My first encounter with a real smartphone

Do not, I repeat, do NOT read this article if you like smartphones or feel like you might get a bit touchy-feely or angry at the end of it. There you go, I warned you. Now, enjoy a review of my first encounter with a touch-screen smartphone running Android, focusing on the always-connected philosophy and the lack of ability to sign off or remove your primary account, plus some overview of the Android market, offline usage of GPS, device recognition on Windows and Linux, rooting, accessibility, backups, ease of use, typing speed and feel, battery life, comparison to full-keyboard Nokia phones, and more. Bottom line, what humanity has come to. Now read.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/android-phone.html


Regards,
Mrk

 

sounds like an iphone might suit you more than an android phone

*hides in tree house*

 

Agree !

 

Excellent post Mrkvonic; thanks for saying pretty much exactly what I feel and believe about the whole concept of what these days satisfies the criteria for being classified as a 'smart Phone' and some of the pitfalls of owing one.

I have to laugh and shake my head at those who watch movies or play games on their smart phone.
How can that possibly be a rewarding experience ?

I'm still looking for a cell phone that will COMPLETELY shut down all instances of internet access until it's needed.

 

I agree with you that Android devices are garbage, that's why I sold my Galaxy SII after some weeks of usage and returned to my Nokia N8 with the nice Symbian Belle. Next time, please, make a passionate review of a high-end Windows Phone 8 device (when it's released).

 

i still have one of the earlier Motorola Razr.
4-5 years old with the 1 meg camera.

it's pretty good at what i need it for: making phone calls.

 

Sounds less like a review and more like a series of poor experiences.

For example if a user *did* have GPS, that story would have gone very differently. And had the rooting been successful, again, another story.

edit: And you were on 2.3 when the latest version is 4.1.

 

It's my experience, but you can read it like a review
Indeed, if things had worked out as expected, it would be a different story.
But they did not, so it's this story.
Mrk

 

Once upon a time during one of my "maybe I'll finally buy a smartphone" stops I discovered that a device I was looking at which was represented as having GPS actually had no GPS receiver. The GPS feature revolved exclusively around the use of tower provided location data and thus it would be worthless if cell communications were disabled or towers weren't available. Subsequent to that I heard of at least one case where pure WiFi based location information was represented as being GPS. Is such marketing rare these days? Does one need to qualify what "GPS" refers to?

 

I loled at the N8 guy. 2 people at my workplace bought N8 in the same day at the same store and they let them to me to upgrade those things. One worked flawlessly, but the other one didn't want to upgrade the store app and other apps got doubled and of course those apps were preinstalled junk which you can't remove unless you do all kind of tricks after you read dozens of forums.
Personally, I just spend under 100 euro now on a phone now. I get the phone with the best battery life for those money. Last one is Alcatel 813d for 50 euro. It's my first non Nokia phone in 10 years of using a mobile phone.

 

Interesting review Mrkvonic.. I myself had my first exposure to android early this year when I bought one. I slowly learned how to use it, configure/root it etc, it was a learning process but not a terrible one.

Middle of the year I was low on cash, I had to let my home internet go for a couple months.. I was able to get internet on my computer through my phone via tethering - not as fast as dsl, but quite adequate for basics and modest downloading. After a couple days of this, I realized that this little phone was the only thing standing between me and isolation - keeping me connected with friends/family, and to the internet.

Eventually I was able to get my home internet back up, but ever since, I have had a newfound respect for my phone and it's capabilities and have kept it polished up ever since - I consider it to be a modern man's multi-tool... Normally wherever I am, it is there on my beltstrap, along with my pocketknife, which I also keep polished

 

U could simple untick auto sync and background data sync and that is as good as signing out
Secondly rooting does not require a pc in most of the cases - many a times its just a one click process or a very simple 2 minute process
But for many devices u have to go throught many steps and what not and sadly yours was one of those device
ur contacts would have synced with google
and anyways how were u adding contacts ? why didnt u just import a csv file from ur nokia phone ?
and i dont know about sony's keyboard but most of the keyboard have the option to vibrate and pop up when u press a key
even on android u can type very fast - u want ur typing to be super fast in less than a day usage ?
I dont use gps so i cant comment but usb connectivity is plug and play for my phone , u can get different pc suites if u dont like the default sony one
Android does much more than android so naturally the battery life is shorter
also if u were on ICS or jb u could have disabled those adware apps without a problem
And u talking about screen size when u bought a puny screen sized droid ?

 

I love my smartphone.
I know Waze might not be the best GPS in all areas around the world but where i live it beats even Google Maps, roads are updated faster and traffic information is more accurate.
Regarding the e-mail always being logged in, i created a new GMail ONLY for the phone so i have no problem at all with it.

 

It's a 1st encounter...so it's quite an interesting read.