Thinking about switching back to an iPhone, am I the only one?

My one and only personal experience with an Android phone was a total puke fest. After half a day I took it back to verizon and told them where they could stick it. I went back to my Samsung flip phone for the next two years. I bought my iPhone from Best Buy because I didn't want to deal with the clueless people at Verizon. It turned out to be a most pleasant experience. The iPhone is an amazing bit of tachnology to be sure but what made me fall in love with it was EASE OF USE. I have never had a piece of technology that worked like I thought it should. I had no trouble finding my way around and never once felt like I needed a manual, in fact, I don't even remember if a manual came with it.

Last week a friend was trying to figure out how to get her android phone out of silent mode. I knew nothing about it but offered to have a look. I couldn't find it either. It's profanely stupid to have a much used function so damned hard to find. Apple got the usability right and that's why Apple fans are so loyal.

Maybe Google should stop farming out the UI development to India and a little bit of uniformity would go a long way. And one more thing, Push Advertising should be outlawed.
 
I just had a buddy (long time Droid/DroidX user) switch to an iPhone 4S yesterday. Said that so far he's impressed and didn't know why he didn't switch sooner. Doesn't look like he's going to be going back to Android any time soon.

He said that the sales person at the Verzion store was EXTREMELY pushy about selling him a droid phone instead of an iPhone.
 
I used to be all Apple, but when I built a new gaming PC, I decided to try out Android. I got rid of my iPad and my iPhone 4. I had been an iPhone user since the original. Part of me got tired of the same ol look of iOS. It just never really changed.

I now have a Galaxy Nexus and a Galaxy Tab 10.1. I enjoy both platforms and part of my weird tech OCD is I can't have a Android phone and iPad, or an iPhone and Galaxy Tab. It's werid, but I just prefer all my devices to easily stay in sync with each other, and I think both platforms do that well when you use the same devices.

I have thought about switching back but the only thing that really impresses me about iOS now is the quality of the games and some of the apps. There are some quirks that I don't like with some of the Android apps. There are just basic features missing that are there on iOS.

Overall, use what suits you best. If ICS hadn't come along I don't know if I could have stuck with Android, but it really impressed me. Either platform can kick ass and it really sometimes boils down to if you just want a solid fluid expierence, choose iOS. If you want a platform that is still rough around the edges but very flexible and you don't mind tinkering, get Android.

Plus I kept my wife and kids on iPhones and iPads so if I get the urge I can always check them out.
 
Yeah, I originally got my wife an iphone and myself an android.
Decided to swap out and get myself an iphone and have been very happy.
I do hate how locked down the iphone is, but I may Jailbreak soon in an attempt to get a little more freedom.

I kind of have a weird love/hate thing going on with iOS. I hate it, but I can’t deny on a phone it is an elegant and intuitive OS.
 
Dan_D said:
I've got a Samsung Galaxy S and it's been nearly the biggest piece of shit I've ever had as far as phones go. Random call drops, randomly not accepting calls or texts with nothing to indicate to me there is an issue, (power cycling it resolves this issue) horrid battery life, screwed up problems with USB file transfers, bad Samsung Kies software, oh and a GPS that has NEVER once worked properly. I've never had driven any where with the GPS navigation in use and kept the GPS signal the entire time. Fortunately, I've rarely ever needed the feature as I know DFW pretty well.

My girlfriend and another friend of mine have or had the same phone and theirs suffered from pretty much the same problems. Though some like the USB detection / transfer issues are unique to my piece of crap. I've considered the iPhone just because of this. So far all the Droid phones I've seen have had tons of issues. At least it seems that way.
Click to expand...


Install the latest ICS build on this phone A.S.A.P.

My old samsung fascinate works better than ever on ICS. I did have some of the problems you mentioned on the stock ROM. It's like getting a brand new $500 for free.


If you have a fascinate on verizon like me use this link:

http://rootzwiki.com/topic/16630-romicsiml74k-teamhacksungs-ics-port-for-fascinate-build-71-0320/
 
Wow, I just wrote a long post and it got totally deleted. Long story short, I've been with android since the beginning, and it's too fragmented. Google releases a new OS, then it's tested by the manufacturers and they put their bloat on it. Then it's tested by the Carriers and they put their bloat on. By the time it's rolled out to you, the OS is likely a year old. Apple releases an update, and although it may not be perfect, all the devices get it across the board. I like that. Iphone next time for me, especially if it has a larger screen.
 
