What to look for in an Android Phone?

Yah, deffo. We've seen some fantastically balanced stuff in this chucklefest.

 

Re: Re: What to look for in an Android Phone?

[quote author=monsly]

Yah, deffo. We've seen some fantastically balanced stuff in this chucklefest.
[/quote]

Neither platform is perfect, android lacks games and iOS is too restricted by Apple.

The important thing is being able to admit flaws. There are people here who believe their side is perfect when really neither is.

 

I'll admit that iOS has a place. If you pretty much need a helmet and dribble cup when it comes to anything computer related, iOS is a better option.

Armadeadn for instance should stick with an iPhone. Otherwise he'll break something or hurt himself. Retards need to be restrained for their own safety, and iOS provides that restraint.

 

This is the most spergy thread in pvc's history and that's saying something.

 

I can't help it if Android is a tool that elite super geniuses use to control the world, and iOS is basically the straps they use to keep the guy in the asylum from trying to bite his ear off.

 

Those dogs need protecting from arma's rage.

Ios is alright but I can't stand the clutter of having everything on the home screen. I've jail broken it just so I can have everything on one screen. It's a compromise

 

That was my question when I first saw android when my friend got a G1 (first device with android) on launch day. I was totally dumbfounded when I heard the phone had only 256MB and you couldn't choose to install to the micro-sd card. This was back in 2008 and installing to your memory card was common in windows mobile already. Then he told me the sizes of the common android app and then it kind of made sense. Back then, android apps at 5MB were considered huge already. Fast forward to 2009 with the Motorola Droid (Milestone) and early 2010 with the Nexus One , they got bumped to about 512MB storage, but at the same time, android app development matured a little more (bigger app sizes) so the same problem exists. Add to the problem that the android os itself also grew in size.

This is why some older devices don't even see android updates. Add to that, the OEM's also put their on customizations into the OS, and you'll see huge os sizes. For example, the total size of the Galaxy S III stock rom weighs in at 1GB.

I too, would prefer a system like Apple's where it puts it all on storage rather than a partitioned system space. It's true that most apps on android require it to be stored on the system partition.. most stuff like widgets and whatnot. Games and stuff store their data on the external storage partition.

 

The best thing about android is that its easy to get free apps. Even jailbroken iphone repos have alot of apps missing.

 

You could do a Galaxy S2 or S3 depending on how much you want to spend.

 

I'd probably go with a Samsung Galaxy S2. I've heard nothing but good things about it. Even Arstechnica which is one of the biggest Apple fanboi sites around gave it an extremely positive review. It's also supported by Cyanogenmod, so you won't need to worry about it getting regular updates.

 

It looks like bfun is going for t-mobile prepaid. I think the exhibit II 4G is the best you can do right now at that price. Just be aware the specs of that phone is from 2010. You may or may not be OK with that.. I guess the best thing to do is get it and try it out for however long the return period will be from the store you buy it from. I assume Wal-Mart? I believe they have a pretty long return period. That phone has an active dev community (for a prepaid phone) if you're going to be into that stuff.

Otherwise, I'd bite the bullet and go for a $350 Galaxy Nexus when/if it comes back to google's play site. The way I look at phones is that they are long term investments so if you're going to get a phone, do it right. The Exhibit will probably never see any software updates other than bug fixes pushed from samsung. The Galaxy Nexus will see all of Google's android updates as long as the hardware can handle it.

Oh, btw, the iphones don't work with T-Mobile's hspa+ band. That means your lady will be stuck on t-mobile's old EDGE (2G) network, like it was an original iphone. I guess you also have to decide if she'll be ok with that.

 

Usually no more than few hundred megabytes. Most places have wifi these days.

There have been times though where I was traveling or my internet connection was down at home (Comcast is kind of unreliable) where I ended up using a few gigabytes in a month.

 

I average only about 500MB a month. This is because I only do web browsing and photo uploads on a day to day basis. I'm always on wifi when I'm at home. If you stream music daily, you can easily hit the gigabytes per month.

 

I've hit over a gig once; mainly average about 600MB. I've just switched to a completely unlimited plan which is great - I can watch TV and Netflix on the go without a care in the world.

I keep hearing recommendations for the huawei ascend g300 in threads over here when people are looking for a cheap but good Android phone.

 

Hahaha...now cmdrmonkey considers Arstechnica to be an "Apple fanboi" site? Hilarious.

 

Yes Arstechnica is an Apple fanboi site. They hate everything not made by Apple and stopped doing serious hardware reviews years ago. Compared to HardOCP or Anandtech, they're an absolute joke of a tech site. Typical of Apple fanbois, most of their writers know dick about hardware.

 

They "hate" everything not made by Apple? Hardly. They seem to have plenty of positive reviews for non-Apple hardware and software. Anyone who scrolls through the first few pages of their current hardware review section will see what a joke the "Apple fanboi" stuff is.