General 'Phone Chat

I changed ages ago Fronk, I got a S4 Black Edition in the end.

So the Galaxy S5 is arriving here in April. Anyone getting one? I'm tempted. I still really like my S3 and the S5's new photography features sound great.

Axis1500 wrote:

So the Galaxy S5 is arriving here in April. Anyone getting one? I'm tempted. I still really like my S3 and the S5's new photography features sound great.

Not really, I think those used to Samsung's hardware and user interface will love it (especially so since you're on the Galaxy S3, as it's really an incremental upgrade to the S4), though.

My problem is I get bored of phones and operating systems too quickly, so I'm always looking for something new rather than merely upgraded hardware. I think I'll eventually settle back to something on iOS, though.

That's the dilemma I'm facing. Part of me wants to try something different this time round.

fronkhead wrote:

My problem is I get bored of phones and operating systems too quickly, so I'm always looking for something new rather than merely upgraded hardware. I think I'll eventually settle back to something on iOS, though.

Get an Android without too much fluff (like a Nexus phone or Motorola). Then you can change the OS quite a bit through apps. For example Swapps makes an app menu that appears when you swipe from the side. It significantly changes the feel of the phone. There are also plenty of keyboards, launchers and other stuff (like Dashclock, which is a very versatile lockscreen widget).

Edit: Ah, I get what you mean -- I can customise the OS when I get bored. That's a fair point actually, but it kind of goes against what I like in an OS so it's probably not for me (explained by my issues below). I think Sailfish is the on OS I haven't tried yet (Tizen just looks like Touchwiz again so I'm not interested) but the Jolla is too expensive and doesn't seem worth the money. Bare in mind my complaints below are just complaints really, there's a lot I like about stock Android 4.4, and the additions Motorola put on top for the Moto X.

Cube wrote:

fronkhead wrote:

My problem is I get bored of phones and operating systems too quickly, so I'm always looking for something new rather than merely upgraded hardware. I think I'll eventually settle back to something on iOS, though.

Get an Android without too much fluff (like a Nexus phone or Motorola). Then you can change the OS quite a bit through apps. For example Swapps makes an app menu that appears when you swipe from the side. It significantly changes the feel of the phone. There are also plenty of keyboards, launchers and other stuff (like Dashclock, which is a very versatile lockscreen widget).

I quite like my Moto X but Android has too many limitations to be my next phone. The region locking is ridiculous (you can only access the Japanese app store if Google determines that your location is in Japan, AND yo using a JP Google account), and the permissions for apps still can't be altered, so privacy is clearly an issue. Ironically, most the things Linux stands for (freedom and openness) don't apply to Android, since its a pretty barebones experience without the closed source Google components and services on top (AOSP offers the bare minimum and Google dropped the open source apps for far better closed source equivalents long ago), and you're part of Google's mass data collection program (though that doesn't bother me much, but it bothers many).

Thanks for the heads up on keyboard, Google keyboard's awful. I'm still disappointed that there's no keyboard like other OSes that changes the hitboxes over time depending on where you type.

The inconsistent user experience with Android is probably my biggest issue, since it makes me less productive and I have to keep moving between different UI designs. My second biggest issue pertains to how the apps are written in Java and have to be compiled through a runtime, resulting in input lag right down to the software keyboard (Which is never ideal and certainly noticeable as I bash this message out on my Moto X) and just worse performance across the board app-for-app compared to every other platform out there.

I can live with it all, but I won't be getting another Android device until the above is sorted out or the new Java runtime that replaces Dalvik fixes the above.

I'm also not a huge fan of customisation since it's costly time wise and with random developers compiling bits of the OS you again lead to the inconsistency problem. Some people love the customisation aspect though so more power to them, but Android draws parallels with Windows in this respect.

So, in the end, I threw a curve ball and decided on an iPad - which isn't a phone at all.

I can get a new phone soon but I don't know what to get, I'm a droid guy and from being in the store everyone is saying Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge but I've had a S2, S3 and currently a S4 that I kinda want to try something else.