The "New Toys" Thread

Put my name down for one of these:

samsung-galaxy-s-2.jpg
 
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That hurts. He and I were talking about that phone last night and now I come here and see he ordered one. Rude. As a matter of fact, I demand you buy me one as well.
 
Not to be rude, but you can sure see where Apple got their lawsuit from. It's really weird how close that is to the iPhone4. And the original Galaxy was really close to a 3GS.

But besides that it is supposedly an awesome phone :)
 
nsx_23 said:
Put my name down for one of these:

samsung-galaxy-s-2.jpg
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Thats the coolest phone ever! If I didn't get my dad's Desire I would have bought one in a heartbeat!!
- I'm so jealous -.-
 
nsx_23 said:
Put my name down for one of these:

samsung-galaxy-s-2.jpg
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My order has been placed since last Thursday. Just waiting for Handtec to get their next shipment which they are hoping to get on Monday :(
 
smib said:
That hurts. He and I were talking about that phone last night and now I come here and see he ordered one. Rude. As a matter of fact, I demand you buy me one as well.
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I wasn't meaning to hurt, but Samsungs have a reputation of having shoddy build quality and slooooow updates, hence me waiting for the obvious insult-fest. And I'm still waiting for the Optimus 2X to reach carriers in .au...
 
ZeDestructor said:
I wasn't meaning to hurt, but Samsungs have a reputation of having shoddy build quality and slooooow updates, hence me waiting for the obvious insult-fest. And I'm still waiting for the Optimus 2X to reach carriers in .au...
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Not you. I had a captivate, and while I wouldn't call it shoddy, it certainly wasn't nearly as solid as my N1 or DHD. I was referring to the fact that nsx_23 and I were talking about wanting the GS2 for its screen and internals despite the fallbacks mentioned, and then he went and pre-ordered one.
 
With the announcements at Google I/O I think Samsung should be lifting their game when it comes to updates.

As Smib said, I've only pre-ordered/reserved one, so I'll decide whether to actually go ahead with the purchase when I can try one out. Will probably get the Sensation instead if I don't like the GS2, but this locked bootloader thing is in the back of my mind. Should be interesting to see whether Samsung lifter their game when it comes to build quality - The original Galaxy felt pretty plasticy compared to my Desire, but then my old Samsung Blackjack felt pretty well built and even after I sold it to a friend it still held up very well.
 
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I think samsung got kinda shafted in the whole slow updates debacle, at least here in the US. I think it was mainly carriers slowing it down as they test and test updates, build in bloatware, etc.

I'm pretty sure the reason why the Fascinate was the last us market Galaxy S to get Froyo was due to Verizon's notoriously laborous validation/testing process.

Then again, Behold II. And in the end, that's the ultimate counter arguement to all I've said...:hmm:
 
The carriers are at fault for the slow updates, but Samsung's TouchWiz is the biggest part of the bloatware, so it goes both ways.
 
IceBone said:
The carriers are at fault for the slow updates, but Samsung's TouchWiz is the biggest part of the bloatware, so it goes both ways.
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And that's not likely to change anytime soon, because Google only wishes to do base software and let everyone crap it up. That info is straight from Google if you must know. :(
 
I wish that all Android phones came with an option to have stock UI or the add-on UI. From what I have seen the only one that really adds anything to the experience is the Sense UI the Motoblur and the Touchwiz are pretty damn useless.
And that's not likely to change anytime soon, because Google only wishes to do base software and let everyone crap it up. That info is straight from Google if you must know.
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Well Google is kind of caught between a rock and a hard place in this case. When they announced their intention to only allow advanced preview code for manufacturers that submit software changes to them for review and approval they got shit on for being "evil" and breaking the whole "free/open" idea they themselves set out to popularize. OTOH people are bitching because of all the crapware that Androids end up with or custom UIs that crash and/or add nothing to the actual experience. I think Google made a strategic mistake announcing Android as open they should have made it open source but announce from the get-go that it's their platform and that they will have the final say on what goes into it.

As much as people hate on Apple because of the tight control over the entire ecosystem, they do have a much better and MUCH more consistent user experience than Android.***

***Before SOME people *cough*narf*cough* start bitching about me using opinions as facts, this is my opinion that comes from having a Captivate (ATT Galaxy S), having used the Droid Incredible (g/f's phone) pretty extensively, and using my friend's Droid (original) and having iP3G/4 as my personal phones for a while.
 
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IceBone said:
The carriers are at fault for the slow updates, but Samsung's TouchWiz is the biggest part of the bloatware, so it goes both ways.
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I would even debate that. I have a Nexus One, google's first reference phone, and it took forever and a half to get the last OS update. No carrier is even involved there.
 
prizrak said:
I wish that all Android phones came with an option to have stock UI or the add-on UI. From what I have seen the only one that really adds anything to the experience is the Sense UI the Motoblur and the Touchwiz are pretty damn useless.
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Well you can easily switch to the default launcher or another launcher from the Market on pretty much any Android device from what I know.