I don't care that there are Gingerbread and ICS phones being sold at the same time. Or that at any given time, there were 2-3 different versions of Android being sold, all that matters is that my phone works and gets updates when needed. For the most part, I have not had problems with that(OG Droid -> Thunderbolt -> Dinc2 -> GNex).

I am extremely satisfied with my GNex, I am running a 4.0.3 rom(yes, they need to release 4.0.4 already) and have 0 issues. The phone originally did not come with any bloat(unlike all of my other Android phones). But bloat does not affect the phones performance, it just sits there unused, not a huge deal breaker.
 
sethmo said:
I don't care that there are Gingerbread and ICS phones being sold at the same time. Or that at any given time, there were 2-3 different versions of Android being sold, all that matters is that my phone works and gets updates when needed. For the most part, I have not had problems with that(OG Droid -> Thunderbolt -> Dinc2 -> GNex).

I am extremely satisfied with my GNex, I am running a 4.0.3 rom(yes, they need to release 4.0.4 already) and have 0 issues. The phone originally did not come with any bloat(unlike all of my other Android phones). But bloat does not affect the phones performance, it just sits there unused, not a huge deal breaker.
Click to expand...

I've owned an HTC Aria, Samsung Captivate, HTC Inspire, Samsung Infuse, LG Thrill, and Samsug Galaxy S II. The only time I ever got an official update was when the Captivate got Froyo. Oh, and the Galaxy S II went from 2.3.4 to 2.3.6, but that was just a point release, which made the phone crappier I might add. Even most Nexus S variants haven't received ICS, so have fun waiting for 6 months after Jelly Bean comes out for your Galaxy Nexus to get updated. Ugh, I'm a Google lover and used to be an Android lover, but it wronged me about 10 too many times.
 
dadi38 said:
Wow, I just wrote a long post and it got totally deleted. Long story short, I've been with android since the beginning, and it's too fragmented. Google releases a new OS, then it's tested by the manufacturers and they put their bloat on it. Then it's tested by the Carriers and they put their bloat on. By the time it's rolled out to you, the OS is likely a year old. Apple releases an update, and although it may not be perfect, all the devices get it across the board. I like that. Iphone next time for me, especially if it has a larger screen.
Click to expand...

Off topic, but I recommend the Lazarus plugin for Firefox/Chrome. It's saved me a bunch of time on occasion.
 
I keep my phones for a long time.

I had an iphone early on. All it did was crash and once it gets old you can't run apps or update it anymore or it freezes all the time/runs too slowly.

I did security testing for the iOS platform, and I don't like it. I find it's tedious and it does a lot of stupid things with no way to turn them off. One annoying example of that is how the default text response to a mass test is to reply to everyone. I can't imagine ever using an iOS device.

I think android easily overtakes iOS in the future as android becomes a platform for media players, tvs and aware appliances.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038551804 said:
Feel free to go into details. :p
Click to expand...

I enjoy the flexibility and customization of Android, have my phone all hacked to hell and back, so it looks and works like no one else's, paid the ETF and put the Note on Straight Talk for $45/month, "unlimited" everything. Best app is the Navigation/Google Maps IMHO.

The iPhone is bulletproof and has great battery life, a gazillion apps and has never failed me. While the Android phones I've had are a bit quirky and unreliable.

I did the Windows phone promo with an old phone, and should be getting an HTC Titan soon to tinker with in a couple of weeks.
 
I love free apps. Apple hardware is impressive, and I had the iphone 4s and might even try the iphone 5 but man is there any free app in their store? Jeez I would go broke if I wanted to try out any apps there. Almost everything is a dollar. No thanks. I love the amount of free apps available in the android market, almost all the apps I use are free and I do have some paid ones but that was by my choice because I was impressed with the apps.
 
NKD said:
I love free apps. Apple hardware is impressive, and I had the iphone 4s and might even try the iphone 5 but man is there any free app in their store? Jeez I would go broke if I wanted to try out any apps there. Almost everything is a dollar. No thanks. I love the amount of free apps available in the android market, almost all the apps I use are free and I do have some paid ones but that was by my choice because I was impressed with the apps.
Click to expand...

That's why I buy itunes cards lol I just keep a +balance on my account and if anything interests me, I already have the credit to pay for it. There are a lot of free apps in the store, but they're usually loaded with ad's and IAP's. I'd rather just pay the 0.99 than deal with that.

