Originally Posted by
msp3
1) iMessage/FaceTime/iCloud, etc.
Same functions are available for Android.
2) Many apps, all of some quality, and they work
Same is true for Android, and many useful apps are free.
3) If anything ever goes wrong I walk into a real company store staffed by real people who deal with this issue for me instead of calling some horrible outsourced call center where idiots neither understand English nor care (or pretend to not understand what you want even if their English is fine), wait many weeks for your phone to be sent back and fourth and add extra weeks when the fix isn't done right
I've never had an Android phone "go wrong," or need repair. Also, neither my phone service provider nor Samsung has ever pushed an update that slowed down, or otherwise hindered, the operation of my phone.
4) If you're not impulsive and can wait, carriers/national retailers have good deals that come and go, just jump on a good one and never pay MSRP
Same is true of Android.
5) Feels like a quality product, feels well thought out, smooth and substansive
Certainly true of the Android phones I've owned, including my latest, a Note10.
Originally Posted by
nkedel
Some people who read this forum; hardly all of them. And, from what I can see from friends who have them, a pair of Bose headphones lasts a HECK of a longer than a smartphone, both in terms of durability under typical use and obsolescence.
Yes, but . . . it's comparing apples to oranges. Headphones aren't used every day, don't sit in your pocket and aren't exposed to a variety of weather conditions. I've had Bose since the QC1 days, and I like them very much. Given appropriate care, they hold up fine, but they're no where near as tough as a cellphone.
Originally Posted by
wco81
Premium phones will have better displays, better processors, better modems, better cameras, better design.
More RAM, more processing power so no hangs.
They also have functions not available in other phones. My Note 8 has a stylus that includes handwriting recognition, and also a small dock that turns it into a credible multi-tasking computer.
Originally Posted by
nkedel
"Better displays" are both somewhat subjective, and for most people kind of an irrelevance when $200 phones got to "good enough" a couple of years ago.
Hardly subjective. Display size, resolution, pixel density, color gamut and gamma are all readily quantifiable, just as with any electronic display medium.
"Better processors" was a much bigger deal a few years ago; the newest $100 phones have quad cores these days, and for typical use many people won't notice the difference.
Well, that sounds, at least to me, like the Apple philosophy, isn't it? "Everyone works the same way?" The issue isn't whether a phone "works" but whether it works the way you want it to.
A new $200 phone will have a better modem than a two year old iPhone. Probably than last year's iPhone.
I'm not sure what you mean by "modem." Digital phones don't have modems.
"Better design" is entirely subjective, and not everyone is impressed with the super-fragile glass that has taken over both Apple and Samsung flagship design. Heck, judging by the number of iPhone and Galaxy owners I know who immediately stuff the phone in a bulky plastic case, it's pretty clear that's an awful lot of iPhone and Samsung owners.
My Note 8 has a Gorilla Glass display, which most certainly is not super-fragile. In fact, my Note 8 is the first smart phone I've owned for which I have NOT purchased a case. I don't know where you're getting this.
At least on the Android side, new midrange phones come out enough faster that they often have more RAM and bigger processors than the still-top-of-the-line flagship phones which Samsung only updates once a year. Moreover, while 6GB and even 8GB RAM has been available in phones for about 18 months now, most people aren't anywhere near enough power users to care about the difference between 3-4GB and over.
Well, there you go again with the "most people" standard. I suspect most people don't need more than 4 gig for their desktop or laptop. I edit video and audio and do lots of graphics, frequently at the same time. I
need the 32 gig that's in my primary home machine. Flagship phones (or desktops or laptops) are not intended for "most people," but for people who need the power and features, which is why they have better specs.
Not to mention that on more budget phones you can often get features that have disappeared on flagships, like interchangeable batteries and SD card slots for expandable memory, or dual-SIM here in the US (although it's not unknown in non-US model flagships.)
The general trend on all phones is away from interchangeable batteries, for which only time will tell whether that's a good thing or not. My Note 8 doesn't have dual SIM, but I can't think of any reason I'd need it. When I travel internationally, it's easy enough to put in a local SIM, which is what I do. It does have support for a microSD card. You may be thinking of Apple, which has dropped support for wired headphones, a huge mistake in my view in that Bluetooth, being an inherently compressed and lossy digital transfer medium when used for audio, can never provide HD audio or anything close.