10 ms·

Why I won’t buy another subsidized Android phone

43 points by scholia 14y ago

chiph 14y ago
I'm not a cellphone expert - is it possible to buy an unsubsidized & unlocked phone, and then reload Android direct from Google? So you don't get the bloatware & "service monitoring" apps. What about device drivers?
- CrazedGeek 14y ago
  Direct from Google, yes, but only the Nexus 4 currently (and historically a few others). On other popular devices, no, but there are extremely well-supported community distributions of Android for them (usually CyanogenMod or AOKP). (Note that your phone has to have an unlocked bootloader for that option, but most can be officially unlocked these days.)
  - chiph 14y ago
    The lack of LTE on the Nexus 4 isn't a deal-breaker for me. Having an unpolluted OS is more important. Thanks for reminding me of this phone.
dirkgently 14y ago
And nobody should. With Nexus4 available for 300$.
- sgpl 14y ago
  There is a huge potential market for "cheap" smartphones particularly in developing countries, and because of the nature of iOS, Android is the only viable game in town. So people will continue to buy subsidized/cheap smartphones for a long time, atleast outside of the US. Bloomberg recently published a very informed article [1] on the subject where one company, "Micromax increased shipments to 633,000 smartphones in the last quarter of 2012 from 9,990 a year earlier, while [another], Karbonn grew to 304,000 from zero." Because of the price disparity of phones from Apple/Reputable Android manufacturers, there is a very large untapped market for sub_$100 smartphones in China and India. [1] http://goo.gl/PHKIH http://goo.gl/PHKIH
  - kevin_p 14y ago
    I know you're mostly talking about cheap phones, but I'm still going to quibble with the other half of your "subsidized/cheap smartphones" point. Subsidised phones are much less common in developing countries because the credit system is less developed. Even where they do exist, they're structured as "buy the phone for $x then get $x/24 off your bill each month for 2 years" rather than the "get the phone now and pay it off over the contract period" system in the EU/US, so they're not a way of getting a phone you couldn't afford to buy outright.
- kelnos 14y ago
  And with a phone as beautifully-designed and high-end as the N4 selling for $300, someone could certainly sell a perfectly usable Android phone for much less. (Unless Google is selling it at a loss.)
  - dirkgently 14y ago
    > Unless Google is selling it at a loss. Not sure about the loss, but I am sure they are not making much money from it.
    - baddox 14y ago
      What makes you so sure about that? The estimations I have seen of Apple's insane profit margins on mobile devices suggest that it's entirely possible. Granted, Apple produce at a much larger scale than the Nexus 4, but I still think there is plenty of margin for Google to be making reasonable profits from the Nexus 4.
      - rahoulb 14y ago
        Google certainly stated that there is zero margin on the Nexus 7 (http://www.knowyourmobile.com/google/17658/google-says-theres-no-margin-nexus-7 http://www.knowyourmobile.com/google/17658/google-says-there...). I'm sure I read the same about the 4 but can't find any sources, so maybe I just confused the two.
        kelnos 14y ago
        The display & digitizer are probably the highest-cost items on the N7, so the smaller N4 would likely be significantly cheaper, assuming the rest of the costs are the same (which they likely aren't; hard to compare).
    - kelnos 14y ago
      So what if they aren't? Let's say the N4 really does cost close to $350 to produce. There are tons of ways to make a cheaper, but still usable phone: smaller screen, lower-res screen, less expensive glass, slower SoC, less RAM. Hell, the customer cost bump for 8GB->16GB flash is $50; the cost bump for Google/LG is a small fraction of that. Let's remember that the N4 is Google's flagship phone right now. I'd be astonished if they couldn't make a low- to mid-end phone for $100-$150 less.
