iPhone 5 vs Android (Media)

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Ashton

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I'm elegeble for my 2yr upgrade from Sprint (and having more and more issues with my EVO 4G, not counting I'd like LTE since sprint is discontinuing WiMAX) and I'm trying to decide what to do... I just looked at a comparison of curent phones( http://blog.laptopmag.com/iphone-5-vs-the-world-how-apples-device-stacks-up ) and honestly, all and all I'm dissapointed with the iPhone's Specs...

However...

The main reason I wanted to move to iPhone was media...

(1) I add songs from the internet (All free and legal downloads; mostly fan parodies) completely at random, and with my iPad, as soon as I add it to iTunes I can hit sync and wherever the iPad is in the house it updates my media... only option I've seen for android is running Samba (which, of course, drains battery) and manually drag-and-drop to the device (or, obviously, plug in the phone or pull it's MicroSD card out and copy) none of these have the ease of apple's interface

(2) Airplay - I have 1 apple TV, will likely have 2 or even 3 soon (Projector, TV, stereo) and AFAIK, there is no way to make an android device play music/video over an Apple TV (3rd gen) likewise I'm sure if there was it would eat up battery life (marathon-ed ~6 hours of SD video on my iPad and only used ~1% battery life) --- (Not a major issue since I have 2 iPads and so far have had no need for this "on the road" - and if push came to shove the Apple TV is small enough I *could* take it with me)

(3) AirVideo - I have a massive dataserver (~8TB) where I store all my videos, and with Apple+Air Video, I can watch them anywhere I have 3G/4G coverage or WiFi... so far every attempt I've seen with Android is either a mess (often including requiring you to have the home PC's IP address) and crashes on both sides quite a lot...

(4) Quality DAC - my current phone (Evo 4G) cannot compete with the sound quality I get from even a 1st Gen iPod Touch and no doubt will suck even more compared to the iPhone5...

(5) Composite Video-Out - on my iPad I can output video on a Composite cable, which is important for some of my older electronics, but every android device I've found is HDMI-out which would require me to purchase an additional DAC (which some media still wont play on because of HDMI encryption)... (I am assuming the iPhone 5 will support this as well, but I've seen no word on it, so this may be a moot point, and I'm also down to 1 device that uses RCA so this is not a deal-breaker but could certainly push me off a proverbial fence)

I'd Love to go with the new Galaxy Note 2 or Galaxy S3 (Razr Max would be my 2nd choice but it's VZW and I'm Sprint)since my primary function of the device is an "always with me MID" but so far the above issues are making me look seriously at the iPhone5, despite it's limitations in hardware...

Thoughts?
 
#1 can be taken care of with Google Play. It's superior than the Apple ecosystem IMO. You can buy songs off Google Play and they automatically appear on Google Music.(you download through desktop app) You can also upload up to 20,000 songs to Google Music for free from your PC. Streaming an issue? You can store your entire music collection on your phone through offline mode - you just need to connect to a wifi network once to actually download the music. All music can be streamed to any PC through music.google.com

#2 Get Plex. It's better. (and free)

#3 Get Plex. (it's multiplatform)

#4 I don't know about such things

#5 depends on which phone you go with
 
You've already established yourself well into the apple ecosystem. Just get the 5 for perfect synergy and for the preventive measure of headaches. It looks like you're trying to give android a chance but you may mix different with inferiority later into the game coupled with incompatibility with your ios certified devices.
 
ComputerBox34 said:
#1 can be taken care of with Google Play. (...)
#2 Get Plex. It's better. (and free)
#3 Get Plex. (it's multiplatform)
#4 I don't know about such things
#5 depends on which phone you go with
Click to expand...

Was not aware of #1, I'll be looking at it for my EVO right now (some of the music I download isn't available from any store, it's fan-made parodies or fan-made original songs)

#2+#3: Plex is the one that kept crashing on me, maybe the new version is more stable, I'll try it again (and it could always be an issue with my phone, the EVO 4G is getting kinda long in the tooth, despite still being adequate hardware-wise for most uses)

#4: yeah, a lot of people dont notice it, but if you have songs of different volumes, when you increase the (phone) volume on many android devices you hear distortion or static, wherease on Apple's hardware you done (provided it's a high-bitrate track)

#5: Honestly, I've not seen a single modern andoid device that supports composite output... I realize it's a dieing standard but it's expensive to upgrade devices when I can buy a phone that plays to them all.
 
