Android upgrades: Which manufacturers can you trust? - Fascinate General

Some interesting light reading about Android OS upgrade from manufactures.
http://blogs.computerworld.com/17649/android_upgrades

This is why I'm never going to buy another Samsung product.
My next phone will either be the Verizon iPhone or a HTC or Motorola that is a "Droid" so Verizon won't forget about it.
Sent from my Samsung Fascinate running BH3.0, DL09, 125mv undervolt Voodoo5 using SwiftKey and Tapatalk

What I got from this blog is that HTC and Motorola spend more time working on releasing updates. Samsung is looking at 11% of their handsets updated taking 159 days for one phone to get to 2.2. HTC and Motorola only spent 1/2 that time getting upgrades out for their phones. Just shows who is more committed to keeping customers happy. I am not sure it has anything to do with Verizon or not. Maybe a manufacturer thing.

I should have known.
Years back I had a Samsung WinMo phone, then I switched to HTC WinMo phones. My brain cells only remembered that the Samsung hardware was very rugged and well made, while the HTC hardware was OK. Add to that the fact that the screen on the Fascinate is nice, and here I am.
It wasn't until after I had this Fascinate a while that I remembered that the Samsung software is filled with quirks, and they have long delays in upgrades. And the upgrades have different quirks.
I've found that they pull 350ma max from the charge port. At max brightness and constant GPS activity (that is, using it as a car GPS) the phone uses well over 350ma. So even when plugged in, the battery gets drained because the charger can't keep up. Who is the idiot in charge of that mistake.
Then there is the auto brightness setting. On auto brightness, at night, if you plug in the charger, it goes to about 30%. Too bright for night use. During the day, on auto brightness, in the car, plug in the charger and it goes to about 30%. You can't see it in the sunlight.
Software and hardware quirks like this make this wonderful phone a FAIL. Add the slow response time for upgrades means I will not be getting or recommending Samsung.
I have to admit, the Fascinate does appear to be rugged and durable. But a 5 year old PDA phone with 5 year old software is irrelevant in today's world, so that has little value.

working for flextronics as a tech in a vzw corp store, I've seen triple the amount of moto droids (all variants) come back for one hardware issue our another compared to the sgs offerings. also factor in the e-fuse and I'll probably steer clear come my upgrade this march. I'm interested in what lg has to show, but after the lackluster android offerings they've had so far and the sheer amount of lg phone I fru a day (on average 5 or 6) I'll probably wait a couple of weeks before I grab either the lg or the thunderbolt (no matter how much I hate sense... hate hate hate). love the sammy hardware. but but with out the latest software and the benefits it brings to the table, why go with then again to feel like I still have lsat months best regardless of specs

Related

Can't decide between HTC Evo and Samsung Epic?

Well, good news guys. I am starting as a cell phone tech repair at a local store here and can't seem to decide between a HTC Evo 4G or Samsung Epic 4G. They both look awesome.
I am also with T-Mobile with the HD2 and love HTC products but the Samsung Epic looks tempting. I feel so indecisive now.
Any help here?
I feel your pain. Before Access released the new version of Graffiti that works perfectly on the Epic, I was literally within hours... maybe a day or two... of taking my Epic back and exchanging it for an Evo. It's amazing how being totally handicapped at text-input colors (darkens?) your view of pretty much everything else about the phone.
I'm still not thrilled with the Epic's jiggly-ness, but I have hope that Seidio (or maybe Otterbox) will eventually release a case that lets you latch the halves together (or clamp on a semi-temporary exoskeleton that achieves the same purpose).
The single worst problem I found with the Evo is its usb port. HTC cut corners and didn't attach it properly, so the solder connections (surface-mount, no less) end up bearing 100% of the stress and strain from attaching and removing the cable, and eventually fail. Technically, that's something I could probably fix myself if it happened (I have a hot air rework tool, solder paste, tubes of flux, tweezers, and the other usual supplies needed for homebrew surface-mount soldering), but I know *exactly* how it can fail, and it bothers me that HTC could have possibly done something that stupid. That's not the kind of mistake an engineer makes... that's the kind of screwup that happens when HTC management decides to cut corners anyway after their engineers throw a fit and threaten to quit over it.
Also, I've spent the past week lurking on the Evo development boards, and got the worst sense of deja-vu when I saw that HTC still releases useless kernel source that's unbuildable, with proprietary binaries compiled straight into it (in total violation of the GPL, not to mention common sense and human decency) so that it's nearly impossible to take an old kernel and use it as the basis of a newer one (without breaking every single binary driver in the process). Samsung might have sinned mightily and royally screwed up the GPS, but at least they had the decency to treat the kernel with respect & dignity, and implement everything that's not open-source as proper loadable kernel modules. It might be the only thing they've done right, but it's a really big, really important thing that NEEDS to be right
Both the Epic and Evo have criminally-undersized batteries, and battery life that totally sucks. The main difference is that there are multiple extended battery choices for the Evo available today, and zero extended battery choices for the Epic today (though there will probably be just as many Epic choices as Evo choices by Christmas... maybe more, since only the extended battery's back cover would be unique to the Epic, and the batteries themselves are common to the entire Galaxy S family).
Out of the box, the Evo feels a lot better in your hand. I bought the Epic originally because I wanted the keyboard, but I personally think the Epic's keyboard sucks to the point of being unusable because they made the keys too big and too flat. Had they made the keys smaller (keeping the same pitch), or made them taller and more rounded (like the Sidekick's keyboard), it would have been awesome. Thus, I'm now officially in the "I want a case with exoskeleton or latch so I can just secure the keyboard shut and forget it exists... at least, until I'm in a mood to slap on a GameGripper and play videogames with it" camp. It's a shame, because it COULD have been a really awesome keyboard if Samsung hadn't ruined it for the sake of aesthetics.
I'm a little nervous about the Epic's AMOLED screen, because I found out that they suffer from an effect that has similar appearance to burn-in. Apparently, the blue elements have a half-life of ~7,000 bright hours before they dim noticeably. The result is that if you display static bright blue content for extended periods of time, it will look like old-school yellow burn-in when white is displayed (the blue will dim, causing the brighter red and green to give the pixel a yellowish cast). LCDs can develop persistent images, but it's a temporary effect due to static electricity that dissipates over time. With AMOLED and blue-fade, by the time you see it happen, it's too late -- the panel's ruined forever.
I'll admit I've slightly warmed up to Touchwiz... especially once I replaced the homescreen with ADW, and figured out how to make the app drawer scroll vertically (god, the horizontal scrolling drove me *insane* for a couple of days). Samsung's "Phone" app is definitely prettier than HTC's was on the Hero (I've never actually used an Evo to make a call), and "Weather and Toggle Widget" (or whatever it's name is) gave me enough SenseUI look and feel to keep me happy without it.
There's still a tiny chance something will motivate me to switch to Evo before my 30 days are up in 2 weeks, but for now, I'm back to being content with my Epic.
Well, I had both the Evo and now the Epic and while the Evo was "okay," I love the Epic. Returning the Evo was the best thing I ever did. The main issues I had with the Evo where the physical size (Epic is thicker, but less surface area) and the battery. My Epic can last a full day with moderate to heavy use on a single charge. The Evo, with light use, needed to be charged about half way through the day. That is with all the usual tweaks, etc. Also, the Evo with the brightness turned down (to save battery) was almost useless, but the Epic on its lowest brightness setting is brighter than the Evo on about 50% brightness. Finally, even though Swype is cool, it is nice to have the keyboard if you do any kind of long typing or typing of words that are not in the dictionary. True, you can always add them, but if you ever do any kind of work where you type in commands, (terminal, etc) then you can do it much easier with a real keyboard.
Anyway, those are my two cents. On a 1-10 scale I would give the Evo a rating of 6 and the Epic a rating of 8.
Greetings! I have both an Epic and an Evo, both rooted, both used extensively for work. The Epic I use mainly for wireless tethering of a work issued laptop, the Epic I use primarily for fielding calls and email.
I like the ability to use a hard keyboard with the Epic but as a former blackberry owner for YEARS I still believe the best hard keyboards to exist are ones engineered by RIM. It's too bad Samsung didn't tap into RIM engineering when constructing the feel and heft of their physical keyboard.
I wasn't a huge fan of Sense before getting an Evo but it's incredibly easy to use and easy on the eyes (mine, anyways) It seems that the email functions on the Evo are easier to utilize than the ones on the Epic but again a matter of personal preference.
I've re-rooted both phones in the last week (accidentally deleted g-talk off of Evo then turned right around and bricked my Epic!) and both phones are running much smoother since doing so. I noticed my Evo was getting really sluggish as time wore on (rooted it right after I got it in July) and the Epic was displaying warning signs of brick-ville prior to it actually bricking. I've benchmarked both units and without a doubt the Epic is MUCH faster than the Evo.
I've noticed subtleties between both phones since using them so much:
SCREENS/VIBRANCY: Epic colors seem more washed out. Evo's are clearer. Evo screen reacts so much easier to the touch....I have to press buttons more than once often to get Epic touch to register....
BATTERY LIFE: Face it, phones like this suck mega power. Multiple batteries and chargers for both are a must. Since I travel between multiple offices, I have a cache of chargers/batteries at all locations along with techie travel items I never leave home without. Tip: for a quick boost to get you at least one hour of extra time on your phone grab one of those keyring battery boosters Sprint sells....they're cheap and come as advertised (****WARNING DO NOT CHARGE YOUR PHONE WITH THE BOOSTER WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY CHARGING THE BOOSTER FROM AN ELECTRICAL SOURCE -SPRINT ADVERTISES THIS IS POSSIBLE BUT... YOU CAN START A FIRE*****) Hopefully my Travelers agent isn't on this forum !
SOUND: Epic seems to produce better sound at higher levels. Epic's speakers seem to have a weird screeching to them at top volume.
I don't know how much this has helped you, but the bottom line here is: if you are a physical keyboard person go for the Epic. If a larger screen floats your boat get the Evo. I'm fortunate to have been able to get both for professional reasons and have learned to love the differences that both provide.
Finally, here are two programs I highly recommend:
EPIC: noLED. Terrific app. Don't need root for it. Also works on Evo but designed for phones lacking a LED.
EVO: LEDHack. Ditto. You will need root. Not applicable for Epic.
All you really have to think about is "Do I want a pure touch screen? or do I want a qwerty keyboard as well as a touch screen?", "Do I want HTC Sense, or TouchWiz?", "Do I want a kickstand?", lol.
But for a more in-depth look, I made a comparison of the tech specs and I gathered the information from Wikipedia as well as google.
Here is my post http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=7788180#post7788180
Also. Playing Emulator games on the Epic is far more easier than it will be on the EVO. Due to the Epic having a physical keyboard so you can actually have buttons to press instread of tapping the touch screen. There are even keyboard covers that people have made in the shape of controllers to make the gameplay easier.
However. EVO has more developers than the Epic does for now. We only have about 4 roms and they're nothing really special. Pretty much stock roms with OC'ed kernals with a developer idea behind it. We don't even have a OTA rom developer yet. I still wish I knew how to do this stuff lol.
it's mostly personal preference, but I find the epic to be much nicer than the Evo. The keyboard is a much nicer addition for typing. Virtual keyboards just leave me wanting that tactile feel again. The epic is bigger, but also has a much nicer display and the battery life is longer. I also love the small things like the microusb port on the top, and the power button on the side. These help when I'm using it in the car.
As far as ROMs. The EVO has much more development, but I haven't really longed to change anything on the stock epic (except maybe the bloatware). It's nice and fast and TW is clean. SenseUI always bogged my Evo and made it clunky. The only time I had a smooth ROM was in CM6.So far on the Epic, I don't think I'll need to change anything until I upgrade to 2.2
Also, the Hummingbird processor feels faster than the Snapdragon QSD8650 in the EVO. The extra GPU power really makes a difference. That's why I switched.
I could never decide between the two really, there is just a list of pro's and con's for both of them!
So I got an Evo for my second line. (Girlfriend uses it).
I swore to myself that I would never get a Samsung phone. After I switched away from my Motorolla razr many years ago to the HTC Touch, I fell in love with the quality of their phones.
The Epic just makes the Evo seem so outdated. The only thing going for the Evo is the development community, accessories, and support. And of course the build quality of the phone is just PERFECT.
Unfortunately, I grew tired of Sense UI over a year ago, and much prefer the AOSP UI. I can say, side by side, the Epic just rips the Evo apart in terms of fluidness, performance, and raw GPU power... That, and the screen looks a million times better, and FEELS better too!
I like them both though! =)
one thing to also consider since you are currently a t-mobile customer, the G2 from HTC is out.
I think all of these "Epic or Evo" posts are kind of strange, honestly. The two phones fill different niches. I agree with the poster that said it really comes down to keyboard vs. no keyboard and touchwiz vs. sense. Everything else is relatively minor, and something you will easily get used to (or not even realize the difference).
For me, a better question would be something like Epic or G2, or Epic or Droid 2. It's really not that hard to switch carriers (in fact I did it to buy the Epic), and unless you're very close to the beginning of your present contract - in which case you can't upgrade yet anyway - the ETF probably won't be that much, if anything. I got out of my contract with AT&T after 18 months and they didn't charge me any ETF - though that may be because I still have a second line with my wife's iPhone on it.
I just feel like phones with or without keyboards are a completely different experience. (I had an iPhone for a *day*, and it felt like walking around on one leg to me. So I returned it. And now I'm very happy with my Epic.)
If I didn't need a keyboard, I wouldn't consider the Epic, because the keyboard just adds extra bulk and another failure point - actually several more failure points. Instead, I'd then be comparing the Evo to another Galaxy S phone on another carrier. There's usually no reason to restrict yourself to one carrier. Even if you are going to be charged an ETF, you can usually find a deal on any phone that will more than pay for it (vs. the normal subsidized price of the phone).
badasscat said:
I think all of these "Epic or Evo" posts are kind of strange, honestly. The two phones fill different niches. I agree with the poster that said it really comes down to keyboard vs. no keyboard and touchwiz vs. sense. Everything else is relatively minor, and something you will easily get used to (or not even realize the difference).
For me, a better question would be something like Epic or G2, or Epic or Droid 2. It's really not that hard to switch carriers (in fact I did it to buy the Epic), and unless you're very close to the beginning of your present contract - in which case you can't upgrade yet anyway - the ETF probably won't be that much, if anything. I got out of my contract with AT&T after 18 months and they didn't charge me any ETF - though that may be because I still have a second line with my wife's iPhone on it.
I just feel like phones with or without keyboards are a completely different experience. (I had an iPhone for a *day*, and it felt like walking around on one leg to me. So I returned it. And now I'm very happy with my Epic.)
If I didn't need a keyboard, I wouldn't consider the Epic, because the keyboard just adds extra bulk and another failure point - actually several more failure points. Instead, I'd then be comparing the Evo to another Galaxy S phone on another carrier. There's usually no reason to restrict yourself to one carrier. Even if you are going to be charged an ETF, you can usually find a deal on any phone that will more than pay for it (vs. the normal subsidized price of the phone).
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If you are coming from other carriers, then switching carrier might be a good idea.
But for Sprint customers (especially SERO), switching is usually costly. And unfortunately, at this moment, there are only 2 premium phones that we can choose from.
acegolfer said:
If you are coming from other carriers, then switching carrier might be a good idea.
But for Sprint customers (especially SERO), switching is usually costly. And unfortunately, at this moment, there are only 2 premium phones that we can choose from.
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People without SERO really dont get us sero users.
Even at 50 a month (with my 5pm nights and weekend perk) I will NEVER leave this plan.
the ones we got are evo epic pre transform to a lesser extent hero moment and even lesser extent the i1 and intercept
verizon att and tmo are lucky they have much more
My dad has the evo, I have the epic.
Grab a halloween wallpaper with lots of pumpkins on it. Then compare the screens. I couldn't believe the difference. The epic hands down has darker blacks and more vivid colors. Totally worth it.
Also a few co workers this week complimented the screen.
acegolfer said:
If you are coming from other carriers, then switching carrier might be a good idea.
But for Sprint customers (especially SERO), switching is usually costly. And unfortunately, at this moment, there are only 2 premium phones that we can choose from.
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The OP is coming from T-Mobile. So there's no real reason he should only be looking at the Evo and Epic, and not much reason he'd have to compare only those phones to each other.
Coin Slot said:
one thing to also consider since you are currently a t-mobile customer, the G2 from HTC is out.
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+1 On this.. Amazing Device.. Dumb Fast.. Dumb Fast..
actually i am not leaving T-Mobile but adding Sprint as my second line. So in two months i will have a final decision.
Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA App

