Once you buy a decent android phone from any manufacturer, you can simply update the OS as you need. One other thing i like is that you can root the device.

I have an HTC Desire and it came with Eclair 2.1 when i bought it, but i ve since rooted and now running 2.3. This is not even supported officially but it works like a breeze.

If u need to install apps to SD you should definitely root your device. There dozens of custom ROMS out there to mess with.

The iPhone is all about simplicity of use. That's why in the ads you can never see Apple boasting about processor speeds and other techie stuff, the simply only tell you what the phone can do in your usual everyday life and that's the main selling point.

I'm thinking of upgrading my Desire now, not because its not serving me but just because i feel like.

The Samsung Galaxy S2 seems to be my next destination.

@ OP, Good post though outdated in many respects.

No 1 is saying anything about Nokia's tie up with Windows. Nokia might be on the back burner for now yet every knows they make great hardware for their phones. Won't the Microsoft deal help reposition them especially price and mass production have worked for them in the past. Don't rule them out shipping in some very cheap smartphones[18-35k] for the low budget spectrum of the market while also competing with iOS & Andriod based phones at the middle based and high end consumers. You don't become no 1 phone maker in the wporld without learning 1 or 2 things along the way.

Iphone 4 might be great but no 1 is mentioning Samsung Galaxy 2 which to me is an Iphone killer. Little wonder Apple has a selling ban in place against the phone in Germany& some other places.

lynxnoon:

you mean Icecream Sandwich?

hehehe

Android tried to go the way of windows with 'high software compatibility' selling point which defeated Macs in the computer market.
It hasnt worked with smartphones.

The apple products are consistently of good quality, coupled with a fantastic app store that has no limits.
Hardware wise, iphones have the best on-screen display, sound and touch screen response.

the email capabilities are not that bad either if your email servers are microsoft exchange; the OWA entry works like a breeze.

Iphone:0 android:1 The latest edition of android for mobiles is 2.3 (gingerbread). It is more intuitive and has an array of useful apps. *winks*

@Poster, thank you for simplifying everything to the extent that even less techy ppl like myself could understand.

I have been a Nokia person all along until recently when I was literally forced into acquiring an Android as a 2nd phone (HTC Desire HD) and had been struggling to cope with all the jargons and applications that goes with it. Worse still, the phone didn't come with a user manual, so I guess one is some how expected to find his way through diligent experimentation (which I don't have time for, due the nature of my job).

I come across the following terminologies so often associated with androids/iphones: ROOTING and JAILBREAK.
Could you or somebody please explain what they mean and how they work in very simple terms so that anybody (even a beginner) could understand. Thank you.

@poster.
I really enjoyed every part of your analysis. But i will appreciate if you can shed some light on NOKIA N8 and an IPHONE 4. Please kindly send the details as to help me make proper decision on which one to get. Thanks.

i have both of them but there no tablet phone like iphone. the problem some people have is that they do not know how to use Iphone and to have the right program to do all the magic . With iphone you can do so many things you cant do with other phone. Have you thought about the Iphone lock down . all your program having different password from the screen password. With my Iphone my friend can locate exactly where i am. In the map iphone can point out exactly where you are. tell me what alese do i need to download with 32 gigs of memory of my Iphone. tell yourself the truth. any way if not made for everybody. It can never be iphone unless it's iphone. simple .

To me ios is by far the best why?
You don't need to be a techie to use ios and it's by far the smoothest mobile os I've seen. I've use ios for more than two yrs no issue of hanging or freezing like many andriod fones. The screen response is by far better than the rest and if you are a techie that what's to do all the tweaking, you have cydia etc




Ios 5 comes with adobe flash

u can join the xda-developer forum to mod your andriod phone.

u can join the xda-developer forum to mod your andriod phone.

tashanja:

@Poster, thank you for simplifying everything to the extent that even less techy ppl like myself could understand.

I have been a Nokia person all along until recently when I was literally forced into acquiring an Android as a 2nd phone (HTC Desire HD) and had been struggling to cope with all the jargons and applications that goes with it. Worse still, the phone didn't come with a user manual, so I guess one is some how expected to find his way through diligent experimentation (which I don't have time for, due the nature of my job).

I come across the following terminologies so often associated with androids/iphones: ROOTING and JAILBREAK.
Could you or somebody please explain what they mean and how they work in very simple terms so that anybody (even a beginner) could understand. Thank you.
 

WHAT IS JAILBREAK/JAILBREAKING

Jailbreaking is basically modifying the iPhone's firmware so that you can get access to the internals of its operating system and install a whole slew of third-party applications on your iPhone that are not otherwise available through official channels (ie, the App Store).

