Thinking of switching back to android...

ng93 · 22 May 2012 at 21:44

Toying with the idea of moving from my Omnia 7 (Mango) back to Android/ICS, but having trouble picking a phone.

I'm looking at the Galaxy Nexus (£310), One X (£360) or Galaxy Note (also £360), or of course anything else decent around that price point. Did look at the SGS3 but really can't justify spending £500 on a phone, especially considering how damn fugly it is!

Any recommendations as to which is best? BTW I hate Sense/Touchwiz/Bloatware, but am assuming that can be cured with a quick trip to XDA?

Now I love the Galaxy Nexus, the design, the lack of physical buttons, the complete lack of bloatware, the instant(-ish) updates, and of course the price

p) but the SoC seems to be getting on a bit now (why Samsung didn't whack exynos in it i'll never know...).

Also bit wary of the notes size. On the one hand it looks awesome for games/browsing, and the pen looks useful too, but on the other surely it would look ridiculous held up to my ear?

Now the HTC, well not sold on the looks, or the lack of AMOLED, or the lack of an SD card slot, but other than that there's not really much to say about it. Looks like the safe option? Tegra 3 looks nice too, but possibly overkill? I mean hardly anything on Windows uses 4 cores, let alone on Android.

TIA,
ng93

TLDR: which android phone for under £400?

Edit: i'm not looking to buy straight away, so can wait a couple months if there's anything new on the horizon?

Shimmy · 22 May 2012 at 21:48

Go and try them out and see which you prefer.

Don't pay attention to the SoC, they're all quick enough and can all play 1080p etc...

Robbo · 22 May 2012 at 22:02

Galaxy Note, Galaxy S III (should be cheaper in a while) or the One X.

There are no huge differences really, the Note internals are more dated but still extremely powerful and the screen is great if you don't mind the size.

A note about the One X screen, don't assume because it's not AMOLED that it's bad (unless you're worried about black levels), it's better or at the very least equal for everything else.

Try them all at the start of next month and see which you prefer, there's no clear winner due to personal preference but if you want to know which is the 'best' then it will be the S3.

ng93 · 22 May 2012 at 22:15

Cheers for the replys guys. Do you reckon the S3 will come down to <£400 soon? I haven't really looked at it as assumed it would stay silly expensive for at least 6 months (too long for me to wait), but if it drops in price soon then great

.

Robbo · 22 May 2012 at 22:18

ng93 said:
Cheers for the replys guys. Do you reckon the S3 will come down to <£400 soon? I haven't really looked at it as assumed it would stay silly expensive for at least 6 months (too long for me to wait), but if it drops in price soon then great .

Yeah, it should be somewhat cheaper at least in a month or two.

kona786 · 22 May 2012 at 23:10

If the S2 was anything to go by it will take 6 months before you can buy an S3 for around £400 sim free.

Rimsy · 22 May 2012 at 23:20

ng93 said:
Did look at the SGS3 but really can't justify spending £500 on a phone, especially considering how damn fugly it is!

Now I love the Galaxy Nexus, the design

Does not compute! They both look the same aside from the home key on the GS3!

ng93 · 22 May 2012 at 23:41

So looks like wait till I'm ready to buy, then go for S3 if I can afford it, One X if I can't?

@Rimsy don't know why, but the gn just looks awesome

it probably doesn't help that all the pictures of the SGS3 have the screen on, with the godawful touchwiz showing.

kona786 · 22 May 2012 at 23:43

GNex looks 1000 times better than the S3. I soo want one but the hardware sucks ass.

Rimsy · 23 May 2012 at 00:03

Guess I've not been looking hard enough then

shape wise (as in footprint) they are pretty much identical and once some kind of neoprene skin is attached there's not really much perceived ugliness on display

413x · 23 May 2012 at 00:04

kona786 said:
GNex looks 1000 times better than the S3. I soo want one but the hardware sucks ass.

Only if you play games

kona786 · 23 May 2012 at 00:08

al4x said:
Only if you play games

nah - in order of importance - no sd card, lesser camera than s2, only 200cd/m2 brightness, dated soc.

The first 3 are my main gripes.

Rimsy said:
Guess I've not been looking hard enough then shape wise (as in footprint) they are pretty much identical and once some kind of neoprene skin is attached there's not really much perceived ugliness on display

All black front end, no samsung logo, plush led, nice grey colour, tasteful rear, curved.

biron_w · 23 May 2012 at 09:14

You can get the Galaxy Nexus for £260 here Which is what i'd get at that price! It's also available in white which looks much nicer IMO.

