You can tell by the headline that the banjo-playing donkey is striking up in my wife\u2019s head as we speak, because it\u2019s time to talk about phones again. \u00a0And this is a germane topic because we are setting off to London in August, for the first visit to Europe in six years, and not a moment too soon. \u00a0The problem is, last time I went to the old continent, it was in 2010 and unlocked smartphones weren\u2019t really a thing as such – unlocked iPhones from the United States definitely weren\u2019t – and I was packing an iPhone 3G in Airplane Mode and my trusty old SonyEricsson Z520 alongside.<\/p>\n
That Z520 is no longer a going concern (but has a space of honor in my box of memorabilia) and the Virgin SIM it relied on is defunct. So it\u2019s time to consider what to carry with me. Normally, this is where that Moto X goes, but there are two issues. One is that the camera on the first-gen Moto X is not suitable for any photography greater than Instagram; it certainly isn\u2019t a point-and-shoot replacement the way the iPhone 4S and later have proven to be. The other is that it only supports four LTE bands, all of which are North American – LTE in Europe was barely a thing when the first Moto X shipped, and it doesn\u2019t have the plethora of options the wife\u2019s unlocked iPhone 6S has.<\/p>\n
So that brings up the next point: when we went to Japan, I had my iPhone 6 in Airplane Mode with wifi turned on, and we had rented one of those portable WiFi hotspots, and we were largely able to get by (except in the Japanese Alps where coverage was splotchy at best). Since \u2018er indoors can pop any old SIM into that phone, by virtue of having bought it unlocked at full price to keep her old data plan, she could very easily fit it with a SIM from Three, the UK provider that offers service at rates that are insanely cheap by US standards. \u00a0Three also allows tethering, which means she would have unlimited data on her own device and could use it as a hotspot for me to burn up to 12 GB. \u00a0Setting aside for a moment the notion that this would absolutely destroy her battery life, it provides another option that would be just fine under the circumstances.<\/p>\n
But then there\u2019s a wild care, and it is the notional much-rumored iPhone 6C, so-called. The Great Mentioner is convinced that sometime in the first half of 2016, Apple will release a new iPhone out of band with the regular updates, much as they did with the Verizon-capable iPhone 4 or the white models. The general consensus around the rumors is that the body will more or less resemble the iPhone 5S, with a 4\u201d display, but slightly rounded glass more akin to the iPhone 6 series. \u00a0It will feature the processor of the 6S but the camera of the 5S. And critically, it will feature a battery slightly larger than the 5S, driving a display 30% smaller than the 6 series, without 3D Touch circuitry taking up space inside the phone.<\/p>\n
The implications of this are significant. \u00a0If the screen is consuming 30% less battery power, the expected battery life should be a third longer than on the 6 series. \u00a0Add to that a camera lens that would be flush with the body of the camera rather than protruding, and the performance gains of the faster (and presumably more efficient) processor, and it\u2019s just barely possible that we might – might<\/em> – finally have an all-day iPhone that only requires you to carry a battery on days when you\u2019re in full-on tourist mode. \u00a0It will be genuinely one-hand-usable again. It\u2019ll disappear in a front jeans pocket again. It will, in short, be precisely what I want from a new iPhone. \u00a0And at that point, it would be possible to splash out on it, straight cash, and just make it my regular everyday phone. Leave the 6 in a drawer at work in case of emergency, put the Moto X in the drawer for Android compatibility testing only and be prepared to pull its SIM if I leave this job, and boom, I\u2019m set for the next couple of years. And between an aging Apple credit and a little bundle of cash unlooked-for from Apple under different circumstances, it\u2019s already paid for.<\/p>\n The downside of this is that I\u2019ve done what i decried in this very space eight years ago: I\u2019m attempting to will a new iPhone product into existence on nothing more than my own desires and hardly-disinterested say-so. And given that any such device will be pitched as entry-level, and possibly have as little as 16 GB of storage, that could be an issue. I really need this thing to be a 32 GB phone at a minimum and I\u2019d prefer if it were 64, although I recognize that\u2019s highly unlikely – but then, the iPhone 5S that\u2019s currently the entry device still has a 32 GB option, the only iPhone that does. \u00a0So that\u2019s nice. \u00a0Rumblings<\/a> also suggest NFC support and 2 GB of RAM – ironically both features of that first-gen Moto X. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n That unlocked 32 GB iPhone 5S, right now, costs $500 – bring in a 32 GB phone with those specs as the iPhone 6C and I\u2019m all in.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t even have to come in gold. Of which…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You can tell by the headline that the banjo-playing donkey is striking up in my wife\u2019s head as we speak, because it\u2019s time to talk about phones again. \u00a0And this is a germane topic because we are setting off to London in August, for the first visit to Europe in six years, and not a … <\/p>\n