what android phone do you use and why

drhowarddrfine said:
I've always been curious about using an iPhone. I'd probably like it better but don't want to take the chance of a years long contract with my provider.
Click to expand...
If I r like me then u would not enjoy having to go thru the apple store for virtually any type of download: ringtones, music, apps or whatever. They take the "we manage your phone" a bit too far
 
The dumbest, cheapest push-button "SIGMA". Only "NOMI" is dumber. I hate smartphones. I have smartphone phobia.
 
Stepping away from an iPhone is not easy, especially when you have an iWatch.

However, the face fell of my iWatch last week. I eventually got it re-attached with some E6000, but it's and iWatch 3 -- so old, and currently unsupported. I'm not going to repair the iWatch if it breaks again. Backing up my iPhone is horrendous. I have no confidence in the various processes I have tried. They are all opaque, and I can't test recovery unless I am willing to risk trashing the phone...

So it's timely to contemplate a switch to Android.

I must have a smart phone, to provide Internet access when traveling; and access to the credit and debit cards held only in the digital wallet, which are reserved for use in emergencies (lost or blocked plastic cards).

I don't think I want to jail break my phone, but I do want it as secure as possible, since I care about my personal information. I absolutely want a transparent backup process that lets me verify what's been backed up.

I'd be interested in hearing recommendations for Android phone and watch combinations.

The phone needs to be modest in size (easy fit in shirt pocket), and work in both Australia and Europe (LTE band 28 required).
 
gpw928 said:
I don't think I want to jail break my phone, but I do want it as secure as possible, since I care about my personal information. I absolutely want a transparent backup process that lets me verify what's been backed up.

I'd be interested in hearing recommendations for Android phone and watch combinations.

The phone needs to be modest in size (easy fit in shirt pocket), and work in both Australia and Europe (LTE band 28 required).
Click to expand...

For transparent backup you need to have an unlocked bootloader (but no rooting required).

The alternative bootloader TWRP will do the equivalent of a dd backup of Pixel phones.
 
My personal phone: Pixel 3a XL. No, I didn't choose the very large size of it. I would prefer a smaller phone. But my wife at some point decided that for her way of carrying the phone, the large screen would be good ... and she quickly decided that she was wrong. So she got a Pixel 4, and I ended up with the 3a XL. Note that the 3a is a lower-cost variant of the Pixel 3. Mine must be about 5-6 years old; my wife's perhaps half a year or a year younger. Mine works perfectly, boring, battery life is about 2-3 days (even after daily carry). No serious damage, except the screen protector has cracked twice and was replaced every time. I don't do anything special about software, no unlocking or interesting kernels. The only "hacky" app I'm using is a file manager, so I can double-click on downloaded files (such as music or PDF files) to use them. One of the nice things about the Pixel ecosystem is: the few times I've switched phones, it is absolutely effortless: get the new phone, log in, and about 10 minutes later all my personal settings and data are on the new phone.

On the other hand, I find Android and the apps for it just annoying. Nothing seems intuitive, settings menus are like the "maze of twisty little passages all alike", cut and paste or editing or typing is annoyingly difficult. When using a Pixel, I can sort of see Google's software development style and corporate culture: It's built by autistic software engineers who like to show off how smaaaht they are, with the target audience being their colleagues. I very much want to move to an iOS device, and fortunately today I'm free to do so.

For about 5 years, I had a second Pixel phone for work (I was a Google employee), and I think the last one was a Pixel 6 or 7. Worked great. With 5G, it has superb cell connection speed, so good that during internet outages at home I used it work work with video calls, editing, as if connected by good home internet. Sort of the perfect phone for me: boring, always work. But also a terrible phone for me, as Android and the Google-provided apps annoy me (see above).

My wife's experience with her Pixel 4 is sort of diametrically opposite. It barely works. Refuses to make phone calls over WiFi. Keeps missing SMS messages when cell reception is spotty (as it commonly is), even when always connected via WiFi. Battery sometimes refuses to charge; battery capacity is down to less than one day. Hangs every few days, requiring hard reboot. I do not know why her phone (with very similar hardware and software to mine) acts so different.

Our son switched from Google-made phones to iPhones a few years ago, when in high school. Part of the reason was that his friends and him did a lot of hanging out at the pool and in hot-tubs, and iPhones are seriously waterproof, while Nexus and Pixel phones used to suffer instant death when touching water. But he has also been much happier with the reliability of his phone, and the few times I've borrowed it, the UI seems much more sensible and intuitive. The only problem the iPhones have had was: they got stolen twice.
 
ralphbsz said:
Nexus and Pixel phones used to suffer instant death when touching water.
Click to expand...
My Samsung Galaxy A51 was in my pocket when I fell off a pier into the ocean right next to the Captain Cook monument in Kealakekua Bay in '22... And yet that phone is still going strong after being submerged in the waters of the Pacific Ocean for about 3 minutes (I can swim and climb, after all).
 
astyle said:
My Samsung Galaxy A51 was in my pocket when I fell off a pier into the ocean right next to the Captain Cook monument in Kealakekua Bay in '22... And yet that phone is still going strong after being submerged in the waters of the Pacific Ocean for about 3 minutes (I can swim and climb, after all).
Click to expand...
Samsung phones were well known as being among the first to be "waterproof". We actually bought a used Samsung Galaxy on Ebay, and used it without a SIM card on WiFi only, for the hot tub. It only lasted two years or so, the battery gave up eventually (we bought it quite cheaply, and it was already several years old).
 
I was completely satisfied with my Pixel 4a for over 4 years, until Jan 8, 2025 and Android 13 forced update. Google determined that my, and all other Pixel 4a users, had issues with BMS, so they decided to bork the batteries with the update. Now, I and the rest of the Pixel 4a users have issue with our batteries and with Google.

