Thinking about jumping ship from Apple to Android. The Dude at Verizon gave me a lot to think about. What are your UNbiased opinions Subaru friends?
I bought one of these back in the day http://mnsubaru.com/threads/t-mobile-g1.21976/#post-415254 waiting on the n5 to drop.
It depends on what you want in a phone. Are you tech stupid and just want something that never breaks? Apple is for you. Do you like to tweak things, care about the top of the line performance specs and want to be able to load system roms and change every aspect of your device? Go android. Honestly, for what you get in an android top end device these days, you'd be foolish not to look at them. I recommend Galaxy S devices, the new Motorola X and the nexus 5. Depending on carrier. Avoid the HTC one as they took away the sd card and removable battery.
Yup, this about sums it up. I've had several apple devices (ipod's, ipad, etc) and two android phones (HTC EVO 3D [garbage] and Galaxy S3). The Android's have come a very long way in terms of reliability, speed, battery life, APP AVAILABILITY, etc. Apple: Darn simple and works very well. Android: Does all of the stuff that you wish you could customize on the Apple (without rooting, etc). And now android's are much more user friendly. I wouldn't back away from the simplicity and reliability of Apple, but I'm now very confident with reliability/ease of my Galaxy S3 (and other android devices). After seeing iOS7, Android users are saying..."I've been able to do that for years."
And I would say get the HTC one. 32gb should be plenty of space. If you hack the phone (which is always step 1 for me), you can use a OTG cable and have unlimited storage. OTG cables allow you to use a USB drive to get mounted as a additional storage drive. And if you choose to get real deep into it, you can turn any of the GSM one's into the universal developer editions, or the google play edition. Basically you can s-off the phone and completely unlock everything. Then just flash whatever firmware you want. Russ
Let's be honest, this is like asking "which is better, a wrx in a variety of colors, or any car under 30k?" Also, I love how such a conformist, plain product is marketed as non conformist, unique, and somehow inherently superior (both subaru and iproducts). Let's not get into the shiney factor, retail price compared to similarly specced competitors, and used market value similarities.
If you are gonna go Android wait. A lot of good stuff around the corner. Like this. http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/09/htc-one-max-specs-leaked/ The nexus 5 is due out soon as well. Honestly your better off reading up and trying different phones. There's plenty of pros and cons to both sides of the fence.
Yeah it boils down to what you feel the most comfortable with and how willing you are to adapt to either style of phone out there. iOS is just iOS... For android each release on different phones are a bit different since each manufacturer likes to put there own little touch on what they release. My own personal preference from my last two phones now have been nexus devices. They are clean cut vanilla flavored android that doesnt come preloaded with all the bloatware most companies like to slap on, but then again I am just an IT guy and like tinkering around with things. The rest of the posts above really hit the nail on the head
Android also allows you to have a very similar os but have a wide variety of phones ranging in price and specs I like my.droid DNA because of the 1080 screen as well as the camera.
My S4 has native OTG support without root. So did the S3, actually. Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought most flavors of Jelly Bean do. I've rooted and flashed roms on a previous Android device and it is fun to play around with it. I loathe Apple and everything about the company, user base, products, etc. so I'm totally biased. So, of course I'll say Android. I've been on Android since the G1 as well. I debated between the HTC One and the S4 when I last upgraded and went with the S4 for the little bit more screen real estate. If the Note 3 had been out, I would have picked that up. The HTC One is a really nice piece of hardware, though. I have absolutely zero complaints about my S4 as well. It's been performing flawlessly. OP, as an aside, don't assume that you have to tweak, root, or flash an Android phone for it to be good. Android is a great OS out of the box. Much better than iOS.
The reason that the SD Card and Battery Removal were important wasn't from a storage standpoint. The EVO3D was supposed to be non-unlockable. They made it so the bootloader was locked out and any attempt to unlock it would set a "your warranty is boned" bit in a small unaccessable sector of the system ROM. Sure, you could go to HTC's Dev page and unlock, permanently setting this "warranty boned" bit. Or you could go through a complicated set of steps and risk bricking your phone to S-OFF without setting or altering that bit. The process required an SD Card, and access to the battery to set it into a softbrick state. I'm guessing that HTC said "well, they figured it out, best way to stop this is to remove the two parts of the equation we have control over." Without being able to access the battery and insert an SD Card you wont be able to get into that engineering connect state to softbrick the phone and perform the procedure. And I've searched around XDA and it doesn't appear anyone on there is working on a solution for this. I think after the EVO3D fiasco, most of those devs said "screw it" and aren't coming back to do it again.
