How long does it take for Android to go to crap?

[obidamnkenobi]

answer: 3 months!

That's how long I've had my Nexus 5X. The most expensive, fanciest phone I've ever bought, and after a few months it's turning into a buggy, messed up piece of junk, like my other android phones. WTF?

"ok google" has basically stopped working. It will no longer respond from the lock screen, homes screen or any apps (I'm pretty sure it did that at least for a little while). I have to open the app, and even then it won't even always pick it up. So pretty much useless. Now, I had to scream everything 4 times at the phone to get what I wanted so not a huge loss, but still sucks.

Skype video call will after ~20 min freeze the image and totally lock up my phone (which is about 400 degrees at that point). Nothing works, power button won't even turn off the screen! Have to hold down power button until it restarts. I know Skype is a piece of garbage, but seriously; my 5 year old ipod touch could at least handle it, as does my wife's 3 year old iphone!

There's also a much higher rate of apps that get stuck for a 2-3 sec, force closures and apps that won't work.

I would have ditched this garbage alpha software that Google somehow has the nerve to market as a finished product, except I hate the locked down Apple nonsense, and the silly "Microsoft Windows MoPhone 10 with Bing, SP3 (tm)" that has 8 apps (6 of them farmville clones) is not a serious OS.

So what do I do with this? Can I have google send me a new 5X? Do I have to send mine in first? I'm on project Fi, so I can't go back to my old phone without setting up a new account with a carrier either! Really is a PIA to deal with.

And before someone say factory reset; perhaps I'm unreasonable, but I don't think I should have to do that every 3 months with something that is supposed to be a functioning product.

I've learned my lesson. Paying more for a phone is really not worth it, since it will just turn to crap anyway. I'm wearing this thing out for as long as I can stand it then I'm getting a cheapo Moto G. It'll be the same buggy android experience anyway so why pay 3X for it

 

[sweenish]

Funny, most N7 2013's have only been getting better after the last two major OS updates. Marshmallow has only improved my 5. It's only laggy because I run too much crap (Tasker related stuff mostly), I'm finding.

The 5X may have been the most expensive phone you've bought, but when that descriptor still lands you in the lower mid range of current specs, how surprised are you going to be?

It is frustrating that the 5X is such a disappointing device, though. Especially with how everyone was clamoring for another LG Nexus like the 4 and 5.

It looks like the storage type used is the bottleneck.
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/nexus/sB0VH-h3ePQ

Paying more for a phone can definitely pay off. That's not really what you did, or rather, you didn't pay enough extra to see the benefits. This whole rant is based on erroneous assumptions.

 

[obidamnkenobi]

Funny, most N7 2013's have only been getting better after the last two major OS updates. Marshmallow has only improved my 5. It's only laggy because I run too much crap (Tasker related stuff mostly), I'm finding.

The 5X may have been the most expensive phone you've bought, but when that descriptor still lands you in the lower mid range of current specs, how surprised are you going to be?

It is frustrating that the 5X is such a disappointing device, though. Especially with how everyone was clamoring for another LG Nexus like the 4 and 5.

It looks like the storage type used is the bottleneck.
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/nexus/sB0VH-h3ePQ

Paying more for a phone can definitely pay off. That's not really what you did, or rather, you didn't pay enough extra to see the benefits. This whole rant is based on erroneous assumptions.

So a $400 smartphone in 2015 is not good enough to run android is that what you're saying? So what is the minimum requirement, $700? Makes we wonder why google release the phone in the first place then?? I mean the 5X was designed by them, no?! They stood on stage bragging about always-on voice search, but then it doesn't work! "Video call your family", except it will set your phone on fire and it will reboot..

Also funny, as my $180 moto G two years ago ran it about 90% as well as this one does. It crashed apps equally well.. Just no fingerprint reader and the camera was a bit crappier. And my problem isn't really that android is slow (although sometimes it is..) it's that it's buggy as hell! Imagine if Microsoft release a version of windows like this, they'd get murdered! The worst of Vista was better than the most solid version of android I've ever used.

 

[lxskllr]

Had my S5 going on two years, and everything works as expected.

 

[ControlD]

Maybe your should have went with the $250 Nexus 6. Mine is still running just fine nearly a year in.

 

[sweenish]

So a $400 smartphone in 2015 is not good enough to run android is that what you're saying? So what is the minimum requirement, $700? Makes we wonder why google release the phone in the first place then?? I mean the 5X was designed by them, no?! They stood on stage bragging about always-on voice search, but then it doesn't work! "Video call your family", except it will set your phone on fire and it will reboot..

Also funny, as my $180 moto G two years ago ran it about 90% as well as this one does. It crashed apps equally well.. Just no fingerprint reader and the camera was a bit crappier. And my problem isn't really that android is slow (although sometimes it is..) it's that it's buggy as hell! Imagine if Microsoft release a version of windows like this, they'd get murdered! The worst of Vista was better than the most solid version of android I've ever used.

Again, you're falsely equivocating only the price with the quality. Go outside and take a stroll.

When there's no more rage making you say these literally stupid things, maybe we'll have a discussion.

