I always love getting new technology. Especially when it comes to my phone. It's the one thing you use everyday and having the same phone gets boring after a while.
So I always get excited when it is upgrade time. I currently have a 24-month contract with Tesco mobile which means I have been using the same phone for two years. And I was so happy to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new.
It's not that there was anything wrong with my old phone but over time technology progresses and what was the latest phone two years go is now old news. And like I said, it gets boring using the same phone after a while.
And yesterday I was more than happy to say goodbye to my old, Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini and say hello to my new Samsung Galaxy J5.
If I'm honest, there is no real reason as to why I chose this phone. I hadn't actually given any thought as to what phone that I wanted to get. I just knew it had to be reasonably priced. With contract phones, you don't pay for the phone upfront. You pay off a little bit of it each month as part of your monthly bill. And the more expensive the phone, the more you have to pay per month.
I have never really been one to know what phone I want to get. When I got my S4 Mini it was because I needed to get away from the horror that was my BlackBerry phone at the time. And I only really chose a BlackBerry phone because I liked their hardware keyboards. But the actual operating system of the phone was a letdown and I couldn't deal with it anymore. And before the BlackBerry I had my last Nokia phone...those were the good old days before smartphones.
Anyway, I decided to get the Samsung Galaxy J5 as it was a recommendation from the guy at the store. And it was the same make as my current phone. This was good for two reasons, one it has the Android user interface I am used to. And two, it would make transferring the data from the old phone to the new phone so much easier.
So really, the Samsung Galaxy J5 isn't that different from my old phone but it's an updated shinier version. Upon obtaining the phone, I did look up the phone model online because I had never heard of it. The J5 was released in June 2015 and is supposed to be a good gaming phone. I don't use my phone for gaming but I suppose if you did this would be one of the phones to go for.
One thing that is very different between the two phones is the size of them. I hate big phones. That's why when I got my Samsung Galaxy S4 it had to be the Mini. Because the actual regular S4 was too big for my liking. If you're like me and have small hands, a big phone is just not ideal. But the J5 is about an inch bigger than my S4 Mini. As shown below:

J5 on the left and S4 Mini on the right

It will take a while for me to get used to having a bigger phone. I just don't see the appeal of them. Unless you like to use your phone to watch videos and things it just seems like a lot of hassle. Remember when we used to try and make phones small because they used to be the size of bricks? Can we go back to that?
Other than that the transition between the phones was very smooth. Like I said earlier because the phones are the same make and have the same operating system the backup and restore was effortless. All I had to do was log into my Google account. Sure, I had to sign back into all my social media accounts but all my contacts were transferred over. So most of the work was done for me.
The only thing I had to take off of my old phone were the photos which were saved on the device and not its external SD card. Which was fine, I just put them onto my computer instead of transferring them to the new phone.
Overall my first impressions of my new phone have been good. I like the android operating system and I love the option to add a theme to my phone. If you guys saw my tweet yesterday I was talking about how much I loved a cute pink theme.

The current theme on my phone

I like to customise all the settings on my phone when I get it. That way I can really make it my own. Also, going through all the settings on your phone when you first get it is a great way to familiarise yourself with it. So I definitely recommend you do it. Even if you do it one day out of boredom. You might learn that your phone can do something cool that you didn't know about.
As for my review of my old phone...I can't say anything bad about it. Apart from how it would sometimes freeze when it was updating its app and I was using it. However, I think that is just a result of the phone getting old. Which can happen after you use a phone for a long time. It can just slow down and malfunction. But for my first android phone, I would say the S4 Mini was a good choice.
And in case you weren't sure where I was on the Apple versus Android debate I am 100% Android. Apple is nice if you can afford it, but Android phones prove to be more durable when you drop them and are more reasonably priced.
So I think that's everything I have to say on the whole phone front. I wish I was more technical with this kind of thing considering I'm a software engineering student but honestly I only use my phone to text people and check Twitter on the go. So I am not one to come to on advice on which phone you should get. Still, I hope you enjoyed reading. Feel free to leave a comment below letting me know what you're considering for your next phone. I for one will have to wait to see what phones are available in 2018 to decide what my next one will be. Oh the possibilities!
~ Courtney x