I did hear something about demos finally being introduced into the appstore. When? I'm not sure... but I think they're coming (hopefully). Theres nothing more disappointing than buying something on an appstore, only to realize after the fact that it's a huge pile of crap.
 
dabomb said:
Install the latest ICS build on this phone A.S.A.P.

My old samsung fascinate works better than ever on ICS. I did have some of the problems you mentioned on the stock ROM. It's like getting a brand new $500 for free.


If you have a fascinate on verizon like me use this link:

http://rootzwiki.com/topic/16630-romicsiml74k-teamhacksungs-ics-port-for-fascinate-build-71-0320/
Click to expand...

I just wanted to make sure I stopped back in here to say thank you. I have a Samsung Fascinate and it generally ran like shit most of the time but OMFG did ICS turn this phone into something amazing.

Thanks so much for pointing that out...it's honestly a completely different phone now. :D
 
My only problem with Android is this:

The only Android phone I'd buy is a Galaxy Nexus, and I'd never buy a Galaxy Nexus because it's made by Samsung.
 
T4rd said:
I'm just going to leave this here... :D
Click to expand...

That's a great comparison and obviously highlights some of the best features of ICS going head to head against iOS5. No doubt there are some great examples of how smooth and efficient things can be with Google's latest and greatest. But to play a little devil's advocate -

1. Most of the advantages highlighted are unique to ICS, still only available on the Gnex. Considering only the hardware the Gnex is inferior IMHO, which was one major reason I hesitated to buy it (more on this point below). Also, while many phones will soon have ICS most will end up with a manufacturer skinned version which may take away from what Google intended. That's a major problem with Android right now - your experience is strongly dictated by your phone manufacturer, and they can make it VERY difficult to root and use custom ROMs (Motorola for instance).

2. So about the hardware. Yes, the Gnex has an awesome screen but when I compared them side by side, the 4S display was crisper and I found text easier to read despite the smaller screen size. For me, the 4S takes the win on the display. Let's also talk about the camera which is extremely good on the 4S for a cell phone, possibly the best cell phone camera available (with the debatable exception of a couple HTC phones like the Vivid). Overall build quality and "feel" of the 4S is also outstanding.

3. The 4S has Siri which I view as a nice little perk. If you decide to jailbreak and instal SiriToggles (or something similar) you get even more functionality. Actually, I mainly just use it for basic stuff like making a call when driving home from work. With my old Droid Inc. the voice dialer was a total joke. Usually, it would end up performing a Google search for "Call Katie at Home" rather than making a call. With Siri I can just say, "Call my wife at home" and BOOM - done and done. You can also send and reply to texts with ease and never even touch the phone.

4. If you have a Mac at home, or friends with Macs, or friends with other iOS devices (you get the point), then you can set up a FaceTime call just as easily as a regular voice call. No need to open up Skype or any other apps and it works great. Don't want to be tied to wifi? Again, if you jailbreak you can easily do FaceTime over 3G and the quality is actually pretty good, at least in my experience. I've ended up using this more than I thought I would, mainly because it's so easy and works well.

5. If you're into rooting (Android) or jailbreaking (iOS), the jailbreak procedure could not be simpler on the iPhone. One click and I was done. In contrast, it can be rather tedious if not downright annoying to root your Android phone, depending on who makes the phone, if the bootloader is locked, etc. Of course it's pretty easy on the Gnex, but what if you don't want a Gnex phone? This was another major hurdle for me. I was hesitant on the Gnex because of the camera and relatively short battery life, so I was considering the Razr Maxx. But I knew rooting the Maxx would be a huge pain, so in the end I got the 4S.

If I had more time I'd give more examples. Bottom line, both OS's have great features and you can pick and chose which ones you want to highlight to make the other look inferior. I really like my 4S and find it more enjoyable than the Dinc it replaced. And did I mention, I've been using my 4S pretty consistently today including some games this evening and the battery is still at 60%!? That's 17 hours straight and only 40% used. Not even sure the Razr Maxx can do that...
 
whisper said:
That's a great comparison and obviously highlights some of the best features of ICS going head to head against iOS5. No doubt there are some great examples of how smooth and efficient things can be with Google's latest and greatest. But to play a little devil's advocate -

1. Most of the advantages highlighted are unique to ICS, still only available on the Gnex. Considering only the hardware the Gnex is inferior IMHO, which was one major reason I hesitated to buy it (more on this point below). Also, while many phones will soon have ICS most will end up with a manufacturer skinned version which may take away from what Google intended. That's a major problem with Android right now - your experience is strongly dictated by your phone manufacturer, and they can make it VERY difficult to root and use custom ROMs (Motorola for instance).

