# Too many phones



## Jborch8 (Aug 4, 2011)

I just wanted to post about my frustration with these phone manufacturers... We get a lot of people on here wondering why their phone isn't on the list for GB, ICS, or any other software update for that matter. And it really pi$$e$ me of too that (let's use Samsung for instance) a phone manufacturer will come out with a phone, and then neglect to take care of it. I feel Apple has been right all along with their business plan; QUALITY, not QUANTITY.

Just me ranting here. I really hope that some of these cellphone manufacturers decide to cut back on the amount of phones they put out each year, and focus on creating a handful of great ones. Flooding the market with unnecessary phones is just a waste. 
I love my Charge and hate that so many people rely on citizens to maintain support on developing, customizing, etc.

Sent from my SCH-I510 using RootzWiki


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## ZStab15 (Nov 27, 2011)

When you say quality, you mean when you drop your phone more than 2in it shatters into a million pieces? The only thing apple has done is drop quality for appearance, antennagate is a great example of a drop in quality for appearance. You could actually drop a original iPhone, now you waste your money on companies like Otterbox to make sure you don't break your phone. The only thing that makes people think iPhones are good is the image of a fruit on the back of the device.


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## JihadSquad (Nov 2, 2011)

ZStab15 said:


> When you say quality, you mean when you drop your phone more than 2in it shatters into a million pieces? The only thing apple has done is drop quality for appearance, antennagate is a great example of a drop in quality for appearance. You could actually drop a original iPhone, now you waste your money on companies like Otterbox to make sure you don't break your phone. The only thing that makes people think iPhones are good is the image of a fruit on the back of the device.


I am pretty sure he was talking about software updates and how they put out so few devices they can support all of them. Everybody with a brain knows that Apple prefers form over function, anyway.


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## ZStab15 (Nov 27, 2011)

JihadSquad said:


> I am pretty sure he was talking about software updates and how they put out so few devices they can support all of them. Everybody with a brain knows that Apple prefers form over function, anyway.


I knew that, it's just how he said apple has something right with quality. When people say that apple is so good or their stuff is quality, it makes me mad because it isn't. I also totally agree with what he is saying about to many phones, the droid charge didn't officially get GB until ICS came out.


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## Jborch8 (Aug 4, 2011)

JihadSquad said:


> I knew that, it's just how he said apple has something right with quality. When people say that apple is so good or their stuff is quality, it makes me mad because it isn't. I also totally agree with what he is saying about to many phones, the droid charge didn't officially get GB until ICS came out.


To say their products aren't good is nieve. Apple has created some of the biggest building blocks for phone companies (not just phones) today. Many manufactures try to mimic the functionally of Apple products, but fail, only to make up for it in design and durability. I personally don't think Apple can be beat when it comes down to function, consistently.
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## Falcyn (Aug 9, 2011)

The fact of the matter is, the iPhone *always *leads reliability and consumer satisfaction rankings by a significant margin. You simply cannot say the iPhone is not a quality device, because that is how you measure quality.

Samsung, incidentally, makes by far the least reliable phones. The reason many of us own Charges is because our Fascinates had a (software) call reception bug that was so severe Verizon and Samsung agreed to exchange phones under warranty rather than make people wait for the bug fix.


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## DirgeExtinction (Aug 18, 2011)

Falcyn said:


> The fact of the matter is, the iPhone *always *leads reliability and consumer satisfaction rankings by a significant margin. You simply cannot say the iPhone is not a quality device, because that is how you measure quality.
> 
> Samsung, incidentally, makes by far the least reliable phones. The reason many of us own Charges is because our Fascinates had a (software) call reception bug that was so severe Verizon and Samsung agreed to exchange phones under warranty rather than make people wait for the bug fix.


I never heard of the other variations of the Galaxy S having such issues. Perhaps it was a Verizon thing combined with Samsung. Wasn't the Fascinate quite different from the other three carrier versions?


