Android rebellion: How to tame your stupid smartphone

Got a Galaxy S here..

Fantastic phone, the problem with the email and having to factory reset is one I can relate too though.

I added two gmail accounts to the phone, but I added them as secondary email address first then the primary one (secondary one is less private and contained the 32 digit alphanumeric password to the other one; there was a reason I was arse about face ;)). I failed to find a way to switch that afterwards, and when I then tried to find a way to just delete the first email account, I couldn't.

Had to factory reset and this time just added the one address and be done with it.

It was a small problem though, I may have simply missed a setting somewhere but as the phone was only hours old it was probably faster to factory reset and just config it again.

The tone of the article does seem rather blinkered and not what I would have normally expected to read on the reg though, ho hum.

About time

First story commenting negatively on Android....

The 'droid support has been wonderfully vocal and a accept that the majority of you believe that Android is perfect but i have news for you all....

It was written by men and women, it has flaws, just like every other piece of technology created to date.

It is good to see that you are loyal to your purchases. One day I will bite the bullet and get a smart phone... maybe go for the walled garden, maybe go for the open android... no choice made yet.

It is so nice to see so many noses out of joint today though....

@Loyal Commenter

Thank you for your response, but there is no such setting on the Galaxy S for point #4.

With regards to the text message delivery reports, what I mean is that I want reports to be on, but not to be notified by them. So I'd like to be able to go into a text and check whether and when it was delivered, but I don't want something appearing in the alert strip as if I've got a reply from the person to whom I just sent a text. It's rare that you actually want to be notified by a delivery report, so perhaps it could be a third option (off / on but silent / on and notify). Or perhaps I should just look into writing an app to do this.

Yes, Swype is amazing, at least on a big screen (you can buy it from the market), but lately it's been telling me that it can't open English-UK (dictionary). Ahhh!

If it wasn't for the bigger screen that allows me to read PDFs full width on the train, I'd have kept my HTC Hero.

A bit of a ramble

T'was an interesting article which did highlight some of Androids deficiencies.

I've just bought four phones for my family recently and am now skint.

The missus moved from a n95 to a Satio and is happy as larry that she has a 12mp camera.

My youngest daughter has a nokia x6 which she loves...music/wifi/facebook etc

My middle daughter has an iphone4 so she's in line with her bf and once I'd set the bloody thing up with itunes etc all has been good

I have spent months looking at what would be an ideal upgrade to my UIQ3 P1i, a three+ year old phone that had solid wifi, good battery, a reasonably useful keypad, good for reading books, RSS, facebook, business card scanner, decent camera, fab lcg jukebox, song recognition etc etc.....I plumped for a HTC legend based on some stunning internet reviews.

It's a lovely and well designed phone but has been the hardest of all the above to set up with my home wifi....I had to get a belkin wireless router (that I luckily had knocking around) and daisychain it to my wireless network. A bit extreme but it was the only fix..i tried all the multitude of android apps that stop disconnections etc but none worked. This needs sorting as it is something that is vital to the operation of a constantly updating phone for obvious reasons.

Then of course I was unaware of the stupid gmail issue and had to factory reset.

I was never going to buy a samsung because they make good tellys and overtooled phones (look good but never seem to have the ability to deliver).

I nearly bought a N97 mini but I do think Nokia has lost its way a bit of late.

I was never going to have an iphone, as nice as they look I just cannot agree with the business model...criticise M$ for years then deliver iphon£....another closed system with dubious areas of censorship.

I do like the HTC...will I love it? Not sure, as with most of the handsets discussed the battery appears to be incapable of removing the need to be attached to a cable for great lengths of time.

Personally I liked UIQ3 the best, it did all that the current phones do and it did it longer....what happened to the last three years?

I like the double tap as it stops you selecting the wrong thing when using a product which is designed to be in motion, then having to go back to where you were to try selecting again.

I like the HTC capacitive screen but also liked the reactive screen because when you are searching for something in google and you need to edit the search string you can easily select the place you want to insert text without it zooming and all manner of crazy things.

And I liked the scrollwheel as it made the machine easier to use in one hand.

The HTC is definitely slicker but possibly a touch more dumbed down, or at least it felt that way when personalising it.

Is it as slick as the iphone? possibly not, but I think in the absence of my UIQ3 preference my Android HTC legend is a good choice and I certainly don't feel that my daughters iphone offers anything more and of course it cost twice as much.

Just to say

I've got an android phone and haven't had any of these problems.

If Google really wanted to annoy Apple...

... they'd make a version of Android for all the old iPhones that won't run the latest wersion of the OS.

Sounds like Linux.

It's great so long as you want to get down and dirty. If you want shit to just work, go iPhone. And no I'm not an Apple Fanboi, I just appreciate what a consumer expects from a mobile!

Yellow journalism

Spend some time getting the phone working.. "beating your head against the desk".. ROTFLMAO! Yeah..I put in the sim card, turned it on and IT WORKED! Wow, that was really difficult! NOT!

Downloading apps.. I select marketplace, select the app, say download, and guess what... it downloads! Amazing huh? Never had it lock up doing this.

Now I have had my nexus one crash... exactly three times, and all on the older (2.1) version of the OS. You want to know how I reset it? I popped the back off, pulled the battery out, pushed the battery in, and replaced the back. Oooo... that took some technical chops that did. Try even removing the battery on the iPhone... oh yeah.. you can't.. well, you CAN but it certainly isn't a simple matter.

Bottom line, Android is not perfect, never thought (or said) it was, but it is darn good and nothing like the article describes.

Couldn't agree more

I had a galaxy s. So much potential but a serious rubbish software implementation. The fastest phone around, but it lags, great super screen, but auto brightness doesn't go high enough in direct sunlight so you have to do it manually. Likewise in darkness, like in bed, it is too bright and have to manually lower it. The gps just never works properly. And even when it was released it was a software version behind.

Sure you can 'fix' some when you enter the hacking community with rooting and custom roms. But I rather not fix a device I just bought, it should work.

Only android phones I recommend are htc legend and desire. The rest just doesn't provide the same experience without a lit of tinkering.

Oh and you pathetic fandroids, if you want to give it out then also be man enough to take.