Transitioning Between Smartphones a Layman’s Guide
There are a lot of smartphones out there. They all have fancy commercials and features that you may or may not even understand. What are the REAL differences, though? As a layman, alot of things don’t matter to me. Eye tracking, heart rate sensors, processor speed, amount of ram, are many things that seem like they would matter a lot when choosing a new smartphone. However, I’ve found that its the dumb small stuff that will irk you the most, when moving from one phone to another. First let’s break down what is out there.
Iphone, Android, Windows Phone and Blackberry are pretty much all you’re dealing with when it comes to smartphones. I’m going to go ahead and knock Blackberry and Windows Phone out of the race. If you use and love these platforms, use them, outsiders should just stay away. That leaves us with the equally viable choices of iPhone and Android, the later of which encompasses a myriad of devices. We’ll talk about that myriad in a minute though.
Iphones are all the rage on the playground and with good reason. They started this whole smartphone power grab and they have been at the forefront of making meaningful changes to their devices annually. With that said, for anyone that has used an iPhone or an iPad or an iPod Touch the Apple experience is a known quantity. Outside of a few big well explained changes, anyone that used an iPhone 3G would have no trouble diving into an iPhone 6. The biggest questions you have to ask are how much storage space and do you want that giant 6 Plus screen. Transitioning between iPhones shouldn’t be too difficult.
On the Android front things are quite different. Many companies make Androids, and Samsung, LG, Motorola, and HTC are the heavy hitters. With each of those companies having their own proprietary software skin over the Android OS, and hardware specifications that change every few months, the Android market is flooded with flagship phones and variants of those phones all at different carriers and price points. Needless to say, it can be hard to decide what you want.
I have long been a Samsung guy, I had a Galaxy S1 and an S3. I currently have a 10.1” Galaxy Tab and my children each have an older 7″ Tab, so I know my way around the Samsung Android OS Touchwiz. I decided to change providers for my cell service and thought why not mix things up a bit. My Galaxy S’s had become battery draining glitch machines during the last 6 months of my contract year, so, I didn’t see a reason not to try something else. I picked up the sleek LG G3.
The LG G3 is not a new phone, its not even the newest model…but its new to me. One would think that going from one Android to another would be simple enough, but as previously stated the jump was much more annoying that I had anticipated. Touchwiz, while bulky, has alot of handy features that don’t come in the LG Android build. There are built-in Samsung apps that I relied on before and certain nuances of the OS were immediately missed. That brings me to my point.
Get your hands on the model you are looking to buy BEFORE you buy it. Spend more than 5 minutes in the store with it. If you have a friend or family member with the phone ask to borrow it for the night. The dumbest differences will make you second guess leaving your current Android manufacturer.
Like the built-in torch/flashlight app/widget on Samsung devices. Its perfect, LG devices don’t have it and nothing on Google Play comes close to being as good. The same goes for the Alarm/Clock app/widget. It took me about an hour sifting through 3rd party apps to find acceptable versions of two of the things I use most frequently on my phone. There’s a host of tiny convenient call features I don’t have anymore and contact management is quite a bit more of a hassle with the LG device. Then there’s the form factor.
Things like the power and volume buttons are a much bigger deal than I ever anticipated. The LG G3 has all buttons on the back of the handset next to the camera and flash cluster. Aesthetically this lends it to being sleek, slim and fancy looking, but the practicality of it is non-existent.
As someone that uses his phone on a flat surface a lot, to unlock it I would have to pick the phone up to press the power button to and then swipe the screen. This adds a huge annoying to step to what use to be an easy process. Since the launch of the G2 LG has added a knock feature that allows you to tap on the screen twice to wake the phone up, making the button location a moot point. However, the lack of a physical home button is nearly as annoying.
Adding the knock feature feels like LG admitting that they got the button placement wrong, but either way learning the nuances of a foreign phone can be annoying. The curved back of the G3 also makes is hard to use on flat surfaces. A simple swipe causes the entire phone to rock back and forth. Sure all of these things are not big deals, but none of them would have been issues had I just stayed with the Samsung brand.
So I pass my knowledge and experience to you. Do your research, am I happy with my LG? Sure. Is it a bad phone? Not at all. Would I probably second guess getting another? Yes. It really depends on how janky it gets in the second year of the payoff agreement. Notice none of my problems with the phone stem from specs or screen quality, its all dumb convenience features and with those being the things everyone deals with most frequently, they easily rise to the top of the annoyance list.
Think again before getting that giant screened Samsung Mega because it may get half the battery your Moto X got. Do you really think you will use the fractionally better processing power of that phone you are drooling over has? Are you willing to change your routine because a feature is different on this new grass is greener phone?
Don’t be afraid to return a handset. At the time of purchase AT&T gave me a return window. I didn’t use it, but for something that’s most likely going to be on your hip for at least two years make sure you’re happy with your transition. That $30 restocking fee won’t seem like that much if you end up happy. Disagree? Drop me line in the comments.
