Android: General Chat

[limpid]

Granted I haven't looked into it extensively, but I don't think Giff Gaff works out any cheaper than the £26per month T-Mobile contract (assuming I'd pay off the cost of the handset over the same 24 month period)

It's a pretty huge assumption that you'll like and enjoy your handset for exactly 24 months. What if you like it for 6 months or 50 months?

[Stevo985]

It is.

But I'd need 24 months to pay off the £500 it would cost me to buy an S3.

Ok I could sell it after the 6 months in your example, but would I get as much back as I owed?

I genuinely don't know, as I said I haven't looked into it in that much detail.

If O2 don't budge then I probably will.

[limpid]

For me I like the freedom of buying a phone when I like. Unlocked, unbranded phones sell for more second hand. Sometimes I'll take a hit, but the point is it's for me to decide, not a network to dictate.

[Stevo985]

I'll crunch the numbers, certainly worth looking at anyway

[darrenm]

There is another option...

Get a pebble blue S3 on a T-Mobile contract.

Sell it on eBay for as new for around £430. Buy a Galaxy Nexus for around £280 and offset the £150 against the contract cost.

Or just buy a Galaxy Nexus outright then use GiffGaff. The pure vs Samsung-skinned argument has been done to death so I won't do it again. Only issue may be lack of external storage. I don't miss it but I know others might.

[Stevo985]

Think I'm going to go GiffGaff

I'll speak to O2 again tomorrow. if they make me a particularly good offer then I might stay with them. If not, I've just got a new credit card just to transfer the balance over from my old one which loses it's interest free period soon, so I can whack the cost of the phone on there and it can stay there for the forseeable future

[jim]

Cheers buddy. I didn't know that so that's helpful, just have to make sure all the apps go on the internal storage.

My current phone is 32gb and it's pretty much fine. So if I get the 16gb S3 and just get a 32 or even 64gb SD card that'll be more than enough for me.

Ringing O2 tonight to ask for my upgrade. Hoorah! Hopefully they'll lower their price a bit. As far as I can tell they're pretty much the most expensive network for the S3

Tell them you want to cancel your contract and speak to retentions, you will get a much better deal.

Yeah that's my plan.

Just rang them now to ask about upgrade prices (their website is the most un-user friendly website in the world. When I finally found the upgrade bit I was told "You don't have any accounts to upgrade")

They said they won't budge on the prices. But they're so much more expensive than anyone else, which the woman actually admitted to me over the phone, she sounded like people say that all the time. Said I'd think about it, but in reality I'm just writing down a few other prices so I have some ammo when I ring back to ask to be disconnected.

The good thing is, if they don't budge and do disconnect me, I don't really mind. As I said before, I can get 20% off with Vodafone. I'd rather stay with O2 because I've never had a problem with them, but it'snot really any skin off my back if they let me go

Was that retentions you spoke to? I ave already been offered an S3 on 18 month contract for £27 pm 300 mins 1000 texts but only 100mb data. O2 btw

[PompeyVillan]

Giff gaff are affiliated with giff gaff in some way I think.

[CVByrne]

Just get the S3 and don't listen to these pure Google Nexus lads. The S3 will be awesome for 2 years Stevo don't be fretting.

[limpid]

Giffgaff use o2's network, so no coverage differences.

[darrenm]

Just get the S3 and don't listen to these pure Google Nexus lads. The S3 will be awesome for 2 years Stevo don't be fretting.

Thanks Conor. I was trying to steer away from another round of Google phones vs other phones which run a manufacturer-modified version of Android and give it a bad name, but you still had to go there.

The pure vs Samsung-skinned argument has been done to death so I won't do it again.

[darrenm]

Giffgaff use o2's network, so no coverage differences.

Interestingly, I've found the GiffGaff coverage to excellent everywhere I go, but the O2 coverage to be fairly poor. The only O2 experience I have is with friends with iPhones though so not sure how much then antennaes on those affect it.

