Why did you buy an Android phone?

[YourNewPalAlex]

Customizability is a big thing for me, the fact that i download anything easily, cheap flagships, bigger community, custom roms and kernals that squeeze the last juice of performance out of your phone, security testing with kali nethunter and andromax, you can run emulators with win on them, and you can mod games.

 

 

And all of that when you have sooooo many phones with android to chose from, not just 3 phones that are waaaayyy overpriced.

 

 

Also if your on Android One you have alot of updates.

[Timhortons]

Didn't want to look like a tool.

[Giganthrax]

I used iphone for a year or so, and I even had an ipod. Absolutely loathed any and all interactions I had with iTunes. Never again. 

 

Android is more customizable, cheaper, works as well as iphone, and it's just overall a better value for money. 

 

EDIT: Also, in my crappy Eastern European country, an iphone is seen as a status symbol in the same way as expensive clothing brands are. You can assume the person is going to be obnoxious/extremely shallow when they're using an iphone here and you're almost always right.

[xn--cr8h]

Imagine getting on the train, looking around you, and noticing that everyone's phone looks the exact same as yours. I would rather not have a phone.

 

Also, on principle I will never buy any "computer" with a locked down bootloader. As far as I'm concerned, iPhones (and phones from other manufacturers such as Huawei and HMD) are pretty much bricks. Even if you're not going to install a custom ROM, you should care about this.

[Ja Krispie]

My my personal phone the times I've purchased android was when I wanted to give it a try. I've always gone back to apple and most reasons were because I had bad experiences with android.

 

To date the only good experience I've ever had was with the LG V20. Great phone and loved it. I was just getting more and more into the apple ecosystem again so I decided to go back to apple.

 

For my work phone we have Samsungs right now and I hate them. Had the S5 active now we are on the S7 active and these phones are garbage. If I could pick a work phone I'd either go with an iPhone or with a LG V40

[kirashi]

Now that both iOS and Android are becoming mature operating systems (you heard right; they're both still extremely immature & limited in nature, but they're good enough) I could go either way, and actually do miss having an iPad for media consumption and reddit browsing, as well as DJ'ing. (although DJing is moot with newer iPads since there's no headphone jack.)

 

However, the main things that keep me on Android Phones are listed below:

• We can change default apps for mail, maps, & web browsers
• There is an actual file system (Files app is NOT a real file browser)
• If desired, we can root & ROM our phones because:
  • we can change the look/feel of our device
  • we can continue receiving updates even longer than Apple supports their older phones
• There's a wide selection of launchers (one launcher DOES NOT fit all use-cases; sorry Apple springboard)
• AirPlay is not a universally supported method for casting content to speakers / Smart TVs
  • That being said, there really is no universal method for this, but at least on Android I have a better ability to use 3rd party apps for casting
• We're not stuck using Safari's web rendering engine or everything
  • Even if you download Chrome or another browser on iOS, Apple still forces it to render content using Safari's engine
• Android lets me use both Tasker and Join to automate ... literally anything on my phone https://joaoapps.com/join/
  • Can receive & reply to texts, FB messages, & other notifications directly in my Chrome extension bar without having to open Facebook, for instance
  • Can automate with much greater details than IFTTT offers on the locked down iOS system

[Nitsuj]

i like being able to get a sub $1650 (cough cough, iphone Xr) phone thats going to be able to run just as much stuff with the advantages of being on a more widespread Os, and also WAY better battery life.

 

and also my new android has a headphone jack

 

[Guest]

Because it was cheaper than an iPhone screen repair for my 6. I got a Galaxy S5. Was terrible so I just bought a new iPhone 7 a week later.

[Pi31415]

I'm a smart intellectual

[Ja Krispie]

37 minutes ago, Nitsuj said:

i like being able to get a sub $1650 (cough cough, iphone Xr) phone thats going to be able to run just as much stuff with the advantages of being on a more widespread Os, and also WAY better battery life.

 

and also my new android has a headphone jack

 

The battery in my iPhone XS Max has lasted MUCH longer than any android phone I've ever had. Even my old iPhone X had better battery life.

[TetraSky]

Had nothing better to do today so I just installed TWRP and a custom ROM/Firmware on a Samsung A5 2017 that was SIM carrier locked.(The carrier refused to unlock it, because I'm not the "original owner" of the device... it was given to me by my father after he changed carrier last week... seriously Fido is trash)

Doing so not only Unlocked the phone for any SIM card, it also got rid of ALL the samsung/fido bloatware. Seriously, this is as barebone as could be now.
Did a dirty "battery life" test, by watching 2h30m of videos on youtube in fullscreen, from 100% it got down to 80%. Which isn't that bad for an older phone that has seen a bit of usage. If I extrapolate, it means I have about 12h30m of battery life watching videos.