and honestly at this point, I would get one of the google play edition phones from https://play.google.com/store/devices/collection/web_home_5000005_partnerUS?hl=en , then I would hit up straight talk and just get their $6 sim card and the $45 a month unlimited everything plan (really about 2.5gb of data). Yea, you pay up front for the phone, but it is yours. The GPe phones are pretty close to a nexus line of phones (no bloatware), and with the straight talk plans, you will more than recoupe your up front costs in a matter of months. I ran the straight talk plans (on at&t) and never had any issues. Actually, as soon as the GF's contract is up (next month), I can cancelling out of my current contract and moving both of our phones over to straight talk. They also now have at&t LTE for the same $45 a month price. Russ
I have no interest in rooting the OS as I use my phone for its most simple functions. What drew me to the 4S iPhone in the first place was the iOS was easy to learn and use and there weren't a ton of bells and whistles. I don't hate my iPhone now I'm just curious about the android world. Seems that the phones hardware are comparable to one a other so really the OS is the biggest factor. With that said- I want a phone/OS that makes my life easier by the functions and features it provides. I'm not interested is customizing the **** out of my phone I just need it to do a few things well and to my liking. The question is- which OS will fit my needs best, who knows because I've never actually used an android phone! Think I might just need to get my feet wet and learn from experience. It was nice to hear all your opinions, it seems as if Android is favored here..
2.5gb data per month? Im going to have to monitor mine and my gfs data usage. Would love to cut my expenses as much as I can. currently paying 160 a month for two lines of unlimited everything.
I have a Galaxy S4 and I really like it. I haven't rooted it or modified it in any way. My previous Droid Bionic eventually was rooted and had various different ROM's, but that was only after it became too old to receive any of the current Android OS updates. I can't stand Apple products, so I would never own an iPhone, but I do think the options on Android are often better. Screen size is a big one for me. The iPhone has very little screen real estate compared to the current top tier Android phones. Currently I'm still on Verizon with Unlimited data. Between my wife, my brother, and me we use ~25GB of data per month. We are buying phones at full price to keep this benefit. My wife has an iPhone 5 and she likes it. It's just not for me.
Honestly, for the basic user, both systems will be fine. They are both easy to use. Easy to setup. And Easy to day to day operate. Android and IOS will have the same basic functionality out of the box. Messaging, email, phone calls, internet browsing, music playing, etc etc etc. And I think that is where a majority on here, and world wide, are going with Android devices is due to the hardware. For the same money (and sometimes less in the way of the Galaxy S3) you can get a better piece of hardware than what Apple is offering. The screen on even some 2 year old Android devices is larger than the newest offerings from Apple. And Jellybean is smooth and clean out of the box, regardless of what carrier or manufacturer trashware is thrown over the top of it. Right now, I believe you can get a Galaxy S3 for zero to 50 bucks on contract depending on carrier. It's a great phone that was the top line model last year, so it is still a very viable device. But you can get it much cheaper than anything out there, and it still blows away any iPhone in terms of monitor real estate. Also, the great thing about Android devices is that if you decide later on down the road that you're comfortable with the OS and want to mess around a little deeper, there's really nothing stopping you from doing so. When HTC dropped support of the EVO3D, I went to XDA developers and downloaded dozens of new system ROMs to try out. HTC didn't release Jelly Bean on that device, but I found a custom JB Rom on XDA and couldn't have been happier. When the battery went to crap on that device, no biggie, just hit up Amazon for a new or even a larger system battery. No need for a "genius bar" to futz with it.
The screen real estate is definitely bigger with android phones I agree. Onto the next most important factor- syncing with my iPad. I really like when I put something on my calendar via either device it syncs with the other. I also have a budget app I use to track bills/payments etc. that does this as well and it's damn near a necessity for me. It's this same type of syncing possible with android phone/iPad?
I've got both - and iPhone 4s for work and a droid razr hd as my personal phone. I find myself with the droid in my hand more often than the apple. The ONLY complaint I have is the virtual keyboard, I can bang out emails on the iphone pretty quickly, but am the typo king on the droid... Sure I could root it and put an alternative UI on it, but that's not something I'm interested in. For the record I'm a fan of Apple products, all of the windows boxes in my house have been replaced with macs.
I don't believe you need to root the phone to change the keyboard input you're using. You just have to download a different keyboard apk and install it. They can be found on Google Play.
Yeah, I run the standard Google keyboard on my S4. I hated the Samsung one. Just download the one you want from Google Play.
I've had both systems and each has their good points. ReadyMix sums it up very well though, it all depends on what you want to do with it. but for even basic users both are easy to use.
The associate at Verizon claims its much more intuitive then Siri was/is. I may have to spend an hour in there today messing with phones. Thanks for responses to my question. Shed a lot of light on the topic.