Agenesis said:
You've already established yourself well into the apple ecosystem. Just get the 5 for perfect synergy and for the preventive measure of headaches. It looks like you're trying to give android a chance but you may mix different with inferiority later into the game coupled with incompatibility with your ios certified devices.
Click to expand...

This is exactly my point. MacBook, Ipads, AppleTV(s)... and they all work perfectly together! (the only real positive thing I can say about apple's closed-development architecture)

I like the power of android devices and honestly, discounting the points I listed above (and bugs/WiMax-LTE) I'm still perfectly content with my EVO 4G, but... yeah...
 
Ashton said:
... but so far the above issues are making me look seriously at the iPhone5, despite it's limitations in hardware...
Click to expand...

What limitations? No NFC? Smaller display? No expandable storage? That's about the only limitations I see on that spec comparison sheet and expandable storage shouldn't be an issue if you don't need more than 64 GBs (or care to spend the extra money for it). The display is only .3" smaller than your Evo, but has a much higher resolution and PPI. And NFC is hardly common still.

I see no reason why you shouldn't just go ahead and get the iPhone 5. You've already invested in a lot of their products. I doubt any other platform will mesh nearly as well with everything. But I've never used that Plex software that ComputerBox mentions above. It my be a good alternative.

I'm an Android user too btw, so no bias here. Just seems logical for you to get the iPhone.
 
It seems like you have a lot of Apple devices/are heavily invested in Apple--in that case, it doesn't make sense to go Android, just from that perspective.

However...my thoughts...

1) The App Doubletwist is the easy solution to this. It will sync from your iTunes library to your android device. The paid version (I think five bucks) will sync OTA/wifi--and also adds like podcast support and such. So if you want to keep using iTunes on your non-phone devices, this is a great alternative for an android phone. I use it--the device player is okay--nothing fancy--but functionally, it works well for me, never had a problem so far.

2) Doubletwist also supports Airplay (but I don't have that, so I can't confirm how well--people don't seem to complain about it though)

3) Don't know about this one--never heard of a workaround for Apple programs. I use Splashtop--but as you said, a client runs on the host computer. But overall, splashtop works well for video streaming (now--it didn't always). I like it and use it.

4) Not sure--I'm not an audiophile, so this never mattered to me one way or the other

5) Don't know about this one.

So, It sounds like for your media sync/streaming stuff, Doubletwist will handle it just fine if you stay Android. Video streaming is fine with Splashtop, I've yet to have a problem with it when my phone has a reliable data connection. Audio and video out--I can't comment on.

I can't imagine using iOS as my primary phone OS after android. I hate how I have to go through so many menus and sub-menus on my ipod touch just to adjust brightness or toggle bluetooth.
 
T4rd said:
What limitations? No NFC? Smaller display? No expandable storage? That's about the only limitations I see on that spec comparison sheet and expandable storage shouldn't be an issue if you don't need more than 64 GBs (or care to spend the extra money for it). The display is only .3" smaller than your Evo, but has a much higher resolution and PPI. And NFC is hardly common still.

I see no reason why you shouldn't just go ahead and get the iPhone 5. You've already invested in a lot of their products. I doubt any other platform will mesh nearly as well with everything. But I've never used that Plex software that ComputerBox mentions above. It my be a good alternative.

I'm an Android user too btw, so no bias here. Just seems logical for you to get the iPhone.
Click to expand...

Limitations are Screen size (upto 5.5" on the G Note2), More RAM, faster CPU (presumably - no idea what the actual specs are on the "A6" chip, considering the iPad is a quad-core, it might actually stack up nicely).