delsarto 14y ago
How is the phone "subsidized" anyway; Apple or Android? Consider, say, buying a 32gb iPhone 5 in Australia on Optus, for a 4GB unlimited plan is $3,120.00 over 24 months [1]. Or, you go and buy the phone from Apple for $899.00, and use Optus prepay for 4gb @ $70/month == (899 + (70 *24)) = 2579 [2] (I noticed this expired after 28 days; so maybe add another month cumulative). Of course, as Scott Adams says the only reason all these companies exist is the "confuseopoly" they create with various different plans that are the same but slightly different with no clear benefits. So maybe my maths is wrong, but good luck figuring it out in clear terms anyway. In Australia with all the "$20 for $275 value" bull-crap it's especially bad. At least in the US it's just plain "minutes" and M/B. I think really it's the same with Android phones ... deliberate confuseopoly. I agree with the author; after getting a cheap, underpowered, bloatware, never updated Android piece-of-crap I have a simple rule -- Nexus or nothing. [1] https://smb.optus.com.au/opfiles/Shop/All/cis/Cis%20Documents/1390138_2_CIS_$130_Timeless_Plan_0113.pdf https://smb.optus.com.au/opfiles/Shop/All/cis/Cis%20Document... [2] https://www.optus.com.au/shop/prepaidmobile/prepaidoffers https://www.optus.com.au/shop/prepaidmobile/prepaidoffers
- dorian-graph 14y ago
  When I bought my iPhone 5 here in Australia, outright, amusingly a few people seemed shocked because of the cost, apparently. They wondered why I would do that instead of getting it for 'cheap' through a plan. I quickly did some calculations like you did back then and it worked out a lot cheaper and I have more freedom—I still have a contract though it is at least half the length! I'm less tied to my provider and more able to change depending upon who is offering the best service/price. I can't imagine any reason why I would go back to a subsidised phone and so far a few friends have done the same as myself.
yoster 14y ago
I never buy subsidized phones as the cost and contract can run into a couple thousand in the long run. Generally, it is a lot better to just buy it up front and go with one of the unlimited plans that run for $50 a month. The savings are huge over time. This applies with all types of bills as well. I even pay my car insurance in full as they generally charge $5-$10 a month if you opt for the monthly payment.
csmatt 14y ago
I've only ever owned 2 smart phones - both android, both on tmobile, and both unsubsidized. Those phones are 1) the Nexus One and 2) the Nexus 4. Cyanogenmod let the N1 remain relevant for nearly 3 years. The N4 has 4x the cores (each clocked at 1.5x the N1's single core) and 4x the memory. It's also much faster on the network. All of this and I paid $200 less for the N4 than I did for the N1. Google has proved to me that it's possible to make a kickass phone that is affordable without the need for subsidy. If course, there will always be a market for seeking people what they can't afford, but I like the fact that the choice is there and that the community can decide how long a phone is relevant/supported. Also, tmobile is the least evil, large carrier IMO.
vy8vWJlco 14y ago
What I want in a phone is the same thing I want in a computer or in calculator: the ability to use it on any problem I choose. It just so happens that subsidized phones typically come from businesses with incentives towards lock-in (so you can expect what you will get). In the case of a phone, not being able to change the software that comes with it (upgrade the OS or remove bloatware), means I can't use it for every problem and it is a substantially less useful tool for me. The solution at the PC level was providing a user-accessible boot process. For a phone, this means an accessible bootloader is a minimum requirement for me to make a purchase, at least at the computer-equivalent ($100+) price-range. But, in general, I would not recommend buying any computer that treats you like an appliance operator instead of an owner and full user. I'm not saying single-purpose software (or the idea of a walled garden) is necessarily a problem, just that the inability to re-purpose is.