Pre > Epic > Evo > back to Epic

For anyone trying to decide between the Evo and Epic, here is my take after having each for at least 2 weeks as my primary phone. These are just my opinions as everyone has different tastes
I must be an exception to the rule...I switched from a Palm Pre to the Epic for a couple weeks. I liked swype so much I decided to drop the epic for the evo.
After using an Evo for two weeks I traded it back for an Epic and I like the Epic much better for a few reasons.
First I didn't care for HTC Sense. I like the gallery, email, music player, calendar, and various apps included with the Epic better than HTC's versions. Also, HTC doesn't ship a file browser or task manager whereas Samsung does. Some people will say "just install one from the market" but those typically all have ads. I realize you can remove the ads with a host file, but that’s beside the point. These are basic OS functions that should be included.
Second the Epic feels much faster. Scrolling is smoother and games run better. Froyo or not, it’s faster.
Third…contrary to what you may believe it is MUCH easier to root an Epic. With the Epic you can essentially take the long way or the shortcut 1-click method but the Evo HW0004 currently there is only a long somewhat difficult root process.
Fourth, everyone complains that the dev community is so much better for the Evo. I would argue that this community is really top notch and has been extremely helpful and understanding to new users such as myself. I saw a lot more flaming going on in Evo forums.
Finally the hardware: Something overlooked by many, the Epic is way more comfortable to hold. Turns out rounded corners are round for a reason. After browsing the web & xda for about 30 min on the Evo I noticed the center of my palm, right where the bottom corner rests was a tad sore, almost felt bruised. This is not a problem with the Epic with its nicely rounded body and curved back. Also the earpiece is much better on the Epic, its louder clearer and is more comfortable up to the ear. And yes, the samoled screen is worth the 0.3” loss in size.
I wouldn't even consider the Evo Shift at this point. I'm shocked to see so many people recommending it over the Epic which to me is well worth the higher price.
If they fix the keyboard issues, GPS issues, and battery life issues I would agree with you that the Epic 4G is definitely the best phone on Sprint. If a Droid or the iPhone had even one of these issues, all of the media outlets would be up in arms and there would be mass returns. They are all MAJOR issues. For some reason, Samsung is allowed to get away with it on the Galaxy S devices. People are not really returning their devices in large numbers (as far as I know), and all of the reviewers gave the Galaxy S devices very high scores.
The reality is this is essentially a device with alpha or beta quality software on it, that is not getting fixed until at least six months after release. I am not buying Samsung again for mobile phones.
I have to agree with op. Best phone i ever had, and i have had quite a few smartphones. even before official froyo, it runs much smoothr than the few evos i played with. Gps, keyboard is perfect for me. And the screen is amazing.....
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Stock Evo vs. Epic battery life is within 5% I would say. I couldn't tell any difference in my usage. Probably because I am almost always within Wi-fi range which makes a big difference.
Keyboard on the Epic doesn't impress, I'll agree with you. Thats probably why I use swype most of the time. It is very handy to punch in passwords though.
GPS is better on the Evo. If you are a road warrior I would avoid the Galexy S line. That said, if you enable GPS & wireless networks it will place you on the map within 30 seconds, but it is definitely not as accurate as the Evo. Supposedly Samsung is working on improvements.
Thanks for bringing up some points I didn't include!
thechicgeak said:
If they fix the keyboard issues, GPS issues, and battery life issues I would agree with you that the Epic 4G is definitely the best phone on Sprint. If a Droid or the iPhone had even one of these issues, all of the media outlets would be up in arms and there would be mass returns. They are all MAJOR issues. For some reason, Samsung is allowed to get away with it on the Galaxy S devices. People are not really returning their devices in large numbers (as far as I know), and all of the reviewers gave the Galaxy S devices very high scores.
The reality is this is essentially a device with alpha or beta quality software on it, that is not getting fixed until at least six months after release. I am not buying Samsung again for mobile phones.
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A. The keyboard is the only legitimate argument you have here.
B. Most users who buy the epic(and yes, the users who root and are members of this forum are the minority) do not see a GPS problem. I didn't even notice one till I started reading this forum and trying to replicate the problem. I have two friends with Epics, and they have never complained of the GPS not working.
C. The battery is no worse than the Evo, and that is a fact. Read on both forums and you will see that everyone gets VERY comparable operating times. Unfortunately with screen this big and clear, you aren't going to get the battery life of other phones. Have you seen the screens on Evo and Epic compared to iphone and droid? They are night and day difference, and the product of that is battery life.
If you go to the Droid forums you will see complaints as well, however because 80% of the public does not have the same demand as the users of forums like this, the complaints are not escalated as highly. The high end techies complain about everything that is not perfect, cause techies are never satisfied, I should know, I am in that boat. However, that does not mean we are holding a inferior piece of hardware/software. Outside of this forum, I have never met a normal person dissatisfied with their Epic or Evo.
I was in a sprint store last week getting a replacement Epic so while waiting i did about 15 seperate 4g bandwidth tests with the floor demo and my replacement Epic comparing it it side to side with the Evo. I'm disappointed to say not only did the Evo best the Epic every time in some instances it nearly doubled the speed. It regularly was 1-3 megabits a second faster and the fastest speed for a Epic was 7.2 megs and the Evo was 10 megs. I also noticed that even though we were in a full coverage area the Epic would go from full to no bars for some unknown reason. The Evo must have a better antenna or the Epic has some reception issues. Has anyone else tested this out?
swanysto said:
...C. The battery is no worse than the Evo, and that is a fact. Read on both forums and you will see that everyone gets VERY comparable operating times. Unfortunately with screen this big and clear, you aren't going to get the battery life of other phones. Have you seen the screens on Evo and Epic compared to iphone and droid? They are night and day difference, and the product of that is battery life...
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I'm going to chime in here and state that the Epic's 45-nm S5PC110 is ~20% more power efficient than the EVO's 65-nm QSD8650. The SAMOLED on the Epic does eat more juice than the EVO's LCD when cranked all the way up or when displaying lots of white pages, but when displaying dark colors and blacks it can sip less energy.
swanysto said:
A. The keyboard is the only legitimate argument you have here.
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Agreed, the keyboard is junk on this device. I am not sure if it is software, hardware, or both that causes the missed keys. Hopefully it is just software issues...
swanysto said:
B. Most users who buy the epic(and yes, the users who root and are members of this forum are the minority) do not see a GPS problem. I didn't even notice one till I started reading this forum and trying to replicate the problem. I have two friends with Epics, and they have never complained of the GPS not working.
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I can see how for some people, the GPS issues are not a big deal, but it is for people who do not want to do any sort of hacking whatsoever to help decrease the long lock times. Not the end of the world, I'll grant you that, but my point is that this would not be accepted on any other major mobile phone, so why is it so accepted on the Galaxy S devices? Look at how up in arms people were about the iPhone 4's relatively minor "death grip" problem.
swanysto said:
C. The battery is no worse than the Evo, and that is a fact. Read on both forums and you will see that everyone gets VERY comparable operating times. Unfortunately with screen this big and clear, you aren't going to get the battery life of other phones. Have you seen the screens on Evo and Epic compared to iphone and droid? They are night and day difference, and the product of that is battery life.
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When it works as it should, it can have great battery life (mine under DK28 works great and I get around 20 to 30 hours on a charge with moderate usage). That being said, there are problems in the software that, on some phones under certain conditions, cause absurdly bad battery life (10% battery drain or more per hour while idle, which is how mine was until I upgraded to DK28 and how my friends' Fascinates are) and cause the phone to heat up considerably while idle. I have only ever heard of this happening with Galaxy S phones. Either way, frequent updates from Samsung and getting the latest Android release reasonably fast would mitigate this complaint for me, but that doesn't happen, so it is a legitimate complaint.
swanysto said:
If you go to the Droid forums you will see complaints as well, however because 80% of the public does not have the same demand as the users of forums like this, the complaints are not escalated as highly. The high end techies complain about everything that is not perfect, cause techies are never satisfied, I should know, I am in that boat. However, that does not mean we are holding a inferior piece of hardware/software. Outside of this forum, I have never met a normal person dissatisfied with their Epic or Evo.
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I will agree that many people expect too much out of their smart phones. 20 to 30 hours is not enough for many people. That being said, 10 hour battery life doing absolutely nothing with the phone is completely ridiculous, and it is a legitimate software problem with the Galaxy S devices.
EDIT: Some grammar changes
I believe every phone's capabilities have to do with their "abuse" levels. Higher the abuse, lower the satisfaction. And, with higher abuse there will be more frequent visits to the Sprint store than usual.
I got my Epic on the day it came out (8/30/2010) and I have to admit this is a very beautiful phone with nice features. And the custom roms just spice it up even more (with less abuse of course)
If you have 10% drain an hour then you have app issues or something running in the background. On eclair I was getting 60 - 80 hours with no problem. On froyo it has been 20 - 30 hours now with ext 4 its up to 55 hours
Our stock standby time is 300 hours evo is like 200.
Epic 4g Quantum Rom Ext 4
Since im replying from my phone and I don't feel like editing a quote I'll just say that the gps is a MAJOR issue as I was never able to use it until I started having my phone. Considering gps is such a basic feature nowadays that is unacceptable.
Sent from my ext4 Epic 4G running Bonsai4all 1.1.3!
so far so good
I'm always tempted by the path not chosen, but so far the Epic has done everything I've needed it to do.
I drive for a living, and while the GPS does take time to lock, it does lock. Otherwise I can find myself on the map and plot my route on the map to at least start my travels until it does lock. I consider this to be standard GPS protocol :/
I could really care less about the keyboard, but for some reason Sprint has designated the slider as their form factor of choice since the PPC-6700. It misses keys, and I thought it was just me, but I'll just have to factor that in and type more carefully. But only the form factor and the OS have been real temptations for me.
I was in the market to replace my Flip camera, and when i saw the video comparisons between the Evo and the Epic, I knew I would be very disappointed with the Evo. And while it may not matter to some, I appreciate the dedicated 2 step camera button.
I'm also feel I'm in the minority when I say that I really like plug location. I leave the phone plugged in while I drive, and it's nice to not have to stow the phone upside down and have to hold it around the plug. This has been a plus with every Samsung phone I have had, the ability to charge it in the upright position. And I cannot tell you how much I adore the slide cover of the plug.
The screen looks great from any angle even in bright light I can see it better than I could ever see the screen on my TP2.
Now, is the phone light and cheap feeling? Possibly. But I would rather drop a light phone than a heavy phone. Think about it. I already dropped it once trying to take a picture of something on the floor. Wood floor, no harm, lesson learned. But the phone seems well put together, and it should last at least the year before I can upgrade to, whatever.
4G, eh, whatever. I play with it in Chicago, and it's iffy at best. They basically tacked on an extra radio, and I mostly pretend it's not there. However, it does grant the ability to do simultaneous voice and data, which will be a plus if this network ever expands and takes hold.
So even though I am sick to death of waiting for Froyo since I'm checking on it every day, I still know I made the right choice as far as what Sprint has to offer.
docdg said:
I also noticed that even though we were in a full coverage area the Epic would go from full to no bars for some unknown reason.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This happens to me all the time. Months ago there were some posts postulating that this problem may be because the Epic's network defaults to "WCDMA preferred" under the advanced network settings, and WCDMA, despite its name, is actually a protocol for GSM phones, not CDMA phones. The thought is that it preferentially periodically goes looking for these networks it cannot connect to.
I have found that switching this setting to "CDMA auto" causes my "time without signal" to drop from ~50% to about 4%, so there's probably something to that argument. Unfortunately the phone seems to change itself back, especially when it reboots, and in any case I still get the bars dropping away quite often, even after changing this.
Phreddo said:
I'm also feel I'm in the minority when I say that I really like plug location. I leave the phone plugged in while I drive, and it's nice to not have to stow the phone upside down and have to hold it around the plug.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also like the plug where it is, though I didn't think I would when I got it. It is so much nicer than a bottom or side plug, not only when plugged into the car, but also when plugged in anywhere else, especially at the computer.
I really like my Epic over the Evo. My cuz has an Evo and it looks and feels so big and square, I really don't think I'd like carrying that thing in my pocket, like I carry my Evo. And for me, Evo's screen is actually larger than needed. I lived without a keyboard for two years with my HTC Touch and now, I can't go without a keyboard. I personally find Swype to be inaccurate and I constantly had to make adjustments. I use the android keyboard when not typing on the keyboard.
edonnelly said:
This happens to me all the time. Months ago there were some posts postulating that this problem may be because the Epic's network defaults to "WCDMA preferred" under the advanced network settings, and WCDMA, despite its name, is actually a protocol for GSM phones, not CDMA phones. The thought is that it preferentially periodically goes looking for these networks it cannot connect to.
I have found that switching this setting to "CDMA auto" causes my "time without signal" to drop from ~50% to about 4%, so there's probably something to that argument. Unfortunately the phone seems to change itself back, especially when it reboots, and in any case I still get the bars dropping away quite often, even after changing this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I too noticed that in the settings. When I switch to CDMA auto, the bars were almost always full or close to full even when I was in areas that historically gave me a bad signal. Unfortunately, the phone swtiches back to WCDMA and I go back to my normal, high-and-low signal.
One final note as I am actually switching to an evo today. On the topic of task killers the one included with the epic is crap. It does not show programs samsung does not want you ending and so I've always used advanced task killer. To me GPS that works and manufacturer support far outweigh the need for a manufacturer supplied task killer.
Sent from my ext4 Epic 4G running Bonsai4all 1.1.3!
kenvan19 said:
One final note as I am actually switching to an evo today. On the topic of task killers the one included with the epic is crap. It does not show programs samsung does not want you ending and so I've always used advanced task killer. To me GPS that works and manufacturer support far outweigh the need for a manufacturer supplied task killer.
Sent from my ext4 Epic 4G running Bonsai4all 1.1.3!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I'm switching to the Epic but I haven't considered the GPS issue. I just assume I'll get a good one. lol. To me, the screen, the still and video camera are reasons to switch. Though the dev community doesn't seem as robust for Epic and the manufacturer support clearly isn't there as well.
dwd3885 said:
I think I'm switching to the Epic but I haven't considered the GPS issue. I just assume I'll get a good one. lol. To me, the screen, the still and video camera are reasons to switch. Though the dev community doesn't seem as robust for Epic and the manufacturer support clearly isn't there as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can get GPS working you just have to be on DK28. If you like the phone by all means get it. It comes down to opinions and my opinion is that there really isn't anything I like about the Epic. Its got great graphics and a good camera but I have a 42" flatscreen+a PS3 for gaming and I have a 12mp camera for pictures, I don't need my phone to do those things. Sure, having a hardware keyboard is great but considering I have to slow my typing speed down so I don't miss letters and how much I've come to love swype I don't really want/need it anymore. I've said this in the Evo Shift vs Epic thread and I'll say it here: Go try both phones. If you like one more than the other, buy it. Manufacturers and Carriers are always going to skew their descriptions and spec sheets to get you to buy something, so just go with what you want.
jbadboy2007 said:
If you have 10% drain an hour then you have app issues or something running in the background. On eclair I was getting 60 - 80 hours with no problem. On froyo it has been 20 - 30 hours now with ext 4 its up to 55 hours
Our stock standby time is 300 hours evo is like 200.
Epic 4g Quantum Rom Ext 4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not quite sure exactly what it is, but it seems to be restricted to Galaxy S phones. I spent quite a lot of time trying to figure out what was causing it on my phone, and while I have heard of people like you who got good battery life in 2.1, everyone I know who has a Galaxy S device has this issue. Judging by the fact that for me and others, 2.2 has cleared up the issue, I am guessing there is a fix specifically for this in that update.
For the record, I once ran logcat to see if I could pinpoint the issue. It seemed that Google Sync was querying Google's servers CONSTANTLY even though I had configured to push in GMail, so it could be an issue with Android or the GMail app itself, but why it seems to manifest on Galaxy S devices with alarming frequency is beyond me.

