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HTC One and Galaxy S4 Google play edition came out today...

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DLeRium said:
On another note:

http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/0...play-edition-one-or-s4-oems-will-handle-otas/

This sounds like there will never be drivers, blobs, etc released for these phones. I highly doubt Samsung and HTC will release them if they've never done it for their phones. So really it wont be an AOSP phone, but just vanilla Android controlled by the OEMs. So don't expect CM 10.1 to be like a Nexus 4 or anything. We can just hope that the Qualcomm Snapdragon platform is relatively easy to develop for and that enough people own S4s and HTC Ones that there will be a large development community.

It's certainly disappointing. Google's definitely backed away from any "Nexus" terminology. Whatever language they used at I/O seems to have generated some misconceptions of how these phones would be.
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The only way to know if they've backed away from any "Nexus" terminology is if we discover that there won't be a Nexus 5 (or whatever they will call the phone this fall).
Google used the term "Google Experience" during I/O. Not "Nexus".
 
thecapsaicinkid said:
A Snapdragon 800 is not going to do anything for stock Android right now.
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What, doubling the GPU performance while being sold for half the cost($350) of these supposedly "Google Experience" phones which are actually controlled by the manufacturers themselves and not Google doesn't appeal to you?
 
ponyo said:
I was about to order GS4 GE til I read this. It's extremely disappointing and definite deal killer. I'm not paying $700 for a phone controlled by Samsung.
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It's not as bad as it sounds...depending on the manufacturer.
Samsung provides the latest Android updates to their phones within 3 months or less from the Nexus release. They did that with JB 4.2, JB 4.1, ICS, and so on.

HTC on the other hand, fuck that.
They suck at providing Android updates. HTC One released with Android 4.1 and is still on Android 4.1 today...It will be both funny and sad if the Samsung Galaxy S3 gets Android 4.2.2 before this new HTC One phone does.
 
DLeRium said:
CPU: While the S4 Pro or S600 can still be upgraded, they're mighty fast. It's not like anyone's complaining about speed. There are complaints of lag, but that has more to do with the OEM skins than anything else and probably some unoptimized parts of Android. I see this as just a never ending spec war. Sure I'd love an S800, but is there a dire need? Probably not.

Camera: You might not care but many people have had enough of lowly cameras. When the GS2 outperforms the Nexus 4 in photos, that's pretty shameful. My point was that even if Google puts a lot of effort in the camera department, how do they hope to leapfrog Samsung? Maybe they get lucky and find one hell of a sensor and somehow leapfrog the S4. Then what? The terrible AOSP software will somehow do it justice? I think at best the Nexus will match the S3 or so.

Battery Life: The S800 may bring battery life improvements, but Nexus phones have traditionally been bad. I'm not sure if its because Google doesn't work well enough with the handset manufacturer to optimize the phone, but the Nexus 4, GNex, Nexus S, have always been behind their OEM counterparts. From what I see from preliminary benchmarks, the GS4 and HTC One GPe are significantly better than the N4 in battery, and match if not exceed their skinned versions (if we can trust TheVerge anyway). This seems to address the fact that it's not just AOSP but Google that's not doing a good enough job.

To me, the Nexus 5 needs to be convincingly better on all fronts IMO. Sure they can release another $350 phone that has a CPU that throttles all the time, a bad camera, and bad battery life, and gimped LTE and limited storage, but no way in hell am I doing that again.
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LG Optimus G isn't peculiarly known for having great battery life to begin with so I'm not why one would expect much better battery on a Nexus 4.

As for previous Nexus phones...
Galaxy Nexus: Used some TI chip that almost no one else used so there's no "direct" comparison to be made. Is there another phone that uses the same TI chip, with LTE, and mAH battery ratings.
What was the difference between the Nexus S and original Galaxy S in battery life and specs? I was still in the dumbphone world so anything that happened before March 2011 I know little to nothing about.

If they release another $350 phone with a CPU that doesn't throttle, meh camera, average battery life, LTE support, and 16GB limited storage will you get it?
 
after reading this thread i've come to the conclusion that everyone bitches about everything on a damn phone. all of the galaxy phones have been great, stock android or not. replaceable battery and expandable memory. cutting edge processors, and support from samsung. my galaxy s2 has jellybean and it's a 2 year old phone. more than i expected to be honest.
 
I'm wondering if they will quietly introduce T-Mobile friendly phones after everything settles down.
That's honestly my only gripe. Those phones are pretty much everything I want in a phone.
 
foghorn67 said:
I'm wondering if they will quietly introduce T-Mobile friendly phones after everything settles down.
That's honestly my only gripe. Those phones are pretty much everything I want in a phone.
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Not sure what you mean by "T-Mobile friendly phones"...

But the Galaxy S4 Google Edition fully supports T-Mobile's network.
The HTC One Google Edition does not, meaning if you don't have T-Mobile LTE in your area yet or any of the new AT&T re-farmed spectrum in your area, you'll be stuck on EDGE/2G speeds.
 
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lothar said:
The only way to know if they've backed away from any "Nexus" terminology is if we discover that there won't be a Nexus 5 (or whatever they will call the phone this fall).
Google used the term "Google Experience" during I/O. Not "Nexus".
Click to expand...
I meant they backed away from Nexus for these phones, not that they're axing the Nexus term in general.... just that the only Nexus thing about them is vanilla Android and nothing else.
 
lothar said:
Not sure what you mean by "T-Mobile friendly phones"...

But the Galaxy S4 Google Edition fully supports T-Mobile's network.
The HTC One Google Edition does not, meaning if you don't have T-Mobile LTE in your area yet or any of the new AT&T re-farmed spectrum in your area, you'll be stuck on EDGE/2G speeds.
Click to expand...

also, the att sgs4 has the hardware capability to run on tmo's network as well. it's a simple process to unlock the bands. i can't wait till my att contract ends so i can give them a big middle finger after 13 years!
 
