I think I'm done with the V10....

[Red Storm]

Yes, it is opposite ends of the spectrum. I want modularity. But let's be honest about the industry these days; it doesn't exist how any of us would like. The end user has lost the war here, and most of them don't care.

As others have pointed out, ROMing isn't what it used to be. And for us Americans, we have to buy an ultra expensive off-contract phone to even entertain that idea.

Don't the nexus phones have sealed batteries? So, you can never win anyway...open OS, closed hardware.

At least with the iPhone, you know the walled garden experience is refined. No carrier bloat, a streamlined OS, and lots of accessories and resale value. Compared to some midrange Android POS, the iPhone will remain "viable" for longer. 6 months into owning most of those you'll be behind on OS updates, there will be lag...the experience just goes downhill.

The iPhone 6S launched at ~$650, and the Plus at ~$750. Right now the 6S is going for ~$450 and the Plus ~$480. The Nexus 6P launched at ~$500, and can now be had for ~$350. So they've all gone down very similarly in value.

Accessories I would definitely say iPhones have an advantage in.

The Nexus has an unlocked bootloader (or at least can be very easily unlocked). It gets quick OS and security updates just like an iPhone does with iOS. I'd actually give the edge to the Nexus phones as many new features usually get rolled out throughout the year, rather than being held for the big annual updates like iOS.

You're not the first person I've seen on here to say "I want X, Y, and Z, and since I can't have that I might as well get a phone that has none of those features!" If you really want an iPhone just get an iPhone. There's no need to try and take the drawbacks of some low cost, non-Nexus handsets and try to paint a picture that all Android phones are that way, before then declaring you might as well go in the complete opposite direction.

Just get the iPhone.

There's no carrier bloat on the 6P, it has quick updates, an unlocked bootloader, performs good, and has similar resale value as seen with the iPhone. But Nexus phones have sealed batteries, so you might as well get an iPhone. If X, Y, and Z are truly important features to you, then you wouldn't be considering a phone that didn't have any of them over phones that at least have some of those bases covered.

 

[Dannar26]

You're kind of twisting this around.

What I'm getting at is that if I have to suffer through a walled garden, because the industry just full of that level of fail, I may as well do it with the company that does it best. My wife's phone lasts her the 2 years between upgrades just fine, and it seems to do so with minimal issue. I don't hear her complain about lag or other errors. And I certainly did hear about it when she had HTC phones (One X and One) until she picked up her iPhone6.

I'm not looking at a 200 dollar Galaxy not-a-S-or-note phone that was made with the bottom of the barrel in mind and saying that this is all of Androiddom. But compared to the iPhone, most android devices seem to have a QA issue. Why is my V10 such a sloppy performer? On paper it looks great. I have the features I want. But this phone makes me want to pull my hair out. My wife may not be able to swap out a battery or pop in a SD card, but her hair is quite intact. I know a wide number of people who use iPhones that are much older. There's plenty of folks bopping around with 5S's or 6's.

The biggest feature is frustration. I have better things to do than to mess with a phone. I'm no simplistic moron, but I'm not going to study XDA and/or pray to get a crack for my carrier locked poor performing android device (there's nothing I can do for my V10). I just want to eliminate a small amount of superfluous stress from my life. If that means an iDevice, then so be it. I'd rather stick to android because of the eco system, and familiarity though.

Google had a chance to lead the way, and decided it was Apple without the fruit. Best I can see to do is tough it out, or go with the unlocked S7.

 

[Oyeve]

You're kind of twisting this around.

What I'm getting at is that if I have to suffer through a walled garden, because the industry just full of that level of fail, I may as well do it with the company that does it best. My wife's phone lasts her the 2 years between upgrades just fine, and it seems to do so with minimal issue. I don't hear her complain about lag or other errors. And I certainly did hear about it when she had HTC phones (One X and One) until she picked up her iPhone6.

I'm not looking at a 200 dollar Galaxy not-a-S-or-note phone that was made with the bottom of the barrel in mind and saying that this is all of Androiddom. But compared to the iPhone, most android devices seem to have a QA issue. Why is my V10 such a sloppy performer? On paper it looks great. I have the features I want. But this phone makes me want to pull my hair out. My wife may not be able to swap out a battery or pop in a SD card, but her hair is quite intact. I know a wide number of people who use iPhones that are much older. There's plenty of folks bopping around with 5S's or 6's.

