Sorry. Not a joke. This is not me jumping ship in the traditional sense: I’m still proud to rock the name Droid Hayabusa, and the Android platform is still near & dear to me. However. As much as I might love the Android platform, I’m objectively analytical enough to realize when the cards are - quite frankly - stacked against me. Being well aware that pride and stubbornness are traits that rarely pay off, I have no problem exploring my options.
As I did – in a huge way – a couple months ago.
Let me wind back the clock here a bit: I was first introduced to the Android platform roughly four years ago in the form of my first smartphone – a Droid X. I’d never really considered going the Apple route for one simple reason – I couldn’t get near the Apple store in our local mall here due to my “don’t come within 15 feet of a dude in skinny jeans” rule. But I happened to be in my Verizon’s store around contract renewal time and voila – I walked out with a shiny Droid X. Unlimited data for a cool $30/month.
First off – I was fascinated by what the phone could do. Just imagining apps and searching for them in the app store – I swear there was only ONE app I could imagine that didn’t already exist.
Side note: the only app I ever dreamt up – which I still would love to have – is a little gem called SPEED TRAP. Basically, it relies on a) your GPS, and b) a nationwide network of users. The way it would work: let’s say you’re out driving one day and you note an asshole cop parked on the side of the road pointing his radar gun at you and your innocent travelers. You’d reach for your phone, tap a widget on the homescreen, and your position would automatically be documented and dispersed to the entire network. In other words, you’d spot a speed trap, tap a button, and everyone else with the app on their phone would receive notice that an asshole cop was at such-&-such a location looking to ruin commutes for people; this would afford them the opportunity to adjust their driving accordingly. A good additional side note: to prevent annoying false alarms, it might be good to have a two-stage warning process; one user hits the widget and a “tentative” status alert is sent out. A second user hits the widget in the same location within a reasonable time frame and a “confirmed” status alert is sent out. Oh shit, that’s HOT. You could pare it down, choose which zip codes you want to receive alerts from…I’m a f***ing genius.
Anyways. What were we talking about? Oh yeah…Droid X, my first phone. Well, OK, here’s the thing – I manage money as a hobby/ exercise in critical thinking. One of the biggest selling points in the smartphone was that many of my accounts can be managed via various broker apps. Brilliant! …except the apps were slow and glitch-ridden, as it turned out. Very frustrating to lose money because the phone you paid a shit-ton of money for – in conjunction with the cellular service you’re paying shit-tons of money every month for (remember I was with VERIZON at this point) – isn’t working like it’s supposed to.
Now, those of you who have been smartphone users for the past four years or so will recall what first started happening shortly thereafter: the 4G networks started rolling out. What a game-changer! So awesome. Blinding-fast Internet? Oh hell yeah! What could possibly go wrong??
Now, my thinking was this – these apps I’m struggling with? They’re constantly pulling data from various brokerages as price changes; therefore, it’s most likely the fact that I’m only on 3G that causes these apps to be so laggy and glitch. Right? I fought the urge for as long as I could…but when Verizon/Motorola pumped out their first-ever 4G device – the Droid Bionic – I was there on launch day begging them to take my money (and yes, I was uneligible for an upgrade at this point so I had to open up a second line).
Well, that was almost an instant let-down. The Bionic – no two ways about it – sucked. Here are some major problems with it: while my Droid X battery lasted for on average thirty-six hours, the Bionic would take a full battery to the graveyard in under eight hours. Also? It wasn’t any faster than the X. YES, the data speeds were quicker to a degree; I could download a full-length audio album from the Amazon app in thirty seconds whereas before it took a full minute. Yawn! My money apps were still screwy and glitchy, and what I took away from all this: the data speed differences were – for my purposes – negligible. The problems I was experiencing had to do with the operational speed of the device.
Also – the headphone jack quit working in under two months. Piece of shit.
At this point I started going down the bottomless rabbit hole of looking for answers. I researched. I rooted. I ROMed. Found a couple so-so custom ROMs that helped slightly with battery speed. However, at this point, nothing caused an improvement dramatic enough to make me comfortable such that I’d be willing to put money on the line with only my smartphone to protect me from erratic market moves.
Then I started hearing whispers of a new Verizon 4G phone…the fabled Galaxy Nexus, rumored to be released in a few short months.
I read up. 4G? Check. Better processer? Check. Also…a pure android phone. In other words – most phones run on a hybrid of the Android platform and software provided by the device manufacturer. This was to be a device with NO manufacturer interference with the Android experience.
Too good to be true, right? Let me tell you: IT WAS. Three short GD months after opening up a new line to get a Bionic at a discount (still paid $350, thanks guys!) I’m in line at another Verizon on another launch day with another handful of hundred-dollar-bills waiting to get gouged.
Let me give you the Cliff’s notes version here:
1. Anyone experiencing an issue with smartphone battery life and subsequently decides to make the move TO a Galaxy Nexus is clearly retarded. Me included. The size & type of screen you’re looking at versus the size battery powering it is laughable. It’s the equivalent of trying to run a drive-in movie projector with a battery-powered Maglite.
2. All of my apps continued to fail me regularly.
3. I live in a relatively remote area, so…in addition to all of the above, the sub-par Samsung radios in the device kept me from placing or receiving phone calls. Apparently Motorola uses top-of-the-line radios in their phones; Samsung does not.
