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Hello all,
I'm a former iPhone 2.5G, 3G, 3GS, I4 owner, and have now spent two full weeks with the Captivate. I thought I'd give a few observations to those that are either still on the fence, or are just looking for something Captivate related to read.
I'll break this down into sections for an easier read.
First Impressions: The first thing that struck me was the screen (obviously). The screen seemed HUGE, even though it's technically only .3" larger than my I4. The rest of the form factor was very clean, which I like.
Hand feel: I have larger hands... That made my life with the iPhone rather difficult. I found myself fumbling with the handset, as well as the keyboard. I learned to handle it over the years, but it was not my favorite one handed device. The Captivate fit right in the palm of my hand. I appreciate the weight and overall thin feel of the device, while still giving me a large touch surface. The battery cover looked incredible, but it's brushed metal made it slick enough that I could easily see it falling from my hand. I had iPhone 2.5G flashbacks. I bought a Body Glove case to remedy the problem, and with that, I found the perfect cell phone case. It's wonderful.
Screen: What's there to say, really? It's beautiful. The color saturation and black levels are unrivaled by anything I've ever seen on this level. The only negative I have here is that I had an iPhone 4 previous to the Captivate and that really made the lower resolution on the larger screen noticeable. It was an adjustment, but I've made it.
Touch response: The IOS will always seem to be perfection personified when it comes to the touch response on a phone, but the Captivate gives the I4 a run for it's money. I do notice some recognition lag on the Captivate. Usually upon scrolling through the app list or in the browser. Just not quite as smooth as the IOS. This may very well be linked to the lag in the unmodified Captivate. I have not done the lag fix, as my best friend did the fix. It worked well for the first several hours, then started to slow down. Top it off with the fix going wrong and corrupting his file system.
EDGE and 3G: I know... I know... The thing is supposed to be a phone, and thus make calls... Boring, but definitely a nice experience with the Captivate. I notice the signal bars being a bit on the low end with the phone. I truly believe that they are designed this way, for better or worse. I say this because I get much better reception and call quality in poorly covered areas than my iPhone 3GS, which would typically show more bars. The data response on the phone is fantastic. I'm very happy with the speed of downloads, video streaming, and web page loading. Again the bars look low, but operate like they should show much higher. The negative here is definitely the lack of HSUPA. AT&T decided to disable this feature, I'm assuming, to help with the overly congested data network in iPhone saturated areas. Luckily for those of us with an android device, the community will soon remedy this (hurry up Rogers).
GPS: The biggest pain in my ass... I rarely use the GPS for turn by turn directions, as I'm a man and require no direction... But seriously, the GPS is integrated into every aspect of the OS, and the work flow and experience with the phone would be greatly improved if this functionality worked as intended. We seem to really be at Samsung's mercy here. I truly hope they come through. If not, I feel like there could be some possible modification from the Vibrant, where I've heard there isn't an issue.
WIFI: Very very happy here. The first Captivate I bought had a broken antenna. Wifi didn't work very well. After I traded it in it worked like a champ. I can pull incredible speeds, up and down stream from several stories above my wireless router.
Media Playback: Not super happy here. iTunes(on Windows) is a raging pile of crap, but at least it provided us with a one stop shop for music, cross platform organization, upgrading, and one click syncing. There isn't a real good solution here. I've tried a number of music players, but ended up right back with the Samsung player. It's completely functional, but not elegant, and not feature full by any stretch of the imagination. Now, movies are something different. Getting them to the device is easy, and playback looks incredible. The audio quality of music and movies is much better than my iPhone, but the media management and players themselves aren't up to snuff. That's really where Apple shows it's pedigree.
App Market: Another place where Apple man handles the Android devices. The market is improving at a blazing rate, but it has many issues that the App Store doesn't. With Apple having a strangle hold over the apps and reviews that make it to market, there is very little chance of malware making it to the store at all, much less to the Top Apps (review spoofing bastards). Thank god for Appbrain... That's all I have to say.
Community: Yes... Yes... Yes.... There are so many helpful and brilliant people in the Android community. That really gives me a feeling of longevity for the device. Even if the developer throws in the towel, there will be an entire group of people who seem to be more than willing to step in and tune the device to it's utmost potential. I'm so excited to see what happens when the Froyo roms start hitting. I expect this little phone to really turn some heads. Mine included.
In conclusion, I'm really happy with the phone so far. The GPS is testing me a bit, but I just have to take a few deep breaths and power through with my patience. I think that anybody coming from a Blackberry, iPhone, or any other device will be happy here. But there are some things you have to be willing to do. You must be patient. These phones can do anything, but sometimes the community has to have time to accomplish it. Also, you have to be willing to play... Seriously, tinker with your phone. Download every launcher you can find, download widgets, fonts, apps, play with your settings. Truly explore your phone. There's a lot here that you may not even know exists. Just because you don't see a feature, doesn't mean it isn't there. This isn't Apple, things aren't locked down.
