Android phone recommendations/discussion?

[Tokyo Slim]

Originally Posted by holymadness

Tech Crunch just ran a great article about some of the problems associated with Android's openness. I agree; if Google wants to create a legitimate competitor to iOS, they have to decide what direction to take the platform in, not merely issue updates and new features once in a while.
I love how none of his gripes apply to me. My phone came with no bloatware, I got Android 2.2 over the air, my carrier can't do anything about me tethering even if they could determine I was doing it, which they can't, my phone is nine months old, and is still one of the top 3 fastest types of stock phone in the U.S. (according to Quadrant) and I'm pretty happy with how cheap my plan is - though the 3g service can be sketchy at times. (my only gripe, and has nothing to do with the phone itself)

 

[Althis]

Originally Posted by Riio

no one's posting homescreens yet? just got a samsung vibrant a few weeks ago, here's what i stuck with after playing around with launcherpro and desktop visualizer:
I posted some of mine in the other cellphone thread, here's my current one http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j149/marsupialedman10/snap20100909_223844.png baked snack 1.7 launcher pro plus switchpro digital clock battstat oh yeah slim, there are some people on the evo getting over 3k in quadrant, i've only gone as high as about 2k though but of course that's with heavy mods, i tried ocing to 1.267 but my phone freezes up =/ i can only go up to 1.15

 

[Tokyo Slim]

Originally Posted by Althis

oh yeah slim, there are some people on the evo getting over 3k in quadrant, i've only gone as high as about 2k though but of course that's with heavy mods, i tried ocing to 1.267 but my phone freezes up =/ i can only go up to 1.15
I'm getting 1250-1420 pretty reliably on my stock NExus. Nobody is getting over 3k stock. They are OC or something.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: No media files are hosted on these forums. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website. We can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. If the video does not play, wait a minute or try again later. I AGREE

TIP: to embed Youtube clips, put only the encoded part of the Youtube URL, e.g. eBGIQ7ZuuiU between the tags.

 

[Althis]

i use setcpu for my over/underclocking, when my screen is off its at 245mhz and undervolted to conserve power and when screen is on its clocked to 1.15

i've been getting some really good battery life out of it so far, on standby it drains about 1% per hour

i only got the 2k quadrant when i was testing how fast i could get it with different roms and kernels, with my current set up it averages around 1350-1500

 

[Tokyo Slim]

Yeah, but you aren't running stock, so your numbers have nothing to do with what I said. Not everyone is going to dive in and root their phone and start messing around with clock speeds and ram allocations so that they can benchmark higher. Until the Droid2 comes out, I still have the fastest stock phone in the US.

(thought it was out already, but I guess it was just preorder?)

 

[holymadness]

Originally Posted by Althis

it took me only a couple days to figure out how to root and use nand/adb on my evo. it's not that hard when there are tons of guides out there showing exactly how to do it

maybe people shouldn't be buying smart phones if they don't know (or don't want to know) how to use them...
This isn't a very good objection. A rooted Android phone and a jailbroken iPhone have the same amount of customizability. He's talking about the average user. And since 95% of Android users aren't even using Froyo yet, you can guess it's not necessarily a very tech savvy crowd.

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

I love how none of his gripes apply to me. My phone came with no bloatware, I got Android 2.2 over the air, my carrier can't do anything about me tethering even if they could determine I was doing it, which they can't, my phone is nine months old, and is still one of the top 3 fastest types of stock phone in the U.S. (according to Quadrant)

and I'm pretty happy with how cheap my plan is - though the 3g service can be sketchy at times. (my only gripe, and has nothing to do with the phone itself)
You were lucky, but there won't be a Nexus 2. And it seems fairly obvious the problem is only getting worse. It started with the EVO's bloatware, now we're seeing the Samsung Fascinate on Verizon have Bing installed as the default search engine with no option to change it to Google... on a Google phone. I consider that pretty egregious.

Robert Scoble learned from a Google VP this week that the lesson of the Nexus One is that the carriers are in control. From the horse's mouth.

 

[Tokyo Slim]

Originally Posted by holymadness

You were lucky, but there won't be a Nexus 2. And it seems fairly obvious the problem is only getting worse. It started with the EVO's bloatware, now we're seeing the Samsung Fascinate on Verizon have Bing installed as the default search engine with no option to change it to Google... on a Google phone. I consider that pretty egregious.
There will always be unlocked phones. There were before the Nexus One, and there will be after. Maybe Google will open a brick and mortar.

 

[edmorel]

I'm like a kid with a new toy, the phone has this cool cartoon feature that lets you take pics like this

 

[Rambo]

^Surprisingly life like

 

[Rambo]

I want this in Android:

 

[otc]

Originally Posted by Rambo

I want this in Android:

New nokia CEO is gonna shake things up.
IMO, their best option is to put some of their awesome hardware skills to use on the Android platform but the fact that the new CEO is ex-Microsoft, might screw them over if he holds allegiances.

S60 is a dying platform...they are trying hard with Ovi but its just not the same as the available network of apps and developers for iphone or android.

 

[holymadness]

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

There will always be unlocked phones. There were before the Nexus One, and there will be after.
Not in the US. If anything, the Nexus One proved the unviability of the unlocked phone model in the States and Canada. You need to a) ditch CDMA; b) become less carrier-dependant before cellphones reach their true potential.

Maybe Google will open a brick and mortar.

