[LiveBrianD]

Out of curiosity, I was looking around at android smartphones and pmps (or phoneless smartphones). Well, Verizon (what my family uses) demands a minimum 2GB data plan, $30/month, if you have a smartphone, so that's not an option. I noticed that unlocked phones cost WWWAAAAYYYY more than pmps - an 8GB iPod Touch 4G costs $200, and yet an iPhone 4S 16GB is $650. What the heck? 8GB memory, a higher res camera, GPS, and cellular radios do NOT cost $450! What's with that? Trying to get people to lock themselves into contracts?

As for pmps, I'm wondering, what would be better - iPod touch, or Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0 (or 5.0)? I like android since I can mess with making apps for it a little if I want (the iOS sdk only runs on Macs), and can use stuff like Fennec, and I don't need itunes. On the other hand, the galaxy player only has android 2.3 Gingerbread right now, with no word on whether or not it'll get 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. By the way, the galaxy player also has a GPS, which might be handy if I can find a good offline GPS app (apparently Google Maps can be used offline, you cache stuff at a wifi hotspot, but can't change the route you use once you start, if I understand it correctly). What do you guys think? (if there are any other android PMPs that you think might work, feel free to mention them) I won't be buying one for a while, so I'm perfectly ok with waiting a while if needed for samsung to release ICS for the galaxy player or something.

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 12 February 2012 - 08:22 PM

[LiveBrianD]

Well Apple is certainly making this easy for me - they recently blackmailed asus about the zenbook looking too much like an mba, and now they're suing kodak because of some patent stuff, and they're constantly suing companies like samsung... I'm definitely NOT buying an ipod touch now.

[smax013]

LiveBrianD, on 15 February 2012 - 09:29 PM, said:

Well Apple is certainly making this easy for me - they recently blackmailed asus about the zenbook looking too much like an mba, and now they're suing kodak because of some patent stuff, and they're constantly suing companies like samsung... I'm definitely NOT buying an ipod touch now.

And Samsung is suing Apple and other companies over patents. If your criteria is to not buy anything from a company that sues other companies over patents, then you likely won't buy anything as just about all companies do it these days.

[smax013]

LiveBrianD, on 12 February 2012 - 08:22 PM, said:

I noticed that unlocked phones cost WWWAAAAYYYY more than pmps - an 8GB iPod Touch 4G costs $200, and yet an iPhone 4S 16GB is $650. What the heck? 8GB memory, a higher res camera, GPS, and cellular radios do NOT cost $450! What's with that? Trying to get people to lock themselves into contracts?

A larger battery (takes more juice to be able to power the cell radios as well), better processor (iPhone 4S uses an A5 while the iPod Touch still users an older generation A4), and extra development costs (i.e. it take more work and time to get a phone developed, tested and approved).

Now, I am not saying that Apple might not have some extra "profit margin" on an iPhone than an iPod...but a vast majority amount of that $450 difference DOES go into tangible difference.

[smax013]

LiveBrianD, on 12 February 2012 - 08:22 PM, said:

As for pmps, I'm wondering, what would be better - iPod touch, or Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0 (or 5.0)? I like android since I can mess with making apps for it a little if I want (the iOS sdk only runs on Macs), and can use stuff like Fennec, and I don't need itunes. On the other hand, the galaxy player only has android 2.3 Gingerbread right now, with no word on whether or not it'll get 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. By the way, the galaxy player also has a GPS, which might be handy if I can find a good offline GPS app (apparently Google Maps can be used offline, you cache stuff at a wifi hotspot, but can't change the route you use once you start, if I understand it correctly). What do you guys think? (if there are any other android PMPs that you think might work, feel free to mention them) I won't be buying one for a while, so I'm perfectly ok with waiting a while if needed for samsung to release ICS for the galaxy player or something.

Ultimately, I would say it largely comes down to what you want to do with it. If it is mainly listen to music, watch videos, browse the web, do email, etc, than either an Android device or an iPod Touch would both work and it would then come down to which "ecosystem" (Google's or Apple's) and/or OS you like better. If you have a more specific task that you want to do, then if one device can do it but the other cannot, then that makes the decision easier.

I have used both Android and iOS devices. I like both. Each does somethings better than the other. On Android, I liked being able to pick a different email client than the default one (the default one kind on sucked on my Evo 4G). I actually liked Android's built-in voice dialing better than Siri on my current iPhone 4S (Siri MUST have an Internet connection to complete the voice dial while the Android voice dial is purely done on the phone), but Siri is more robust than Android's overall voice commands (but then I don't really use Siri for anything other than voice dialing). OTOH, I seemed to have more instability on my Evo than I do on my iPhone 4S. And backing up and restoring an iOS device was WAY more easier than my Android device was (people complain about iTunes, but it backup function for an iOS device is very good).

[LiveBrianD]

I generally prefer the open ways of android, and would like to try things like Fennec. However, I'm worried about updates - apple's stuff is given the latest updates for quite a while, while the galaxy player is still stuck on Android 2.3 Gingerbread (come on, where's 4.0 ice cream sandwich?). Mainly I'll just be surfing the web and listening to music here.

[smax013]

LiveBrianD, on 05 March 2012 - 08:47 PM, said:

I generally prefer the open ways of android, and would like to try things like Fennec. However, I'm worried about updates - apple's stuff is given the latest updates for quite a while, while the galaxy player is still stuck on Android 2.3 Gingerbread (come on, where's 4.0 ice cream sandwich?). Mainly I'll just be surfing the web and listening to music here.