Robbo · 23 May 2012 at 09:19

That's an excellent price, but it's almost too cheap and the site doesn't look great. Have you actually used them?

thep02 · 23 May 2012 at 10:21

ng93 said:
Also bit wary of the notes size. On the one hand it looks awesome for games/browsing, and the pen looks useful too, but on the other surely it would look ridiculous held up to my ear?

It is awsome for all the reasons you gave, ridiculous held up to your ear?? nah... and since when have you cared what other people thought as you enjoyed yourself with a device you chose?

Bt handsfree stereo headset helps though and will be useful to hear the sound as you watch some live footy you're streaming or a movie, there's a reason why 2 million+ tech savy South Koreans have bought the Note

thep02 · 23 May 2012 at 10:29

kona786 said:
nah - in order of importance - no sd card, lesser camera than s2, only 200cd/m2 brightness, dated soc.

Agreed.

kona786 said:
All black front end, no samsung logo, plush led, nice grey colour, tasteful rear, curved.

To me perfection would be a pure black slab of G glass front on the Note, no logo, button or speaker, minimal bezel, though the speaker is the least bothersome :cool:

thep02 · 23 May 2012 at 10:33

biron_w said:
here

Very interesting site if you do buy something from them will you keep us up to date with the progress of your purchase, thanks in advance :cool:

sarge78 · 23 May 2012 at 10:54

^ Rainforest warehousedeals are currently ~£280, a bit more reliable than that dodgy looking site

(fast free delivery, 30 day returns and full CS etc)

Edit:

Don't forgot this phone was £520 on release, almost half price in 6 months!

ng93 · 23 May 2012 at 15:51

biron_w said:
You can get the Galaxy Nexus for £260 here Which is what i'd get at that price! It's also available in white which looks much nicer IMO.

Do you have any experience with that site? This is the only info I can find on it, doesn't look amazing...

checking a website - some things to look out for.

Firstly, from the URL it's a limited company. That means their obliged to both register at Companies House and put their company number on their website.

It's hidden away in the site map, but it's there:

145-147 St John St, London, EC1V 4PW (Collection Is NOT Possible)

Company Registration Number: 07669353
Tel: 0843 2893897 (Monday-Thursday 1pm To 3pm)

Click to expand...

Those are VERY funny opening hours though. Almost as though someone's doing it on the side, along with a full time job. As someone has pointed out the address is just for mail forwarding, and the 0843 number is just for phone forwarding. There's also no social media links - no facebook, no twitter? Not compulsory but unusual for an online business these days.

But we have a company number, which we can look up here:
wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/

This at least confirms the address, and says the company started in June 2011. For a couple of quid you can get a bit more info on them but I'm going to skip that and try another tack.
(they claim on their website that "Discount Emporium LTD has been at the forefront of supplying the latest consumer electronics to businessess and consumers since establishing a reputable reputation within the wholesale export industry for the last 2 years." That's clearly not the case, unless they mean 'this year' and 'last year')

Every website has to register details with a registry, and sites ending in .uk are handled by Nominet. If you go to http://www.nominet.org.uk/ on the right of the page there's a 'whois' form which will bring up the details for the site.

This, again, gives the john st address and says that the website was registered at the end of February 2012. Do you want to order expensive goods off a 2 month old website?
(usually an individual is named at this point, but instead it just refers to the company. Not a red flag in itself, but makes me increasingly less comfortable)

I'll even stick my neck out and say that the very full 'testimonials' page is too good to be true. (remember the site has only been open since the start of March, and people are talking about waiting 6-8 weeks for stuff)
http://www.discountemporiumltd.co.uk...age=page&id=20

They're offering stuff cheaper than Amazon, and I can see no reason to believe they have the clout to do that.

I would advise starting with a cheap accessory to try them out, but strangely they don't have any. Avoid.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...58305615+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=firefox-a

HAz · 23 May 2012 at 23:32

sarge78 said:
^ Rainforest warehousedeals are currently ~£280, a bit more reliable than that dodgy looking site (fast free delivery, 30 day returns and full CS etc)

Edit:

Don't forgot this phone was £520 on release, almost half price in 6 months!

Yea it's a pretty **** phone, thinking of selling mine but worth less than an old iPhone 4!
Should have got the 4s, my bad.