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I am not sure what budget range you were choosing for these Android phones you mentioned. If you spent the same amount of money that you spend on an iPhone 13/1

I am not sure what budget range you were choosing for these Android phones you mentioned. If you spent the same amount of money that you spend on an iPhone 13/11 on an android, it wouldn't brick. My Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and S2 are still working. They aren't fast but they could be used if I was desperate. I am glad iPhones worked out for you, but I have to say I haven't had any problems with the Androids I have used. I also like that I can root and customize the OS at a deep level. I have an iPad mini and iPod touch. I am familiar with both ecosystems. My iPad mini 4 has crashed on me and it is getting worse with every iOS/iPadOS update. Ram seems to be the limiting factor.

clajiness 5y ago
Lots of assumptions made here simply to contradict one person's experiences.
- NicoJuicy 5y ago
  Well, a lot of people do compare a 200$ phone vs. a > 1 k. One.
- knaik94 5y ago
  I believe generalizing all Android phones without differentiating between a flagship experience and budget price experience to be a dishonest representation.
  - mehrdada 5y ago
    Is it though? You have a reasonably consistent and good experience from iPhone SE to 13 Pro Max. Why would it be unreasonable to expect the same from Androids? (Personally I have found the real differentiator is not the price, but the amount of crap the vendor adds. There are crap 1k+ phones running Android and often you can find some cheaper ones that have a better software experience)
    - hermitdev 5y ago
      > Is it though? Yes, it is. You have a fairly reasonably consistent experience going from one Samsung to the next, or from an LG v20 to LG v60. But, going from a Samsung to an LG? Yeah, there's differences. They're skinned differently, some have their own custom apps by default that aren't stock Android. Each does certain things slightly better or worse. As an example, in my experience and preference, I've preferred the audio on my LG phones to my prior Samsung phones (I don't use my current Samsung with headphones at all, as it doesn't have a 3.5mm plug and I don't have an adapter and I don't want wireless headphones, pure personal preference there on no wireless and I've had no need for an adapter for the duration I've had the Samsung this last 9 months). I'd say for my personal taste and use, the audio experience has been a fair comparison as I've used the exact same headphones and largely listen to the exact same music files across the different phones (literally by moving the SD card from one phone to the next, no copying involved). I'm sure someone out there will disagree, though, and that's fine.
    - phh 5y ago
      iPhone SE (which you seem to describe as "budget price experience" considering the message you're replying too) base price is 489€. I can buy 2 very decent budget price Android devices for that amount of money. 6 if I don't go with decent.
    - Dah00n 5y ago
      But, there you go and counter an anecdote with another just like OP pointed out. I can counter the counter too: I have all my old Android phones - all the way back to my Sony Mini (with sliding keyboard!) and they all work just fine. All of my girlfriends old iPhones are broken or bricked. I'm sure that wasn't what you meant with a reasonably consistent experience from Apple devices. There are a ton a Apple repair shops in any town so its not unreasonably to say that it isn't a rarity that they break. These are anecdotes and you simply cannot use it to compare. IMO that Apple devices break less are a myth. They just get repaired instead of thrown out hence last longer on average. Also the SE cost twice what most Android phones cost. It is not a budget phone.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
rtpg 5y ago
I have bought flagship android devices from many brands. The most expensive Samsung Galaxy native Google Maps app would be more laggy than an iPhone SE in the web view gmaps (and the native app would be even smoother). The only exceptions I've had where performance was reasonable given the price are Sony's phones, the LG G1(?) and some of the pixels. But generally speaking everything on Android stutters _so much_ it's really painful. I have always had this silly theory that this is somehow a Java thing, because there have been very motivated people trying to get low latency stuff working on Android and are just unable to... but it's just unavoidable no matter how much money you spend.
- otabdeveloper4 5y ago
  Yes, "low latency" and "Java" don't mix.
  - pmontra 5y ago
    It's also about controlling both the hardware and the software and the resulting integration. Like people were able to create not stuttering games with 8 bit CPUs in the 80s.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    They do, when in the hands of experts. https://www.ptc.com/en/products/developer-tools/perc https://www.ptc.com/en/products/developer-tools/perc https://www.aicas.com/wp/products-services/jamaicavm/ https://www.aicas.com/wp/products-services/jamaicavm/ All in all, Google just made a big disservice to the Java community with their Dalvik and ART forks running Android Java, and the sooner they are on their coozy Kotlin universe with Android running on top Kotlin/Native (Kotlin is after all so much better than Java /s), the better.
    - otabdeveloper4 5y ago
      So much effort to solve a self-inflicted problem!
- square_usual 5y ago
mehrdada 5y ago
