Ten... Androids to outshine the iPhone 4S
Yes folks, it’s that time again when across the land otherwise rational and even sensible adults feel the need to whip themselves into a frenzy over the pending arrival of the latest iPhone. To be honest, I find the whole charade rather entertaining and have taken to sauntering over to the Trafford Centre come launch day, …
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"too cheap to buy a 911"
FFS. If someone buys a Porsche Boxter I assume and hope they feel duly delighted with the object, and with themselves they've had sufficient material success to buy it. Either you don't appreciate the difficulty most people have making that kind of money, and you're out of touch, and/or you're just not happy with stuff per se, there always being better stuff, and probably people too - and I think you think both.
It's our lives' work in a sense to be happy with what we can get - telephony and combustion propulsion are miracles themselves, let alone smart telephony and Porsches. Don't diss that. Unless you're talking about a Nokia 5230 in which case, fine.
Incidentally - OED: "cheap": N. Amer. collog. stingy.
@Ian Watkinson
Boxster Syndrome? Oh bless.
You really think that spending an extra hundred quid on a phone is in any way comparable to spending an extra forty or fifty grand on a car? Really?
Apple products are quite often lovely, but to imagine that buying them marks you out as a big shot is hilarious. It's the technodweeb equivalent of bragging about how much you paid for your Adidas sneakers.
+1 for HTC Support
Great customer service. Much better than venting on some google group which will never get a reply from google.
On the HTC twitter feed you can see in real time the thoughts of the beaten down failures who constitute HTC's customer base, as they express their distain for the worthless piece of junk they have the misfortune to own on account of their being less successful in every aspect of life than the many admin assistants I see flashing their iphones in the pub. Look closely and you'll notice the many occasions on which HTC passes the buck on support calls (ignore the link to their support centre in their bio section).
https://twitter.com/#!/HTC
@AC 911 vs Boxster
Except in the case of the 911 vs Boxster, the view was buy a 2 year old 911, it was (and probably still is) a better/cheaper bet than a new Boxster.
how have I wasted the money on a phone, it does what I want it to do, cheaper than a
1/ dedicated gps
2/ Mp3 player
3/ tablet
4/ video player
5/ ebook reader (although I do confess to having a kindle..)
So where is the waste?
Clueless, if you think that the difference between a boxster and a 911 is 40-50k esp second hand then dream on.
Besides, £100 or £50k, you can still appear to be cheap.
LOL,
@Bilboroberts Andrew, have you tried a soft reset?
So we're in the have you turned it on and off again support mode? :-)
Must rush out and buy an android phone...
Don't they know their place?
Admin assistants with iPhones in pubs? Aren't they suppose to be in bars?
Not being funny, but the many iPhone users I know, don't actually become vocal about their phones until they've had a few to drink, then it is laughable to hear the issues they have day in, day out which other phones just don't have.
No, I don't know how to reset it. No, I don't have a paperclip handy. No, I'm not interested in a product you bought just because you saw everyone else with one and believed their lies. No, you can't use Ping to contact your BB friends, who told you that?
"Compare that, to one call to Apple."
Apple then turned around and said "Please open your wallet and prepare to be boarded!"
" everyone knows that the only reason you bought one, was you were too cheap to buy an Iphone...."
Not at all, I [personally] didn't want an iphone after my experience with apple's "Support" with my iPod Touch.
You're missing the point
You're saying you spent more on an iPhone than you could have on an Android handset.
Last time I checked every Android handset can do all of that, too.
It's fine that your iPhone can do it, but this whole "I'm better than you because I spent more money to do the same thing" attitude is what is not helping your point.
coxster vs 911
isn't that like buying an iphone 4 instead of a 4s?
anyway all these phones have pro's and con's that make it right for some not others. I've never had to ask for support with any phone I've owned, and I do kind of wonder what kind of problems people hit that get them on the phone/email/blog/twit/socialcrap/face-to-face with someone to help. honestly if you expect the good old 5 nines uptime on a phone and won't restart it when it does some stupid crap then maybe you need to get your head examined. i'm somewhat sick of this current trend of don't think just have a whinge, i'm unsurprised tech support dumbs down to power cycling equipment when whinger 10^9+5 rings up about the obvious. doubtless there exists people who don't get it and well I'd give a hall pass in regard to seeking tech support for basic problems, but they are the elderly, and thats about it.
yes things don't just magically keep running perfectly, yes you might need to use your noggin to get the most out of your purchase, yes if you want it to be better than you bought it you need to pay for it.