2. So about the hardware. Yes, the Gnex has an awesome screen but when I compared them side by side, the 4S display was crisper and I found text easier to read despite the smaller screen size. For me, the 4S takes the win on the display. Let's also talk about the camera which is extremely good on the 4S for a cell phone, possibly the best cell phone camera available (with the debatable exception of a couple HTC phones like the Vivid). Overall build quality and "feel" of the 4S is also outstanding.

3. The 4S has Siri which I view as a nice little perk. If you decide to jailbreak and instal SiriToggles (or something similar) you get even more functionality. Actually, I mainly just use it for basic stuff like making a call when driving home from work. With my old Droid Inc. the voice dialer was a total joke. Usually, it would end up performing a Google search for "Call Katie at Home" rather than making a call. With Siri I can just say, "Call my wife at home" and BOOM - done and done. You can also send and reply to texts with ease and never even touch the phone.

4. If you have a Mac at home, or friends with Macs, or friends with other iOS devices (you get the point), then you can set up a FaceTime call just as easily as a regular voice call. No need to open up Skype or any other apps and it works great. Don't want to be tied to wifi? Again, if you jailbreak you can easily do FaceTime over 3G and the quality is actually pretty good, at least in my experience. I've ended up using this more than I thought I would, mainly because it's so easy and works well.

5. If you're into rooting (Android) or jailbreaking (iOS), the jailbreak procedure could not be simpler on the iPhone. One click and I was done. In contrast, it can be rather tedious if not downright annoying to root your Android phone, depending on who makes the phone, if the bootloader is locked, etc. Of course it's pretty easy on the Gnex, but what if you don't want a Gnex phone? This was another major hurdle for me. I was hesitant on the Gnex because of the camera and relatively short battery life, so I was considering the Razr Maxx. But I knew rooting the Maxx would be a huge pain, so in the end I got the 4S.

If I had more time I'd give more examples. Bottom line, both OS's have great features and you can pick and chose which ones you want to highlight to make the other look inferior. I really like my 4S and find it more enjoyable than the Dinc it replaced. And did I mention, I've been using my 4S pretty consistently today including some games this evening and the battery is still at 60%!? That's 17 hours straight and only 40% used. Not even sure the Razr Maxx can do that...
Click to expand...

Please allow me to play the devil's advocate's advocate

1. The back button is not unique to ICS, multitasking is alive and well on gingerbread, and we've had our notification panel since donut. Also ICS rollout is happening right now. I even have stock ICS running on my Epic 4G touch. It's amazing btw ;). The Gnex's also contains hardware not available on the iphone such as an LTE radio, and NFC communication. Let us also not forget how ridiculously fragile the iphone screen is compared to the gorilla glass samsung uses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elKxgsrJFhw
I feel like with android, you pick the phone that fits you. If you get a phone that has internet access and you can update your facebook and twitter with a hardware keyboard, than ICS isn't going really matter to you. Even on iOS the average user doesn't update when it's available because it might screw something up. I know I didn't on my 3GS to maintain my jailbreak.

2. I prefer the richer colors of the Gnex screen over the outdated IPS tech the iphone uses, but that's a subjective thing. For me, the Gnex wins in the screen department, especially when watching video. I also enjoyed the shutter speed advantage when taking candid shots, but if you're looking for improved android camera hardware look no further than HTC's One series which is being released tomorrow. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elKxgsrJFhw

3. Siri is a gimmick, and by apple's own admission, a beta product. Even Steve Wozniak bemoans how Siri lacks some of the functionality of Google Voice actions.
http://blog.chron.com/techblog/2012/01/steve-wozniaks-android-love-is-no-surprise/
But don't take my word for it, check out apple fan blog Gizmodo's comparison between the two. http://gizmodo.com/5888973/siri-vs-android-voice-actions
I'll let you guess who the winner was ;) BOOM. But let me also point out a few more flaws of Siri. It doesn't recognize accents, is limited to national borders, and you can't change what happens when you tell it a command. On android however, you can switch the voice recognition program to whatever suits you, like the ever impressive Utter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUI5MIMCTSI

4. You make the Mac ecosystem sound like such a country club. The nice thing about Google's cloud is, it can be accessed regardless of whether you're a mac or a pc. I can access all my songs on google music, buy apps from any modern browser, and sync data and docs regardless of platform. This leads me to one thing I absolutely HATE, iTunes. That program is a piece of shit on Windows, and I refuse to spend upwards of 30 minutes syncing when google can do it in the cloud for a fraction of the time. And yes I'm a PC, I build my own Rigs, this is [H]OCP after all.

