Anyone else have second thoughts on getting a S4 now that HTC One is getting rave reviews?

[sorka]

Non removable battery and no sd card are automatic deal killers for me. With as good as the HTC One probably is, they are really cutting out a large part of their potential market by cutting these out.

 

[chris2k5]

I played with the HTC One at the AT&T store and it made my iPhone 5 and Note 2 feel like poorly built toys. This is coming from an Apple user who always believed the iPhone line had the best build quality and materials.

 

[chris2k5]

Non removable battery and no sd card are automatic deal killers for me. With as good as the HTC One probably is, they are really cutting out a large part of their potential market by cutting these out.

Not really. The market for removeable battery and SD slot account for very little of the target audience.

Both removable battery and SD slot are easily fixed:

1. Instead of carrying that spare battery around, carry an external battery that is around the same size.

2. HTC gives you 32GB out of the box instead of 16GB already. More than enough.

 

[Rxpert83]

Not to mention USB otg :thumbup:

 

[Slug]

The S4/Samsung in general bring features that others don't in a flagship phone.

Will the S4 have the stereo speakers and low-light camera capability of the HTC One? Or the water/dust-resistance of the Xperia Z? For that matter, will either of those have the innovative software that Samsung promises?

I played with the HTC One at the AT&T store and it made my iPhone 5 and Note 2 feel like poorly built toys.

That surprises me after handling all three today. I'm especially interested in the comparison to the iP5, a device which even most die-hard Android fans grudgingly admit has a genuine quality feel to it.

HTC gives you 32GB out of the box instead of 16GB already. More than enough.

Enough? For you and me, quite possibly. For every potential owner? Nope. If that were the case then there would be no 64GB-capacity devices already on the market.

 

[crabman]

Not really. The market for removeable battery and SD slot account for very little of the target audience.

Both removable battery and SD slot are easily fixed:

1. Instead of carrying that spare battery around, carry an external battery that is around the same size.

2. HTC gives you 32GB out of the box instead of 16GB already. More than enough.

Nah, not even close to a fix. Removable batteries means you can get a new one when the original declines in its ability to hold a charge and lots of people don't like carrying a spare battery anyways. Also 32 gigs may be enough for you but I already have more than that just on my 64 gig card without even accounting for whats actually on the internal storage of my phone and I'm not alone. Like many people my phone is now also my personal music player and I use it to cart files as well. Both usages are not going to get less for most people but increase as phones become more and more the primary device with which we interact with the digital world. In other words you are speaking for yourself when you say 32 is enough and among the real world people I know a sealed battery means no sale because most people have been through an ipod or other device that was perfectly fine except for that pesky little dead battery issue and they dont really feel like going there again.

 

[Rxpert83]

You can replace the battery in many of these "non-removable" phones pretty easily. The evo LTE was just a few screws and you were there.


The battery degradation argument doesn't hold much water for me

 

[trparky]

You can replace the battery in many of these "non-removable" phones pretty easily. The evo LTE was just a few screws and you were there.

The battery degradation argument doesn't hold much water for me

Sure, go ahead... if you want to void possible warranties.

 

[EarlyMon]

The LTEvo was unique that way. I think that battery trick will prove impossible on the One, and definitely a warranty killer.

 

[richarddenton]

The battery argument is nonsense. Lipo batteries begin to decline after 1000ish charges. Thats 3 years of charging every night!

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Not really. The market for removeable battery and SD slot account for very little of the target audience.

Agree with you %100 here.

Both removable battery and SD slot are easily fixed:

1. Instead of carrying that spare battery around, carry an external battery that is around the same size.

2. HTC gives you 32GB out of the box instead of 16GB already. More than enough.

Here I have to disagree;

1. A charger has to be plugged in before your battery runs out and then could take up to 2 hours to get you back to a full charge. Popping in a fully charged spare battery gets you back up and running in under a minute.

2. Famous last words... Bill Gates once said something similar about computer memory and boy was he wrong. It's true that the average cellphone purchaser probably wouldn't begin to use up all of 32GB of storage but a lot of users here at AF and at others forums use that much just for movies nevermind music. The more storage the better for folks like that.

 

[crabman]

The battery argument is nonsense. Lipo batteries begin to decline after 1000ish charges. Thats 3 years of charging every night!

You read it on the internet right? lol Sorry, my batteries have a measurable decline in the typical year I own a phone and I'm pretty sure they don't make special crap batteries just for me. In fact my sgs2 which went to my daughter got to where it wouldn't hold a charge for half a day back at last thanksgiving which is half of your 3 year interval. Thankfully for her she could go buy one and install it herself. She needed no special skills and incurred no other costs than the battery itself.

At any rate if there is something I don't know and I can somehow land one of these endless batteries that never goes bad I and about everyone I know would love to get our hands on one because ours aren't protected by battery fairies and are declining noticeably in a year and usually worthless by two.

 

[chris2k5]

My external battery charges my Note 2 from 20% to 80% in about 20 minutes. People are under the impression that it takes hours to charge when in reality these external batteries are fast chargers.