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## andrewjt19 (Oct 27, 2011)

Jborch8 said:


> I just wanted to post about my frustration with these phone manufacturers... We get a lot of people on here wondering why their phone isn't on the list for GB, ICS, or any other software update for that matter. And it really pi$$e$ me of too that (let's use Samsung for instance) a phone manufacturer will come out with a phone, and then neglect to take care of it. I feel Apple has been right all along with their business plan; QUALITY, not QUANTITY.
> 
> Just me ranting here. I really hope that some of these cellphone manufacturers decide to cut back on the amount of phones they put out each year, and focus on creating a handful of great ones. Flooding the market with unnecessary phones is just a waste.
> I love my Charge and hate that so many people rely on citizens to maintain support on developing, customizing, etc.
> ...


I agree with your frustration, but to answer you and others, how is it fair or possible to compare a single company (apple) and a single phone (iphone) with numerous manufacturers (i.e. Samsung, Motorola, LG, etc) and several phones, (i.e., the Charge, Facinate, Optimus, Nexus, you get the picture)? It's not fair, and if you really want to talk about OS, android has progressed at a rate that far surpasses the development of apple. In just over 4 years or so, it is what it is today compared to the iphone which has been out for years and development is staginate with it. Just saying...


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## BleedsOrangeandBlue (Aug 11, 2011)

andrewjt19 said:


> how is it fair or possible to compare a single company (apple) and a single phone (iphone) with numerous manufacturers (i.e. Samsung, Motorola, LG, etc) and several phones, (i.e., the Charge, Facinate, Optimus, Nexus, you get the picture)? It's not fair,


How is it fair? If Samsung would've not have produced so many different phones, maybe they would be able to keep their array up to date.

Its laughable that you're saying that this comparison is not fair to the manufacturers. They did it to themselves!


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## andrewjt19 (Oct 27, 2011)

BleedsOrangeandBlue said:


> How is it fair? If Samsung would've not have produced so many different phones, maybe they would be able to keep their array up to date.
> 
> Its laughable that you're saying that this comparison is not fair to the manufacturers. They did it to themselves!


That's easy to say if you only take part of my post...
I know Samsung did this as well as many other manufacturers, but name another manufacturer of the Iphone please? That's my point. Android has numerous, iphone has one. And Iphone has been out for almost 3 times longer than any android device. I'm arguing for android not against it. It's far superior, but its weaknesses is the numerous manufacturers of the android devices as opposed to one OS (Iphone) and only one manufacturer (Apple).


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## shrike1978 (Sep 2, 2011)

andrewjt19 said:


> And Iphone has been out for almost 3 times longer than any android device.


That's not true at all. The original iPhone came out June 29, 2007...a bit over 4 and a half years ago. The first Android device, the HTC Dream/T-Mobile G1 came out October 22, 2008...about 3 and a half years ago. That's nowhere close to being out "3 times longer".


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## stueycaster (Aug 24, 2011)

The fact that Android has to fit so many different devices is a major obstacle. I think it sucks that my Charge came with the garbage software that it had. I can't help but think the reason they won't use better software is because when a customer doesn't like how a product works they just buy a newer model.

I have a little over 11 months left with my Charge. I really don't think I'm going to buy another Samsung. The Nexus had too many connection and battery problems. I've been watching the smart phone market and I don't like anything I see. Nothing! Especially the iPhone but that's only because of Apple's being such rigid control freaks. Also the iPhone has too small of a display. The Razr Maxx looks best but the battery isn't removable.

The only problem is I'm hooked on having a smart phone in my pocket. Hopefully there will be an acceptable device when it comes time for my new one.


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## shrike1978 (Sep 2, 2011)

I'd actually consider the RAZR Maxx. Sure it's not a user-replacable battery, but it's over twice the capacity of the stock Charge battery. It might not be on the top of my list, but it'd be in consideration. A good friend of mine just got the LG Spectrum. I hadn't heard anything about it before he got it, but it's a damn sweet phone. 4.5" screen, dual-core 1.5GHz, and 1GB of RAM. The downside on it is that there is next to nothing avaible in the way of accessories on it right now. No desk dock, no car dock...just a few cases and an extended battery.