Yeah, it can be setup to automatically bring you pertinent information without asking based on the information it has. I personally am not sure I want to have a phone running my life for me, but I understand why some people like having that sort of functionality.
It's worth noting that if you plan on getting a newly-released phone, your OS will probably be updated at least once to the point where you notice a change. I've had good luck with it so far, but I haven't used the voice prompt to initiate it yet. I never really encounter any scenarios where I want to look something up, and the least awkward way to do it would be to talk at my phone. I usually just google with the keyboard, since it is quiet, and I don't like drawing attention to myself in public with (usually) really weird questions.
Also. probably the main reason why i flash and have a custom rom is that many carriers out there seem to take their sweet time with releasing crucial updates for phones because they need to "finalize " the update which means putting all of the bloatware they want on it. in the past ive had to deal with this because either a carrier discontinues a phone or is dragging their feet on updating to the next android release. A prime example of it is the galaxy nexus. the phone was great but the lack of updates and the piss poor battery life made it a struggle at times.
I am a mobile app developer, and use all manner of phones and tablets across all of the operating systems every day. I agree with everything readymix has said, so I won't rehash it. My favorite feature of iOS is iMessage. I hate that its apple only, but it is the way SMS should have been built from day one, and sending images and video with iMessage is a way better user experience on both ends than MMS. The fact that I can send messages from my computer and everything (mostly) stays in sync is a killer feature. I hate typing on my phone when I am sitting at my computer. If you don't have a bunch of friends and family that use iPhones, this is a non issue. From an app perspective, I still build for iOS first, because iOS owners, in general, part with their money more easily than android owners. Asking an average android user to pay 2.99 for an app, you may as well be asking for their first born if you judge by the reviews they leave. This tends to drag down the ratings of high quality apps that cost a bit more than 99 cents - I see this happening a lot more on android than iOS, which is a shame. It basically incentivizes me to spend as little time as possible on my android apps so I can keep the cost low, instead of making an amazing app that performs perfectly for more money.
Yes, to re-hash this very important point: I cannot stand the iPhone keyboard, and the stock Galaxy S3 keyboard was pretty bad too. BUT on Android you can download other keyboard apps (without rooting). I use SwiftKey now on my S3 and it is hands down, the fastest, most intuitive keyboard that I have used.
I use mighty text on android and it does the same thing. It also looks like hangouts is going to be able to do sms and mms in the next update. So it is coming to android. One that bit of info on this whole thing. Once Apple has determined that your hardware is too old for the updates, you are done getting updates. Within the android ecosystem, someone is probably hacking away on getting the latest android running on whatever piece of hardware they have around. People already have the latest and greatest android running on the original galaxy phone. I am running the latest and greatest android on my old GSII. The hacker community will keep your phone alive much much longer than the vendors will. Russ
Yep, my EVO3D came with gingerbread. Ice Cream Sandwich never materialized, at least not that i knew, because Sprint dragged their feet on it because they couldn't figure out what bloat ware to load it down with. XDA got ahold of the Virgin Mobile ICS update, ported it to Sprint and then rehashed the firmware for it later when Sprint eventually released it. Same with Jelly Bean. HTC and Sprint never put jelly bean on the Evo3D, but if you go to XDA, there are working roms. I don't plan to toss out my Evo3D, it will be a speedo and GPS for my scooter.
Android guy checking in. In reference to the google replacement for siri, it's google voice search, and it works very well. Google Now is a little bit different feature. it's basically a runing, location and history aware system that integrates with everything google. it's really amazing, if you're comfortable with it. Every few minutes it uses available data to get a rough estimate of your location. from this, it grabs local weather, outlooks, and nearby events. It takes your recent google searches into account and gives you updated information on them if it's available. did you order something from amazon? when the email with the tracking number shows up in your gmail account, you get a tracking card. order a flight? how about a card that shows you flight updates, and it will begin showing you the weather outlook for that destination a few days before it so you know what to pack. Checking into a hotel on that trip? how about one touch navigation to that destination the duration of your stay. and my biggest personal favorite is with appointments. put a destination on your appointment and it will keep tabs on current traffic conditions, and alert you to when you need to leave to get there on time. it does tons more, but those are big ones i use it for.
I have always had android as my personal phones. BlackBerry and iPhones for work. Currently a iPhone 5. I will always buy android for my personal phones.
iphone user for the last 4yrs.. changed to Galaxy S4 4mths ago.. very happy.. I still like apple products but they are limited for the price... I think Readymixx summed it up well
Ditto, have a 4s and this IOS 7 BS completely butt-****ed my wifi. Even better, I'm in Guam, didn't want to double my phone bill to use it here, and now I have an over-priced ipod touch that doesn't connect to wifi. Considering going android when I get back, apple has gone to **** without Jobs around.