5. Rooting is for Android is as easy as going to web browser and installing a one click root program. But I'm of the camp that if you don't know how to root from xda anyway, you shouldn't be rooting in the first place. In that case, the ease of jail braking is actually a con since you can install a lot of crap from cydia if you don't know what you're doing. Finally you can customize your android phone to a much greater extend unrooted than unjailbroken, so I'd say this point is moot.

Please give more examples for me to rebut, kthxbai.
 
Last edited:
whisper said:
1. Most of the advantages highlighted are unique to ICS, still only available on the Gnex. Considering only the hardware the Gnex is inferior IMHO, which was one major reason I hesitated to buy it (more on this point below). Also, while many phones will soon have ICS most will end up with a manufacturer skinned version which may take away from what Google intended. That's a major problem with Android right now - your experience is strongly dictated by your phone manufacturer, and they can make it VERY difficult to root and use custom ROMs (Motorola for instance).
Click to expand...

The only area where the Gnex is clearly inferior to the iPhone in terms of hardware is the GPU (CPU is clocked 400 MHz faster on the Gnex and they're both the same architecture). Everywhere else it doesn't make much of a difference and mostly comes down to personal preference in terms of build quality and form factor/size.

I understand your argument about all the different OEM skins and their implementations of ICS, but in this case it doesn't make much sense to say that's a con because in every case I've seen; OEMs only add functionality to the stock build (that's the whole point to the skins is to add functionality to differentiate themselves from their competitors), so everything that the Gnex can do (as demonstrated in that video I linked to) will be able to be done when other OEMs port ICS to their phones. It just may look a little differently.

Also, from what I've read about future OEM ICS builds, the OEMs are actually listening to the critics and consumers about toning down a lot of their fluff in their software. Most notable of this is HTC and Motorola. Though Samsung actually seems to have stayed about the same or got worse with the GS II ICS build. But HTC and Samsung have been doing really good about keeping their bootloaders unlocked, so it's pretty easy to flash a stock/vanilla ROM in you wanted to. Moto is really the only major offender in this area. I'm not sure about LG, but LG sucks in general, so I wouldn't recommend any of their phones at this point in time.

whisper said:
2. So about the hardware. Yes, the Gnex has an awesome screen but when I compared them side by side, the 4S display was crisper and I found text easier to read despite the smaller screen size. For me, the 4S takes the win on the display. Let's also talk about the camera which is extremely good on the 4S for a cell phone, possibly the best cell phone camera available (with the debatable exception of a couple HTC phones like the Vivid). Overall build quality and "feel" of the 4S is also outstanding.
Click to expand...

That's cool, it's your opinion and both screens are awesome in their own right; but I'm not sure how text is easier to read on a smaller display with lower resolution (despite the slight PPI advantage). Everywhere I've read critics state the opposite and prefer the Gnex display since a lot of times you can fit more on screen and not zoom in as far in order to read more content at once. Same with phones like my Wife's Rezound which is in some ways better than the Gnex's display and in every way better than the iPhone's (both are LCDs, but the Rezound is larger, higher res and higher PPI).

Yeah, the camera on the iPhone is definitely one of the best available on any mobile phone, but along with the Vivid (and Rezound which is similar), all of Samsungs 8MP camera phones (the whole GS II line of phones) are easily comparable too. This is unfortunately a weak area for the Gnex, but I haven't had any issues getting good pics from my Gnex, they're just not at the same IQ as most other high-end phones. Video on the other hand can definitely compete.

whisper said:
3. The 4S has Siri which I view as a nice little perk. If you decide to jailbreak and instal SiriToggles (or something similar) you get even more functionality. Actually, I mainly just use it for basic stuff like making a call when driving home from work. With my old Droid Inc. the voice dialer was a total joke. Usually, it would end up performing a Google search for "Call Katie at Home" rather than making a call. With Siri I can just say, "Call my wife at home" and BOOM - done and done. You can also send and reply to texts with ease and never even touch the phone.
Click to expand...