Beautiful review!
The one thing I was most worried about with switching to a Captivate from an iPhone 3GS was the GPS issue as my Apple touting friends were poking fun at me and wishing good luck with getting a GPS fix to check in to venues etc but I haven't had a single issue at least as far as check ins go. I rarely if ever use turn by turn directions, which I could see being an issue if I did.
Overall I'm extremely happy with my Captivate, Android and it's flexibility with customization is a breath of fresh air over iOS! Even with jailbreaking iOS just seemed to be really lacking with quality customizations, sure there were widgets you could add to the lock screen etc but none of it seemed very polished even though there were commercial apps for it.
The only thing I would change about the Captivate would be to add a LED flash for the camera for those random indoor/evening snapshots and it baffles me as to why Samsung left that out, otherwise it would be close to perfect. A front facing cam would have been nice to have as well but I really think those more belong on tablets at the moment than phones, I don't really see myself making video calls when on the go but rather places where I would have a tablet handy.
Correction, two things I would change... The other would be the addition of a physical home button, I'm still getting used to hunting for the touch buttons at the bottom and often hit the wrong one still. It did help once I installed WidgetLocker though so I can press the volume buttons to wake as well as the power button as hunting for the power button was also a bit hit & miss.
The jury is still out on battery life especially as I have been constantly playing with it during to it being a shiny new toy so I will wait to see what real world usage is like.
I hear you on the customization. I am flipping between Launcher Pro and ADW Launcher right now, and it's nice to be able to change things up on a whim. Also, the different keyboards (SWYPE is amazing) also give a nice change of pace.
I don't really care about the flash, really. My I4's flash pissed me off more often than not. When the flash would go off it would cause everything that I was photographing to look like a mug shot. I never really needed a flash with my long history of iPhones, and I guess not having one on any of my phones just made it easy to not notice it missing.
Okay... After spending most of the day before yesterday getting myself all revved up to return my Captivate and show Samsung that their time table was unacceptable by going back to my iPhone 4, I would like to say that I am now once again back on the Captivate, and am shockingly more relaxed than I have been for the last 48 hours. That was the shortest lived, most misguided tantrum that I've thrown in recent memory... I just couldn't do it. The Captivate is, with all it's little flaws, an amazing phone that is really hard to step away from. To add insult to my little snap decision, my iPhone has a massive proximity sensor issue. I was face dialing through most of my conference calls today.
Sad... But anyway. Have a laugh at my expense. My wife asked if I was having some trouble with commitment. I had to remind her that I asked her to marry me... It's just with phones that I have a problem.
Hello all,
Apologies if this has already been answered already, but I am VERY tempted by the G-Tablet. LOVE the idea of sticking the customs ROMS on there.
I understand that the ROMS are by no means perfect, and I am fine with that. They are ever evolving and I am fine with changing ROMS now and again and trying out new things.
The only thing that has prevented me from making the purchase is the negative reviews of the screen that I have heard - particularly in portrait mode.
Is it really THAT bad? What is it like in portrait? And landscape?
Does anyone have any video or pictures or links to show what the screen looks like, particularly in portrait mode and in landscape too?
Should the screen be the thing that prevents me from buying it? Is it that much of a deal breaker?
Any video, comments or pictures would be greatly appreciated.
I really want to jump on the G-Tablet band wagon, but if the screen is that bad then I guess I will hold off.
Thanks in advance.
I use mine for, among other things, reading digital magazines and comics. In portrait mode the screen is pretty bad and has a 3D sort of effect at certain angles. In landscape mode it looks best when you're viewing it straight on and as your angle gets higher it looks lighter in color, the lower your angle the darker it gets. But I read everything in landscape mode anyway so this doesn't bother me.
For me even with the screen issue, using VEGAn rom beta 5.1, I love this tablet. It's something that I have been enjoying for over a month now rather than other folks "waiting" for something better and not having a tablet at all.
I also have an iPad (company issued) which I hardly ever even turn on (only when I want to keep my little kids busy with the Netflix app).
Once you experience the freedom and the fantastic custom roms our xda folks cook up I'm sure you'll fall in love with this tablet too. With all of the folks that complain about the screen in these forums, almost all of them have still kept their gTabs. That should tell you something.
Search youtube and there's a video showing the gtablets viewing angles. To me its not a deal breaker. I mostly use the tab in ladscape mode even while I'm ereading. Portrait mode is ok but its not a dealbreaker either. I think the tab is fairly price with what you get.
I loathe the screen.
