The Android thread

I'm still struggling to see how the curved glass is anything to get excited over.
 
They probably needed something other than NFC to get people excited about the hardware. :lol:

I don't see the advantage, and I'm venturing an uneducated guess it's probably a bit of a nuisance.
 
I read that, and I can't disagree because the only Galaxy phone I've tried is the Epic 4G which due to the slider mechanism is not that solid by default. But I was thinking more in comparison to HTC phones like the Nexus One; HTC seem to use a nice blend of metal and rubber materials whereas Samsung just seem to use that fingerprint-magnet shiny plastic.

I think I know the main reason behind the Nexus S' existence... Google sorta failed with their sales model on the Nexus One and they wanted a fresh go at things. It just doesn't offer enough hardware upgrades and Gingerbread isn't a huge software upgrade so I can't imagine why Google chose to redress a Galaxy S other than trying out a different sales model.




Sure, but this one is especially so because it's completely disjointed when you compare the bulk of the review to the conclusion they draw.

If they're writing the review for and recommending the Nexus S to geeks like us, then they should know we can easily get vanilla Android and/or Gingerbread on a phone that doesn't ship with them. If they are writing the review for and recommending the Nexus S to the masses then they are misleading their audience because I'm guessing the average consumer cares more about HD video capture or a microSD slot that an incremental upgrade to the OS. So I'm left wondering how they figure it's the best Android device on sale right now.

Seriously, either these asshats are easily swayed by the companies that send them review units or they are just idiots. I hit up Engadget for tech news sometimes, but their reviews I now know aren't worth a damn.

Engadget 'reviews' always reek of cash for comments to me
 
Seriously, either these asshats are easily swayed by the companies that send them review units or they are just idiots. I hit up Engadget for tech news sometimes, but their reviews I now know aren't worth a damn.

I kinda have to agree, to be fair, they also tend to gloss over HTC's recent handset faults...like "oh well the hinge flops around but still....8 out of 10!!!"

To me a loose hinge is a big deal, esp. when I'm spending plenty of my own damn money on a device...it's got to be flawless in fit and finish, and plenty of HTC devices in recent memory haven't been, or they are rehashes of existing devices...kinda like this one tbh.

I think that Google themselves are trying to see whether people will seek out a "Google" phone over the alternatives this time, not necessarily trying to push the hardware bar way forward. Here's the problem: Most people see any Android phone as a "Google" phone....hell you'd be amazed how many people I see calling LG and Samsung stuff "Droid's." Thank Verizon marketing for that...

Their prior sales model was indeed flawed...its just not how North American's buy phones, we expect subsidies and a carrier call center rep we can ring up at any time if there's issues. The lack of a unified support plan for the Nexus One was a strong downside to ownership, something that turned many off.
 
I'd be happy with my Desire for a while if it got Gingerbread and updated HTC sense.
 
Trying out a new ROM for my phone. Called Nero, still by the Team Whiskey buffoons who make the awesome ROMs I've been using since Day 3 of having my Vibrant.
 
So, after one week of being an Android user, I thought I might write down my first impressions.

I switched from my beloved iPhone 3GS to a Desire HD.

Let's get this over with.

First of all, a pic of the two phones in question, hooked up to my PC:

33950_1234076909260_1749324577_455678_884128_n.jpg


As you maybe can see, the iPhone wasn't exactly un-fiddled with ;).

I jailbroke it and ran a lot of custom apps/little helpers that made the iPhone into a phone like I wanted it (example: 5 dock icons rather than 4, connecting to Bluetooth GPS, having notifications/calendar on Lockscreen etc), but recent Apple politics (i.e.: more raping than usual) made me want to switch camps, especially since I got the Desire HD for 1? :p.