I don't really need expandable storage - I have ~10gb of music and anything large I can store in the cloud (DropBox, SkyDrive, and iCloud) since all my movies are streamed, all I need if photos and apps, and photos are all ~2mb so I could store ~3,000 (provided I had no apps) and usually I have ~50 at most. My only concern is apps, but most of those are tiny since the only games I play on my phone are mindless ones when I'm standing in line like solitaire (damn bill gates for addicting us!) or Angry Birds or such (though with the $100 difference I may just splurge and get the 32gb to be safe). Didnt know about NFC, and while it sounds convenient I really don't care about it - mainly Screen/Ram/CPU (though as I said, my EVO works fine and the iPhone5 is probably higher specs than that, so... *shrug* just a "go for the best in case I need it" mentality)

As for Plex, when I used it, it crashed a LOT (both client and server) so I didn't use it much, but from what I saw it didn't offer any advantage over Air Video (and with their now being an (unofficial but working) Air Video client for OSX/windows, I cant see any real additional features it could offer outside of Android support.
 
teh_chem said:
It seems like you have a lot of Apple devices/are heavily invested in Apple--in that case, it doesn't make sense to go Android, just from that perspective.

However...my thoughts...

1) The App Doubletwist is the easy solution to this. It will sync from your iTunes library to your android device. The paid version (I think five bucks) will sync OTA/wifi--and also adds like podcast support and such. So if you want to keep using iTunes on your non-phone devices, this is a great alternative for an android phone. I use it--the device player is okay--nothing fancy--but functionally, it works well for me, never had a problem so far.

2) Doubletwist also supports Airplay (but I don't have that, so I can't confirm how well--people don't seem to complain about it though)

3) Don't know about this one--never heard of a workaround for Apple programs. I use Splashtop--but as you said, a client runs on the host computer. But overall, splashtop works well for video streaming (now--it didn't always). I like it and use it.

4) Not sure--I'm not an audiophile, so this never mattered to me one way or the other

5) Don't know about this one.

So, It sounds like for your media sync/streaming stuff, Doubletwist will handle it just fine if you stay Android. Video streaming is fine with Splashtop, I've yet to have a problem with it when my phone has a reliable data connection. Audio and video out--I can't comment on.

I can't imagine using iOS as my primary phone OS after android. I hate how I have to go through so many menus and sub-menus on my ipod touch just to adjust brightness or toggle bluetooth.
Click to expand...

I just looked at splashtop and unless there's a large subscription fee it looks like a great client for remote-desktop-ing, I'll also look into double-twist since I'll be waiting probably 2-4 weeks or so to get my new phone (I cant live without MyFi - though with the GM iOS6 jailbreak running on the 4/4s I suspect the 5's JB will come fairly soon)

From what I'm reading here I'm probably going to go with the iPhone 5 on the basis that it's going to seamlessly integrate with my current ecosystem.

on a side note, you can adjust the brightness on an iOS device by double-tapping the home button and swiping the menu, and if your jailbroken you can install an app (cant remember the name right now) that lets you toggle the radios and launch apps by just tapping the date :)
 
Ashton said:
Limitations are Screen size (upto 5.5" on the G Note2), More RAM, faster CPU (presumably - no idea what the actual specs are on the "A6" chip, considering the iPad is a quad-core, it might actually stack up nicely).

I don't really need expandable storage - I have ~10gb of music and anything large I can store in the cloud (DropBox, SkyDrive, and iCloud) since all my movies are streamed, all I need if photos and apps, and photos are all ~2mb so I could store ~3,000 (provided I had no apps) and usually I have ~50 at most. My only concern is apps, but most of those are tiny since the only games I play on my phone are mindless ones when I'm standing in line like solitaire (damn bill gates for addicting us!) or Angry Birds or such (though with the $100 difference I may just splurge and get the 32gb to be safe). Didnt know about NFC, and while it sounds convenient I really don't care about it - mainly Screen/Ram/CPU (though as I said, my EVO works fine and the iPhone5 is probably higher specs than that, so... *shrug* just a "go for the best in case I need it" mentality)

As for Plex, when I used it, it crashed a LOT (both client and server) so I didn't use it much, but from what I saw it didn't offer any advantage over Air Video (and with their now being an (unofficial but working) Air Video client for OSX/windows, I cant see any real additional features it could offer outside of Android support.
Click to expand...

Screen is a valid complaint if you feel that 4" isn't large enough for you. I feel that comparing internal hardware specs between iOS phones and anything else is quite pointless though. They're two totally different platforms and address hardware much differently than each other. iOS and WP7 devices seem to run much more smoothly overall than Android on the same or slower hardware, at least where the UI and perceivable speed is concerned. You still see some lag/slowdown on top-end phones running Android (at least I do on my Galaxy Nexus running 4.1.1 Jellybean, but a lot of it is due to developers not supporting their apps for 4.0+), despite them being a generation or two ahead of current WP7 and iOS devices (at least until the newest iOS and WP7 devices hit very soon) in terms of hardware.