If you happen to have a netbook, there's an easy way to replicate the GTab experience for reading comics or magazines. Just run an app on your netbook to open up the graphic, then flip it 90 degrees (so that it's in portrait) and look at the viewing angles. Notice, in particular, the significant changes if you tilt it slightly to the right or left. That's exactly what happens on the Gtab. On my Mini10v, you have to flip it 90 degrees counter-clockwise, so that the keyboard is on the right side.
I actually think a netbook is slightly better because the refresh is 60 Hz, whereas the refresh on the Gtab is (we think) 50 Hz.
gogorman said:
Hello all,
Apologies if this has already been answered already, but I am VERY tempted by the G-Tablet. LOVE the idea of sticking the customs ROMS on there.
I understand that the ROMS are by no means perfect, and I am fine with that. They are ever evolving and I am fine with changing ROMS now and again and trying out new things.
The only thing that has prevented me from making the purchase is the negative reviews of the screen that I have heard - particularly in portrait mode.
Is it really THAT bad? What is it like in portrait? And landscape?
Does anyone have any video or pictures or links to show what the screen looks like, particularly in portrait mode and in landscape too?
Should the screen be the thing that prevents me from buying it? Is it that much of a deal breaker?
Any video, comments or pictures would be greatly appreciated.
I really want to jump on the G-Tablet band wagon, but if the screen is that bad then I guess I will hold off.
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most people are simply comparing the G Tablet screen to the typical smartphone screen or iPad.
Personally, I dont THINK the screen is meant to be used in portrait mode for anything more than looking at apps and reading. For THOSE uses, it is fine (imho). You can read ebooks, comics, even websites with it as well as use most apps. It tickles your eyes (some people say it hurts theirs) if you try to use it with low on screen light things like gaming and watching movies...but I find it more similar to my eyes trying to adjust to 3D, it doesn't hurt but you can tell it's not going to work for very long because it feels awkward. I don't wear glasses.
The angles also aren't great compared to a cell/smartphone. I don't have a problem with this because I look at it head on, and when I put it on it's stand, I angle it at around 90-100 degrees, the same as my notebook and it looks fine.
Just keep in mind that the screen is comparable to a netbook/notebook, in which case you wouldn't be flipping that on the side to look at anything, nor would you be looking at it comfortably at extreme angles.
Forget sitting in your chair and glancing at it on a desk, that won't work. Nor picking it up and holding it at anything close to 180 degrees in your hand (like you MAY hold your cell). Think of it as a touchscreen netbook without a keyboard and you'll find it to be perfectly acceptable (I think).
Should the screen prevent you from buying it? That's hard to say. I don't think it's a deal breaker by any means (otherwise I would have returned mine), but that is in my opinion, and this sort of thing is really up to the user/buyer to decide. I wouldn't spend $100 more for a "better" screen, so automatically this may be a defining factor between the types of buyers we are.
The angles are NOT good, however when I'm actually actively using I never notice how bad they are as I'm looking directly at the screen and not from an angle. I've even used as an ereader in portrait mode and have not had problems. i.e. I really only notice it when I have it ont he table or desktop and check to see how flash progress, etc. is going and even then I can usually make out the important bits as it seems to be only colors for me that appear washed out while black and white show up as usual -> mostly text which is what I want to see anyways...
I've had mine since the monday before Thanksgiving. I'm keeping it because a) there's nothing else as good/fast/powerful out ATM, b) Notion Ink seemed kind of hazy and I'd like to see how long that they survive, etc.
Try an Office Depot or something and see if they have an actual demo unit. Staples HAD demo units, but Sears just had a mockup...
(I've also had/have an Augen Gentouch78, Pandigital Novel(white), Nook Color, and gTablet. The NC screen is much better, but again I don't notice the viewing angle unless I'm specifically looking for that as I'm always looking directly at the screen when actively using... caveat: I don't watch videos generally, so maybe this is where it becomes important to some people... better screens are always nice though, and I lust after the PixelQi'ed Notion Ink Adam for outdoor/sunny use... but not @ $500 and their uncertain future...)
[EDIT]
Forgot to mention, but when I used it as an ereader I was holding it in portrait orientation which is how I prefer to orient devices when using them as a reader, assuming that they even support landscape mode to begin with. I'm using my NC purely as a reader ATM since it's batt runtime isn't all that long v. the gTab, and my crappy 128MB uSD wasn't able to boot the unit, and I just don't feel like manually rooting it which is no big deal ATM as I'm mainly using it as a reader. When it gets warmer I'll change my mind I'm sure and it'll be serving more portable tablet duties as well as reading... just have to order some 8GB class 6 uSDHC cards now... already ordered case for NC which I have yet to do for gTab, but I want to buy a bluetooth GPS/logger before anything else ATM, which is looking to cost more than I expected for such a simplistic device(no display, just couple LEDs, GPS chipset(MTK v2 3329), and some memory & storage)...
