Jump to content

Considering Android


ScubaCinci
 Share

Recommended Posts

Just now, Wojo72 said:

I don't see myself paying $1000ish for a phone anytime soon.  I also don't like contracts with the carriers so I guess that I am stuck with shit hardware.  :(   Right now I am running a Nexus 6.  I've been looking for something new because even after a factory reset the phone is slow as hell.  

Keep your eye on the Pixel One, or Pixel XL One. The price is dropping real fast now. I could get work to pay for a new XL 2 but not going to bother, the one is still an awesome phone. I too came from the 6. They are used on Swappa now for under 400.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Tonik said:

Keep your eye on the Pixel One, or Pixel XL One. The price is dropping real fast now. I could get work to pay for a new XL 2 but not going to bother, the one is still an awesome phone. I too came from the 6. They are used on Swappa now for under 400.

The wife's got a pixel.  She likes it a lot, says she will never go back to I-phones.  The only thing it needs is more battery life.  Only a few phones out there with more than 3 Amp-Hours....and my old Motorola Droid Maxx is one of them...4 years strong now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Qman said:

Only a few phones out there with more than 3 Amp-Hours....and my old Motorola Droid Maxx is one of them...4 years strong now.

Same.  Motorola seems to have the best build quality of the phones I've owned.   The batteries seem to stay in good condition longer that a 2 year contract, unlike Samsung.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

32 minutes ago, Qman said:

The wife's got a pixel.  She likes it a lot, says she will never go back to I-phones.  The only thing it needs is more battery life.  Only a few phones out there with more than 3 Amp-Hours....and my old Motorola Droid Maxx is one of them...4 years strong now.

 

I was getting 7 hours SOT with my Pixel XL on 7, now on 8 I am down to 5.5. I expect 8.1 will fix that, that is usually the drill. Owning a Google phone means you get to test everything for them. Usually it is good, you cool new stuff. But sometimes it sucks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So far, there isn't much compelling me to go through the "pain" of switching. Pain being gettig used to a new OS and all the buances, as well as migrating my data and finding equivalent apps for ones that are platform agnostic (there are just a few).

In general the hardware isn't much different from device to device and they all essentially do the most of the same things on the software side, albeit a little differently. Android is more open with their OS which allows for much more customization but hand in hand with that it can be less secure and phone makers generally quit giving legacy devices updates (even for security holes) after a few short years. Outside of the Google made devices, OS updates are slow to come out, if at all. This is the reason the Pixel 2 appeals to me because I know I'll get timely OS updates and no brand specific software/bloatware (as comes with LG, Samsung, etc phone) that I'll probably need to root the phone to ditch. The LG V30 and Samsung S8+ are alternative options though. Not crazy about the fingerprint sensor placement on the Samsung but probably has the best display on the market where the LG display is the same that's in the Pixel 2 XL which is decent. Their camera's are all pretty good...meet my needs at least. If I was doing "real" photography, I'd break out my DSLR anyway.
What I find kind of funny is the Pixel 2 is supposed to be one of the best Android phones to come out on probably the most expensive. Android users always made fun of Apple for being late with hardware changes or lack of options with the hardware. Pixel 2 - no expandable storage, no user replaceable battery, no wireless charging, and no headphone jack (the very thing Google poked fun at Apple for not having). WTF?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

34 minutes ago, Steve Butters said:

Sounds like your mind was made up from the start.... I wish I could get my 10 minutes back from reading this thread 

Not really...I'd like to change things but up I need more of a reason than I just want something different. If it were $50 and 10 minutes of time to migrate over sure...

I honestly hadn't taken an in-depth look at Android stuff in several years. The more I look into it, the less attractive changing becomes. For all of the gripes Apple haters have about the iPhones/iOS, they sure do also have a lot of gripes about the Android phones and the OS...lack of ongoing support/updates, buggy BlueTooth, boot loops, proprietary software hate (i.e. Samsung Touchwiz), etc. At the end of the day, they all have their positives and shortcomings. Pick your poison. I'm not going to spend a lot of time and money to switch to not really gain anything worthwhile. the iPhone/iOS is offering a lot of the features that I used to think were cool and could only be found on Android or a jailbroke iPhone. Now that disparity has whittled away to very little which was surprising for me...

