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M Quick

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 9, 2011
418
1
Stockholm, Sweden
Remember, this is only my opinions, and my opinions are as far as my friends can tell always honest, but with all people you may get a little too subjective when it comes around, so i'm not perfect, but i'm trying to give the most honest comparison as i can here for everyone to joy.

So please bare that in mind.



I just felt that i wanted to share my story about my experience, so we should start out with that i got my first iPhone when the 3G was released and i've had an iphone ever since until about 6months ago.

I will always be open minded, so doing this change is because people kept on saying how good android is etc. So i wanted to have a piece of that cake to see what's up. My findings are below:


Xperia S on ICS 4.0.4
The camera;
...on the Xperia S is really great, well IT IS (or at least the software is), better than the 4S, background blurr that is equal (but def not the same) as a system camera, is something you can get in the pictures without adding anything to it, but rather use it as you are used to if you are used to real cameras.

Focus on something up close and it will blurr out the background and keep the subject intact and looking good, will add a few pics later down to show you guys what i mean, and this is also the reason that made me change the 4S for it.

but was this enough for me to keep it after 6months?


The screen;
...is big and nice but, the screen itself when touching it, feeling it isn't really giving any smooth feeling and clogs up FAST, dirt sticks to it like poo-flies vandalises dog poo when no one is around.


The battery;
...was really bad with gingerbread, until i upgraded to ICS, or let me say, when ICS got available for upgrade, damn it took time to make it available when it had already been out for all this time!
Let me say that the battery would drain out after half a day easily, and that's when used as much as with my 4S that would have like 60% left doing the same stuff, i had to keep the screen at lowest brightness to prolong battery life and keep wifi and bluetooth off at all times to make it last almost a full day.

With ICS the battery would at least last for 1 and a half days so that made a huge deal, but by then i got used to having all those fancy things off, that i used to have on at all times on the 4S.
I must say that i could bare with this, it felt really nice, just because i got glad that it got better in the first place, heh..


Moving on...

Android ICS and all those widgets, well what can i say..
I loved it the first week, but then i realised there is really no need for these widgets, they are just taking up available space on the home screen and makes it less joyfull to slide around the screens to find what you wanna do for the moment, it puts down the user experience, it shouldn't feel like this imho, it should be easy to use, it's a phone, you don't wanna take unnessesary steps to go where you wanna go.

The layout on android is horrible imho, sure is nice that you can customize it any way you want pretty much, but to what avail?! It's not making it easier to use, rather more cool looking, so you are loosing one thing to get the other.
Alot of widgets for trading of the not-so-ease-of-use in the first part. It is what it is..

This is what made me realise how brilliant iOS is to begin with, no need for widgets on the home screen, besides apples widgets in the drop down menu lets you do more things to it without opening anything, just scroll to the side to get a bigger overview or whatever, when on ICS, you need to open it up to get more info from the widget, sucks..

One widget i did like on ICS though was the photo-widget which lets you have a widget take up about 6 icon's in size, but instead of 6 icons there is your latest taken/saved pictures and let you scroll up and down to have a preview of all photos in your album.



Support, this is where i feel that iphone beats android phones in all ways just because apple was smart enough to have their software released to all their supported products at the same time and because it works exactly the same on all mobile apple devices, well why do i think this?

Because, when i had problem with the battery life which i needed to ask why its so bad, it was hard to find a forum where there was enough experienced people to answer you, and when i found it, it would take a long time to get the answers. Because one android phone is not like the other, running ICS on a galaxy II or a xperia S is not the same thing, remember that, they are all different in one way or another, so getting help is not easy nor fun.


Build quality, well, what can i say, i've held alot of top end android phones since i got the Xperia S, and well, they all feel the same, cheap, toylike garbage, this is what made me feel that i didn't want a toyphone anymore, so i switched it back to 4S... And well, what can i say, i don't regret it!
The 4S feels so much better, feels sturdy, no quirking noises, no loose panels, the touch screens feels like heaven and looks great even if you smudge with dirty fingers becase it will not attract the dirt to it, maybe because it's not a pile of poo? Who knows..

And i don't regret doing the change for the Xperia S either, if i didn't i wouldn't really know what it's all about or see the goods and the bads about the iphone.

In short, what the Xperia S lacks, the iPhone has.


I will add more things to this comparison when i realise how good the 4S really is, because right now, there was so many things bugging me with ICS that i can't get them to mind all at once.

Anyway, hope you guys had a happy reading so far.


..and for the pictures of the close up and detail quality from the Xperia S, which really amazes me, with the thought of it being a phone camera, this is where it rocks imho, it handles light very well, one of the pic shows a shadow on one half and sun light on the other and it balances both to keep detail perfect in both light conditions in the same picture. But, that's pretty much it for the Xperia S on ICS 4.0.4 imho..
 

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MRU

macrumors Penryn
Aug 23, 2005
25,368
8,948
a better place
is that an old rover 200/400?

Love it... Never mind anything else lets just guess the car :) ;)


Never liked the aesthetics of Sony phones or the skin they use on top of Android.




OP your opinion is valid and correct for you, as it is many. But in a few posts time you are going to be ripped apart because people on this forum can't understand that people have preferences and opinions and user experiences of devices that may be different to theirs and that when they do it doesn't make them wrong, it makes them just as valid an opinion even if its counter to your own.






The only thing in regard to build quality I'd say, is that for me that was the reason I chose the HTC one X as I found it to be meticularsly crafted device and of an excellent build quality.

I tend to agree with you about widgets, see over on the widget and live wallpaper thread - a lot of people feel the same. Though I do like Sense's music and clock/weather widget.

I'm using both the One X and an iPhone 5, and if I was to be honest I'd have stuck with just the One X if it was a smaller device. I loved big when I got it, but I found making calls on it awkward, just the feel of it in my hand trying to align earpiece to my ear.