Why I can't decide on the iPhone 6s Plus or the Galaxy S7 Edge

TL;DR: I realize I'm posting this in the S7 forum, but should I buy the Galaxy S7 Edge or the iPhone 6s Plus? Samsung scarred me for life and I have good experiences with Apple, yet I am drawn by the spec-tacular (lol see what I did there) S7 Edge.
All right, I know that the S7 Edge is superior in almost every way to the 6s Plus, but give me a chance to explain my reasoning for being unsure about which one to purchase. Let me just warn you that this will be a long read, but if you love phones as much as I do and would like to kill some time then I hope you will enjoy this post and maybe even have some input to help me make a decision.
First, some history. I had my first smartphone about six years ago, and it was a Samsung Galaxy S Captivate. It was glorious when I bought it and I loved it, but after a while it became extremely laggy, froze quite frequently (I would have to remove the battery to turn it off and on), the power button broke, the software got ****ed up and I was not able to go to the home page without my phone freezing and crashing (I fixed this by installing a different launcher from my computer, but it was pretty scary not being able to navigate my phone). All this stuff caused me to kind of lose my trust in Samsung. I even found a note (lol get it) a few weeks ago and thought it was pretty pretty funny, although also slightly worrisome. For the sake of comedy, here it is:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
So I got the HTC One M7, kind of ignoring my own advice, and the first two weeks with it were tough (I was paranoid and I found dead pixels on both of the phones they let me look at, the camera made weird sounds, the build quality was much worse than advertised on YouTube, etc) but after I get over these little things, I really enjoyed the phone and the experience was much better than with my Samsung. No lag, no freezing. Pure bliss.
A year later, I realized I need a tablet for school. After considering all my options I went for the latest Samsung tablet, deciding to give them another chance even though my experience was so bad previously. And this time… they disappointed me again. Turning the tablet on by pressing the home button took literally 2 seconds and taking notes in school was impossible because the note-taking app kept crashing. I filmed these things but I don’t know where those videos are now. My friend ended up getting the same tablet and hers was way quicker and didn’t have these problems, so I don’t know why mine was slow. But this made me trust Samsung even less.
So, here I am again. It’s been almost three years and my good ol’ HTC One cannot fulfil my needs anymore, thus it is time for an upgrade. So I wait, and I wait, and the iPhone 6s Plus comes out and I’m amazed by the new 3D touch feature, but I like Android so I wait some more. And then the LG V10 comes out and I like it and decide to buy it, but it isn’t available in Canada. So I wait some more. Then, finally, an angel appears out of nowhere: the beautiful Galaxy S7 Edge. The only problem is… it’s Samsung.
I watch unboxings. I watch reviews. I watch comparisons. This phone is a beast in every way. It has expandable memory, a fantastic display, a crazy battery, amazing cameras, it’s waterproof, it has quick charging, it has wireless charging, etc. Why the hell would someone not want this phone?!
Honestly, I was still unsure about the phone when I decided to buy it (my instinctual fear of Samsung was telling me to stay away). Samsung was having a promotion where they gave you a free 128GB micro SD card if you reserved the phone, so I decided to just reserve it and see what happened. Then when the phone came in, I decided to just buy it and see what happened. Then I traded in my ****ty old non-functional Samsung phone for $125 off the S7 Edge. Then I kind of fell in love with the phone. Well, until things started to go wrong.
You see, I am someone who over-analyzes everything. If I’m buying headphones, I will research headphones every day after work and on the weekends for at least a week. This is pretty much what I did with these phones. Specs-wise, I knew the Edge was obviously the best choice. However, in real-life use it had a few problems, one which I had trouble getting over.
The first of these problems was that the camera would make a weird popping sound when I recorded videos. I actually think this had something to do with Snapchat because it stopped happening a while after I uninstalled it. But that was weird and it made me slightly paranoid.
The second problem was connectivity issues, although this could have been due to my carrier. It was strange though, because I never had problems on my old HTC One M7 with the same carrier. Anyway, they somehow resolved themselves as well.
The most scary problem was the last one. I was talking to my friend on a messaging app (Line, specifically) a few days after buying the phone and suddenly my phone shut down without a warning. It freaked me out because I got flashbacks to six years ago when this would happen all the time on my old Samsung phone. I pushed the thoughts away and said, it was probably a one-off error that won’t happen again.
But alas, it happened again twice on one day (the day before the last day for me to return it, too). The first time I got a text and opened my cover, which would usually turn on the screen, but nothing happened. I pressed the home button. Nothing happened. I pressed all buttons, nothing happened. After about half a minute, the phone restarted. Then the same night, I was talking on Facebook Messenger and it happened again. No matter what I did, no amount of pressing the screen or any buttons would do anything. And then it just turned off and I had to turn it back on by pressing some combination of buttons.
Needless to say, this freaked the **** out of me. I talked to my friends and they all said this wasn’t normal and I should take the phone back for an exchange or in the worst case just return it. So I contacted my local Samsung store and they told me they were out of stock, but that I could check again tomorrow. At this point I was having major Samsung-hell flashbacks and was totally second-guessing my decision and was considering getting the Nexus 6p. So I stayed up until 2 or 3 in the morning (even though I had work the next morning) so I could do some more research, and I found myself in the morning desperately hoping they had no more stock so I could return the damn phone and get a Nexus.
And to my absolute glee, they had no more stock! So I went in and returned the phone, not without a lot of convincing arguments from the salespeople about why I should keep it (“with all these discounts and free stuff you save almost $300!”), as well as giving me a one-day extension so I could come in the next day and get it replaced if they had stock. I spent a week being anxious and stressed I didn’t feel like dealing with this for even a day longer so I returned it and went home and relaxed for the first time in probably a week. I even cried some tears of joy because I had forgotten what it was like not to feel like there is a constant clock ticking, waiting for me to make a decision. Ah, peace at last…
But then I started second-guessing my decision. I didn’t actually want the Nexus; it has an inferior battery, a camera without OIS, and the Snapdragon 810 sounds like a pain in the ass. I was pretty depressed for a day about returning my gorgeous S7 Edge with all those marvelous specs, until I remembered, “Hey, I can always get the iPhone 6s Plus!”
So now we’re finally at the juicy part, after all the rambling and storytelling. I need your help. Samsung has scarred me tremendously, yet I am still so damn drawn to their hardware. My coworker has had a Samsung S6 for half a year and says it has not crashed even once. My other coworker has also had the S6 for a while and she says it's smooth like butter. My best friend has also had a Samsung S6 for a little over a year and she says it only crashed a few times in that whole year. What are your experiences with Samsung’s latest phones? Can Samsung be trusted? Do their phones crash frequently, or do I just somehow curse every Samsung product I buy? A lot of people complained about Samsung becoming laggy after some time, even though their products are amazing initially. Is this still true?
Yet at the same time I somehow cannot seem to bring myself to get the iPhone, knowing all that it’s lacking. It has no quick charging. It has no wireless charging. It has no expandable memory. Its display is worse than my three-year-old HTC One M7’s (what the hell Apple lol). Its battery life is worse than the S7 Edge’s. It’s not waterproof. It has worse low-light pictures. It has slower upload/download speeds. Basically, it is worse in every way, except for two important ones: It has 3D touch, and it’s Apple.
3D touch seems like such a useful feature, both from a user perspective and from a developer perspective. I’m studying computer science and I really want to make mobile apps (I’ve made two already for Android) and 3D touch seems like it’ll be very interesting to incorporate into apps. I’ve also read that iOS devs make more money since iOS users are more likely to spend money, but I guess if my apps have ads then it’ll be more revenue on Android since there are more users there.
The second point I mentioned is that it’s Apple. I own a Macbook Air and used to own an iPad and I have had nothing but great experiences with Apple. My friend has an iPhone and she says it has never crashed. Apple’s customer service is outstanding and they make me feel very secure with my purchases. I know that no matter what happens to my phone, AppleCare+ has got me covered. Also, I’m going on exchange to Asia for a year and it’s nice to know I can take my phone to any Apple store in the world and get it repaired (which I can’t do for any other phone).
Essentially I need a few things from my phone: A good camera, a good battery that can survive a whole day (since I’ll be doing lots of touristy picture and video taking), enough storage for photos and videos (while I’m travelling I’ll want to record lots of videos, although probably not in 4K), and peace of mind. I’m sad that I can’t seem to enjoy Samsung phones as much as other people do, and those damn specs are driving me insane and make me want to buy the phone again right now and give it another try (maybe it was just a bug?). But I’m hesitant and scared of buying a phone that will constantly fail on me just like my old Samsung used to do.
At the same time, I feel silly paying $160CAD more for an iPhone which has much worse specs than the Edge. But is it all about specs, or is it more about the experience? Does it matter if it takes 3 hours to charge to the same amount the Edge charges to in 1 hour? Does it matter if I can’t charge wirelessly? Does it matter if there are less pixels per inch on the screen? Does it matter if the iPhone isn’t waterproof? Does it matter that low-light pictures are worse? Does it matter that the selfie camera is way too damn zoomed in to take any decent group photos without a selfie stick? Does it matter that once I choose a storage size, I can’t expand it? I don’t know. It’s hard to really know how useful or useless these things will be until I use the phone for a long time. If I were rich, I’d buy both. But I’m not and that’s crazy.
I’m going to Asia in September for a full year and my HTC One M7 won’t do. It barely lasts half a day with normal use and the camera is broken. I want to take pictures and record videos (so I can make vlogs on YouTube and share my experiences with my family and friends) and go out in the morning and come back at night with enough charge. I don’t want my phone to freeze and crash in the middle of all of this.
I wanted to love the S7 Edge so much but the crashing is not okay, but after thinking about it for a few days I wonder if this is something that is not common anymore and something that just happened to me because I’m unlucky. I also still would be open to the idea of a Nexus 6P (especially for the price), but I’m not sure if the slightly worse camera and the much worse battery are a good fit for me. Then again, there’s the iPhone 6s Plus…
What the hell do I do?
s7 edge....just this.
Hey friend. Just go with S7 Edge and it will not disappoint you again. I am totally love my S7e. It's very very fast and very long battery with very nice display.
Just few issue in software like random freeze and reboot (1 per week) and it will be solved by software update.
This is the first time a Samsung device surprises me having SOT like this. When S7 (not needs root) a little tweaked (no greenify or 3rd party app) has excellent battery life. I've used every samsung device since S2 (including note series), but this time they solved the battery issue. I'm on LTE network and SOT is more than 4, 4.5 hours.
Update of the samsung devices is not very well so Note has MM yet available, so don't expect N upgrades soon.
I have 6S plus, Nexus 6P and S7 Edge which I use as daily drivers (2 of them are always online). The question is do you want to use ios or android. (as I said this time samsung did the work well)
6S plus' camera is excellent you dont notice a pixel or low resolution but samsung's better. Camerawise S7E>6S+>6P
Screen quality is best on s7e and you will be happy to use (unless curved screen glare does bother you)
As far as I noticed samsung did a very good job on s7e.
Hope this helps you to decide to choose.
naivetiu said:
TL;DR: I realize I'm posting this in the S7 forum, but should I buy the Galaxy S7 Edge or the iPhone 6s Plus? Samsung scarred me for life and I have good experiences with Apple, yet I am drawn by the spec-tacular (lol see what I did there) S7 Edge.
All right, I know that the S7 Edge is superior in almost every way to the 6s Plus, but give me a chance to explain my reasoning for being unsure about which one to purchase. Let me just warn you that this will be a long read, but if you love phones as much as I do and would like to kill some time then I hope you will enjoy this post and maybe even have some input to help me make a decision.
First, some history. I had my first smartphone about six years ago, and it was a Samsung Galaxy S Captivate. It was glorious when I bought it and I loved it, but after a while it became extremely laggy, froze quite frequently (I would have to remove the battery to turn it off and on), the power button broke, the software got ****ed up and I was not able to go to the home page without my phone freezing and crashing (I fixed this by installing a different launcher from my computer, but it was pretty scary not being able to navigate my phone). All this stuff caused me to kind of lose my trust in Samsung. I even found a note (lol get it) a few weeks ago and thought it was pretty pretty funny, although also slightly worrisome. For the sake of comedy, here it is:
So I got the HTC One M7, kind of ignoring my own advice, and the first two weeks with it were tough (I was paranoid and I found dead pixels on both of the phones they let me look at, the camera made weird sounds, the build quality was much worse than advertised on YouTube, etc) but after I get over these little things, I really enjoyed the phone and the experience was much better than with my Samsung. No lag, no freezing. Pure bliss.
A year later, I realized I need a tablet for school. After considering all my options I went for the latest Samsung tablet, deciding to give them another chance even though my experience was so bad previously. And this time… they disappointed me again. Turning the tablet on by pressing the home button took literally 2 seconds and taking notes in school was impossible because the note-taking app kept crashing. I filmed these things but I don’t know where those videos are now. My friend ended up getting the same tablet and hers was way quicker and didn’t have these problems, so I don’t know why mine was slow. But this made me trust Samsung even less.
So, here I am again. It’s been almost three years and my good ol’ HTC One cannot fulfil my needs anymore, thus it is time for an upgrade. So I wait, and I wait, and the iPhone 6s Plus comes out and I’m amazed by the new 3D touch feature, but I like Android so I wait some more. And then the LG V10 comes out and I like it and decide to buy it, but it isn’t available in Canada. So I wait some more. Then, finally, an angel appears out of nowhere: the beautiful Galaxy S7 Edge. The only problem is… it’s Samsung.
