Team-BHP - Android Thread: Phones / Apps / Mods

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgiitk (Post 2341748)

Let us accept it. They may soone be history but the build quality of Nokia is brilliant. Ditto for Blackberry. As it stands yesterday my Epic 4G came back so I have confined my last Nokia, 6275 to the storage bin.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ByDesign (Post 2342187)

Hacked and got Android 2.3 Gingerbread (AOSP version) on my motorola milestone!

......

My battery life hasn't significantly improved or anything. Camera's got a few bugs, GPS doesn't really work, things crash now and then, everything's a lot more fluid. There's android for you. That's primarily one reason why apple users hardly ever shift over.

Disagree. Here's apple for you: iPhone 3G running slow after iOS 4? Speed up your slow iPhone 3G with these tips http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/20...-iphone-3g.ars :Frustrati

Quote:

Originally Posted by normally_crazy (Post 2342097)

Neither z4root nor superoneclick worked for me.anything else ?

What Froyo version? Reports say it works on 2.2 not 2.2.2!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by phamilyman (Post 2342428)

Its good but others are no slackers. You should try out the Motorola Defy. Really well built and feels good to hold.

@ByDesign: This is silly. You fooled around & chose to download the WIP update. No one asked you to - its not what Motorola says. Then you say things like:

Disagree. Here's apple for you: iPhone 3G running slow after iOS 4? Speed up your slow iPhone 3G with these tips Apple looking into slow iOS 4 performance on iPhone 3G :Frustrati

What Froyo version? Reports say it works on 2.2 not 2.2.2!!

My story of Android

So here's the deal. The milestone's 2.2 update was perennially delayed. There were issues cause the box calls it a flash ready phone and they never launched their 2.2 update. Then after millions of people poking them, they threw out an over delayed, over buggy release of 2.2 with a big *** disclaimer, which went with it saying -
"Exhaustive testing process has concluded that users may experience some adverse effects associated with the upgrade which could include slower operation of some phone functions and applications." Why the hell would you say the update could slow down your phone? Froyo came into the market ages ago with a tag 'upto 450% speed increase!!' And what did Moto do? Botch it up. For their Milestone customers

You might have misunderstood me a bit Phamilyman (I've always been an Android person). The stories' a bit lengthy, but it's a Sunday so here I go.

Initially, when I went to Croma to get a smart phone, there were only three available. The 3GS, the Milestone, and the Xperia. I'd done my research and got the Milestone. Android it had to be, since I wasn't very comfortable with Apple and it's marketing. 5 months down the line, I got a 3G and a 3GS (I got a good deal on both). Even though iOS felt way more stable (phone didn't overheat as much, random reboots, etc. which I had on my milestone), I still had more fun with my milestone in terms of customization and app usage. Plus having to use itunes for me was a major downer too.

Moreover, after 3 months of 3GS and 3G usage, I got very bored of that phone and came back to my milestone. All this while, a close colleague stuck to his 3G, which he's always had, and I used him as a control experiment to understand the nitty gritties of an iphone user and customer. My Milestone became laggy along the way, the buggy hanging and restarts very periodical but I didn't bother, I googled, I just did what people said and I kept going. A couple of factory resets, and I was ok. I didn't want to root and get the unofficial 2.2 ROM cause that was supposed to be buggy too. And I never saw the point of updating an OS if it wasn't for stability or improvements. I waited and waited for them to release the official and they finally did. Much after everyone'd ditched their Milestones and moved on to bigger and better (I went and almost got the Desire HD for a trade in with my Milestone for which I was offered a lousy 8,000 Rs cash, compared to 32,000 that I'd bought it for not even 11 months ago). I heard of the new dual cores and stayed put. In the mean while, I did moto's 'official' 2.2 update and automatically things went downhill. Lag lag lag, even after a factory reset + update (obviously). Sure the apps to sd feature was decent but it didn't save the sorry nature of the 2.2 update. The other standard 2.2 updates like 3G hotspot and voice search didn't really help anyway. But the plethora of problems that accompanied 2.2 was horrible.

So here I was, I didn't want to go back to 2.1, I didn't really like 2.2, I didn't want to spend another 30,000 on a new android phone, so I took the root + custom ROM option. XDA saw me through to 2.3 AOSP and tadaaaa! So to sum up your contention of no one asking me to do this, and what Motorola said etc. the answer is above. Motorola compelled me to, with a shitty product. There I said it.

And also, I faced that iOS4 problem with 3G, the lag was horrendous so I had to roll back to 3.1.2. But the 3GS was butter after 4.0.2 (I think that was the version). I had to upgrade the baseband to an ipad baseband for the sim to work in India, but that was cool too.