I haven't had any issues with the voice dialer on either my Gnex or my Wife's Rezound. Works every time for me. I wouldn't think comparing it to your old Inc. would be a good comparison (was it even on 2.3+ at the time?). But I use it for the same purpose while I'm driving and it works well. I can even initiate the "speak now" prompt from the steering wheel of my car, which is nice. You just can't have it read SMS messages to you and reply back to them, but I wouldn't care for that anyways because a lot of times it's hard to articulate punctuation and slang that I use while using those services, so I would rather wait until I'm not driving to reply back anyways.

whisper said:
4. If you have a Mac at home, or friends with Macs, or friends with other iOS devices (you get the point), then you can set up a FaceTime call just as easily as a regular voice call. No need to open up Skype or any other apps and it works great. Don't want to be tied to wifi? Again, if you jailbreak you can easily do FaceTime over 3G and the quality is actually pretty good, at least in my experience. I've ended up using this more than I thought I would, mainly because it's so easy and works well.
Click to expand...

Gtalk.

whisper said:
5. If you're into rooting (Android) or jailbreaking (iOS), the jailbreak procedure could not be simpler on the iPhone. One click and I was done. In contrast, it can be rather tedious if not downright annoying to root your Android phone, depending on who makes the phone, if the bootloader is locked, etc. Of course it's pretty easy on the Gnex, but what if you don't want a Gnex phone? This was another major hurdle for me. I was hesitant on the Gnex because of the camera and relatively short battery life, so I was considering the Razr Maxx. But I knew rooting the Maxx would be a huge pain, so in the end I got the 4S.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this is all determined by the devs that support your phone. My Gnex and the Rezound have one-click methods of rooting/unlocking though. If you have a popular high-end Android phone, chances are you'll get the same treatment.

whisper said:
If I had more time I'd give more examples. Bottom line, both OS's have great features and you can pick and chose which ones you want to highlight to make the other look inferior. I really like my 4S and find it more enjoyable than the Dinc it replaced. And did I mention, I've been using my 4S pretty consistently today including some games this evening and the battery is still at 60%!? That's 17 hours straight and only 40% used. Not even sure the Razr Maxx can do that...
Click to expand...

That's definitely an advantage of the iPhone; battery life of a single charge. Usually my Gnex is done after 10 hours (2-3 hours of screen-on time) or so of moderate usage on 4G. That's the trade off you have for faster speeds. But damn is it nice to download 40+ MB podcasts in a matter of seconds or stream any sort of HQ media instantly. Then if I'm out of juice before I can reach a charger, I throw in my spare battery and I'm good. So overall battery life has still been a non-issue for me, but I would like to see it get better in future hardware. I think the next-gen Qualcomm chips with integrated LTE radio built in will help out a bit in this area. The next thing to focus on is display tech in terms of power draw because it's by far the largest battery drainer on the Gnex. It's consistently 60+% of my overall power usage in my battery stats.

But yeah, it just all comes down to what's more important to you and what trade-offs you're willing to make. I'm not trying to tell you that my Gnex is better than your iPhone, because I'm not you and we obviously have different wants when it comes to our phones. I actually tried to get my wife to get the 4S a few weeks ago for her B-Day, but after trying it out in store, then holding the Rezound and being woo'd by its display and it still being Android where she's comfortable with the apps and functionality of it (we both came from the OG Droid), she decided to stay on Android, esp. after learning that most of her apps are free on Android, but on iOS she would have to pay for the majority of her apps for the same functionality. My mom is about to join my account though and I'm not going to let her get anything but an iPhone since she already has an iPad and I don't want to be her tech support for her phone when she has any questions about it :D.
 
Psych2l said:
2. I prefer the richer colors of the Gnex screen over the outdated IPS tech the iphone uses...
Click to expand...
The Gnex and AMOLED screens in particular are good for movies and games, that's it. For text, it's awful. When dimmed, lighter backgrounds, especially white looks blotchy and dirty. Colored text on a dark background stick out like a sore thumb.

The iPhone 4/S's "outdated" IPS tech on the other hand is an absolute pleasure to read. Even when dimmed, lighter backgrounds look fantastic. Text looks razer sharp regardless of color.

There's also another HUGE issue w/ the Gnex screen. It gets uncomfortably warm to the touch. iPhone 4/S's screen stays cool to the fingertips. :)

That said, I spent a week w/ the iPhone 4S and am returning to my Thunderbolt. The screen is just too small for my eyes. Shame too, because I really enjoyed the level of polish on the phone. The apps are of a whole nother quality. Heck, the build quality down to the feel of the buttons or the sonics of the speaker were much better than my Thunderbolt, let alone the plasticy, tinny Gnex.

I hope VZW gets a One X!
 