I watch unboxings. I watch reviews. I watch comparisons. This phone is a beast in every way. It has expandable memory, a fantastic display, a crazy battery, amazing cameras, it’s waterproof, it has quick charging, it has wireless charging, etc. Why the hell would someone not want this phone?!
Honestly, I was still unsure about the phone when I decided to buy it (my instinctual fear of Samsung was telling me to stay away). Samsung was having a promotion where they gave you a free 128GB micro SD card if you reserved the phone, so I decided to just reserve it and see what happened. Then when the phone came in, I decided to just buy it and see what happened. Then I traded in my ****ty old non-functional Samsung phone for $125 off the S7 Edge. Then I kind of fell in love with the phone. Well, until things started to go wrong.
You see, I am someone who over-analyzes everything. If I’m buying headphones, I will research headphones every day after work and on the weekends for at least a week. This is pretty much what I did with these phones. Specs-wise, I knew the Edge was obviously the best choice. However, in real-life use it had a few problems, one which I had trouble getting over.
The first of these problems was that the camera would make a weird popping sound when I recorded videos. I actually think this had something to do with Snapchat because it stopped happening a while after I uninstalled it. But that was weird and it made me slightly paranoid.
The second problem was connectivity issues, although this could have been due to my carrier. It was strange though, because I never had problems on my old HTC One M7 with the same carrier. Anyway, they somehow resolved themselves as well.
The most scary problem was the last one. I was talking to my friend on a messaging app (Line, specifically) a few days after buying the phone and suddenly my phone shut down without a warning. It freaked me out because I got flashbacks to six years ago when this would happen all the time on my old Samsung phone. I pushed the thoughts away and said, it was probably a one-off error that won’t happen again.
But alas, it happened again twice on one day (the day before the last day for me to return it, too). The first time I got a text and opened my cover, which would usually turn on the screen, but nothing happened. I pressed the home button. Nothing happened. I pressed all buttons, nothing happened. After about half a minute, the phone restarted. Then the same night, I was talking on Facebook Messenger and it happened again. No matter what I did, no amount of pressing the screen or any buttons would do anything. And then it just turned off and I had to turn it back on by pressing some combination of buttons.
Needless to say, this freaked the **** out of me. I talked to my friends and they all said this wasn’t normal and I should take the phone back for an exchange or in the worst case just return it. So I contacted my local Samsung store and they told me they were out of stock, but that I could check again tomorrow. At this point I was having major Samsung-hell flashbacks and was totally second-guessing my decision and was considering getting the Nexus 6p. So I stayed up until 2 or 3 in the morning (even though I had work the next morning) so I could do some more research, and I found myself in the morning desperately hoping they had no more stock so I could return the damn phone and get a Nexus.
And to my absolute glee, they had no more stock! So I went in and returned the phone, not without a lot of convincing arguments from the salespeople about why I should keep it (“with all these discounts and free stuff you save almost $300!”), as well as giving me a one-day extension so I could come in the next day and get it replaced if they had stock. I spent a week being anxious and stressed I didn’t feel like dealing with this for even a day longer so I returned it and went home and relaxed for the first time in probably a week. I even cried some tears of joy because I had forgotten what it was like not to feel like there is a constant clock ticking, waiting for me to make a decision. Ah, peace at last…
But then I started second-guessing my decision. I didn’t actually want the Nexus; it has an inferior battery, a camera without OIS, and the Snapdragon 810 sounds like a pain in the ass. I was pretty depressed for a day about returning my gorgeous S7 Edge with all those marvelous specs, until I remembered, “Hey, I can always get the iPhone 6s Plus!”
So now we’re finally at the juicy part, after all the rambling and storytelling. I need your help. Samsung has scarred me tremendously, yet I am still so damn drawn to their hardware. My coworker has had a Samsung S6 for half a year and says it has not crashed even once. My other coworker has also had the S6 for a while and she says it's smooth like butter. My best friend has also had a Samsung S6 for a little over a year and she says it only crashed a few times in that whole year. What are your experiences with Samsung’s latest phones? Can Samsung be trusted? Do their phones crash frequently, or do I just somehow curse every Samsung product I buy? A lot of people complained about Samsung becoming laggy after some time, even though their products are amazing initially. Is this still true?
Yet at the same time I somehow cannot seem to bring myself to get the iPhone, knowing all that it’s lacking. It has no quick charging. It has no wireless charging. It has no expandable memory. Its display is worse than my three-year-old HTC One M7’s (what the hell Apple lol). Its battery life is worse than the S7 Edge’s. It’s not waterproof. It has worse low-light pictures. It has slower upload/download speeds. Basically, it is worse in every way, except for two important ones: It has 3D touch, and it’s Apple.
3D touch seems like such a useful feature, both from a user perspective and from a developer perspective. I’m studying computer science and I really want to make mobile apps (I’ve made two already for Android) and 3D touch seems like it’ll be very interesting to incorporate into apps. I’ve also read that iOS devs make more money since iOS users are more likely to spend money, but I guess if my apps have ads then it’ll be more revenue on Android since there are more users there.
The second point I mentioned is that it’s Apple. I own a Macbook Air and used to own an iPad and I have had nothing but great experiences with Apple. My friend has an iPhone and she says it has never crashed. Apple’s customer service is outstanding and they make me feel very secure with my purchases. I know that no matter what happens to my phone, AppleCare+ has got me covered. Also, I’m going on exchange to Asia for a year and it’s nice to know I can take my phone to any Apple store in the world and get it repaired (which I can’t do for any other phone).
Essentially I need a few things from my phone: A good camera, a good battery that can survive a whole day (since I’ll be doing lots of touristy picture and video taking), enough storage for photos and videos (while I’m travelling I’ll want to record lots of videos, although probably not in 4K), and peace of mind. I’m sad that I can’t seem to enjoy Samsung phones as much as other people do, and those damn specs are driving me insane and make me want to buy the phone again right now and give it another try (maybe it was just a bug?). But I’m hesitant and scared of buying a phone that will constantly fail on me just like my old Samsung used to do.
At the same time, I feel silly paying $160CAD more for an iPhone which has much worse specs than the Edge. But is it all about specs, or is it more about the experience? Does it matter if it takes 3 hours to charge to the same amount the Edge charges to in 1 hour? Does it matter if I can’t charge wirelessly? Does it matter if there are less pixels per inch on the screen? Does it matter if the iPhone isn’t waterproof? Does it matter that low-light pictures are worse? Does it matter that the selfie camera is way too damn zoomed in to take any decent group photos without a selfie stick? Does it matter that once I choose a storage size, I can’t expand it? I don’t know. It’s hard to really know how useful or useless these things will be until I use the phone for a long time. If I were rich, I’d buy both. But I’m not and that’s crazy.
I’m going to Asia in September for a full year and my HTC One M7 won’t do. It barely lasts half a day with normal use and the camera is broken. I want to take pictures and record videos (so I can make vlogs on YouTube and share my experiences with my family and friends) and go out in the morning and come back at night with enough charge. I don’t want my phone to freeze and crash in the middle of all of this.
I wanted to love the S7 Edge so much but the crashing is not okay, but after thinking about it for a few days I wonder if this is something that is not common anymore and something that just happened to me because I’m unlucky. I also still would be open to the idea of a Nexus 6P (especially for the price), but I’m not sure if the slightly worse camera and the much worse battery are a good fit for me. Then again, there’s the iPhone 6s Plus…
What the hell do I do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, the big question (at least for me), if you'd take the edge (I can do that too[emoji14]), would you get over the already present anixity?
Because if you're not, even when there aren't the faults you experienced before, if you look close enough there can be glitches found on every device (not just talking about s7 edge, but devices from every manufacturer).
Of my own experience, I haven't got any of the problems you described, but I read from others having them in here. Some defectife units are pretty normal at such a big amount of shipped devices, but it's always hard to tell how big the percentage is of reported faults.
Let's play a bit.
Let's consider that people in here are just a fraktion of people owning the phone, let's assume 5% of all users. From those let's assume 10% (which probably is much) have an error of some kind (because there are many lurkers as well and people are much quicker in crying out load, if something isn't working as they are with telling all is fine), which would make 0.5% at all units. Now let's quadruple that amount to take people not being in here with such errors into consideration and where at 2%.
That was not even close to being sientific accurate, but I guess you get what I'm up to, the chance of you getting another unit with those faults is rather small. Also, when you're from canada you get the exynos variant, which, considering reports, has way less problems than the snapdragon variant.
Another thing, why just those 2 options, at least from what you want the G5 would be an option as well. Expandable storage, nice camera (comparable to the s7, from what I've seen it has the upper hand at light shots, while the s7 handles low light better) and maybe worse battery, but you can take a spare with you. For sure only if you're fine with dropping the IP rating, design and wireless charging for the modular design and from what I've seen it's kind of fragile compared to other flagships. Or what about the announced Huawei P9, it may have not such a good SoC, but at least from what's announced it should have an exceptional camera performance).
naivetiu said:
TL;DR: I realize I'm posting this in the S7 forum, but should I buy the Galaxy S7 Edge or the iPhone 6s Plus? Samsung scarred me for life and I have good experiences with Apple, yet I am drawn by the spec-tacular (lol see what I did there) S7 Edge.
What the hell do I do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Buy the s7 edge again. Had the same shutdown with no button working in the first few days too, I agree it was scary... after an update I haven't had a single reboot.
Sent from my SM-G935F using XDA-Developers mobile app
naivetiu said:
TL;DR: I realize I'm posting this in the S7 forum, but should I buy the Galaxy S7 Edge or the iPhone 6s Plus? Samsung scarred me for life and I have good experiences with Apple, yet I am drawn by the spec-tacular (lol see what I did there) S7 Edge.
All right, I know that the S7 Edge is superior in almost every way to the 6s Plus, but give me a chance to explain my reasoning for being unsure about which one to purchase. Let me just warn you that this will be a long read, but if you love phones as much as I do and would like to kill some time then I hope you will enjoy this post and maybe even have some input to help me make a decision.
First, some history. I had my first smartphone about six years ago, and it was a Samsung Galaxy S Captivate. It was glorious when I bought it and I loved it, but after a while it became extremely laggy, froze quite frequently (I would have to remove the battery to turn it off and on), the power button broke, the software got ****ed up and I was not able to go to the home page without my phone freezing and crashing (I fixed this by installing a different launcher from my computer, but it was pretty scary not being able to navigate my phone). All this stuff caused me to kind of lose my trust in Samsung. I even found a note (lol get it) a few weeks ago and thought it was pretty pretty funny, although also slightly worrisome. For the sake of comedy, here it is:
So I got the HTC One M7, kind of ignoring my own advice, and the first two weeks with it were tough (I was paranoid and I found dead pixels on both of the phones they let me look at, the camera made weird sounds, the build quality was much worse than advertised on YouTube, etc) but after I get over these little things, I really enjoyed the phone and the experience was much better than with my Samsung. No lag, no freezing. Pure bliss.
A year later, I realized I need a tablet for school. After considering all my options I went for the latest Samsung tablet, deciding to give them another chance even though my experience was so bad previously. And this time… they disappointed me again. Turning the tablet on by pressing the home button took literally 2 seconds and taking notes in school was impossible because the note-taking app kept crashing. I filmed these things but I don’t know where those videos are now. My friend ended up getting the same tablet and hers was way quicker and didn’t have these problems, so I don’t know why mine was slow. But this made me trust Samsung even less.
So, here I am again. It’s been almost three years and my good ol’ HTC One cannot fulfil my needs anymore, thus it is time for an upgrade. So I wait, and I wait, and the iPhone 6s Plus comes out and I’m amazed by the new 3D touch feature, but I like Android so I wait some more. And then the LG V10 comes out and I like it and decide to buy it, but it isn’t available in Canada. So I wait some more. Then, finally, an angel appears out of nowhere: the beautiful Galaxy S7 Edge. The only problem is… it’s Samsung.
I watch unboxings. I watch reviews. I watch comparisons. This phone is a beast in every way. It has expandable memory, a fantastic display, a crazy battery, amazing cameras, it’s waterproof, it has quick charging, it has wireless charging, etc. Why the hell would someone not want this phone?!
Honestly, I was still unsure about the phone when I decided to buy it (my instinctual fear of Samsung was telling me to stay away). Samsung was having a promotion where they gave you a free 128GB micro SD card if you reserved the phone, so I decided to just reserve it and see what happened. Then when the phone came in, I decided to just buy it and see what happened. Then I traded in my ****ty old non-functional Samsung phone for $125 off the S7 Edge. Then I kind of fell in love with the phone. Well, until things started to go wrong.
You see, I am someone who over-analyzes everything. If I’m buying headphones, I will research headphones every day after work and on the weekends for at least a week. This is pretty much what I did with these phones. Specs-wise, I knew the Edge was obviously the best choice. However, in real-life use it had a few problems, one which I had trouble getting over.
The first of these problems was that the camera would make a weird popping sound when I recorded videos. I actually think this had something to do with Snapchat because it stopped happening a while after I uninstalled it. But that was weird and it made me slightly paranoid.
