How Is Your Android Phone Holding Up?

[Pwalex]

I've had my Google Nexus S for about a year and a half and I'm sick of it's ****. I'm looking into an upgrade, and I can't decide if I want to keep with an Android or switch to an iPhone. With that in mind, I thought I would see what people are saying about their Android phones right now.

For me, the issue seems to be that the Android OS doesn't seem to upgrade itself very well on my current hardware. I've had to factory revert just to make it usable again, after the last time I updated. Even after doing so, the apps themselves seem to be poorly designed in general. It seems like they get updated without any regard for older hardware, and something like Facebook alone can lag my phone to the point where I can barely answer a call properly. I'm wondering if this is an inherent problem with the Android platform that will cause any newer phone (eg. the Galaxy S4 or HTC One) to give the same kinds of issues a year or two down the road. Ideally I want a phone to last me a minimum of 3 years.

So, how are your Androids holding up? Especially those of you who bought "top of the line" or "flagship" phones over a year ago.

Watch the language - G

 

[HopelessNoob]

i have a nexus 4 and a tablet z
only problem is that i like to root and flash custom roms and kernels
the roms and kernels i flash on my nexus 4 have made my phone very smooth and usable even after installing lots of things on it along with downloading movies and playback

the only issue i really have with android devices is the battery

 

[synergygreen459]

I have had a galaxy nexus for quite some time now and even though by normal tech standards its almost three generations old i still have the latest android os on it and continue to get updates and the phone still works great to this day. Albeit the battery life isnt the greatest (androids biggest issue in my opinion) if your wanting to stick to android and the Nexus 4 is an option get that becuase it is a google phone so you get vanilla android paired with good specs not as good as say an s4 or an htc one but when you dont have the bloatware that those do the difference really isnt that much if you have to have a removable battery than go for the s4 a great phone with great reviews decent battery life and awesome specs or get the htc one also seen as one of the top phones out at the moment. hope this helps

 

[Pskov]

I had the same lag problem with my Galaxy S1, flashed it to Jellybean worked much smoother for a while then decided oh I'm not going to work so had to get a new phone the problem definitely isn't the android platform or android phones, it's just the older models are quite crap.

But if you're looking to upgrade and stick on the android platform and don't really care about flashing custom roms i'd suggest looking into the MIUI rom and MI2s/Up coming MI3 phone by Xiaomi It's a chinese manufacturer and I know what you're probably thinking it's some bullshit rip off but it's actually a pretty amazing phone, beat the S4 in benchmark tests much, much cheaper and since I've had mine run's smooth as ever the only problem is there's no SD card slot (on the MI2s, might have one on the MI3) so you're stuck with 16/32GB storage and also you're stuck with the android based MIUI rom which does get updates weekly so if you're not fussed about getting the latest android rom's definitely something you should look into.

 

[g-unit1111]

I had a Galaxy S2 and hated it. Establishing a connection between my phone and PC was virtually impossible, and almost never worked. Updating to Android 4.0 meant all of my old photos and videos I took nearly unrecognizable. The Samsung Kies software was supposed to clear up these atrocities, but even that was completely flawed. When switching providers I was heavily considering the Blackberry Z10 or the Nokia Lumia 920. However, Verizon (the Lumia) was ridiculous with their data rates, and T-Mobile (Blackberry) had extremely spotty coverage where I live. Then I went to Sprint and got the HTC One over the Galaxy S4. Love this phone. The screen, MP3 player, and camera are exceptional, and the quality of data coverage where I live isn't as bad as I had expected, but it's great for what it is. I would definitely get one again. I would love to get the Ubuntu phone but the $700 Kickstarter price is a bit too much for my blood.

 

[bc5]

I'm gonna take Windows Phone for a spin I think next time round. I've never been massively impressed by Android and there's some great deals at the moment on phones like the Nokia Lumia 510 and HTC 8X.

 

[Catalin Marin]

I have the old sony flagship, the xperia s. I'm using the cyanogenmod and its very snappy, but with a few bugs. overall is still a decent smartphone, and I'm planning to switch to the next nexus phone

 

[g-unit1111]

I'm gonna take Windows Phone for a spin I think next time round. I've never been massively impressed by Android and there's some great deals at the moment on phones like the Nokia Lumia 510 and HTC 8X.

I really want to give WP8 a try, I like the interface and I was going to get the Lumia 920 phone if I went to Verizon. But I could not justify the ridiculous data rates on Verizon.

 

[bc5]

I'm British so not familiar with them. Here, you either use O2 or Vodafone if you want good coverage and have too much money in your wallet, or EE, Three or Virgin if you're somewhere like London with solid coverage on any network. No GSM/CDMA complications here - any phone can operate on any network (provided it's not locked, though that can be fixed anyway). I prefer to buy my phones off-contract and pay only for the minutes/megs so I'd probably grab a Lumia 520 (I think that's the phone I actually meant... whichever one is Windows 8).