Developers, developers, developers, developers

[Alexander Nicholi]

Mmm mmm. Best thing you could do was to have a phone that you do enjoy using. You and your Reverb, huh? How was your experience with that particular phone?

For how old the model is, it took decent pictures (720p front, 1080p main, says "5MP camera" so maybe otherwise), was only $200 when I first bought it in 2012, no contract crap with VM… the processor was a bit slow but it didn't impede network usage or anything, and it's a 3G phone with b/g/n Wi-Fi capabilities. The Android market was what made it so awesome, as it and the other features let me customize it so much. Albeit I could never figure out how to root it, it still did what I needed for most anything without too much lag and minimal BS on the way. 3G coverage wasn't a problem with VM and the speeds weren't jawdropping in either direction. Definitely worth what they want for now, maybe more. :P

 

[Tsutarja]

So the other night I left my laptop running, and killed its battery. Guess that's some good exercise for it.

 

[Legendary Silke]

So the other night I left my laptop running, and killed its battery. Guess that's some good exercise for it.

Proper battery care is important.

Hmm... The 1520, the 930, or the Xperia Z2... all are equally good choices, but all of them do have at least one point against in my opinion. The 1520 is just XBOX HEUG. 930 isn't out yet, and doesn't have microSD slot. Z2 is fragile and has a relatively iffy camera.

 

[Tsutarja]

Hmm... The 1520, the 930, or the Xperia Z2... all are equally good choices, but all of them do have at least one point against in my opinion. The 1520 is just XBOX HEUG. 930 isn't out yet, and doesn't have microSD slot. Z2 is fragile and has a relatively iffy camera.

Personally, I'd go with the 1520, especially if you want to stay on Windows Phone. The battery life is what got me with that one. Does it have a mircoSD slot?

 

[Legendary Silke]

Personally, I'd go with the 1520, especially if you want to stay on Windows Phone. The battery life is what got me with that one. Does it have a mircoSD slot?

It does have a microSD slot.

 

[Tsutarja]

It does have a microSD slot.

At least it does, considering I prefer expandable storage to that of internal storage.

 

[Legendary Silke]

The 4" WVGA display of my phone is kind of getting in the way in a lot of things, anyway. I've noticed that there's now a bunch of games that, despite being playable, have unreadable text.

 

[countryemo]

I was browsing for a new phone to replace my Samsung Galaxy Reverb, and I'll honestly say I'm a little repulsed at the modern phone market (I can't imagine how bad the iPhone scene is if Android is like this).

I wanted to get a Samsung Galaxy S5, but that's $590, where it's $100 with contract. When I got to the plan selection screen it was the stupidest thing, they give me a choice between an overpriced all-in-one plan and a more customizable one that sticks you with a certain number of minutes and then forces you to pay extra at minimum for data. All the carriers did this or something weirdly similar, and it was embarrassing to say the least.

Conclusion: Pay $75 to get my old phone back brand new, get old phone plan back with unlimited everything for $45/mo from Virgin Mobile, insert microSD card for music, be done with it. Enjoy my phone without paying out the ass, eh?

Their is lots of cheaper phones out, from high ends like Nexus 5 and Moto X, to lower phones like Moto G/E, lesser known oems like BLU, and the Android One program (not out yet).

 

[Legendary Silke]

To be honest, I wouldn't really bother with lesser-known OEMs with regard to pretty much everything.

 

[Blu·Ray]

In the budget part of the Android market I would highly suggest you to take a look at Motorola's offerings. They have great value for money on their newer devices, just like the country emo said above.

If you are willing to take a look at the Windows Phone side, the absolute value for money beast is the Lumia 520. It really owns the low-end with a great experience at a price point where the androids are laggy and slow.

 

[Mark Kamill]

Not all lesser OEMs are bad. I'm still on a crusade trying to convince people that Huawei is a great brand for what it is. I own a 3C and some minor hicups the phone rocks. Got it for 170, and I have mid-high preformance in a quality build and a decent shooter that can give great outdoor shots.

 

[Oryx]

I was listening to a speech by the CFO of AT&T yesterday and they were talking about their program where you can choose to buy a phone outright instead of having an extra 15 dollars tacked onto your plan every month, and how many people are taking advantage of it. He was claiming that the reason the cell phone market wasn't dropping in price dramatically like the TV and computer market was because phone companies stepped in and started subsidizing so customers didn't worry about being frugal or pushing for lower costs in phones, because the subsidized cost was the same no matter what they bought. A ton of people use that new program and he said it would push the cell phone market to lower their prices.

And plus the speech was directed at employees, not customers, so more likely to be more than just financial bluster. I hope he's right at least.

 

[Legendary Silke]

I almost always demo devices every time I plan to get something anyway just before getting it. I don't like surprises.

 

[Blu·Ray]

Not all lesser OEMs are bad. I'm still on a crusade trying to convince people that Huawei is a great brand for what it is. I own a 3C and some minor hicups the phone rocks. Got it for 170, and I have mid-high preformance in a quality build and a decent shooter that can give great outdoor shots.

Huawei is not a lesser OEM... They're number three in global marketshare!
Huawei is not like those random name brand or white-box devices, they're a serious OEM with lots of global customers. I say global, because they only have 8% marketshare in China which is less than other Chinese brands, while doing really well globally relative to other Chinese brands.

 

[Mark Kamill]

MYeah, but I mean lesser in the sense that its still viewed in a bad light, does not have the marketing force of the big 3 android makers, and in general is a hit and miss company. Other then that, sure you can argue that they're big, but then you would have to argue that alcatel or zte. One major plus though is the lack of an app drawer, having an iOS style os plus widgets and android functionality is god like.

 

[Tsutarja]

I'm wondering now if Lenovo purchases Motorola, would they continue to manufacture the Motorola phones with stock Android instead of heavily customizing the OS like what Samsung does.

 

[Legendary Silke]

I just want that they treat brand reputation as a serious matter and make an effort to make compelling products. Last thing you want to see is probably having a brand that basically does nothing, or worse, tarnished because of... poor product decisions.

 

[Alexander Nicholi]

When I was browsing service plans on Amazon, AT&T's was particularly unattractive, forcing you with exactly 450 minutes for something like $30/mo and then a choice between data plans ranging from 300 MB at +$10 to 50GB at +~$200. You couldn't opt out of data and texts were 20 cents per minute, which is crazy. You had an overall choice between that buyer's trainwreck and paying $65/mo for unlimited talk/text and again forcing you to tack on data for additional cost.

The cool part about the plan I had with Virgin Mobile is it costs the same as the Wal-Mart phone plans for the same service, except without the statement of "My phone service is from Wal-Mart" which is just ew.

 

[Tsutarja]

Guess this is what I'd expect to happen with a developer release of a phone OS: updates every other day. (I'm running the dev channel of Windows Phone 8.1 btw)

 

[Tsutarja]

I wonder why Google is going the route similar to iOS in terms of a flatter design. I'll be looking forward to seeing what Google has to offer in Android L as well.