I am new to all this. I have used Linux in the past but wouldn't know where to start with Android.
However, when Apple made my iPhone3G crawl along like an arthritic snail after I upgraded it to iOS4, I bought an Android. I have loads of gadgets so another phone was fun to try.
I bought an Orange San Francisco. They are not too expensive and seem pretty good. Within a few days I had rooted and upgraded it to a non-standard ROM - just for the experience. It is my phone, so I can do whatever I want with it. If I break it then bad luck. This was not that successful and it started giving me error messages about running out of space or memory, even though there was plenty of both still available. So more recently, I upgraded it again to Froyo. This has been much more successful and it works fine.
Last Saturday I bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab. I was quite impressed with it. However, I still rooted it and last night I upgraded it to Gingerbread. This seems to have been successful as well.
I don't know how these upgrades work in detail. I find a suitable upgrade and follow the instructions to the letter. Even so, it is a great feeling to have achieved something like this. My phones are now better than they were when I bought them.
With the iPhone there is very little I can do to change it. It is now slow and I have not been able to downgrade it to iOS3 again - not for want of trying.
Android lets me change, upgrade, explore, even break if I get it wrong. That is what it is all about. Your phone which you control.
Hope that helps
