EPTNot everyone is like Womx3.
Which smartphone should I buy? - Page 3
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jacosajh
2919 Posts
Not everyone is like Womx3. | ||
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Umpteen
United Kingdom1570 Posts
On December 19 2011 20:39 ffswowsucks wrote: And I think we got a winner after reading it, also a few minutes ago  Now I think its my destiny to buy it.Just to be clear: I've never tried an S2 and don't know what it would be like with ICS installed. My frame of reference is a series of phones that have fallen well short of what my gut tells me a smartphone should be. The Nexus pleases me immensely, to the extent that I don't even want to risk taking the shine off it with exhaustive comparisons. | ||
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niteReloaded
Croatia5281 Posts
Wtf, they only get to use 4 words to make up the names of all their phones?? | ||
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gruff
Sweden2276 Posts
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Asshat
593 Posts
On December 19 2011 23:02 niteReloaded wrote: So, Google Nexus Prime =/= Samsung Galaxy Nexus =/= Samsung Nexus S Wtf, they only get to use 4 words to make up the names of all their phones?? (Samsung) Nexus S is the older version. Nexus Prime (unofficial) = (Samsung) Galaxy Nexus. The name is formed from a combination of the two brands. Nexus for Google, Galaxy/S for Samsung. | ||
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Keyboard Warrior
United States1178 Posts
Better than most smartphones out there, most definitely than iPhone. Bonus points for the name! | ||
Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On December 19 2011 13:04 jacosajh wrote: This reasoning is completely absurd. There's shitty apps and developers in both stores. That's why there's customer reviews and return windows. It's still larger, but at this point 99% of usable apps/features are covered, and there's more free options in the Android Market. The biggest difference is still high end games, but there's probably no more than 5 or 10 of those.Not trying to be a dbag. But that's why the App Store is good for consumers (even though it might suck for developers). Apple's high standards and possible rejection is almost like a guarantee the Apps you pay for will be worth it. Pay = Commitment = Better product. I'd rather have an App made by someone who made the commitment to pay $99/year than by someone who's just wanting to make a quick buck, even if he is more knowledgeable. That way, I know I'll have future support, upgrades, etc. The S2 and the Nexus are the two best phones that meet your criteria. The Note is a great "device", but it's huge and completely impractical for a phone. It's absurd that people say shit like "My Android is really slow and unresponsive!" Well what fucking phone do you have? I expect that out of grandmothers saying their Mac is slow, speaking of a 10 year old iMac. Not young people on TL. My original Droid is a piece of shit these days, but it's not because of Android. | ||
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Asshat
593 Posts
Apple products are cute and easy to use and generally have higher quality apps, but I feel like I'm missing out on something when I use them over the less polished but far more open to possibilities Android. | ||
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ilikeLIONZ
Germany427 Posts
i had an iphone 3gs before, but i decided to switch to android (HTC Desire and eventually Samsung Galaxy S2) because i like customization and the market (appstore) even better. and holy shit, it's fast as hell (: | ||
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Womwomwom
5930 Posts
There's automated checks which can bar obviously stupid crap from entering the App Store. Stuff like spyware should be picked up fairly quickly because you're sending plaintext data to some stupid server, like the popular Android browser Dolphin liked to do. There's people who check through each app deeply to check if the app is half way decent and doesn't infringe any IP rights or anything. These people also check suspicious apps that slipped through the gaps and sometimes remove them if they do any fishy bullshit. This is not a problem most of the time. The team finds something wrong with your app, asks you to change it, and the world goes on. The verification process ends up being troublesome if your app gets forgotten. However most of the time you could send an email to sjobs@apple.com and he would solve whatever problem you had, so long it was sensible. Its not perfect but it maintains a far better app store than the Android store with higher app quality. Customer reviews don't really solve the critical problems if you can't see it...unless everyone was fine with the Dolphin browser sending plaintext data to some shifty Chinese server. It's absurd that people say shit like "My Android is really slow and unresponsive!" Well what fucking phone do you have? I expect that out of grandmothers saying their Mac is slow, speaking of a 10 year old iMac. Not young people on TL. My original Droid is a piece of shit these days, but it's not because of Android. Android lag is there whether or not you want to believe it. Just play with any Honeycomb tablet. Heck compare a lower specced Windows Phone 7 or iOS device to a flagship Android device. While the Android device may load faster, its definitely more unresponsive to user input. If you can't feel it, you should feel lucky because a lot of people certainly can. It is because of Android. If it didn't exist, it wouldn't be a huge issue people constantly talk about. There is a single device that seems to solve a lot of these problems and that's the Galaxy Nexus. | ||
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
