Which new smartphone do I buy?

[LJJ]

can someone explain to me why Samsungs are garbage? cause I'm wanting a Note 3 pretty bad

Samsung is Apple's main competitor, so Apple fanboys find reasons to dog Samsung.

You see, some people take this personal. They feel intense loyalty towards a company, and when a competing company take a huge portion of market share and releases mocking commercials like they see it as a personal affront.

It's all fanboy horseshit really, Samsung makes great phones.

[andgar923]

Samsung is Apple's main competitor, so Apple fanboys find reasons to dog Samsung.

You see, some people take this personal. They feel intense loyalty towards a company, and when a competing company take a huge portion of market share and releases mocking commercials like they see it as a personal affront.

It's all fanboy horseshit really, Samsung makes great phones.

Sure

[LJJ]

I struck a nerve I see.

[Doctor Rivers]

[quote=andgar923]Shitty build quality
They infect and warp the Android OS with their TouchWiz (or whatever it's called), which is laggy
Horrid customer service
Short lifespan
Gimmicky features that are half assed and don't work properly (if at all)
Shitty screen

[andgar923]

I struck a nerve I see.

So stating the truth is stricking a nerve?

[andgar923]

i have a galaxy s4, andgar make it sounds like samsung phones are the devil, i assure you that not every single thing about samsung is bad. does it have its problems like every phone out there has problems. sure, absolutely

my daily driver right now is an iphone 5s, but a month ago it was a galaxy s4.

I have a galaxy s4, motorola x, iphone 5s and a blackberry q10. I help develop and maintain an App and mobile services for a branch of credit unions. and i frequently freelance work for people, previously i worked with a real estate agency in creating a new website and app for them.
so yes i mingle with and use different phones on a fairly routine basis for work and for pleasure. my preference is android stock devices

iphone 5s is a good phone, im using it now just because its what i got most recently. Im usually using my galaxy s4 or what ever phone Os platform i find myself working most in at the time. my manager and employees all use iphones right now, so its most convenient as well (imessage going to my phone/ipad/macbook)
without a doubt iphone 5s has the best camera imo. ios 7 is quite a nice change and improvement from its predecessor.

galaxy s4 is also great and i use it alot. yeah you can complain about screen over saturation, but that was primarily with s3 and below. S4 and newer samsungs have better OLED and more natural contrast (still not as good as iphone 5/5s ips screen truthfully speaking). s4 has different screen modes you can choose from, but by default it has 'adapt display' which is what i recommend using. since it will intelligently choose how to display your screen depending on what kind of environment/setting you are in.
the galaxy s4 has a much higher pixel density (easily noticable when put side to side with an iphone retina display, im doing it right now lol), and has better viewing angles.
so its display has its advantages and disadvantages.
normal usage, its not laggy, its a fairly bad misconception. i can revert my galaxy s4 to stock out of the box, and make a video of me zipping through screens. its fine. if you put big ass interactive widgets on every page, then yeah maybe it might stutter.
i know a handful of people who use both galaxy s4 and iphone 5/5s, and they love both the same. every high end/flagship phone out there right now is pretty damn good.

i have better battery life on my galaxy s4, but it really just comes down to the fact that the galaxy s4 has a much higher capacity than the iphone battery. 2600maH vs 1570 maH battery, although the galaxy s4 has to power a higher pixel dense screen. both will get you through the day no problem. i just found that will the galaxy s4 i had slightly more juice left than i do with my iphone 5s.

truthfully, the deciding factor will prly come down to screen size, and if you're currently invested in any os ecosystem (google or apple).
day to day usage, you will generally have a good experience with almost any phone you go with.
i thought i would offer my opinion, because its fairly bad information when someone tells you that a fairly good phone is absolute shit and bad in every way.



good luck choosing your phone sir!

oh yeah, like others have mentioned HTC One is a great phone and of course the new Nexus is going to be announced before the end of this month (some people think october 15th, but thats today/tomorrow lol)

Good for you if you like it.

I've tried all versions and even tho I tried the new one briefly, it was cheap. The great features it touts didn't work consistently and when they did work they were as if they were still in beta 1.

Again, cheap feel to the phone and OS. It truly feels like an Asian knockoff, a product with poor quality control and high tolerance.

I suppose some people are ok with that.

The Windows phones by comparisons are a world of difference. Smooth, clean, even tho they're made of plastic they don't feel cheap. The HTC One is a beast on all fronts, the only Android phone I'd switch too.

[rufuspaul]

You see, some people take this personal. They feel intense loyalty towards a company, and when a competing company take a huge portion of market share and releases mocking commercials like they see it as a personal affront.

I find the whole thing rather humorous. People are so touchy about their phones. They'd rather you called their mother a whore than say anything negative about the toy they carry in their pocket.

[imdaman99]

HTC One this thing is sexy AF

But then again, the HTC One X is right around the corner. Before this phone (I got 2 weeks back) I had never used Sense. All the HTC Phones I had, I rooted and installed CM 10.1-10.2 real quick. I don't need to do that with this one, Sense 5 is wonderful. Good luck, let us know what you do end up getting

[rezznor]

HTC One this thing is sexy AF

But then again, the HTC One X is right around the corner. Before this phone (I got 2 weeks back) I had never used Sense. All the HTC Phones I had, I rooted and installed CM 10.1-10.2 real quick. I don't need to do that with this one, Sense 5 is wonderful. Good luck, let us know what you do end up getting

sense is ALOT better then it used to be. it's good to see that most OEMs are moving away from their own bloated versions of android and getting closer to stock.

was never that big of a deal since you can always rom it, but it's a step in the right direction.