> If you spent the same amount of money that you spend on an iPhone 13/11 on an android, it wouldn't brick. In my experience that has not been quite true. Do you consider it fair to consider top of the line Pixels with mainstream non-Pro iPhones? I'd say they are roughly in the same price class. If so, I can tell you almost every other if not every single Nexus/Pixel generation has major and widespread issues after a year or so. iPhones usually have none of that and they have longer software update cycle.
- lostmsu 5y ago
  Huh? What kind of issues are you talking about? The person above said 5 bricks in the row. You have to try really hard to get that even with cheap noname Android phones. As for non-critical issues, the debacles with "holding it wrong" and forced low performance mode are quite memorable. I don't remember anything quite as bad as forced slowdown in the Nexus/Pixel line.
  - mehrdada 5y ago
    try bootloop
    - lostmsu 5y ago
      I mean, I am sorry, but I find it extremely hard to believe in 5 bricks in a row. Even if we optimistically take that 1 of 10 devices bricks on its own, the parent would be pretty unique at 1 per 10000. That just does not add up. Some significant part is missing from that story.
  - hughrr 5y ago
    We have a box of bricked Google branded handsets in the office. It’s quite normal. They’re not worth repairing or replacing. Conversely we have no dead iPhones at all (apart from where some idiots cratered them). We’re rolling out iPhone 12 and 13 to replace the androids. In fact a friend of mine’s flagship galaxy that is 11 months old dropped dead in the middle of nowhere the other day and left her up shit creek. She went to the apple store on Monday and bought an iPhone 13.
sidlls 5y ago
I was purchasing them right off Google: Nexus and Pixel phones, very much the same price point as iPhone. I assure you, they were very poorly made (one Nexus had a faulty power button that caused the phone to constantly power cycle) and the software was terribly unstable besides. I suppose I got statistical outliers every single time, but while it's possible it's not likely.
- burmanm 5y ago
  Nexus phones were cheap compared to iPhone, that was their whole differentiation. For example, Nexus 5 launched at $349 while at the same time iPhone 5 launched at $649. There's nothing comparable in those prices. If you really did buy all of these, then you certainly didn't pay the same price. And after that, there was 3 years break before first Pixel - so you used a bricked phone for 3 years? Or it worked fine for 3 years?
  - gareim 5y ago
    Unless they stated otherwise elsewhere, why are you assuming they went from the Nexus 5 straight to the Pixel? There’s also the Nexus 6 (2014) and 5X/6P (2015) before the Pixel (2016).
    - Dah00n 5y ago
      I paid less than half for my 5X than my girlfriend paid for her iPhone. It makes no difference. They were way cheaper.
toast0 5y ago
I've had plenty of bad experiences with flagship Android devices. Nexus 5x bootlooped after about 12 months. I had an Essential phone that decided to be off, but not respond to the power button; a known issue with no fix other than to wait until the battery drained itself all the way (which isn't fast because the device is mostly off). If you wait long enough to find out if an Android device is long term reliable, it's not going to be available as a new devicd anymore, and even if it was, you will have a much shorter period of updates after purchase. All that said, if you want value for money, you embrace the disposable nature of Android devices, and buy around the $200 mark. They may not consistently last much more than a year, but $/year on phones is much less. If you can get upstart flagship phones when they've crashed down to earth, even better: Fire, Robin, Essential was a nice period of commercial flops that made decent phones (baring that power state issue). And Mr. Rubin is rumored to be working on a new upstart phone, so maybe another good buy is coming up soon. (Hopefully with a headphone jack this time)
- parineum 5y ago
  The Pixel line is the first Google flagship. Nexus phones were budget vanilla android phones.
  - llampx 5y ago
    The definition of flagship is specious at best. Recent Pixels have been coming out with budget mid-range processors and less technological prowess as compared to their brethren from Samsung etc, and the camera is at a standstill since the Pixel 2. On the other hand, devices like the Nexus 4 had a big emphasis on powerful CPU and midrange price. Safe to say that Google's strategy is fluid, to put it charitably.
  - mgkimsal 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Nexus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Nexus "Devices in the Nexus line were considered Google's flagship Android product"
    - Dah00n 5y ago
skinkestek 5y ago
Only one of my flagship android phones bricked iself: a Samsung S3. The rest just became painfully slow. When I tap camera and the flagship phone seems to have to finish a conversation with some server somewhere before camera opens and the moment is gone then I get annoyed. So after iPhone got user replacable keyboards I dared to try it and it has been better for me.
pdimitar 5y ago
> My Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and S2 are still working. My Galaxy S4 and Note 4 were working quite fine ~18 months later, but only technically. They were aggravatingly slow and I was factory-resetting them each every 3 months, also rooted them and de-bloated them quite thoroughly. This rejuvenated them for a while but then some mere 1-2 months later they were back to a crawl. We can throw anecdotal evidence around until the end of time but to say older Samsung are working only applies in very strict dictionary terms and not what an average user would find acceptable (f.ex. various functions were routinely taking 2-3 seconds before the device responded). Several acquaintances had the same experiences.

clajiness 5y ago

Lots of assumptions made here simply to contradict one person's experiences.

