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A Rant About The General Inadequecies of an Android Phone

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Ok so this wont make me flavour of the month with those members on here that think the sun shines out of Androids USB port - or with anyone or anything that developed a partly working PHONE for mass market distribution, but those who cannot take criticism should not be in any form of business anyway.

Primarily, the whole of the platform is a phone. In Android's case, this is defined as a lump of plastic that may or may not make or receive calls or text messages depending on how it feels. The general solution in here is to 'download an app', which is all well and good, but akin to buying a car and being told to go and get some tyres before you can drive it. If an app needs to be downloaded to make the phone work, to apply message tones, or if you need to delve into a (downloaded app) file manager to install another downloaded fix in order that you can then download the latest version of an unready app, then there is obviously something seriously wrong with anyone that thinks that this is acceptable - whether it be a manufacturer or a customer.

And so onto web browsing - another Android issue.
Its well documented in all the usual Android blurb that my phone (HTC Hero) has a fully working web browser complete with flash which will make browsing websites a 'near pc-like' experience. I have yet to see it come anywhere near even a bog-standard Samsung that streams from a website - the HTC will stream if it feels like it provided that this is before the browser crashes and also if the full page downloads to the browser anyway.

As I see it, Android are good at one thing - Lying about their products.

Virtually nothing works out of the box, which is a basic requirement even for a ten quid Asda phone.

Hey, I'm not complaining about the phone as its a good phone, except for all of the above, the shockingly rubbish battery life, and no doubt a few more things that will surface. In fact its quite absorbing wondering what will go wrong with the phone today and trying to find an app to fix it.

I will say one thing though - the HTC is the least used phone (by me) that I have ever owned as I'm fed up of it going wrong, crashing, rebooting itself, the battery running out et al and my best app is my old Nokia that ensures I never miss a call now that I swapped the simcard over.

There, rant over (for now)
 
Sorry to hear your problems, but maybe you got a bad phone. My Sprint HTC Hero works great. The browser works great and has never crashed, it's nearly replaced my desktop for web surfing. I'll agree on the file manager though, but that is the only "needed" app that my phone was missing when I pulled it out of the box. And I only needed it for keeping my photo albums organized.

When I opened my Hero, I swapped out the SD card for the one from my old phone (Nokia flip POS) and easily set my contact ringtones just as they've been. And without any outside apps , other than the file manager (which is only because I'm OCD about organizing my photos), this phone would've worked great as just a phone, text messenging device, and web browser. It's never missed or dropped a call, never missed a text or failed to send one, and I've surfed for hours upon hours on the internet with no problems.

If I could use it as just a phone, it's battery will easily last a full day. It would probly last 2 days but I can never leave it alone to find out. That seems really impressive to me considering all the things it capable of.

The only real problems I've had with this phone is my wife and friends calling me a dork because I play with it so much.
 
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If I could use it as just a phone, it's battery will easily last a full day. .

Precisely.

Even a Nokia with all its faults and abysmal battery life lasts a full five days used as a phone.

An old Orange winmob I used to have lasted two weeks before the battery indicator dropped by one bar.

My old SE p910i does four days including web browsing.

So one full day by anyones terms is pathetic.
 
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Firstly sorry to see you're having so many problems, but I'd take your views a lot more seriously if you didn't exaggerate everything...

Primarily, the whole of the platform is a phone. In Android's case, this is defined as a lump of plastic that may or may not make or receive calls or text messages depending on how it feels.

Incorrect, I have had no problems, any issues with not receiving text messages are probably to do with a 3rd party app installed on the phone.

The general solution in here is to 'download an app', which is all well and good, but akin to buying a car and being told to go and get some tyres before you can drive it. If an app needs to be downloaded to make the phone work, to apply message tones, or if you need to delve into a (downloaded app) file manager to install another downloaded fix in order that you can then download the latest version of an unready app

Um, completely different, that example makes no sense here. I agree that a new car should probably come with tires, but I can make and receive calls and sms on my phone out of the box, I can apply message tones out of the box (I can also create new tones from my mp3s out of the box!). Forgive me for saying so, but having to download a file manager app for a phone does not equal having to buy tires for a car.

And so onto web browsing - another Android issue.
Its well documented in all the usual Android blurb that my phone (HTC Hero) has a fully working web browser complete with flash which will make browsing websites a 'near pc-like' experience. I have yet to see it come anywhere near even a bog-standard Samsung that streams from a website - the HTC will stream if it feels like it provided that this is before the browser crashes and also if the full page downloads to the browser anyway.

No browser crashes, no streaming issues. Everything is pretty consistent on the browsing front for the majority of android users. Your problems make me think this is specifically a problem with your handset, and possibly something you have done to make it unstable.