[/EDIT]
I've had mine for about a month now and I am currently 200 pages into "Teach Yourself Electronics and Electricity"
I read it in both portrait and landscape mode and the angles aren't too bad.
I wouldn't jump out and use it in landscape mode permanently or anything, but I can live with them.
Compared to an iPad, Galaxy Tab and the B&N Nook Color, the screen is very sensitive to the vertical viewing angle (in landscape mode), with solarization effects kicking in once you are off-axis.
This is a netbook screen as mentioned above.
If you are using the tablet in landscape mode and holding it in your hand, then you can adjust easily and automatically to make sure the viewing angle is optimal.
The screen is bright and the colors are vibrant. I enjoy using my tab this way as a couch-based internet/video terminal. The experience can be as good as the iPad (with the benefit of added flash).
However, when held vertically, depending on which way is up, the viewing angle sensitivity can be so great that each eye sees different levels of solarization - giving a subjective effect similar to that from red/green 3D specs...
Also, the solarization effect is not symmetrical when you look at the screen from above/below the viewing axis, with the screen giving acceptable-ish results if looked-at from above, but miserable results from below. Thus the device seems to be optimized for use on a stand/dock sat on a table and viewed from above. (This seems consistent with the original TnT console UI mode).
This all sounds terrible, and the screen definitely IS now the weakest part of the package - but despite that, the overall experience of the Gtablet is VERY enjoyable - just check out the forums.
Accordingly, the screen cannot be THAT bad...
You really need to see one in action and decide for yourself. It is VERY subjective....
Well I bit the bullet and made the purchase.
Managed to find one at a Sears Outlet 2 hours away for $296 total.
Thanks to all for the replies.
The next question is: Which ROM do I put on there? I know that each of them have their own pro's and con's but is there one I should put on there to start with to see how it goes (when initially replacing the Tap'n'Tap UI)? Is one more stable or feature packed than another?
Again, any input would be GREAT!
Thanks!
I use (as do many) TNT lite. It's based on the stock Veiwsonic but It is worlds better than stock. TNT lite development is very active.
I haven't but you can try them all.
gogorman said:
Well I bit the bullet and made the purchase.
Managed to find one at a Sears Outlet 2 hours away for $296 total.
Thanks to all for the replies.
The next question is: Which ROM do I put on there? I know that each of them have their own pro's and con's but is there one I should put on there to start with to see how it goes (when initially replacing the Tap'n'Tap UI)? Is one more stable or feature packed than another?
Again, any input would be GREAT!
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are two "good" (i.e. well supported, active user community) ROMs right now - TNT Lite and Vegan ROM. Both have significant user communities here at XDA numbering in the many thousands. Personally, I think Vegan ROM is the fastest, smoothest experience currently on the G Tablet. It has a few bugs (mostly the media issues on the external SD card - if you don't have one or don't use it much for that this is not an issue). TNT Lite is just a stripped down, sped up, much improved version of the stock ROM that came with the device. But still not quite as lightweight or zippy as Vegan in my opinion. CyanogenMod 6.x seems to be less supported right now, because most of the work is going into making CyanogenMod 7 work properly.
In a few weeks time, Vegan should be ported over to running on top of CyanogenMod 7. And in a few weeks time, hopefully, CyanogenMod 7 itself will be stable and awesome. There's a lot of great development activity going on right now, so stay tuned.
Loved android hated the screen!!
Having owned both a gtab and an iPad I have to say that in the end the screen quality killed owning the gtab for me. The viewing angles make it impossible to lay the gtab on a table like I can do with my iPad. I hate the locked down nature of the iPad and wanted to love the gtab but in the end I couldn't justify owning a device that frustrated me that much. I look forward to the next batch of honeycomb tablets and anticipate purchasing one. (lol that the iPad autocorrect capitalizes the word iPad properly)
gogorman said:
Well I bit the bullet and made the purchase.
Managed to find one at a Sears Outlet 2 hours away for $296 total.
Thanks to all for the replies.
The next question is: Which ROM do I put on there? I know that each of them have their own pro's and con's but is there one I should put on there to start with to see how it goes (when initially replacing the Tap'n'Tap UI)? Is one more stable or feature packed than another?
Again, any input would be GREAT!
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll refer you to this thread where it's being discussed.
I never went to Vegan out of fear of the install somehow borking the tablet. I really can't bother with all that NVflash nor partitioning nonsense. CWM is as deep as I every want to go and so far between stock, tnt lite and cyanogen that's all I've ever had to do...load cwm, wipe data and cache, wipe dalvik and slap on a new/different ROM.