I ended up switching to the 4S. I really wanted, and had planned, to hold out until the next iPhone but my Incredible had other ideas. That is to say, it decided that all it wants to do now is be stuck in a boot loop. I tried reflashing, factory resets, pulling everything, and it still would simply reboot every time it passed the Incredible splash screen (the first screen when it boots, didn't even get to the HTC screen). One of the reasons I went with the 4S is that there isn't a single high end Android phone (on Verizon at least) that isn't massive. I really don't want a phone much larger than the Incredible and the 4S is pretty much the same size, just thinner (I had to have the extended battery on the Incredible to make it usable). But, in the end a lot of it came down to just how disappointed I am with Android as a platform. ICS is leagues ahead of Eclair that I started out with in 2010, but the rollout to it (and each prior iteration of Android) has been absolutely glacial in timescale.

And, yeah, I could constantly flash custom ROMs but I would inevitably find things I didn't like about all that I had tried. Cyanogen, MIUI, Evervolv, and numerous others ranging from Froyo to ICS and each had quirks that meant I had to spend time messing with the phone to get it to work. The first couple times that was fun. It was interesting messing with the phone and software a bit and getting it running. But, in the end I just grew desperately tired of it.

It was just a gradual litany of problems that I encountered over the life of the phone that has left me with a sour taste in my mouth. One of the main factors though was that I continued to carry my iPod Touch with me the entire time I had the Incredible. Music was so much more cleanly integrated with iOS and it didn't crash like Winamp or the stock music app did on Android. I also would occasionally have the music app and Winamp randomly stop detecting all of my music on the phone, so in the end it was easier to carry a device that actually worked and wouldn't fuss on music. Another reason I kept it was that it wasn't until last December (and I didn't find out about it until February) that Google finally released a (beta) Japanese input. I used my iPod Touch do all of those tasks, like dictionary and such. There were other Japanese keyboards on the Market but they were all absolutely atrocious. The Google Japanese IME is leagues ahead of them, but still buggier and lacking in its dictionary compared to what Apple has in iOS.

I could easily go on about numerous other reasons that I ended up going with an iPhone, but I've probably bored everyone to tears by now anyway. (Or, at least, most everyone quit for tl;dr) What I can say is that after a week I am so utterly pleased with my new phone and my decision. The only thing that I really would want more at the moment is LTE. It's not a big deal but I can easily see the draw for faster network. Ah, well, next phone for sure.
 
T4rd said:
I'm just going to leave this here... :D
Click to expand...

Nice video. I'm surprised he didn't mention any of the issues that come with a stock Nexus. I'm sure he will mention these issues on his part 2 video. You know, Problems like;
  • massive data drops
  • reboot issue
  • Low volume
  • Lovely echo during phone calls
  • Nasty screeching during phone calls
  • Multitouch problems with the touch screen
  • Vertical banding on that beautiful HD screen
  • The fact that you must wear a backpack battery pack to keep the device charging at all times.
  • Poor camera
  • Keyboard lag
I'm sure there are more. These are the problems I can remember at this time. I'm glad I returned my Nexus before the January deadline. I'd be stressing big time if 3 months later these problems still weren't addressed by Google or Samsung.

Someone also mentioned a few posts back that the Nexus has Gorilla Glass. That is not true. Samsung did not use GG on the Nexus.
 
I will be going iPhone 5 if Apple decides to finally get on the boat with everyone else and increase the screen size up to at least 4". 3.5" just doesn't cut it any more when the primary use of a smartphone has moved from just making calls and texting to internet browsing, apps, movies, games, and more to come.
 
I would like to reiterate that I don't feel my 4S is superior to the Gnex, or by extension that iOS is superior to Android. They just have different advantages and strong points and I felt the video was very one sided.

I would actually like to note that when I say "iOS", I'm usually referring to the OS as well as the iPhone and everything that comes with using it. By contrast, when I say "Android" I'm really just referring to the OS alone since your overall experience will differ substantially depending on the phone you have.

This is one thing I can respect about the iPhone - what you see is what you get, right out of the box. With Android what you see is not necessarily what you get. I hope that manufactures do take user opinions seriously and tone down (or eliminate) their skins, which usually end up interfering more than helping. HTC Sense(less) is sluggish and MotoCrud is just uglier IMO. I haven't had much experience with Samsung's CheezeWiz so I'll leave that commentary to others. I really do like what Google has tried to do with Android in ICS and I think phone manufacturers should just stay out of it.