iOS never craps out on me. My Android just decided to reset itself about 2 hours ago in the middle of a phone call for no apparent reason. etc. etc. Apparently, this is just a problem inherent of the Android OS as I don't know any gadget that is immune to this. Some may do it less than others, but you get the point. Is that a specific Android issue?The S2 and Nexus don't have the problem any more than the iPad 2 has. Previous devices did. The point is you don't attribute performance of a terrible phone to the operating system that's on 100 devices. You can complain about iOS on the iPhone 1 or WM on an HTC Diamond. I hate how Windows phones make you use a stylus! | ||
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jacosajh
2919 Posts
I don't even know how this needs to be explained. It just makes sense. More selectivity, checks and balances, been around longer, etc. Apple would be a complete failure if they had 2-3 years on Android and lost this competitive advantage overnight. Like, just do a basic search for something like "VPN" or even "Twitter" app on both. You'll get like 5,000 unofficial made-in-high-school-biology-class apps on Market. | ||
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On December 20 2011 00:59 jacosajh wrote: Anyone who has ever used the Android Market and App Store extensively is going to say the App Store is 100x better. I don't even know how this needs to be explained. It just makes sense. More selectivity, checks and balances, been around longer, etc. Apple would be a complete failure if they had 2-3 years on Android and lost this competitive advantage overnight. Like, just do a basic search for something like "VPN" or even "Twitter" app on both. You'll get like 5,000 unofficial made-in-high-school-biology-class apps on Market. And 50 made by real developers. What's your point? Do you really think there's no unofficial made-in-highschool-biology-class-apps in the App Store? http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/twitter/id333903271?mt=8 2 stars. That's why people make unofficial versions. | ||
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Womwomwom
5930 Posts
The point is you don't attribute performance of a terrible phone to the operating system that's on 100 devices. Yes you do because this shitty fragmentation is one of the critical issues of the Android ecosystem. Unless someone gives Android developers a bone, the app disparity is still going to be around. Since Microsoft has always been so good to developers, I imagine they've got the same quality tools iOS developers get: http://blog.crazybob.org/2011/12/truth-about-android-ios-ui-performance.html Does this mean we're going to start seeing iOS-quality user interfaces across the board on Android in the near future? No way. The reasons have little to nothing to do with bytecode or garbage collectors and everything to do with the community and tools. First, iOS app developers have far more experience taking advantage of hardware acceleration. They're experts in going out of the way to avoid software rendering. Hardware rendering requires a different mindset, and Android programmers will need time to catch up. Second, Android programmers need to support both software and hardware rendering for awhile. This requires more code. Some Android devices support only software rendering while others, like the Xoom, actually require hardware rendering to achieve any semblance of smooth animation. Developing and maintaining smooth Android apps will require significantly more developer resources than accomplishing the same on iOS, at least until we can retire support for pre-Honeycomb devices. Programmers with limited resource will no doubt have to elide animations and settle for lowest common denominator solutions for awhile. Third, from what I've seen, iOS developers have far better tools at their disposal. iOS developers can tweak and reload their applications in seconds, faster than you can reload a Ruby on Rails web page, while Android developers are lucky to do the same in tens of seconds. Being able to quickly iterate and tweak a UI is essential to achieving pixel-perfect, high frame rate animations. If Android programmers need to wait up to a minute after each tweak, they'll be at a significant disadvantage compared to their iOS counterparts. iOS provides amazing tools that overlay their UIs and help pinpoint and eliminate software rendering. In contrast, the UI performance and bugs in Android's emulator are so bad that developers resort to running on real devices only, even during development The vast majority of devices, when I last checked, are still sitting on Froyo and Gingerbread. These problems are going to be around for a long time because Google didn't get it right out of the door. | ||
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On December 20 2011 01:07 Womwomwom wrote: Yes you do because this shitty fragmentation is one of the critical issues of the Android ecosystem. Unless someone gives Android developers a bone, the app disparity is still going to be around. Since Microsoft has always been so good to developers, I imagine they've got the same quality tools iOS developers get: http://blog.crazybob.org/2011/12/truth-about-android-ios-ui-performance.html Does this mean we're going to start seeing iOS-quality user interfaces across the board on Android in the near future? No way. The reasons have little to nothing to do with bytecode or garbage collectors and everything to do with the community and tools. First, iOS app developers have far more experience taking advantage of hardware acceleration. They're experts in going out of the way to avoid software rendering. Hardware rendering requires a different mindset, and Android programmers will need time to catch up. Second, Android programmers need to support both software and hardware rendering for awhile. This requires more code. Some Android devices support only software rendering while others, like the Xoom, actually require hardware rendering to achieve any semblance of smooth animation. Developing and maintaining smooth Android apps will require significantly more developer resources than accomplishing the same on iOS, at least until we can retire support for pre-Honeycomb devices. Programmers with limited resource will no doubt have to elide animations and settle for lowest common denominator solutions for