Never going to happen. In other Android news, the Desire Z was announced for Europe today. Not that impressed by the listed specs, but I will wait for the reviews. The Desire HD was also announced, which is basically the European EVO Epic (but without the 4g). And in more fragmentation/balkanization news, Verizon is launching their own "walled garden" app store for Android phones on their network. It's becoming clearer and clearer that Google doesn't really care what becomes of Android so long as it leads to increased search results/ad exposure for them. Money quote from Google:

For Android it's a numbers game. It's an end product with end OEMs and product categories today, but what we demonstrated at IO was pretty unique. We demonstrated big screen and small screen; we demonstrated ARM processor and Intel processor, and we demonstrated stuff from different OEMs: HTC, and Sony on the TV side. So look, we're cross product category, cross manufacturer, cross CPU architecture, agnostic, and we have all the services pointed to the platform, and the platform is just going to go pretty broad across those product categories.

 

[Tokyo Slim]

Originally Posted by holymadness

Not in the US. If anything, the Nexus One proved the unviability of the unlocked phone model in the States and Canada. You need to a) ditch CDMA; b) become less carrier-dependant before cellphones reach their true potential.

Haha, I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[holymadness]

a) will help with b). Once all major networks switch over to LTE in 2012/3 or so, an artificial barrier to jumping networks should be lifted.

After that, it will depend on the way culture shifts. In Quebec, for example, a consumer-friendly government recently created a law banning exorbitant cancellation fees for ending a cell phone contract. That's one way things could change.

The other is that people need to get used to the idea that phones actually cost between $500 and $700, not $99 or $199. Until that happens, we won't see networks lower their prices or stop treating customers like garbage.

 

[Gravitas]

Originally Posted by holymadness

The Desire HD was also announced, which is basically the European EVO Epic (but without the 4g).
Ahem, Evo4G. Epic is an entirely different beast.

Originally Posted by holymadness

a) will help with b). Once all major networks switch over to LTE in 2012/3 or so, an artificial barrier to jumping networks should be lifted. After that, it will depend on the way culture shifts. In Quebec, for example, a consumer-friendly government recently created a law banning exorbitant cancellation fees for ending a cell phone contract. That's one way things could change. The other is that people need to get used to the idea that phones actually cost between $500 and $700, not $99 or $199. Until that happens, we won't see networks lower their prices or stop treating customers like garbage.
I wouldn't be so sure about LTE. Although Clear has stated it isn't devoted to WiMax, I have a feeling the battle will end up being drawn out. Even then, although LTE is superior, the same was said for HDDVD. Either way, it's going to be a while until networks stop ******* their customers over. After using the Samsung Epic for a week, I must say i'm not entirely impressed. The SuperAMOLED screen is quite nice, but it doesn't blow me away. It is very readable in sunlight though, and the same can't be said for the TFT on the Evo. TouchWiz blows, I bought LauncherProPlus to replace it, and I definitely find it to be a good launcher (even just the free version. The ability to have a separate swipe function for each launcher icon is very useful). Of course, I say this coming from Sense, which I find to be very polished. It really is the small things, especially the lockscreen features (music controls, more information on missed calls/texts). Sense overall just seems a bit more mature and tasteful (TouchWiz has a bit too much color, which coupled with the SuperAMOLED seems a bit too playful). As far as media goes, I do like the media player on the Epic, it is easy to navigate and has a slightly better shuffle. As I said before though, you must unlock the phone to control the player. Also, music does not pause when headphones are unplugged. The cameras aren't that much worse than the Evo, though the brighter flash on the Evo is nice. Another small thing that bothers me is the absence of a camcorder shortcut on the Epic. This might sound silly, but the kickstand on the Evo really is pretty ace. The Epic's gaming capabilities were one of the big selling points for me, though overall, i'm not sure it is the right feature set for me. Output is via the 3.5mm jack, so although it gives the ability to connect to a larger number of sets, it isn't as good as the Evo's mini-HDMI. For the time being, you can't connect wiimotes to the Epic, which is another cool feature (then again, it took a bit for them to work with the Evo due to the lack of HID profiles in Sense [IIRC, rumor has it HTC uses bluetooth stacks from 1.6]). I was looking forward to playing emulators on the bigscreen, but it seems that may have to wait. FroYo is another big thing for me, Samsung/Sprint haven't said when the Epic will get the update, and speculation points to the end of the month at the earliest. Full flash support is great (contrary to what Apple fans might tell you), even if it does have its hiccups. It is noticeably snappier and the upgraded voice search is pretty cool. As others have said, the GPS isn't exactly perfect (very, very far from it). It caused my phone to freeze up three times in a row (requiring restarts, even after I killed the task in the task manager [Samsung has one integrated, although with the way android is set up it really shouldn't have been necessary]) before I was finally able to search for and navigate to my destination (I had full bars and was in the middle of a large parking lot, so no signal issues). I really fail to understand how a company as large as Samsung could release a series of devices with such a big issue as this. All things said, the Epic is nice, but for a phone that goes for $500, it really ought to be near perfect. In the end, the Evo has a much better feel, both in hand and onscreen so even with the added features of the Epic (Hummingbird and physical keyboard) it really does come down to preference. With the recent unveiling of HTCSense.com (yes, I understand the features were available before with Lookout, etc), I think I just might be leaning back towards the Evo. Sorry for the jumbled review!