[CVByrne]

The S3 is a newer generation phone darren, it's superior hardware to the Nexus in every way. Not many people really care much about the versions of android or skins etc..

[The_Rev]

But the hardware can only do what the software tells it to do. If its all about user experience at the high end (and I believe it it) then I'd rather be getting 4.1 next week than have a faster clock speed on my processor that I can't actually do anything with

[Stevo985]

Cheers buddy. I didn't know that so that's helpful, just have to make sure all the apps go on the internal storage.

My current phone is 32gb and it's pretty much fine. So if I get the 16gb S3 and just get a 32 or even 64gb SD card that'll be more than enough for me.

Ringing O2 tonight to ask for my upgrade. Hoorah! Hopefully they'll lower their price a bit. As far as I can tell they're pretty much the most expensive network for the S3

Tell them you want to cancel your contract and speak to retentions, you will get a much better deal.

Yeah that's my plan.

Just rang them now to ask about upgrade prices (their website is the most un-user friendly website in the world. When I finally found the upgrade bit I was told "You don't have any accounts to upgrade")

They said they won't budge on the prices. But they're so much more expensive than anyone else, which the woman actually admitted to me over the phone, she sounded like people say that all the time. Said I'd think about it, but in reality I'm just writing down a few other prices so I have some ammo when I ring back to ask to be disconnected.

The good thing is, if they don't budge and do disconnect me, I don't really mind. As I said before, I can get 20% off with Vodafone. I'd rather stay with O2 because I've never had a problem with them, but it'snot really any skin off my back if they let me go

Was that retentions you spoke to? I ave already been offered an S3 on 18 month contract for £27 pm 300 mins 1000 texts but only 100mb data. O2 btw

Nope, I just spoke to the woman in upgrades to get an idea of prices.

Retentions is my next port of call

(I actually rang them today but they were closed by the time I did)

[TheDon]

But the hardware can only do what the software tells it to do. If its all about user experience at the high end (and I believe it it) then I'd rather be getting 4.1 next week than have a faster clock speed on my processor that I can't actually do anything with

It's a balance, what's worth more, the latest feature now, or the hardware that will last longer?

The s3 undoubtedly has a longer shelf life than the nexus, there's no arguing that.

The s3 is probably on around a 3 month wait to get Jelly Bean, so what's worse, having to wait 3 months for an update that doesn't really change much (Jelly Bean isn't a massive update feature wise, it makes things smoother, but the S3 can brute force that difference anyway), or having a neary 12 month old phone that's now near the bottom of the curve for smartphone hardware?

IMO you'd have to be pretty short sighted to buy a nexus at the moment.

[The_Rev]

Yeah, I was talking in a general hardware vs software fashion rather than offering purchasing advice. When I got my phone the choice was between the Nexus S or the Desire HD. Arguably the original Galaxy S was on that list of flagship Android phones too. I went Nexus S for reasons I have stated in this thread several times and there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind I made the right choice. But if you want to buy, you buy the newest phone (broadly speaking).

[CVByrne]

That's what I do Rev update my phone annually. I'm not that bothered with software updates as I'm happy to use phone as is for a year. Also we know there is little real difference OS updates make at this stage. It's not like it used to be like being stuck on 1.6 or something.

[The_Rev]

2.3 to 4.0 is significant. I believe shops are still selling phones stuck on 2.3, and I definitely wouldnt buy one of those unless I was in the market for a budget phone and it was dirt cheap.

Not sure about 4.0 to 4.1, but we will see in a week or two (hopefully).

[darrenm]

The s3 undoubtedly has a longer shelf life than the nexus, there's no arguing that.

I think there's every arguing that. Did the Galaxy S outlast the Nexus S? Did the HTC Desire outlast the Nexus one? The Galaxy Nexus is in between the S2 and S3, so it's a little different, but Nexus phones hold their value and have much greater longevity than equivalent manufacturer phones. To me the Galaxy Nexus undoubtedly has a longer shelf life than the S3. The S2 has been forgotten the moment the S3 has come out. The S3 is all shiny now, but wait until the S4 is out.