I have 2 (5 y/o) Renogy 12V 100Ah LiFePO4 Batteries with Smart BMS that has RJ42 port for dongle with switch that allows me to set the battery into hibernation mode. When I turned the batteries ON, after 3 years in hibernation, they came back alive with 96% of charge level and its discharge rate when in ON mode is the same when they were brand new. I'm glad that Renogy does not have remote asccess to my batteries :-)
 
i currently have a samsung a-something-or-other, considering ditching it while it's still worth some cash to get a fairphone 5 (or 4 or whatever the latest one is) for, er, reasons... mainly to put eOS onto it, battery life is important and it seems to have improved recently.
i use it mostly for email/chat/phone and also for osmand~ (i'm a forester and i need an app for cartography/gps stuff). and a bit of photography, useful to almost always have a camera in one's pocket.
no gaming (i retrogame on a pi-powered home-built arcade cabinet)

i find that there are some good apps on f-droid that i try to use over the google-store thingy...

which brings me to a question... if you have an android phone, how do you connect it to your freebsd computer?
 
hern42 said:
which brings me to a question... if you have an android phone, how do you connect it to your freebsd computer?
Click to expand...
Well, an Android phone can be mounted as a regular USB stick under FreeBSD, there's always NFS/SMB over wifi, and ADB is in ports. If Bluetooth works under FreeBSD on your machine, I think that is usable, as well.
 
These are my 3 old fones that I’m currently using without wireless service because they work. I will use them until their EOL :-)

2011 Galaxy Samsung S2: with GoPro app (off line app) to monitor and control my Hero 3 camera over Bluetooth
(fully charged- 35 mins of use with the app)

2014 Galaxy Samsung S4: with Amcrest app to monitor and control my Amcrest IP/LAN cameras over WiFi
(fully charged - almost an hour of use with the app)

(edit) 2020 Motorola Moto e: with Renogy Battery monitoring app over Bluetooth and Sonar Phone app to monitor and control the Sonar T-POD depth/fish transducer over WiFi
(fully charged -1 hour of use with Sonar Phone app)

This is my current, first and only unlocked fone that I paid retail price for, and it’s almost useless now.

2020 Pixel 4a – with SIM and wireless service. Using for txt msgs, navigation (Google Maps), Proton email and Yuzu browser to read this forum ;-)
Fully charged battery provided well over an hour of app use until Google’s latest update that drains the battery now within 15 min of use.
Google’s solutions:
$50 cash back and deal with it (I’ll take it and take that Gorilla Glued sealed phone apart)
$100 discount for a new Pixel (No, no more Pixel phones for me, unless it’s free)

Don’t know what brand of wireless fone I’ll get next. Maybe, Samsung Galaxy A15 5G A Series, Factory Unlocked Android 14 - for $150 ?
 
My first and unique smartphone, Samsung A41 from the beginning of 2019. I bought it because a well know phone company in italy gave me for half its price. But I use it as a phone, pay with card (NFC) and to drive and listen music (Android Auto). Sometimes use Firefox (if I'm not in front of a computer)
 
I am using a Pixel 7 as my main phone as I got that for free from my cell phone provider for not cancelling my service. Works well, no quality issues at all. Total of 5 years of updates. I still have my Pixel 4a running LineageOS as a secondary phone for travelling. This also has been working very well since day 1.

Not sure where the OP's idea come from regarding bad Pixel quality, unless it is about the Pixel 4a battery gate....
 
I am using only Samsung Galaxys' because of their simple and handy design, but also long-term support for Android. Prior using an S24, I used an S5 for about 7 years and it worked amazingly well for such a wide span of time. The beautiful material, edges, camera quality. A Samsung Galaxy offers you a beautiful and relaxing experience from the outside, smooth performance and the way Samsung customizes Android is pretty impressive in my opinion. You could argue Samsung Galaxys are pretty expensive, but as dclau already said, they simply refuse to die and you pay the price of 2 phones with the lifes of 4. Can't say the same about the loading cables though.


greetings

masc.h
 
I have a Samsung Galaxy Express SGH-I437p which was AT&T branded. I went back to a flip phone after several times of dropping it or having it fall from a pocket. The screen is cracked, the case is separating such that the power switch seems a bit inaccessible. I pulled the sim card out to play with long ago. It has wifi, a camera, and a terminal emulator installed. I haven't used the terminal emulator in a long while but if needed I could use it as a tedious remote control for my htpc. The camera is better than the one on the flip phone so I keep it to take occasional photos which I then email to myself as that seems the easiest way. I will never buy another.
 
roper said:
I have a Samsung Galaxy Express SGH-I437p which was AT&T branded.
Click to expand...
I used to have a Galaxy S4 Active for ATT. I thought it was the same model, but quick research on gsmarena.com reminded me that it was SGH-I537... 😅 I had CyanogenMod on it back then (now it's known as LineageOS, and the author is now a Samsung employee)... Mine is still whole, still usable as a toy on my LAN, just needs to be charged up and dusted off.

I have to say, I took better care of my phones than most people - I immediately would buy protective screen film AND shock-absorbing cases for my phones, not a single one has a cracked screen. They all still work, but as I demand more features from my phones, they become sluggish and less useful as daily drivers. Well, my priority is usually battery power :P
 
I don't own an Android.
I am also not an Apple fanboy in any sense and don't own any of their products.
Until the iPhone.

My first smart phone is the iPhone 13 Pro Max.
My family is spread literally around the world, and all are using iPhones.
Email, text and FaceTime work every time.

After a learning curve, mine does everything I need from a phone.
The 3x telephoto camera and RAW mode gets a vigorous amount of use in my work.
It ain't my Nikon D850, but RAW does well enough for a pocket camera that is always with me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top