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Love My iPhone 5 But Open To Android

blairh

blairh

macrumors 603
Original poster
Dec 11, 2007
5,830
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I've been using an iPhone since 2008. Love my iPhone 5. Amazingly light, screen brighter and sharper than my old iPhone 4. Aluminum backing is a huge improvement over glass back. Wi-fi is substantially faster too.

But, there are things I don't like about it. Specifally I'm finding the battery life to be substantially worse than equal usage on my iPhone 4. I also think a slightly larger screen would be better. It's also frustrating and infuriating that AT&T's iPhone 5 is locked for international use but Verizon's aren't.

That established, I'm keeping an open mind to future Android releases. I'm certainly not jonesing to ditch the iPhone 5, but I'm excited to see what Android has in store this fall/winter.
 
MRU

MRU

macrumors Penryn
Aug 23, 2005
25,368
8,948
a better place
If you find battery life tough on the iPhone 5, the chances are you will not experience too much difference on Android. I've had a Sensation, Sensation XE, Galaxy S2, Galaxy Nexus & my current HTC One X. Battery life has at best been inconsistent on ALL of them, and with medium usage you will need to charge at some point during the day.

There are some better Android handsets with battery life improvements such as the Note 2 (due to sheer size of device it can have a bigger battery) , and the Droid MaXX are supposed to be good on battery.

Your best bet and if you want unbiased opinion on any particular handset is to head over to XDA forums and choose the device your looking at. Normally you will find threads about battery, performance and general user experiences that outweigh info you will get here. (normally everything here turns into a penis measuring contest, with usual iOS sux's or Android sux's kind of vibe).

What you will find on XDA is more people with that particular device, and less bias one way or the other, so if there is issues they will be open to discussing them rather than always on the defence if you say anything negative.

Just remember Android is great, but has plenty of pros and cons and not everything is always sweet in the little android garden, but if you can accept that and are planning like me to be both an iOs & android owner, you can get a good measure of both systems and just enjoy each for their own strengths :)
 
blairh

blairh

macrumors 603
Original poster
Dec 11, 2007
5,830
4,100
MacRumorUser said:
If you find battery life tough on the iPhone 5, the chances are you will not experience too much difference on Android. I've had a Sensation, Sensation XE, Galaxy S2, Galaxy Nexus & my current HTC One X. Battery life has at best been inconsistent on ALL of them, and with medium usage you will need to charge at some point during the day.

There are some better Android handsets with battery life improvements such as the Note 2 (due to sheer size of device it can have a bigger battery) , and the Droid MaXX are supposed to be good on battery.

Your best bet and if you want unbiased opinion on any particular handset is to head over to XDA forums and choose the device your looking at. Normally you will find threads about battery, performance and general user experiences that outweigh info you will get here. (normally everything here turns into a penis measuring contest, with usual iOS sux's or Android sux's kind of vibe).

What you will find on XDA is more people with that particular device, and less bias one way or the other, so if there is issues they will be open to discussing them rather than always on the defence if you say anything negative.

Just remember Android is great, but has plenty of pros and cons and not everything is always sweet in the little android garden, but if you can accept that and are planning like me to be both an iOs & android owner, you can get a good measure of both systems and just enjoy each for their own strengths :)
Click to expand...

If I seriously am contemplating an Android device in the future I will read all the professional reviews I can find plus keep a close eye on XDA for sure. Right now I just want to see what is coming soon. I love my iPhone 5, but I certainly think it's lacking some things.
 
blairh

blairh

macrumors 603
Original poster
Dec 11, 2007
5,830
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Fatboy71 said:
It will be the same whatever phone you get. Its a case of seeing which phone lacks the least for your uses.
Click to expand...

I agree. I just think there are some things that the iPhone 5 could have/should have been beyond what's great about it currently.
 
I

Irishman

macrumors 68040
Nov 2, 2006
3,392
843
blairh said:
I've been using an iPhone since 2008. Love my iPhone 5. Amazingly light, screen brighter and sharper than my old iPhone 4. Aluminum backing is a huge improvement over glass back. Wi-fi is substantially faster too.

But, there are things I don't like about it. Specifally I'm finding the battery life to be substantially worse than equal usage on my iPhone 4. I also think a slightly larger screen would be better. It's also frustrating and infuriating that AT&T's iPhone 5 is locked for international use but Verizon's aren't.

That established, I'm keeping an open mind to future Android releases. I'm certainly not jonesing to ditch the iPhone 5, but I'm excited to see what Android has in store this fall/winter.
Click to expand...