- sounds 14y ago
  Ok, excellent points there. Do you mind clarifying how you feel about Samsung phones in particular? They do have a semi-usable bootloader (cyanogenmod, clockwork mod, etc. work pretty well) but getting the graphics, touchscreen, accelerometer, sound, camera (pictures/video) and any other drivers to work in cyanogenmod can be just as much work after that first initial success (the bootloader). Without good drivers, a bootloader is only half the solution, in my opinion. I'm picking on Samsung because their phones are very, very common. But HTC is no better at publishing drivers. In fact, only the Google Nexus line has published drivers so that the software stack can be replaced to a degree.
  - kalleboo 14y ago
    Sony have also been very engaged with the open source community, with their own developers contributing on the XDA developers forums, participating in the AOSP[1], and they were the first outside Google to let anyone (not operator-locked) to unlock the bootloader with an official tool[2]. But everyone seems to ignore Sony phones for some reason. "Open friendly" does not seem to be a priority to customers, even ones who want to hack their phones. [1] https://github.com/sonyxperiadev/device-sony-c6603 https://github.com/sonyxperiadev/device-sony-c6603 [2] http://unlockbootloader.sonymobile.com http://unlockbootloader.sonymobile.com
jonpaul 14y ago
So which Android phone do you buy if you want unsubsidized on Verizon/LTE? Sincere question.
- bmeckel 14y ago
  I don't think it's really an option at this point. The point the article is making is that you won't get stock android from anything but a phone sold to you by Google, and since the Nexus 4 isn't offered on Verizon, you're kind of out of luck in that department. Personally I'm an iOS guy, but isn't conventional wisdom to stick with the Galaxy S at this point on Verizon? They do seem very solid.
- shardling 14y ago
  I'm perfectly happy with my Galaxy Nexus -- while it was subsidized, its not locked down in any way. I've had it for about a year and a half with no problems.
  - drivebyacct2 14y ago
    Yup. I was a phone addict. I look back now with Android 4 and my Galaxy Nexus CDMA and feel silly for caring that much. My phone is so good now, I have no need for "faster", I'll get the Android updates via CM anyway and the phone has held up physically spectacularly.
    - shardling 14y ago
      http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2341 http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2341
  - jonpaul 14y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, I thought the Galaxy Nexus wasn't on Verizon? I also thought that it didn't support LTE? Is that correct?
    - shardling 14y ago
shalmanese 14y ago
The problem with the US is that if you get a phone from the carrier, your plan will be $X a month with a 2 year contract but if you BYO phone, the plan will still be $X a month with no contract. This significantly reduces the incentive to provide your own phone as you're essentially giving up on a $30 a month subsidy. Other countries (and T-mobile) have much more reasonable pricing models where BYO gives you the option to avoid the subsidy.
- baddox 14y ago
  Well, this is a bit of a stretch, but if you already have the unlocked phone, you could still pay the subsidized price for a new device and instantly sell it for a hefty profit. I say it's a stretch because it is still fairly annoying, but I always do it for every upgrade on each of my family plan's phone lines. We're going to keep paying for service for the foreseeable future and not changing carriers anyway, so we might as well take advantage of the subsidies that are built into the monthly bill. Plus, I can always have the newest device if I so choose.
