My "First Smartphone"
7^th January 2025

Technically this isn't the first smartphone I've owned, but it is the first one I've now moved my SIM card into and use as my day-to-day phone. It's an Honor X6b; nothing special, pretty much the cheapest up-to-date smartphone available to me.

Pros/Cons:

• It's a bit big (163.6 x 75.3 x 8.4 mm (6.44 x 2.96 x 0.33 in), 192 g (6.77 oz))

• 5200 mAh with 35W charging*

• 50MP Camera (yet still only 1080p video recording**)

• 3.5mm Headphone socket

I've been shying away from jumping on the Smartphone Bandwagon all this time until now; I have enough issues with internet addiction as it is without risking my soul further with yet another doom-scrolling device, but I felt ready, especially since I'd recently had internet connection problems where I could have benefited from having another means of getting online. I'm also not a fan of Google and while this is an Android phone I'll be keeping their mitts off my bits as far as I can.

Below I list the apps I've elected to use along with some tips & tricks, considerations and advice that might be useful to any smartphone user.

Note: I pretty much avoid "social media"; I don't use Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, X/Twitter, or TicToc. For the likes of Youtube I will generally watch stuff via my desktop where I can pretty much block the adds. Perhaps using a smartphone might allow me to sit at my desk less and get other stuff done...

Apps:

		Alarm and Timed Shutdown [No Root] - Not having my phone (and WiFi) on 24/7 is very important to me so I have therefore elected to use my phone's Alarm to switch my phone on and wake me in the morning and then the Timed Shutdown app shuts the phone down shortly after my working day has ended; it was a little bit weird to set up but it mostly works (I feel the need to check the phone has actually shut down because at least once it hasn't); once my phone is off it's off, I will not switch it on again. If you're trying to overcome phone addiction and want to "try" this process then it is very important that you never let yourself circumvent the restrictions you put in place, also, it is important that you plan ahead to fill the gap left over from your phone usage; what are you going to do instead?
		Fitbit - Part of the reason why I felt the need to get an up-to-date Android device was because I thought my Fitbit was no longer working on my old tablet. I was mistaken however. Anyway, Google requested I migrate my account over to them when I installed the latest version on the phone... no thanks; they ask for access to way too much data for my liking (not that they can't just access what they want anyway...) I would use my current Fitbit to wake me up but the strap is fragile so I'm avoiding sleeping with it on.
		Weather App - This is free with no email signup request (unlike the BBCs app whose website I use for my daily forecast needs), you just have to be careful not to stray into "more details" otherwise you subject yourself to advertising. This app really looks nice.
		VLC - For media; I find the mobile app becomes fairly intuitive after a while for music, yet I use it mostly on my desktop for playing video files... although I haven't actually used it on this phone yet...
		Files - There seems to be a multitude of apps calling themselves "Files" and the phone seems to have two File Browsers installed... what gives?
		Lidl Plus - Yes, if you shop somewhere regularly you might benefit from having their app (in fact I may have already been awarded a donut and a £10 voucher, although I'll expect such incentives to quieten down over time). This is one of the things that sold me on the idea on using a smartphone; the potential for discounts off my shopping, and better deals that I was otherwise missing out on. I wonder if this will cover the cost of the phone in a year or two. However, when signing up I glanced over the Ts&Cs and I could see where their motives lie... they're clearly focused on data collection rather than "We would like to provide you with better deals..." My only concern is that in using the app I'm one less step away from going cashless.
		Ebay - I got a £10 Off deal for installing and using this app with a £50 minimum spend. I much prefer to sit at my desktop to sift through listings and I intend to uninstall this app once my order arrives. Who knows, in 12 months time they might persuade me to install it again...
		Flashlight - While the phone provides access to the flashlight via the swipedown menu, having this app on the homescreen itself seems better, plus it includes additional features.
		Ebook Mode - Also found via the swipedown menu; I enabled this out of curiosity and quickly realised it to be a great benefit to reducing the dopamine hit we get from blasting our eyes with vibrant colours and pretty pictures. Try it and you might find you are less drawn to casually looking at stuff and mindlessly scrolling. In addition to this benefit it will supposedly reduce your device's battery consumption especially if you use it in conjunction with Dark Mode. One downside is some things might be a challenge to navigate without the colours to differentiate between this and that, also it might be preferential to switch back to full colour when taking photographs; it would be nice if there was an option to have a list of apps (such as the Camera) to exclude from this mode.
		FM Radio - this came preinstalled; it works but visually it's bland; I wish someone would put some love into this app or perhaps there's another I could use that isn't laced with adds. Also, it needs headphones to be plugged in to act as an antennae which will be a little silly if I use the bluetooth ones I was recently gifted.
		HabitNow - I was looking for a ToDo list app and I quite like this one but I can't see it sticking around for me... it's not quite "there" and I have to make a conscious effort to check in with it each day; I may as well continue to use my little notepad and pen.
		Calendar vs Proton Calendar - The former comes with the phone and is provided by Google, it therefore gives Google access to your stuff, I don't like that. The latter requires you create an account, but that, it claims, is far more secure. I don't think I'll stick with the latter though; I just need to be able to glance at a calendar from time to time to see which day is which, for all my day-to-day scheduling I'll continue to use my actual diary and that pen, it's far more convenient for me to flip through actual pages... even if it means more stuff to carry...
		Google Drive - Again, this comes on the phone and is provided by Google. Since my phone signed me into my Google account I took a glance in Drive... and I was horrified. I'm a stickler for opting out of everything and disabling this and that, especially when it comes to Google so you can imagine my shock when Drive presented me with a list of stuff other people had shared with me over the past years - I had no idea there was some history of this. Furthermore, from the app I couldn't delete any of it; I had to log in on my desktop and jump through hoops to clear all of this stuff out. It's all well and good opting out of things and choosing your security settings wisely but if you don't check in with them from time to time you might find settings have changed "on their own" or new defaults applied following some update (Microsoft seem to do this from time to time when Windows Updates are installed) #sketchy
		Thunderbird - This Email app impressed me when I installed it on my phone; since I use it on my desktop it gave me the option to transfer in my accounts from there by simply grabbing a QR code. This was satisfyingly smooth and all I had to do then was put in the password for each account and I was done. One glaring thing the desktop version of Thunderbird lacks is a 'Unified Inbox' as there is on the phone, where I can see all my latest emails in one place, regardless of which account they belong to.
		Firefox and Brave - While my preferred web browser is Firefox, my preferred search engine is Brave, however, I seem to need to install the latter's app regardless.
		Camera vs Open Camera - Since I used Open Camera on my other phone I elected to install it here too, but then realised that Open Camera seems to lack the "Pro" and "AI" modes which are necessary in order to take photos at the full 50MP. I think Open Camera will provide me with better video recording options though (such as easier access to locking the brightness)... not that I've been into vlogging for a while. Having said that, it would be nice if the included Camera app would also provide more than the 2x zoom level (beyond using the slider), as I think a 4x would be handy too as I would like to later resize to 50/25% rather than arbitrary amounts from a slider.
		Photo & Picture Resizer vs Resize Me! - Speaking of the Camera, why does Google's Gallery app lack the ability to resize images and only provide cropping? This seems like either a massive oversight or simply pathetic since I've been resizing images on my PC since the days of Windows 98. This ability is obviously necessary when it comes to sending someone what otherwise might be a 10MB image from the 50MP camera. I'm not sure yet which of these two apps I prefer though.