So wait, let me understand. You're accustomed to 3.5" phone screens, but a 4" screen is too small? You did know that the screen was 4" before you bought it, right??

Further, about the battery: you do realize there's a much faster cellular radio in the 5 that wasn't on the prior ones?? That this is going to be a trade off between speed and battery life?
 
blairh

blairh

macrumors 603
Original poster
Dec 11, 2007
5,830
4,100
Irishman said:
So wait, let me understand. You're accustomed to 3.5" phone screens, but a 4" screen is too small? You did know that the screen was 4" before you bought it, right??

Further, about the battery: you do realize there's a much faster cellular radio in the 5 that wasn't on the prior ones?? That this is going to be a trade off between speed and battery life?
Click to expand...

Being aware of a 4" screen and having used one are two completely different things. I do think a slightly larger and wider screen would be superior to what Apple has provided on the iPhone 5. I came to this conclusion after using my iPhone 5 since launch day.

To be honest, for the past few weeks, my usage has been primarily in wi-fi areas. I've noticed that something like web browsing for example over wi-fi eats the battery more on my 5 vs. my old 4. That's been pretty disappointing.

All I'm saying is that I'm open to what Android devices are hitting the market in the upcoming months.
 
3bs

3bs

macrumors 603
May 20, 2011
5,434
24
Dublin, Ireland
MacRumorUser said:
If you find battery life tough on the iPhone 5, the chances are you will not experience too much difference on Android. I've had a Sensation, Sensation XE, Galaxy S2, Galaxy Nexus & my current HTC One X. Battery life has at best been inconsistent on ALL of them, and with medium usage you will need to charge at some point during the day.
Click to expand...

Finally someone who actually means the same thing as me when they say "medium usage" because users on MR always say their phones last the whole day with medium/heavy usage. I've never been able to go a whole day with medium, medium/heavy or heavy usage on my iPhone 4/4S Galaxy Nexus or current Galaxy S3. It's the same with most if not all my friends and family so I'm pretty sure it's not me.

I just think battery technology isn't there yet. Maybe some day we'll have phones that can truly last day(s) on a single charge with heavy usage but in my opinion that's definitely not the case right now (the exception being phones like you mentioned e.g. RAZR MAXX)
 
Fatboy71

Fatboy71

macrumors 65816
Dec 21, 2010
1,489
427
UK
blairh said:
I've noticed that something like web browsing for example over wi-fi eats the battery more on my 5 vs. my old 4.
Click to expand...

Be aware though that the iPhone 5 comes with iOS 6 and with it been a brand new OS, there are bugs. I can remember when iOS 5 was released, some mentioned about disappointing battery life, but this was addressed in iOS 5.0.1, so the disappointing battery life that you've mentioned might get addressed with a future update, (iOS 6.0.1).

----------
blairh said:
I agree. I just think there are some things that the iPhone 5 could have/should have been beyond what's great about it currently.
Click to expand...

Yeah but there's a trade off with most smartphones, some have features etc that other ones don't, it's just a case of seeing which based on your uses ticks more of the boxes for you.
 
wikus

wikus

macrumors 68000
Jun 1, 2011
1,795
2
Planet earth.
There are only a handful of Android phones I would get, one of them being the HTC One S, and unfortunately battery life is significantly poorer than the iPhone 4S when browsing;

http://blog.gsmarena.com/htc-one-s-...-how-power-efficient-the-two-krait-cores-are/

Everywhere else though it proves to be superior.

Take a close look at the chart in the link above, it gives a pretty good look at most major phones and their battery life times. GSM Arena is great site too.
 
Gangnam Style

Gangnam Style

macrumors member
Sep 16, 2012
34
0
I can last all day on my Samsung S3 with moderate usage plus I have the option to change to a second battery if I run out.
 
blairh

blairh

macrumors 603
Original poster
Dec 11, 2007
5,830
4,100
Fatboy71 said:
Be aware though that the iPhone 5 comes with iOS 6 and with it been a brand new OS, there are bugs. I can remember when iOS 5 was released, some mentioned about disappointing battery life, but this was addressed in iOS 5.0.1, so the disappointing battery life that you've mentioned might get addressed with a future update, (iOS 6.0.1).

Yeah but there's a trade off with most smartphones, some have features etc that other ones don't, it's just a case of seeing which based on your uses ticks more of the boxes for you.
Click to expand...


That's questionable. I hope it's true, but I'm not banking on 6.0.1 giving us superior battery life.

Yes, I'm aware of that. I don't know why people keep bringing that up.
 
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