Hi all :)

I need to replace my Xiaomi Mi 10t Lite 5g, so my wife has agreed to buy me a replacement for Christmas. I’m clueless when it comes to phone chipsets though, so I need some help.

I posted a similar request last year for my wife, and we’re in pretty much the same boat now, so I’ve quoted the relevant part of that post below. The main differences are, she went for a Motorola Moto G85, but I can’t stand the wraparound screen, and if possible, I’d like to get a phone with usb 3 that can potentially act as a desktop replacement and connect to AR glasses, but the last part isn’t important.

The main things she needs are, decent battery life, an SD card, NFC, and more than 64GB of internal storage. If the OS can be changed in the future to get security updates, that would be a bonus. Given the direction that they seem to be going, with collecting data and locking down the bootloader, I’d prefer to move away from Xiaomi if possible.

The catch is though, we’re on a small budget. Thanks to Christmas, we’ve only got around £200 to £250 to spend. If there’s a significant upgrade, we can go to about £300, but that’s a stretch.

I did look at the Poco M6 Pro, the Samsung A55, and the Tecno Spark 20 Pro, which seems to be ridiculously cheap, but don’t know if they’re still considered decent.

Thanks :)

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot this bit. Pixels are no good for me because of the lack of SD card support. I’m regularly in places with no internet connection, so keep my media on my SD card.