Thursday, 2022-05-26
Just bought myself a new smartphone last week, a Xiaomi 11T Pro as the old one, Xiaomi A1 which I purchased about 4 years ago starting to lag and lag more each day. I did some extensive research on reading technical specs as well as other high-end flagship smartphones for comparison. I also watched so many reviews and unboxing videos on Youtube.
I narrowed down my search based on my budget, how much I'm willing to spend for phone features that will not be obsolete in the next 2-3 years. I was aiming more for mid-range phone and here's my criteria that I wrote down:
- Budget max. USD $600 – this will give me a mid-range phone with decent performance and good camera.
- 5G ready – you don't want to buy a 4G only phone when 5G is already available.
- NFC – this has becoming a feature I must have as e-money use is ubiquitous. With NFC I could check my e-money balance and top-up using my phone.
- Processor (SOC) that will not be obsolete soon.
- Camera able to record 4K video.
- Phone storage minimum 256GB – when you have 4k ready camera, you need big storage!
- Battery life & charging time
The closest flagship phone with the criteria I wanted was Samsung S21FE and it is still about USD $100 more expensive than my budget allow. I didn't even bother considering iPhone series as they are too expensive and overkill for my current need.
Xiaomi 11T Pro doesn't come with telephoto lense, instead it has macro lense, that's about what I have to compromise. The price I paid was around USD $500 and it has tons more features than the Samsung S21FE. One thing for sure is the phone charging time from completely empty to 100% full took only 37 minutes! It comes with 120W charger.
Why am I telling you about my new phone here? Well, I will be writing about my journey on learning smartphone videography that will consists of several posts, and this post is the first one. Besides smartphone as the main equipment to take video, I also need additional supporting equipment like gimbal and monopod. So I will break-down my learning journey and also my new found hobby into several posts:
Part #1: New Phone (this post)
Part #2: Gimbal & Monopod (coming soon)
Part #3: Video Editing Apps (coming soon)
These new set of equipment would definitely keep me busy for a while. Well... stay tuned for my next post on getting myself a new gimbal and monopod! So excited...
Stay healthy guys!