The second problem was connectivity issues, although this could have been due to my carrier. It was strange though, because I never had problems on my old HTC One M7 with the same carrier. Anyway, they somehow resolved themselves as well.
The most scary problem was the last one. I was talking to my friend on a messaging app (Line, specifically) a few days after buying the phone and suddenly my phone shut down without a warning. It freaked me out because I got flashbacks to six years ago when this would happen all the time on my old Samsung phone. I pushed the thoughts away and said, it was probably a one-off error that won’t happen again.
But alas, it happened again twice on one day (the day before the last day for me to return it, too). The first time I got a text and opened my cover, which would usually turn on the screen, but nothing happened. I pressed the home button. Nothing happened. I pressed all buttons, nothing happened. After about half a minute, the phone restarted. Then the same night, I was talking on Facebook Messenger and it happened again. No matter what I did, no amount of pressing the screen or any buttons would do anything. And then it just turned off and I had to turn it back on by pressing some combination of buttons.
Needless to say, this freaked the **** out of me. I talked to my friends and they all said this wasn’t normal and I should take the phone back for an exchange or in the worst case just return it. So I contacted my local Samsung store and they told me they were out of stock, but that I could check again tomorrow. At this point I was having major Samsung-hell flashbacks and was totally second-guessing my decision and was considering getting the Nexus 6p. So I stayed up until 2 or 3 in the morning (even though I had work the next morning) so I could do some more research, and I found myself in the morning desperately hoping they had no more stock so I could return the damn phone and get a Nexus.
And to my absolute glee, they had no more stock! So I went in and returned the phone, not without a lot of convincing arguments from the salespeople about why I should keep it (“with all these discounts and free stuff you save almost $300!”), as well as giving me a one-day extension so I could come in the next day and get it replaced if they had stock. I spent a week being anxious and stressed I didn’t feel like dealing with this for even a day longer so I returned it and went home and relaxed for the first time in probably a week. I even cried some tears of joy because I had forgotten what it was like not to feel like there is a constant clock ticking, waiting for me to make a decision. Ah, peace at last…
But then I started second-guessing my decision. I didn’t actually want the Nexus; it has an inferior battery, a camera without OIS, and the Snapdragon 810 sounds like a pain in the ass. I was pretty depressed for a day about returning my gorgeous S7 Edge with all those marvelous specs, until I remembered, “Hey, I can always get the iPhone 6s Plus!”
So now we’re finally at the juicy part, after all the rambling and storytelling. I need your help. Samsung has scarred me tremendously, yet I am still so damn drawn to their hardware. My coworker has had a Samsung S6 for half a year and says it has not crashed even once. My other coworker has also had the S6 for a while and she says it's smooth like butter. My best friend has also had a Samsung S6 for a little over a year and she says it only crashed a few times in that whole year. What are your experiences with Samsung’s latest phones? Can Samsung be trusted? Do their phones crash frequently, or do I just somehow curse every Samsung product I buy? A lot of people complained about Samsung becoming laggy after some time, even though their products are amazing initially. Is this still true?
Yet at the same time I somehow cannot seem to bring myself to get the iPhone, knowing all that it’s lacking. It has no quick charging. It has no wireless charging. It has no expandable memory. Its display is worse than my three-year-old HTC One M7’s (what the hell Apple lol). Its battery life is worse than the S7 Edge’s. It’s not waterproof. It has worse low-light pictures. It has slower upload/download speeds. Basically, it is worse in every way, except for two important ones: It has 3D touch, and it’s Apple.
3D touch seems like such a useful feature, both from a user perspective and from a developer perspective. I’m studying computer science and I really want to make mobile apps (I’ve made two already for Android) and 3D touch seems like it’ll be very interesting to incorporate into apps. I’ve also read that iOS devs make more money since iOS users are more likely to spend money, but I guess if my apps have ads then it’ll be more revenue on Android since there are more users there.
The second point I mentioned is that it’s Apple. I own a Macbook Air and used to own an iPad and I have had nothing but great experiences with Apple. My friend has an iPhone and she says it has never crashed. Apple’s customer service is outstanding and they make me feel very secure with my purchases. I know that no matter what happens to my phone, AppleCare+ has got me covered. Also, I’m going on exchange to Asia for a year and it’s nice to know I can take my phone to any Apple store in the world and get it repaired (which I can’t do for any other phone).
Essentially I need a few things from my phone: A good camera, a good battery that can survive a whole day (since I’ll be doing lots of touristy picture and video taking), enough storage for photos and videos (while I’m travelling I’ll want to record lots of videos, although probably not in 4K), and peace of mind. I’m sad that I can’t seem to enjoy Samsung phones as much as other people do, and those damn specs are driving me insane and make me want to buy the phone again right now and give it another try (maybe it was just a bug?). But I’m hesitant and scared of buying a phone that will constantly fail on me just like my old Samsung used to do.
At the same time, I feel silly paying $160CAD more for an iPhone which has much worse specs than the Edge. But is it all about specs, or is it more about the experience? Does it matter if it takes 3 hours to charge to the same amount the Edge charges to in 1 hour? Does it matter if I can’t charge wirelessly? Does it matter if there are less pixels per inch on the screen? Does it matter if the iPhone isn’t waterproof? Does it matter that low-light pictures are worse? Does it matter that the selfie camera is way too damn zoomed in to take any decent group photos without a selfie stick? Does it matter that once I choose a storage size, I can’t expand it? I don’t know. It’s hard to really know how useful or useless these things will be until I use the phone for a long time. If I were rich, I’d buy both. But I’m not and that’s crazy.
I’m going to Asia in September for a full year and my HTC One M7 won’t do. It barely lasts half a day with normal use and the camera is broken. I want to take pictures and record videos (so I can make vlogs on YouTube and share my experiences with my family and friends) and go out in the morning and come back at night with enough charge. I don’t want my phone to freeze and crash in the middle of all of this.
I wanted to love the S7 Edge so much but the crashing is not okay, but after thinking about it for a few days I wonder if this is something that is not common anymore and something that just happened to me because I’m unlucky. I also still would be open to the idea of a Nexus 6P (especially for the price), but I’m not sure if the slightly worse camera and the much worse battery are a good fit for me. Then again, there’s the iPhone 6s Plus…
What the hell do I do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get the global version GS7 Edge
naivetiu said:
TL;DR: I realize I'm posting this in the S7 forum, but should I buy the Galaxy S7 Edge or the iPhone 6s Plus? Samsung scarred me for life and I have good experiences with Apple, yet I am drawn by the spec-tacular (lol see what I did there) S7 Edge.
What the hell do I do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wait another week and see if the HTC 10 is any good.
I have the S7EDGE, none of those issues man. I can tell yoy i had the same experience with sgs4. And man was it painful, way to slow and lags like there is no tomorrow, which made me jump ship and i bought OPO. Now that iam back here at samsung i couldnt be happier. So i would advise you to make the purchase again, because if you get a good unit, which im pretty confident you will, you will have the time of your life
I have a similar feeling about Samsung. They have great hardware but software is awful. Whenever I tried Samsung, I ended up disappointed and said never again. I was using 6s+ until recently when I got S7 Edge and it is really a great phone overall. I know though that I'm not keeping it for a long time and will look later at the next nexus or iPhone 7. The reason is that it will get Android N 6 months later that Nexus and will have software issues and might probably lag as well. Addressing lag by adding memory and better processor is not a smart solution as it will not last long
Why I did switch now? the only reason is the size of the 6s+, it is very big while the S7 Edge is compact. I'm looking forward for a nice Nexus this year, if not then probably iphone 7+ if it will be smaller in size.
I switched from iPhone 6 Plus back to android S7 edge. Iphone 6 plus 6s plus are identical minus the camara n few other things. Didnt think i would ditch apple but the s7 edge is a beauty!!! Loving that i now can connect my push2tv in my truck and send vc txt as eith the iphone i could not. I hate apple with those restrictions. Annoying that i would need to buy an apple tv.
S7 edge ftw!!!
Be together...not the same.
Sent from my SM-G935T using XDA-Developers mobile app
You obviously want the consistency of Apple; nothing wrong with that. After 5 years of Android i switched from my s6 edge to iPhone 6s Plus... And loved it for the first month because i had just been so fed up with the tiny battery and horrible RAM management of the S6E. but after that first month... I got bored. iOS is a bore in every way possible to me, the screen looks like sh*t after being used to years of AMOLED screens, and i noticed a horrific drop off in picture quality to the point where I just didn't feel like taking pictures anymore. 3D touch was cool... Until i realized i almost never used it.
Do what you need to do man, nothing wrong if you want to join the dark side. but if you're anything like me at all, you'll always feel the call to the light.
Be together, not the same.
First let me quickly say that I have not had any of the issues you seem to have had with the S7E. After this latest update from Tmobile I'm getting insane battery life. Close to 9 hours SOT and 3% drain per 8 hours in standby.
Now onto the 6S+. I have been an android user since the G1. I loved everything Android and never thought I'd buy an iPhone but last year I decided to give one a try. I wanted to see what it was like and they finally released a phone with a nice sized display. I purchased the 6+ last June and the the 6S+ in September. I thought they were nice phones and the software felt fluid but I grew bored and aggravated . I'm not going to name everything that aggravated me but I will give you two examples that did. The simplest task of making an alarm app work somehow isn't so simple on iOS. Since Apple doesn't give 3rd party apps access to the API you need to make sure you open the alarm app ever night before you fall asleep. Not only that but you also can't have your phone set to vibrate or silent because then you won't hear the alarm. I just feel like every 3rd party app on iOS works as a separate entity rather than some of them working with the phone like one cohesive unit as some do on Android.
When it comes to the Apple app store it is a jumbled up mess. Never in a million years would I have expected it to look the way it does. Good luck finding an app unless you know it's exact name because the search feature inside the app store straight up sucks. Its also a pain to navigate through. So after a few days with the app store I was missing Google Play so bad. I missed those nights when I was bored and would just sit in bed browsing through the Play Store looking for that next cool app to use. The rating system and app review system set in place on Google play are also much better than the Apple app store.
Don't even get me started with 3rd party keyboards on iOS? Go home Apple..... You're drunk!!!
I'd also just like to add one more petpeve of mine. There is no back button. Apple expects 3rd party apps to implement a feature that allows to to swipe to the left in order to go back to the previous screen but sometimes it doesn't work. Not to mention it can get pretty hard when trying to reach the top left corner of a 6S+ while using it with one hand.
I'll end this by saying it was not what I was expecting. Apple fan boys make it seem like iOS apps are so much better than Android apps. I didn't find that to be true at all. Yea there are some apps on iOS that look really good and perform nicely but there is no difference between the popular apps you're likely going to use everyday. If anything I'd say Android has better more versatile apps since they can actually work with the phone rather than something completely separate.
At the end of the day Android had more pros than cons so I decided to use the G7E as my coming home party phone. I lasted a little over half a year with my iphones and at that 6 month mark I was just bord and aggravated. I don't think ever be going back unless Apple makes some major changes.
By the way, in regards to battery life my S7E destroys my 6S+ in every way. It doesn't matter what your using them for. The S7E should inhalate the 6S+ in battery life.
Oh an 3d touch is a gimmick at this point. If implemented correctly I can see it being useful but I feel like Apple just half assed it.
Good luck in your phone endeavors.
Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk
I just abandoned an iPhone 6s+ for the Edge and, for the most part, am very happy. The only issue I have related to the compass and the need to recalibrate after every restart. Absent the recalibration, GPS accuracy suffers. Not sure if this is specific to my phone or signs or a more general issue. I'm told the Galaxy 6 also had this issue. I do miss the Apple ecosystem integration as I also use a MacBook Air.
Like you i told myself get an iPhone or a Nexus...
And then the S7 Edge came... lol
It is a perfect phone except for one aspect - sound quality is S**T compared to the iPhone, and i own the allegedly better Exynos version.
the volume over bluetooth is just too weak to use, and with 3.5mm its just ok.
So bare this in mind if you are going to purchase this phone.
DroidBiteApple said:
Like you i told myself get an iPhone or a Nexus...
And then the S7 Edge came... lol
It is a perfect phone except for one aspect - sound quality is S**T compared to the iPhone, and i own the allegedly better Exynos version.
the volume over bluetooth is just too weak to use, and with 3.5mm its just ok.
So bare this in mind if you are going to purchase this phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, all of us are the same but we want the most powerful and newest device so we forgot about it again and again I'm afraid I'll regret it again 6 months from now
I just got the S7 Edge (Exynos = International version) last week, and I couldn't be happier! I moved from a Sony device which has been a real champ through my two years with it (and it's still kicking ass), but I felt like I needed something new. Nothing caught my attention before Samsung announced the S7 Edge. It was, and is, freaking beautiful. I was close to buying the S6 Edge last year, but I didn't do it because of the battery, but this year, hell yeah.
The display, as you already know, is amazing. It's the best mobile display in the world today, and you know it. It has an SD card slot which supports up to 2 TB of memory (Samsung says 200 GB since that's the biggest one you'll get today, but it supports 2 TB). The battery, ooh - the battery. It's ridiculous. My Exynos device just won't die in a day. I'm a medium to heavy user, but good lord, I'm struggling to get it under 50% after a day. I really am.