[bdreason]

I'm still using an HTC MyTouch 4G. Been thinking about upgrading for awhile now, but haven't been impressed with the new phones. I like the size of the iphone, but don't want to switch over to Apple. I like the Windows OS, but apparently the app store is limited, and T-Mobile only offers a couple Windows phones. HTC One is nice, but too big for my taste.

What I'd really like is to pick up a waterproof / gorilla glass / lifeproof Android phone about the size of the iphone. the only waterproof phone T-Mobile offers right now is a Sony I think.

[Jailblazers7]

The build quality and feel of the iPhone is what made me almost get the 5s. The feel of the iPhone is unparalleled. I do like the fake leather design on the Note 3 tho. It feels much better and it doesn't get dirty with finger prints like the old glossy ones did. I think it is a really nice improvement.

[andgar923]

touchwiz is fine, like i mentioned, its fluid and responsive, specifically on galaxy s4 and above. i think a lot of the widgets are kind of useless, but noones forcing you to use them. but some people will want to use them...

i know just as many people who complain about their iphone homescreen because they think its bland and just rows of icons

everyone has their own personal preference. i personally prefer the avenue of being able to do whatever the hell i want with my phone, and if theres anything i dont need, i wont use it.

as for galaxy s4 features, yeah i dont use them all, but they work fine.
i pretty much dont use the eye tracking stuff, cuz i find it more of a nuissance and not needed.
but air hover is good, and being able to use my touchscreen with gloves/mitts is good (yeah i have harsh winters)
being able to swipe my hand over the phone when its off without pressing or touching anything to see my notifications is handy. once again, if you dont like it, just turn it off. but i find it useful.

not to bust your balls, but ios is more closer to asian OS knockoffs lol. the most popular asian android os is miui, and its much closer to ios than touchwiz. but to befair miui is good, and xaomi is doing big things in china.

irregardless of all that, touchwiz could be improved by taking a more simplistic approach. but they prefer to give you more, and let users disable what they dont want. when you first turn on your galaxy s4, you get to see all the 'features' and you can decide what you want on or off. so no, you are not handcuffed to these features.

i defintely like the strides HTC took with Sense. Sense 5 was a great improvement, i think they hit a great balance of functionality, simplicity and design. sense 5.5 is also shaping up and looking to be quite nice

as for design/build. i agree wholeheartedly that the build and finish of the iphone 5/5s is quite a ways better than samsung. but by no means do i think galaxy s4 is 'cheap', but it just doesnt feel premium. which i think isnt good, because it is their flagship device after all. truth be told, lot of phones look/feel cheap next to an iphone, only one that can rival the iphone in this department is the htc one. but this is deliberate by samsung, because there is still a demographic of users who enjoy having a replaceable battery and removable storage. frankly, i would rather have a great premium build/design instead of replaceable battery and removable storage.

samsung phones will probably be a bit different in a couple of years. the reason why their touchwiz is so dauntingly different from stock android is because they clearly want to break off from android and transition to their own homemade OS 'tizen' and make it as seamless as possible. although their 'Tizen' OS doesnt look too appetizing at this point

You misunderstood me.

I like the features that Samsung provides, I actually would love to have them. But they're poorly implemented and coded, that's the issue. At times they work at times they don't, and when they do work they aren't all that great or smooth. So it isn't about personal taste, it's about functionality and working properly.

Everyday at lunch I wish I had those features, make it easier on me to browse the net while my fingers are full of grease.

This is how I see Samsung.

Somebody has an idea, they throw it in, they might test it a bit but f*ck it it works good enough I suppose so they release it. They just throw shit out there without proper testing or development.

So sure, it might take Apple a year or two to adapt certain features, but they're 'usually' well implemented. No OS is gonna be perfect, but Samsung's offerings are very poorly coded and rushed. They try to throw the kitchen sink for the sake of filling the spec and features list and ignore quality.

For example, they're gonna add 64 bit chip on their next Galaxy phone in January. Who knows if they've even done the proper work and testing for it, they're just gonna throw it out there because they want to fill the spec sheets and say they have it too.

But once you know about their CEO it all makes sense.

The same company that's been caught fixing their benchmark scores, bribing journalists, paying trolls to post favorable comments and diss competitors, etc.etc.

They take the kitchen sink approach by throwing everything.

[rezznor]

I'm still using an HTC MyTouch 4G. Been thinking about upgrading for awhile now, but haven't been impressed with the new phones. I like the size of the iphone, but don't want to switch over to Apple. I like the Windows OS, but apparently the app store is limited, and T-Mobile only offers a couple Windows phones. HTC One is nice, but too big for my taste.

What I'd really like is to pick up a waterproof / gorilla glass / lifeproof Android phone about the size of the iphone. the only waterproof phone T-Mobile offers right now is a Sony I think.

they have mini versions of the flagship android phones that are close in size to the iphone

[magic chiongson]

we can all see who is the fanboy in this thread

[redhonda76]

This is how I see Samsung.

Somebody has an idea, they throw it in, they might test it a bit but f*ck it it works good enough I suppose so they release it. They just throw shit out there without proper testing or development.

So sure, it might take Apple a year or two to adapt certain features, but they're 'usually' well implemented. No OS is gonna be perfect, but Samsung's offerings are very poorly coded and rushed. They try to throw the kitchen sink for the sake of filling the spec and features list and ignore quality.

I have no idea what you are talking about. I have the S3 for almost a year and the features works fine like NFC/S Beam, Samsung Remote, All Share Play.
Is Apple maps well implemented? Siri cannot compete against Google voice. What about fingerprint scanner? Hackers had overcame that safeguard.
Every company has it's fault and you made it like Apple is perfect in every way. This is why you are a perfect example of a Apple fan boy.