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## piizzadude (Jan 22, 2012)

DirgeExtinction said:


> I never heard of the other variations of the Galaxy S having such issues. Perhaps it was a Verizon thing combined with Samsung. Wasn't the Fascinate quite different from the other three carrier versions?


Yes the fassy and the captivate were mostly the same thing, and maybe a few others as well, but there was something way off with the fassy and the radios for awhile.

I am one of the people that got to trade my fassy in for the charge... It was a dark time for Samsung... Lol. The funny thing is I bought 2 at the same time. My son's was fine, mine sucked

Charged up post!


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## Jborch8 (Aug 4, 2011)

BleedsOrangeandBlue said:


> How is it fair? If Samsung would've not have produced so many different phones, maybe they would be able to keep their array up to date.
> 
> Its laughable that you're saying that this comparison is not fair to the manufacturers. They did it to themselves!


This is my point exactly... Android came out roughly three years ago, and look how popular it is. But look at how many manufacturers produce Android phones; Samsung, Motorola, LG, HTC, etc. So with these many companies, and the TREMENDOUS amount of Android phones put out from each company, yes, Android is very popular. Now let's look at Apple...

Apple came out with the iPhone about a year before Android. How many companies produce iPhone's? How many phones run iOS? Just the iPhone. In 4 years, Apple has managed to gain nearly the same (more, or less, depending on your side) popularity as Android with ONE device. Granted, the iPhone has been through upgrades every year, but it's still an iPhone. Imagine if phone manufactures each had their own, let's say, superhero phone. If the just focused solely on perfecting a phone, rather than producing 1,000 phones with little too no support.

Obviously not every person has the same needs and wants in a phone, but with that aside, I just wish (and I'll say it again) it was about quality, not quantity.

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## stueycaster (Aug 24, 2011)

Jborch8 said:


> This is my point exactly... Android came out roughly three years ago, and look how popular it is. But look at how many manufacturers produce Android phones; Samsung, Motorola, LG, HTC, etc. So with these many companies, and the TREMENDOUS amount of Android phones put out from each company, yes, Android is very popular. Now let's look at Apple...
> 
> Apple came out with the iPhone about a year before Android. How many companies produce iPhone's? How many phones run iOS? Just the iPhone. In 4 years, Apple has managed to gain nearly the same (more, or less, depending on your side) popularity as Android with ONE device. Granted, the iPhone has been through upgrades every year, but it's still an iPhone. Imagine if phone manufactures each had their own, let's say, superhero phone. If the just focused solely on perfecting a phone, rather than producing 1,000 phones with little too no support.
> 
> ...


I agree. It's just that so many people seem to have the money to buy each new phone that comes along. If they don't like one it's "Oh well. I'll try the next one". I think that's what the manufacturers are counting on and it's working for them. So they rush out each new phone with slight hardware and software improvements knowing the market is going to be there. If they made a really good phone that satisfied their customers they wouldn't be able to sell the next model. Then those of us who need to make one phone last get screwed.

Apple makes sure their phones just work right. For those people who don't care about having no control over where they have to go to get apps and media they are perfect. But it means Apple has to maintain absolute control over everything. They put each new app through the wringer testing it out before it is allowed on their market. People know they are going to get a good product so they flock to them by the millions. Then those of us who want to control our own devices get left out because they keep everything locked up so tight. When they first started selling the iPhone and it could only be used on AT&T it really pissed me off. There was no way I was going to use a crappy server like AT&T. Everybody knows Verizon is best.

If it wasn't for those good hearted free lance developers who work so hard to give us good software we couldn't have anything like we want it. Because I was able to get Tweakstock and the PB&JTime kernel my Charge is running good and I don't feel bad about waiting 11 months for a new phone. But my warranty is void.


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## Deeked (Oct 31, 2011)

I think these phone manufacturers keep pumping out all these new models and varieties to keep up with their competition. I'd prefer, if that were the case, that they slow down production on so many and make a higher quality, more supported device (as far as s/w updates go).