NicoJuicy 5y ago
Well, a lot of people do compare a 200$ phone vs. a > 1 k. One.
knaik94 5y ago
I believe generalizing all Android phones without differentiating between a flagship experience and budget price experience to be a dishonest representation.
- mehrdada 5y ago
  Is it though? You have a reasonably consistent and good experience from iPhone SE to 13 Pro Max. Why would it be unreasonable to expect the same from Androids? (Personally I have found the real differentiator is not the price, but the amount of crap the vendor adds. There are crap 1k+ phones running Android and often you can find some cheaper ones that have a better software experience)
  - hermitdev 5y ago
    > Is it though? Yes, it is. You have a fairly reasonably consistent experience going from one Samsung to the next, or from an LG v20 to LG v60. But, going from a Samsung to an LG? Yeah, there's differences. They're skinned differently, some have their own custom apps by default that aren't stock Android. Each does certain things slightly better or worse. As an example, in my experience and preference, I've preferred the audio on my LG phones to my prior Samsung phones (I don't use my current Samsung with headphones at all, as it doesn't have a 3.5mm plug and I don't have an adapter and I don't want wireless headphones, pure personal preference there on no wireless and I've had no need for an adapter for the duration I've had the Samsung this last 9 months). I'd say for my personal taste and use, the audio experience has been a fair comparison as I've used the exact same headphones and largely listen to the exact same music files across the different phones (literally by moving the SD card from one phone to the next, no copying involved). I'm sure someone out there will disagree, though, and that's fine.
  - phh 5y ago
    iPhone SE (which you seem to describe as "budget price experience" considering the message you're replying too) base price is 489€. I can buy 2 very decent budget price Android devices for that amount of money. 6 if I don't go with decent.
  - Dah00n 5y ago
    But, there you go and counter an anecdote with another just like OP pointed out. I can counter the counter too: I have all my old Android phones - all the way back to my Sony Mini (with sliding keyboard!) and they all work just fine. All of my girlfriends old iPhones are broken or bricked. I'm sure that wasn't what you meant with a reasonably consistent experience from Apple devices. There are a ton a Apple repair shops in any town so its not unreasonably to say that it isn't a rarity that they break. These are anecdotes and you simply cannot use it to compare. IMO that Apple devices break less are a myth. They just get repaired instead of thrown out hence last longer on average. Also the SE cost twice what most Android phones cost. It is not a budget phone.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

rtpg 5y ago

I have bought flagship android devices from many brands. The most expensive Samsung Galaxy native Google Maps app would be more laggy than an iPhone SE in the web view gmaps (and the native app would be even smoother). The only exceptions I've had where performance was reasonable given the price are Sony's phones, the LG G1(?) and some of the pixels. But generally speaking everything on Android stutters _so much_ it's really painful. I have always had this silly theory that this is somehow a Java thing, because there have been very motivated people trying to get low latency stuff working on Android and are just unable to... but it's just unavoidable no matter how much money you spend.

otabdeveloper4 5y ago
Yes, "low latency" and "Java" don't mix.
- pmontra 5y ago
  It's also about controlling both the hardware and the software and the resulting integration. Like people were able to create not stuttering games with 8 bit CPUs in the 80s.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  They do, when in the hands of experts. https://www.ptc.com/en/products/developer-tools/perc https://www.ptc.com/en/products/developer-tools/perc https://www.aicas.com/wp/products-services/jamaicavm/ https://www.aicas.com/wp/products-services/jamaicavm/ All in all, Google just made a big disservice to the Java community with their Dalvik and ART forks running Android Java, and the sooner they are on their coozy Kotlin universe with Android running on top Kotlin/Native (Kotlin is after all so much better than Java /s), the better.
  - otabdeveloper4 5y ago
    So much effort to solve a self-inflicted problem!
square_usual 5y ago

mehrdada 5y ago

> If you spent the same amount of money that you spend on an iPhone 13/11 on an android, it wouldn't brick. In my experience that has not been quite true. Do you consider it fair to consider top of the line Pixels with mainstream non-Pro iPhones? I'd say they are roughly in the same price class. If so, I can tell you almost every other if not every single Nexus/Pixel generation has major and widespread issues after a year or so. iPhones usually have none of that and they have longer software update cycle.