awhile. Third, from what I've seen, iOS developers have far better tools at their disposal. iOS developers can tweak and reload their applications in seconds, faster than you can reload a Ruby on Rails web page, while Android developers are lucky to do the same in tens of seconds. Being able to quickly iterate and tweak a UI is essential to achieving pixel-perfect, high frame rate animations. If Android programmers need to wait up to a minute after each tweak, they'll be at a significant disadvantage compared to their iOS counterparts. iOS provides amazing tools that overlay their UIs and help pinpoint and eliminate software rendering. In contrast, the UI performance and bugs in Android's emulator are so bad that developers resort to running on real devices only, even during development The vast majority of devices, when I last checked, are still sitting on Froyo and Gingerbread. These problems are going to be around for a long time because Google didn't get it right out of the door. Look at what you just quoted. When you complain about your Nexus S, it's understandable and there's a point of reference because we know what phone you're using. We still have no idea what phone he's having trouble with. | ||
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Womwomwom
5930 Posts
Edit: What the quote does explain is why Android apps are just so much worse than iOS apps. Windows Phone 7 apps would probably be pretty good too if the platform wasn't dead in the water...maybe Windows 8 may fix this. And no, having an old device doesn't mean it should be a laggy POS. Heck, even the iPhone 3GS responds fairly well with iOS5. Load times for iPhone 4/4s specific apps are fairly lengthy but that's about it. | ||
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
And Tegra 2 is shit, we know this. Tegra 3 looks fairly unimpressive as well. BTW, the flimsy back cover is actually pretty wonderful. Flexible plastic is what you want to absorb fall damage, and this thing can bend in half easily and return to form. Don't mistake flimsy for frail. I'm playing with the default back right now and I can't even permanently crease it. | ||
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Womwomwom
5930 Posts
Edit: I know we've had this discussion before but I definitely believe you can make something feel rigid without it looking/feeling cheap as hell. The first computer I'd drop would definitely be a Toughbook or Thinkpad because they feel and are practically bricks; I wouldn't drop any of Dell Latitudes because they just feel so cheap in comparison. On December 20 2011 01:32 Jibba wrote: "Feels cheap" is based on a social perception that could change. They're obviously focusing on durability before perception. If they had rolled out a marketing campaign about some new plastic that helps protect from cracking, that's what the tech writers would be writing about instead of how flimsy it is. Samsung would hope that. They're using paper thin plastics everywhere and it utterly sucks because its not difficult to create flexible plastics that don't feel like paper. Or create a design that doesn't need flexible plastics. The perception won't change because people would still bitch about how fragile it feels; marketing campaigns only work when its introducing something the market actually wants. Its especially detrimental in their Samsung S27A850 since the flimsiness seems to introduce a lot of backlight bleeding. A shame because its a pretty good competitor against business bricks like the Dell U2711 and the HP ZR2740W. I probably would have bought one but I'm just going to wait for LG to get their act together or let Dell/HP do a better job at building a monitor with some form of bracing. | ||
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
Well laptops and phones have different needs for durability. The Toughbook uses a solid magnesium case that distributes the impact and as long as none of the parts move, it's fine. If the chassis isn't going to bend at all, then it's fine. On top of that, it doesn't have the same issues for screen protection that phones and tablets do. I think some are attempting that rigid approach like the Razr and probably the original Droid/X2 as well. The plasticky alternative makes it flexible so it'll distribute the force more evenly, the same way modern cars are designed to crumple upon impact. Rigidity tends to protect the shell better, while flexibility protects what's inside. Until we see a drop test with the GN and Razr, we really don't know how well it was done. That said, with the battery cover on it doesn't feel flimsy. You can't press into it. To be honest, it feels a lot more like the Nexus One, than a normal "plasticky" device like the S2 or Galaxy Tab. It's not something you notice at all until you take the battery cover off and hold it individually, and the rest of the phone's chassis feels like the Nexus One. It's actually pretty astounding the level of non-marketing they did with the device. The current Verizon ads that mention it compare it to some other lower end phone, and it actually comes with decent Samsung IEMs. I haven't tested it extensively, but my guess is they're at least $30-40 on their own. | ||
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jacosajh
2919 Posts
I'm not even an Apple fanboy. Like I've said before, I was first in line for a Droid X, paid the $300 termination fee (iPhone) thinking it was the iPhone killer. Thousands of dollars and several Android phones later, I'm still severely disappointed. Like I'm just being honest, and I know anecdotes have NO value in a real debate. Just saying my pure feelings. But after a year or so with experiences across several Androids and iPhones... I feel like the value of an iPhone is so much more. Again, just going by pure feeling. I'd be willing to pay $800-1000 even WITH contract for an iPhone. I think $200-300 is still a rip-off for an Android WITH contract. I mean who knows. Maybe I'm a victim of switching costs. But I like to think I'm a fanboy for stuff that works. | ||
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