Need some help picking out a droid. I'm stumped. There's a flood of them around so many it looks like an invasion. I was sure I'd go for a HTC since they are very promising hardware wise, but the more I talk to people the foggier it gets. I always hear that talk quality is low with a very picky mic, battery doesnt last more than a day and the camera isnt much to brag about.
Then Xperia Arc caught my eye. Looks nice, and SE always had superb sound/talk quality and camera. Battery doesn't look flimsy either. One thing that bugs me though is that its single core and limited in-the-lows of 512MB RAM.
The truth is I'd much rather go for a second-hand phone than a new top-of-the-line model, because I dont intend to spend 300+ euros on a gadget that'll start showing its age after six months.
So basically i'm looking for a good phone, talk-quality is important, good hardware so i can keep up with android updates and so it can handle my code for development also good battery time, it doesn't have to be superb, but i dont want to walk with a solar panel on my back just so the phone can last the day.
According to Google, they are hitting some walls with Android 4.0 on 512MB RAM devices (they disable hardware accelerated UI for certain applications because of memory overhead caused by OpenGL - but it is still fast enough because phones with low RAM usually also have low resolutions screens, the software renderer can keep up).
If you get an older phone, be prepared to notice the age in six months time.
Most if the samsung galaxy phones are awesome. I have the droid charge and love it. Motorola comes in 2nd and have the mod support.....droid 3 was garbage though. Htc makes nice phones but they never update it...they'd rather just release a new phone
I got the HTC evo 4G and i love it. not TOO big, but plenty of screen space. and super responsive. touch something and its open. and surfing, videos, etc load. no more of that "click a link, look at something else for a bit then see if its loaded" surfing.
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I'm naab when it comes to smartphones but I recently got a Galaxy S2 and man it's just awesome. Its price is still high (mine was a gift from my father who grabbed it at promotional price with his new contract), but if you manage to find a good offer within your budget I cannot not recommend it
me7, I believe Samsung said something about Galaxy S1 not getting 4.0 because RAM was not enough. But that's because they overlay it with their own crappy UI. Unofficial 4.0 works just fine and sometimes even faster.
Hardware accelerated drawing is not all full of win. For example on the PVR drivers of devices like the Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus, simply starting to use OpenGL in a process eats about 8MB of RAM. Given that our process overhead is about 2MB, this is pretty huge. That RAM takes away from other things, such as the number of background processes that can be kept running, potentially slowing down things like app switching.
Because of the overhead of OpenGL, one may very well not want to use it for drawing. For example some of the work we are doing to make Android 4.0 run well on the Nexus S has involved turning off hardware accelerated drawing in parts of the UI so we don’t lose 8MB of RAM in the system process, another 8MB in the phone process, another 8MB in the system UI process, etc. Trust me, you won’t notice -- there is just no benefit on that device in using OpenGL to draw something like the status bar, even with fancy animations going on in there.
It's not a big deal at the moment, but the fact that Google developers feel limited by 512MB of RAM says something about the future of such phones (always consider that RAM on smartphones means RAM + VRAM, the operating system only gets ~2/3 of the available memory while the GPU allocates ~1/3).
Galaxy S! I was very surprised when compared to HTC Desire. Desire feels like a budget can compared to it with shitty touch screen and LCD screen. Galaxy S is heavily supported by the unofficial folks. Android 4.0 works just fine and you can get a new one for around 220 euro.
HTC desire is old and shitty now! It shouldn't be talked about in 2012
Id go for the HTC Sensation XL, but its kinda expensive :/
Oh i did forget to mention a minimum of 4.2" screen. I used the wildfire on the 3.2" and I got ticked off while i was trying to type things in. HTC has alot of phones in its lineup, especially with 512MB plus RAM, as i said, great hardware but other things mentioned concern me - the bad talk quality and battery the most.
difm wrote:
Galaxy S2 or Arc S.
Yeah ARC S looks nice. New one for about 350 me thinks, but its not dual core, altho you can find the fastest single-core tucked away at 1.4GHz in it atm, i just feel it might not be enough. Thoughts?
Hmm just checked. Only 512MB RAM if the specs are correct - bummer :/
iNatan wrote:
I would say, go with Nexus S. Same hardware as Galaxy S, without the Samsung crapola and official Android 4.0.
SI or SII?
me7 wrote:
garus wrote:
me7, I believe Samsung said something about Galaxy S1 not getting 4.0 because RAM was not enough. But that's because they overlay it with their own crappy UI. Unofficial 4.0 works just fine and sometimes even faster.
Hardware accelerated drawing is not all full of win. For example on the PVR drivers of devices like the Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus, simply starting to use OpenGL in a process eats about 8MB of RAM. Given that our process overhead is about 2MB, this is pretty huge. That RAM takes away from other things, such as the number of background processes that can be kept running, potentially slowing down things like app switching.