The s3 is probably on around a 3 month wait to get Jelly Bean,

Really?? After Samsung taking so long to get ICS to the S2, and the S1 never receiving it, even though the Nexus S has an official Google OTA, the Galaxy Note still having no ICS. I remember it well with the S1 and Gingerbread, it eventually turned up about 6 months after the promised date. I'd be surprised if the S3 gets JellyBean this year, in fact I'd say it'll get an half-arsed release to some countries round about March next year. This is based purely on what they've done so far.

so what's worse, having to wait 3 months for an update that doesn't really change much (Jelly Bean isn't a massive update feature wise, it makes things smoother, but the S3 can brute force that difference anyway), or having a neary 12 month old phone that's now near the bottom of the curve for smartphone hardware?

1. It won't be 3 months.

2. I assume you haven't used JB. It's a massive update feature-wise. Butter, Voice Actions, Now, they're massive features. Here:

http://www.knowyourmobile.com/features/1462801/android_jelly_bean_41_review.html"]By ramping up CPU access when using the touchscreen, Butter UI allows Jelly Bean to react instantly the moment your digit touches the screen. No delay, no lag and no jerkiness - just pure, unadulterated slickness. It’s hard to describe in words just how different this makes Android feel. Compared to Android Ice Cream Sandwich, which itself was a big improvement over Gingerbread in terms of usability and speed, Jelly Bean is a whole new ball game. In fact, you’d be forgiven for thinking that you were using an entirely new phone when you first experience it on a Galaxy Nexus.

3. The S3 cannot 'brute-force' the difference that the fundamental difference in Android by using Butter makes. Not sure if you understand how multi-processing works, but your assertion here indicates not. 4 cores does not make a device twice as fast as one with 2 cores. That's not how it works. In some circumstances it makes them slower.

4. Not sure which phone you're referring to which is 12 months old. The Galaxy Nexus is very similar to the S3, the only major difference is the SoC, with the S3 being 4-core and the GN being 2-core. Apart from that, they're essentially the same phone hardware-wise. It's now the beginning of July. The GN was released at the end of November, 1 month after the Galaxy Note, 4 months before the Galaxy S3. Hardly 12 months old.

IMO you'd have to be pretty short sighted to buy a nexus at the moment.

On the contrary, and I can't believe how wrong you've gotten this by being so ironically short-sighted, you'd have to be pretty short-sighted to choose the Galaxy S3 over the Galaxy Nexus.

I'll state again, you interact with the phone through the UI. Can we agree that the UI is king? You don't interact directly with the CPU do you? Everything goes through the UI. How the UI uses what hardware it has available is the key. If you have vanilla Google-built Android powering your phone, it's more consistent, it's more tuned, it's how Google want Android to work from their idealistic standpoint.

I don't like Touchwiz very much. It replaces some very nice parts of Android and makes them poor. It's also quite inconsistent. I've had to show people how to use their new S2, Note and S3s and quite often had to apologise for oddness purely related to Touchwiz. After evangelising so much to them about Android in general, they get a Samsung-branded device and are a little disappointed after I've shown them how a vanilla AOSP/Google based OS works, they like it, move from iOS to Android and instantly dislike the disjointed nature of the Samsung UI.

Take this video for example.

It's a great demonstration of how Google set Android ICS+ to be more intuitive and consistent than iOS, which makes the Nexus devices a joy to use, but there's no way you'd be able to do the same with an S2/S3, because Touchwiz takes away the polish.

At the moment I can choose between an S3 or a Galaxy Nexus. I've chosen the Nexus because there's not much between them hardware-wise, but if I had the S3, I'd be closing a lot of doors on myself. I'm already running JellyBean and it's incredible. Someone's managed to hack together a JellyBean for the S3 on XDA, but unfortunately the WiFi, Camera, Sound, SD and Bluetooth doesn't work.