Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Yup, the longevity isn't that great though. I'm using an LG G2 which is passable today but not much more than that. Lollipop doesn't run fluidly. Depending if you wanted the latest OS which I kind of do. After a few months I really greatly prefer Lollipop to KitKat, down side is it doesn't run all that well on my phone compared to a current or n-1 generation flagship. A lot of the beauty of Lollipop is how quickly you can multitask with it, provided the hardware is fast enough to do so. On the other hand if you're okay running KitKat indefinitely, the later generation phones don't have that big an advantage. You'll probably have a similar thing 6.0 Muffin not running that well on a HTC One M8 but doing pretty well on the M9 or the M10 which will be the current flagship.
I ran Lollipop on my Nexus 4 with no problem whatsoever, which is a year older and has lower specs compared to the LG G2. I would honestly blame it on manufacturer bloat and the custom manufacturer skin; I'm sure if you rooted it and ran a closer-to-stock Android version it would run much smoother. The G2 really isn't that much behind the current flagships in power, at least compared to the phone I was running Lollipop on.
OP, if you desire a cheaper device why concern yourself with what the rest of us are doing.
It just seems like your MO on this thread is to assuage your own feelings about your own purchases, which is your own business, not ours.
I think you are taking the question personally. People change their mode of operation all the time. They give up landlines for cellular, they give up cellular for VOIP phones. They change from cable to Netflix and sometimes they purchase streaming sports packages. Usually people make changes to save money , but sometimes they want to increase flexibility.
I have no MO. I was simply asking a question. Prior to September 2013 the choices were primarily flip phones, and smartphones which came in a variety of levels of sophistication, but they were all considerably more expensive than flip phones. In at least Verizon's case, you had to pay more per month just to use a smartphone.
In Sep 2013 Tracfone introduced Android phones and eventually began subsidizing them so that people could buy in for cheap. Now it seems as if the low end of Android smartphones is the same price as flipphones.
My question solely was has this option made anyone think about switching their thought so that they only carry around cheap Android phones.
From the responses, it seems as if the answer is no. Cheap Android phones have lured away flipphone customers, but they have little or no appeal to people who were used to the high end.
It's sort of like people who buy $500 Oakley sunglasses and they get them stolen. They get so upset, but they go out and buy another pair of even better sunglasses. I guess I am of the generation that used to remove the radio from their car and put up a cheap sign that said "NO RADIO" in a plea to potential robbers that there was nothing to steal here.
Smartphones are not as cut and dry as that. Personally, I think feature phones are a nice upgrade for the flip phone crowd. They have some smart features, but they aren't overwhelming. I was on a feature phone for a couple of years before I finally upgraded to a smartphone.
But yes, if you're accustomed to a Mercedes you don't want a Civic. But just like a Civic, $50 Android phones are reliable and do the job. You don't have to get an antiquated iPhone for $50 from the pawn shop, a modern $50 phone will do.
The difference is exponential. But if you're accustomed to feature phones, you wouldn't know the difference.
Personally, I don't even deal with Android. For $40, my 635 does everything I need it to do. But that's me. The decent Android phones have fallen in price where you can get a decent refurbished for $20 and no one will be the wiser.
No that's not what I meant. From a performed perspective, cheap Android phones run well. Used to be low spec phones you couldn't run the latest apps; they simply did not appear in the store or if they did the store would tell you the apps were not compatible with your phone. But the newer iterations of the apps seem to be compatible across the board, depending on how they're coded.
Windows has everything I need. If you're into downloading, Windows is a great platform. I have an app that is compatible with Jango that allows me to download songs; the official Jango client on Android doesn't do that. Microsoft does not pull apps out of the store that violate Google terms of service, so if you want to download from YouTube, Windows Phone, and Windows 8.1 (desktop), has an app for you. Rdio doesn't work that well. I have Facebook, Skype, all of Microsoft's services. A lot of travel/hotel apps
cont. A lot of apps you wouldn't normally think of. United airlines has an app. Amtrak, Accuweather, Hilton. Dropbox, MapQuest. UPS. A lot of interesting apps on this platform. Of course Hulu, Pandora, Spotify, Songza. Beats had an app, but there is no Apple Music app. I hear that Tidal will have an app. No Instagram though. And no official Google or Apple apps.
Gaming is interesting in this platform, a lot of Xbox games have a version for Windows Phone. A lot of games at free. Then you have the Microsoft Research projects for Windows Phone. I have an app that scans my receipts, does OCR, and then takes the extracted text and uploads it to OneNote. It is a productivity platform, primarily, but its social as well.
I have an app that scans my receipts, does OCR, and then takes the extracted text and uploads it to OneNote.
I never thought about that requirement, but I bet it comes in pretty handy. I tried it with my Android phone, but there must be a technique since all I get is a shaky photo and the OCR can't make anything out.
Those cheap phones will work as a smart phone but would drive me mad after 5 minutes. There's a reason a smartphone costs $750 instead of $20.
I am quite with you. I have used many mobile phones, in my opinion, mobiles above $200 always perform well, most of our workmates now use honor 6 and mate 7.
I like the S5 I got about a month ago. Fast re-charge time, pretty good battery life. I got it for under $1 (though I had to get another line because my S3 was crap and I gave my upgrade to my mother who had even more trouble with her's.)
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
good smartphone