Edited by ScubaCinci
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/15/2017 at 8:25 AM, motocat12 said:

challenge accepted. $12 ZTE jasper vs Sony Xperia go.

I couldnt tell you the difference without playing with both.  But for an example cheap phones often lack things like an led notification, flash for the camera, poor picture quality, screens hard to see outdoors, no auto screen brightness, no fm radio tuner, laggy performance,  popular apps not compatible.those sorts of things.  Speaking of apps not compatible, i ran into this issue with my phone not being able to use my company card reader.  So now i have to use their iphone to take credit cards.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/17/2017 at 3:51 PM, ScubaCinci said:

Not really...I'd like to change things but up I need more of a reason than I just want something different. If it were $50 and 10 minutes of time to migrate over sure...

I honestly hadn't taken an in-depth look at Android stuff in several years. The more I look into it, the less attractive changing becomes. For all of the gripes Apple haters have about the iPhones/iOS, they sure do also have a lot of gripes about the Android phones and the OS...lack of ongoing support/updates, buggy BlueTooth, boot loops, proprietary software hate (i.e. Samsung Touchwiz), etc. At the end of the day, they all have their positives and shortcomings. Pick your poison. I'm not going to spend a lot of time and money to switch to not really gain anything worthwhile. the iPhone/iOS is offering a lot of the features that I used to think were cool and could only be found on Android or a jailbroke iPhone. Now that disparity has whittled away to very little which was surprising for me...

I know one thing...my bluetooth worked flawlessly before it forced the update on me and now i have to sometimes turn bluetooth off/on to get it to connect to my truck radio(sony).  You can actually change the touchwiz stuff.  I forget what its called but in the app store there is dozens of them to choose from.  Even microsoft makes one

Edited by serpentracer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I dig my pixel XL...

 

If you're an apple fanboy, there's very little reason to switch anymore. Apple is finally catching up to the important features other phones have had for years. 

The thing I like about the pixel is the lack of bloatware, vanilla Android, and all the earliest updates... It's also easier to mod things if I get bored.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A lot of complaints about the new Pixel 2 phones going on...blue tint on the screen at even moderate angles, screen burn in happening in a few weeks, and now people are complaining about a whine or other noises coming from the phone. I went and looked that these and the S8+ yesterday and while I'd rather have the pure Android OS and be on Oreo, the S8+ just has a lot more hardware features and I can find it on sale for well under $800.

I played with the S8+ for a while and it's really a nice device. I'm still on the fence about what to do but I'm actually leaning towards Android. I may still try to order an iPX and flip it on eBay for a mint :lol:Not that money is an issue for me but for nearly $1200, I don't see the value proposition - especially when compared to some of the Android phones. I'm just not sold on the face recognition thing either. I think it will work just fine but feel like there will be a lot of circumstances where a fingerprint sensor is more convenient (e.g. when phone is mounted in the car and you want to unlock it to start GPS - do I do the Detroit lean???). If I pay $1200 for something and I find it annoying, not a good situation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, ScubaCinci said:

A lot of complaints about the new Pixel 2 phones going on...blue tint on the screen at even moderate angles, screen burn in happening in a few weeks, and now people are complaining about a whine or other noises coming from the phone. I went and looked that these and the S8+ yesterday and while I'd rather have the pure Android OS and be on Oreo, the S8+ just has a lot more hardware features and I can find it on sale for well under $800.