And I find it funny Android fanboys brag about having Google Play Music for their cloud music storage when comparing their phones to the iPhone but now all of a sudden they don't mention it and they keep ALL of their music on their phones.

 

[crabman]

Cloud storage is a joke with data caps and I don't know a single person that uses it in regards to their cell phone. Nor have ever heard anyone saying Google play music which I have never once used was an advantage over the iphone. Where do you people come up with this stuff? And what part of this comparison between two different android phones does the iphone play anyways?

Your post was wrong, get over it. A lot of people want more storage. They don't live in the land of battery faeries and endless data which can be had for free.

 

[ScandaLeX]

Hmmm.....I'm not sure which "fan" category I fall into although it's a shame people still resort to calling others fanboy/girl. Don't you know many of us actually use both platforms?

I don't want the HTC One simply because it's HTC's new hotness.
I prefer removable battery and sd cards.
I don't want my media in the cloud.
I'm not going to bash The One; it's just not The One for me.

 

[richarddenton]

You read it on the internet right? lol Sorry, my batteries have a measurable decline in the typical year I own a phone and I'm pretty sure they don't make special crap batteries just for me. In fact my sgs2 which went to my daughter got to where it wouldn't hold a charge for half a day back at last thanksgiving which is half of your 3 year interval. Thankfully for her she could go buy one and install it herself. She needed no special skills and incurred no other costs than the battery itself.

At any rate if there is something I don't know and I can somehow land one of these endless batteries that never goes bad I and about everyone I know would love to get our hands on one because ours aren't protected by battery fairies and are declining noticeably in a year and usually worthless by two.

Do you actually charge them in line with the instructions though? They shouldn't be left to trickle charge, which charging overnight does. And no, I didn't get that off the internet, I got it from my dual major of electrical engineering and chemistry!

 

[EarlyMon]

Do you actually charge them in line with the instructions though? They shouldn't be left to trickle charge, which charging overnight does. And no, I didn't get that off the internet, I got it from my dual major of electrical engineering and chemistry!

Look up the charging circuits.

They don't trickle charge or you'd get a fire.

The phone always runs off of the battery. When left plugged in, no charge occurs until a set point is hit, usually around 95% or so. At that point, charging turns on until the battery is at capacity, and the charging is turned off. The process repeats, over and over.

Due to safety regulations, trickle charging has not been seen on portable devices for a number of years.

 

[richarddenton]

The phone is set to charge when it is below 4.2v per cell, the fully charged capacity of a single Lipo cell. If you leave it plugged in at night once the battery drops below 3.7v per cell the charging resumes. The constant up and down charging cycle is really not good for a Lipo battery.

 

[EarlyMon]

Then we first agree that that is not trickle charging, yes?

 

[davoid]

Samsung has won my loyalty. My experience with their products are far better than any HTC products. Just my personal experience. With both phones being so similar, that customer loyalty makes the S4 the winner by a long shot in my book.

I can remember exactly the moment when I relieved myself of the notion of brand loyalty.

I used to love AMD Athlon processors because AMD was the underdog who provided a more powerful CPU at a lower price than Intel's Pentium. I just wanted AMD to beat Intel.

But then Intel produced the Core 2 Duo. I was blown away by the performance and power efficiency of the technology. Since that moment, I have only followed the technology, regardless of the manufacturer.

So, although I loved my HTC Desire, I had no qualms in swapping to a Samsung GS3 because, of the available devices, it suited my requirements the best.

Likewise, if another manufacturer produces a phone I like better than the current Samsung, I will swap.

Manufacturers don't deserve loyalty. HTC lost my custom when they removed the SD card slot. When they return that feature, they stand a chance of winning it back.

 

[markyboy81]

The phone is set to charge when it is below 4.2v per cell, the fully charged capacity of a single Lipo cell. If you leave it plugged in at night once the battery drops below 3.7v per cell the charging resumes. The constant up and down charging cycle is really not good for a Lipo battery.

I'm sure this is true, but for me it's not practical to unplug my phone when the charging is complete, as this would require getting up in the middle of night.
Therefore this is yet another advantage of the removable battery as I don't need to worry about such things and can just replace the battery if it gets damaged this way (which I don't think will happen)

 

[Hadron]

If it's in deep sleep with the screen off it's not going to drop enough to trigger repeated charge cycles during the night (I do turn data off overnight).

 

[crabman]

Do you actually charge them in line with the instructions though? They shouldn't be left to trickle charge, which charging overnight does. And no, I didn't get that off the internet, I got it from my dual major of electrical engineering and chemistry!

lol Well whoever is teaching those courses should try and learn something that doesn't ignore the factual truth known by pretty much everyone who owns a smartphone. Batteries don't last 3 years unless you consider being able to make a phone go from full charge to dead in a few hours without using it working.

As to your post, no, like most people I know I in no way do all the things you should do to try and extend the life of a battery.

 

[Slug]

Batteries don't last 3 years

My HTC Hero and HTC Desire Z say hello. Both still using their original batteries.

 

[DragonSlayer95]

My HTC Hero and HTC Desire Z say hello. Both still using their original batteries.

+1

My captivate (og galaxy s) still chugs along when I power it on from time to time (Original battery)