  - prostoalex 14y ago
    Why would the other guy buy it from you at a hefty profit instead of getting a subsidized unit from the carrier? They have the same issue - if they're on a mobile plan with a US carrier, the price of the plan won't change for them.
    - baddox 14y ago
      I never asked them, but plenty of people certainly do (you can check eBay to verify this, but I've experienced it numerous times in person). I can speculate a few reasons: someone on contract broke or lost their phone and needs another, someone simply wants the newest best phone but isn't eligible for a device upgrade (AT&T's upgrades come every 18 months, which is too long to even stay on the latest iPhone, much less Android flagships), or someone actually wants to use the device without a contract (I think some carriers have prepaid plans that will work with their locked phones).
iSnow 14y ago
While I have switched to Android because I don't like the way Apple locks down their platform to the user, this article kind of validates the way Apple has treated the carriers - disallowing branding and the installation of crapware from the start. I just wish Google would be more forthcoming with their security releases for older platforms (notably 2.3) or had struck a better deal with device manufacturers so that they could directly provide 4.x for smartphones from the Nexus S era.
drivebyacct2 14y ago
You can buy Nexii subsidized... (like my Galaxy Nexus Vzw, but I suspect that's the last time we get Nexus on Vzw). Also, you can disable built-in Android apps. Please! How do we raise awareness about this! It's been possible for sometime! Long press the app in the drawer -> drag it to App Info -> Disable. Or Settings -> Apps -> All Apps -> [App] -> Disable. [Or choose a notification, long press "App Information" -> Disable (I think this is a 4.2 addition)]. Lots of ways to get there.
- ansible 14y ago
  The app disable feature has been around since 4.0 (ICS). Note that you may need to un-install any updates first, and then you'll be offered the ability to disable the app. That doesn't help the journalist who had a v2.3 phone though.
i_like_robots 14y ago
My last phone came re-skinned and with default apps replaced by branded, pretty poor carrier specific versions. After a few months some of these apps stopped working and because they ran in the background I was inundated with failure notifications for processes I didn't want and could not stop. It's madness for a mobile phone operator to apply their control so uselessly. Fortunately being a nerd has its benefits and I installed Cyanogen to avoid the horror, but I can't see how the non-geek user would be able to sidestep the bloat and bugs. The process for rooting and wiping the phone was extremely long. If in future there is the possibility that the engineers of such mods could create a one-click route there would be many more happy users.
drivebyacct2 14y ago
It's kinda funny. 3 or 4 years ago, all the rumors were: advertising based free Android phones. But everyone thought Google was going to do it directly. Instead, it turns out to be "free" via subsidy (and via subsidy, advertising): carriers and their partners load cheap midrange Android phones up with their apps/ads. I'm happy to have always purchased Nexus or something I knew was well supported by CM. As long as that continues to be true, I don't care what Verizon sells, I'm happy.
andrewaylett 14y ago
In some cases, a subsidised phone does make sense. I've got an S3 for £26/month * 24 months, so £624 lifetime. Even six months later, the phone costs £320 new, and the closest equivalent sim-only contract costs £13/month. That's £632 lifetime, and requires a significant upfront cost. The phone was more expensive to buy new when I took out the contract, and you can get it with no up-front payment on a £21/month contract now, so in both cases it's actually a better deal than presented above. Android 4+ allows you to disable the bloatware, so that's not an issue either.

