43 replies to this topic 1 votes

[Luis Mazza]

Glassed Silver, on 26 November 2012 - 21:45, said:

That sounds promising, how are they performing on JB?


I heard good things about both, nothing in particular though.
Care to give me a crash course?


I know man, I mainly mean once mid-class used phones here that still have some potential for say the next main release or so...
I don't really want to do a lot here, just dip into Android and use it to receive calls on an O2 prepaid card that I got so my best friend can call me for free until she gets unlimited minuted to T-Mo (my carrier).
Mainly it's just about a smooth OS experience and running the important apps well.

If it takes more than what I projected, proceed to the nearest price and suggest models there.

edit: / addition:
Need to clear this up: the price range I projected is OFF CONTRACT.
I have the iPhone 5 on my contract already.
My Android will get a prepaid card.

Glassed Silver:mac

Well, I think it'll be hard for you to get a great phone like you're asking for with this budget. Unless you get an used Galaxy SII, but it is not guaranteed it will get an update for... say... Android 5.0.

[Arceles]

Glassed Silver, on 26 November 2012 - 21:45, said:

edit: / addition:
Need to clear this up: the price range I projected is OFF CONTRACT.
I have the iPhone 5 on my contract already.
My Android will get a prepaid card.

Glassed Silver:mac

Opla... well 180 pounds is off contract but I doubt you will see it at 150€, still, one of the best android phones that I've tested and flashed, 4+ days battery (2g networks) and I'm also "bei o2"

[Glassed Silver]

Luis Mazza, on 26 November 2012 - 21:52, said:

Well, I think it'll be hard for you to get a great phone like you're asking for with this budget. Unless you get an used Galaxy SII, but it is not guaranteed it will get an update for... say... Android 5.0.

Well, make this a bonus then, not a requirement.
Does a S2 sell for €150?

*le check on le ebay*

Arceles, on 26 November 2012 - 21:53, said:

Opla... well 180 pounds is off contract but I doubt you will see it at 150€, still, one of the best android phones that I've tested and flashed, 4+ days battery (2g networks) and I'm also "bei o2"

180 pounds off contract for the RAZR i?
Really?

Need to check on that, too, sounds great, but won't buy it, as it's way out of my budget.
Fun fact though.

Glassed Silver:mac

[Javik]

I'd personally avoid Motorola phones, more locked down than normal. if you want developer friendly and reasonable power, the Galaxy S2 is now available at very reasonable prices, and should be very simple to root. I wouldn't worry about Samsung pushing official updates, the development community usually get new Android versions working on Samsung phones pretty quickly as Samsung has provided a lot of support to the developers of custom software, in fact I think they donated Galaxy SII's to the CM development team so they could ensure it worked on their phones.

[Luis Mazza]

Glassed Silver, on 26 November 2012 - 22:00, said:

Well, make this a bonus then, not a requirement.
Does a S2 sell for €150?

*le check on le ebay*

Glassed Silver:mac

I saw on Germany's eBay around $160 euros, but not sure if that was a fixed price. I didn't translate the page, as I missed the Google Translation Bar.

Anyway... Get a Galaxy Note 2 by dumping your boring iPhone 5

Trust me, you won't regret

[Arceles]

Glassed Silver, on 26 November 2012 - 22:00, said:

180 pounds off contract for the RAZR i?
Really?

Need to check on that, too, sounds great, but won't buy it, as it's way out of my budget.
Fun fact though.

Glassed Silver:mac

It was a demo phone in a store, then the store decided to sell it (this was more or less one month after it just got relased) decided that from 350 pounds to 180 pounds the risk was well worth of it since I needed to reemplace my dated G1 (battery doesn't works anymore so had to have it connected all day) the phone arrived with a "demo" on the box, but damn... it was neat best purchases that I ever made, funny thing is that still was on warranty by motorola, but unlocked the bootloader and then.... booom, bye bye warranty jaja (Unlocked bootloader is needed to flash new roms into phones, I'm not sure if other companies do the same)

[Glassed Silver]

Javik, on 26 November 2012 - 22:04, said:

I'd personally avoid Motorola phones, more locked down than normal. if you want developer friendly and reasonable power, the Galaxy S2 is now available at very reasonable prices, and should be very simple to root. I wouldn't worry about Samsung pushing official updates, the development community usually get new Android versions working on Samsung phones pretty quickly as Samsung has provided a lot of support to the developers of custom software, in fact I think they donated Galaxy SII's to the CM development team so they could ensure it worked on their phones.

Yea, Samsung definitely is my favorite to go for followed by Sony and HTC.