The biggest feature is frustration. I have better things to do than to mess with a phone. I'm no simplistic moron, but I'm not going to study XDA and/or pray to get a crack for my carrier locked poor performing android device (there's nothing I can do for my V10). I just want to eliminate a small amount of superfluous stress from my life. If that means an iDevice, then so be it. I'd rather stick to android because of the eco system, and familiarity though.

Google had a chance to lead the way, and decided it was Apple without the fruit. Best I can see to do is tough it out, or go with the unlocked S7.

I really do feel your pain. All of the problems you had with your V10 I had. The most infuriating (to me) was the horrid wifi and cell signal. I was rarely on LTE even when my 20 other phones had a dead lock. And the way too long to get a call outbound. Drove me nuts. The camera was what drove to it but the S7 and Note 7 and its instant focus and somewhat decent pro modes knock the V10 out of the park.

 

[Raduque]

Aren't the problems you're having with your V10 the same problems every SD808 device has?

 

[o306]

I totally understand where @Dannar26 is coming from.

I know that there isn't a perfect or even "make me really happy" phone at any price available right now.

I want all of the features @Dannar26 mentioned except for bootloader unlocking, I don't care about that at all.

Removable battery and micro-sd card and good camera are what I want.

LG makes junky phones across the board and I have no interest in getting a V20 just for the removable battery. Hell, they don't even have a real release date or price yet...dead in the water.

Since I can't get what I want, I might as well go with the best value since I will be disappointed by all phones. Right now it looks like a iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 7/7 Plus, or Samsung S7 are the best bets.

The advantage with the iPhones is that when the battery turns to shit in 2 years I can go get it replaced at an official Apple store. Can't do that with the Samsung S7.

Hopefully in another year or two the Chinese phone makers like ZTE and Huawei will tighten up their phones so I have a real choice other than Apple, Samsung, and HTC who also don't sell the phone I'm looking for, but at higher prices.

 

[Dannar26]

I really do feel your pain. All of the problems you had with your V10 I had. The most infuriating (to me) was the horrid wifi and cell signal. I was rarely on LTE even when my 20 other phones had a dead lock. And the way too long to get a call outbound. Drove me nuts. The camera was what drove to it but the S7 and Note 7 and its instant focus and somewhat decent pro modes knock the V10 out of the park.

YES. Don't get me started about the wifi reception. Signal in general has been poor for me. This phone had me thinking that AT&T had no signal where I work. It's not true; everybody else is good.

Aren't the problems you're having with your V10 the same problems every SD808 device has?

Not sure. I went with an 808 phone to avoid the literal hot mess of the 810. Guess this isn't what winning looks like.

 

[Raduque]

Not sure. I went with an 808 phone to avoid the literal hot mess of the 810. Guess this isn't what winning looks like.

Literal "hot mess"? Are you referring to overheating and/or thermal throttling? I had a Turbo 2 with the SD810 and it never got hot or thermal throttled.

 

[Dannar26]

Literal "hot mess"? Are you referring to overheating and/or thermal throttling? I had a Turbo 2 with the SD810 and it never got hot or thermal throttled.

Indeed I am. I thought it was common knowledge that the 810 was a dud of a SOC. Great performance...but it was power hungry and would throttle quickly. Many were praising the 808 as being a more efficient (albeit less powerful) alternative. 2015 was an awful year for smart phones, and the only SoCs that were worth anything were developed in house by Samsung or Apple.

I was getting itchy for an upgrade, and I swallowed my pride with the 808 when I got a good deal on the V10. I have a rule about phones: I don't buy mid-range processors as they're generally junk. If one wants to get a phone on a budget, it's often better to buy the flagship phone of yesteryear rather than buying some random phone that was designed to be "meh."

When playing minecraft on this phone, it gets hot real quick...and it doesn't have any better performance than the S4. You could probably chalk it up to the higher resolution (1440 vs 1080).

