Which Smart Phone should I get?

[spirilis]

Humm, well, come May I'll be eligible for another subsidized phone purchase by Verizon. Thinking about what to get. Using Android right now, and frankly prefer it on principle (not an Apple fanboy, more a Google fanboy I guess)...

My last purchase, Droid Bionic, was purchased for a few reasons:
1. Dual core 4G LTE
2. Android 2.3 Gingerbread claimed to support the OpenADK accessory toolkit--this turned out to be FALSE, Motorola left out the API.
3. Phone's screen is nice and big (I'm a big guy, with huge hands, I like big phones.)

My next purchase... now that I have more experience with electronics/microcontrollers et al, the requirements have changed a tad:
1. Dual core 4G LTE (same)
2. OpenADK support would be very nice, I expect they all have it now.
3. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) support--the catch.

BLE is part of Bluetooth 4.0 as I understand, and its hardware operating principle mirrors something else I've used in the past year, the Nordic Semiconductor nRF24L01+ modules which are meant for ultra-low-power (typically a "base station" receiver sits around with its RF baseband engine running, sipping a little power from a grid-tied power connection, while a remote gadget on a shoestring budget of a battery wakes up once in a blue moon and relays some data, going back to sleep and powering off its transceiver). These remote nodes can last years on a single coin-cell battery. Frankly it appeals to my electronics hobby desires a lot more, although the hardware for BLE is currently expensive. Producing BLE-based gadgets that seamlessly interface with my phone w/o cables would be awesome.

But while BLE is included in many of the newest Android phones, Google has no unified API for using it. Motorola and Broadcom went out on a limb and created two incompatible APIs for it. OTOH, Apple has a "one true" API for doing BLE work on their O/S. Hmph. Now my geek-strings are being pulled in different directions.

TBH, the Samsung Galaxy Note series sound nice. A big phone with stylus might catch my fancy if the stylus and drawing interface are worth a damn.

edit: This article explains it all better. http://pocketnow.com/2013/01/17/bluetooth-low-energy

 

[spirilis]

Meh, overall, it sounds like the Droid RAZR MAXX HD would suit my needs if I was OK about supporting the Motorola-written BLE API.

Sounds like the Galaxy S3 and HTC Droid DNA support the broadcom-ble API. Found a stackoverflow.com result indicating the Droid DNA doesn't need anything extra (rooting, or libs) installed to use it. It also has a quad-core processor + 2GB RAM, pretty fancy.

And from reading something else, my understanding of BLE's topology might be backwards. Phones can't be slaves in the BLE architecture, as they need to be capable of switching back and forth between regular bluetooth and BLE to give the illusion that you can use both (a headset & polling BLE gadgets) at the same time. But BLE is supposed to be so low of power that slave gadgets still last a long time on batteries so I dunno. Doesn't really matter to me.

 

[1487610420]

Apple, Android or Windows Phone.

 

[The Ü™]

The only ringtone I downloaded is the only ringtone I'll ever need: The MGS codec.

 

[The Ü™]

Currently getting my nails done...

 

[ehcriktic]

Get the Galaxy S3.

 

[The Ü™]

Got it. Galaxy S3. I'll take that into consideration.

 

[garbage]

I've got myself a S2 now. I'm quite satisfied.


Anyone have any thoughts on / experience with the Samsung Galaxy Note II?

I could use something with a bit more.. utility. I have huge pockets, and I know my way around rooting devices.

It looks pretty bitchin'. Two of my friends have it and are quite satisfied.

 

[Eric B]

I liked the S2 so much I got its tablet version, the 7.7. But it's only Verizon, while I'm on T-Moble, so I use it with Wifi Hotspot (where I turn my phone into a hotspot, using its network connection). I made it my birthday gift from my mother.

Pretty cool. I'm now for the first time reading e-books, and just finhished a book Beebe did 20 years ago, on integrity.

 

[spirilis]

I just got to see a Galaxy Note II last week, a technician from one of our vendors sported one. Didn't really get to "play" with it too much, but the phone felt great--with my big hands and big pockets it'd fit quite well, the tech was also pretty tall and said it was just the right size that you can stuff it in your pocket without it "stabbing" you when you sit down lol...

Although I can't imagine it's easy to remove from your pocket sitting down.

Anyway, very seriously considering it now. Maybe that vs. the Droid DNA will be my choice come May.
[MENTION=3521]Eric B[/MENTION]- Definitely love reading ebooks on a tablet! I bought one of those aborted HP TouchPads when they were being sold cheap and put Android on it, it's my e-reader and I have the various homescreens littered with Aldiko shortcut icons to my various PDFs. Kindle app works great too.

 

[The Ü™]

The pen for the Note would be all too easy to lose.

 

[Eric B]

I should also add, that exactly a year ago, when I got my Galaxy S2, I had given up waiting for an AMOLED screen phone with a slide keyboard from T-Mobile. They had said they weren't getting anythng like that (I had hoped the merger with AT&T would go through, because they had one like that, but that was shot down). But then not too long ago, I found out tha they came out with one, the Samsung Galaxy Relay, in the Summer or Fall!
It's just a little bit smaller than the S2. So I struggled with screen keyboards and bluetooth keyboards, when I could have just waited after all.
But now, with the tab, screen typing is much easier.

I BTW, use the Dextr alphabetical keyboard. Always hated QWERTY.

 

[spirilis]

Played with a Galaxy Note 2 at the store today, fell in love. Definitely got my eye on that come May.

HTC Droid DNA looks like it has horrible battery life in the reviews, and the demo in the store was almost hot to the touch on the display... I can believe why. Very high-resolution display + unibody (sealed battery, that is probably not all that big to start) = horrendous battery life.

Doodling on the Galaxy Note series, the main put-off seems to be the lag between drawing & when the lines appear on the display, but TBH it didn't bother me after a minute; you learn to slow down a tad, and one point of confidence is that the device *does* record all of your nuanced movements, it's just delayed a bit appearing on the display. The pressure-sensitivity shows with the hue/darkness of the strokes--adds an element of realism. Wonder if they have a larger "S Pen" available for it (with the same Wacom digitization tip + button). edit: Looks like their solution is an "S Pen Holder", a larger enclosure that the S Pen fits inside. Guess that'd work.

Large display looks perfect for a car navigation unit; I may actually buy a car mount for this one. Might also look into making it my music player... my Alpine headunit doesn't have bluetooth but it does have an AUX input capability, need to buy the connector for it though. Probably modify my dashboard a bit to make the USB charge cable look more custom/covert than having an ugly cigarette lighter plug hanging around.

Oh yeah; the on-screen keyboard seemed to sense my keystrokes more accurately than my Motorola, and it has a row of number keys above the QWERTY which is my biggest pet peeve with my current phone... having to hit some button to flip to number/punctuation layout and then back.

 

[The Ü™]

I'm having so much fun with this thing that I might show bad judgment and start asking forum members for telephone numbers. The thought of talking to someone far away enough to not just call because they want something does seem like a nice change of pace...and they may be the first contacts I have that won't get themselves blocked.