I'm busy (and I have a new phone)

 I would have bought another Vivo if only they hadn't abandoned the Australian market, so instead I went with a Xiaomi Redmi Note 13 Pro - a model that seems to have had reasonably good reviews.   I paid $629 (and an extra $70 for the fast charger - which is a tad annoying, since unboxing videos on Youtube show that in some countries, they include the charger in the box.)

This is the most expensive phone I have ever bought - I'm probably really in the "mid" range now (maybe "lower mid"?), rather than "upper budget". 

Of course, being Android, with a company overlay, it takes some getting used to learning how exactly the settings are named and hidden.   My initial impressions are that this phone does not like sticking permanently to options I tell it to use - but it is also quite likely that this is due to my lack of understanding the settings yet.   I said to someone that the trickiness of changing Android phones might be useful for helping stave off dementia - we should make the elderly swap Android phones every 12 months for this reason, as a public health measure.

Anyway, I like the screen, but it seems to keep giving me notifications on the lock screen that I don't find easily when I unlock the phone.  Odd.

This phone is also supposed to have an eSim option, but it's not obvious from the settings.  I will be annoyed if that is not really there.  More investigation needed.

So yeah, these initial comments are sounding pretty cautious - hopefully it's just teething issues. 

Update:  Am feeling pretty sure that there is in fact no eSim capability, despite the advertising on the JB Hi Fi website, and the specific enquiry about that when I was buying it.  Further discussion with the store is taking place.

Update 2:  Now, I'm not so sure.  Optus App says my phone is compatible to buy eSim here.  Yet in settings, there is no reference to eSim at all.   I almost feel forced to try buying a cheap eSim plan and try loading it to make sure it's real...

Update 3:  Well, that took another couple of hours of investigation and fiddling, and even then the answer was only found via a Reddit search!  To get the phone to show the "Use eSim" option in network settings, you have to change the region from Australia to another country - UK, Singapore, or Malaysia all work, but other countries are like Australia and don't show it at all.   (By which I mean - the slide button to "Use eSim" simply does not appear.  Change region, and it's there.)

I then could load a cheap local eSim for data service only (bought online for US$4.50), and it worked!  I don't know if I had to, but I switched the region back to Australia and it still worked.    This is secret knowledge that was not easy to track down.  Ordinary Google searches did not turn it up.

This is excellent:   I can now pre purchase an eSim and be ready to go without finding a sim card at the airport on arrival.