My 2 cents.

One way I try to keep from being outdated on all things I buy is to get what I think is the best or one of the best available at the time and keeping as long as I can support it.


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

My upgrade is in February of 2013, that's a year away. I'm not sure what phone I'm going to buy next, the only hope I have is that I buy the right phone that ends up having a good development community behind it and it's easy to root.

Though the Nexus has those issues, at least you know that the phone will be supported for... practically forever. You know that there will always be an OS upgrade to the latest and greatest OS, patches, kernel development, etc. Connection issues? I'm sure that will be solved in time.

I hope that Google brings out another pure-Google/Android device, it seems that those type of devices always seem to have the best development and the best community support.


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## JihadSquad (Nov 2, 2011)

trparky said:


> My upgrade is in February of 2013, that's a year away. I'm not sure what phone I'm going to buy next, the only hope I have is that I buy the right phone that ends up having a good development community behind it and it's easy to root.
> 
> Though the Nexus has those issues, at least you know that the phone will be supported for... practically forever. You know that there will always be an OS upgrade to the latest and greatest OS, patches, kernel development, etc. Connection issues? I'm sure that will be solved in time.
> 
> I hope that Google brings out another pure-Google/Android device, it seems that those type of devices always seem to have the best development and the best community support.


Yeah thats probably what I'm going to do next too, unless there is another beast like the razr maxx when I upgrade. I just hope that Google does another nexus on cdma after this problem.


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

Why would they do another CDMA phone? I figure that the next Nexus that they'll do would be a pure LTE phone with no legacy network support.

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## JihadSquad (Nov 2, 2011)

trparky said:


> Why would they do another CDMA phone? I figure that the next Nexus that they'll do would be a pure LTE phone with no legacy network support.
> 
> Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk


Good point. If we have voLTE then cdma will be useless except for existing cdma coverage areas where they don't expand lte. This is 2 years in the future though


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## Jborch8 (Aug 4, 2011)

JihadSquad said:


> Good point. If we have voLTE then cdma will be useless except for existing cdma coverage areas where they don't expand lte. This is 2 years in the future though


 many areas simply wouldn't be upgraded with 4g towers. Either low population, or not in high demand for the area.

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## stueycaster (Aug 24, 2011)

Jborch8 said:


> many areas simply wouldn't be upgraded with 4g towers. Either low population, or not in high demand for the area.
> 
> Sent from my SCH-I510 using RootzWiki


There are still too many places where 3g doesn't even work. My brother's place in Texas and my sister's place in Vermont both get terrible signals. Plus I work less than 10 miles outside of the big city that has 4g but inside the room where I work My phone constantly changes between 3g and 1x. Where I live 4g coverage is great but I have wifi there. I drive 3 miles down the road and can't get signal inside Walmart.

Do you think maybe it's because my Charge has bad radios? I'm getting kinda sick of it.


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## JihadSquad (Nov 2, 2011)

stueycaster said:


> There are still too many places where 3g doesn't even work. My brother's place in Texas and my sister's place in Vermont both get terrible signals. Plus I work less than 10 miles outside of the big city that has 4g but inside the room where I work My phone constantly changes between 3g and 1x. Where I live 4g coverage is great but I have wifi there. I drive 3 miles down the road and can't get signal inside Walmart.
> 
> Do you think maybe it's because my Charge has bad radios? I'm getting kinda sick of it.


Yeah I work in the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin and get 1x and sometimes 3g...


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

Verizon is talking about possible spectrum "refarming" (yes, that *is* a word) in the future to fix the coming spectrum crunch. Their plans in the future are to "refarm" the spectrum that's currently used by the legacy CDMA network and "refarm" it to LTE-Advanced. Granted, this is years away but it is going to happen. This means that eventually *the entire Verizon network footprint* will get 4G LTE.