Luis Mazza, on 26 November 2012 - 22:08, said:

I saw on Germany's eBay around $160 euros, but not sure if that was a fixed price. I didn't translate the page, as I missed the Google Translation Bar.

Anyway... Get a Galaxy Note 2 by dumping your boring iPhone 5

Trust me, you won't regret

Not gonna happen, bro.
Not gonna detail why, because that's a) off-topic and b) prone to flamebait, no matter what I say. (all in good spirit guys!)

Glassed Silver:mac

[yowanvista]

Glassed Silver, on 26 November 2012 - 21:45, said:

That sounds promising, how are they performing on JB?

Quite good, the interface is quite smooth (project butter and vsync), I have a phone with the same chipset (MSM8255T) as those SE2011 devices and it performs fairly well with Android 4.1.2.

P.S I would recommend avoiding Samsung devices with the Exynos SoC, Custom ROMs for those devices lack some features like TV-out, FM radio and other proprietary features, the full butter experience doesn't even work on the S2 due to lack of documentation regarding the Exynos platform for mobile devices, most issues are centered around hwcomposer (A features responsible for project butter).
http://forum.xda-dev...d.php?t=1925709

[Glassed Silver]

yowanvista, on 26 November 2012 - 22:15, said:

Quite good, the interface is quite smooth (project butter and vsync), I have a phone with the same chipset (MSM8255T) as those SE2011 devices and it performs fairly well with Android 4.1.2.

Just watched a Youtube video of an Xperia S with Cyanogen 10... Boy... JB runs quite nice on it.

Glassed Silver:mac

[Arceles]

Now that I think about it... why you don't just look into a phone you like, consult it on xda to check wheter or not is activelly supported and at the end just put it on a shortcut on the browser? that way I found this offer... the phone appeared exactly at 9 am, and I bought it shortly after

[freak180]

Okay I tried Paranoid Android rom, CM10 and AOKP stood out to me the most because it offers the most features than any other rom. You can really customize the phone. It would take me a lot of time to mention each and every feature is. Battery life is great too. Normal use I can keep the phone from charging for about 23 hours.

[Richteralan]

Xperia Active

http://www.gsmarena....active-3998.php

[Glassed Silver]

Richteralan, on 27 November 2012 - 02:46, said:

Xperia Active

http://www.gsmarena....active-3998.php

Not really a sensible choice considering my requirements I posted in the first post.

Any other things you'd suggest keeping my wishes in mind?

Glassed Silver:mac

[Ambroos]

I just got my Xperia T (won it) and am selling my Xperia S. It's got a small dent in the plastic in the upper left corner, screen is perfect, back has some glossy spots from friction. 6 months old, easy to ship from Belgium, will probably be around €200 (new: €330 on Amazon.de). It's above your budget but then again it's a pretty good device (good dualcore, 1GB RAM, stable CM10 and AOKP, 32GB internal memory, ...) and better than anything new for that price. Completely unlocked and you can unlock the bootloader of course. I can even pre-install any custom ROM you want

But if that is too much I'd try looking into a second hand 2011 Xperia. The Arc (or Arc S, they are physically the same) and Neo are both nice (had both). Perhaps a Galaxy Nexus if you can find them used for a price low enough. Aside that there aren't all that many options. Good Androids generally start at €200ish (new).

(PS: all prices mentioned are off-contract, of course)

[Glassed Silver]

Ambroos, on 28 November 2012 - 01:15, said:

I just got my Xperia T (won it) and am selling my Xperia S. It's got a small dent in the plastic in the upper left corner, screen is perfect, back has some glossy spots from friction. 6 months old, easy to ship from Belgium, will probably be around €200 (new: €330 on Amazon.de). It's above your budget but then again it's a pretty good device (good dualcore, 1GB RAM, stable CM10 and AOKP, 32GB internal memory, ...) and better than anything new for that price. Completely unlocked and you can unlock the bootloader of course. I can even pre-install any custom ROM you want

But if that is too much I'd try looking into a second hand 2011 Xperia. The Arc (or Arc S, they are physically the same) and Neo are both nice (had both). Perhaps a Galaxy Nexus if you can find them used for a price low enough. Aside that there aren't all that many options. Good Androids generally start at €200ish (new).

(PS: all prices mentioned are off-contract, of course)

Thanks for the cool offer, although I'll have to pass on that, because 150€ was already stretching it.
It's basically - for any practical use - just to phone my best friend and playing around.

200€ is too much for a "toy" (don't get me wrong here, please) for me right now.

But again: thanks a lot, I appreciate your offer a lot and wish I was on a 200€ budget, I'd gladly accept.

Glassed Silver:mac