Android - The grass is NOT greener

[Risco]

Well I decided a couple of months ago to try Android. I kept hearing how customisable it was, and how fast it ran....

Month One:

Xperia Z2.

A absolutely gorgeous looking phone. The camera was incredible, the screen a delight to use. BUT i lost out on my integration with Macbook. No longer did I have iCloud bookmark syncing, contacts syncing or photos. I had to choose googles options, which worked but not as seamless. Also iTunes match naturally did not work, so I had to upload my entire library to google music....Oh and did I mention the camera constantly overheated? The front facing stereo speakers and noise cancelling headphones were great though!

Then comes my motorbike and my Scala rider. Boy did this phone hate my scala, sure it would work "ok" with music, but calling was impossible. It had no inbuilt voice recognition, only voice dial which NEVER worked it would dial then ask me to confirm and say "did not get that", grrrrr. Oh and after a month the wireless charger stopped working and became demagnetised.

Battery life was phenomenal compared to my 5s once I enable stamina mode. I was lasting two days of intense use. However once I started gaming, everything became crap. All games I tried ran considerably slower thant iPhone. I play a lot of Real Racing 3 and OMG laaggggg..

Month 2:

Samsung Galaxy S5. Well I decided to try one to see if it was all it made up to be. .... First off it feels cheap, tacky and plastic. Not a good start... The display is bloody great, with vibrant colours but everything seemed artificial. Pictures from camera were stunning, but it struggled in low light.

From an OS point of view, it seemed a tad faster than the Z2. However the same issues of integration with my Macbook naturally were apparent from the off. I also miss iMessage. My entire family has iPhones, now I had to download WhatsApp to stop getting charged for picture messages....

There fingerprint scanner is utter crap, you have to swipe rather than place your thumb unlike iPhone 5s. It is unreliable, and works intermittently. The speakers re on the back and lack any clarity. Battery life is far less than X2.

Oh and scala rider worked fine due to S-voice working much better than google implementation.


The end result? I am running as fast as I can to get an iPhone 6. The bigger screen coupled with iOS is the way forward. Android, gaming , widget and performance are massively overrated.

 

[dukebound85]

I actually like Android on my Nexus. In some ways, better than iOS

 

[Dookieman]

Well I decided a couple of months ago to try Android. I kept hearing how customisable it was, and how fast it ran....

Month One:

Xperia Z2.

A absolutely gorgeous looking phone. The camera was incredible, the screen a delight to use. BUT i lost out on my integration with Macbook. No longer did I have iCloud bookmark syncing, contacts syncing or photos. I had to choose googles options, which worked but not as seamless. Also iTunes match naturally did not work, so I had to upload my entire library to google music....Oh and did I mention the camera constantly overheated? The front facing stereo speakers and noise cancelling headphones were great though!

Then comes my motorbike and my Scala rider. Boy did this phone hate my scala, sure it would work "ok" with music, but calling was impossible. It had no inbuilt voice recognition, only voice dial which NEVER worked it would dial then ask me to confirm and say "did not get that", grrrrr. Oh and after a month the wireless charger stopped working and became demagnetised.

Battery life was phenomenal compared to my 5s once I enable stamina mode. I was lasting two days of intense use. However once I started gaming, everything became crap. All games I tried ran considerably slower thant iPhone. I play a lot of Real Racing 3 and OMG laaggggg..

Month 2:

Samsung Galaxy S5. Well I decided to try one to see if it was all it made up to be. .... First off it feels cheap, tacky and plastic. Not a good start... The display is bloody great, with vibrant colours but everything seemed artificial. Pictures from camera were stunning, but it struggled in low light.

From an OS point of view, it seemed a tad faster than the Z2. However the same issues of integration with my Macbook naturally were apparent from the off. I also miss iMessage. My entire family has iPhones, now I had to download WhatsApp to stop getting charged for picture messages....

There fingerprint scanner is utter crap, you have to swipe rather than place your thumb unlike iPhone 5s. It is unreliable, and works intermittently. The speakers re on the back and lack any clarity. Battery life is far less than X2.

Oh and scala rider worked fine due to S-voice working much better than google implementation.


The end result? I am running as fast as I can to get an iPhone 6. The bigger screen coupled with iOS is the way forward. Android, gaming , widget and performance are massively overrated.

I didn't think gaming or performance were attributes Android was known for. A lot of games don't even make it on Android.

 

[Paddle1]

This has nothing to do with iOS 8.

Edit: The thread has been moved.

 

[JaySoul]

The Z2 definitely has issues.

