My Android Experience.
I have been touting Android horn for a long time without owning one! There was a reason for that and the reason being it was based on Linux Kernel and Oh...It was open source. I have been using Apple iPhone 3G since September 2009 and later in March I got a Nokia X6 (my points on Nokia X6 can be read here ). I used the phone for a month and a half interchangeably with my iPhone 3G. I gave my Nokia X6 to my sister-in-law. In June, I got the iPhone 4 and after using it for 15 days, I sold it for a decent profit on it. I got out of my contract and went back to my iPhone 3G. All this time, I was waiting for a decent Android phone to come to AT & T network, not because I like AT & T network, but because I do have my wife's contract till Feb 2011. I thought about getting HTC Aria which is a cute little phone on 3.2 inch screen. But what I really wanted was a big screen phone with at least 1GHZ processor on it. I was so waiting for HTC Incredible to come on US 3G network, but it never came. Telus has Incredible listed on their website now...but generally Telus sells the unlocked phones for a pretty hight price compared to the competition. Then Samsung Galaxy S was announced for US networks and I was lured in to it. I was hoping they would announce one of its variant unlocked. Everyone on AT & T network yearns for a killer android device just like HTC Hero or HTC Droid X or 2 or incredible without “bastardization” of the core phone. I am sure a lot of nerds just wish that most manufactures would just sell the high end phones unlocked or a better solution would be for manufactures to get the phone with pentaband 3G frequency which supports T-mobile and AT & T. That would be so seamless for consumers to switch with just 2 GSM carriers in US. But, somehow the realization sinks in with the fact that this is US and the carriers locking down the phone is quite a standard.
Anyways, this article is about my first Android experience and I am here to share it. This are my personal opinion and I don't write reviews for a living. As a user, this are my points from my experience of using devices.
I got the Captivate. Most of you all know the specs. For the sake of it, I would go through it.
ARM A8 1 GHZ Hummingbird processor running Android 2.1 with Sammy 3.0 touchviw UI
Super Amoled Screen
512 MB RAM
16 GB internal storage
MicroSD support to another 32 GB
5 MP Camera (with no Flash...So Disappointing)
720P HD video recording
MicroUSB charging
Triband HSDPA, HSUPA
Wi-Fi on B/G/N
DLNA and
Bluetooth 3.0
There are many other features, but I would limit to what made my choice on Captivate.
What the specs doesn't tell you is how incredible the super amoled screen is or how thin and light the phone is and yet how great the phone feels in your hands with the perfect screen size of 4 inches.
Like it or not, AT & T has done some nice changes to the phone. Noticeably being the phone looks a classy compared to Samsung Vibrant and the metal plates in the back has given it a nice touch. I really loved the back slider mechanism to remove the metal plate that it is place on Captivate. Having said, the phone design has a little flaw and wish if they had taken the flat edges from Vibrant for the top part of the phone. Since the top has a curve, there is always going to be a small gap for USB and the 3.5 mm audio jack. But that doesn't take away the fact that Samsung has taken great care of providing a protective cover for micro-USB with a small slider mechanism which is so much better than the rubber pop mechanism I had on my Nokia X6. The volume rocker and the power buttons are on the side of the phone and behaves as it's use without any issues.
Screen
One word Gorgeous. I have set my screen to screen saver mode and yet it is so bright and so beautiful and colorful. My wife tells me that it's too bright for her taste :-)
The Super Amoled screen works really well in bright sunlight. I had Nokia X6 and I still have iPhone 3G, but this phone trumps them all. I had iPhone 4 and it's unfortunate that I do not have both to compare, but iPhone had more natural color effect. As far as pixel density is concerned on iPhone 4 and Samsung Captivate, it's a whole new discussion and can take a different blog all together..But a simple fact is that iPhone 4 has a higher resolution than Samsung Captivate on a screen which is 0.5 inches small. That is going to have some effect in a lot of peoples eyes.