Speed means nothing to me if there are any frustrating or super noticeable, "get in your way" bugs, and from what I saw of TnT lite 4.1 it had nothing super noticeable and didn't lack any features I want/needed...in fact, nothing 'broke' in TnT lite 4.1 which is why that's what I recommend over all others.
Just remember to always, no matter what....wipe your cache and data. Many users will tell you it's not necessary but believe me when I say, it's better to do that than end up with some magic number or uid error because I've read about very bad experiences from people who just try to upgrade to a different OS. Some of these incessant errors seem to require APX mode or full re-flashes back to original - doesn't sound good, does it?
I may be spared out of being thorough or just dumb luck (knock on wood!!!!), but the fact is I've been spared.
I would recommend in addition to getting input from people in this and the other "what ROM is best" thread, to go read through the various ROM threads themselves. Check youtube to see how the various ROMs look and check screenshots, stuff like that to see what you may light.
Lastly, if you plan to try "on" different ones, I recommend Appbrain to help you get apps back on your tablet in an efficient manner, as long as you have access to the 'proper' market.
Appbrain allows you to sync your apps to a server, from there you can manipulate them - hard to explain but try it and see. And if a ROM causes Appbrain to ID the tab as something different every time, you can simply copy your app list to everything it uses. Appbrain simply checks your tab for what you have/don't have and looks up the apps 1 by 1 in the market, allowing you to install the newest versions possible till you're back in business.
A secondary backup method is to instruct Astro to backup your apps, then you save the folder with those apps to your SD card or your PC so you can sideload them manually when you're done swapping the OS.
Good Luck!
Hey man! This thread inspired me to make a video about! I had a lot of questions that no one seemed to answer in the videos they posted, so I figured I'd add to the community! Hope it helps some people out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO1XyVK6cms
Although the subject is rather troll like I hope I can do it in a non troll way.
There's a number of things that are really hacking me off about phones these days. I thought I'd have a major slam out to let off steam with the off-chance that someone might say "Ah but if you try X you can avoid that".
...some of the challenges in the mobile phone area these days...
1) Battery capacities aren't good enough as we all know. Getting through a single day is really the basics for me. Why not have hot swappable batteries? For me I expect to be able to go for 3-4 days. I don't know why... I just kind of expect that kind of efficiency.
2) Samsung Galaxy series... seems amazing but the batteries overheat, no?
3) So many people are ignorant of security to the point that most people are walking around with devices and apps that can just completely own you. Yeah there's sandboxing but it doesn't really work, it's been sidestepped. The iPhone just hides what's going on, rarely fixing the issues.
4) Licensing, all that stuff. Companies reinventing the wheel, fighting, all the rest. You can't buy a phone that does X and Y because company X won't license tech X to company Y
5) Trying to get everything perfect in one device... it's a bit of an ask but needed for portability. If things were separate we could have the better of most worlds, but that doesn't seem possible
6) Closed source. Just a bit irritating to see the inefficiency of it all in general. Bit of a hash moan but for those who can imagine better it seems like the dark ages in some areas still.
7) Closed source binary blobs. See Replicant on Samsung phones as the best we can do... the modem is arranged such messily and it's just not true a solution because of that. Kind of irritates me that there is no phone that can really guarantee it's not recording my phone numbers, conversations and credit cards because it's fully open source. Certainly an issue for companies. Companies in general are happy to rely on the word of Blackberry for thier integrity but for those of us who can imagine a solution that is secure by design it's not the best.
8) App whitelisting. Similar to the reactive rather than proactive security we tend to see as the trend in general. Manually checking all apps in the app store, trying to block and check them all.... doesn't seem the best. We've also had censorship. There are alternative stores, that's good.
9) Wakelocks. The Dalvik VM not managing or helping us track them down. Further, it's hard to tell if the app that you want to use is going to shaft your battery... once installed it's hard to tell if the app is ruining your battery too. It's messy.
10) IMEI security is a pain in the butt. It slows down the criminals but it also slows down everyone more so. In the case of Turkey it's another way to screw people with tax. Again, imperfect design.
11) As a man, if you have a phone at waist level that reduces your sperm count. Almost nobody notices or cares.
12) Just the usual society things... people looking at phones rather than each other. Can't really complain about that... the interface of looking at a screen is a bit basic. I've had speech recognition available to me... but I don't use it because there's always people around me and I'd rather be quiet... just one of those funny inventions
13) Screen don't work in bright sunlight still. We've got Motheye coming though which is great but we've had eink for ages and still no eink phone. Further, it can't be hacked onto an existing phone. Some of us aren't interested in games and movies and are focussed on getting stuff done. I feel Mirasol & PixelQi are being blocked or delayed as they try to slow things down until the point we've run out of ideas to make things better so only then does that tech get deployed.
