Hi all. I’m in the market for a new Android phone and I was hoping you could help with recommendations.

Thanks to my awesome friend cancer (and its awesome friends at Phillip Morris), I had my larynx removed and can no longer speak. Because of that, I use my phone as my main form of communication, typing out things and showing my phone to people. It’s in my hand all the time and it’s VERY important to me.

Thanks to some of the side effects of the drugs that are keeping me alive, I am very sensitive to heat. My phone (Oneplus 7T) gets hot when I’m gaming, most phones do, and it can occasionally get too uncomfortable for me to use. It doesn’t happen often though. My wife’s Pixel Fold, on the other hand, gets too hot just from normal use. I’ve read this is a thing with the newer Pixel phones.

So the most important criterion right now is that it can’t get too hot. Even when charging.

Second most important criterion is weight, since I’m constantly holding it and showing it to people… Or just sitting in bed texting. The Pixel Fold is cool and all, but too damn heavy to be lugging around everywhere.

Third would be size. With the amount I type, a bigger screen means bigger buttons and fewer typos. I know that bigger tends to mean heavier so there’s a balance to be struck between this priority and the previous one. One of the reasons I’m looking for help.

Last, I tend to prefer a close-to-stock Android experience. But given the importance of my other priorities, this is lower on the list.

Some other info: I live in the US, I’m on T-Mo currently but I only buy unlocked phones, price is obviously a consideration but not a constraint, don’t care about camera, nice screen and high refresh would be nice to have.

Thanks in advance for any help. It’s such a pain to try to sift through all the phones every few years. I used to just pick the newest Nexus. Then the newest Oneplus. But Google and Oneplus aren’t what they used to be and so I’m open to suggestions now. Thanks!

  • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝A
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    1 year ago

    I own a Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro - it’s designed for gaming and has cooling, from a review:

    This model also includes some impressive cooling tech – we never felt like the phone was overheating during heavy use.

    I haven’t noticed it getting warm in the time I’ve had it and I have hammered it.

    It’s not expensive, has a decent screen and, being clumsy, I drop it a lot and it hasn’t had an issue. Weight may be an issue, but, as you say, you have to balance that out with other features - I often use it single-handed and don’t have an issue. A big problem for you may be the operating system, as it isn’t stock Android, but I added a launcher and it works perfectly for my requirements. Overall, I am very happy with it and would buy something similar again, even if people’s attention seems to drift half-way through my telling them the make and model.

    • Stillhart@lemm.eeOP
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      1 year ago

      Thanks, I’ll look into it. For some reason I didn’t think you could still get Xiaomi phones in the US.

      • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝A
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        1 year ago

        I think that’s Huawei. Xiaomi do a lot of smart home kit that I am p=pretty Sure is also available on the US.

      • ladfrombrad 🇬🇧@lemdro.idM
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        1 year ago

        Another Xiaomi (M11 Lite) owner here and when I seen your post last night I checked my average temps and even now, while I’m fast charging it it generally never gets much hotter than the ambient temperature (~25°) during normal use. And like someone else said using a slow charger wouldn’t see mine go up to 30°+ whilst charging.

        https://i.imgur.com/KK4VANP.jpg