A buddy of mine has the 6S Plus. He "hates me" now, since I got the S7 Edge. He can clearly see that he has the inferior device. The iPhone is still very very good - for a certain type of people! But some people expect somewhat more out of a 1000 dollar device (yes, that' what I paid for mine), and I have never held a mobile device that has felt as expensive as the Edge. I have the gold version on top of that, so it feels like handling a gold phone (without the weight of gold, of course) when I pick it up. It is fantastic.
Bloat? Mine's not a carrier version so I don't have any carrier bloat, but I do have the Samsung bloat. Luckily, it can mostly be disabled, so that's not an issue. Most of the bloat doesn't take space either since Samsung uses "shells", i.e they don't install whole apps at start, but Chrome f.ex is only 10KB on my device when I disable it (I prefer Samsung Internet with adblock), and it won't "balloon" up to its regular 100MB or whatever unless you update it through the Play Store. It's the same with Facebook etc. The device also comes with 4 GB of RAM, but 512 of those are dedicated to the GPU, so we have 3.5 GB for applications.
I came from a relatively bloat-free Sony device, scared for the Samsung bloat-monster, but I freaking LOVE it. Your little reboot issue must have been a weird bug or glitch, and the US models have received a huge update since you got rid of yours, correcting a lot of bugs and issues (correct me if I'm wrong, people), so I would get the Edge again.
Keep in mind that I have the Exynos version, so keep in mind that some thing will be a little different. Do I recommend this beast? Yes. It's definitely a head-turner, the hardware is the best I've ever seen and the software is solid (but you could encounter a bug or two, like you did).
You wrote a lengthy post, so you deserve something better than "get the s7, it kicks butt", or whatever. Got any questions? Not a problem.
naivetiu said:
TL;DR: I realize I'm posting this in the S7 forum, but should I buy the Galaxy S7 Edge or the iPhone 6s Plus? Samsung scarred me for life and I have good experiences with Apple, yet I am drawn by the spec-tacular (lol see what I did there) S7 Edge.
All right, I know that the S7 Edge is superior in almost every way to the 6s Plus, but give me a chance to explain my reasoning for being unsure about which one to purchase. Let me just warn you that this will be a long read, but if you love phones as much as I do and would like to kill some time then I hope you will enjoy this post and maybe even have some input to help me make a decision.
First, some history. I had my first smartphone about six years ago, and it was a Samsung Galaxy S Captivate. It was glorious when I bought it and I loved it, but after a while it became extremely laggy, froze quite frequently (I would have to remove the battery to turn it off and on), the power button broke, the software got ****ed up and I was not able to go to the home page without my phone freezing and crashing (I fixed this by installing a different launcher from my computer, but it was pretty scary not being able to navigate my phone). All this stuff caused me to kind of lose my trust in Samsung. I even found a note (lol get it) a few weeks ago and thought it was pretty pretty funny, although also slightly worrisome. For the sake of comedy, here it is:
So I got the HTC One M7, kind of ignoring my own advice, and the first two weeks with it were tough (I was paranoid and I found dead pixels on both of the phones they let me look at, the camera made weird sounds, the build quality was much worse than advertised on YouTube, etc) but after I get over these little things, I really enjoyed the phone and the experience was much better than with my Samsung. No lag, no freezing. Pure bliss.
A year later, I realized I need a tablet for school. After considering all my options I went for the latest Samsung tablet, deciding to give them another chance even though my experience was so bad previously. And this time… they disappointed me again. Turning the tablet on by pressing the home button took literally 2 seconds and taking notes in school was impossible because the note-taking app kept crashing. I filmed these things but I don’t know where those videos are now. My friend ended up getting the same tablet and hers was way quicker and didn’t have these problems, so I don’t know why mine was slow. But this made me trust Samsung even less.
So, here I am again. It’s been almost three years and my good ol’ HTC One cannot fulfil my needs anymore, thus it is time for an upgrade. So I wait, and I wait, and the iPhone 6s Plus comes out and I’m amazed by the new 3D touch feature, but I like Android so I wait some more. And then the LG V10 comes out and I like it and decide to buy it, but it isn’t available in Canada. So I wait some more. Then, finally, an angel appears out of nowhere: the beautiful Galaxy S7 Edge. The only problem is… it’s Samsung.
I watch unboxings. I watch reviews. I watch comparisons. This phone is a beast in every way. It has expandable memory, a fantastic display, a crazy battery, amazing cameras, it’s waterproof, it has quick charging, it has wireless charging, etc. Why the hell would someone not want this phone?!
Honestly, I was still unsure about the phone when I decided to buy it (my instinctual fear of Samsung was telling me to stay away). Samsung was having a promotion where they gave you a free 128GB micro SD card if you reserved the phone, so I decided to just reserve it and see what happened. Then when the phone came in, I decided to just buy it and see what happened. Then I traded in my ****ty old non-functional Samsung phone for $125 off the S7 Edge. Then I kind of fell in love with the phone. Well, until things started to go wrong.
You see, I am someone who over-analyzes everything. If I’m buying headphones, I will research headphones every day after work and on the weekends for at least a week. This is pretty much what I did with these phones. Specs-wise, I knew the Edge was obviously the best choice. However, in real-life use it had a few problems, one which I had trouble getting over.
The first of these problems was that the camera would make a weird popping sound when I recorded videos. I actually think this had something to do with Snapchat because it stopped happening a while after I uninstalled it. But that was weird and it made me slightly paranoid.
The second problem was connectivity issues, although this could have been due to my carrier. It was strange though, because I never had problems on my old HTC One M7 with the same carrier. Anyway, they somehow resolved themselves as well.
The most scary problem was the last one. I was talking to my friend on a messaging app (Line, specifically) a few days after buying the phone and suddenly my phone shut down without a warning. It freaked me out because I got flashbacks to six years ago when this would happen all the time on my old Samsung phone. I pushed the thoughts away and said, it was probably a one-off error that won’t happen again.
But alas, it happened again twice on one day (the day before the last day for me to return it, too). The first time I got a text and opened my cover, which would usually turn on the screen, but nothing happened. I pressed the home button. Nothing happened. I pressed all buttons, nothing happened. After about half a minute, the phone restarted. Then the same night, I was talking on Facebook Messenger and it happened again. No matter what I did, no amount of pressing the screen or any buttons would do anything. And then it just turned off and I had to turn it back on by pressing some combination of buttons.
Needless to say, this freaked the **** out of me. I talked to my friends and they all said this wasn’t normal and I should take the phone back for an exchange or in the worst case just return it. So I contacted my local Samsung store and they told me they were out of stock, but that I could check again tomorrow. At this point I was having major Samsung-hell flashbacks and was totally second-guessing my decision and was considering getting the Nexus 6p. So I stayed up until 2 or 3 in the morning (even though I had work the next morning) so I could do some more research, and I found myself in the morning desperately hoping they had no more stock so I could return the damn phone and get a Nexus.
And to my absolute glee, they had no more stock! So I went in and returned the phone, not without a lot of convincing arguments from the salespeople about why I should keep it (“with all these discounts and free stuff you save almost $300!”), as well as giving me a one-day extension so I could come in the next day and get it replaced if they had stock. I spent a week being anxious and stressed I didn’t feel like dealing with this for even a day longer so I returned it and went home and relaxed for the first time in probably a week. I even cried some tears of joy because I had forgotten what it was like not to feel like there is a constant clock ticking, waiting for me to make a decision. Ah, peace at last…
But then I started second-guessing my decision. I didn’t actually want the Nexus; it has an inferior battery, a camera without OIS, and the Snapdragon 810 sounds like a pain in the ass. I was pretty depressed for a day about returning my gorgeous S7 Edge with all those marvelous specs, until I remembered, “Hey, I can always get the iPhone 6s Plus!”
So now we’re finally at the juicy part, after all the rambling and storytelling. I need your help. Samsung has scarred me tremendously, yet I am still so damn drawn to their hardware. My coworker has had a Samsung S6 for half a year and says it has not crashed even once. My other coworker has also had the S6 for a while and she says it's smooth like butter. My best friend has also had a Samsung S6 for a little over a year and she says it only crashed a few times in that whole year. What are your experiences with Samsung’s latest phones? Can Samsung be trusted? Do their phones crash frequently, or do I just somehow curse every Samsung product I buy? A lot of people complained about Samsung becoming laggy after some time, even though their products are amazing initially. Is this still true?
Yet at the same time I somehow cannot seem to bring myself to get the iPhone, knowing all that it’s lacking. It has no quick charging. It has no wireless charging. It has no expandable memory. Its display is worse than my three-year-old HTC One M7’s (what the hell Apple lol). Its battery life is worse than the S7 Edge’s. It’s not waterproof. It has worse low-light pictures. It has slower upload/download speeds. Basically, it is worse in every way, except for two important ones: It has 3D touch, and it’s Apple.
3D touch seems like such a useful feature, both from a user perspective and from a developer perspective. I’m studying computer science and I really want to make mobile apps (I’ve made two already for Android) and 3D touch seems like it’ll be very interesting to incorporate into apps. I’ve also read that iOS devs make more money since iOS users are more likely to spend money, but I guess if my apps have ads then it’ll be more revenue on Android since there are more users there.
The second point I mentioned is that it’s Apple. I own a Macbook Air and used to own an iPad and I have had nothing but great experiences with Apple. My friend has an iPhone and she says it has never crashed. Apple’s customer service is outstanding and they make me feel very secure with my purchases. I know that no matter what happens to my phone, AppleCare+ has got me covered. Also, I’m going on exchange to Asia for a year and it’s nice to know I can take my phone to any Apple store in the world and get it repaired (which I can’t do for any other phone).
Essentially I need a few things from my phone: A good camera, a good battery that can survive a whole day (since I’ll be doing lots of touristy picture and video taking), enough storage for photos and videos (while I’m travelling I’ll want to record lots of videos, although probably not in 4K), and peace of mind. I’m sad that I can’t seem to enjoy Samsung phones as much as other people do, and those damn specs are driving me insane and make me want to buy the phone again right now and give it another try (maybe it was just a bug?). But I’m hesitant and scared of buying a phone that will constantly fail on me just like my old Samsung used to do.
At the same time, I feel silly paying $160CAD more for an iPhone which has much worse specs than the Edge. But is it all about specs, or is it more about the experience? Does it matter if it takes 3 hours to charge to the same amount the Edge charges to in 1 hour? Does it matter if I can’t charge wirelessly? Does it matter if there are less pixels per inch on the screen? Does it matter if the iPhone isn’t waterproof? Does it matter that low-light pictures are worse? Does it matter that the selfie camera is way too damn zoomed in to take any decent group photos without a selfie stick? Does it matter that once I choose a storage size, I can’t expand it? I don’t know. It’s hard to really know how useful or useless these things will be until I use the phone for a long time. If I were rich, I’d buy both. But I’m not and that’s crazy.
I’m going to Asia in September for a full year and my HTC One M7 won’t do. It barely lasts half a day with normal use and the camera is broken. I want to take pictures and record videos (so I can make vlogs on YouTube and share my experiences with my family and friends) and go out in the morning and come back at night with enough charge. I don’t want my phone to freeze and crash in the middle of all of this.
I wanted to love the S7 Edge so much but the crashing is not okay, but after thinking about it for a few days I wonder if this is something that is not common anymore and something that just happened to me because I’m unlucky. I also still would be open to the idea of a Nexus 6P (especially for the price), but I’m not sure if the slightly worse camera and the much worse battery are a good fit for me. Then again, there’s the iPhone 6s Plus…
What the hell do I do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i did not read the whole post but i see last part about crashing. all phone crash and freeze and whatever, that's why we have replacements. my first smartphone was iphone, then i went samsung, then one plus one and then s7 edge. they all have issues of apps crashing or freezing, phone freezing and some models having crappy battery. you can't try 1 phone, have a bad experience and say that phone sucks without trying a replacement. you have popping sound from camera you say? get it replaced. shutting off by itself get it replaced. they say there's no stock? then have them make a note on your account that you are returning a phone for replacement but there is no stock so they should extend your return grace period atleast till there is stock. yea i don't get this 3d touch, i was watching a demo video and the guy was opening an email he said if you press and hold it gives you a peek of content, and if you hold longer it opens the email. why not just open the email, would have been faster. 3d touch to me is like saying iphone has touch screen! some of phone features today sound good but are really useless to me, like i dont even use wireless charging.
i left iphone because it got boring, everyone with an iphone had the same phone as me.i now have galaxy s7 edge because i am on tmobile jump so i can upgrade by the time a new phone comes out. and so far it has been great, battery has been great and it looks awesome. i had issue with SD card so i had it replaced, tmobile mailed me a new one in 2 days.
that being said,i am not as into cellphones as i once was. i got the s7 edge because i had tmobile jump. O down and just pay an extra $8 a month i think to replace my old s6. alot of the other brands are looking good now since they are almost half or less than half the price and can run the same apps as the expensive phones.
not being rude or anything but if a phone not turning on freaks you out, i think you need a no phone month or something. it's just a phone lol.
also i notice some comments about iphone being boring... i know right?
every phone model from every brand will have phones with issues that is why we have warranties.
You might as well just wait for the iPhone 7s if you're so interested in apple
Sent from my SM-G935F using XDA-Developers mobile app

