Smartphone wanted / but don't know which :-( / now with poll

[HaaTa]

Bought an Xperia Z the other day after I dropped my Nexus 4 (killed the screen, don't have the time or tools to fix it during my Japan trip).
Liking it so far
It's also water resistant, which helps when I bike through the rain (like yesterday ).

[Daniel]

Nokia N900

[7bit]

Nokia is out of question because they are against Pornography.


The Sony Xperia Z is an interesting option. I'm not really a Sony fan. Sony==TV-cameras. But whenever I will buy a digital video camera, I get a Panasonic or even better Canon!


We had so many phone manufacturers in Germany:
DeTeWe, Hagenuk, Reimer, DFG, TN, Telefunken, Siemens, Fernsig, Krone, SEL ...

Nobody makes mobile phones.

[HaaTa]

7bit I suggest you test out an Xperia Z at a shop somewhere. It sounds funny but the power button is amazing

[t!ng]

Motorola Razr I runs nearly standard Android (what ever that means) and comes in a nice design, has a micro SD slot, but comes with intel inside instead of a Motorola 68k.

All I can say is that I own a Razr I and I would buy it again. What do you have against the Intel? It runs like a beast. And the most important part.. battery life. I can't kill it within one day. 4 hours of display on time is average.

I tested the Nokia N9 with meego some days ago. Best OS in my opinion, but it is dead. No further support from Nokia. The community keeps it alive though. Had to send it back due to battery life.

[Halvar]

I tested the Nokia N9 with meego some days ago. Best OS in my opinion, but it is dead. No further support from Nokia. The community keeps it alive though. Had to send it back due to battery life.

It's not really dead. The new phone from the makers of the Nokia N9's MeeGo has already been announced. They left Nokia in the meantime, founded their own company, and are working with Chinese manufacturers now:

http://jolla.com/

[t!ng]

Yes, you are right. But I feel bad about the Nokia N9 because I think it has the best design and feel in hand out there. The Lumia 800 is based on it, but WP... nah.

[7bit]

I think I will take this one:

[huttala]

If it's not said yet I'd recommend the Galaxy S4 "Nexus edition" with vanilla android. It has microSD too.
If you can live without the MicroSD I'd take a Nexus 4, it's by far the smoothes phone out there.

[ne0phyte]

Looks like a Galaxy Ace. Don't get that. It's a low end smartphone which is slow, has a rather bad display and is outdated.

[ne0phyte]

If it's not said yet I'd recommend the Galaxy S4 "Nexus edition" with vanilla android. It has microSD too.
If you can live without the MicroSD I'd take a Nexus 4, it's by far the smoothes phone out there.

S4 Nexus will be only available in the US and Samsung said they don't plan to bring it to Europe.

[7bit]

What is the difference between:
Samsung Galaxy S4 "Nexus edition"
and
Samsung Galaxy S4
?

My head is spinning: Sony Z, Samsung S4, S3, Motorola with Intel (still hurts my feelings), Hello Kitten phone.

[t!ng]

I think Nexus edition means that it will get the newest android release as fast as other nexus devices directly from google. And that it doesnt have the samsung touchwiz.

Edit: It is really a hard decision to pick a smartphone at the moment. You have to know what is important for you. Battery life? Camera? Design( Go for the kitten phone!)? What is your budget? The Razr I is a steal at the moment.

[7bit]

But I want to put my own OS on it anyway, so it does not matter what is pre-installed as long as it is possible to install a new OS.

edit:
Camera is not so important, because I would only use it when I don't have a real camera with me, if at all.

Would be nice to be able to store photos on a micro SD card to show others. I always find this nice.


I think micro SD is also very helpful to install a new OS.

Reliability is also a point. It should last a few years. This is kind of a dilemma. If there would be a very userfriendly warranty for 5 years, I would pay much more than in a situation where I have virtually no warranty at all. Most people buy cheap crap because they don't trust the quality of expensive stuff.

If cheap stuf breaks, just throw it away and buy new cheap stuff.

[t!ng]

You have an own OS? wow. What is it? How did you program it?
I would like to see the 7bit OS on an Iphone

Edit: Would you prefer a removable battery?

[ne0phyte]

The US and EU versions of phones are usually a bit different (as for the hardware). Most US phones already come with LTE. The Samsung Galaxy S4 Nexus edition will only be available in the US and most likely with LTE which means it has a different hardware than the one you'll be able to buy here.

Nexus is the device series from Google (Nexus One, Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 10). It basically means that the devices are open, come with stock Android and the device tree (drivers/configuration/device patches) are freely available. You could checkout and compile AOSP from source if you wanted to. (AOSP = stock Android = "Android Open Source Project").

To understand why that is a good thing:

Most manufacturers like Samsung, HTC, LG and so on take the stock Android version X.X and apply heavy changes like their own UI, services, a heavily modified framework and so on.
If a new Android version is released it takes months, sometimes even a year until you get an update. All the bloat usually also takes a lot of internal flash memory and RAM = makes the phone slower. Most "closed" devices also don't provide the latest kernel and driver sources or only parts of it which makes it hard to build current version of Android.


EDIT: What OS do you plan to install? The drivers you get are Android specific drivers and it's not that easy to just build Debian or Arch arm for a phone. You'll most likely have to stick to Android or search specifically for a phone with a working WebOS, Ubuntu, Firefox OS, Meego or whatever port.

[7bit]

You have an own OS? wow. What is it? How did you program it?
I would like to see the 7bit OS on an Iphone

Please scroll up a few posts where Peter posted a link about how to install alternative OSes on smart phones.

This kills the iPhone, BTW, as it is not possible to install something decent on it.

[7bit]

EDIT: What OS do you plan to install? The drivers you get are Android specific drivers and it's not that easy to just build Debian or Arch arm for a phone. You'll have to stick to Android.