If your more happy with the 4S than the Xperia then you made the right choice for you. :)
 

daveathall

macrumors 68020
Aug 6, 2010
2,379
1,410
North Yorkshire
I think that is a very fair write up, thank you for posting it. I have had no experience with Sony phones to date. Although I tend to like widgets their use is not a deal breaker, but I particularly like the clock weather widget that opens up alarm/weather/diary. I must admit although I like the standard of my S3 construction, it can not be compared to the flawless construction of the iPhone. I have not really had any problem with my battery.

Support, I fully concur, IMHO, I have found nothing to compare with Apples support (In my experience so far).
 

cynics

macrumors G4
Jan 8, 2012
11,959
2,154
I appreciate your opinion/review.

But like mentioned, I think you meant gingerbread to ICS.

Also you didn't go into enough detail about the layout. IMO is starts off very similar to iOS. You install an app and it shows up as a shortcut on your home screen. So you could have the look near identical to the iPhones layout without doing anything. After that the similarities stop. You can put those icons anywhere on the screen or remove the shortcut so the app resides in the app draw. Same with widgets, you don't have to use them if you don't find them useful just go into the app like you would in iOS.

I feel (and this is my opinion) people try Android and feel the need to use every feature then become overwhelmed and say its cluttered. They prefer iOS because they simply aren't allowed to do those things (without jailbreak). If just left alone its extremely similar to iOS (just like most OS's, a grid of icons).

You can even get an iOS launcher and it look identical to iOS. But no one really does because you lose out on so much and gain nothing.
 

M Quick

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 9, 2011
418
1
Stockholm, Sweden
is that an old rover 200/400?

Nope :) Not even close!


Love it... Never mind anything else lets just guess the car :) ;)

Go ahead ;) Hehe

Never liked the aesthetics of Sony phones or the skin they use on top of Android.




OP your opinion is valid and correct for you, as it is many. But in a few posts time you are going to be ripped apart because people on this forum can't understand that people have preferences and opinions and user experiences of devices that may be different to theirs and that when they do it doesn't make them wrong, it makes them just as valid an opinion even if its counter to your own.






The only thing in regard to build quality I'd say, is that for me that was the reason I chose the HTC one X as I found it to be meticularsly crafted device and of an excellent build quality.

I tend to agree with you about widgets, see over on the widget and live wallpaper thread - a lot of people feel the same. Though I do like Sense's music and clock/weather widget.

I'm using both the One X and an iPhone 5, and if I was to be honest I'd have stuck with just the One X if it was a smaller device. I loved big when I got it, but I found making calls on it awkward, just the feel of it in my hand trying to align earpiece to my ear.

If your more happy with the 4S than the Xperia then you made the right choice for you. :)

If it wasn't for the awful design quality it would at least be more joyful to use!

Thank you for your opinion!


Im guessing you meant gingerbread to ICS!

Yes :) Thank you.


I think that is a very fair write up, thank you for posting it. I have had no experience with Sony phones to date. Although I tend to like widgets their use is not a deal breaker, but I particularly like the clock weather widget that opens up alarm/weather/diary. I must admit although I like the standard of my S3 construction, it can not be compared to the flawless construction of the iPhone. I have not really had any problem with my battery.

Support, I fully concur, IMHO, I have found nothing to compare with Apples support (In my experience so far).

Glad you like it!

Thanks


Ducks look awesome mate !

Thanks, the camera is truly awesome on the Xperia S i must say! Never got anything looking so good with the 4S yet. :)


I consider android is good because of its games and features like GPS navigation. It looks awesome as I really like android smartphones a lot.

Yeah, i guess, of all the games and apps - they all can be had on each phone, so that wasn't really a problem for me at least :)



I appreciate your opinion/review.

But like mentioned, I think you meant gingerbread to ICS.

Also you didn't go into enough detail about the layout. IMO is starts off very similar to iOS. You install an app and it shows up as a shortcut on your home screen. So you could have the look near identical to the iPhones layout without doing anything. After that the similarities stop. You can put those icons anywhere on the screen or remove the shortcut so the app resides in the app draw. Same with widgets, you don't have to use them if you don't find them useful just go into the app like you would in iOS.

I feel (and this is my opinion) people try Android and feel the need to use every feature then become overwhelmed and say its cluttered. They prefer iOS because they simply aren't allowed to do those things (without jailbreak). If just left alone its extremely similar to iOS (just like most OS's, a grid of icons).

You can even get an iOS launcher and it look identical to iOS. But no one really does because you lose out on so much and gain nothing.

Well, my thought about not using them is in all fairness correct, but then you might as well use an iphone, build quality on the android based phones haven't really given me the sturdy feeling like the iphone, i got shared thoughts about iphone, while i do enjoy using it and has always been happy with iOS, there is always something else other phones will offer that the iphone doens't have, which makes me curious and want to try it out, which in turn makes me wanna try out all the different widgets to see if they are something useful or not so i can have my own experience dealing with it :)
 
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roxxette

macrumors 68000
Aug 9, 2011
1,507
0
I remember my SE s700 and k700 like yeaterday :p pretty good looking phones plus.
 

M Quick

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 9, 2011
418
1
Stockholm, Sweden
Show off ;) you've got a lovely rim :p

I could post a picture of my 02 Punto if I wished.. It wouldn't impress anyone, but I could do it :D


I still don't know what the car model is though :eek:



Hehe, that car isn't really a show off, but why thank you :)
It's a BMW 316 from 1993 (E36 code), inline 4 with 100hp hehe...

----------

I remember my SE s700 and k700 like yeaterday :p pretty good looking phones plus.



Hehe, i agree on that!
 
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