I have used phones from HTC , samsung , lg and motorola . So I thought of writing the shortcomings I have found and I think are there as a whole . [ Note - This article is from my point of view , as an Indian buyer so this may not be applicable to someone from US ] LG - Virtually no marketing . I have yet to see a lg phone in someone's hand . The only lg phones I saw were nexus 5 and 4. They have no good phone in low and mid range . And even though the flagship phone is very good , for some reason its always the Galaxy and One phones which are mentioned when flagships are discussed . They got into spotlight with the nexus 4 but failed to capitalise on that imo . [ Their skin looks like touchwiz clone , not very pretty ] Sony - Sony followed six month cycle till now which I think hurt their sales . Now finally they have moved to yearly cycle it seems . There are no good low range or mid range phones . Their flagship phones Z3 and Z3c both are awesome , but again I hardly see one . If you root , some of the camera features are degraded which are bummer . Z3c is the perfect size for me , its the only flagship under 5" , and it has probably the best battery life , but the service here is pretty bad and even the shops advise against buying them . [ Skin looks close to stock , but icons are outdated now ] HTC - Horrible marketing team , for anyone who saw last year's ads with RDJ they would know what I am talking about . Again no good low range or mid range phones. Their low range and mid range phones are usually overpriced and have outdated hardware . Their flagship phone M8 [ Which I use ] has a horrible primary camera for a flagship , huge bezels on the front and the metal body is great but very slippery . Again yet to see another M8 . This year they rectified with a good camera but the rest gripe remains . [ Probably the best skin after stock , speedy and smooth ] Motorola - Moto stormed the Indian market with moto g and e , and then the x . The phones are great and they are so successful because the pricing is done right . Moto would have aced the low and mid range if the g2 had 2 gb ram and e2 had a better camera/flash . But still the phones are great , first to update and some distinguishable features like moto display . Moto x had the perfect size , but the hardware was old . They made x2 big , screwed up the battery life and it also doesn't have a great camera . They also have 2 more phones - the recently launched moto turbo and nexus 6 , one has hardware keys other is too huge . [ Skin is stock android so great ] Samsung - Touchwiz probably looked great during gingerbread days , but since ICS android looked beautiful and touchwiz still looked from gingerbread era and also its bloated and slow . Now with S6 they may have slimmed down touchwiz but still its a long way from stock android speed and smoothness . the settings is a mess and it uses way more ram than any other skin . Also they churn out a **** ton of devices , and the low range and mid range have dated and under performing hardware compared to moto and likes , and because of touchwiz they are slow as hell . Even the flagships have not performed very well , leading to decline in sales and other shenanigans happening in their department . With knox its difficult to root in some cases , and since the international phones use exynos processors there are no stable custom roms whch dont use samsung base because there are no documented stuff that developers need like qualcomm provides . Where motorola has 5 devices in its portfolio which cover the entire price range , samsung have probably 20 . [ Touchwiz skin , pile of **** ] ________________________________________________________________________________________ Other Small players - Micromax/karbon/and others - Inferior hardware , cheap quality , pathetic service . One plus one - Exceptional phone at the price point . Everything is great . If there was also a smaller version available around 4.5" it would have sold even more . ________________________________________________________________________________________ Microsoft/Nokia/Lumia - The lumia phones are great . Even at low range and mid range they have better hardware then their android counterparts . The software is smooth and integrates with a lot of stuff by default . The only problem is it has very very less app support . Also correct me if I am wrong but windows doesnt have any backup system like android has after root and apple has with iTunes . ________________________________________________________________________________________ Also one thing I don't understand is , why does no android manufacturer follow apple's strategy and pumps out just 2-3 phones a year and give support like apple does . The only manufacturer that is close to that to this strategy is Motorola . Is there a reason I am not getting because of which no one follows this strategy ? ________________________________________________________________________________________ Who is your favourite manufacturer ? What are your thoughts ?
Any manufacturer that has a removable battery and microsd slot. Which is very few at the moment now samsung have gone without those with the s6. I think the lg g3 has those and so maybe my next phone.
I bought a Micromax-branded Android One two months ago. Let's see how things go. No sign of Lollipop so far
I think my Asus Nexus 7 Android tablet is pretty good. Android 5.0.1 runs well, luckily I didn't get the 5.0.0 borkfest. I don't know whether Asus have fixed the file transference problem with docking with Win 7 yet. If I need to transfer files I do it from a Linux computer via USB. Windows Vista was fine docking with it as well.
I agree with trott3r. I find it silly that more of them are moving towards not offering removable battery and expandable storage. If I had to choose a flagship among the big players, I would go with Sony and LG. Sony: Flagship has good performance, camera, audio quality and battery life. Water-resistant. Stock-like skin. The lower range in Xperia line still has better hardware than what Samsung offers. LG: Flagship has great pixel-packed screen and offers removable battery and expandable storage. Nexus 5 is reasonably priced now. While the big players produce great flagships, they are quite pricey especially if one is not signing a contract with a telco. For those who wish to go off contract and are price sensitive, the low to mid-range offerings from the big players are not what I would call value for money. Motorola comes close with Moto G and Moto E but in terms of hardware specs that one get for one's money, there are better offerings from other Chinese brands. Personally, I like Xiaomi and Asus. I think they offer good products at a fair price.