a perfect synonym for it is your 911
yes cars need to be serviced to keep working, yes you need a big pair of brass balls to push the car as fast as it can go on the track, and yes if you want a better tune, better seats, a different coat of paint you will pay for it.
and most 911 owners lack the brass balls to get the most out of their car, another fact that shows that people buy shit they can't use because of the cool factor.
oh and lastly, what about unimog syndrome, last i checked they were more than your porsche, could drive over it and generally drive most anywhere. or be really silly and say everyone that doesn't by a Komatsu PC8000 (or maybe a CAT 793c?) for their travel needs are obviously buying inferior products. pff
price isn't a particularly good way of judging things at all and people who care how much you pay for something come across as shallow... style over substance and all that guff
Mandatory Google ID
Google already know too much about me and the mandatory Google log in and massive additional information release to them puts me off. Leaking it to Apple isn't much better but they don't know as much about what I do off the phone.
I'm assuming that Google ID is mandatory I've never set up an Android phone, it was on the Google TVs that I played with.
Anonymous because sometimes that's what I want to be.
re: Mandatory Google ID
It's up to you to be honest.
Android phones do like to get a google mail ID from you for syncing contact info and google docs etc, but you can always duck that part of the process.
Personally I just set up a new google mail account for the phone to sync with.
re: Mandatory Google ID
And I just skip it entirely, install a custom notROM (currently CM7 nightly as the CM7 stable suffers from a most annoying hard-lock when charging on the Blade) without all the Google spyware muck and have done. There are plenty of .apks outside of the market to keep you busy, including some gems (ATide) that you can't get from Ogle.
Note well that there is currently no unlock solution for the Skate/Monte Carlo aside from those silly X-SIM adaptors that don't work very well with USIMs. The Blade/SanFran is still the budget phone to get if you want a half-decent system, some major de-Oglage and SIM-freedom and its absence here is a serious oversight.
Nightly build if is
Didn't know the stable build was causing the lockup, thanks
Frenzy?
The only frenzy over the arrival of the latest iPhone seems to be that of the electronic media!
Must be a slow news month or something, if it wasn't for the Fruit Co. Phone there would be a lot less to write about...
As an [HTC] Android handset owner, I am more interested in how HTC are going to fix these backdoor data leaks that you've recently reported
Again the media uses Apple to promote Android handsets. Why? Is it the fact people will click and read articles that relate to the already over publicised Apple handsets? So, why not compare Androids to Androids and stop using Apple as the yardstick come beating stick?
How can you recommend the LG Optimus 2X when it is well known to be an utter lemon?! There's a good reason why Expansys, Amazon etc. are knocking this phone out for under three hundred notes, its because the return rates on this unit are through the roof!
Head over to xda-developers.com and read 150+ pages of O2X owners complaining of constant crashes, freezes, reboots and the Sleep of Death. Then read another 100 pages of O2X owners complaining about the promised Gingerbread update that never came, and never will come.
I had one for a month, never again will I buy an LG mobile.
because.....
The same guy recommends Sony phones to everyone, obviously he's never known anyone who is currently struggling with one they obtained last year - the product support is abysmal.
Just because they've released a bunch of pretty phones doesn't mean they've cleaned up their act.
SE have been releasing updates more frequently and timely than the rest of the Android providers this year.
SE also offer official ability to unlock your bootloader as well as are now supporting the development community on XDA and Cynanogedmod etc.
Consistancy?
I note "use as a phone" got a mention in 0 out of 10 reviews, despite being a bugbear in IPhone's bad-list yesterday. Oh well.
But then, I still use a Nokia 6230i, so what do I know!
I think you've missed the point.
No-one uses these handsets to make phone calls, anyone with any shred of dignity will immediately replace the factory firmware with something off the interwebs, install all of their development, diagnostic and system admin tools on it and use it as a very mobile, but inconveniently small terminal to administer the big iron they look after or hack into networks with.
Make phone calls? The very idea!
I have an iPhone 4 as my work phone and I genuinely can't see what all the fuss is about (I think its a bit boring to be honest and the single button thing just irritates me). The missus has a Galaxy SII and its just orders of magnitude more desirable.
If I was buying for myself, the Galaxy (for the screen), the HTC (for the UI) or the Xperia Arc (for the external design) would all be in front of the 4S for my hard-earned.
and
with those you'd be keeping more of your hard earned in your pocket compared to buying a new iphone.
Damnit!!
I was planning on spending $600 on hookers'n'blow this weekend, then I read this article. Now i'm gonna have to go buy a new Android handset ...
typical fanboi
Always going for the hookers and blow when everybody knows that escorts and dope is where it's at.