43 points by scholia 14y ago

chiph 14y ago

I'm not a cellphone expert - is it possible to buy an unsubsidized & unlocked phone, and then reload Android direct from Google? So you don't get the bloatware & "service monitoring" apps. What about device drivers?

CrazedGeek 14y ago
Direct from Google, yes, but only the Nexus 4 currently (and historically a few others). On other popular devices, no, but there are extremely well-supported community distributions of Android for them (usually CyanogenMod or AOKP). (Note that your phone has to have an unlocked bootloader for that option, but most can be officially unlocked these days.)
- chiph 14y ago
  The lack of LTE on the Nexus 4 isn't a deal-breaker for me. Having an unpolluted OS is more important. Thanks for reminding me of this phone.

dirkgently 14y ago

And nobody should. With Nexus4 available for 300$.

sgpl 14y ago
There is a huge potential market for "cheap" smartphones particularly in developing countries, and because of the nature of iOS, Android is the only viable game in town. So people will continue to buy subsidized/cheap smartphones for a long time, atleast outside of the US. Bloomberg recently published a very informed article [1] on the subject where one company, "Micromax increased shipments to 633,000 smartphones in the last quarter of 2012 from 9,990 a year earlier, while [another], Karbonn grew to 304,000 from zero." Because of the price disparity of phones from Apple/Reputable Android manufacturers, there is a very large untapped market for sub_$100 smartphones in China and India. [1] http://goo.gl/PHKIH http://goo.gl/PHKIH
- kevin_p 14y ago
  I know you're mostly talking about cheap phones, but I'm still going to quibble with the other half of your "subsidized/cheap smartphones" point. Subsidised phones are much less common in developing countries because the credit system is less developed. Even where they do exist, they're structured as "buy the phone for $x then get $x/24 off your bill each month for 2 years" rather than the "get the phone now and pay it off over the contract period" system in the EU/US, so they're not a way of getting a phone you couldn't afford to buy outright.
kelnos 14y ago
And with a phone as beautifully-designed and high-end as the N4 selling for $300, someone could certainly sell a perfectly usable Android phone for much less. (Unless Google is selling it at a loss.)
- dirkgently 14y ago
  > Unless Google is selling it at a loss. Not sure about the loss, but I am sure they are not making much money from it.
  - baddox 14y ago
    What makes you so sure about that? The estimations I have seen of Apple's insane profit margins on mobile devices suggest that it's entirely possible. Granted, Apple produce at a much larger scale than the Nexus 4, but I still think there is plenty of margin for Google to be making reasonable profits from the Nexus 4.
    - rahoulb 14y ago
      Google certainly stated that there is zero margin on the Nexus 7 (http://www.knowyourmobile.com/google/17658/google-says-theres-no-margin-nexus-7 http://www.knowyourmobile.com/google/17658/google-says-there...). I'm sure I read the same about the 4 but can't find any sources, so maybe I just confused the two.
      - kelnos 14y ago
        The display & digitizer are probably the highest-cost items on the N7, so the smaller N4 would likely be significantly cheaper, assuming the rest of the costs are the same (which they likely aren't; hard to compare).
  - kelnos 14y ago
    So what if they aren't? Let's say the N4 really does cost close to $350 to produce. There are tons of ways to make a cheaper, but still usable phone: smaller screen, lower-res screen, less expensive glass, slower SoC, less RAM. Hell, the customer cost bump for 8GB->16GB flash is $50; the cost bump for Google/LG is a small fraction of that. Let's remember that the N4 is Google's flagship phone right now. I'd be astonished if they couldn't make a low- to mid-end phone for $100-$150 less.

delsarto 14y ago

How is the phone "subsidized" anyway; Apple or Android? Consider, say, buying a 32gb iPhone 5 in Australia on Optus, for a 4GB unlimited plan is $3,120.00 over 24 months [1]. Or, you go and buy the phone from Apple for $899.00, and use Optus prepay for 4gb @ $70/month == (899 + (70 *24)) = 2579 [2] (I noticed this expired after 28 days; so maybe add another month cumulative). Of course, as Scott Adams says the only reason all these companies exist is the "confuseopoly" they create with various different plans that are the same but slightly different with no clear benefits. So maybe my maths is wrong, but good luck figuring it out in clear terms anyway. In Australia with all the "$20 for $275 value" bull-crap it's especially bad. At least in the US it's just plain "minutes" and M/B. I think really it's the same with Android phones ... deliberate confuseopoly. I agree with the author; after getting a cheap, underpowered, bloatware, never updated Android piece-of-crap I have a simple rule -- Nexus or nothing. [1] https://smb.optus.com.au/opfiles/Shop/All/cis/Cis%20Documents/1390138_2_CIS_$130_Timeless_Plan_0113.pdf https://smb.optus.com.au/opfiles/Shop/All/cis/Cis%20Document... [2] https://www.optus.com.au/shop/prepaidmobile/prepaidoffers https://www.optus.com.au/shop/prepaidmobile/prepaidoffers

dorian-graph 14y ago
When I bought my iPhone 5 here in Australia, outright, amusingly a few people seemed shocked because of the cost, apparently. They wondered why I would do that instead of getting it for 'cheap' through a plan. I quickly did some calculations like you did back then and it worked out a lot cheaper and I have more freedom—I still have a contract though it is at least half the length! I'm less tied to my provider and more able to change depending upon who is offering the best service/price. I can't imagine any reason why I would go back to a subsidised phone and so far a few friends have done the same as myself.

yoster 14y ago

I never buy subsidized phones as the cost and contract can run into a couple thousand in the long run. Generally, it is a lot better to just buy it up front and go with one of the unlimited plans that run for $50 a month. The savings are huge over time. This applies with all types of bills as well. I even pay my car insurance in full as they generally charge $5-$10 a month if you opt for the monthly payment.