In the end, if you are tightly integrated in one ecosystem, you'll find it hard to switch over to another one.

That's why I've become more "ecosystem agnostic" so if I want to switch, I can.

 

[The Game 161]

Well I decided a couple of months ago to try Android. I kept hearing how customisable it was, and how fast it ran....

Month One:

Xperia Z2.

A absolutely gorgeous looking phone. The camera was incredible, the screen a delight to use. BUT i lost out on my integration with Macbook. No longer did I have iCloud bookmark syncing, contacts syncing or photos. I had to choose googles options, which worked but not as seamless. Also iTunes match naturally did not work, so I had to upload my entire library to google music....Oh and did I mention the camera constantly overheated? The front facing stereo speakers and noise cancelling headphones were great though!

Then comes my motorbike and my Scala rider. Boy did this phone hate my scala, sure it would work "ok" with music, but calling was impossible. It had no inbuilt voice recognition, only voice dial which NEVER worked it would dial then ask me to confirm and say "did not get that", grrrrr. Oh and after a month the wireless charger stopped working and became demagnetised.

Battery life was phenomenal compared to my 5s once I enable stamina mode. I was lasting two days of intense use. However once I started gaming, everything became crap. All games I tried ran considerably slower thant iPhone. I play a lot of Real Racing 3 and OMG laaggggg..

Month 2:

Samsung Galaxy S5. Well I decided to try one to see if it was all it made up to be. .... First off it feels cheap, tacky and plastic. Not a good start... The display is bloody great, with vibrant colours but everything seemed artificial. Pictures from camera were stunning, but it struggled in low light.

From an OS point of view, it seemed a tad faster than the Z2. However the same issues of integration with my Macbook naturally were apparent from the off. I also miss iMessage. My entire family has iPhones, now I had to download WhatsApp to stop getting charged for picture messages....

There fingerprint scanner is utter crap, you have to swipe rather than place your thumb unlike iPhone 5s. It is unreliable, and works intermittently. The speakers re on the back and lack any clarity. Battery life is far less than X2.

Oh and scala rider worked fine due to S-voice working much better than google implementation.


The end result? I am running as fast as I can to get an iPhone 6. The bigger screen coupled with iOS is the way forward. Android, gaming , widget and performance are massively overrated.

All what you wrote is fair enough. It's not for you but widgets are certainly not overrated. They are great to have on your home screen. great for quick info/news when on the go. makes life far easier.

gaming for one is very good but that doesn't mean much to me..not much of a gamer.

 

[PFKMan23]

The Z2 definitely has issues.

In the end, if you are tightly integrated in one ecosystem, you'll find it hard to switch over to another one.

That's why I've become more "ecosystem agnostic" so if I want to switch, I can.

Exactly. In the case of the OP, he's tied to IOS and thats that he's used to, so it's harder. I on the other hand owned the iPhone 4S and the 5 for some time and they did nothing for me. Nevertheless I'm not really tied to either ecosystem, though I do feel that Mavericks is better than Windows 8. We'll see about Yosemite.

 

[apolloa]

I'm just glad the OP doesn't have blinckers on and tipped their toe into the waters...

I'm surprised RR3 lagged though? For me it stutters a lot in my Retina iPad Mini, very annoying. But then I always ask myself why I play the money grabbing game haha.

Perhaps the OP should try the Z3? It has a faster processor in it.

Hmmm.... gonna have to take a serious look at this Z3 and Z3 Compact as for me, battery life and the camera are important.

 

[Shuri]

I'm just glad the OP doesn't have blinckers on and tipped their toe into the waters...

I'm surprised RR3 lagged though? For me it stutters a lot in my Retina iPad Mini, very annoying. But then I always ask myself why I play the money grabbing game haha.

Perhaps the OP should try the Z3? It has a faster processor in it.

Hmmm.... gonna have to take a serious look at this Z3 and Z3 Compact as for me, battery life and the camera are important.

Somehow I feel like switching to a faster processor phone can't be the answer, if the "slower" one is a flagship phone released in 2014..

 

[Fireblade]

The grass is not greener here, but it tastes much better...

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

Samsung Galaxy S5. Well I decided to try one to see if it was all it made up to be. .... First off it feels cheap, tacky and plastic. Not a good start..

Why would you buy a device that feels that way to you? I really don't care what type of material it's made of, as long as it has good build quality. But I would never buy something that feels cheap and tacky, unless it's actually cheap in price. Those type of statements make it hard to believe your other thoughts.