14) Networks interfering with phones. I always go prepay because it's cheaper if you do the maths in many countries and also it allows for freer trade. Networks are always trying to get thier fingers into the mobile phone pies. Thank you Samsung for helping get against that, and also custom ROMs.
15) Apple are great but it's not clear what's going on behind the scenes.
16) eink displays would help battery life. A NookTouch can last for a month. How much would that help a phone on standby? Yet no eink display or anything like that.
17) Great to see the back of proprietary connectors but they still come back sometimes.
18) I hate the way things are made to break. Watch out for this. There's usually one thing on a phone that is designed to break. Sometimes it's a moveable part, like a ribbon cable in a slide phone. Sometimes its the USB connector. You can't buy port savers. When they fail you're screwed. Mitigate against this if you can. Try to figure out what the weak spot on your phone is.
19) Lock in software. I have an old backup phone... but I still have to keep the sync software... bit annoying. One day it probably won't work on Windows9 or whatever. People say throw it away but that's just it, throw away society. No, fix it, get it to work and be in control.
All of these things can be mitigated against. But you have to think about these things when you select your new phone.
If the commercialisation of the industry, cut throat tactics and so on aren't good enough as they are for me one thing you can do is buy a slightly older, but popular phone. In my case I never buy a new phone and instead go for something that I already know is popular with the hacking community. I know you guys can give me an insight into what I'm really looking for in life. As an example my last phone was a Galaxy S i9000. Way out of date in a sense. That's the way I find the best way to go. Go with something popular. That way you have some real support like a real man able to handle things yourself, not AppleCare and a 1 year limit. A philosophy for life. You can't have it all but with a bit of thought you can do a lot to get a bit closer to it all.
Hi long time xda fellows. Just wanted to share with you some of my thoughts
Brief Intro
This is just my personal thoughts and it only may apply to me so please don't feel offended by this article. Well, I am developing android apps for a few years now, doing this for a living. Developing various project for my clients most of the time I came across projects which involved "Make it work on android as it works on iOS" and I ended up with the same thing "I need to get an iPhone for testing". I finally took the step 4 months ago and purchased a used iPhone 5 16 GB. The reason was for getting an older version were pretty obvios: I did not wanted to spent too much money on a device which will be used primarily for testing. Iphone 5s was too expensive and 5C was basically an 5 with plastic body.
I am very picky when it comes to my daily driver device. I have owned in the past many devices, my first acceptable device was Galaxy S1 (oh, the lag of android 2.3), then went for Galaxy Nexus (which was quite a good device and I still own it and runs pretty acceptable), Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note 3, LG G2. Given the fact that I have small hands, I found G2 to be quite impressive: such small bezels, pretty acceptable firmware, good camera, great form factor and battery life... until I noticed the slippery back which was the main reason to get rid of it. I can't really understand why producers tend to get this shiny plastic as back-cover which offers zero grip. All the time I had the impression it will slip from my hands. I love the back material on black Nexus 5 and I hope they'll continue to use it on the next model. The Note 3 was quote a near perfect phone, contrary to many, I liked the fake leather back as it gave me good enough grip, the touchwiz isn't that bad, stylus was working very good but, after trying to get used to its form factor for 2 months I had to give up. It was simply to uncomfortable for me use, most of the time I found myself needing to use it with one hand and couldn't. Just try to put the shopping list on it and hold the note in one hand and the grocery basket in the other and then check what you buy. But this really comes to personal preference since I gave it to my wife and she says she'll never want a smaller device.
So back to main idea, I purchased a used iPhone 5 for around 350$ while iPhone 5s it is being sold in my country for around 900$. Since I got rid of Note 3, I told myself that if I paid for it, I should use it, so I started using iPhone 5 as a daily device. This means two gmail accounts, calls, skype and instagram.
First impressions:
Where is my notification light ? After years of getting used to it I find it a bit hard to live without. Many say it is not needed but to be frankly I prefer to look at the phone on my table to see if I missed something rather than waking the screen up. Not to mention that I recently released JeFeel app on Google Play and I receive a lot of Instagram notifications. For each of them my iPhone's screen wakes up.Not great for battery life I suppose. Let be honest, how much would a blinking led cost for production ? one cent? Not to mention the other cool things like RGB LEDs on most of the android devices which can be configured to know exactly what notification you received by the color it shows.
What's with this small text size ? Went to Settings to make it bigger and it seems that the Dynamic Font size only works on some of Apple's apps and the rest simply ignore it. I have good eye view and I really find it too small to comfortable read it. Might be because of only 4 inch of diagonal or something. It was a small relief to find the Bold setting which makes things a bit better. Not to mention browsing reddit funny pictures was not that fun.
