Tried Android again and was burned again

This will be my third go at Android and I am, once again disappointed. I went the ICS route and bought a Galaxy Nexus from Google themselves. Everything was cool and I was actually liking what I was seeing, so much so that I pulled my sim from my current phone and dropped it in the Nexus. Used the phone for all of 6 hours, setting everything up how I wanted it. There were times that the sluggishness of the interface was somewhat noticeable but that did not happen often at all. The newer version of the Gmail app seems a lot nicer and I was willing to use it.

So why was I burned then? What caused me to be upset at Google yet again? The device stopped working. A brand new Galaxy Nexus opened today is now broken. I went to remove the battery to double check the IMEI on the phone, put the battery back in and it would not turn on. After multiple removals and re-insertions of the battery it turned on again. I went to try and reproduce the problem and it happened again. After I managed to get it to turn on one more time I reset the device completely and called Google to get a return in.

The good news is that the software did not disappoint. ICS is definitely a nice mobile operating system. Back the old drawing board I suppose.

Next week I get to test out a couple of Sprint HTC EVO 4G LTE devices. I know Sprint doesn't have LTE yet but the device seems very nice.

Just my venting 2 cents I suppose ;).

I dunno about you, but I will NEVER use any mobile device that is not powered by Android. Had a Galaxy Tab10.1 and liked it, but the lack of memory expansion bugged me. So I sold it and got the Tab7.7 and I am liking what I see so far, Superamoled plus expandable mem slot ftw. Using Honeycomb 3.2 right now, waiting for Icecreamsandwich.

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Originally Posted by mikeysg

I dunno about you, but I will NEVER use any mobile device that is not powered by Android. Had a Galaxy Tab10.1 and liked it, but the lack of memory expansion bugged me. So I sold it and got the Tab7.7 and I am liking what I see so far, Superamoled plus expandable mem slot ftw. Using Honeycomb 3.2 right now, waiting for Icecreamsandwich.

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I've had mixed feelings about Android. I did like what I was seeing with the Galaxy Nexus but then the device begins to fail after a few hours of use. I'll check out the HTC EVO 4G LTE and see how that turns out. I am concerned about the 3G speeds of Sprint since they can barely hit 1Mb/s on average.

Sorry to hear that happened to you man, it's gotta be a pretty rare thing to see though. I've had 6 or 7 different android phones now and the only one that died was the one I dropped in a full sink, and that took a month to finally give up the ghost.

The Evo 4G LTE looks nice but it has the same problem as almost all flagship Android phones which is a battery that will not last a full day if you use the phone at all. If you want an Android device that's designed to be used by an actual human being, midrange is the way to go. I'd recommend the One V over the One X/S to just about anyone.


http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/11/30...-4g-lte-review

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the fact that the Evo has an even larger 2,000mAh battery than its sibling (and no LTE to worry about) gave me great hope for its longevity. Unfortunately, I found that even getting a full day from the Evo took some finesse. Consider: I unplugged the phone at 4:15am, used it a bit on the way to the airport, turned it off on the plane until about 9, then streamed music through Rdio for about 40 minutes and did some browsing and tweeting from the device, with brightness at about 40 percent. By noon, I was down to 25 percent battery.

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I don't regret one bit moving to Android phones... hardwares are manufacturer issues.... like Samsung Charge (piece of junk). My first Android phone was Droid X and while it was ok in the beginning, it did disappoint me a lot.

I now have HTC Thunderbolt and loving it. Minus the weight... -.- I am now anticipating Galaxy S III...

Android is the only way to go for me. What happened to you is rare and unfortunate but dont let it stray you away from the best open source OS ever lol. If you want the best battery life and all that jazz, root it, flash a good stable ICS rom and throw a sbc kernel on that bad boy and be happy. You might even get bit by the flashing bug....I know I have, I hardly ever have the same install for more than a week, its so much fun. I got a modified version of CM9 on my phone and tablet and its glorius.

The problem with that is that the 99% of people who don't want to load custom firmwares on their phone are stuck with crappy battery life and a bunch of bloatware. I hope Google really does decide to extent the Nexus program to more than one phone per year, perhaps then we could get one with decent build quality and a camera that's not worse than that of phones from 3 years ago.

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Originally Posted by Steven P Jobs

The problem with that is that the 99% of people who don't want to load custom firmwares on their phone are stuck with crappy battery life and a bunch of bloatware. I hope Google really does decide to extent the Nexus program to more than one phone per year, perhaps then we could get one with decent build quality and a camera that's not worse than that of phones from 3 years ago.

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I think part of the problem with the software, or at least an exacerbation of the problem with the software, is subsidization (and branding) from carriers.

