Mobile buying advice for 12K for Grandmother

1. Budget? 12K, might be willing to extend a little bit
2. Display type and size? Biggest possible
3. Dual sim? doesnt matter
4. Preferred choice of brand? Preference for more known brands with a number of service centers such as Samsung for e.g.
5. What camera option you want (flash, front facing camera)? doesnt matter
6. Preferred operating system? (Android, iOS,Stock Android etc). doesnt matter
7. Preferred connectivity options (Dual 4G,802.11AC/5Ghz(not 5g mobile network) wifi). doesnt matter
8. Primary use of handset (multimedia, camera, internet, gaming etc)? Internet - YT and FB
9. Any specific mobile phones in consideration? Nope
10. Any other info that you want to share - The last phone was used for 4-5 years. So the new phone will be used till it dies. Our priorities are - reliability, no heating or any other kind of issues, big screen and good battery life. all other stuff doesnt really matter.
Also it seems due to the lockdown Mobiles are not getting delivered to Ranchi by Flipkart or Amazon. So It would be better if its possible to buy the phone from a local store. If not, then we can wait.
Would prefer if the phone doesnt have advertisements as I won't be able to disable it for her. Don;t live in the same city. But again depends on the trade off, can compromise with this. Can this step be done remotely?
Also, I would like to buy the phone immediately so no flash sales.
Thank you!

W

Considering all this I think there are no options other than samsung M30s,M21,M31(which ever you can find cheapest preferably with 6gb ram).

whitestar_999 said:
Considering all this I think there are no options other than samsung M30s,M21,M31(which ever you can find cheapest preferably with 6gb ram).

Is 6 gb a must? I have a pixel 3, with 4 gb and runs fine?
The cheapest out of these is M21 which for the 4 gb version is 13.5K?
What are the alternatives to Samsung?

W

pixel 3 runs stock android & well optimized for it so 4gb ram is more than enough but why do you think mobiles nowadays come with 8gb ram.

A 4gb ram phone will also work fine for 1-2 years & if not too many heavy apps are used so I guess that is ok for your case.

No alternative to samsung in my opinion if after sales support/offline availability/no ads/reliability is your primary concern. @omega44-xt may give some more suggestions.

I don't think Samsung M series are available offline, they did have plans though. Do search locally & find what they have, Samsung M30S/M21 as suggested earlier. I would say 4GB RAM is sufficient for your grandma. My S8 has 4GB RAM but since I'm a heavy user, I can see some apps not staying in memory at times. So for someone who isn't a heavy user, 4GB is sufficient for years to come.

I think Samsung M & A series has some recommendations as well, but not as bad of a situation or ads like Xiaomi. You can use some app like Teamviewer to take control of phone & follow guides to disable recommendations & ads if you are finding Xiaomi phones locally. You might find Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro or Redmi Note 8 locally. Redmi Note 8 Pro & Realme 5 Pro are good choices but bit more expensive, if you can't find Samsung M21/30S.

W

In that case realme phones are better as xiaomi ads situation does need a basic technical know-how even after the initial setup due to all the updates. Also phone servicing at offline service centres may be an issue for non-samsung phones in tier 2/3 cities but again things may have improved in recent years.

So my options are Samsung M21/M30S,Redmi note 7 pro, redmi note 8 & pro and Realme 5 pro. Thanks for the help guys. This has narrowed down the list.