In any case, I sympathized. I also told you how your anger was misplaced. Instead of doing something with the information, you just kept on your same wrong rant.

 

[obidamnkenobi]

Again, you're falsely equivocating only the price with the quality. Go outside and take a stroll.

When there's no more rage making you say these literally stupid things, maybe we'll have a discussion.

In any case, I sympathized. I also told you how your anger was misplaced. Instead of doing something with the information, you just kept on your same wrong rant.

No, I'm equating a product that's marketed and sold with something that shouldn't break in significant ways after 3 months. I guess that's too much to ask in the smartphone world.

Maybe Google should hire more people to fix bugs in the base OS, rather than giving you more ways to add snowflakes to your photos automagically..

 

[obidamnkenobi]

Maybe your should have went with the $250 Nexus 6. Mine is still running just fine nearly a year in.

yeah, maybe. Around $200 is definitely my new limit for smartphone purchases. Since it'll have to be replaced after 1-2 years anyway I won't feel so bad about it.

 

[Graze]

I have a motox 2013 and it still runs like a champ(except for the ebay replacement screen I bought for it since I acquired it with a broken screen); My Nexus 4 still runs fine as does my Nexus 6(daily phone).

I think you're an isolated case

edit:// Skype is a piece of shit software so dont try blaming it on Android blame Microsoft...and you do realise that Skype for Android and iOS would be completely different code bases right? I wish people used Google Hangouts more!

Stop f@#&ing whining like a b!tch and just have Google replace your phone. Jesus

 

[Megatomic]

We have 3 OnePlus devices that are all almost 2 years old now. All are running very well, two on CM13 and one on COS 12.1.1. None of us could ask for more at this time.

 

[VashHT]

I don't understand why you don't just do the reset, sometimes you get unlucky and stuff breaks before it should, sure it sucks but I just don't understand not wanting to fix it. Trading the hardware seems way overboard to me, you're going to spend time getting it swapped with Google when resetting it takes like 5 minutes and may fix your problems.

 

[Viper GTS]

Resetting it likely won't fix it. The 5X is just inherently flawed IMO, I reset my wife's within an hour of her pulling it out of the box and at least once more during her time with it. She was never able to run SwiftKey on it (massively laggy, like one second burst of keystrokes coming in at once). She was ready to smash it after three months. Meanwhile my 6P purchased at roughly the same time has been fine, and her new 6P is fine.

Sold the 5X at a heavy loss on Swappa and problem solved.

I have owned nothing but Nexus devices for four years and they have all been great with the sole exception of the 5X. Google really fucked up on that one.

Viper GTS

 

[mikeymikec]

I've had an N5 for over two years. I've hard-reset it once that I can remember, because I didn't like Android 5.0 much. A few months ago I went up to the latest version of Android (6.0.1 IIRC), no problems. The phone is fast and reliable. I have one niggle with it, but I know how to work around it.

 

[obidamnkenobi]

I don't understand why you don't just do the reset, sometimes you get unlucky and stuff breaks before it should, sure it sucks but I just don't understand not wanting to fix it. Trading the hardware seems way overboard to me, you're going to spend time getting it swapped with Google when resetting it takes like 5 minutes and may fix your problems.

yeah I'll have to do a reset probably, I just think it's bullshit that I have to after this short a time. And it takes way more than 5 min to restore all the apps, log into everything again, change tons of settings, try to restore app data from dropbox etc.

 

[mikegg]

Android apps are low quality compared to iOS. Even Google apps are on iOS are more polished than the Android equivalent.

 

[Strk]

Retrain the voice for Google Now. The February update did something to my Nexus 6. I retrained the voice and now it works just fine.

 

[poofyhairguy]

So a $400 smartphone in 2015 is not good enough to run android is that what you're saying? So what is the minimum requirement, $700?

No, not quite. I think the Nexus 6P is $500.

Makes we wonder why google release the phone in the first place then??

A lot of us here wondered that too.

Last year I had the money in hand ready to buy the five inch Nexus and what Google gave us in the 5X was garbage so I didn't. What is frustrating is that the 6P is so much better of a device for not that much more. Makes you wonder how much of the problem is LG and how much of the problem was Android.

Of course Google isn't the only company to put out a bad device. HTC had that terrible M9, I think the LG G3 was a step back from the G2, Apple's iPad 3 was a disgrace compared to the iPad 2, and Samsung seems to regress some every other year.

Point being don't just buy something because they stand on stage and say it's great. In 2016 if you aren't waiting for reviews on ANY device you are risking buying a lemon.

 

[obidamnkenobi]

Retrain the voice for Google Now. The February update did something to my Nexus 6. I retrained the voice and now it works just fine.

done that about 8 times. Does nothing. Deleted and reinstalled the google app and no better

No, not quite. I think the Nexus 6P is $500.



A lot of us here wondered that too.

Last year I had the money in hand ready to buy the five inch Nexus and what Google gave us in the 5X was garbage so I didn't. What is frustrating is that the 6P is so much better of a device for not that much more. Makes you wonder how much of the problem is LG and how much of the problem was Android.

