Mobile Phones

[mwmackenzie]

I know it's been done to death but looking for an updated view...

Thinking my next phone will not be an iPhone as they seem to be sh*t and the 7 is meant to be more of an internal upgrade according to what I've read so I'm thinking of jumping ship to Android, not sure how well my head will cope with the switch as I'm one for familiarity usually which is why I've stayed with Apple all these years..

So what is the latest and best?? I need a decent camera as I use that all the time for work and need loads of storage, my current 128GB iPhone 6 is almost full mostly music and pics, I like to listen to music when out and about so something with decent quality music output would also be nice

Thanks in advance for yer views!

That said if the iPhone 7 is visually different and waaaaay better than the 6 I could end up there again, but my mates with Samsungs say the car apps are much better on Android they have a great one that shows your track days speeds times etc and dash apps that show all sorts from your OBD2 port that look cool so that's my main motivation to switch camps

[DDtB]

When you say the iPhone is "sh*t", what is it that annoys you about it specifically? That should help determine what you may or may not like about the androids. Not totally up to speed with them but the Samsungs seem to be the daddy there these days, the Edge models certainly look sexy.

Having had both android and iOS in the past... I'll be sticking with iOS for a bit. It's all down to personal preference though.... neither is actually 'better' as they both have their own issues. Depends which issues annoy you the most.

Also, not sure if it helps, but check out Harry's Laptimer. Does all the track day car stuff you're looking for... available on iOS and Android.

[Doc883]

Samsung galaxy s7 edge or Sony xperia z5 (23 megapixel camera).

I hate they ay Apple market their phones by not offering micro sd support, money grabbing bar-stewards

[graeme]

Apple's strategy not to support SD cards is spot on in my opinion.

1) SD cards are pretty crap. They fail a lot. Maybe you've never noticed, and I've never had one fail either, but scale up to millions of devices and the failures become statistically significant. Go see what industrial spec SD cards cost. It's a LOT.
2) Having removable storage on the filesystem makes application development trickier.
3) It makes the user experience trickier too. "Where do you want to keep your music?" My mum would answer that with, "I don't care, why doesn't it just work!?" Then there's all the backup issues, moving/copying files from place to place etc. iPhone users don't want to care about this sort of stuff.
4) iDevices have traditionally not exposed the filesystem at all. iDevice users very rarely think about what they are doing in terms of files. That's one of the beauties of iOS vs OSX/Windows etc.

All this stuff is fine the Android world where the first thing anyone does is install a file system explorer app, but it doesn't fit at all with Apple's squeaky-clean "everything must just work" philosophy. Android as of 6.0 handles this stuff a bit better than it used to. Still sucks though.

I don't think it's anything to do with upselling. That's just a bonus. It's the number of nightmares it removes for support, developers and users.

PS I'm an Android user and would never go back. I would never try to convince my parents to leave iOS though... I couldn't stand all the support requests!

[woody]

All this stuff is fine the Android world where the first thing anyone does is install a file system explorer app,

Do they? Never hear of it, no idea why I;d need it and have been using nexus android devices for years.

Mark, last few phone have been the latest (spec'd and made for google) nexus; plain android, no crappy skins, less bloat, cheap and I can drop them with little fear. Dosen't suit everyone but works for me.

[neil]

I'm liking the Motorolas at the moment. Currently got a Moto X Play but they've got one for every budget and there's no bloatware. I had a Sony Xperia Z previously which I liked except for the bloatware and was looking at the latest version and iPhones when I needed to replace it but couldn't bring myself to part with the cash, so went for the much cheaper Moto and haven't been disappointed. Except for the really budget ones they all support Qualcomm quick charging so you spend less time with it plugged in to a wall socket although even without that the battery lifes pretty decent.

[rossybee]

Hmmmmm interesting and timeous for me as I'm looking to change from Windows (finally admitting the limitations) to Android.

