What was your best/worst phone/tablet purchase?

[guachi]

Worst phone was a Samsung Galaxy Nexus. I never really liked it. Then I accidentally burnt out the usb port.

Best was the Nexus 6P Though the aluminum buttons are inferior to the ceramic buttons my prior phone, the Nexus 5.

 

[deathBOB]

Best: iPhone 6s Plus

Worst: Motorola Q9. Windows Mobile, what a flaming POS.

 

[Eug]

Worst tablet: Asus Nexus 7 (2012)
Best Tablet: iPad 2 or iPad Air 2

 

[cbrunny]

Worst was Samsung Note 4. Never again, Samsung.

Best... probably my most recent for phone and tablet. Xperia X Performance, Nexus 9

 

[Commodus]

Worst Phone: Motorola Droid. It's not a bad phone but I had bought it as a hold over because it was cheap. It was just to old when I bought it, slow and hardly usable. Best guess is the new OS was to much for the hardware in the phone. Owned many Androids and enjoyed the OS. (If memory serves HTC Hero was my first Android)

The Droid was a great phone when it was fresh, but this was a time when mobile chips didn't age gracefully. Compare that to today, where your two-year-old phone will probably run the latest OS properly (at least, if it's a sufficiently high-end phone).

 

[Zaap]

Best Phone: By far, Note 4. Still my most used device every day. Screen is just beautiful, endless battery life of sorts thanks to the removable design, expandable, great build quality, still snappy as the day I bought it.

Best Tablet: Note 12.2. It's a workhorse and still does the tasks I need it for perfectly. Screen split 4 ways I routinely review script/storyboard/animatic edit/notes on shows I edit. The pen and ability to draw a huge plus. Still has excellent battery life, screen is awesome.

Worst Phone: Hard one. I haven't bought phones I don't like. If I had to pick: Galaxy S3. Merely because the roundish design was a step backward. Seeing an S3 now, its looks a bit silly and outdated. Runners up: virtually all of my wife's iPhones before her current iPhone 6. I can't even use the tiny screens.

Worst Tablet: Again, only have owned tablets I like. I'd have to say the original Nook Tablet because it was heavy, and purposefully gimped by B&N, though hacked it was a decent tablet for its day. Currently I have a new Kindle Fire a friend gave me, and while nice, I can't for the life of me figure a *single* thing to use it for. Screen is way too small for me to even look at. Note 12.2 forever spoiled me.

 

[tsupersonic]

Best: HTC Droid Incredible. This was my first smartphone, and I do miss it. 8 GB of storage internal, with microSD slot. I had 40 GB of storage back in 2010 (64 GB cards were expensive at the time!). Now phones have such a base level of storage (8/16 GB)

Worst: Galaxy Nexus. What a piece of crap - crap hardware and software updates sucked (thanks Verizon).

Best tablet: iPad Air 1st gen. Thing still works after two years.

Worst tablet: N7 2012 and 2013. Was cheap/ok, but both died after a year. Form factor for both were excellent.

 

[Commodus]

Worst Tablet: Again, only have owned tablets I like. I'd have to say the original Nook Tablet because it was heavy, and purposefully gimped by B&N, though hacked it was a decent tablet for its day. Currently I have a new Kindle Fire a friend gave me, and while nice, I can't for the life of me figure a *single* thing to use it for. Screen is way too small for me to even look at. Note 12.2 forever spoiled me.

The problem with Amazon's tablets is that they're designed primarily to be Amazon content devices. If you don't have a Prime subscription or buy lots of Kindle books and Amazon videos, there's not much reason to get one.

The irony: while they're based on Android, they make iPads look like wide-open ecosystems. Apple may encourage you to subscribe to Apple Music, buy iBooks and rent movies from iTunes, but it didn't design its interface around its services like Amazon did with the Fire line. A good tablet is good at a lot of things, not just a few.

 

[Artdeco]

Am changing favorite tablet to the larger iPad Pro, was concerned about battery life and slow charging while on, turned the screen brightness down, and it really made a difference.

So close to a laptop replacement...

 

[Red Squirrel]

Worse (but only) tablet: Blackberry Playbook. I bought it because I figured I'd support a Canadian company, and it was on sale. Played with it for a while, but lack of app availability made it kind of limited. Then the wireless started to act up to the point where I could only use it for like 30 seconds before it dies completely. The only way to revive it was to reload the OS. It also started doing other weird things like not turning off properly and then eventually dying on it's own when the battery is dead. Now it won't hold a charge, I don't use it anymore. It was more of a toy than anything so did not really have a need to replace it and I just moved on.

Around that time I replaced my old blackberry pearl (almost a dumb phone by today's standards) with a Nexus 4. I'd say that was probably my best phone purchase, but also my only one, so not much to compare it to. The blackberry was a company phone they let me keep. I was kinda slow to enter the cell market as I did not really feel the need to have one.

I still have my Nexus 4 as my main phone, and don't really see a reason to upgrade. Like, I kinda want to, but at same time I don't feel I need to.

It sometimes crosses my mind to get another tablet though, one of those things that's kinda fun to have but I don't need it bad enough to spend the money.