Haptics/Outer Hardware

While the Desire HD can easily be described as "one big MoFo of a phone", it suprisingly isn't annoying to carry in the pocket. The Aluminium body is really nice, has a good weight and feel to it. Then again, I have pretty slim but long hands, so someone with small fingers might be in for trouble with the size of the phone. It has a better feel to it than the all-plastic iPhone, and I don't fear scratching it whenever I put it down. One thing I heard a lot of swearing about (MXM, I am looking at you) was the position of the power button. Since I am coming from the iPhone, I am quite used to a fiddly button at the top. Overall a really well made phone. On my mate's Desire HD the "T" in HTC fell off on day one though :p


OS/Software

Well, as I said, I hated iOS stock for the limitations it had. HTC Sense is really nice, works quickly and is (allthough a lot is stolen from iOS) well organized. Settings are pretty self explanatory and customization options are good. Widgets really make this phone so well, the customization options coming from 6 homescreens is something any iPhone user dreams of. The big screen is definitely nice, touch input is same level as on iPhone. No lagging around like on Samsung phones I tried... Found some really nice Apps (f.e. turning on Bluetooth as soon as the DHD is connected to power (for car)). I found all my app needs quickly (and mostly free). My two favourite games from the iPhone (Angry Birds/Fruit Ninja) are on Android too, Andchat for IRC is free, Twitter, Facebook, meinVZ, ebay, all there. And working. The only thing I miss is a client like Friendstream, which displays Facebook and Twitter feeds in one widget (I know about Tweetdeck but it is butt ugly). Clear win for Android, by far.


Network

The DHD manages HSDPA instead of 3G only on the iPhone. And it has better reception, by far. I have 3G in areas where the iPhone dropped to GSM (I can easily tell by not having the GSM taktaktaktaktaktaktak interference in my car speakers while driving :)). Short: DHD is damn fast and makes the iPhone look like a guy with a clothes hanger for an antenna compared to a satellite dish with HD stream.


Navigation

HTC Locations and Google Navigation are included. On my iPhone I used Navigon. HTC Locations uses TomTom maps and the compass, which is pretty nice. Shit about it is, that it doesn't work in landscape mode. WTF? I mean, seriously? Oh and you have to buy whatnot for it.....didn't like it, at all. Google Navigation on the other hand is pretty damn good. And when the new Google Maps with offline map storage will be released soon, it will seriously kick ass. Can keep up with Navigon, navigation-wise. The only thing I miss is speedtrap warning, but there are other apps for it (Trapster kept crashing on me :/).


Camera

Yes it has 8MP, no it is not very good. The video function is really nice, the pictures it takes are...well they are ok-ish but nothing special.
The iPhone cam was allright too. One thing that is completely over the top is the flash. Like MXM said: "Everything 3m in front of the flash catches fire because it is so overpowered". And every image with the flash has a yellow tint because of the flash....



Annoyances

Ok, here it goes. Facebook and Twitter for HTC Sense are a piece of shit. And not a nice shit some flys could live from, but the kind that kills everything that comes remotely close to it. Facebook AND Twitter keep syncing contact images with my phonebook, ruining the good contact images with some 90x90px pixelated shit. Turn it off then, you say. Oh I did. After every reboot it re-activated. Ruining my phonebook, again. Had to deactivate that. Sadly, that also ruined the Friendstream Widget, something I really liked. Speaking of pixelated contact images. Sync contacts with Outlook? 90x90px images. Sync with Google? 90x90px images. Look really nice inflated on the screen.....NOT. Yeah, speaking of syncing. HTC Sync 3. Wow. Seeing this, I think Win 95 was bug free. Sync contacts? Can't select a folder in Outlook, can only sync all. And the contact images are broken. Sync Calendar? Yeah, every event you create becomes an invitation to a meeting in Outlook (same for Google Calendar btw). Sync bookmarks? Doesn't work with Firefox (allthough you can select it), with IE it creates a bookmark folder called "HTC Bookmarks", where you have to move all your bookmarks into to sync them. Great. Oh and the DHD doesn't display bookmark folders. Chaos. Oh yeah, syncing pictures from the DHD to the PC doesn't work neither. HTC Sync 3 is one big turd.
The headphone jack is really silent, on my iPhone I had to turn my car stereo to 10 to hear music in normal volume, on the DHD I need to turn it to 17. And that is with PowerAmp running on the DHD with preamp on max.. Reports of this are all over the net....
Oh yeah, I don't get any update notifications from the Market right now, I don't know why. And "MyPhonebook", a sync software by my provider is borked too, on all Desire/Desire HD's though.