Because of the overhead of OpenGL, one may very well not want to use it for drawing. For example some of the work we are doing to make Android 4.0 run well on the Nexus S has involved turning off hardware accelerated drawing in parts of the UI so we don’t lose 8MB of RAM in the system process, another 8MB in the phone process, another 8MB in the system UI process, etc. Trust me, you won’t notice -- there is just no benefit on that device in using OpenGL to draw something like the status bar, even with fancy animations going on in there.
It's not a big deal at the moment, but the fact that Google developers feel limited by 512MB of RAM says something about the future of such phones (always consider that RAM on smartphones means RAM + VRAM, the operating system only gets ~2/3 of the available memory while the GPU allocates ~1/3).
Wierd. Didnt they ever hear of shared libraries? Taking up 8megs everywhere is just wasteful. Altho phones with half a gig of ram you'd think 8MB wouldnt be too much to even cause a dent.
Maybe I'm starting to realize that if i want a good phone that wont slow down every 10 seconds that I might have to bite the bullet and go for a new gizmo, not used. I had a tablet borrowed for a while with droid 2.2, 512MB, 1GHz Cortex A8 - basically the same specs as galaxy tab 1, but while sufring i almost lost my mind. The damn plank board took a solid minute to register whatever you did then and only after started loading the webpage or whatever. It was horrific. Tossed it to the side.
Oh i did forget to mention a minimum of 4.2" screen. I used the wildfire on the 3.2" and I got ticked off while i was trying to type things in. HTC has alot of phones in its lineup, especially with 512MB plus RAM, as i said, great hardware but other things mentioned concern me - the bad talk quality and battery the most.
Not one person has complained about quality with my Desire and my touchscreen is perfectly fine, garus just used someone's Desire which was broken.
Call quality is strongly related to network quality though, so it's rather the complaining users' crappy networks
Problem with a lot of cheaper hardware is that the companies behind them (say, Archos for example) are clueless fucks who haven't built whatever (usually old) version they're using properly.
I could film my Desire for you to prove that mine is perfectly fine in terms of responsiveness (it only lags a little right after boot while stuff loads). I do run Cyanogenmod though, so no Sense or other custom UI. I still don't feel the need to change my phone (renewed my contract without phone as well, saves me a few hundred over the next 2 years ), although there's no ICS build for mine yet so that might prove different.
If you have no problem with money then definitely S2.
Sony Erricson is crap, avoid it...
If i wasn't such a cheapskate I'd stop eggin' and grab the SII while it was still hot
Werelds wrote:
Call quality is strongly related to network quality though, so it's rather the complaining users' crappy networks
Indeed but a good network doesn't make a good phone either. The wildfire for example got all lost and scratchy when you moved the mic a little out of position while talking (probably too directional?). It could be true that as wildfire wasn't a higher-end phone to begin with that the Desire may not be plagued by the same ticks. But it doesn't do HTC any favours either.
Mine lasts about 2 days most of the time, which involves having my 4 mail accounts being checked, twitter feed and a few Google searches when I'm on the road. Heavy browsing or gaming obviously rapes the battery, but that happens on every phone. Anyone who says they do either of those and have their phone last for 2 days or longer is a lying bastard or has a bigger battery
At any rate, normal use should get you through an entire day easily.
I would advise you to get a Nexus device. If you want a cheaper last gen phone, get a Nexus S. If you want an expensive current gen phone, get a Galaxy Nexus (I'm very happy with mine).
Both phones are clean in the way that the Android build is not derped down by manufacturers and that the hardware "makes sense". The Galaxy SII may have a better processor than the Nexus S, but with a resolution of 800x480 it barely matters (unless you want to run professional video encoding on your phone. No? Thought so). The overall experience of the Nexus S with Android 4.0 is still fluid.
Many phones (like the different SII variations) don't bring much new stuff to the table, they just serve as cheap marketing to make you think that the AT&T SII with 1.2 GHz doesn't cut it anymore and you need to get a T-Mobile SII with 1.5GHz instead.
i have no idea, where you're from, but you if money is a limiting factor, you can get the motorola atrix for little money right now - at least in germany. worth a look!
www.ibood.de (only today - if you know someone in germany) edit: sold out -.-
nice phone... you can even use it as a netbook with ubuntu (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbYYHW0YecA)
Desire Z here. Awesome phone if You want physical keyboard. very fast.
Just avoid wildfire
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also good battery time, it doesn't have to be superb, but i dont want to walk with a solar panel on my back just so the phone can last the day.
It shouldn't be talked about in 2012 