There’s probably other shit, I can’t remember. Want to know how retarded things got? I would wake up for work, unplug my fully-charged Galaxy Nexus from the charger, listen to some tunes on the way in, text my wife, and by lunchtime the phone would be announcing to me that the battery status was at 5% or less. I would open the settings menu up daily and the settings menu would confirm the following – DAILY:
1. 75% of my battery had been expended on lighting the screen.
2. I’d had a total of less than one hour of screen time.
Wasn’t even using auto-brightness, folks – I had the brightness cranked down manually so far that I could only read my screen in an absence of daylight.
So…that pissed me off.
Time went on. I rooted, custom ROMs, all that. ROMs worth noting as far as minor battery improvements: AOKP, Eclipse…maybe some others. Can’t remember. Eventually my work cell phone (a Blackberry) died and they offered to replace it with: “…an Android! If you want. We know how much you like them…seems like you always have a new one.” I laughed. “Sure! Gimme the new Droid 4! I’m sure it’ll just disappoint the sh(t out of me!”
[Spoiler alert: it did. It’s a Bionic with a slide-out keyboard.]
At this point, some interesting developments not necessarily pertaining to the devices came around. One: the wife and I realized we were spending about $2500 a year on smartphones that neither of us were happy with. Two: Verizon – who, roughly a year prior – had eliminated their unlimited data plans for new customers while assuring existing customers that their unlimited data plans were safe forever – completely reneged and told all existing unlimited data customers that the only way they’d ever get a device upgrade again would be to give up their unlimited data plan and accept a plan wherein they pay the same amount of money for a shitty 2GB/month. Otherwise? I’d be paying $800 - $900 for my next cellular disappointment rather than just $350 - $400.
It was around this time when I let out a breath I had been holding since 2010 or so and admitted defeat: the path I was on was the wrong one.
My biggest beef was with Verizon’s anti-customer attitude, so I started searching for other carriers. The only one that stood out worth a shit was Sprint, and that only due to the fact that they still offer unlimited data. Nothing really worth pulling the trigger over, however, until one fateful Saturday morning about three months ago.
My mom calls me early just to let me know she got a new phone and ask if I’d heard anything about it. I hadn’t, but we still talked for a while and she closed out the conversation by dropping a bomb: she’d left Verizon and was on a new network. I was immediately interested. And what she said next blew my hair back hard enough to partially scalp me:
She’d gotten on a plan with Virgin Mobile (never heard of them) for $55 a month…everything unlimited.
WTF?? Did I drop acid last night? I looked into it over the following weeks and came to this conclusion: I was a bigger f***ing idiot than I was even aware of if I didn’t give it a trial. Here are the details: I would select a phone, buy it. I would pay $35 a month for service. I would get unlimited text and data and 300 talk minutes (which I never come close to as I hate talking on the phone except to my mom). No contract at any time. And I would get 14 days to try the phone out and make sure the network – which is Sprint’s, btw – was sufficient for my needs. Jesus H!
Now for the part that will be heartbreaking (and dealbreaking) for many of you:
Virgin, as it turns out, has nowhere near the device selection as their competitors. They don’t seem to get devices as timely as their competitors, and their Android lineup, in particular, is weak… last time I looked the only top-shelf device they had was a Galaxy SII.
…but they had iPhone. No 5 yet (as of early June 2013…as of this writing, the iPhone5 is available from Virgin), but they had the 4 and the 4s, which was fine with me, as these were both 3G devices. Yup. Guess what, world: I don’t want to be on a GD 4G network anymore. Why? Facts: my Droid X was on a 3G network and had zero battery trouble. Every single phone I had after that? A) a 4G device, and B) battery life that made me want to kill myself. Conclusion: 4G is an absolute battery rapist and it doesn’t improve your real-world data speeds in any significant way. End of discussion. If you are the kind of person who is OK with charging your phone multiple times per day versus multiple times per week, and you’re OK with the only tangible benefit I noted being that you save thirty seconds of download time when downloading Pink Floyd’s ANIMALS from the Amazon app store, then 4G is ALL YOURS, buddy.
I walked out with an iPhone 4s. And I…love…it.
Everything works. The shape, size, and feel are all much more solid than any Android device I owned. The screen is clearer and more engaging. It’s more intuitive aside from a few oddball hidden features. ALL THE APPS WORK. The battery is a monster and I’m back to 1.5 – 2 days per charge. I haven’t had a single force shutdown yet.
What I miss about android:
1. Widgets.
2. Swype.
3. …honestly? Nothing else. Not compared to what I have now.
Like I mentioned earlier on, I have no ill will towards Android at all; in fact, I still consider myself an Android person rather than an Apple person. As far as the device I carry with me at all times, however? I’ll put it to you like this – Android phones work exceptionally well most of the time, and if you’re the tech-minded sort, you’ll probably love exploring all that you can do with it and learning about it via research and trial & error.
If you’re the kind of person who has a) money or b) serious business on the line, I’d recommend you go iPhone as strongly as I could.
Well, there we go: it’s done. Plan on me deleting your comments unless they’re extremely funny, btw.
No comments:
Post a Comment