GoodBye Nexus, you were overhyped

So my Nexus 6 is gone. My new HTC 10 arrives today. My experiences with this thing for the last 2 years....
- Gets WAY hot. Always has. This is a replacement as the first one died immediately.
- Headphone jack is USELESS.... Phone worked great for a few months. Just long enough to have to deal with hoops to get it warranty replaced. Now the headphone jack is nothing but a swirling mess of feedback, distortion and noise.
- Audio works great, for about 10 minutes. It then fades to nothing but static and low volume noise. Unless your using Bluetooth, forget it.
-Updates... Yeah, I get updates like once every three months. these render the phone unstable for the next 72 hours and must be rebooted constantly.
-Battery....Don't get me started..... Gets hotter then hell if plugged in. If you try to use it when plugged in, the sound quality is horrible and the mic volume is low. Unplug it, and you get maybe 30 minutes of talk time. It used to be really good. Now it seems the battery is just crap.
This phone has lived its life in a nice armor case. Never dropped and has not a mark on it. Current trade in value... $96. amount owed, $167. Yeah, the hype over having a Nexus is just that.... Hype. I had a nexus 6 that I unlocked and rooted. Why? Because I could. I miss the days of flashing roms and tweaking on my HTC EVO 4G. This Nexus, in all honesty, is not half the phone that device was. It was old, it was slow, but it was a freaking reliable beast. I'm chalking these problems up to my phone just being a lemon. Just like the one I had right before it that I returned for this one. 2 for 2, real quality stuff there Motorola.
So as I activate my HTC 10, I will look back on my first Nexus experience as hopefully my last, and I hope my HTC 10 is everything my EVO 4G was.
I can never figure out why people post crap like this on XDA; obviously 1000's of folks have had none of the bad experiences that you claim to have had, and, the most important thing is why do you feel the need to post something like this here?
no one cares that you have left this phone, you've had a whopping FIVE thanks since you have been here, so obviously you have done nothing to contribute to XDA in any way, shape, or form, so why would you think this post adds ANYTHING to the community ?
Geez...
Good riddance. I've had two Nexus 6 (64GB Cloud white and 32GB Blue) and had literally no issues you experienced. In fact the exact opposite. With V4A (and now A.R.I.S.E. audio) with the Audiophile profiles it's been the best audio quality device I have ever owned. Never had issues with audio either via the headphone jack or via bluetooth paired to all kinds of stuff (Anker bluetooth speaker, my Toyota car, Klipsch sound bar, etc...). I love getting monthly security patches for 3 years and guaranteed updates for 2 for the next OS (good luck on your HTC 10 in terms of security patches and system updates). Also with it being a Nexus there should be developers supporting it much longer than the intended lifecycle- look at the Nexus 4 still getting up to date Marshmallow ROMs compiled for it.
What do you expect trading it in to a carrier? Seriously??? Sell it on swappa.com where the average selling price is around $220/$270 for the 32GB/64GB variants respectively. Carrier trade in has nothing to do with the value of the device.
I don't disbelief you had the issues. That sucks, getting two "lemons" in a row. I wouldn't completely write off the Nexus line though, who knows what the rumored HTC Nexus is gonna be like. Hopefully awesome and similar/better to the HTC 10 but with full open source software released by Google. I'm in the exact opposite camp as you. I will never not buy a Nexus device because of the timely updates, full open source releases from Google, and arguably the best developer community among any devices released. It's also nice that when buying from Google they are unlocked for all 4 major carrier networks now, so you can switch at any time and not be locked in to your current carrier.
I have had the exact opposite experience with my N6. I can now Edge-Up and I won't because there is no other phone that offers more than the N6. Here are my likes and dislikes about the N6
Pro:
Size is perfect for me. I can't stand the old 5" screens.
Mine does not run hot.
Huge amount of development support.
Fast
Battery lasts over 24 hours with heavy use 16 hours a day.
Pure Android experience. No annoying manufacturer crap.
Easy to unlock/root/change ROMS
Because I use a non stock ROM, I get monthly updates for security patches
Fast charging and wireless charging.
Cons:
Camera leaves something to be desired.
Must have a Fast charger if you are a heavy user.
Does not support wireless fast charging.
No micro SD slot
Until Google releases their next 6" phone, I'm sticking with my N6.
scothern99 said:
So my Nexus 6 is gone. My new HTC 10 arrives today. My experiences with this thing for the last 2 years....
- Gets WAY hot. Always has. This is a replacement as the first one died immediately.
- Headphone jack is USELESS.... Phone worked great for a few months. Just long enough to have to deal with hoops to get it warranty replaced. Now the headphone jack is nothing but a swirling mess of feedback, distortion and noise.
- Audio works great, for about 10 minutes. It then fades to nothing but static and low volume noise. Unless your using Bluetooth, forget it.
-Updates... Yeah, I get updates like once every three months. these render the phone unstable for the next 72 hours and must be rebooted constantly.
-Battery....Don't get me started..... Gets hotter then hell if plugged in. If you try to use it when plugged in, the sound quality is horrible and the mic volume is low. Unplug it, and you get maybe 30 minutes of talk time. It used to be really good. Now it seems the battery is just crap.
This phone has lived its life in a nice armor case. Never dropped and has not a mark on it. Current trade in value... $96. amount owed, $167. Yeah, the hype over having a Nexus is just that.... Hype. I had a nexus 6 that I unlocked and rooted. Why? Because I could. I miss the days of flashing roms and tweaking on my HTC EVO 4G. This Nexus, in all honesty, is not half the phone that device was. It was old, it was slow, but it was a freaking reliable beast. I'm chalking these problems up to my phone just being a lemon. Just like the one I had right before it that I returned for this one. 2 for 2, real quality stuff there Motorola.
So as I activate my HTC 10, I will look back on my first Nexus experience as hopefully my last, and I hope my HTC 10 is everything my EVO 4G was.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just wanted to say before this gets locked that if you think you Nexus 6 got hot. Wait till you start working with a metal phone. It will feel even hotter.
Also, why trade in for pennies on the dollar when you could have sold it on Swappa or Ebay. Going in the +$200 range.
@scothern99
Too long didn't read.
Glad you'll be able to go back to using Facebook exclusively for your feelings. No place for it here.
raptoro07 said:
Just wanted to say before this gets locked that if you think you Nexus 6 got hot. Wait till you start working with a metal phone. It will feel even hotter.
Also, why trade in for pennies on the dollar when you could have sold it on Swappa or Ebay. Going in the +$200 range.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't say I did. Thats just the trade in value. Kind of pathetic. A 2 year old phone with three times the horsepower (on paper) sells for less then a 3 year old iPhone. Its pathetic.
I seriously had high hopes for the Nexus 6. The 6p might be better as it was not glued together by Motorola. But this phone has been nothing but problems.
Have fun with your Touchwiz or IOS
iainaaldrich said:
Have fun with your Touchwiz or IOS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WOW!!
Sorry I'm not one of the "Cool kids".
I hope you all have much better experiences with your Nexus then I did. As for this Asshat here.... Moron.....
HTC = SENSE
Samsung = Touchwiz
Apple= iOS
Sence I said I was getting an HTC, your obvious attempt to attack me failed, and only showed that you sir are an IDIOT!
Why the defensiveness people? I was merely pointing out my experiences with my particular Nexus 6. I'm glad you like yours, I wanted to love mine. I guess I should learn to keep my opinions to myself. Wouldn't want to be different than anyone else...
Why not just get a new Nexus 6?
posts like this are part of the reason why I do not frequent this forum much anymore. the nexus 6 is a solid device, I have no real complaints about mine. it's not perfect, but it is far from terrible.
He seriously got a "thanks" for his OP? GJ
Have fun with Sense then. geez. but seriously if this isn't intended to be a troll post, then you just got sold a lemon. I've owned mine for well over a year now, nor is there anything going out on it. nothing really stands out for an upgrade at this point, and most likely won't until the new nexus devices get dropped. The biggest problem I have with this phone is the lack of an SD card, if it had that I wouldn't upgrade for a long time. I bought it at a new retail price, and honestly I think its worth every penny i spent on it, though I'm kinda angry how low it's dropped lol
But hey if you want to deal with the HTC 10, by all means have fun. you should read the most recent post on the XDA portal about it.
1. Sell the phone on Swappa. Phones sell for much higher there.
2. Your experience is atypical. Most nexus 6 users are very happy.
3. I've been on android phones, rooting and modding since 2007. Having a non nexus phone will be disastrous for getting security updates and upgrades to newer android versions. That alone will overcome any gimmick touchwiz or sense has.
4. Similarly spec'd HTC phones will always lag pure android devices by definition since they have to run a skin on top of the pure android software. It might look similar but it's not close. I'm not going to a non nexus device after having had 18 HTC and Samsung devices in the family.
5. HTC makes the most beautiful industrial design phones but the fragmentation caused by HTC etc having to catch up their overlays to android version upgrades is not trivial. This will be a move you will regret.
6. The nexus 6 has it's own problems but on balance a nexus > a non nexus
7. No android phone will ever match an iPhone in low depreciation rates. Android by definition is too fractured and fragmented to get the cult following iPhones do. Believe me your HTC will also collapse in value very soon.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA-Developers mobile app
Either OP got a defective device or he can`t handle a smartphone, got a Nokia 1611 laying around somewhere if you`re interested
I've been using the phone for 14 months straight without a single issue. As a matter of fact, the Nexus 6 is so good, I decided not to upgrade to the 6p. Everyone else who posted here is absolutely correct. Not every phone is going to be peachy keen all the time. Sometimes you will have to do a little homework and figure out what's going wrong and how to fix it. Your HTC 10 will have its own set of issues. What will you do then? Will you just give up and move on to the next phone, or will you try and do something about it?
scothern99 said:
So my Nexus 6 is gone. My new HTC 10 arrives today. My experiences with this thing for the last 2 years....
- Gets WAY hot. Always has. This is a replacement as the first one died immediately.
- Headphone jack is USELESS.... Phone worked great for a few months. Just long enough to have to deal with hoops to get it warranty replaced. Now the headphone jack is nothing but a swirling mess of feedback, distortion and noise.
- Audio works great, for about 10 minutes. It then fades to nothing but static and low volume noise. Unless your using Bluetooth, forget it.
-Updates... Yeah, I get updates like once every three months. these render the phone unstable for the next 72 hours and must be rebooted constantly.
-Battery....Don't get me started..... Gets hotter then hell if plugged in. If you try to use it when plugged in, the sound quality is horrible and the mic volume is low. Unplug it, and you get maybe 30 minutes of talk time. It used to be really good. Now it seems the battery is just crap.
This phone has lived its life in a nice armor case. Never dropped and has not a mark on it. Current trade in value... $96. amount owed, $167. Yeah, the hype over having a Nexus is just that.... Hype. I had a nexus 6 that I unlocked and rooted. Why? Because I could. I miss the days of flashing roms and tweaking on my HTC EVO 4G. This Nexus, in all honesty, is not half the phone that device was. It was old, it was slow, but it was a freaking reliable beast. I'm chalking these problems up to my phone just being a lemon. Just like the one I had right before it that I returned for this one. 2 for 2, real quality stuff there Motorola.
So as I activate my HTC 10, I will look back on my first Nexus experience as hopefully my last, and I hope my HTC 10 is everything my EVO 4G was.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
good bye, enjoy, and dont let the door hit you in the ass on the way out :silly:
Can the HTC 10 be rooted and have a custom recovery installed for a US phone?
ronaldheld said:
Can the HTC 10 be rooted and have a custom recovery installed for a US phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup, flash TWRP after you unlocked the bootloader and after that flash the superSU.zip in recovery. S-Off is available too as i read somewhere.
He should get a warn minimum for this spammy post. I have gotten some in the past for less.

Hows your Moto X holding up?