Jailbreaking your iPhone in and of itself doesn't normally make much difference in your operation of it, but it does allow you to install other third-party applications that are not blessed by Apple.

This is a double-edged sword, however, The upside is that there are some useful and interesting applications available through unofficial channels that will likely never appear on the App Store due to SDK restrictions. For example, Apple's official position is that applications are not permitted to continue to run in the background on the iPhone. This restriction is not because the iPhone can't run apps in the background, but merely because Apple did not want developers doing this. Further, applications the hack or extend the functionality of built-in iPhone apps like Mail and Safari and the phone app are not permitted by the SDK, yet unofficial apps have no such restrictions.

The downside to this approach is that although there are some brilliant developers out there in the jailbreak community, these folks are all flying by the seat of their pants when it comes to writing these apps, They have no official support from Apple, and are building most of these apps by reverse-engineering the existing iPhone OS and built-in applications to figure out how things work so they can build their own apps.

This means that the quality of many of these jailbreak apps, particularly those that act as system extensions, is extremely dubious. They're doing things the iPhone may not have been designed to do, and certainly doing them without any official blessing from Apple.

WHAT IS ROOTING

First, for the newbies, let me clarify what rooting is. Getting root or rooting your phone is the process of modifying the operating system that shipped with your device to grant you complete control over it.
This means you can overcome limitations that the carriers and manufacturers put on your phone, extend system functionality, and even upgrade it to a custom flavor of Android.
The name root comes from the Linux operating system world, where the most privileged user on the system (otherwise known as Administrator on Windows) is called root.

PLEASE NOTE:

Now, I'd like to take a moment to dispel a common misconception and clarify one thing: rooting does *not* mean installing a custom ROM (a ROM is a modified, "aftermarket" OS).
Installing a ROM may require rooting first, but just rooting can be usually done in only a few minutes, keeping your stock OS otherwise completely intact.


Usually rooting is fairly simple - in most cases you can find several videos and articles on the web that explain how to do it on your specific phone model - just Google "YOURPHONEMODEL root".
Rooting is not something manufacturers or carriers approve of but they can't really prevent it from happening because the rooting process usually exploits a vulnerability in the operating system code or device drivers and allows the "hacker" to upload a special program called su to the phone. This program is the one that provides root access to programs that request it.

minute:

I would take any android phone . . . .even the cheapest most stripped down model . . . over an iPhone.

The growth in the Android apps market has been incredible,over 100,000 items and increasing daily.

There is more freedom with an Android phone.You can root it,hack it, install modified versions on it

and you won't be violating any iPhone cult "rules".

I have never seen an Android phone that doesn't have a user-replaceable battery. Unlike the iPhone.

Even without rooting and modding,you can make a lot more customizations and personalizations on

Android phones.

There is an app for that!!

Remember what i'm gonna say now as you have never heard it b4,

There is probably an app on my iPhone to help you modify and personalize you Android phone baby!!

so, still waiting for my iPhone 5 while y'all hataz play with your next best thing - Android Phones!!

interesting hints

I LOVE MY IPHONE 4 AND I WOULD STICK TO IT FOR NOW BECAUSE, ALL THESE CUSTOMIZATION YOU GUYS ARE TALKING ABOUT,I CAN DO THEM WITH MY IPHONE AND BESIDES,ANDROID PHONES ARE TOO BUGGY AND THEY LAG DESPITE THEIR WIERD HIGH SPECKS WHICH THOSE COMPANIES ARE USING TO COMPETE WITH APPLE.

UNFORTUNATELY,ITS ALL IN THE SOFTWARE.

ITS JUST THE SAME WAY,I WOULD PREFER A MAC OSX OPERATING SYSTEM TO WINDOWS ANYDAY.


OH,I AM NOT SAYING I DISLIKE THE ANDROID OS EVEN THOUGH THE ONLY ANDROID PHONE I CAN BUY RIGHT NOW IS THE GALAXY S2, WHICH IS THE ONLY ANDROID PHONE THAT IS BETTER THAN THE IPHONE FOR NOW AND STILL IT IS STILL BUGGY.

I LIKE THE FACT THAT I CAN UPDATE MY FIRMWARE AT EASE PLUS I GET ALL ME STUDY MATERIALS EASILY ON THE APP STORE.

AS FOR BATTERY LIFE,MY IPHONE IS IN CONSTANT CHARGING STATE SO IT HARDLY GOES OFF.

ANOTHER FACT IS THAT APPS BOUGHT AT THE ITUNES STORE HAS VERY LITTLE CHANCE OF BEING BUGGY BECAUSE OF THE QUALITY CONTROL INVOLVED.