I did not mean Debian I did mean an Android version without the bloatware from whomever I buy the phone.

As far as I understand, the system can be configured or even modified if source files are present.

Are there hardware problems (ie unsupported harware) with some phones?

[t!ng]

Then maybe the Samsung S2 is someting for you:

-you can put custom roms on it
-big community
-removable battery
-sd card slot

[ne0phyte]

Are there hardware problems (ie unsupported harware) with some phones?

Yes. There is a lot of proprietary hardware out there with limited or no support at all.
If you really care about openness and being able to easily build your own ROM you should really take a Nexus device.

But Google got rid of memory extension slots as it makes it harder for App and OS developers. Internal memory is also faster than microSD cards. You can always buy a USB OTG adapter and connect a card reader or usb stick (OTG=On-The-Go; micro usb -> female usb a).

Or just run a FTP server on your phone and mount that using curlftpfs like I do

[ne0phyte]

Then maybe the Samsung S2 is someting for you:

-you can put custom roms on it
-big community
-removable battery
-sd card slot

BUT be super careful to not get the latest revision which has very little developer support. You need to get the old "S2 i9100". Amazon listed the old model but sent out the new one for a long time.

The new revision is slower and has a different cpu and chipset afaik.

[Acanthophis]

Then maybe the Samsung S2 is someting for you:

-you can put custom roms on it
-big community
-removable battery
-sd card slot

Cyanogenmod dropped the SGS2 because Samsung doesn't give away their code and drivers despite promising so in the past. For me as an SGS2 owner, I wish I would have bought a different phone :/

I really like Cyanogenmod. 7bit, have a look at it: http://www.cyanogenmod.org/

BUT be super careful to not get the latest revision which has very little developer support. You need to get the old "S2 i9100". Amazon listed the old model but sent out the new one for a long time.

The new revision is slower and has a different cpu and chipset afaik.

At least Cyanogenmod supports the inferior i9100G fully, because its hardware is from Texas Instruments, and they release code and drivers for the community; thus Cyanogenmod can develop for the i9100G.
Fuck Samsung :/

[huttala]

EDIT: What OS do you plan to install? The drivers you get are Android specific drivers and it's not that easy to just build Debian or Arch arm for a phone. You'll have to stick to Android.

I did not mean Debian I did mean an Android version without the bloatware from whomever I buy the phone.

As far as I understand, the system can be configured or even modified if source files are present.

Are there hardware problems (ie unsupported harware) with some phones?

If you want to add custom roms on your phone an Nexus 4 is what you want since all the drivers etc are open source the custom roms get a lot better. And the community is big, there is a lot of different roms that work great.

With samsung, HTC, LG etc there is always SOMETHING that does not work as good as with stock roms due to them not releasing the drivers openly. That is not the case with Nexus 4.

[Halvar]

Yes. There is a lot of proprietary hardware out there with limited or no support at all.
If you really care about openness and being able to easily build your own ROM you should really take a Nexus device.

But Google got rid of memory extension slots as it makes it harder for App and OS developers. Internal memory is also faster than microSD cards. You can always buy a USB OTG adapter and connect a card reader or usb stick (OTG=On-The-Go; micro usb -> female usb a).

I think so, too. If you really want to use the SD card for data exchange, this is the better solution anyway, because you can store permanent apps or data in the internal flash memory and keep the SD card free of them.

Or just run a FTP server on your phone and mount that using curlftpfs like I do

It might be easier to run an FTP client on your phone like I do ...

[ne0phyte]

Why would you run a client on your phone when you want to access your phone from the computer?

I have a mountpoint for my phone and run curlftpfs in passive mode so it connects only when I try to access the files on my phone.

[Halvar]

Why would I want to access my phone from my computer when I can access my computer from my phone?

[7bit]

I would trust my computer more than my phone so I would follow ne0phyte's solution ...

... also it seems to be easier to use a real keyboard to connect to the phone, instead of using a little monitor to type on it to connect to the computer.

[7bit]

Motorola RAZR i: ~300 EUR / 8G / 32G microSD / no warranty / intel inside a motorola feels wrong

LG Nexus 4: ~390 EUR / 16G / nope / no warranty? / glass at front and back might break, hardware is fully supported by alternative OSes

Samsung Galaxy S III: ~390 EUR / 16G / 64G micro SD / no warranty / brand name looks wrong (SΛMSUNG)

Sony Xperia Z: ~490 EUR / 16G / 32G microSD / no warranty / IP57 except if water enters the phone, it is the user's fault

Samsung Galaxy S 4: 580 EUR / 16 G / 64G micro SD / no warranty / brand name looks wrong (SΛMSUNG)

I think I get the LG Nexus 4.


Does anybody know if the warranty is also lost when a proper OS installation is made?

[7bit]

BUMP!

[mintberryminuscrunch]

Motorola RAZR i: ~300 EUR / 8G / 32G microSD / no warranty / intel inside a motorola feels wrong

LG Nexus 4: ~390 EUR / 16G / nope / no warranty? / glass at front and back might break, hardware is fully supported by alternative OSes

Samsung Galaxy S III: ~390 EUR / 16G / 64G micro SD / no warranty / brand name looks wrong (SΛMSUNG)

Sony Xperia Z: ~490 EUR / 16G / 32G microSD / no warranty / IP57 except if water enters the phone, it is the user's fault

Samsung Galaxy S 4: 580 EUR / 16 G / 64G micro SD / no warranty / brand name looks wrong (SΛMSUNG)

I think I get the LG Nexus 4.


Does anybody know if the warranty is also lost when a proper OS installation is made?

you can reset flash counter and return to the stock rom
so no problem

PS: Nexus 4 doesn't support OTG