lostmsu 5y ago
Huh? What kind of issues are you talking about? The person above said 5 bricks in the row. You have to try really hard to get that even with cheap noname Android phones. As for non-critical issues, the debacles with "holding it wrong" and forced low performance mode are quite memorable. I don't remember anything quite as bad as forced slowdown in the Nexus/Pixel line.
- mehrdada 5y ago
  try bootloop
  - lostmsu 5y ago
    I mean, I am sorry, but I find it extremely hard to believe in 5 bricks in a row. Even if we optimistically take that 1 of 10 devices bricks on its own, the parent would be pretty unique at 1 per 10000. That just does not add up. Some significant part is missing from that story.
- hughrr 5y ago
  We have a box of bricked Google branded handsets in the office. It’s quite normal. They’re not worth repairing or replacing. Conversely we have no dead iPhones at all (apart from where some idiots cratered them). We’re rolling out iPhone 12 and 13 to replace the androids. In fact a friend of mine’s flagship galaxy that is 11 months old dropped dead in the middle of nowhere the other day and left her up shit creek. She went to the apple store on Monday and bought an iPhone 13.

sidlls 5y ago

I was purchasing them right off Google: Nexus and Pixel phones, very much the same price point as iPhone. I assure you, they were very poorly made (one Nexus had a faulty power button that caused the phone to constantly power cycle) and the software was terribly unstable besides. I suppose I got statistical outliers every single time, but while it's possible it's not likely.

burmanm 5y ago
Nexus phones were cheap compared to iPhone, that was their whole differentiation. For example, Nexus 5 launched at $349 while at the same time iPhone 5 launched at $649. There's nothing comparable in those prices. If you really did buy all of these, then you certainly didn't pay the same price. And after that, there was 3 years break before first Pixel - so you used a bricked phone for 3 years? Or it worked fine for 3 years?
- gareim 5y ago
  Unless they stated otherwise elsewhere, why are you assuming they went from the Nexus 5 straight to the Pixel? There’s also the Nexus 6 (2014) and 5X/6P (2015) before the Pixel (2016).
  - Dah00n 5y ago
    I paid less than half for my 5X than my girlfriend paid for her iPhone. It makes no difference. They were way cheaper.

toast0 5y ago

I've had plenty of bad experiences with flagship Android devices. Nexus 5x bootlooped after about 12 months. I had an Essential phone that decided to be off, but not respond to the power button; a known issue with no fix other than to wait until the battery drained itself all the way (which isn't fast because the device is mostly off). If you wait long enough to find out if an Android device is long term reliable, it's not going to be available as a new devicd anymore, and even if it was, you will have a much shorter period of updates after purchase. All that said, if you want value for money, you embrace the disposable nature of Android devices, and buy around the $200 mark. They may not consistently last much more than a year, but $/year on phones is much less. If you can get upstart flagship phones when they've crashed down to earth, even better: Fire, Robin, Essential was a nice period of commercial flops that made decent phones (baring that power state issue). And Mr. Rubin is rumored to be working on a new upstart phone, so maybe another good buy is coming up soon. (Hopefully with a headphone jack this time)

parineum 5y ago
The Pixel line is the first Google flagship. Nexus phones were budget vanilla android phones.
- llampx 5y ago
  The definition of flagship is specious at best. Recent Pixels have been coming out with budget mid-range processors and less technological prowess as compared to their brethren from Samsung etc, and the camera is at a standstill since the Pixel 2. On the other hand, devices like the Nexus 4 had a big emphasis on powerful CPU and midrange price. Safe to say that Google's strategy is fluid, to put it charitably.
- mgkimsal 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Nexus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Nexus "Devices in the Nexus line were considered Google's flagship Android product"
  - Dah00n 5y ago

skinkestek 5y ago

Only one of my flagship android phones bricked iself: a Samsung S3. The rest just became painfully slow. When I tap camera and the flagship phone seems to have to finish a conversation with some server somewhere before camera opens and the moment is gone then I get annoyed. So after iPhone got user replacable keyboards I dared to try it and it has been better for me.

pdimitar 5y ago

> My Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and S2 are still working. My Galaxy S4 and Note 4 were working quite fine ~18 months later, but only technically. They were aggravatingly slow and I was factory-resetting them each every 3 months, also rooted them and de-bloated them quite thoroughly. This rejuvenated them for a while but then some mere 1-2 months later they were back to a crawl. We can throw anecdotal evidence around until the end of time but to say older Samsung are working only applies in very strict dictionary terms and not what an average user would find acceptable (f.ex. various functions were routinely taking 2-3 seconds before the device responded). Several acquaintances had the same experiences.