Just curious how everyone is enjoying their Moto X Pure Editions since they've been out for a little over a year now. I've left mine stock the entire time I've had it which is something new for me. As far as the phone itself is concerned I really like it. Love the screen, the size, shape, etc. However, really looking to get something else or rooting as I've had a ton of software issues. Apps not responding the way they should or crashing repeatedly . This is the first phone I've had that's actually acted this way so kind of turned off by it.
Stock here, 11 months of use, 2 updates (5 to 6.0 and the last security update) never a issue.
Just one time, the screen shows a rare horizontal lines, 1 reboot and back to normal.
The heat you ask? Yes, in chrome and YouTube, the heat is an "add on" not specified in the manual...
Great phone, but my next one is a OnePlus 3, not a Lenovorola
Enviado desde mi XT1575 mediante Tapatalk
Screen cracked on first one and had to play endless games with the repair department, including reporting fraud on my credit card. Both speaker grills are working on their second time falling out. Screen and glass coating are better than average on the replacement. I like the LTE bands, high res screen, and the ability to use a big microSD card. The lack of software support is the worst I've seen of an OEM phone. I had to switch to CM13 but there's nobody there who can completely fix the drivers - VoLTE breakup, proximity sensor bugs, speaker fade-out bug, no WiFi calling, poor low light camera performance, etc. I don't see myself trusting Lenovo again for many years to come.
Stock Style
Kept it still in stock. No major issues. Been using the phone with the stock Moto Screen cover plastic still in place (all moto phone have nice plastic screen guard which I never peel. Use it heavily for 3-4 days post unboxing and remove the logo, which has now dried due to screen heat, with a coin). Waiting with finger crossed for Andorid 7.
Camera app and camera as hardware was real disappointment. unlike G4 plus camera app, this phone camera app is very basic in nature. Also the camera is not comparable with other phone's of this budget. Otherwise this was an awesome deal.
Altomugriento said:
Stock here, 11 months of use, 2 updates (5 to 6.0 and the last security update) never a issue.
Just one time, the screen shows a rare horizontal lines, 1 reboot and back to normal.
The heat you ask? Yes, in chrome and YouTube, the heat is an "add on" not specified in the manual...
Great phone, but my next one is a OnePlus 3, not a Lenovorola
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Much the same experience for me. Very happy with the phone for the price (I paid UK £300 in December 2015). Still amazed at the sound quality from the speakers. Fast charging too.
I also had the horizontal lines problem about a month ago - thought the phone had died but a reboot solved it. Has only happened once.
Issues ? For me :
would like wireless charging
wish Lenovo were better with updates
maybe a bit too big - but that's my problem , not the phone's - I wanted a big display.
Bought it approx. 2 months ago (15th July, 2016) and really enjoying it all over except the display, my display is bit warmish when compared to other phone and also has a slight bleeding in left corner. I wish it had AMOLED display as the previous series. Camera gives really good pics so happy with it. Would like to know if anyone else has the same display concern as mine.
Stock rooted EU Style at 6.0.1 - so far there are no issues with the phone
Picked it up on the Prime Day sale.
It does the job and is better than my previous phone, a Nexus 4.
Minor gripes. If it gets the update to Nougat I'll be happy with what I paid for it.
It will soon be my girlfriends phone and I'm getting an iPhone 7 or Pixel X. That iPhone is just a screamer. Fast, and good looking. Would be my first Apple product.
Used to like the phone, now I'm extremely indifferent about it. I haven't had any hardware problems, but the lack of software support is extremely disappointing. The camera takes OK pictures, the battery rarely provides more than 2.5 hours SOT, and from what I can tell every custom ROM for this phone blows chunks (I've tried all the popular ones, but the CM base sucks). I've had sporadic issues with cell service, which I believe are software related, and to top it off, my phone somehow nuked itself while I was on vacation in June (I was able to get it back but I lost a bunch of stuff and had to re-setup my phone while on vacation)
I was at Disney world all day, battery died about an hour before I left the park. I got in the car, plugged it into the car charger, and while it was coming up to the battery screen it went haywire and rebooted. Then the charging screen came up and I shrugged it off. About 30 minutes later I tried to turn it back on, and it just bootlooped endlessly. So I had to pull out my laptop, use the slow hotel wifi and download the firmware, then use fastboot to re-flash everything. Luckily I use Google photos to back up pics, so I didn't lose any of the vacation photos.
For the first time in years I'm considering an iPhone. Never had to deal with this kind of crap with my old iPhone 5.
Love my Style, changed 2 screens on it, been stock since I purchased it brand new, not through choice, can't root this phone at all, I've tried every combination possible but the remote server times out requesting the token I'd so I've given up any hope of rooting it.
Apart from that the phone has been flawless, the odd heating up with certain apps which I can put up with.
Not really impressed with the way Moto/Lenovo have treated this supposed flagship in terms of updates and still no solid word from the company if our device will get nougat. It probably will get it but I would have bought a pixel xl by then.
Sent from my XT1572 using XDA Free mobile app
No major issues really (bar the obvious update void). Still love the fact that the phone is smaller than my friend's iphone 6 plus, yet the screen is larger.
First phone I've ever owned that still does not have a single scratch on the screen even though it has been naked since day one, got the phone October 17th. In fact there are very few marks on the phone overall and I've dropped it from knee height onto the road a couple of times.
I often think about wanting a new phone (only because I have G.A.S (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) but then I realise that anything I get won't really do anything that this one doesn't already do.
Waiting patiently for Nougat!
I bought the Style with extreme enthusiasm since it ran "stock" android and had an SDcard slot. My initial impressions were hopeful... it was a little laggy but other than that, it was okay, and the speakers, OH GOD the speakers. But after a month or two of using it and unlocking the bootloader, it was obvious that there were some serious issues with the phone. Lenovo/Motorola obviously didn't know what they were doing when they made the stock ROM for the device. It was always laggy for me and there were other issues as well. After tons of attempts to find an AOSP or stock rom that fixed these issues... i gave up. I just accepted that TruPureX was the best i was going to get. It made me miss my LG G2 and HTC M8. Anyways after a little under a year i did a lot of thinking and eventually made the decision that i was tired of feeling the need to flash custom firmwares, bootloaders, recoveries, etc. just to get my phone to function in the manner that I feel it should. I ended up buying a (very expensive) iPhone 6S Plus. I understand that people will most likely bash this decision and i respect your views, so respect mine. I still believe android as an OS is superior, but the OEMs just can't properly implement it into their devices in the way that Apple can. I don't regret my decision and now i have amazing battery life and everything "just works". Which isn't something i've been able to say about an android phone. I'm not advising anyone to do what i did, i respect all technology as well as your views, i'm just sharing my experience. Owning this phone annoyed my so much i switched sides (at least for a while).
Sent from my iPhone 6S Plus using Tapatalk
elite001mm said:
I bought the Style with extreme enthusiasm since it ran "stock" android and had an SDcard slot. My initial impressions were hopeful... it was a little laggy but other than that, it was okay, and the speakers, OH GOD the speakers. But after a month or two of using it and unlocking the bootloader, it was obvious that there were some serious issues with the phone. Lenovo/Motorola obviously didn't know what they were doing when they made the stock ROM for the device. It was always laggy for me and there were other issues as well. After tons of attempts to find an AOSP or stock rom that fixed these issues... i gave up. I just accepted that TruPureX was the best i was going to get. It made me miss my LG G2 and HTC M8. Anyways after a little under a year i did a lot of thinking and eventually made the decision that i was tired of feeling the need to flash custom firmwares, bootloaders, recoveries, etc. just to get my phone to function in the manner that I feel it should. I ended up buying a (very expensive) iPhone 6S Plus. I understand that people will most likely bash this decision and i respect your views, so respect mine. I still believe android as an OS is superior, but the OEMs just can't properly implement it into their devices in the way that Apple can. I don't regret my decision and now i have amazing battery life and everything "just works". Which isn't something i've been able to say about an android phone. I'm not advising anyone to do what i did, i respect all technology as well as your views, i'm just sharing my experience. Owning this phone annoyed my so much i switched sides (at least for a while).
Sent from my iPhone 6S Plus using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sean89us said:
Used to like the phone, now I'm extremely indifferent about it. I haven't had any hardware problems, but the lack of software support is extremely disappointing. The camera takes OK pictures, the battery rarely provides more than 2.5 hours SOT, and from what I can tell every custom ROM for this phone blows chunks (I've tried all the popular ones, but the CM base sucks). I've had sporadic issues with cell service, which I believe are software related, and to top it off, my phone somehow nuked itself while I was on vacation in June (I was able to get it back but I lost a bunch of stuff and had to re-setup my phone while on vacation)
I was at Disney world all day, battery died about an hour before I left the park. I got in the car, plugged it into the car charger, and while it was coming up to the battery screen it went haywire and rebooted. Then the charging screen came up and I shrugged it off. About 30 minutes later I tried to turn it back on, and it just bootlooped endlessly. So I had to pull out my laptop, use the slow hotel wifi and download the firmware, then use fastboot to re-flash everything. Luckily I use Google photos to back up pics, so I didn't lose any of the vacation photos.
For the first time in years I'm considering an iPhone. Never had to deal with this kind of crap with my old iPhone 5.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like we have similar experiences. I've never owned an Iphone but have had multiple Ipods and Ipads. I think I've grown out of the flashing game myself. I look at all the roms available for the Pure and I'm just not impressed at all. I've come from a long line of Android devices that have all had excellent development and this one has been a bust. I have also been thinking about going with an Iphone but I'm pretty terrified of getting away from the Android environment lol. I'm just to a point in my life where I want my phone to function flawlessly the majority of the time. I wasn't impressed at all with my Galaxy S5 so that's kind of turned me away from Samsung in general. I really liked my HTC devices so I may give them another look in the near future if I don't end up giving Apple the go ahead.
Mnorton1228 said:
Sounds like we have similar experiences. I've never owned an Iphone but have had multiple Ipods and Ipads. I think I've grown out of the flashing game myself. I look at all the roms available for the Pure and I'm just not impressed at all. I've come from a long line of Android devices that have all had excellent development and this one has been a bust. I have also been thinking about going with an Iphone but I'm pretty terrified of getting away from the Android environment lol. I'm just to a point in my life where I want my phone to function flawlessly the majority of the time. I wasn't impressed at all with my Galaxy S5 so that's kind of turned me away from Samsung in general. I really liked my HTC devices so I may give them another look in the near future if I don't end up giving Apple the go ahead.
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Yes our experiences are indeed very similar. The phone i was most impressed with was my HTC M8. The battery life that it gave with the "small" battery was amazing at that time, but my 6S+ has a similar battery, bigger screen and more powerful processor and it somehow manages to demolish the M8s battery life. I find it extremely impressive. I'm a college student and i just decided i didn't have the time to keep flashing things, etc. The only thing that i hate about iOS is the fact that you have no access to the file system. I may jailbreak and fix some things but for now i'm trying it unmodified. At least on ios you're guaranteed good software support for a good while.
Sent from my iPhone 6S Plus using Tapatalk
Doktaphex said:
I often think about wanting a new phone (only because I have G.A.S (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) but then I realise that anything I get won't really do anything that this one doesn't already do.
Waiting patiently for Nougat!
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This. Exactly this.
A couple of white spots on my LCD. Not a huge deal.
LCD cracked- without cracking the glass, which is a first for me.
It took a ton of work to get the battery where I needed it.
Development is dildos. ONE (brilliant) stock rom, and its developer left. All the AOSP roms have issues.
I can't believe with only 3 unlocked phones on Verizon, we don't have an abundant choice of roms. Ridiculous.
Had mine since Christmas eve. I replaced the battery thinking it was dying, turns out I just use a lot of battery-consuming apps. Aside from that, hardware has been top-knotch. No issues with software (still running Lolipop), but I rooted the day I got it and disabled updates because I heard the MM update was having tons of issues and causing pops in the speakers and battery drains, etc. and never got around to going MM.
Convinced 2 friends to get Moto X pures as well, and they both love it.
I've had the Pure since November 2015: rooted and spent most of the time on stock. Right now, I'm running Dirty Unicorns 10.6 official, which has the September 2016 update. My overall impression is: 5.5 out of 10 (10 being the best). It's a decent, middle-of-the-road phone.
PROS
Unlocked (no carrier BS)
Bright screen
Two speakers with decent sound
CDMA and GSM antennas
Decent call quality
Motomaker configured to taste
CONS
So-so battery life. My LG G3 lasted about 48 hours after full charge. My MXP lasts about 18 hours.
So-so camera. Forget about low light pictures. (Missing my LG G3 camera...)
Mediocre level of enthusiasm about the phone, i.e., it took a long time to get decent cases/screen protectors, ROM development is OK but there are more devs for other phones
Lack of Android updates from Motorola. (I prefer stock due to stability and battery life.)
Heavier than a comparable Samsung Galaxy phone for it's size.
No "wow" feature to the phone: everything is just meh.
why is it nobody mentioned about its ram.. ram management on mm is so poor. i get 600 to 800 sometimes 500 ram free with no other apps installed. pure stock no root.vthats why its so laggy at times... bought it last month for $260 with 32gb on best buy.. i thought it was a deal but cant help notice the lag sometimes. i have a lg g pro 2 3 gb ram with snapdragon 800 on 2014 model... i get 1500 free ram so why is moto x pure on 2015 model only gets 600 to 800 free ram with 3gb phone. will motorola lenovo can still fix this great phone ?
After loving my Moto X and Moto X 2014, I gave the Moto X 2015 a try. On stock It lags a good amount, battery life is below average, sound is loud but quality is bad, also when I receive notifications the sound lags in the middle of it, and the phone ran extremely hot just using social apps or playing light games.
CM13 was the only rom to bring this phone back to life for me. I underclocked the cpu and gpu because of heat and battery power increased dramatically. Notification sounds sound normal and even when underclocked, the phone is still snappy on CM13.
My gf have a Samsung Galaxy s6 with apps I use plus more and her phone didn't nearly get as hot as mines with also better battery life than I was on stock.

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