 

[sm625]

The LG G2 that I bought last summer for $120 off swappa was the best phone I ever bought. The battery is finally starting to go though, it has crossed the 50% of its original capacity threshold. So I'm really hoping the new galaxy note knocks down the price of a Note 4 to $150. I might take a stab at replacing the battery on the G2 since it is supposed to be less difficult than it would seem, and then I can list it on swappa for $80. It is amazing to be able to get a year's use out of such powerful hardware for only $3 a month including the talk and data plan.

 

[rbk123]

Best phone - liked each one I've bought so far, as each one has been better than the previous. I probably like my G1 Moto X and the LG G2 (bought used for $80 and it still is solid) the most. Used the G2 as my GPS via Backcountry Navigator on my 12 day New Mexico backpacking trip. Would get 3 days of trail use (in airplane mode) before getting around 18-20% left; plus it saved my bacon a couple of times.

Worst phone - LG G2 - bought a new one for my daughter for Xmas and it had the dreaded screen problems after a couple of days. Returned, got another new one from another seller and it also had screen problems. Very painful process. Finally got a refurb and it worked great - until she dropped it 4 months later...

Tablets - liked each one as well:
1. Original Nook color - solid feel, nice screen, and worked great with CM (never ran it with Barnes' OS)
2. HP Touchpad - lots of tablet for the $150 blowout price. Lasted me many years.
3. iPad Pro 12" - thing is ridiculously thin; I actually prefer it in a case to thicken it up a bit. Very, very fast, and using it with my Moto X as a hotspot, I can't tell the diff between it or wifi (which really shows how slow the GPU is in comparison on the Moto X when I surf via data plan on it). IOS isn't as bad as I had thought, but has a few annoying weaknesses. Excellent battery life; even better considering it's size.

 

[Oyeve]

My second worse tablet was the Asus Memo Pad HD 7. Tho it claimed to be HD not one streaming app, including Google movies, support the 720p. It was a slow crappy tablet that I couldn't even give away. 3 people I tried to unleash this upon promptly gave it back.

 

[luv2liv]

worst phone - HTC touchpro 2. clunky with slow windows interface
worst tablet - ipad 1. works great the day i got it for step dad. gets worse and worse with every update. great way to coax people with every new ipad model that comes out. no way to revert the update! ouch. last time i ever buy an apple product.

best phone + BLU vivo air lte. does everything i need without any frills with a battery that lasts almost 2 days. it is super thin and so lightweight. at $140, im not gonna cry if it breaks or loose it. people often ask me where they can get 1 and shocked when i tell them the price.

best tablet + samsung tab s2. so light weight, its just crazy with an amazing screen. i use this to fly my DJI phantom 3.

 

[luv2liv]

My second worse tablet was the Asus Memo Pad HD 7. Tho it claimed to be HD not one streaming app, including Google movies, support the 720p. It was a slow crappy tablet that I couldn't even give away. 3 people I tried to unleash this upon promptly gave it back.

can i have it? i will gladly pay shipping!

 

[jdoggg12]

Best phone - Tie between my G2 and current G5. The G2 was amazing for its time and aged fairly well. By the end of 2015 it was starting to bog down a bit but was still pretty great. Around January the bottom of the screen started having touch input problems and I started shopping for a new phone. I was torn between the G5 and S7. At the end of the day, I just don't like Samsung's phones anymore. The G5 is fantastic and has one of the best (phone) cameras I've ever used. Battery life is good and it's very snappy/fast in day to day use. I love the rear power button and wish it still had the volume buttons back there too.

Worst Phone - Galaxy Nexus. I upgraded from my Droid Incredible hoping it would be... incredible. It was about 2 months before I decided I hated it. It was slow, had crappy battery life, and the camera was barely mediocre. It was a lesson learned that just because it says "galaxy" or "nexus" doesn't mean it's a good, frequently updated device. F- you verizon for that quagmire.

Best/Worst Tablet - If it weren't for the touch issues, my Nexus 7 2013. It was a great little performer in a fantastic body at a very, very good price. But since it had touch issues almost from day 1, I couldn't ever grow to love it. Some days it worked flawlessly... others, I want to crush it with a hammer.

I dropped it and killed the screen this last Thanksgiving. I almost got another one when a few people on here suggested the Nvidia Shield K1. $200 for a much better tablet from Nvidia?! Sweet! It really is a good tablet for $200.... however... it suffers from a known issue with Wifi connectivity. It's rage inducing sometimes. It'll have issues connecting to wifi or staying connected, randomly dropping for no reason whatsoever. Sometimes it connects but certain apps wont be able to access their servers. For example, Netflix won't be able to load a video (or even its menu) due to "connectivity issues" but Speedtest.net says I'm getting 12ms ping and 50mbit download. HBO will work. Sometimes it's the opposite, netflix wont but HBO will. (at the same time, several times, I tried both on the same wifi with my phone or laptop without issues)

Anywho... I'm starting to think a high/decent quality tablet for a low/decent price gets to that price by skipping QC control altogether...

 

[s44]

Let's be honest: your first smartphone was probably the best *and* the worst. Yeah, everything about it sucks now, but the jump from no smartphone to having one isn't going to be replicated any time soon.

But I'm still in the honeymoon phase with my S7E, even after I cracked a corner of the screen in the car. The auto mode photos I got while traveling are absolutely astounding.