Having said that, I think the hardware in the iPhone 5 will suit you just fine. That A6 chip is going to be just as fast, if not faster than anything else on the market right now, including the S4 chips that are in everything nowadays. The S4-Pro or the new Xynos dual-core might have a slight edge on it, but we won't know that for another couple months at least and I we still have no idea until it's on the market. The GPU is what you should be concerned about and the S4 is just now catching up with the SGX 543 in the 4S from a year ago. So whatever is in the A6 is probably going to hold its own for the next year or so.

Just my .02. Again, this is coming from a guy that owns no iOS devices whatsoever. So no bias here.
 
T4rd said:
Screen is a valid complaint if you feel that 4" isn't large enough for you. I feel that comparing internal hardware specs between iOS phones and anything else is quite pointless though. They're two totally different platforms and address hardware much differently than each other. iOS and WP7 devices seem to run much more smoothly overall than Android on the same or slower hardware, at least where the UI and perceivable speed is concerned. You still see some lag/slowdown on top-end phones running Android (at least I do on my Galaxy Nexus running 4.1.1 Jellybean, but a lot of it is due to developers not supporting their apps for 4.0+), despite them being a generation or two ahead of current WP7 and iOS devices (at least until the newest iOS and WP7 devices hit very soon) in terms of hardware.

Having said that, I think the hardware in the iPhone 5 will suit you just fine. That A6 chip is going to be just as fast, if not faster than anything else on the market right now, including the S4 chips that are in everything nowadays. The S4-Pro or the new Xynos dual-core might have a slight edge on it, but we won't know that for another couple months at least and I we still have no idea until it's on the market. The GPU is what you should be concerned about and the S4 is just now catching up with the SGX 543 in the 4S from a year ago. So whatever is in the A6 is probably going to hold its own for the next year or so.

Just my .02. Again, this is coming from a guy that owns no iOS devices whatsoever. So no bias here.
Click to expand...

When it's the only complaint (the 5.5" screen of the Note2 is appealing for internet browsing) it's not worth the hassle.

I was unaware that android was *still* experiencing issues on high-end devices (I started with Froyo iirc and I figured with time and more computing power it would solve itself same as the old "unsmooth" menu animations in windows have) I've never had any problems with it on any of my iDevices except my 1st gen iPod Touch (which I installed multi-tasking on and really didn't have the power to do app-switching) so if the performance and power are more than adequate for media and occasional web and VoIP, I guess there really is no need to look at those specs vs Android phones (not to mention, as I said, I dont do a lot of proverbial "heavy lifting" on my phone) At this point my only real complaint is screen size, and I can live with that.

Thank you for your honest and unbiased answer, I really appreciate it (so many people just scream "ANDROID IS BETTER!!!" or "APPLE IS BETTER" that it's nice to see someone back up what they say and even be able to give an honest opinion that is contrary to their own decision) Thanks again!
 
Ashton said:
I was unaware that android was *still* experiencing issues on high-end devices (I started with Froyo iirc and I figured with time and more computing power it would solve itself same as the old "unsmooth" menu animations in windows have)
Click to expand...
My GS3 runs as smooth if not smoother than my old iPhone 4, and opens apps way faster. I haven't heard anyone with a GS3 complain of unsmoothness.

I think it's really up to you and how you use the phone, having widgets and quick toggles on Android is something that's really missing on iOS, unless you jailbreak your iPhone which slows it down considerably. But if you're heavily invested in Apple's ecosystem then it makes sense just to get the iPhone 5.
 
as T4ard said, your honestly best off with the iPhone 5, your heavily invested (and goign to be more so) with Apple products, keeping an android in the loop will just not mesh as well as you could with an iPhone (assuming screen is the only issue)


*note* I am a big android fan, but do have an iPad .... And firmly believe that Android[atleast 4.* + ] is a more superior OS
 
Ashton said:
I just looked at splashtop and unless there's a large subscription fee it looks like a great client for remote-desktop-ing, I'll also look into double-twist since I'll be waiting probably 2-4 weeks or so to get my new phone (I cant live without MyFi - though with the GM iOS6 jailbreak running on the 4/4s I suspect the 5's JB will come fairly soon)

