This time I switched to the standard Honor Magic 7, the 12GB + 512GB version. The official price is 4,799 yuan, but I bought it offline for 4,399 yuan, and my Xiaomi 14 was traded in for 2,450 yuan.
On paper, the changes are not exactly exciting: the screen is a bit larger, the phone is a bit thinner and lighter, and beyond that there is not much to talk about. The real reason for replacing it was much more practical. There is a government affairs app I have to use, and that cursed thing does not support iOS. On the Xiaomi phone, it suddenly stopped allowing files to be shared through QQ or TIM, throwing a “file does not exist” error. It had worked before, and then at some point after a system update, it broke. It was maddening.
On weekdays I can still handle that sort of thing on a computer, but on weekends or holidays that workaround is not always available. After comparing options, I ruled out curved screens, including those so-called “four-equal-depth flat displays,” and ended up going with Honor.
Since I was already changing phones again, it also made me think about just how much I have cycled through devices over the past few years.
The whole dual-phone habit started after one particularly memorable mistake: just before Children’s Day one year, I accidentally sent a WeChat message meant for my wife to my boss instead. After that, I decided I needed a physical separation between work and personal life.
So for years now I have been carrying both an Android phone and an iPhone.
The iPhone side has been straightforward enough: iPhone 12, 12 Pro, 14, and 15 Pro, basically one new phone a year.
Android has been a very different story. I have tried just about every major brand, and honestly they are all broadly similar in day-to-day use. The problem is that I get bored easily, and after a few months I start wanting something different. The lineup over the years has included the Samsung S21, Oppo Reno 8 Pro, Meizu 18X, OnePlus Ace 2V, Xiaomi 13, Meizu 20, Samsung S23, Xiaomi 14, and now the Honor Magic 7. On average, I have been changing Android phones about once every six months.
This time, though, the Xiaomi 14 lasted the longest. I used it for nearly 11 months, which is unusually long for me.
If I had to sum up the strongest impressions from all those Android phones, two stand out most clearly: Samsung phones consistently impressed me with their camera performance, and the Xiaomi 13 had the most comfortable in-hand feel.