Of course Google isn't the only company to put out a bad device. HTC had that terrible M9, I think the LG G3 was a step back from the G2, Apple's iPad 3 was a disgrace compared to the iPad 2, and Samsung seems to regress some every other year.

Point being don't just buy something because they stand on stage and say it's great. In 2016 if you aren't waiting for reviews on ANY device you are risking buying a lemon.

I read reviews, they said the 5x was good. The 6P is only slightly smaller than my TV, so not something I want to carry around in my pants. Even the 5X is a bit too big, so bad it's preventing my from bending over all the way when I tie my shoes.

 

[Crono]

There's something off about the 5X and/or Marshmallow. Vanilla Android shouldn't be so problematic, but I've seen numerous complaints about performance and bugs on the internet and I don't think it's simply because it only has 2GB of RAM as some people claim (though you can load up the phone with slow apps like Facebook Messenger and eat up the RAM). Whatever improvements Google made to Marshmallow, it's not so rich in new features that it should be slower/laggier than a Moto X from 2013 or a current Moto G, and yet it seems like that's the case over time.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I read reviews, they said the 5x was good.

What review did you read that misled you? I am not saying you didn't read that, just wondering. Too many of these "mobile" sites are run by people who will only use an iPhone (*The Verge cough*) so they don't do the deep dive into the experiance needed to find problems that won't show up on the spec sheet. It is sometimes hard to know who to trust.

Probably my favorite journalist in Android right now is Russell Holly. He does very in-depth reviews and he was frank that people should have bought the 6P instead:

http://www.androidcentral.com/review-lg-nexus-5x

Droid Life also picked up on the bad performance of the 5x:

http://www.droid-life.com/2015/10/30/nexus-5x-review/

I sympathize with you though, there were a lot of bad early reviews. People just love to be Nexus cheerleaders even when the devices don't deserve it (*Nexus 9 cough*). I knew as soon as I saw "2GB of RAM" it was a dud personally. That is not enough RAM for an Android flagship.

The 6P is only slightly smaller than my TV, so not something I want to carry around in my pants. Even the 5X is a bit too big, so bad it's preventing my from bending over all the way when I tie my shoes.

I don't own the 6P either, it is too big for me. I am basically waiting around for either a crazy Galaxy S7 deal or for Google to release a Nexus 5P later this year. Right now the 5 inch segment (outside of the S7) just sucks. It isn't Android's fault, it is just a weird window of time when the devices the market is offering at 5 inches all suck.

If I had to get a phone right now (like mine broke) I would totally float by on some cheap 2014 Moto X until the market had something worth buying.

 

[gorcorps]

The OK Google detection on my 6P has been getting spotty too. I retrain it and it's good for a while but it seems like something is getting shutoff in the background that needs to stay running for the Google now stuff

 

[obidamnkenobi]

What review did you read that misled you? I am not saying you didn't read that, just wondering. Too many of these "mobile" sites are run by people who will only use an iPhone (*The Verge cough*) so they don't do the deep dive into the experiance needed to find problems that won't show up on the spec sheet. It is sometimes hard to know who to trust.

I don't really think the 5X is bad as designed. It was great at first. Very fast, multitasking fine for what I use it for etc. Coming from 1 GB RAM it was amazing! My problem is more buggyness that seems to sneak into android after a few months (or some that's there from the start). I remember my moto G was awesome at first even, but at the end it would take 30 sec to open google maps.. I don't think this is acceptable. A year+? OK, sure, but not 3 months. I've had badly abused windows installs collecting gunk for half a decade with fewer issues. And of course all phone reviews are based on a couple of days of testing of clean install so this won't come up

And yes I realize Skype is garbage, but freezing the phone so it has to be shut off? That should not happen! Microphone not functioning as it should is also bad. This is software and/or hardware bugs.

 

[Beer4Me]

Android apps are low quality compared to iOS. Even Google apps are on iOS are more polished than the Android equivalent.

Yep, another reason why I left Android and have never looked back. Despite iOS' limitations, the quality of apps/games is no comparison IMHO.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I don't really think the 5X is bad as designed. It was great at first. Very fast, multitasking fine for what I use it for etc. Coming from 1 GB RAM it was amazing! My problem is more buggyness that seems to sneak into android after a few months (or some that's there from the start). I remember my moto G was awesome at first even, but at the end it would take 30 sec to open google maps.. I don't think this is acceptable. A year+? OK, sure, but not 3 months. I've had badly abused windows installs collecting gunk for half a decade with fewer issues. And of course all phone reviews are based on a couple of days of testing of clean install so this won't come up

I feel like that can't be blamed on the OS though, not when SOOO many people complain about the 5X but find the 6P perfectly fine.

The real issue is that device quality in Androidland can be a crapshoot.

 

[Strk]

done that about 8 times. Does nothing. Deleted and reinstalled the google app and no better



I read reviews, they said the 5x was good. The 6P is only slightly smaller than my TV, so not something I want to carry around in my pants. Even the 5X is a bit too big, so bad it's preventing my from bending over all the way when I tie my shoes.

Sounds like either your pockets are small or pants are a bit snug