Looking to go mid-range as I'll be buying my phone outright - had half settled on a Samsung A5 2016, but heard good things about the nexus phones, further backed up by your comments Woody. Interested to know more...

Sorry for piggy-backing on your thread Mark

[pete]

+1 for motorola.

A guy in work bought a Moto G and was so impressed I got one too. then bought 2 more for the rest of the family. Latest Android OS, SD card and they are only 150 quid (roughly) contract free. I really don't see why I'dd want anything else.

[neil]

You can get the Moto G4 for £139 at Tesco online at the moment - normally £159 there but there's £20 off until Sunday if you spend over £150.

[graeme]

Moto G family here too. Got 3 of them. Camera is a bit pants, which is the only reason I didn't recommend it to Mark.

[Lazydonkey]

Not going to go over the pros and cons (i have iphone for work and S6 edge for personal) but the switch isn't that hard if you are using cross platform tools.

Sounds really obvious but a guy in here made the switch to android and is going back as his whole family use icalendar, facetime, find my friends etc etc. As such it makes no sense for him to be on android.

in contrast mrs donkey had an iphone but used gmail, google calendar etc and found the switch really easy.

There really isn't much between the platforms these days but the lack of customisation on iphone does mean you're less likely to massively fcuk it all up

[mwmackenzie]

Thanks guys, I'll have a look at Harry's app

Anyhow my main gripe with my iPhone 6 is that it turns off randomly with charge less than 40%. I went to the Apple store who checked it and said it's fine, well it's not as my job has some travelling to clients properties and I use my phone as a sat nav which can randomly turn off and not turn back on. sometimes it'll hit 1% and die other it can be 38% battery and just die and not turn back on, it's been doing this for months now and it's doing my tits in! Apple say the battery is showing as 81% OK it needs to be below 80% before they'll fix it, offered me a new phone for £225 Other than that it's OK, I like the OS, we use facetime and the wife does want to get our calendars sync'd as I can't follow her shift pattern very well as it is and end up saying to someone I'll do something only to find she's working So form that point of view I like the iPhone.

BUT, I'd like the design to move on with a new model (iPhone7) too not just an internal upgrade as rumoured, so that it feels new and with my contract coming to an end tying into another 2 years with something that doesn't feel shiny and new doesn't excite me lol.... I'll probably hold off until the 7 is launched and see if it does anything for me but 60/40 jumping ship at the mo....

Thanks again for the input!

[Dominic]

Good timing with this post for me too, as about to renew contract, provider and phone.

Have been with three for the past two years, and while their customer services and costs have been good,their coverage just is not good enough, not what I was used to with orange/ EE. They regularly have problems with the mast local to my office, which means for a week or so, every couple of months, there is no signal. I also often get missed calls, when I apparently have a full signal. These issues are common to other three users in my office building so it's not just me doing something stoopid.

I am looking at moving to Vodafone - unless anyone has horror stories? I appreciate that they will be more expensive than three, but I am willing to pay in order to get the better coverage again.

Phone wise, I just don't get the fuss about iphones and am not an apple fan, so ruled them out (possibly at my own pigheaded loss). So looking at Samsungs. Previously had HTCs which were pretty decent, current phone is a Sony Xperia something which had been a decent fast phone, but is a bit fragile (on it's forth screen), but may be a reflection of the abuse it has had rather than it being too fragile. Not keen on it having a glass back to it (which had been smashed for some time) as it is just something else to get broken.

[neil]

If you've got a habit of breaking screens have a look at the Moto X Force - it comes with a 4 year warranty on the supposedly unbreakable screen.

[DDtB]

I had horrendous problems with Vodafone and vowed I'll never give them a penny again.

Their porting process wasn't working and yet they were still putting customers into it. Net result was over a month with no working phone and was lied to repeatedly. Ended up contacting an employee via linked in to get it sorted who told me I'd have been stuck in an infinite loop if I hadn't. Utter farce of a company.

The signal is good though.

With O2 now. No complaints.