As I see it, Android are good at one thing - Lying about their products.

Have you been in contact with android? Maybe you mean HTC? In any case I follow HTC and their products quite closely and have seen no lies, especially regarding the Hero.

Virtually nothing works out of the box, which is a basic requirement even for a ten quid Asda phone.

Again, not even exaggeration, lies? Everything works out of the box.

Hey, I'm not complaining about the phone as its a good phone, except for all of the above, the shockingly rubbish battery life, and no doubt a few more things that will surface. In fact its quite absorbing wondering what will go wrong with the phone today and trying to find an app to fix it.

Smartphones have poor battery life, don't use a smartphone if you want it to last days with heavy usage. You get so many problems each day, and install lots of apps whilst probably not knowing how to use them correctly, resulting in your extremely unstable and unreliable handset.

I will say one thing though - the HTC is the least used phone (by me) that I have ever owned as I'm fed up of it going wrong, crashing, rebooting itself, the battery running out et al and my best app is my old Nokia that ensures I never miss a call now that I swapped the simcard over.

There, rant over (for now)

Reading everything, I''m almost certain that your phone is acting strangely BECAUSE of 3rd part apps that you have installed, especially that task killer hmm.. And this is probably the reason you didn't get a chance to screw up your old Nokia.

Thats my rant over!

Anyway I'd like to help because I'm sure we can get to the bottom of all your problems and restore your phone back into amazing and awesome working order.

Please make a new thread in the HTC Hero section, outlining every problem you have, and give us as much detail as to what you may have done to make it unstable, including the use of any task killer and similar app that manages core phone functions. It would be such a waste to stop using the phone when your problems can almost probably be solved!

(Sorry again for being harsh, I don't mean to be and I really think we can help :) )
 
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Nope, not at all. Theyre all the same.

I'm on my third replacement and everyone concerned has given up trying to make a phone out of a lump of plastic


Refer to the post above yours. If you're having the same problems with 3 different phones, its probly something you're doing wrong. I will admit, these phones are not the most user friendly phone you can get. Mine has worked flawlessly from day one though.
 
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Refer to the post above yours. If you're having the same problems with 3 different phones, its probly something you're doing wrong. I will admit, these phones are not the most user friendly phone you can get. Mine has worked flawlessly from day one though.

After the first one 'went wrong' I purposely left the next one in its 'out of the box' state. After one day and no customisation, the same complaints were there - (complaints which originally were admitted as serious faults by a visiting clique of HTC officials to the TMobile offices). User friendly doesnt bother me as I'm used to complex set-ups, but basic phone useability (or the lack thereof) certainly IS a concern
 
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Sorry to hear your problems, but maybe you got a bad phone.

Nope, not at all. Theyre all the same.

I'm on my third replacement and everyone concerned has given up trying to make a phone out of a lump of plastic

Then you are doing something wrong.

Complain all you want about the usability (or lack thereof) of Android. Complain all you want about its shortcomings. It has plenty. And maybe Android phones aren't even the best for calls and SMS. But they do have that functionality out of the box.

You are arguing that they don't, which cannot be true because millions of people have made successful phone calls and sent/received SMSs on Android phones, both stock and with third-party apps.

Here's the possible scenarios here:

1. What you are saying is exactly true: Android phones do not have the ability to make calls or send text messages. Everyone who has ever done these things on an Android device must be imagining things.
2. You got very unlucky and have had multiple replacement phones with the same problem.
3. You are using the phone wrong.
4. You are exaggerating your complaints and don't literally mean that you're incapable of making phone calls.

What other possibilities are there? I don't think there are any. So which one is true?

EDIT: Actually I just thought of one. Maybe it's poor network coverage? T-Mobile does have the worst network of the big 4 in the USA.
 
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After the first one 'went wrong' I purposely left the next one in its 'out of the box' state. After one day and no customisation, the same complaints were there - (complaints which originally were admitted as serious faults by a visiting clique of HTC officials to the TMobile offices). User friendly doesnt bother me as I'm used to complex set-ups, but basic phone useability (or the lack thereof) certainly IS a concern

Sorry again to hear of your problems but I don't think most Hero users are experiencing the same problems as you. I know that I'm not. Out of the box I could make calls without a problem. The stock messenging app worked just fine, I switched to Handcent after a few weeks of reading rave reviews about it's customization here. I still use the stock browser and havn't tried any others because it works so well. It really sounds like your problems are isolated. My Hero remains unrooted because I feel like it performs just fine without it. Take lekky's advice and go to the Hero forums, there are much more knowledgeable people there than me.
 