AS FOR BATTERY LIFE,MY IPHONE IS IN CONSTANT CHARGING STATE SO IT HARDLY GOES OFF

andriod is the most power/ram consuming mobile os. The galaxy s with 512mb of ram still lags like hell when compared to the iPhone 4.

Do Doubt Android and iPhone is increasing its market day by day as iPhone 5 is launching soon but choice always go with blackberry now as they are introducing the feature of live streaming

Jezzybrown:

andriod is the most power/ram consuming mobile os. The galaxy s with 512mb of ram still lags like hell when compared to the iPhone 4.

Yeah i know.The new galaxy s2 is better and can compete with the iphone 4 but the ios user experience is still far better.

Android vs Iphone vs Blackberry vs etc, on and on it goes
Interesting i use none of these, but use what serves me best, i have always observed that the best phone might not be the most expensive and not the most popular.
Well Android is fast gaining ground and will continue as such and have overtaken over iphone in the Top 5 EU countries.
There is no basis for comparison between the  galaxy s2 and iphone 4 as the s2 surpasses it in every respects. Even at that, i when it comes to the user experience, that's a different ball game altogether. So its up to you to get what serves you best.

$tunna:

There is an app for that!!

Remember what i'm gonna say now as you have never heard it b4,

There is probably an app on my iPhone to help you modify and personalize you Android phone baby!!

so, still waiting for my iPhone 5 while y'all hataz play with your next best thing - Android Phones!!

bro
iPhone 5 has not even been announced yet. Cool down

As for me, i will say it like this
"i can never ever use a NON-JAILBROKEN IPHONE(even iphone5 when it comes), but i can't imagine myself (and my life)without a JAILBROKEN IPHONE,u can do sooooo many things with a jailbroken iPhone. all d features in d IOS 5 has one way or the other existed in d jailbreak community on 4.3.3. when ios 5 comes out, u will just av less reason to jailbreak ur iphone BUT to really enjoy dat baby, u just av to jailbreak it.

Android OS is one of the best things to happen to the mobile platform but as far as hardware goes, you get what you pay for.
My advice is to go for a high end phone in terms of hardware. HTC has the reputation of making some of the best hardware for android phones so you can give them a try.
I currently use a 2010 nexus one (HTC manufactured it for Google and it's essentially like the twin of HTC Desire) and since I started using it, my love for iphone has nose-dived. Hardware is solid, software updated OTA to Gingerbread 2.3.4 almost as soon as I switched it on the first time and it runs great. I have since unlocked, rooted and installed several mods without any issues.
Don't get me wrong, I think Apple makes great products and I recently converted to a 2010 macbook pro when the issues Windows was giving me was getting too much, but as far as I'm concerned, the Android OS makes a whole lot of sense and for me there's no going back.
What I'll like to see now is a Nokia phone running an Android OS; now that may be something worth having!


Google Nexus One (unlocked, rooted, android 2.3.5 mod)
Apple Macbook Pro (2.4GHz Intel Core i5, 8GB ram, 500gb hybrid drive, OSX Lion 10.7.1)
, you guessed right, an Android tablet will soon join the pack!

I'vent really handled iphone phones. sommetimes I just run the functions. one thing I just don't like about the iphone or any other apple product is there overpricing, which u can get at far cheaper rate using other brand.

ayodot:

I'vent really handled iphone phones. sommetimes I just run the functions. one thing I just don like about the iphone or any other apple product is there overpricing, which u can get at far cheaper rate using other brand.

yeah, 40% of iPhone , ipad, etc fans buy it for that reason. Most people respect even the iPhone 2g better than any other phone. That apple logo itself is something else.

the reason Apple I products are respected is cuz they last long n function to the max,thats a good reason for over pricing,the battery life of all Apple products is sumtin to respect(except for iphone 3g 8gig) i am a full apple dude myslef,i have a mac,itouch,used ipod n iphones, planning on gettin the ipad2.the apple macbook battery life na wire, over pricing for 80percent scores is cool to me.they dont have software issues n hardware issues r rare

all other major brands arealso good products that service u to max. talk of nokia, sonyericsson(though bad battery but durable), samsung are all good product. it all depend on the user.

anybody wanna sell samsung galaxy s and price

tell me one phone asides from iphone or itouch that has the kinda games on iphone or itouch has,the graphic chip of i products is way ahead of it time for an item so small,

fatman22:

the reason Apple I products are respected is cuz they last long n function to the max,thats a good reason for over pricing,the battery life of all Apple products is sumtin to respect(except for iphone 3g 8gig) i am a full apple dude myslef,i have a mac,itouch,used ipod n iphones, planning on gettin the ipad2.the apple macbook battery life na wire, over pricing for 80percent scores is cool to me.they dont have software issues n hardware issues r rare

whats the cost of the Apple Macbook now?

u interested in buying?