After being spoiled for years with SwiftKey keyboard, with multiple language support, swipe, fantastic auto correct, I found to iOS keyboard horrible. The auto correct gives me more trouble than helping me so in the end I disabled it. Also to press 2-3 keys to get to things like comma "," or numbers/symbols I find it far from ergonomic. Basically these were my main three things I did not like, coming from android
After three months of usage
Well, believe it or not I got used to the small text size and now I find it acceptable. Still, the screen size is too small to do serious browsing or email answering. I find the keyboard to be still a pain to use. However, I noticed a lot of other things: * I like the notification center and how notification are shown on lock-screen. Swiping a notification opens the app to which it belongs to without the need to unlock. I like how when I read an email on my computer, the notification from lockscreen gets dismissed. Quite cool.
Control center is handy and I use it mostly to toggle auto rotate lock and media volume. Is great that I can access it from anywhere but sometimes I simply open it by mistake when browsing a webpage in landscape orientation
I like how auto brightness works and it really is pleasant for my eyes.
I like the fact that there is a physical button on front, I am definitely not a fan of using the Power button. On android I specially developed StandBy Touch Advanced app to deal with putting the phone to sleep without reaching the Power key. I took a look at iOS SDK and couldn't find a way to do it so I suppose this is not allowed. I have to say inhere that many Android offered quite a nice way of waking the phone from standy by: LG has KnowckOn, HTC has something similar, OnePlus one has it, if I recall well Sony too... Double tap to wake is way more convenient than searching for power key, especially on tall devices. i5 is not the case since it is easy to reach, but I use the Home key a lot to wake the device.
I am not a big fan of metal and I never use cases, I find it slippery and cold, however given the size of the iPhone, it is easy to hold it and never had the feeling that I drop it.
Battery life is not so great, I charge it every day.However it seems to be dropping constantly and I haven't noticed any battery drain (GooglePlay services drain rings a bell on android ?) I am 95% of the time in WiFi coverage and I did a test: I disabled the Cellular data, since WiFi is always on and have found that the battery life has improved a lot. So even if data is not used, I suppose that the cell module is active, most likely waiting to do a quick switch if WiFi turns to be poor. I would have preferred an option to keep it disabled until actually leaving the WiFi area. This things make me miss tools like Tasker on Android.
I like the screen and color reproduction. There is no back-light bleed and colors look real enough for me. Best LCD screen I had. Also the resolution is more than enough for 4" and I don't miss 1080p from android
iOS feel more smooth, I remember not resetting the phone for about 2 months and it was as smooth as in day one. Transitions are smoother, rotate is smoother, app switching is smoother. I like it, I feel that it's more polished than android and even the screen seems more responsive to touches.
some apps seem better on iOS, with more attention to details. My last app JeFeel relies a lot on instagram so I am using it quite a lot to check followers and pictures. Instagram for iOS is easier to use, easier to reload, I don't know, it just feels better. I also like TapaTalk more and some other apps like Reddit pics browser, skype, dolphin browser and so on. I sure miss FireFox since is my browser on PC and I would have loved to have bookmarks sync but since I don't to that much browsing, I'm ok with Dolphin/Safari. A special mention goes to Safari for reading mode (or how it is called) when it renders the text from the page at big size, making it easier to read. Great feature.
As android developer I rely on Google services: Maps, GMail, Google+, Drive and some apps are working ok, some are bad. The biggest disappointment is the Gmail app which is more ergonomic and nicer on Android. No contact pictures, no swipe to delete, I miss these features. Also the rendered text in emails is quite small, so it's good enough for email checking if you don't have many emails.
I haven't changed my ringtone yet because from what I saw I need iTunes for that... well that sucks.
Ah the camera, I don't think I made so many pictures with a phone. I know the camera is not top of the chart, but the form factor of the phone actually made it easier for me to take it out and grab a quick picture. Note 3 had a great camera but getting it out of the pocket, 2 hands needed to use it... You know where I'm going to.
I also like the silent toggle on the left size, very convenient but I would have preferred a visual notification on status bar, that is on, like on android.
As for widgets and stuff, on my android I initially did all sort of customizations and widgets but in the end I started to install more apps, drag shortcuts around and it became a mess. Basically I ended up with a grid of icons, just as the iOS launcher is. So for me, the lack of widgets is not a negative point
I don't like the dialer, seems so... I don't know... limited. No contacts photos on Recents/Contacts list makes it look boring. I also have like a 1-2 seconds delay between the moment I pick up and the moment the caller hears me, that is annoying and does not happen with same SIM on other phones
Unfortunately after 4 months of usage my iPhone's camera started to fail. Sometimes it worked sometimes it just shown black screen. After a few more days I have realized that the screen glass on top of the phone was raised 1-2 milliliters above the frame. I went to a service center (since no warranty) and they glued it somehow back, and now the screen is ok, but the camera still does not work. One nice addition was discovering that I can disable the whole camera feature, so I did and it disappeared from apps and Control Center. I guess that is the only customization of Control center hehe.