That is a disadvantage of Android...it can take a while to get OS updates for a lot of devices. The exception seems to be the Nexus devices that run a "plain jane" version of Android. Otherwise, you have the time it takes for Google to create and test the update and then the individual phone/device maker to test that new version on their device and then also update their "skin" and other device specific features. For example, it took almost a year for 2.3 to be available for my Evo 4G after I got it...even though 2.3 was release from Google shortly after I got my Evo 4G if I recall correctly.

Since Apple controls all aspects of iOS devices, it is a lot easier for them to bring updates to "market" quicker. Of course, that means you kind of have go "their way or the highway" with little to no customization of some things. Since you seem to like to ticker with stuff, this may be a deal breaker for you.

[LiveBrianD]

I'm looking around for roms for that player, but haven't had good luck so far (there has to be something on xda developers about that). As far as manufacturer customizations go, samsung's touchwiz isn't bad. Still, I wish they'd just make all that crap (as well as the carrier's crap if it's a phone) an optional update. For instance, my thinkpad asked me if I wanted to install Norton the first time I booted it up. I said no, and that was it. (it wasn't actually installed on the laptop, they simply included an installer)

I don't really like itunes and their generally closed ecosystem. (and constantly broken jailbreaks) For instance, I can only sync an ipod with one PC at once the last time I checked; plug it into another and it'll force you to do a restore on the ipod if you want to sync it there. Unfortunately, I mainly use my desktop, but may want to use my laptop to sync stuff to it while I'm on a trip.

[smax013]

LiveBrianD, on 05 March 2012 - 09:13 PM, said:

I'm looking around for roms for that player, but haven't had good luck so far (there has to be something on xda developers about that). As far as manufacturer customizations go, samsung's touchwiz isn't bad. Still, I wish they'd just make all that crap (as well as the carrier's crap if it's a phone) an optional update. For instance, my thinkpad asked me if I wanted to install Norton the first time I booted it up. I said no, and that was it. (it wasn't actually installed on the laptop, they simply included an installer)

I rather likes HTC's Sense UI. I hate Samsung's TouchWiz on my dad's Epic, but that might be because I just got used to the Sense UI.

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I don't really like itunes and their generally closed ecosystem. (and constantly broken jailbreaks) For instance, I can only sync an ipod with one PC at once the last time I checked; plug it into another and it'll force you to do a restore on the ipod if you want to sync it there. Unfortunately, I mainly use my desktop, but may want to use my laptop to sync stuff to it while I'm on a trip.

Yes, that is the downside of the iTunes syncing system. But, I generally get my iOS devices with the max storage and tend to rarely have to sync it (I have ALL my music on my iPhone and my iPad as well as about a half dozen video with quite a bit of room to spare). Until iOS enabled WiFi syncing, I could go months between syncs with the computer.

Regardless, Apple is trying to move away from that with iCloud. Personally, I have not switched my MobileMe account over to an iCloud account yet. But, you can backup your iOS device to iCloud and you can redownload any music from the iTunes store...and have access to your ripped music with iTunes Match (albeit for a price). The point is that iCloud is meant to try to "break" the need to sync to one computer.

[LiveBrianD]

Sometimes I hear a new song on pandora and then download it, and I'll want to put that on the device. That's where it really becomes an issue. I don't buy music from itunes. Also, one thing I'm thinking about is the galaxy player's microSD slot - an extra 32GB for about $30 is pretty good compared to apple's prices.

How do you think android 2.3's support will be in the future though? I also read about getting a smartphone with a bad ESN, meaning it can't be activated on a cellular network, cheaply on ebay. I dunno... if only I could get a Galaxy Nexus that way or something...

[smax013]

LiveBrianD, on 05 March 2012 - 09:48 PM, said:

Sometimes I hear a new song on pandora and then download it, and I'll want to put that on the device. That's where it really becomes an issue. I don't buy music from itunes.

Personally, I don't buy much from iTunes either. I would much rather buy the CD and get a full, un-compressed version. But, iTunes Match works will music you rip from CDs. I have not used it myself (as I said, I have my full library on my devices), however.

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Also, one thing I'm thinking about is the galaxy player's microSD slot - an extra 32GB for about $30 is pretty good compared to apple's prices.

Be careful though. Some apps don't run well off microSD cards and such. So, make sure the device you are looking at has enough internal storage for you needs. Media (music and videos) should do fine on a microSD card. In general, more recent/current Android devices are better about this issue, but that was one problem with my Evo...it had really small, crappy internal memory (i.e. RAM) and limited internal storage. I was constantly running out of room.

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How do you think android 2.3's support will be in the future though? I also read about getting a smartphone with a bad ESN, meaning it can't be activated on a cellular network, cheaply on ebay. I dunno... if only I could get a Galaxy Nexus that way or something...

Considering that there are still Android devices running 2.1 out there, it will be a while before you have "problems" with 2.3. Kind of depends on what you mean by "support".

[LiveBrianD]

The galaxy has 8GB integrated and 32GB micro-SDHC max. I'm sure 8GB is enough for apps, and if I get a microSD card I'll likely put my music and stuff on it anyway because it's quicker than using the internal storage via USB most likely (for instance, my camera transfers things rather slowly via USB, so I take out the SD card and put it in a card reader to copy photos from it).

What I mean by support is, for instance, being able to try the latest versions of apps like fennec and stuff. I also like android to ios in that it's SDK runs on Windows, just in case I feel like messing with app development (I might).

[LiveBrianD]

I just saw this: http://www.pcworld.c...on_android.html

Does this mean that you can change the route while you don't have a data connection or WiFi? Perhaps they've changed that more recently.