From what I'm reading here I'm probably going to go with the iPhone 5 on the basis that it's going to seamlessly integrate with my current ecosystem.

on a side note, you can adjust the brightness on an iOS device by double-tapping the home button and swiping the menu, and if your jailbroken you can install an app (cant remember the name right now) that lets you toggle the radios and launch apps by just tapping the date :)
Click to expand...
I forgot to mention, Splashtop is a paid app--in case that matters. I think it's like $5 for the standard, and like $9 for the "HD" version (supports higher-resolution devices--I think the "standard" Splashtop is pricey at $5--in fact, both of them are pricey, but the app finally works well). But there's no subscription/service fee (as it's really just a RDC client--but they have some things like "simple" computer discovery via an email address so you don't have to worry if/when your machine's IP address changes).

Though it does sound like if you're cool with iOS in general, and jailbreaking adds features you want, the iPhone would have the least integration-oriented issues from a media standpoint.

I think even with the double-tap home button to access recently used apps in iOS (like to get to the settings menu), it's still cumbersome to adjust settings on the fly (like screen brightness, where Android phones have widgets/add-ons like where you can just swipe left or right across the top notification bar on the phone and it adjusts brightness accordingly--just one example).
 
The dac in the international GS3 is one of the best to be ever placed in a cellphone.
 
Ashton said:
Was not aware of #1, I'll be looking at it for my EVO right now (some of the music I download isn't available from any store, it's fan-made parodies or fan-made original songs)
Click to expand...

upload them to google's cloud using the desktop plugin/app called Google Music Manager.
even more convenient than plugging in your device and sync'ing, but of course to listen you will have to stream or offline the song onto the phone.
 
Just wanted to report back that I tried splashtop (on my iPad3) and I am extremely impressed with it on a LOCAL NETWORK, I have not had a chance to test it over cellular yet (probably wont be able to use it except next town over where there's 4G)

Also... SPLASHTOP 2 HD IS ON SALE IN THE APP STORE! $2.99!!!

EDIT:
Tried Splashtop2 HD (with paid subscription - $0.99/month or $9.99/year) over Sprint 3G and ATT 3G... SUCKS BALLS! I can use it for very basic control, but logmein.com is FAR better for over-the-net remote control (and no subscription fee) though splashtop is BEST LAN-RDC I've seen and a steal at $3 right now :D
 
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Ashton said:
Just wanted to report back that I tried splashtop (on my iPad3) and I am extremely impressed with it on a LOCAL NETWORK, I have not had a chance to test it over cellular yet (probably wont be able to use it except next town over where there's 4G)

Also... SPLASHTOP 2 HD IS ON SALE IN THE APP STORE! $2.99!!!

EDIT:
Tried Splashtop2 HD (with paid subscription - $0.99/month or $9.99/year) over Sprint 3G and ATT 3G... SUCKS BALLS! I can use it for very basic control, but logmein.com is FAR better for over-the-net remote control (and no subscription fee) though splashtop is BEST LAN-RDC I've seen and a steal at $3 right now :D
Click to expand...
Oh, I didn't know that Splashtop changed to a fee-for-use model (I'm still on the older app). That really blows... And I think that sucks--it's not like you're streaming from a 'splashtop' server--it's just RDC...to charge a monthly fee for that is lame, I don't see why authenticating via your gmail address wasn't a viable ongoing option. The only reason why this interested me in the first place was that it was cheap to buy the app and free to use. Looks like they haven't rolled out the update to Android yet (typical), so we haven't been subjected to the pay-to-use scheme just yet...yet...

I didn't try it on my 3G connection before--mostly because I have SLOW Virgin Mobile and had no hopes--but it does suck now that I've tried it (virtually useless--of course, because of my crap connection). I noticed that on a good internet connection away from home, the quality is just as good as when I'm at home connecting via my local network. I would watch the olympics playing on my home computer via my phone with splashtop on a decent wifi connection.
 
teh_chem said:
Oh, I didn't know that Splashtop changed to a fee-for-use model (I'm still on the older app). That really blows... And I think that sucks--it's not like you're streaming from a 'splashtop' server--it's just RDC...to charge a monthly fee for that is lame, I don't see why authenticating via your gmail address wasn't a viable ongoing option. The only reason why this interested me in the first place was that it was cheap to buy the app and free to use. Looks like they haven't rolled out the update to Android yet (typical), so we haven't been subjected to the pay-to-use scheme just yet...yet...