It is, but Apple and Microsoft (and RIM and Palm, but who cares) have showed that you can ship a smartphone that isn't filled to the brim with garbage and get carriers to sell it nonetheless.

On the last Android device I had, I managed to increase the battery life from barely a day to a comfortable two days just by putting on a stock Android ROM. No kernel stuff or battery optimisation or anything was necessary. That's how bad the bloat currently is.

I'm looking at the Samsung Galaxy S 3 or HTC Evo 4G LTE. I wish I could get the Evo on AT&T but I cannot. Our sprint rep is getting a couple of these at a super cheap price and I'll get to try it out for 14 days. My only concern here is the issues I've heard of recently with Sprints slow 3G network speeds. I may burn my upgrade on an S 3 when it is released on AT&T later this year. Like I mentioned I was happy with the operating system experience until the hardware gave up. I would all aboard with ordering another nexus but the lack of a micro sd card and the failed phone is concerning.

For the record I'm currently on an iPhone 4s but in recent months the regularly crashing apps is getting on my nerves. The small size doesn't help either but not a huge issue.

I don't think you have to customize everything or even load customized ROMs to be happy with Android... I'm still on stock and am happy for the most part...

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Originally Posted by proxops-pete

I don't think you have to customize everything or even load customized ROMs to be happy with Android... I'm still on stock and am happy for the most part...

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I've always had love/hate relationships with each of my Android phones, and custom ROMs have created increases in both the love and hate categories. I believe it increased the former more, though. This makes the flashing worth it for me.

The Android marketplace is currently in that state where there is simply too much choice.
Hopefully someone comes along and just starts making (and maintaing) a single model. At first I thought this was going to be Motorola, then Google, and yet nothing has really emerged.

Someone needs to step up and say, "This is the best Android phone. It has all the features, and we are working tirelessly to make sure it has the latest software. If you want the best Android phone, this is it."

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Originally Posted by Steven P Jobs

It is, but Apple and Microsoft (and RIM and Palm, but who cares) have showed that you can ship a smartphone that isn't filled to the brim with garbage and get carriers to sell it nonetheless.

On the last Android device I had, I managed to increase the battery life from barely a day to a comfortable two days just by putting on a stock Android ROM. No kernel stuff or battery optimisation or anything was necessary. That's how bad the bloat currently is.

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When I was on stock GB my phone got HORRIBLE battery life. Then I did some diggin around and realized that most apps that sync were set to do so every 15 minutes lol. So I had facebook, twitter, weather, email and who knows what else trying to sync every friggin 5 seconds which was using the 3g and just chewing my battery down. I dont know why all the apps decide such low time defaults for sync but I shouldnt have to manually change it from 15 to an hour or whatever I feel is necessary. Its amazing how much 3g eats your battery. I ended up buying juice defender which just turns off your 3g completely when your phone is sleeping and you can set it to turn on for a few minutes every hour (or whatever you set it to) and sync up with everything. That alone gave me an extra 5 hours of battery on average.

A friend from work just got the new droid 4 and was wondering why his battery life wasnt all that great. I looked at his phone for him and saw that by default, it always looks for a 4g signal. What the crap is that :confused: And viola! better battery life.

Just my .02 from experience. I even carry an extra battery in my wallet (its small enough without being annoying) just in case i really need it. Ive only used it twice.

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Originally Posted by Squirrel Meat

When I was on stock GB my phone got HORRIBLE battery life. Then I did some diggin around and realized that most apps that sync were set to do so every 15 minutes lol. So I had facebook, twitter, weather, email and who knows what else trying to sync every friggin 5 seconds which was using the 3g and just chewing my battery down. I dont know why all the apps decide such low time defaults for sync but I shouldnt have to manually change it from 15 to an hour or whatever I feel is necessary. Its amazing how much 3g eats your battery. I ended up buying juice defender which just turns off your 3g completely when your phone is sleeping and you can set it to turn on for a few minutes every hour (or whatever you set it to) and sync up with everything. That alone gave me an extra 5 hours of battery on average.

A friend from work just got the new droid 4 and was wondering why his battery life wasnt all that great. I looked at his phone for him and saw that by default, it always looks for a 4g signal. What the crap is that :confused: And viola! better battery life.

Just my .02 from experience. I even carry an extra battery in my wallet (its small enough without being annoying) just in case i really need it. Ive only used it twice.

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The user shouldn't have to worry about any of that.

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Originally Posted by Steven P Jobs

The user shouldn't have to worry about any of that.

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And that is a fundamental issue with android handsets. There is so much choice that the user experience can vary greatly from handset to handset. I keep trying but end up running back to my iPhone every time.