LTE-Advanced, the next generation of LTE is supposed to support higher bandwidth through the use of frequency bonding. The good thing, LTE-Advanced is fully backwards compatible with older plain LTE devices.


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## stueycaster (Aug 24, 2011)

trparky said:


> Verizon is talking about possible spectrum "refarming" (yes, that *is* a word) in the future to fix the coming spectrum crunch. Their plans in the future are to "refarm" the spectrum that's currently used by the legacy CDMA network and "refarm" it to LTE-Advanced. Granted, this is years away but it is going to happen. This means that eventually *the entire Verizon network footprint* will get 4G LTE.
> 
> LTE-Advanced, the next generation of LTE is supposed to support higher bandwidth through the use of frequency bonding. The good thing, LTE-Advanced is fully backwards compatible with older plain LTE devices.


That would be great probably. Is it going to mean that phones will have better battery life on 4g? Obviously they are working on better signal but will it be faster?

I guess my radios are no worse than others. On the whole other people get about the same coverage as I do with other carriers. Except in the city on 4g. Then mine walks all over theirs.

sent from my SCH-I510 running TweakStock and PBJTime using Tapatalk


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## trparky (Sep 3, 2011)

The biggest issues with battery life that we have is because our phones have dual-radios. They are listening on both CDMA and LTE networks, two radios, two times the battery usage (in theory). Obviously once they have their entire network footprint deployed with LTE and they have a viable VoLTE solution, they could completely turn off their legacy CDMA network, but this is years away.


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## JihadSquad (Nov 2, 2011)

trparky said:


> The biggest issues with battery life that we have is because our phones have dual-radios. They are listening on both CDMA and LTE networks, two radios, two times the battery usage (in theory). Obviously once they have their entire network footprint deployed with LTE and they have a viable VoLTE solution, they could completely turn off their legacy CDMA network, but this is years away.


Also something about smaller manufacturing tech on the LTE chips, as we have they very first ones made. I think qualcomm is going to do something about integrating them into CPUs, as well as making them much smaller.


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## Jborch8 (Aug 4, 2011)

stueycaster said:


> There are still too many places where 3g doesn't even work. My brother's place in Texas and my sister's place in Vermont both get terrible signals. Plus I work less than 10 miles outside of the big city that has 4g but inside the room where I work My phone constantly changes between 3g and 1x. Where I live 4g coverage is great but I have wifi there. I drive 3 miles down the road and can't get signal inside Walmart.
> 
> Do you think maybe it's because my Charge has bad radios? I'm getting kinda sick of it.


 agreed...on Stanford campus, in my girlfriends dorm, my phone constantly switches between 4g, 3g, and no data. Can't even function with it.

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## BleedsOrangeandBlue (Aug 11, 2011)

andrewjt19 said:


> That's easy to say if you only take part of my post...
> I know Samsung did this as well as many other manufacturers, but name another manufacturer of the Iphone please? That's my point. Android has numerous, iphone has one. And Iphone has been out for almost 3 times longer than any android device. I'm arguing for android not against it. It's far superior, but its weaknesses is the numerous manufacturers of the android devices as opposed to one OS (Iphone) and only one manufacturer (Apple).


Apple fills both the role of OS developer and the entity who accommodates the software for each phone.

The only way your argument is a valid comparison is if Google was solely responsible for producing the software for every device on the market. The truth is, however, that they aren't. Its the manufacturers who keep their phones up to date.

Its also the manufacturers who are making the all the phones...

My point is that your point doesn't make any sense. Android as an OS doesn't have the "weakness of too many phones being made for it". To say that this is a weakness of Android is to fault or diminish Google for the situation and that's just wrong. Google has put out a quality product and there's no reason for that quality (ICS) to not be on everyone's recently-purchased phone. The only weakness or blame should reside in the reputation of the manufacturers who put themselves in this situation knowingly and willingly.

Furthering my point is the fact that the manufacturers put their own crap on each device when they could just run aosp and not have to worry about generating as much on their own when updates were released. Seems like it would be win/win for both the consumer and manufacturer to me...


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