I'm a Iphone 4 user that has the chance to upgrade but Iphone's don't have RSAP for my car. Any thoughts on the best android phone out there at the moment? It's difficult to get a feel given conflicting internet reviews. The Nexus camera gets a right ribbing on most reviews but the S2 is getting old and hasn't got the 4.0 software?? Damn I'm confused!
There's not really anything wrong with the Nexus camera, just a bunch of idiots who sees the 5 Mpx on the specs and assume that it's bad. If you are like most people, you won't be attempting to take any professional pictures with it, and for that it should be fine.
That attitude is a load of bollocks. Megapixels is just not important. My DSLR only does 5MP and still takes far better photos than any mobile phone.
You do realise that I agree with you here, right?
Sure. Was that not clear?
Wacko overstates the importance of not having the latest version of Android though. If you were to get the S2, you would be waiting about a month to get the latest version of Android, not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things, certainly not to the point where it should be a deal breaker. The hardware in the S2 and Nexus are pretty similar, neither is vastly superior to the other.
Yeah, the S2 will get the update, but the S1 won't and that's not even 18 months old. My lass bought hers 8 months ago.
Read the article I linked.
The fact of the matter is, the Nexus is the only Android handset that continues to receive major OS updates throughout its typical lifetime (the 18 months to 2 years that most people's contracts run). That may or may not matter to you, but what should matter very much to you is that very few Android handsets continue to receive security updates beyond 12 months after release. Which is to say, if you don't buy the phone the day it comes out, it's quite likely it'll spend most of its life with known security holes.
Don't buy any Android handset other than a Nexus.
I have read the article that you linked, and I still think it's a whole lot of fuss over nothing.
Google announced that pretty much every manufacturer and carrier has agreed to support their phones for at least 18 months since its release (starting from May 2011). That of course means that ICS might be the last major update that S2 is likely to get, but I still don't really see a big problem with not being on the newest software if the hardware can't support it.
In many cases, the hardware can support it (the Galaxy S1 is a case in point, but Samsung won't consider dropping TouchWiz to accommodate the ICS update). The handset manufacturers just aren't interested in supporting older models.
As far as they're concerned, giving you updates is giving you a reason not to buy their new phone.
The hardware in phones are moving so quick these days, and I rather Google let their software keep up rather than do like iOS and stay the same for five years.
And what are these "security updates" you keep going on about?
The minor updates and bugfixes that Google releases to patch security holes and other bugs they've found (as opposed to major OS updates like ICS). Far too many handset manufacturers just don't bother releasing these for their handsets, or stop doing so far too soon.
Android has security problems, just like every other OS, and Google fixes them, just like every other OS developer, but most handset manufacturers just don't appear to care. If you're lucky, you'll get security updates until the phone is 18 months old.
The manufacturers (and carriers) know full well that millions of their customers are using insecure devices, with problems that Google has long since provided patches for, and they aren't interested in fixing them. That's disgraceful.
As far as I know, ISC doesn't offer any increased security, it's a design and UI update. Android is vulnerable as an OS and because of its openness in Market, but that's one of the risks you take with it, and as long as you're careful with what apps you download and watch out for what parts of the phone they want access to, it's not really any better or worse than anything else.
No it doesn't. But it offers new features. It would be nice to offer those to your customers. I brought it up because a) Slugsy will be used to always having the latest-and-greatest OS as an iPhone user, and b) it is a great feature and one that is only reliably available on Nexus handsets.
Regarding the permissions system, that is unfortunately also affected by occasional security holes. And these do not always get fixed (see above). As you can imagine, that's a serious problem given Google's hands-off approach to its Market. Knowing you have to be a bit careful on the Android Market is one thing, but thinking the permissions system will stop anything bad from happening when it won't because HTC broke it and isn't going to fix it is quite another.
FWIW, Galaxy S was released in June 2010, which means it is over 18 months old.
So it's 20 months old. Hardly a big difference, is it?
Most people who have that handset won't be due a new one for a year or so. If Google hadn't taken a timeout to concentrate on a tablet version of Android, it would probably be two major version behind instead of just one.
That hardware rapidly goes out of date is just the way of things, but there's no good reason software should.
By not providing major OS updates, handset manufacturers hurt the entire Android ecosystem because it means that Android devs have to keep targeting much older versions of the OS to make the apps compatible with the majority of devices in use at a given time. It's a millstone around Android's neck, and slows down the platform's progress as a whole.