It also upgraded Android from Oreo to Pie, since Pie isn't officially available for the A5 2017.

 

This kind of things is why I love Android. You're not limited to what "they"(carriers and manufacturers) say you can do with it.

 

1 minute ago, Psybadek said:

The battery in my iPhone XS Max has lasted MUCH longer than any android phone I've ever had. Even my old iPhone X had better battery life.

So how long are we talking about here? And what do you do with it? What do you have installed? Battery life is something that can be hard to quantify since we don't all use our devices the same way. For example, I have a cheap Nokia 2 with a 4100mAh battery that last me nearly 5 days, because I only use it to maybe browse the web an hour a day during the week when I'm not at home.

[Crunchy Dragon]

I like the feel of Android's OS more.

 

I also like the expandable storage via microSD on my phone, and the presence of a headphone jack. I also enjoy not having to spend as much as I would have if I had bought an iPhone.

[Ja Krispie]

2 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

So how long are we talking about here? And what do you do with it? What do you have installed? Battery life is something that can be hard to quantify since we don't all use our devices the same way. For example, I have a cheap Nokia 2 with a 4100mAh battery that last me nearly 5 days, because I only use it to maybe browse the web an hour a day during the week when I'm not at home.

I charge it every night but I can get a couple days out of it if I do forget to charge it. I have the normal stuff installed I suppose, Facebook, Spotify, Audible, Messenger, other social media apps along with some of my bank apps and what not. The only time I've had to charge my phone during the day was when I was watching youtube videos all day while I was at work. (Doing software installs so my time was spent watching the monitor.)

 

A normal day though I can get home from work and have 60-70% battery left and that's with streaming music or audio books for a few of those hours. (Youtube does eat battery so I don't use it alot. It's worse on my android work phone though.)

[Nitsuj]

1 hour ago, Psybadek said:

The battery in my iPhone XS Max has lasted MUCH longer than any android phone I've ever had. Even my old iPhone X had better battery life.

yeah, i was rather ignorant about that assumption, i'd head good thing about it, but was doubting of it.. was having flash backs to my last iphone (5c) which SUCKED

 

[Ja Krispie]

Just now, Nitsuj said:

yeah, i was rather ignorant about that assumption, i'd head good thing about it, but was doubting of it.. was having flash backs to my last iphone (5c) which SUCKED

 

As someone mentioned above it could just be the way I use my phones, but for the last 5+ years I've used my phones the same way. I will say there was a time the battery life on iPhones was horrible for my use, but since the iPhone 6 Plus I've noticed much better battery life out of them. (I can't speak for the iPhone 7 or 8 phones since I was actually using a LG V20 during those gens which was actually a really good phone for android imo. Battery life was good there too.)
 

Since I got back to iPhone the X and XS Max have been great imo. I have zero complaints with either phone.

[xChryses]

I enjoy having my freedom to customize and edit the look of my software at will.

[iLikeBananas]

Honestly, back then when the first iPhone came out I had a windows mobile phone. It did everything I needed. I could wirelessly connect to my computer and transfer files. I could create actual playlists (some phones back then only allowed you to play a song once into a playlist). It had a file browser, and I could even edit the registry files.

 

When the iPhone came out it added nothing new I needed. It had some fancy apps, but that's it. So there was no point for me to switch. And later it was possible to dual boot windows and android on some windows phones, so that was basically the first time I tried android, and I liked it enough to completely switch to Android.

 

I don't buy iPhones because back then I had a better option and right now I have android, which is good enough.

[wasab]

Freedom! Also, iOS is crap and Windows phone is both crap and dead.

[kokakolia]

On 1/27/2019 at 3:56 PM, wasab said:

Freedom! Also, iOS is crap and Windows phone is both crap and dead.

Calling iOS crap is just so shortsighted. Have you ever used a cheap Chinese Android phone with a half-baked Android ROM? iOS is consistent, iOS works really well most of the time. You just can’t say that about most Android phones under $200. 

[wasab]

1 hour ago, kokakolia said:

Calling iOS crap is just so shortsighted. Have you ever used a cheap Chinese Android phone with a half-baked Android ROM? iOS is consistent, iOS works really well most of the time. You just can’t say that about most Android phones under $200. 

I can't download a video from the webrowser and then share it with friends with my favorite social media app so it is useless.

 

Not to mention it can't torrent when I need it to because my computer is down.