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The general solution in here is to 'download an app', which is all well and good, but akin to buying a car and being told to go and get some tyres before you can drive it.

It's interesting that you make that comparison because when I bought my last motorbike it came with crap tires and it wasn't until I installed another make and model of tire that the bike really came into it's own. It's a great bike and I wouldn't of wanted to get a different one just because it came with crap tires.
 
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It's interesting that you make that comparison because when I bought my last motorbike it came with crap tires and it wasn't until I installed another make and model of tire that the bike really came into it's own. It's a great bike and I wouldn't of wanted to get a different one just because it came with crap tires.

Nice analogy since she referenced tires in an earlier post. Most products come from the factory with parts that need improvement to reach max potential.
 
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hes just trolling...
any android phone does functions of a regular phone out of the box (like calls or text, etc.) no need of an extra app, and any android phone does basic smart phone functions out of the box as well (like IM, email, calendar, internet, etc.)...
and if you dont get calls or messages, either youve got a defective phone or its your carriers poor signal..
oh btw, you dont need a file manager in order to get an update, and not all updates are fixes, some are just upgrades to new features!!
 
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Oh look, another troll. Man, they sure come thick and fast, and they all even sound the same--whiny, unoriginal, and immature. Boring.

Ok so this wont make me flavour of the month with those members on here that think the sun shines out of Androids USB port -

Nice start: instead of asking politely for help, you come in with insults blazing. Didn't anyone teach you manners?

In Android's case, this is defined as a lump of plastic that may or may not make or receive calls or text messages depending on how it feels.

No idea what you're talking about. My Android phone does all of those without problems. You heard of this thing called "user error"? Maybe it'd be best if you go back to a Nokia dumbphone.

As I see it, Android are good at one thing - Lying about their products.

Are you under some kind of bizarre impression that "Android" is an entity or a company?

Virtually nothing works out of the box, which is a basic requirement even for a ten quid Asda phone.

Just because you don't know how to use a phone and all that. Very like an illiterate person saying a book is terrible when she can't even read.
 
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The general solution in here is to 'download an app', which is all well and good, but akin to buying a car and being told to go and get some tyres before you can drive it. If an app needs to be downloaded to make the phone work, to apply message tones, or if you need to delve into a (downloaded app) file manager to install another downloaded fix in order that you can then download the latest version of an unready app, then there is obviously something seriously wrong with anyone that thinks that this is acceptable - whether it be a manufacturer or a customer.
What apps have you had to download to make your phone work? I don't know if you don't understand how analogies work or if you're just prone to hyperbole but my experience with Android has been nothing like buying a car without tires. I've certainly downloaded apps to extend the functionality of my Droid and to customize it but I have yet to download something to make its core functionality work.

Do you think your something's wrong with your PC because you have to purchase apps for it to work? I don't understand the mindset of people that think that something's wrong with Android because it's extensible. That's truly a major plus in its court IMO. If you don't see it that way you might want to try another platform. Not every smartphone will appeal to everyone out there and you need to find what suits you best.

And so onto web browsing - another Android issue.
Its well documented in all the usual Android blurb that my phone (HTC Hero) has a fully working web browser complete with flash which will make browsing websites a 'near pc-like' experience.
Link? Which blurb? I'm not aware of OHA making any claims as to the features of specific Android devices. You're confusing Android with OHA with HTC with possibly your carrier as well. You're also confusing anecdotal experience with broad fact. It makes it very difficult to carry a meaningful discussion.

You do understand that while your HTC device is an Android device and that you've had bad experiences with it that it's not necessarily the case that everyone is having problems with the same HTC device or even Android devices in general, right? Your problems with your devices do not mean that others that aren't having problems "think the sun shines out of Androids USB port". :rolleyes:

Hey, I'm not complaining about the phone as its a good phone, except for all of the above, the shockingly rubbish battery life, and no doubt a few more things that will surface. In fact its quite absorbing wondering what will go wrong with the phone today and trying to find an app to fix it.
All modern smartphones eat batteries. You need to be willing to monitor your usage and apps to ensure that you're maximizing battery life. Power and flexibility don't come without downsides. We all want desktop PC power in a smartphone that costs nothing, runs forever, and never locks up, freezes crashes or lags. No such device exists. Compromises always have to be made.

Typical reply from an HTC up the USB devotee there.
...and that's a typical reply from an irrational, ranting troll. Are you looking to resolve a problem or to troll?
 
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For all of those that assume the sun shines out of Android's arsehole and purposely misread the substance of the thread to try and prove that Android cannot be wrong and that a disgruntled customer must be out of her mind for assuming otherwise, please feel free to comment on the new thread posted at Lekky's advice in another forum.
 
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