ZTE Skate is clearly the closest to the iPhone since it won't run flash either!
All these are great if you buy simply by looking at the spec sheet; but I think I'll stick with looking at the whole end-to-end user experience and benefits, thanks.
"To be honest..
, I find the whole charade rather entertaining and have taken to sauntering over to the Trafford Centre come launch day, grabbing a cup of coffee and a sticky bun, pulling up a chair and making fun of the twerps lined up outside the Apple Store opposite.
Yes, I know it’s wrong,"
-- but it feels SO right..
Why people like iPhones
People don't choose smartphones because of a minor improvement in specs. There are some people who will always buy Apple, some who never will, but many who see their friends with a phone and say "what's it like?"
This is where Apple wins. Simply put, people like using their gadgets. Top of the JD Power smartphone customer satisfaction survey for the 6th year running.
It's not about GHz or GB. It's about enjoying the whole package
thats bullshit
people buy iPhones because that's what they are expect to carry, and that myth has been carefully crafted by Apple.
Remember all those posts about "Android is for geeks", guess who was writing those posts?
Who was writing it?
The same "social networkers for hire" that downvoted your reply, and consistently upvote anything pro-apple (or pro-msft, depends on who is paying that day) on the first 30 minutes an article is published?
The iPhone was there first...
... and so I bought it. Along with it, I have been buying apps for a few years now, meaning that it's just not an option for me to switch to Android, I have too much money invested in apps to have to buy them all over again (assuming they're available).
That said, I do like the iPhone and unless Apple screw it up I have no real reason to switch. I did use a Nexus One (got it for free at a Google dev conf) for a few months when I lost my 3GS while waiting to buy a new iPhone, and I must say it wasn't very pleasant, especially regarding music: the fidelity of sound reproduction was just not on par with that on the iPhone.
I would be willing to try again with HTC this time, since they usually get rave reviews, but I really can't afford to buy all my apps again :(
Isn't this what Apple relies on?
You paid for some content and are now locked into their eco-system for ever.
The longer you leave it, the worse it's gonna get. Ditto for Kindle....
The sooner you leave that locked in ecosystem, the sooner you can buy your Android apps once and have them work on all your Android devices, regardless of who makes it, now and for the future.
By delaying the move, you are only causing yourself more hurt in the future, Android is now the number one priority for devs, so expect your apps to arrive later on IOS.
@ac 1218
You must be dreaming if you think the Android apps you buy today will still work properly in other devices running future versions of Android.
As for the apps arriving later on iOS you're just having a laugh arent't you? FIFA 2012 ring a bell?
Funny lad.
Ramble
Interesting article - not sure they are all iPhone 4S beaters per se, but there are some very decent phones there. Moved away from 3 years of iPhone (3g and 3gs) use 3-4 months ago to android and the Galaxy S2, and couldn't be happier.
I moved after some spectacular fails on the part of Apple service (I got robbed on the iStore and they utterly failed to do anything about it - refused to reverse the transactions, refused to even say whether or not they'd help the police in a trivial prosecution, and avoided answering any question, instead using boilerplate text designed to get me to go away).
My first iPhone (3g) had suffered a hardware failure after 15 months forcing me into another iPhone (3gs) contract (particularly if I wanted to retrieve my contact data and not pay another £120 unwanted airtime), and when the glass screen of the new one cracked the apple shop wanted to replace it for a 'very generous' refurbished phone price of £249. The internet provided me with the solution to that for £13 and about 20 minutes of my time with a hair dryer.
I loved the iPhone and iOS a lot and recognised that (from the 3g onwards) it was a real game changer. My early adopter friends with android were singing it's praises and so I periodically got to play with their phones. In my own opinion the UI overtook iOS about 18 months ago, and when my contract expired I moved over to android.
It took me a weekend to de-iTunes my computer (re-encoding my music to normal formats - not entirely necessary - but cathartic), a couple of abortive efforts to buy a 32gb class 10 microsd card from eBay for small money proved annoying, but easily resolved by moving to class 4 (there's only music on there so it was irrelevant). After that it was plain sailing - I bought the Galaxy S2 outright, sold off the old 3gs, moved to giffgaff, and will have repaid the TCO difference within 10 months - so I'm no longer trapped to a contract after a phone has run out of warranty, and if giffgaff ever give me trouble I'll immediately move, at a loss of, at most, a tenner. It also has a 3 year accident and spills warranty purchased for £49 via Amazon - considerably cheaper, longer lasting and wider ranging than Apple's warranty offering. If you have the initial cost of the phone available it's something of a no-brainer to stay out of a contract.