 

Not to mention it can't be used as a wifi extender when I need it to because my laptop wifi range is crap.

 

Not to mention I can't install an alternative appstore like Amazon appstore like I could on Android.

 

Not to mentioned Firefox, my favorite mobile web browser can't installed web extensions on iOS unlike Android because apple forced all mobile browser developers to use its safari web engine and sdk.

 

Not to mention I can't plug in an USB drivers with an adaptor and moved files from USB to phone and vice versa on ios.

 

Not to mentioned I can't theme the appearence.

 

Not to mention I can't get rid of the annoying system and app advertisements.

 

Not to mention no file manager and all the so called files managers on apple appstore can't even access common system storage so basically useless. 

 

Not to mention moving files from one app to another like moving files from a word document into my mega drive app for backup involves redunctly copy and paste files from an apps sandboxes inner storage to another and God forbids if the file is large, the phone locks itself, and kills all the progress.

 

Not to mention the app store interface is ugly as hell.

 

Not to mentioned the price you need to pay just for crap file managers (or any other apps for that matter) that barely work

 

The list goes on and on.... 

 

How capable is iOS really? You get what you pay for on Android. You pay for $1000 Android phone, you get amazing stuffs, you get a low end one, it is poor performing but still functional considering price points. I was gifted iPhone X by my parents on my 20th birthday. Omg, so many bugs in the first 2 months and it lacks many capabilities which impact my normal day to day usage of a smartphone. (E.g download and sharing stuffs)

[thinwalrus]

Android is so much cheaper. I got a Sony xz1 for 230€(crazy Nordic sales taxes included). Only thing missing is ois for the camera. 

[Sousuke]

When I bought an Android Phone, it was for the Openness of the OS/Ecosystem and the ability to customise the experience to what I wanted with different launchers. Also the amount of different hardware and the push of innovation which at the moment is outstripping Apple.

 

I have to admit, most Android flagships are just as good or better than iPhones, I just like iOS and the Apple Ecosystem. I did have a Samsung Galaxy S8 prior to an iPhone X and now I own a iPhone XS Max (I like big phones and I can not lie, you other nerds can't deny).

 

I currently own a Samsung Tablet running Android.

[Guest]

On 1/21/2019 at 2:18 PM, James said:

 

*** We don't really want to hear from the iPhone owners here. We want to hear from current Android users

 

This discrimination didn't exist in the iPhone thread! Double standards...

 

I used to buy Android phones because they were cheaper. My first android was the Droid 2 Global. I wanted the Droid 2 but the guys at verizon feked up. Back in 2000 single digits, I've only had a flip phone with 12~ buttons. I wanted a phone with a touch screen & a slide out qwerty keyboard to text really quickly. The fact that it was a smartphone wasn't really important but a nice to have. Plus you could download music for free at the time.

 

I lost that phone in a backpack or something & found it several months after my second phone. The Galaxy Nexus or something. That phone was cool because it was the first with a new version of android, it had a long battery life & had other good specs I thought I needed but didn't. Like 32 Gigabytes of storage in 2011. It was between that and the iPhone 4S. I can't recall the deciding factor though. Maybe the at the time better camera megapixels. That phone literally burned out. I have no idea how to explain it other than it would discharge instead of charging & always smelled like burned popcorn. Then again I was always on it screen shooting memes & playing mmos to use the most of our unlimited data plan at the time. (When all providers were offering unlimited data to get you to switch.) My hands were numb all the time because I played internet games all the time just to use up unlimited data.

[B16CXHatch]

I've personally never been a fan of Apple. My brother being an apple snob made me dislike it even more. However, I did give iOS a fair shake but it always just felt bad to me. Using anything iOS, nothing ever made sense to me but Android, I took to like I had been using it for years when I got my first Android phone. It just did and still does make sense to me. Specifically Oxygen OS makes sense to me as I have a OnePlus 5 now, but I started with a Droid Razr M (Android 4.2 then 4.4).

[Guest]

On 1/21/2019 at 1:18 PM, James said:

A few months ago we posted a thread asking iPhone owners to tell us why they chose to be iPhone owners:

 

The result of that was this video:

 

Now we're doing it for ANDROID!!!1

Please post your favorite Android things / Ways Android is just better than iOS/iPhone!

 

*** We don't really want to hear from the iPhone owners here. We want to hear from current Android users

 

Well first i like my device nice and fast *Cough cough Stunt apple pulled cough cough* two i can root it three i can download stuff from the internet and last but not lest 4 its cheaper and when  i like to spend more  have more fetures on my  phone when i choose like a headphone jack thats all for now