 

[Oyeve]

My V10 got super hot just updating apps from the store. Also, the GPU was junk IMO. games I played on other socs looked great and in particular Need for Speed:MW on all my other devices has some shiny textures or reflections but not on the V10.

 

[Raduque]

c

Indeed I am. I thought it was common knowledge that the 810 was a dud of a SOC. Great performance...but it was power hungry and would throttle quickly. Many were praising the 808 as being a more efficient (albeit less powerful) alternative. 2015 was an awful year for smart phones, and the only SoCs that were worth anything were developed in house by Samsung or Apple.

I was getting itchy for an upgrade, and I swallowed my pride with the 808 when I got a good deal on the V10. I have a rule about phones: I don't buy mid-range processors as they're generally junk. If one wants to get a phone on a budget, it's often better to buy the flagship phone of yesteryear rather than buying some random phone that was designed to be "meh."

When playing minecraft on this phone, it gets hot real quick...and it doesn't have any better performance than the S4. You could probably chalk it up to the higher resolution (1440 vs 1080).

maybe I've gotten it backwards, then. Never had any performance or battery issues with my Turbo2 though.

 

[Dannar26]

So, I've been doing research on the subject of what to replace my V10 with, and I've come up with two very unexpected answers.

The Huawei honor 8 seems like a solid phone, with many of the features I want. It's smaller, has a 1080p screen, supports a microSD card, and it looks very well built (ok, not that aesthetics are really THAT important to me). On the con side, the screen is LCD, and the Kirin 950 lacks a powerful GPU. Now, this may not be a huge problem since we're not talking about rendering at QHD resolutions...and from what I can tell the SOC is very powerful at non-GPU intensive tasks. All of this for $399....it was actually $349 yesterday.

The OnePlus3 sounds like an all-around powerful beast. On the pro side we've got a snapdragon 820, 1080p resolution, 6 GB of RAM (will we ever need that much?), and an AMOLED screen. Con side is it's bigger than I'd like, and it doesn't take expandable storage. With the RAM, GPU, and lower resolution, this thing must simply FLY through tasks. It's probably also an awesome gamer phone. Best of all it retails at $399.

So here's the thing. These are the Chinese phones that everybody seems to be skeptical about. But the price and specs seem to be so right! My V10 also seemed pretty awesome on paper, but in real world performance it wasn't quite so much. So I have a few questions that may or may not be answerable....

I'm on AT&T. I'm done buying phones through them. I'm going to continue to slowly pay off the V10, but I'll buy a phone elsewhere outright. Will the Honor 8 and OnePlus 3 work with all the correct LTE bands? It looks like these phones have been made for a US audience, but I could be wrong. I would hate to have limited access to my network because I have some wonky international phone.

Can you unlock the Honor8 and OnePlus3's boot loaders? Will I have full control to flash my own ROMs?

Secondly, how good are the radios? I'm so tired of the abysmal WiFi and LTE performance of my V10. I don't want to go to another phone with the same weak reception.

Hopefully neither phone is a known overheater. I'm tired of my phone getting crazy hot because I played minecraft for 5 minutes....

 

[Oyeve]

Don't know about the LTE bands but I do know that my Verizon branded V10 sucked on my tmobile sim. Would almost never connect at LTE speeds and mostly stayed on H+.

 

[bradly1101]

I had a Galaxy S3 for the longest time. I'd still have it if my carrier hadn't switched to GSM. The only problem; in its third year I had to charge it much more often. So I bought a replacement battery on eBay and it was no different. The batteries are device killers. Hopefully when mine (S7 reg.) starts dying I can have the battery replaced (with a good one), because I'd like to keep these expensive pocket communication/computing devices for at least five years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DSrgQThTLM

 

[Dannar26]

You would think that the manufacturer would offer a battery replacement service. I would feel iffy about doing it myself, for the simple aspect of removing the waterproofing and probably marring the crap out of the thing.

However, I would feel much more "at ease" in doing something like this with a cheaper device. And if the Honor 8 and the OnePlus3 are comparable devices, that are unlocked and GSM capable, why spend 700 when I can get away with only spending 400?

 

[hkrateus]

OnePlus 3 seems a nice option.