Soo..tinkering with my Raspberry PI, somehow the idea formed in my mind it would be nice to have a Linux (Android) phone to play with, with all the flexibility and freedom that supposedly comes with it.
In the last three weeks, I sold my iPhone 6 plus, ordered a LG Nexus 5X, a Samsung 6 Edge Plus and a Blackberry Priv (sorry Amazon). And, today I finally settled for an iPhone 6S Plus. Boy, not all is well in Apple land, but using Android feels like being covered in **** up to your neck.
I went for the Nexus 5X because they say it offers the purest Android experience and little to no bloatware. The first bummer was the shoddy build quality that thing creaks like my long dead grandmother. Every time you move your hand the phone groans as if its going to fall apart every minute. I'm not kidding you its that bad. The next let down was the camera, which according to the interwebs finally brings Android cameras up to par with Apple phone cameras. Thats a blatant lie, my iPhone 4S used to take better picture that that POS. One of the photoes I took featured two people skiing and they didn't have facial features whatsoever, and it wasn't motion blur. Its still creeping me out. At the end of day 1 with the phone I had lost all confidence using the camera, because you never knew if the camera got the shot right. I never had that feeling with the iPhone.
I used to think of Android having a understated and somewhat professional look, but that sure has changed with their latest release, even iOS looks converservative next to this eye cancer inducing atrocity.
Next up up was the Galaxy 6 Edge Plus and I gotta say its sure does have a nice screen. The curved screen looks nice and is accentuated by Samsung's choice of wallpapers, it feels a bit like looking into a 3D device. The camera is decent as well, I really like the double homebutton shortcut to bring it up even if the phone is locked. But thats where the niceties end. The iPhone 6 is somewhat slippy if you use if without a case, but the Edge is 10 times worse when it comes to ergonomices. Its not just slippy but also its really uncomfortable holding that thing, because of the slim edges. It comes with Touchwiz, Samsungs pimped up version of Android, and boy its one
feature overloaded mess. Also they couldn't just leave the edges to stand as a design feature all by itself, they had to cramp some weired functionality into this which of course nobody uses because its totally uses and just makes things ten times more complicated.
The last Android device I tried was a Blackberry Priv. I always held Blackberry in rather high regard, I don't know why but its always been like this but after 2 days with the Priv thats a thing of the past. First of all, that thing get hots, I mean really hot I thought the damn thing is going to explode right into my face when I set it up, but even later every time I did something with the phone for more than 5 minutes to would start heating up. The back is creaky like the 5X. The slider sure is nice, but the physical keyboard is really just a gimmick these days, its fun to use for the first 10 minutes but starts to get old really fast because its actually a lot slower to type that way. The camera features 18MP but its 18 really poor MP, and the photos looks like crap especially
in low light situations.
All that freedom Android promises comes at a price, that is being exposed to Google 24/7. It gets really creepy after a while I'm not super paranoid when it comes to my privacy but using an Android feels like being monitored all day long. I logged off my Google account every day in Chrome but sooner or later the browser would log me back in all by itself. I guess you can switch this off somehow but the setting is hidden somewhere in their god forsaken privacy tool. Its completey intransparent and complicated to use, and I assume they did that on purpose.
The app selection still sucks, Sky Safari didn't work properly on any of the three devices. The notification spam is super annoying, every other minute the damn thing starts flashing, beeping or whatever it does trying to get your attention its a bloody nightmare.
The decision to end my Android adventures finally came when I tried to paste a simple URL from Chrome in the blackberry hub, which didn't work. I mean seriously its 2016 and they can't implement copy/paste reliably??
I packed the crap up & sent it back this morning and drove to the nearest Apple store to pick up my new iPhone 6S plus. It feels good to be home.
In the last three weeks, I sold my iPhone 6 plus, ordered a LG Nexus 5X, a Samsung 6 Edge Plus and a Blackberry Priv (sorry Amazon). And, today I finally settled for an iPhone 6S Plus. Boy, not all is well in Apple land, but using Android feels like being covered in **** up to your neck.
I went for the Nexus 5X because they say it offers the purest Android experience and little to no bloatware. The first bummer was the shoddy build quality that thing creaks like my long dead grandmother. Every time you move your hand the phone groans as if its going to fall apart every minute. I'm not kidding you its that bad. The next let down was the camera, which according to the interwebs finally brings Android cameras up to par with Apple phone cameras. Thats a blatant lie, my iPhone 4S used to take better picture that that POS. One of the photoes I took featured two people skiing and they didn't have facial features whatsoever, and it wasn't motion blur. Its still creeping me out. At the end of day 1 with the phone I had lost all confidence using the camera, because you never knew if the camera got the shot right. I never had that feeling with the iPhone.
I used to think of Android having a understated and somewhat professional look, but that sure has changed with their latest release, even iOS looks converservative next to this eye cancer inducing atrocity.
Next up up was the Galaxy 6 Edge Plus and I gotta say its sure does have a nice screen. The curved screen looks nice and is accentuated by Samsung's choice of wallpapers, it feels a bit like looking into a 3D device. The camera is decent as well, I really like the double homebutton shortcut to bring it up even if the phone is locked. But thats where the niceties end. The iPhone 6 is somewhat slippy if you use if without a case, but the Edge is 10 times worse when it comes to ergonomices. Its not just slippy but also its really uncomfortable holding that thing, because of the slim edges. It comes with Touchwiz, Samsungs pimped up version of Android, and boy its one
feature overloaded mess. Also they couldn't just leave the edges to stand as a design feature all by itself, they had to cramp some weired functionality into this which of course nobody uses because its totally uses and just makes things ten times more complicated.
The last Android device I tried was a Blackberry Priv. I always held Blackberry in rather high regard, I don't know why but its always been like this but after 2 days with the Priv thats a thing of the past. First of all, that thing get hots, I mean really hot I thought the damn thing is going to explode right into my face when I set it up, but even later every time I did something with the phone for more than 5 minutes to would start heating up. The back is creaky like the 5X. The slider sure is nice, but the physical keyboard is really just a gimmick these days, its fun to use for the first 10 minutes but starts to get old really fast because its actually a lot slower to type that way. The camera features 18MP but its 18 really poor MP, and the photos looks like crap especially
in low light situations.
All that freedom Android promises comes at a price, that is being exposed to Google 24/7. It gets really creepy after a while I'm not super paranoid when it comes to my privacy but using an Android feels like being monitored all day long. I logged off my Google account every day in Chrome but sooner or later the browser would log me back in all by itself. I guess you can switch this off somehow but the setting is hidden somewhere in their god forsaken privacy tool. Its completey intransparent and complicated to use, and I assume they did that on purpose.
The app selection still sucks, Sky Safari didn't work properly on any of the three devices. The notification spam is super annoying, every other minute the damn thing starts flashing, beeping or whatever it does trying to get your attention its a bloody nightmare.
The decision to end my Android adventures finally came when I tried to paste a simple URL from Chrome in the blackberry hub, which didn't work. I mean seriously its 2016 and they can't implement copy/paste reliably??
I packed the crap up & sent it back this morning and drove to the nearest Apple store to pick up my new iPhone 6S plus. It feels good to be home.
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