Speed
It's a pretty powerful processor running this phone. Iphone 4.0 and Samsung's Galaxy S shares the same processor with Apple providing it's own twist. You can call them cousin, but both of them are fast. Scrolling pages in Samsung browser, rendering pages, scrolling home screen is super smooth with the Accelerometer responding well to auto-rotate.
Lets just dive in to Software.
Since I had not experienced the stock Android UI, TouchWiz UI was not in my face. I installed the Launcher Pro from Android Marketplace and started using it.
Keyboard
Samsung offers three keyboards, Stock keyboard, Swype keyboard and Samsung keyboard. I do like Stock and Samsung keyboard. I also liked the fact that hard pressing the function key on stock Android keyboard gives me a green indicator with CAPS ON option. Typing in landscape and portrait mode both are pleasure and the fact that it's not binding me down to hold my phone in landscape mode for QWERTY keys is a big plus from my side. Typing on Nokia X6 was not fun in portrait mode. I am not that comfortable to Swype yet. I guess coming from iPhone which to me still has the best keyboard on a 3.5 – 4.0 inch devices, getting using to a different keyboard on-screen has a little learning curve here. I did play with the HTC Incredible and Droid X keyboard at a sprint store and according to me, they are better then iPhone...but it might be because they have a bigger screen than iPhone.
There are few gripes here about the keyboard or maybe it's a layout or UI gripe. The UI needs to display some part of the page when I am using keyboard in certain text fields for e.g. Username and password. Android does it make easier compared to Nokia by displaying which field you are typing in compared to Nokia Symbian OS.
But iPhone trumps on this feature.
Just from the keyboard, I got feeling that Android is going to be fun as it gives me options right out of the box.
Google
Well, My primary email account is Google. I have started maintaining my contacts in Google.
I am using Picasa as my picture sharing services. Google Voice for calling services. It was almost magical when my email, contacts, calendar, picasa, latitude, blogger, youtube, Google Voice and all Google services used by me, just synced to my device.
First thing first. GMAIL. Man, It is awesome. I think the integration on Android is so much better than iPhone 4. The client is bare-bone to begin with, but well thought off. On iPhone just to get to my Inbox on multiple accounts was a 5 click process. On Android, It's a 1 swipe and 1click process. Neat.
Folders/Labels are well hidden and moving emails is super easy. I haven't looked at some other email clients on Android Market which are touted as the better ones. So I would try and update this review.
Google Search, Youtube search, dedicated search button, Google Goggles and Google Voice search. Google all the way and why not? They are the best in search!
I tried Google goggles and it gave me the right results most times. The picture taking is on the slow side and at times, the images doesn't get processed. There are some bugs, but having the option is pretty good for me.
But so far I am really impressed.
Notifications
1 swipe and 1 click to get to mails is possible by notifications and it is great!
Be it gtalk or emails, Android notification rocks.
YouTube
After watching the same videos on Samsung Captivate and iPhone 4, I strongly believe that the YouTube client on iOS 4 and Android are different. Android youtube client is super awesome and it is so great to watch a movie or a video on a 4 inch Captivate.
Google Voice
My iPhone 3G was unlocked and jail-broken, and I used GV Voice app on it. But it was sparingly used as it was not fully integrated with the OS.
On Android phone it is so nicely done that I almost beg the carriers to sell a plan with just data or a 10$ voice plan for just 100 minutes and let people use either Google Voice or Skype to make calls!
That would save tons of money for consumers!
Left swipe on the contact gets you two options after installing Google Voice from the android marketplace. One option is for text and one is for Google Voice! Right swipe is to call through your network. Super easy.
One gripe here – For laymen, Google should make it a little easier or have better instructions for consumers on educating them with Google Voice and how to set them. Some options there were confusing. A good tutorial would be helpful. Not everyone is a techie or a nerd to figure things out.
Multi-Tasking
Ohhh..Man... Now I know how Apple was behind the curve with multi-tasking! It is so clean with Android!