I played with the S8+ for a while and it's really a nice device. I'm still on the fence about what to do but I'm actually leaning towards Android. I may still try to order an iPX and flip it on eBay for a mint :lol:Not that money is an issue for me but for nearly $1200, I don't see the value proposition - especially when compared to some of the Android phones. I'm just not sold on the face recognition thing either. I think it will work just fine but feel like there will be a lot of circumstances where a fingerprint sensor is more convenient (e.g. when phone is mounted in the car and you want to unlock it to start GPS - do I do the Detroit lean???). If I pay $1200 for something and I find it annoying, not a good situation.

Screen burn in is kind of a BS story. It's image retention of the nav bar, not burn in. Very typical of AMOLED screens. I am sure the noise issue is software and will be fixed next update. The blue tint at an angle thing is a big deal. I can't imagine using it on my bikes handlebars for Nav with that issue. Doubt that is fixable.

If I were buying today I would grab a deal on a Pixel 1, or an S8.

Still betting you will stick with Iphone though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, Tonik said:

Screen burn in is kind of a BS story. It's image retention of the nav bar, not burn in. Very typical of AMOLED screens. I am sure the noise issue is software and will be fixed next update. The blue tint at an angle thing is a big deal. I can't imagine using it on my bikes handlebars for Nav with that issue. Doubt that is fixable.

If I were buying today I would grab a deal on a Pixel 1, or an S8.

Still betting you will stick with Iphone though.

And of those two it would be S8 for water proofness.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, 2talltim said:

And of those two it would be S8 for water proofness.

 

200K or so Nav'ing with my phone, never owned a waterproof one. Never had one go bad. Problem with the S8 is the updates are too slow to be released. Good and bad no matter what choice you make.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Tonik said:

 

200K or so Nav'ing with my phone, never owned a waterproof one. Never had one go bad. Problem with the S8 is the updates are too slow to be released. Good and bad no matter what choice you make.

I'm probably a little harder on my phones than your average bear. I'll leave it on the bike in pouring rain with no faring protection, pool side with music playing, and I've been know to drop it in rivers and streams a time or three. There is no doubt if mine weren't water proof I would have destroyed it by now.

Also for a scuba diver that might be an important feature. 

 

Edited by 2talltim
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Tonik said:

Screen burn in is kind of a BS story. It's image retention of the nav bar, not burn in. Very typical of AMOLED screens. I am sure the noise issue is software and will be fixed next update. The blue tint at an angle thing is a big deal. I can't imagine using it on my bikes handlebars for Nav with that issue. Doubt that is fixable.

Not so sure...image retention goes away, this is a pretty good demonstration of what's happening. I'd definitely want the XL over the smaller one.

 

Edited by ScubaCinci
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I realized something today. My work subsidizes a portion of my monthly cell bill because I use my cell phone for work purposes. I checked with Verizon and if I add an additional line (shared data), it's $20 more bucks a month on my plan so for me, not much extra spend. So, I buy an Android phone, use it for personal stuff and keep my iPhone for work stuff. Then if I decide that I prefer iOS, I don't lose my settings, apps, etc, etc. and I can sell the Android. If the opposite happens. I can get rid of the iPhone :) I could take my time for Android evaluation and see how the iPhone X pans out in the meantime. Just might be a plan...;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, ScubaCinci said:

I realized something today. My work subsidizes a portion of my monthly cell bill because I use my cell phone for work purposes. I checked with Verizon and if I add an additional line (shared data), it's $20 more bucks a month on my plan so for me, not much extra spend. So, I buy an Android phone, use it for personal stuff and keep my iPhone for work stuff. Then if I decide that I prefer iOS, I don't lose my settings, apps, etc, etc. and I can sell the Android. If the opposite happens. I can get rid of the iPhone :) I could take my time for Android evaluation and see how the iPhone X pans out in the meantime. Just might be a plan...;)

If you get the Pixel from VZ it will be bootloader locked. No root, non of that stuff. Need to get the phone directly from Google for that and get the Google version. The Sammy's will be fully locked also.

Best Buy has 100 bucks off the Verizon Pixel 2, fwiw.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...