ICS is changing my mind though, if HTC doesn't screw it up too bad with their custom UI my new device may be a One X or Evo 4G LTE.

Yeah, that's really the main issue. There are quality devices and quality software on the Android side, but there is also so much garbage. Most consumers don't want to filter through all that garbage to find the one device/software combo that works, so they just end up buying an iPhone because you can go to a store and buy the current model and know that it's an iPhone like all the other ones out there that are all working just fine.

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Originally Posted by Steven P Jobs

The user shouldn't have to worry about any of that.

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That was kinda what I was getting at. Your absolutely right. The user really shouldnt have to worry about anything like that. But its kind of a catch 22- Have more options with more choices and have issues like that where not all users will make full use or have less options and choices and restrict the user. Yes, android has some fault here, but I would have to put some blame on the devs/companies for putting those defaults there in the first place. Its just careless imho.

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Originally Posted by Nabby

And that is a fundamental issue with android handsets. There is so much choice that the user experience can vary greatly from handset to handset. I keep trying but end up running back to my iPhone every time.

ICS is changing my mind though, if HTC doesn't screw it up too bad with their custom UI my new device may be a One X or Evo 4G LTE.

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Yeah, ICS is a HUGE upgrade over GB. Even on my old phone (OG EVO 4G) its so much faster and snappier and hwa is just awesome and about time it got hwa love. Its even better on a tablet, really makes it feel like its more than just a novelty. I dunno why but it does lol.

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Originally Posted by Squirrel Meat

Yeah, ICS is a HUGE upgrade over GB. Even on my old phone (OG EVO 4G) its so much faster and snappier and hwa is just awesome and about time it got hwa love. Its even better on a tablet, really makes it feel like its more than just a novelty. I dunno why but it does lol.

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So you have an Evo? On Sprint I assume, if so, how is the speed/service overall? They are trying to get our business but I found their 3G in our area a bit lacking at times. WiMax was very fast whenever I was able to get it.

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Originally Posted by Nabby

So you have an Evo? On Sprint I assume, if so, how is the speed/service overall? They are trying to get our business but I found their 3G in our area a bit lacking at times. WiMax was very fast whenever I was able to get it.

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yup evo on sprint. service is okay. I had verizon before and they have much better service in my area but it is too expensive. I never drop calls or anything, its just that I rarely have full signal in most places. I rarely get 4g anywhere up here but when I do its pretty fast. The 3g speeds are not very good but enough for most things.

As far as company service....not very good. Considering none of them are very good to begin with but I guess it has to do with experience. Ive never had a problem with them before until I tried to get my lady a new phone and it was a disaster. If you really want the whole story ill give it lol, but the short version is it was a bunch of horse poo poo. Ive been royally screwed by verizon as well. So it just depends. If its your buisness im sure they will treat you much better ;) Just go check the coverage maps and see which ones have more 3g and 4g towers in your area.

I agree, 4.0 is where Android turned from a usable OS to a pretty good one. Performance increased so immensely in the move to 4.0, they finally figured out that poorly written software is a problem you can't solve by throwing more MHz and cores at it. Google still needs to work on making it more intuitive and cohesive but it seems like that's exactly what Google brought Matias Duarte on board for.

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Originally Posted by Steven P Jobs

I agree, 4.0 is where Android turned from a usable OS to a pretty good one. Performance increased so immensely in the move to 4.0, they finally figured out that poorly written software is a problem you can't solve by throwing more MHz and cores at it. Google still needs to work on making it more intuitive and cohesive but it seems like that's exactly what Google brought Matias Duarte on board for.

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Yeah, I cant argue with that. I personally think that was a big reason why the Galaxy S2 was so popular or at least part of the reason: it was so smooth and fast. But the only reason it was so smooth and fast on GB is because the proc is so fast and its brute forcing its way through all that crappy useless java code. ICS runs buttery smooth even on an old phone like mine (1 gig single core). Its a huge step in the right direction. Even the memory management is leaps and bounds better than GB.

Im back on a GB rom right now unfortunately. Its a really nice one but still not ICS...Had to go back because all the roms for my phone still need quite a bit of work and have no working camcorder. Ive been flashing alpha roms for the last 5 months and just need something where everything works. I think its time for a new phone lol.

I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S (the first one) with some prerelease build of CyanogenMod 9. Performance is perfectly fine, unlike when I had 2.3-based Cyanogen on it. It's just barely daily driver-worthy, the 3G radio turns off about once a week and there's a few other hangups that would make me never ever recommend this setup to a 'normal' person, but it beats running 2.3. I'm probably gonna ditch it when the next iPhone comes out.