Apple iOS4 has multi-tasking now and Apple has done in a way that they feel comfortable. It's easier on their users and I have a feeling that would keep their home button for future releases.
Google Maps
One word. Awesome. Voice activated, Turn by turn navigation is nice and trust me, the street view on maps client is awesome!
It really takes the advantage away from Nokia when it comes to maps on phones.
Browser
Let me say this and a lot of people especially fanboys won't agree. Android has a better browser in displaying pages. Before everyone pulls the trigger, One example is www.indiafm.com which routes me to www.bollywoodhungama.com. Try this link on iPhone browser and android browser and see what I am talking about. Or go to www.huffingtonpost.com (Not the mobile edition) on both the browser. I am not even talking Flash at this point. Rendering images to video to everything.
For me as a user, it's about getting the best Internet experience and Android clearly wins here. I can't wait for 2.2 on it for full flash support.
Camera
It's a pretty good camera. Not in the same class as iPhone 4 when I just compare the shutter lag, but for a 5 MP camera-phone is it pretty nice. I am baffled though that Samsung didn't feel it necessary to put Flash on it!
What a sucker.
Battery
My twitter updates are set to manual. But the emails are synced. I do need to charge my phone at the end of the day. If I am traveling, then I am sure I would need it to be charged earlier than the end of the day as I would be on the phone a lot more than I normally am at the desk.
It's a shame that the battery industry is lagging so behind that we can't get a days worth of phone use without charging it once.
AT & T Crapware
I just deleted them from home screen. TouchWiz UI is not that bad. Some of the widgets are pretty cool, but given a choice I would like all the UI's as an app on the stock UI with a choice to the users to put it on their phone or not or give the option to People who want to buy the phone unlocked for the full price rather than subsidized phones by carrier.
Frankly, with Android, majority of the things can be accomplished through home screens that there is hardly any times when you would want to go deep in the applications.
Things I didn't liked.
Games
Android is a generation behind Apple in games. They definitely need to do something on this end.
A perfect example is a Paper Toss game which is not a high end graphics game by any means feels so different in iPhone 4 and Android.
Racing game was another example. A lot of people play games on their phones and App Store has better gaming options and the games are a better experience on iPhone. And now with Gyroscope they are some better games on iPhone 4. Samsung captivate has a 3 dimensional gyroscope but they need good developers to develop the games for them.
If there are other games which are awesome on Android, please let me know.
Thinking Forward
Google need to do something about Music and Videos on the cloud. I cannot rent a movie on my samsung captivate straight from Google or buy a mp3 from google. Apple's iTunes is so restrictive, but I am looking something like Amazon store or Amazon video on demand. Google needs to have something on that line. They do not need to control like Apple does, but at least I want one official app from Google where I can get a good multimedia and books buying and viewing experience.
I would wait till August end before I get some information about Android 2.2 upgrade path that would get the developers at xda to get a custom ROM for Froyo out stabilized!
Final Thoughts
With Android one gets a feeling of freedom. There are very people would understand what I mean.
A freedom to customize a freedom to install apps that benefits a user and makes them more productive.
It's interesting, Android today feels like Ubuntu or any other Linux distros and iOS 4.0 feels like Windows with all those restrictions and walled gardens!
Update - Samsung has started the worst possible way to support a high end phone. Samsung Kies is a good idea, but very badly implemented. It is slow and it is slow and it is slow. Also, the support is non to make the phone work with USB on your laptop. I use Ubuntu and it took me a while to figure it out.
Also two things to add were the Gallery App. It is the best app on the phone. The gallery app from Google itself is how each and every single app should be on Android. Viewing pictures was pleasure on that app.
Samsung had bugs with the GPS on the unit. After quick google search had to fix the GPS MTS setting on the phone.
Also two things to add were the Gallery App. It is the best app on the phone. The gallery app from Google itself is how each and every single app should be on Android. Viewing pictures was pleasure on that app.
Samsung had bugs with the GPS on the unit. After quick google search had to fix the GPS MTS setting on the phone.
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