I didn't try it on my 3G connection before--mostly because I have SLOW Virgin Mobile and had no hopes--but it does suck now that I've tried it (virtually useless--of course, because of my crap connection). I noticed that on a good internet connection away from home, the quality is just as good as when I'm at home connecting via my local network. I would watch the olympics playing on my home computer via my phone with splashtop on a decent wifi connection.
Click to expand...

Well, As I said, it's still free over your LAN (minus the $3 cost of the app, which is reasonable) but for the quality I was getting on the over-the-net it should have been free... like I said, better performance from logmein.com

Virgin Mobile uses Sprint's infrastructure, so my guess is it's 1.0-1.5mbps max. (I average 1.0-1.2 on sprint) which is the slowest of the 3G services (but a lot faster than EDGE/1xRTT) on ATT I average 2-3mbps with peaks over 4mbps (hilarious that ATT's 3G peaks are so close to the *average* Sprint 4G peak...) the only reason I dont use ATT is the cost/gb scheme since I get unlimited Sprint even if it's a little slower - still works for most of what I use

I have a friend with a high-speed wifi in town, I may stop by and test it again there, I will admit that splashtop has a huge potential and is built a LOT better than logmein, but I'm not happy with it's performance over the cellular network...
 
Well, Sprint just pulled a dick move on me... when I click on "iPhone 5" it now says "you have to change your plan to get this device" --- anyone know if buying it un-subsedised will let me keep my SERO plan?

If not, thoughts on the 4S?

EDIT:
did some snooping around and it seems that LTE is not available to SERO customers, thus the EVO LTE is also off the table... so it looks like I either go with the iphone 4s or try to completely clean and fix the bugs in my EVO 4G... (though I question whether the problems are software or hardware)

EDIT x2:
Ok, Sprint's website is retarded. I called CS and they told me that it was a technicality in the "plan code" because it was an LTE phone, but my plan/cost will not change. so now I'm back to just waiting for the first JB to get my iphone 5 :)

Thanks again everyone!
 
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Ashton said:
I was unaware that android was *still* experiencing issues on high-end devices (I started with Froyo iirc and I figured with time and more computing power it would solve itself same as the old "unsmooth" menu animations in windows have)
Click to expand...

The Galaxy Nexus isn't really "high-end", though - the GPU in it is really weak, which holds it back at the high resolution it has. However, that said the only lag issues I see on mine are in 3rd party apps - and I see the same lag on my iPad 2 in 3rd party apps. Doesn't matter how good the platform is, when devs write shitty code you're going to have problems :p

"lag" here not being touch latency or scrolling, just slightly long loading, or a button that's not entirely responsive, etc... Smoothness issues or choppy animations are basically nonexistent now.
 
Ashton said:
I'm elegeble for my 2yr upgrade from Sprint (and having more and more issues with my EVO 4G, not counting I'd like LTE since sprint is discontinuing WiMAX) and I'm trying to decide what to do... I just looked at a comparison of curent phones( http://blog.laptopmag.com/iphone-5-vs-the-world-how-apples-device-stacks-up ) and honestly, all and all I'm dissapointed with the iPhone's Specs...

However...

The main reason I wanted to move to iPhone was media...

(1) I add songs from the internet (All free and legal downloads; mostly fan parodies) completely at random, and with my iPad, as soon as I add it to iTunes I can hit sync and wherever the iPad is in the house it updates my media... only option I've seen for android is running Samba (which, of course, drains battery) and manually drag-and-drop to the device (or, obviously, plug in the phone or pull it's MicroSD card out and copy) none of these have the ease of apple's interface

(2) Airplay - I have 1 apple TV, will likely have 2 or even 3 soon (Projector, TV, stereo) and AFAIK, there is no way to make an android device play music/video over an Apple TV (3rd gen) likewise I'm sure if there was it would eat up battery life (marathon-ed ~6 hours of SD video on my iPad and only used ~1% battery life) --- (Not a major issue since I have 2 iPads and so far have had no need for this "on the road" - and if push came to shove the Apple TV is small enough I *could* take it with me)

(3) AirVideo - I have a massive dataserver (~8TB) where I store all my videos, and with Apple+Air Video, I can watch them anywhere I have 3G/4G coverage or WiFi... so far every attempt I've seen with Android is either a mess (often including requiring you to have the home PC's IP address) and crashes on both sides quite a lot...