Since the camera is not working and I don't want to put any more money on this iPhone, I don't know how long I will be using it, probably until Nexus X or Moto X+1 is released. Or why not, IPhone 6. But overall I can say that the experience with iOS was not as bad as expected. Probably it has to do with me not using so many widgets and apps. I don't remember how many times I have flashed android phones with so many custom ROMs in order to achieve a better phone. Indeed on android you get more freedom, you install custom ROMs and kernels and you squeeze some more performance but this sometimes comes with the cost of bugs and instability. This is the beauty of android, you can customize it, want a toggle of auto rotate, you have it on a custom ROM, want different screen calibration, want to hide on screen buttons, want... you get the point. On iOS you are limited, you can't customize too much and after a while I guess you just get used to it. Unfortunately Android OEM's have started to implement various techniques that will detect rooting/bootloader unlock and will void warranty. We all know the famous Knox trigger on Samsung devices, so installing a custom ROM is starting to get harder and harder without voiding warranty.
Another point I'd like the mention is updates. On android things are starting to catch up, but still with updates through carriers and all the delays, after an android version is released you need to wait for 3-6-never months for an update. Of course this is not available for nexus line. The updates are primarily for flagship devices as previous year devices will take even longer to receive an update. This really forces me to look for a nexus when I get an android device and I sure hope they will get it right this time and not make cuts on screen quality or battery size as on previous models. Motorola seems to be doing quite a good job on updates and I hope they will continue to do so in the future. Android L seems like a really big change and I think it will start to catch up on next year's flagships, so mostly on Q2 2014 but given the skinning of frameworks like TouchWiz/Optimus/and others I somehow doubt the user will see too much material changes. I hope performance will improve since I can see small lag here and there even on latest models. As for iOS8 it seems promising, the new keyboard support will allow fixing one of my major annoyances, also battery statistics will offer more info on apps battery usage. I am curious to see how widgets on Notification center will be received but seeing Apple opening is a good thing. I am also keeping an eye on their Swift language and might start learn it since ObjectiveC was never ever on my taste. I really like the swipe on screens to go back, that is implemented on some apps and I am really curious to see how on bigger screen sizes, reaching the top left of the screen for Back option will fell file. I sometimes feel the need of a Back button. I fear that on 4.7 and 5.5" iPhone one handed usage will be hurt by having hard times to reach Back within an app.
So in the end, is iOS that bad ? It depends, for me, when I use the OS for a few seconds to launch apps that I am using, it does not matter so much what OS it is, as long as its fast and reliable. I find iphone 5 to be fast and smooth and it's a device 2 years old. I bet Iphone 5s with his TouchId and 64bits would have a bigger impact on me and to be honest I am starting to see phones with screen bigger than 4"... too big. It would be interesting to find myself buying iPhone 5S as my next phone.
Thanks for reading and sorry for the long post, hope I haven't bored you too much.
I got my s9 plus around December 2019. Bought it off eBay for 260 dollars - it was so cheap because the rear camera doesn't work properly, which was actually a selling point for me 'cause I hardly ever take pictures and I am not a "selfies" type of guy. Actually I wish they sold android phones without cameras, since the idea of everyone in our society walking around with devices that are incredibly convenient for governments and Google scumbags to spy on us is all very Orwellian, when you think about it. Anyway - aside from the fact that the operating system came from the same cultural marxists behind rhe Project Veritas crap, and it has probably got all sorts of backdoors for any sort of warrants-optional feds, the s9 plus is admittedly a damn fine phone; it's not mt work phone so I don't use it for work related stuff, just day to day stuff, like a calendar/alarm, fitness tracker, weather apps, casual email and wrbsurfing, *****ute/minds.com and gacha JRPGs. Basically it's a PDA that I play games on and use to watch youtube's replacement sites. It's a sweet casual gaming phone for non-AAA games, and I would like to keep using it for that.
It just got Android 10, and then Samsung just updated the ui, and it feels like it would be kind if a waste to try and install lineageOS on it right now, but it isn't exactly the newest and greatest phone, either. Basically what I'm wondering is this: when would be the perfect time window when the s9+ stops being too modern to risk bricking while it's still a perfectly acceptable phone for the version of Android that it already has, and becomes an outdated phone that can only be improved by putting lineageOS on it?