Accessories

Well, here comes the big suprise: HTC stuff is cheap. Example? 2 display protectors, original HTC, 3?. HTC car charger with power cord? 12? (that doesn't even buy you an Apple USB cable). Oh yeah, a word of warning: The DHD eats power like #gear people drink beer. A LOT. In short time. A lot of car chargers only put out 500mA because they don't have the data-connectors disabled on the cables, so the Desire HD discovers them as USB ports and switches to 500mA. You want 1A though, otherwise it discharges. I got this one and it worked flawlessly: HTC CC C200. I also got myself a Brodit car holder: Brodit passive holder, but I had to sand it down a bit, it was gripping way too tightly. Now it works nicely. One thing I miss is the steering wheel remote control I had for my iPhone and that it played music and charged via one port with this: Kensington Liquid Aux Deluxe. Can't have everything I guess, Ice recommended me PowerAmp, which really integrates nicely into my car, I have the DHD mounted in landscape mode over my headunit, a mate summed it up nicely: "You are a damn showoff" :p


Battery life

Well, that's the biggest issue with this phone. The 1230mah battery is too small for this phone. It really sucks it dry quicker than MXM eats Stroopwaffles (read: fast). Mugen offered a 1800mah battery, discontinued it after a few days and now offers a massive......1300mah. Useless. Anyways, battery life improved after some cycles, allthough it technically shouldnt. Having a car charger helps, also the "Auto Bluetooth" app, that switches on Bluetooth as soon as you connect it to power (for the car). You get through one day of usage, but that's it. My iPhone could go a little longer, but not that much (again: with usage). I hope stronger batteries appear, 1800mah would have been nice......oh, and I found out you can switch it to keep the screen on while connected to power (car) and switch it off when on battery. The setting for this is NOT in display settings (why would it), but under settings-apps-development. Yeah, that's where I would put it too....

I am still getting used to it but right now, I don't regret getting it any second. Really a nice phone with minor flaws, but I guess all have them....at least now I am selling out my soul to Google instead of a guy with turtlenecks and a god complex.....sounds fair.

I might or might not take pics of car installation......We will see. :)

That's it from me for now.
 
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A small clarification, I wasn't complaining about the position of the power button, but by the fact that it's really flush and small. And angeled. At least my Finnish-winter-frozen fingers can't always deal with the task, because I can't feel if I'm pressing the button or trying to squeeze the life out of the alu shell. Not sure about iphone 3, but on the 4 it's way way easier.

Oh, and while locking the screen with one hand, I'm pressing the volume down button quite often. This does not help, speaker is already laughably quiet.

P.S. The camera sucks waaaay more than what D-Fence described.

P.P.S. The phone is <3
 
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Pretty much the same as the normal Desire, except that yours has a better body and worse battery life.

The sound issues are well known and I think a solution is to run the volume down all the way with the volume rocker, then all the way up.

Regarding the flash issues: Try setting the ISO to 100 when using flash, the cam just might be stupid enough to crank up the ISO and use flash at the same time in dark areas. Also, you need to change the white balance to flourescent to make the flash white.
 
That does look bad, but the sharpness has been turned up all the way, by the looks of things. >_<
 
All settings are as it came from HTC, sharpness is on medium.

//edit: Hilarious you can only read the numberplates on low sharpness. And :lol: again at ricer.
 
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At minimum sharpness it actually looks passable. I guess increasing the megapixels doesn't bring better image quality on such a small sensor. :p

This is mine on minimum sharpening:

 
Which Mid-Range Android Phone?

Which Mid-Range Android Phone?

I'm looking at Mid-Range Android phones for my sis and i'm just curious which one should she get.

She's with Telus [Got a Rententions plan] and there are a couple Android Phones avaliable without a data plan.

LG Shine Plus
LG Optimus One
Samsung Galaxy Apollo
HTC Hero

Sort of thinking which one haha. :lol:
 
I've only heard good things about the Optimus One in all of its iterations, and I personally like the look of it. I imagine the Galaxy will have the worst build quality of the lot, with the Hero likely having the best.
 
Yeah, the Optimus One seems to be pretty good for what you get, and at its price point of $0 on a 3-Year over here [Shine Plus and Galaxy Apollo also is $0], might be worth it.

One gripe i have with just the Telus version is that, its only avliable with a red band, not the usual silver band. :O

Though i like how the Galaxy Apollo is basically a glass face.

Would look at the Hero but she might not like how its "blocky", also its discontinued from the Telus site [still avaliable at few retailers, depending on stock] which i think i've found a place that has it.

But i'd personally get the Hero if it was my turn to change phones though i'm with Rogers, wish they had the HTC HD, Xperia X10 is getting "old" haha
 
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