Android isn't entirely perfect - the native music player's shoddy and pod-casting is handled poorly generally, but the market place solved those pretty cheaply. I've had no problems with the market place and, since android outsells iOS 3-1 (approx) at the moment, there are more than enough apps (usually free) to keep me happy, and I suspect that won't change. I also invested another tenner in a couple of spare (Samsung branded) batteries and a wall charger for them, meaning my phone never needs to be tethered to the wall for any length of time. I'd love the android phone community to place a sufficient capacitor in their next generation of phones to make the batteries hot-swappable.
I can't speak for the other phones but have to say the Samsung Galaxy S2 is far and away (for it's time) the best phone I've ever owned (including my old beloved SE T28). After a few months it's never felt flimsy (a complaint I often see bandied about it) and always felt light with plenty of screen space for not much bulk.
I also can't believe that Apple seems to be getting away with claiming it's twice as fast for internet because they finally support hsdpa. That's some brass neck.
Cheers for reading this far - I hope that was an honest depiction of how a former fanboi found happiness elsewhere... I still have lots of friends who rave about their iPhones and more power to them, but I reckon I've found the greener grass.
Missed opportunity
I Have the LG 3D
It is a damn good phone and yes the 3d part is a gimmick but it is still a good gimmick.
I had the choice to buy it a X2 or a 3D and they are basically identical but 1 has an extra feature.
And in my hohnest opinion the 3D option is well worth it.
Shame on you for disregarding something just because its not fun for you.
Surely most of them will only be queuing for
the new micro USB converter?
Accessibility fail
All the various features of the Android devices is all well and good... if you have good eyesight. If you don't, then you're in big trouble because Android is basically piss poor when it comes to accessibility. I've owned a HTC desire, and there was pretty much no accessibility settings in the version of Android that that handset supported. Even something as simple as changing the font size wasn't included!
Apple, for all their faults, pay a huge amount of attention to detail when it comes to accessibility in their products, with full screen zooming, voice over and all sorts of other touches that make a device with a screen as small as a smartphone's usable to people who wouldn't be able to manage otherwise.
Note: This is not intended as either fanboyism, or trolling of Android. There's plenty about Android to like and conversely plenty about Apple to dislike, but as a partially sighted user I doubt I'd ever use an android device again until the accessibility situation improves drastically.
That list is funny
Yes some of the specs may impress an 8 year old, but it is a bit pointless as all of them still use tinker toy Android on it. There just isn't a comparison, google still screws up your contact photos, still can't deal with peoples names containing prefixes, spaces, hyphenation and post fixes. It just isn't production quality stuff.
Move on nothing to see here other than the boring guy in the pub who insists on listing the spec difference between the ford focus he drives. Nice if you are the mundane person but for the rest of us nah....
You sound like a Lexus Salesman
I'll stick with my Mercedes thanks.
Yeah they are all okay but in a way there are too many choices now ...
So I'll continue to sweat my 'original' iPhone 3GS asset but I'll go for the free iOS5 update (the 3 -> 4 upgrade made a big difference and stopped me replacing it so 5 will probably do the same especially with the cloudy synchronization and usable notifications .. still miss androidic homepage widgets though 8-) .. and I've just ordered a £3 replacement (and 30% more mAh) battery and £7 for a new coloured back shell to give it a 'hardware' refresh.
Maybe next year if the 3GS gives up ... the mythical iphone 5 might actually be out and then there will be more choices from Samsung as well. Not interested in speed of games/graphics but I am interested in good camera optics and ready-to-shoot speed as I'm more likely to be carrying a phone than a DSLR or Bridge camera.
With tablets getting smaller and phones getting bigger I'm probably looking for a 5 inch tablet with 3G and skype/google talk ... rather than strictly a phone (as I spend < £5 year on calls 8-) and my main use is for mobile internet access.
Even better value
Orange have dropped the price of the Monte Carlo to £119 yesterday. You have to buy a £10 top up to go with it, but its really great value at that price.
The sensation has a price. About £470-500
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=htc%20beats%20xe&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbo=u&tbm=shop&source=og&sa=N&tab=wf
They are all......
....at least £100-£150 too expensive with the exception of the Monte Carlo.
"With Android devices now outselling iOS phones by two-to-one"
Oh dear, who's the sheep now...
Other than that great troll bait article. Keep it up El Reg.
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