 

[burgman]

[/B]

All what you wrote is fair enough. It's not for you but widgets are certainly not overrated. They are great to have on your home screen. great for quick info/news when on the go. makes life far easier.

gaming for one is very good but that doesn't mean much to me..not much of a gamer.

For home screen quick info/news Window Phone 8.1 is at the top. The fingerprint sensor was one of the major reasons I sold my S5, plus Samsungs apps like allshare, chaton etc. I'm running Yosemite/IOS8 on my Imac and 5S. Continuity is very nice. I leave my Iphone on the charger upstairs for best reception and make/recieve calls in my basement office on my Imac or Ipad.

 

[Shuri]

Why would you buy a device that feels that way to you? I really don't care what type of material it's made of, as long as it has good build quality. But I would never buy something that feels cheap and tacky, unless it's actually cheap in price. Those type of statements make it hard to believe your other thoughts.

You know there's the internet, where you can buy stuff like.. without ever touching it till you get it.. yo?

 

[ucfgrad93]

[/B]

All what you wrote is fair enough. It's not for you but widgets are certainly not overrated. They are great to have on your home screen. great for quick info/news when on the go. makes life far easier.

I love having widgets. With them I'm able to see so much information that I need without having to go into an app. It was one of the things that got me to switch from iOS.

 

[mrex]

It's not for you but widgets are certainly not overrated. They are great to have on your home screen.

also great to have them on a lock screen(s). and i have a smartwatch so im using some widgets remotely from my watch too.

 

[Jacksonc]

I'm surprised RR3 lagged though? For me it stutters a lot in my Retina iPad Mini, very annoying.

That's weird. The only thing that I know of to fix that is to restart the device if you haven't in a long time.

 

[Shanghaichica]

I don't know about gaming. I play sporadically and play things like angry birds, Rayman jungle run, plants vs zombies, sonic , fruit ninja and soul calibur. They play fine on my android phones but I don't think that they are demanding games. I think if you are heavily into gaming you should probably stick with iOS as they have the latest games first.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

You know there's the internet, where you can buy stuff like.. without ever touching it till you get it.. yo?

So the internet lied and told the OP the S5 is made of titanium instead of plastic?

 

[Jacksonc]

I don't know about gaming. I play sporadically and play things like angry birds, Rayman jungle run, plants vs zombies, sonic , fruit ninja and soul calibur. They play fine on my android phones but I don't think that they are demanding games. I think if you are heavily into gaming you should probably stick with iOS as they have the latest games first.

I agree. Especially now that ios 8 includes Metal.

 

[Dontazemebro]

I think if you are heavily into gaming you should probably stick with iOS as they have the latest games first.

This is one of the main reasons why I can never ditch iOS. You have a much broader selection of games and exclusive/rare apps. Maybe one day when the play store becomes a cash cow like the app store, Android will get dibs on those games.

 

[Shuri]

So the internet lied and told the OP the S5 is made of titanium instead of plastic?

That's not the point and you know it. So stop making a fool of yourself.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

That's not the point and you know it. So stop making a fool of yourself.

It's very much the point. Don't like plastic, then don't buy plastic then complain "plastic feels like plastic".

 

[apolloa]

This is one of the main reasons why I can never ditch iOS. You have a much broader selection of games and exclusive/rare apps. Maybe one day when the play store becomes a cash cow like the app store, Android will get dibs on those games.

The majority of games are on both formats, plus both sides have exclusive games like Bioshock on iOS, and the Tegra devices getting Half Life 2 and Portal and Trine 2 etc.

Games performance is the same on both from what I've seen, I have both. For me though out the box the new Sony Z3 range win with gaming as they will wirelessly connect to a Dual Shock controller and now Remote Play PS4 games. And then with the Nvidia Shield you can remote play your PC games.

 

[Shuri]

It's very much the point. Don't like plastic, then don't buy plastic then complain "plastic feels like plastic".

The nexus 5 is made out of plastic: It feels gorgeous. The S5 imo doesn't. How could you know this beforehand only with the information that their both plastic?
Plastic is a very general term.

 

[WrenFGun]

The Z2 definitely has issues.

In the end, if you are tightly integrated in one ecosystem, you'll find it hard to switch over to another one.

That's why I've become more "ecosystem agnostic" so if I want to switch, I can.

I agree with this; I use mostly google services [calendar, gmail, drive, g+ for photo backup, hangouts, maps] but on my iPhone and Macbook Air. If I find an Android that's a better fit than my 5C, it's a seamless switch, but I'm not really lessening my experience not using things like Safari and Apple Maps since I think Google's products are better but Apple's hardware is better.