General Android phones worth 400+ euro, NO Android updates

There, fixed it for you: cost does not equal worth. Also, it's not all Android phones but "only" the Samsung Galaxy. That you post this in the "Phones:Galaxy" subforum convinces me that that is what you meant.

To our guests from Digg:
It's a shame really, because looking at the specs and the device, it seems like it would be rather nice. Certainly, the Android OS itself is quite promising, but it quickly becomes evident that, on the Galaxy, the software is plainly beta-quality. For months I believed my phone was defective, even had it sent in for repair (to no avail), but it turned out that many of my most grievous problems could apparently be fixed by one of the latest firmware versions (which I had to find out for myself).

It is important to note that in practice, it's up to the "hacker" community to extricate roms (from phones sold later on, I guess) and make them available to this community. Frankly, I have no idea where my current firmware came from, or for that matter the "Odin" software used to install it, but I am forced to rely on them because there is simply no news coming from Samsung and their official software bundle (which comes packaged with the phone) does not even work with the phone! What we are seeing now is that "everybody else" is receiving updates to the base OS, but it looks like the Galaxy will be stuck on v1.5 forever. This is no fun thing for such a promising and costly device.

The problem here is that Samsung is offering as good as zero after-sales support, and many of us have become so frustrated that we have declared to never again buy a product from Samsung.

 

let's all hug and cry?
the posts in this forum are all starting to sound like they're all written by 8-year kids who didn't get some candy they wanted.

1. u don't know for sure there's no eclair; in a separate posts there is an ad for it.
2. the phone works fine/great after you flash k4. there's not much to complain about.

 

no hes saying they are not worth 400+ euro, they just cost 400+ euro
no android phone is worth 400+. that money can buy 2 playstation 3's or a dell laptop for the wife to do her internet shopping

thats a false statement and should be removed from the argument

Hero has been projected to use 2.1 when it is available next year while Samsung Galaxy has not confimed a release

theres a difference between announcing and being already on a platform

 

theres a difference between flashing an unofficial hacked rom and htc already having it out

as for the price, we are merely pointing out the difference between worth and cost as there is a difference

it costs 400+ but its not worth 400+

im not complaining either, im explaining to put a valid argument together you need some real facts.

Read these forums, most of us are already aware and made large arguments and complaints with some background factual checks and valid concerns

dont tell me i should stop complaining because i feel your post is inaccurate.
Im entitled to my opinion.

 

np

 

heh ,no worries. early morning grumpiness on my part

 

I think it is worth 400 euro.

I've probably been worrying about the 2.0 thing more than anyone here (mainly due to what it would do to the re-sale value down the line!), but I still love it as it's setup now - it's fast, looks great, runs everything, and is still the best hardware specc'd phone in android.

Agreed, Samsung's support isn't worth a damn, but the phone sure as hell is, and the support from this forum is certainly worth the money.

 

That is the truth right there. Without the support available here, a lot of Galaxy users would be thoroughly marooned. One might say that Samsung owes androidforums.com a stack of cash.

 

Completely true, but they can keep the cash and use it to hire the resources needed to update to 2.1 earlier than June I want to try NBA League Pass, Google Maps with layers/Navi and Goggles

 

My Galaxy is not fast at all compared to other Android phones I've played with. It's probably a bit faster than the G1, but slower than the HTC Magic, HTC Hero, Samsung Moment and Motorola Droid

everything except the apps that run only on O.S. 1.6 and higher
Not to mention that without rooting it and copying libhgl.so you have no 3D graphics!!! even if you do this the 3D performance is not as good as it is on other android phones.

It's not. HTC Hero, Motorola Droid, Samsung Moment, Acer Liquid A1 all have better hardware specs. The Galaxy has a great screen, but it only has 192 RAM and this has a big impact on the phone's performance. Ok, it has 8GB internal memory but I would rather have more RAM and only 1G or even 512MB ROM, sdcards are not that expensive...

 

my galaxo runs considerably faster than my mates cyanogen hero
apart from ram the galaxy in every sense has a better spec than the hero
its lacking support and lacking 90meg of ram.
getting swap running properly works a treat though

 

Mine is! It's absolutely humming. I even got an "ooh!, Fast!" from one of the girls when she pulled up the menu.

Ye, I wasnt including the 1.6 stuff. That is pretty annoying, but if you're counting unrooted phones then the majority of hero's can't either! Im still optimistic that will come our way though. RE the 3d, i think the 3d is just as good, if not better. I don't get any choppiness on any of polarbit's games, and when running that neocore i get about 25fps in the benchmarking test (i think, i uninstalled it and cant remember the exact figure, but it wasnt bad).[/quote]

I'll be honest, i was only thinking equipment (bluetooth 2, compass etc), memory, and camera. The Ram hasnt been an issue for me at all.


I accept everything you say is true about a Galaxy straight out of the box. I just think people are being a bit overly critical of the phone itself, but with this forum's support (and drakaz) you can overcome Samsung's severe shortcomings in their own support.

I'm not trying to give Samsung a get out jail free card, because they're stupid, but I think you'll find flaws with any phone you use. I'd never use a hero just cuz the camera is absolute muck.

 

I'll just sign under the OP (original post). Samsung support and attitude is terrible. Never buying a Samsung phone again. Ever.

 

Samsung's support is very disappointing. I will not yet wow never to buy a
Samsung phone again, but I can't say I'm happy at all.

 

Mrbrdo,
I thought Samsung's crappy support was only for the Brazilians (and latin america), cause we are not rich as Europe!
After 6 mail from Samsung, do you know the summary?
They just say that I should know all the specs from Galaxy before buying... That's the fantastic support we have here!

In here (Brazil) things are just worst than in Europe, cause we still have the first (old) firmware and they don't plan to update... Is it possible to buy anything else from a company like this one?

I also pointed them that I'm a user of the Android foreign forum, and explained that I knew we were in the old firmware... The answer: We can not trust in forums, cause anyone can write whatever they want!"

I just quit Samsung's products forever!

 

I thought I'd add in on this to Samsung, seeing as mustymod has had some success bringing 2.0 to Android...

 

Great job with the letter, Steve. Hope it will eventually worth the effort. I've sent something similar to them in December 2009, pointing out brilliant custom ROMs from Drakaz, the online petition, this forum, etc. Only got a standard reply about Samsung "not yet supporting this upgrade path" or whatever the original quote is.

 

People, have you seen what Samsung Mobile did? They've spent money on bloody web-site redesign! There's even Galaxy in the bottom of the front page, which links to Galaxy product page.

http://www.samsungmobile.co.uk/

Nothing interesting there though. They haven't even listed any Galaxy-compatible accessories.

Update

Oh, and there's a lie as well.

Although Nexus One is 11.5mm

 

Didn't seem to bother to pay for proofreaders though eh? In my complaint letter I did point out the fact that they seemed to hide the Galaxy, maybe this means a change of direction?