I know you can get vanilla ICS ROMs on many phones these days, and that's probably what I would do. Given the current state of affairs, I would equate buying an iPhone to getting an iMac while buying an Android phone is like buying a bunch of cool parts on Newegg and doing your own custom built rig. I have done both and enjoy both for their own reasons, and do not feel one is better. I was just tried of messing around so much on Android and actually like my 4S just for being what it is, which is a pretty sweet phone. I guess that didn't stop me from jailbreaking it though... what can I say, old habits die hard:p

Also, there was a very good comment about the iPod music player on the iPhone, which I tend to agree is a better stock player than what comes with Android. I also happen to have a couple hundred older DRM protected songs in iTunes that I can finally get on my phone again:) I was using Google music on my Dinc and it was alright but sluggish (maybe because the phone was older). I haven't paid for the iTunes match service and wish it was free, but to be honest it's not a bad price for 25,000 high quality AAC tunes in the cloud. If I find myself running low on space I may spring for it.
 
lodingi said:
Nice video. I'm surprised he didn't mention any of the issues that come with a stock Nexus. I'm sure he will mention these issues on his part 2 video. You know, Problems like;
  • massive data drops
  • reboot issue
  • Low volume
  • Lovely echo during phone calls
  • Nasty screeching during phone calls
  • Multitouch problems with the touch screen
  • Vertical banding on that beautiful HD screen
  • The fact that you must wear a backpack battery pack to keep the device charging at all times.
  • Poor camera
  • Keyboard lag
I'm sure there are more. These are the problems I can remember at this time. I'm glad I returned my Nexus before the January deadline. I'd be stressing big time if 3 months later these problems still weren't addressed by Google or Samsung.

Someone also mentioned a few posts back that the Nexus has Gorilla Glass. That is not true. Samsung did not use GG on the Nexus.
Click to expand...

He probably won't mention those issues since that list doesn't affect all Gnex's. A lot of users (including myself) haven't experienced most of it. But check out the 4.0.4 update changelog. Pretty much fixes all of that. I never experienced any of that anyways except for the low volume which was easily fixed with Volume+ or other non-root methods. The only thing I'm not too happy with on the Gnex is the battery life, but it still gets me through the day and that's what matters. When it doesn't, I keep a spare battery around (since they're pretty cheap anyways) just in case, so it's really a non-issue.
 
T4rd said:
He probably won't mention those issues since that list doesn't affect all Gnex's. A lot of users (including myself) haven't experienced most of it. But check out the 4.0.4 update changelog. Pretty much fixes all of that. I never experienced any of that anyways except for the low volume which was easily fixed with Volume+ or other non-root methods. The only thing I'm not too happy with on the Gnex is the battery life, but it still gets me through the day and that's what matters. When it doesn't, I keep a spare battery around (since they're pretty cheap anyways) just in case, so it's really a non-issue.
Click to expand...

That, IMHO, is the true secret to living with an Android phone (outside of a couple, like the Razor Max) extended batteries and spare batteries. I have a dock that charges my SGNote and a spare battery at the same time, makes a huge difference.
 
Psych2l said:
You make the Mac ecosystem sound like such a country club. The nice thing about Google's cloud is, it can be accessed regardless of whether you're a mac or a pc. I can access all my songs on google music, buy apps from any modern browser, and sync data and docs regardless of platform. This leads me to one thing I absolutely HATE, iTunes. That program is a piece of shit on Windows, and I refuse to spend upwards of 30 minutes syncing when google can do it in the cloud for a fraction of the time. And yes I'm a PC, I build my own Rigs, this is [H]OCP after all.
Click to expand...

I've built my own rigs since 2003 and would never outright replace my rig with a Mac. I still use it regularly for gaming and processor intensive tasks like video conversion. It's also my primarily hub/fileserver at home and pretty much everything is synced to it in one way or another. But yeah, if you happen to have all the requisite Apple hardware then the ecosystem is very nice and does work well. It usually takes me ~3 minutes to sync my iPhone with iTunes (running on the iMac), and I rarely notice since it happens every night via wifi when I plug the phone into the wall charger by my nightstand. Not that I really need to charge my awesome 4S battery every night;)

I'm not going to convince any die hard Android fans that Apple is the way to go. I'm not trying to convince anyone of that. I had an Android phone myself for 2 years and used to get annoyed at all the Apple fanboys. It's just at the moment, I like what the 4S/iOS/Apple ecosystem has to offer so that's where I went. When it's time for my next upgrade in a couple years I'll take another look and who knows.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top