To rest my case your honor, another friend of mine bought a Moto Atrix, one of the better dual cores out this summer, and within 2 days (I kid you not) he was back to his iphone 4 and had sold the Atrix :)

I was just trying to elucidate my entire journey with android so far. It might even help other android users who knows?

Thanks everyone :thumbs up

Just want to add my two-paisa bit in this discussion, as I have been using both iPhone 3GS (with 4.1, jailbroken, unlocked) and LG Optimus One (with Froyo) for the last six months. Similarly speced phones, and I used both extensively, so I guess I am somewhat qualified to comment.

First of all, I will never say that "iPhone is better than android". Just not true. Heres why.

Where android performs better:
1. GPS is much better. I've written about this in my Madurai Munnar travelogue also. The optimus one had a clean gps signal and showed correct directions when the iPhone was clueless.

2. Connectivity - email and facebook work much faster and incoming messages show up first on the android before the iPhone

3. Tabbed browsing - in android, there is a browser called "Dolphin browser hd". In this you can browse with tabs just like in a pc. If you open a link in a new tab and meanwhile continue reading the current one, the new tab will continue to load in the background. In iPhone, this usually doesn't happen when you have more than 3 or 4 tabs open. It will re-load when you switch tabs.

4. Loudness - sometimes I need a really really loud speaker for alarm and things like that. What I've seen is, iPhones external speaks is pretty weak whereas most androids have decent speakers (in terms of loudness anyway).

5. Memory card support - this one is obvious

6. Live Widgets! - there is no equivalent on the iPhone. For example, the cricket score widget keeps updating the score automatically without any user action. I've searched for this from my windows mobile days and found it only on android

7. Live wallpapers - there's no reason why iPhone shouldn't have this, but it doesn't.

8. Notifications - missed calls, messages, emails, facebook Notifications... Everything combined into one, can be accessed in the middle of using most apps which are not games. Very convenient. In iPhone, you have to quit the current app and then only access any of these.

Here's where the iPhone outshines the android:

1. Screen smoothness! Everyone knows this one.

2. Games - I play games with the phone almost everyday. Was not satisfied with ANY of the android games. Either the game would perform laggy (thanks to adsense in the game) or the game itself would suck. On iPhone there's even an excellent 3D cricket game.

3. Music quality

4. Typing - I am typing this whole post ok the iPhone. I just wouldnt have done it using the android. Near impossible even with swype.

5. Browsing smoothness is unmatched. Scrolling down a page, you get a smooth feeling and no jerkiness which is there in the android.

6. Snob value (of course).

7. Little minute things about the UI in general, which makes people love apple products. For example the scroll bounce effect.

Areas where they performed more or less similarly:

1. Call quality - near identical

2. Bluetooth reliability

3. Battery life

4. Screen brightness / clarity

5. Camera quality. Really varies from phone to phone, but these two phones' cameras are quite comparable.

6. Data speed on both 2G and 3G.

(both the phones have Vodafone simcards with the exact same data plan. For some time I opted in for the Vodafone one month 3G free trial).

... So as you can see, there's a few areas where iPhone is better and a few areas where the android is better. Maybe later iPhones and later androids will mostly void all my points. But this is just a quick comparo from both the phones I have, and they both run on similar processors though the optimus one has much more RAM.

Although the clear winner here is Android, I've planned to sell it and keep the iPhone. Because I need my games and the smoothness puts a smile on my face everytime. But that's just me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rajushank84 (Post 2342562)

while i agree with most of the points you have mentioned. some more points i feel you have missed are mentioned below.

Where android performs better:

1. facetime is a joke. works only on wi-fi. android based phones are better works on wifi and 3g.

2. Dolphin browser has a neat gesture setting. Works great and is really helpful.

3. Unlocking is easier in android based phones. i have iphone4 and unlocking is pain. On the other hand, Galaxy S i own has in-built unlock tool. Works great.

4. Pattern to unlock phone is neat feature which is missing in iphone 4.

5. multi-tasking is the best in android phones. iphone's misleading

6. Video quality and ability to play any video files. drag and drop feature. i just drop 720p and 1080p movies and video songs on galaxy s and it plays without any complain. tedious process in iphone using itunes.

7. custom roms. the best thing to happen to android. also rooting helps get rid of annoying ads.

I disagree on following points:

1. i have found more entertaining games in android than in iphone. keeps me entertained.

2. I prefer swype to type long emails and posts rather than iphone 4.

3. call quality, network signal is better in my galaxy s. same place at my home has more signal in galaxy s than iphone. when talking from same place, call quality of galaxy s is superior as conversation can easily be heard. not so with iphone. it dips. both uses at&t.