(4) Quality DAC - my current phone (Evo 4G) cannot compete with the sound quality I get from even a 1st Gen iPod Touch and no doubt will suck even more compared to the iPhone5...

(5) Composite Video-Out - on my iPad I can output video on a Composite cable, which is important for some of my older electronics, but every android device I've found is HDMI-out which would require me to purchase an additional DAC (which some media still wont play on because of HDMI encryption)... (I am assuming the iPhone 5 will support this as well, but I've seen no word on it, so this may be a moot point, and I'm also down to 1 device that uses RCA so this is not a deal-breaker but could certainly push me off a proverbial fence)

I'd Love to go with the new Galaxy Note 2 or Galaxy S3 (Razr Max would be my 2nd choice but it's VZW and I'm Sprint)since my primary function of the device is an "always with me MID" but so far the above issues are making me look seriously at the iPhone5, despite it's limitations in hardware...

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I'm a big fan of getting Nexus devices without modified versions of Android. You'll have the best user experience with them, get the most dev support and updates for longer. Since you've waited this long, you could consider waiting until the next Nexus phone drops(been almost a year since the GNexus). My hope is a Motorola device w/ an Intel processor. I'm using a Galaxy Nexus w/ Android 4.1 Jelly Bean atm. It's phenomenal. Truly innovative compared to Ice Cream Sandwich.

1. Google Music is great. I have it running on multiple computers so if I dl anything it automatically uploads and it's available almost instantly on all of my Android devices or accessible through any computer online. No longer even need to connect my phone to my computer for the 1 thing I used to need to for, copying music over. I have bought no music through Google Music either...it doesn't care, it's not picky about what you have in your library. I'm at around 13,000 songs atm.

2/3. As stated...Plex, DoubleTwist.

4. I'm an audiophile. My main pair of IEMs are Ultimate Ears TripleFi10v which are very clear. Through my Galaxy Nexus, I have zero SQ issues. It's not as good as my E-MU 0404 USB, which I listen with some BeyerDynamic DT990s amped of course on my PC, but not a single phone's DAC is. To be frank, if you really care about sq you won't use any for your high quality speaker setup.

5. I couldn't help but lol when I read Composite. Get a device that handles HDMI/DVI. What do you need to connect it to? A CRT?
 
Deathwish238 said:
I'm a big fan of getting Nexus devices without modified versions of Android. You'll have the best user experience with them, get the most dev support and updates for longer. Since you've waited this long, you could consider waiting until the next Nexus phone drops(been almost a year since the GNexus). My hope is a Motorola device w/ an Intel processor. I'm using a Galaxy Nexus w/ Android 4.1 Jelly Bean atm. It's phenomenal. Truly innovative compared to Ice Cream Sandwich.

1. Google Music is great. I have it running on multiple computers so if I dl anything it automatically uploads and it's available almost instantly on all of my Android devices or accessible through any computer online. No longer even need to connect my phone to my computer for the 1 thing I used to need to for, copying music over. I have bought no music through Google Music either...it doesn't care, it's not picky about what you have in your library. I'm at around 13,000 songs atm.

2/3. As stated...Plex, DoubleTwist.

4. I'm an audiophile. My main pair of IEMs are Ultimate Ears TripleFi10v which are very clear. Through my Galaxy Nexus, I have zero SQ issues. It's not as good as my E-MU 0404 USB, which I listen with some BeyerDynamic DT990s amped of course on my PC, but not a single phone's DAC is. To be frank, if you really care about sq you won't use any for your high quality speaker setup.

5. I couldn't help but lol when I read Composite. Get a device that handles HDMI/DVI. What do you need to connect it to? A CRT?
Click to expand...

