows that while of course this is not lab grade accuracy,
13:25calorie counting is a very weird, imprecise thing.
13:28It shows that it's accurate enough to be useful.
13:30But if that's the case,
13:32then this is not.
13:34Because every single day
13:36I've been wearing these two watches side by side,
13:38the Galaxy tells me that I've burned
13:39quite a lot more calories than the Apple says.
13:42And all of this is compounded
13:43by the extra issues I'm facing
13:45by straddling multiple ecosystems.
13:47I've already forfeited a lot
13:49of the Galaxy Watch's standout features
13:50by not using it with a Samsung phone.
13:52And it's not syncing very reliably at all with the Oppo.
13:55I got very used to how with the Apple Watch,
13:57as soon as your stats update on this,
13:59almost instantly they update on Apple Health
14:01and then pretty much instantly
14:03they update on all your third-party apps
14:05connected to Apple Health.
14:06Not the case with my Samsung Oppo combo.
14:09Sometimes the Samsung health data
14:10will update in real time.
14:12Like here it's telling me I've burned 49 calories.
14:15But then that number doesn't translate to the app,
14:17which still thinks I've burned 11.
14:19Until I manually pull down to refresh it,
14:21then it syncs up.
14:22Sometimes my widget will tell me I've burned one number,
14:24but then I click into it
14:25and the app behind it says another.
14:26I feel like I've had every combination
14:28of this type of syncing issue.
14:30It's all technically working.
14:31It's just not working well together.
14:34And that's especially true
14:35when it comes to charging the stuff.
14:37I've got used to this super slimline thing
14:39being the only charger
14:40that I need to take with me when I'm going away.
14:42Now, my phone doesn't have a magnet.
14:44I mean, yes, you could add one with a phone case,
14:46but frankly, this magnet is so terrible
14:48that I kind of wish I hadn't tried.
14:50So I've just ended up plugging the thing in each night.
14:52The Samsung Watch has its own bespoke charging puck
14:55and the Sony earbuds,
14:56you can charge them wirelessly,
14:58but they don't have a magnet like the AirPods do.
15:00And at the point where I'm charging
15:02both of my other products with wires anyway,
15:04I actually might as well just plug that in too.
15:06So basically this jump to Android would mean
15:08that even my travel charging setup
15:10would deteriorate to this.
15:12Ultimately, too many compromises.
15:14I've been getting bored, right?
15:16I've been getting bored of iPhones every single year
15:18looking and feeling so similar.
15:20So when finally an Android phone came out
15:21that felt so far beyond my iPhone's capabilities,
15:24it triggered a tipping point.
15:26But while I was, of course,
15:27ready for some compromises to make this switch,
15:30I was not ready for just how impactful
15:32they'd end up feeling
15:33for the way that I use my devices.
15:35It's reminded me that even though many Apple devices
15:38individually are not necessarily best in class,
15:41the synergy that they form together,
15:43or the disguised lock-in,
15:45depends how you see it,
15:45actually is.
15:46And I'm currently getting more from that
15:48than individually up for aiding
15:50any one piece of hardware.
15:51At least messing around with the eSIMs
15:53hasn't added to the headache.
15:54Because I use Salee, our sponsor,
15:55any time I go away,
15:57the moment I logged into the app on my Oppo,
15:59I already had my data packages ready to go.
16:01And it's just sick how the next time I decide
16:03I want to gallivant off somewhere,
16:05I can just download the data for that country,
16:07like you're downloading an app.
16:08And you can get an exclusive 15% discount
16:10on Salee eSIM plans
16:12using the code BOSS at checkout.
16:13And I'll see you next time out.
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