csmatt 14y ago

I've only ever owned 2 smart phones - both android, both on tmobile, and both unsubsidized. Those phones are 1) the Nexus One and 2) the Nexus 4. Cyanogenmod let the N1 remain relevant for nearly 3 years. The N4 has 4x the cores (each clocked at 1.5x the N1's single core) and 4x the memory. It's also much faster on the network. All of this and I paid $200 less for the N4 than I did for the N1. Google has proved to me that it's possible to make a kickass phone that is affordable without the need for subsidy. If course, there will always be a market for seeking people what they can't afford, but I like the fact that the choice is there and that the community can decide how long a phone is relevant/supported. Also, tmobile is the least evil, large carrier IMO.

vy8vWJlco 14y ago

What I want in a phone is the same thing I want in a computer or in calculator: the ability to use it on any problem I choose. It just so happens that subsidized phones typically come from businesses with incentives towards lock-in (so you can expect what you will get). In the case of a phone, not being able to change the software that comes with it (upgrade the OS or remove bloatware), means I can't use it for every problem and it is a substantially less useful tool for me. The solution at the PC level was providing a user-accessible boot process. For a phone, this means an accessible bootloader is a minimum requirement for me to make a purchase, at least at the computer-equivalent ($100+) price-range. But, in general, I would not recommend buying any computer that treats you like an appliance operator instead of an owner and full user. I'm not saying single-purpose software (or the idea of a walled garden) is necessarily a problem, just that the inability to re-purpose is.

sounds 14y ago
Ok, excellent points there. Do you mind clarifying how you feel about Samsung phones in particular? They do have a semi-usable bootloader (cyanogenmod, clockwork mod, etc. work pretty well) but getting the graphics, touchscreen, accelerometer, sound, camera (pictures/video) and any other drivers to work in cyanogenmod can be just as much work after that first initial success (the bootloader). Without good drivers, a bootloader is only half the solution, in my opinion. I'm picking on Samsung because their phones are very, very common. But HTC is no better at publishing drivers. In fact, only the Google Nexus line has published drivers so that the software stack can be replaced to a degree.
- kalleboo 14y ago
  Sony have also been very engaged with the open source community, with their own developers contributing on the XDA developers forums, participating in the AOSP[1], and they were the first outside Google to let anyone (not operator-locked) to unlock the bootloader with an official tool[2]. But everyone seems to ignore Sony phones for some reason. "Open friendly" does not seem to be a priority to customers, even ones who want to hack their phones. [1] https://github.com/sonyxperiadev/device-sony-c6603 https://github.com/sonyxperiadev/device-sony-c6603 [2] http://unlockbootloader.sonymobile.com http://unlockbootloader.sonymobile.com

jonpaul 14y ago

So which Android phone do you buy if you want unsubsidized on Verizon/LTE? Sincere question.

bmeckel 14y ago
I don't think it's really an option at this point. The point the article is making is that you won't get stock android from anything but a phone sold to you by Google, and since the Nexus 4 isn't offered on Verizon, you're kind of out of luck in that department. Personally I'm an iOS guy, but isn't conventional wisdom to stick with the Galaxy S at this point on Verizon? They do seem very solid.
shardling 14y ago
I'm perfectly happy with my Galaxy Nexus -- while it was subsidized, its not locked down in any way. I've had it for about a year and a half with no problems.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  Yup. I was a phone addict. I look back now with Android 4 and my Galaxy Nexus CDMA and feel silly for caring that much. My phone is so good now, I have no need for "faster", I'll get the Android updates via CM anyway and the phone has held up physically spectacularly.
  - shardling 14y ago
    http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2341 http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2341
- jonpaul 14y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, I thought the Galaxy Nexus wasn't on Verizon? I also thought that it didn't support LTE? Is that correct?
  - shardling 14y ago

shalmanese 14y ago

The problem with the US is that if you get a phone from the carrier, your plan will be $X a month with a 2 year contract but if you BYO phone, the plan will still be $X a month with no contract. This significantly reduces the incentive to provide your own phone as you're essentially giving up on a $30 a month subsidy. Other countries (and T-mobile) have much more reasonable pricing models where BYO gives you the option to avoid the subsidy.