And I don't even get the big gripe people have with custom UIs when discussing different Android devices they want to buy. If you have complaints then you are probably enough of a technical person to root your phone and flash a custom ROM and totally get rid of the bloatware.
 
janstett said:
I would even debate that. I have a Nexus One, google's first reference phone, and it took forever and a half to get the last OS update. No carrier is even involved there.
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Your carrier is the one who sends it to you, not Google itself. Besides, everyone I know with a Nexus One got the update 2 days after it was released at most.
 
Shawn said:
Well you can easily switch to the default launcher or another launcher from the Market on pretty much any Android device from what I know.
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Wasn't aware of that, how?
And I don't even get the big gripe people have with custom UIs when discussing different Android devices they want to buy. If you have complaints then you are probably enough of a technical person to root your phone and flash a custom ROM and totally get rid of the bloatware.
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There are a couple of things to consider:
1) Enterprise users, no matter how technical you are you can't really root phones that are not yours due to support contracts and such. So default user experience matters quite a bit. As an example in my company they were giving out the Captivates but a bunch of people had them switched for IP4s because of all the issues they had. Mind you these are not the people who actually had an iPhone of any kind before and they still preferred Apple's offering due to its better user experience and stability.
2) Techies who don't want to root phones, this is something that I learned from friends and from working in the IT field myself. When you start dealing with tech issues day to day and have to troubleshoot all kinds of problems at some point in time you just want to go home and USE the device as opposed to actually deal with the problems. I personally wanna play some Angry Birds, get my IMs and generally fart around on the phone rather than go through rooting it.
2.1)Even though Windows is easy enough to reinstall and techies can remove all the crapware that comes with laptops most will still seek out those with the least amount of crapware
3) Not all techies are phone techies. I work with UNIX servers all day, yet I don't magically know how to root an Android phone. In fact when I was doing a Froyo upgrade for my g/f's phone because VZ was not pushing it out for some reason I had to do quite a bit of research on the XDA forums. By the same token my father who is a DBA has no clue how to admin his Windows boxes beyond the basics.

Bottom line is defaults matter and matter quite a bit something that has good default settings will always be more desirable to use. It's like cars, you can take a 240 and tune it to be as fast as a Vette or you can take a Vette and just drive it. There are people who prefer tinkering but there are plenty who don't even if they know about cars.
 
prizrak said:
I wish that all Android phones came with an option to have stock UI or the add-on UI. From what I have seen the only one that really adds anything to the experience is the Sense UI the Motoblur and the Touchwiz are pretty damn useless.
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While I agree that we should have the choice between stock and a customized UI, TouchWiz enhancements goes beyond the launcher (which i suspect is the responsible part of much of the hate) and UI. They just aren't mentioned as prominently as HTC Sense's features.

These include:

GPU accelerated browser
Puzzle Piece lockscreen that lets you jump into your missed calls, emails and texts if you have them - a shame they decided to get rid of this for TouchWiz 4 on Galaxy S II
Social Network homescreen and contact integration a'la Sense's Peep and FriendStream
Swipe left/right to text/call from contacts/call log
Notification Shade toggles
Inertial scrolling throughout the OS
AllShare DLNA support
File Manager built in (not as powerful as Astro but gets the job done for most)
Task Manager that's "safe for n00bs" by hiding system apps that can break by being closed. You'd be surprised how many non techies feel the need to "close" all the applications in order to make the phone "feel" faster. More advanced users can use the standard Android settings menu to close more applications.

There's more but I'll have to take a look at a Galaxy S phone some more, and it's not to say that TouchWiz 3 is without flaws: For example, the spelling and grammar issues in some less traveled parts of the UI are hilarious at best, but maddening at worst when you consider how much you're paying for the product. It's shocking that Verizon of all the carriers who got a Galaxy S variant didn't catch this on the Fascinate.

Blur, at least the new version of the Motorola Application Platform (the Blur that's on the Gingerbread Moto Droid phones) looks to be getting a lot better. I still don't like it as much as TouchWiz or Sense, but i have to play with it.


prizrak said:
Wasn't aware of that, how?
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Download a launcher replacement from the market, like ADW or LauncherPro, then hit the home button once it installs. You can then choose which launcher you want to enter and then check off the "always open this.." box on the dialog to map the home button to always return to the launcher you want. :)
 
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There's something you can do in application settings, reset defaults somewhere, that also gives you the prompt even without a launcher replacement. My dad managed to turn off Sense on his Hero once....
 
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