Of course 3 days later all we have are the 3G and 4G battery tests for the HTC One and nothing for the S4. This is the problem with releasing an article first and "promising" follow up. There's never the same amount of drive to get an article updated once you release the meat of it.
 
lothar said:
It's not as bad as it sounds...depending on the manufacturer.
Samsung provides the latest Android updates to their phones within 3 months or less from the Nexus release. They did that with JB 4.2, JB 4.1, ICS, and so on.

HTC on the other hand, fuck that.
They suck at providing Android updates. HTC One released with Android 4.1 and is still on Android 4.1 today...It will be both funny and sad if the Samsung Galaxy S3 gets Android 4.2.2 before this new HTC One phone does.
Click to expand...

Except for me, at this point as long as it's Android 4.1+, I don't care really about having the latest Android, at least not until they release 5.0. 🙂
 
Anybody else get one of these in the mail yesterday?

I got the GS4, not sure yet what I think of it.

For being a 'Google Experience' the hardware buttons are an abomination. I have used nothing but Nexus devices for the last 15 months and going to this felt like a massive step backwards. I had it rooted before the evening was out and disabled all three buttons + enabled the on-screen buttons. That's a major improvement, but I haven't yet found a way to kill the backlight on the two capacitive buttons. Haptic feedback on the on-screen buttons is intermittent (doesn't seem to work at all on the home button) so I shut that off entirely which isn't my preference. I'm also still struggling to find a way to fix the icon spacing, going from 5 columns to 4 on a larger, higher resolution screen makes no sense at all.

I was having an issue with the display coming on randomly while sitting on my Qi pads but that appears to be the result of the extremely tight fitting Diztronic TPU case - They claim compatibility with the official Qi charging back but it's a VERY snug fit and it feels like it's about to burst at the seams. So be aware if you plan on doing wireless charging.

The good? Fast (duh), it turns out my town has plenty of LTE available, and of course AMOLED is beautiful. The hardware complaints are vastly over-blown, with the Qi back on it it's a solid feeling device.

Hardware makers just need to follow Google's lead and start making devices without hardware buttons. If those weren't there I would be overall quite happy with this phone. I should not have to root a phone purchased from Google Play to make it a good experience, and if the Nexus 5 ends up 1080P/Snapdragon 800 I will upgrade again.

Viper GTS
 
WelshBloke said:
ah heck that, some of us like hardware buttons.

The easiest answer would be not to buy a device with hard keys if you don't like them.
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I'm not going to tell them not to make devices with buttons, but it would be nice to have some options without (since that is clearly the direction Google is taking with Android).

So why did I buy it in spite of the buttons?

The tech crowd has been pushing for high end hardware + pure Android for years now. I was one of them, with every successive release of further crapified flagship hardware I have further resisted and finally started buying exclusively Nexus. I want to support this experiment in hopes that this is not a one-off event. It's not perfect, but it's a nice upgrade in a lot of ways (screen, camera, CPU/GPU) vs the Nexus 4. And more importantly it's progress.

Viper GTS
 
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Viper GTS said:
I'm not going to tell them not to make devices with buttons, but it would be nice to have some options without (since that is clearly the direction Google is taking with Android).

So why did I buy it in spite of the buttons?

The tech crowd has been pushing for high end hardware + pure Android for years now. I was one of them, with every successive release of further crapified flagship hardware I have further resisted and finally started buying exclusively Nexus. I want to support this experiment in hopes that this is not a one-off event. It's not perfect, but it's a nice upgrade in a lot of ways (screen, camera, CPU/GPU) vs the Nexus 4. And more importantly it's progress.

Viper GTS
Click to expand...

I dont think its progress really. Its not a bad thing but its fairly niche.

One of the things I like about Android is the diversity. I don't want everyone to be running a phone with an identical skin and I don't want the hardware to be the same.

I want the choice of AOSP or Sense or Touchwiz or the many other options.
I want the choice of soft keys or mechanical hardkeys or capacitive hardkeys.
I want a choice of AMOLED or LCD, SD card or no SD card.

I really dont want Android so regulated that the only choice is superficial aesthetic differences and a few tiers of hardware.
 
I seriously hope there's another cheap Nexus like the N4 but with better battery life. Removable storage is a step backwards to support regions with gimped data plans.
 
lothar said:
Not sure what you mean by "T-Mobile friendly phones"...

But the Galaxy S4 Google Edition fully supports T-Mobile's network.
The HTC One Google Edition does not, meaning if you don't have T-Mobile LTE in your area yet or any of the new AT&T re-farmed spectrum in your area, you'll be stuck on EDGE/2G speeds.
Click to expand...

Yes, that is exactly what I meant. You sound so sure for being unsure.
 
GTRagnarok said:
Nexus 4.
Click to expand...

I'd argue the exact opposite. The Nexus 4 is exclusively for tech nerds.

BTW, I'm completely with WelshBloke. On-screen buttons are terrible and a waste of screen real-estate. I refuse to buy devices that have them, and I prefer to have a real hardware Home button.

I also have zero interest in these feature-gimped "Google Experience" devices.
 
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Red Storm said:
That's an odd opinion. Why do you think that?

I got my dad an N4, he's no tech nerd and this is his first smartphone ever.
Click to expand...

I know plenty of random people who have no interest in rooting (or even heard of it for that matter) that own a Nexus 4. It's a great price for an unlocked and powerful phone.
 
Viper GTS said:
I'm also still struggling to find a way to fix the icon spacing, going from 5 columns to 4 on a larger, higher resolution screen makes no sense at all.
Click to expand...

get nova launcher, now. full customization including number of columns/rows on the home screen.
 
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