baddox 14y ago
Well, this is a bit of a stretch, but if you already have the unlocked phone, you could still pay the subsidized price for a new device and instantly sell it for a hefty profit. I say it's a stretch because it is still fairly annoying, but I always do it for every upgrade on each of my family plan's phone lines. We're going to keep paying for service for the foreseeable future and not changing carriers anyway, so we might as well take advantage of the subsidies that are built into the monthly bill. Plus, I can always have the newest device if I so choose.
- prostoalex 14y ago
  Why would the other guy buy it from you at a hefty profit instead of getting a subsidized unit from the carrier? They have the same issue - if they're on a mobile plan with a US carrier, the price of the plan won't change for them.
  - baddox 14y ago
    I never asked them, but plenty of people certainly do (you can check eBay to verify this, but I've experienced it numerous times in person). I can speculate a few reasons: someone on contract broke or lost their phone and needs another, someone simply wants the newest best phone but isn't eligible for a device upgrade (AT&T's upgrades come every 18 months, which is too long to even stay on the latest iPhone, much less Android flagships), or someone actually wants to use the device without a contract (I think some carriers have prepaid plans that will work with their locked phones).

iSnow 14y ago

While I have switched to Android because I don't like the way Apple locks down their platform to the user, this article kind of validates the way Apple has treated the carriers - disallowing branding and the installation of crapware from the start. I just wish Google would be more forthcoming with their security releases for older platforms (notably 2.3) or had struck a better deal with device manufacturers so that they could directly provide 4.x for smartphones from the Nexus S era.

drivebyacct2 14y ago

You can buy Nexii subsidized... (like my Galaxy Nexus Vzw, but I suspect that's the last time we get Nexus on Vzw). Also, you can disable built-in Android apps. Please! How do we raise awareness about this! It's been possible for sometime! Long press the app in the drawer -> drag it to App Info -> Disable. Or Settings -> Apps -> All Apps -> [App] -> Disable. [Or choose a notification, long press "App Information" -> Disable (I think this is a 4.2 addition)]. Lots of ways to get there.

ansible 14y ago
The app disable feature has been around since 4.0 (ICS). Note that you may need to un-install any updates first, and then you'll be offered the ability to disable the app. That doesn't help the journalist who had a v2.3 phone though.

i_like_robots 14y ago

My last phone came re-skinned and with default apps replaced by branded, pretty poor carrier specific versions. After a few months some of these apps stopped working and because they ran in the background I was inundated with failure notifications for processes I didn't want and could not stop. It's madness for a mobile phone operator to apply their control so uselessly. Fortunately being a nerd has its benefits and I installed Cyanogen to avoid the horror, but I can't see how the non-geek user would be able to sidestep the bloat and bugs. The process for rooting and wiping the phone was extremely long. If in future there is the possibility that the engineers of such mods could create a one-click route there would be many more happy users.

drivebyacct2 14y ago

It's kinda funny. 3 or 4 years ago, all the rumors were: advertising based free Android phones. But everyone thought Google was going to do it directly. Instead, it turns out to be "free" via subsidy (and via subsidy, advertising): carriers and their partners load cheap midrange Android phones up with their apps/ads. I'm happy to have always purchased Nexus or something I knew was well supported by CM. As long as that continues to be true, I don't care what Verizon sells, I'm happy.

andrewaylett 14y ago

In some cases, a subsidised phone does make sense. I've got an S3 for £26/month * 24 months, so £624 lifetime. Even six months later, the phone costs £320 new, and the closest equivalent sim-only contract costs £13/month. That's £632 lifetime, and requires a significant upfront cost. The phone was more expensive to buy new when I took out the contract, and you can get it with no up-front payment on a £21/month contract now, so in both cases it's actually a better deal than presented above. Android 4+ allows you to disable the bloatware, so that's not an issue either.