		My Provider's App - Since I can now use this and can view my usage/minutes/sms/data etc (plus top up without having to dial a number) the remainder of these also now roll over to the next month, nice.
		Play Store - There are a few things that I think should be more up-front when choosing and installing an app: is email signup required? does the app provide advertising and in what form (videos as some use are surely going to eat up more data than a simple banner), and how much and what do you get for the paid versions of the app/service?
		SoundType AI - This is one such app that proved to be pointless but I will list it here as an example of something I tried and why I ditched it. I was looking for an app where I might dictate into my phone and have it present the written text. This was before I realised the phone has this already without the need of a dedicated app. Furthermore, as I was trying out SoundType AI I had dictated in 20 minutes worth of text which it then proceeded to transfer to its servers before notifying me a little while later to inform me when the text was available (all a little clunky), but after I'd taken that time it informed me only half of the text would be provided in the free version. If only it had been up-front about this. I then had to return to the Play Store to read some more reviews (I tend to glance at these before choosing an app) to get an idea of how much the paid for service actually costs and what you get for your money. Not much it seems.
		Gemini - "Gemini helps supercharge your creativity and productivity. Chat to start writing, planning, learning, and more with Google AI." Or so it claims; I thought it might be similar to ChatGPT (below) and might be a better way for me to dictate in my text that I want typed out. I was wrong, it didn't have a clue and appeared to me designed with selling you a restaurant to eat at (for example) in mind. The voice was annoying to me and when I requested something other than the "male" it had been programmed with, "it" informed me it had no gender, bollocks, and there were no others. Geez, text-to-speech has been around for decades, along with a variety of voices, yet Google (like the Gallery app and its lack of "resize") can't include more than one voice? I had hoped my ideals of a butler called Jeeves might actually be realized...
		WriterPlus and ChatGPT- I've used Writer+ on other devices and it's reported as being out of date now but it pretty much works and I've now used it to dictate in some book notes. I do this by pressing the up arrow on the top left of the keyboard to reveal the microphone icon. I can then speak in my text. While I can also include punctuation this slows down the process, taking time, and the resulting text still requires some formatting, so instead of punctuating as I go I have found I can pass my whole block of text over to ChatGPT (I email it to myself and then copy it over to ChatGPT on my desktop rather than use the phone app which I have installed but haven't really tried yet) with a request such as "I dictated a list of book notes but it lacks punctuation and new lines and paragraphs, can you correct it?" I have been impressed with the result, that it can interpret a block of text so well.
		Typewriter - This is a fun one but the novelty might wear off and not result in anything meaningful, however, I can use a bluetooth keyboard and type in to my phone like it's a little typewriter, complete with sounds. When I first tried it it lacked a spacebar sound and carriage return noise (beyond the end of line bell), but an update has been received so perhaps that has all been rectified. As others have requested in the reviews on this app, I would also like to see a plain text version of the typed in text in addition to the resulting image of typewriter text (which isn't all that high resolution it might be added).
		Google Docs & Sheets vs Collabora Office - One idea I had for productivity was to carry a copy on my phone of a blank invoice I normally carry with me in paper format for when I visit clients, I would then, ideally, be able to email it to a client promptly rather then providing them with a paper version (no big deal) or emailing them later, they could then complete payment there and then (although I don't yet do internet banking on my phone). My first thought was that I could use Google Docs for this, however this required importing the OpenDocument file (I use LibreOffice on my desktop) into Google Docs which needs to convert the file into its own format, and then getting it out as a PDF, the file would remain within Google's system, not ideal. Sadly LibreOffice, while free for desktop versions, isn't so for Android so I found Collabora Office and it did what I required; it could handle the original file natively and allow me to export/"print" it via PDF. Great. Since Google Docs are part of the Android OS and can't be removed, I've filed it away in my "Google Crap" collection away from my main screen. I think Collabora might prove to be one of those things that are too fiddly to use on a phone and you need to use your discernment; is your task better suited to being done on your laptop/desktop whilst sitting properly at a desk?
		OS Maps vs Google Maps - I'll probably install and use Google Maps at some point and while I haven't actually used OS Maps yet I have installed it for access to the Ordinance Survey maps which I find most useful for when out walking.
		Google Messages and Contacts - I think these could do with been "brought up to date"; I would like some separation in Contacts between what I consider to be social contacts, work contacts and family, and perhaps a means of organising by date of last contact so I can clear out old ones. Like in Contacts, Messages seems to have a lot of wasted space.
		Settings - Not really an app, but I like to delve in here regularly, particularly when I've just installed an app, to check what has access to what; I generally don't want apps notifying me unless it's the Contact app for example (I don't have Thunderbird emails coming in automatically as I don't want things "pinging" at random and diverting my attention unnecessarily). When apps ask for more permission than I deem necessary then I am wary or will generally avoid them in favour of another.
		Recorder - I've not actually used this yet but part of me likes the idea of recording stuff... like Doc Brown in Back to the Future.

Other stuff:

Fingerprint recognition; it requests I sign in with my PIN each day and it's a little cumbersome to do now my phone is in a case. Also, these Honor phones appear to come with a screen protector pre-applied, it's quite fingerprinty though...

*The 5200mAh battery is capable of 35W charging, however the USB cable included is standard USB to USB C, so is surely not capable of fast charging. Also, this phone is not capable of wireless charging. I bought a USB C to USB C cable that should be more than capable of delivering 35W from the 60W PD socket on my Power Oak, however either way the Power Oak states it is outputting at 10W regardless of which socket I use, even though the phone recognises the fast charging capability and claims it will charge in half the time... what gives?

**50MP Camera, yet still only 1080p video recording - This seems odd to me since my 10 year old Samsung GT I9505 can achieve this. And no 60fps option either? The Honor X7B sports a whopping 108MP camera (still only 1080p video) but buyers need to be aware that such small sensors produce poor results, more MP is not necessarily better. Generally I don't like using a phone as a camera.

That's all for now; I will probably update this page as time goes on and my experience and usage habits change (a monthly review/cleanup is probably a good idea). If you have any recommendations of your own then feel free to get in touch; link below. If you've found this page useful then please consider donating via Ko-fi; thanks in advance.