Most of the android devices I've toyed with had some overlay like Sense which slows everything up too much for me, that's why I use custom ROMs (and sprint loads the phone up with apps I have no use for like Sprint Racing (not a racing fan) and Sprint TV (I can only use it in WiMAX areas due to slow data speeds) If they'd give me a pure AOSP rom with no extra crap I'd never muck with custom ROMs (though I'd root it still because I need Tethering and underclocking in the case of my EVO)

Does JB run on older hardware like the EVO? I'm looking at wiping my phone and installing an ICS rom (since the IP4s took a year to crack with serial-port kernel debug access and the IP5 likely doesnt have this and I *need* my JB for tethering and quick-access to turning off radios I dont need)

1. I'll be looking into this, right now I'm playing with Double-Twist but so far it's been making duplicates of all my music for some reason...

4. Right now I'm using a Panasonic Technics Sterio at home with some older RCA speakers (dont know the wattage but they're like 2'x2'x4' and cost several hundred $$$ each back in the 80s) and my car has full DDSS 4.1(?) and a pair of AudioTechnica headphones, so I hear every blip, and the EVO's DAC is a joke, I've been told a LOT of android phones skimp on the DAC because most people dont care so much about the SQ......

5. Actually a $500 HUD/HMD that I'd rather not replace at this point...
 
Yeah the vast majority of Android phones have some sort of skin...it's 'product differentiation' if you will. Sprint does have some Nexus devices, but Sprint tends to get things last.

I've seen JB ROMs for my Nexus One, so it's definitely doable. If you're referring to the EVO 4G, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1791470, is a work progress atm.

I'm a big Panasonic fan myself. AudioTechnica makes great headphones too...which model do you have?

I've also read that the SGS3 has a Wolfson DAC built in...that should have excellent sound quality.

A HUD/HMD? That sounds interesting. What do you use it for if you don't mind my asking?
 
Deathwish238 said:
Yeah the vast majority of Android phones have some sort of skin...it's 'product differentiation' if you will. Sprint does have some Nexus devices, but Sprint tends to get things last.

I've seen JB ROMs for my Nexus One, so it's definitely doable. If you're referring to the EVO 4G, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1791470, is a work progress atm.

I'm a big Panasonic fan myself. AudioTechnica makes great headphones too...which model do you have?

I've also read that the SGS3 has a Wolfson DAC built in...that should have excellent sound quality.

A HUD/HMD? That sounds interesting. What do you use it for if you don't mind my asking?
Click to expand...

Yeah, if not for my delicious SERO plan (unlimited everything except anytime minutes for $50/month on a smartphone --- and as long as I have good data reception I can use GV/Skype to get unlimited minutes too) I'd be looking at other carriers due in part to sprint's lackluster device selection... (really drooled over the ATT SG Note with it's huge display and likewise the SG Note II since I use my phone for internet browsing a lot, also liked the VZW Razer MAXX)

For now I went with an ICS rom "Strike" which looks good (not had time to play with it much yet, been a busy weekend), I'm bookmarking that JB rom though (yes I'm on the EVO 4G) Unless something else comes along that will probably be my next ROM upgrade (unless the iPhone jailbreak comes along first)

I love my Panasonic stereo, amazing sound, but sadly everything's moving to HDMI and it's too old and doesn't support it, so I'll be investing in a nice DAC or a new reciever, whichever is better value (I keep hearing about problems with DACs because of HDMI encryption in some media which a DAC cant legally break) I believe mine are the AT-220 (dont remember exactly and dont have them with me ATM, they were around $150-$175 when I bought them about a year ago iirc)

The SGS3 is one I've looked at, everyone keeps raving about it, I'm just leaning towards iPhone because of integration (I installed DoubleTwist this weekend and it claimed about 1/4 of my library was "incompatible" with my device (which is BS, I've been listening to those tracks without issue for months or in a few cases years without problems) which is pushing me again back towards iPhone/iTunes for music sync)

A variety of things, I use it as a quick-and-dirty ultra-portable monitor at times, for portable gaming (pair a bluetooth gamepad with the device and you get a nice simulated 60" screen which looks gorgeous with older games like my devices can run) movies (again, simulated 60" screen) and also for some net browsing (bluetooth mouse + FakeCursor and you get a nice experience for viewing sites like youtube) I'm toying with the idea of integrating some various programs and the camera into an ARG experience, but my lack of coding skills makes it a slow and very tedious process...
 
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