Should I get an android?

[CharlieMopps]

My wife and I still have dumb phones, but via certain discounts I get from my employer I can get us both Either 2 Mesmerize or 2 Edge's
We'll have to pay $400 up front, but well get it back in Visa cards.
After my work discount I'll have to pay about $120/month for both lines.

The problem... what the hell am I going to do with them? As neat as they seem, I can't think of a single thing I'd use them for that a dumb phone can't do.
I have all the google stuff... google+ gmail, Google voice, etc... etc... I suppose they'd be on my phone, but again, so?

So if anyone can reveal to me the amazing things I can do, I'd appretiate it. I've got the usual super geek network at home. 5 computers, linux firewall, Media PC running XMBC, webcams and such... perhaps they can tie in? Maybe I can check on my dogs from the phone? I dunno... Someone give me a clue, because other than checking on showtimes for movies while I'm at the park I still can't think of anything all that useful to use it for.

[Merusk]

Nothing useful.  They're tech chic for personal stuff.  They're best for work.  If you travel a lot and need e-mail/ web access and apps like urban spoon to know, "where the fuck can I eat in goddamn Omaha, NE or Pearland, TX," they're worth it on the company dime.

If I wanted one for personal use I'd do the Virgin Mobile thing that was mentioned in the Android thread.  You buy the phone and pay $30 a month for unlimited data & text with 200 phone minutes.  Certainly better than the $120-$150 2 lines from the major carriers will run you.

[apocrypha]

I got my first smartphone (Galaxy S2) about 6 weeks ago and have been surprised how much more useful it's been compared to my old dumbphone.

As a photographer I use it for:

Mobile portfolio display. Sure, it's not a tablet, but photos still look awesome on it.
Organiser & calendar. Being able to book shoots, meetings, location work etc wherever I am and sync with contacts is great.
Navigation. I use this daily almost. No need for a separate satnav any more. Brilliant for when I see somewhere that I think could make a good portrait location - quick snap, geotagged, uploaded to Google+ or Dropbox or shared with model/assistant/make-up-artist etc. Plus, meeting someone in some town you're not familiar with? Where's the nearest coffee shop? Phone tells me.
Media player. I can plug it into my car audio system and quality is 99% as good as my mp3 player and it's one less thing to carry around. Same with videos - I regularly show models videos of other models so they can see the kind of interaction I'm after. It's also perfectly serviceable as an eBook reader for when I'm waiting for a dentist appointment or something. Not as good as a kindle and kinda small, but better than nothing.

Sure, all of those things could be done in other ways - personal organiser, notebook, satnav, mp3 player, etc. But the point is that I now have ONE device to carry around, not a bunch of different things.

The main downside is power. Fucking thing chews through the battery like mad, power cord is essential to have with you at all times. Plus, wifi access makes a big difference. 3G data is slow as buggery. There's an awesome wifi sharing system called BTFon in the UK but I don't know what your options are elsewhere in the world.

TLDR; after only 6 weeks I'd really, really miss my smartphone if I had to go back to a dumbphone now.

[Merusk]

Note I said they weren't worth it for personal, but good for business purposes - which you listed a lot of. 

[apocrypha]

Oh totally, I wasn't disagreeing with you at all, just giving specific details of my experience.

Forgot to say as well, in the negatives, I am used to a very rugged phone. All of my dumbphones have been semi-rugged. Like rubberized bricks. I constantly feel terrified that I'm going to break this smartphone, so much so that I'm seriously considering adding 25% to my contract payments for insurance. 

[Mrbloodworth]

My wife and I still have dumb phones, but via certain discounts I get from my employer I can get us both Either 2 Mesmerize or 2 Edge's
We'll have to pay $400 up front, but well get it back in Visa cards.
After my work discount I'll have to pay about $120/month for both lines.

The problem... what the hell am I going to do with them? As neat as they seem, I can't think of a single thing I'd use them for that a dumb phone can't do.
I have all the google stuff... google+ gmail, Google voice, etc... etc... I suppose they'd be on my phone, but again, so?

So if anyone can reveal to me the amazing things I can do, I'd appretiate it. I've got the usual super geek network at home. 5 computers, linux firewall, Media PC running XMBC, webcams and such... perhaps they can tie in? Maybe I can check on my dogs from the phone? I dunno... Someone give me a clue, because other than checking on showtimes for movies while I'm at the park I still can't think of anything all that useful to use it for.

For one thing, interacting with things like mail and such is so much easier on a smart phone.

[Salamok]

If you do not have a business need then it is a luxury item.  That said, in the 2 years since I've had my Droid I have maybe taken the laptop out of the house 5x and have ditched the iPod entirely.  On top of that the Droid has amazing turn by turn navigation and all 5 times the laptop left the house the Droid was used to tether it to the internet.  It is just such a great all in 1 device and I absolutely hate carrying tons of crap around.

My wife who rarely used the computer before now has a Droid and it has completely replasced the computer for her.  She now checks her email once a day and does all her browsing on it.

[Furiously]

If you need to ask people if you need one... the answer is probably no.

[CmdrSlack]

My android phone is sucking wind these days, but it is by no means current or previous generation. For some reason, the Samsung Moment I own cannot get email from my office's exchange server....unless I reboot the thing daily. It has slowed way the hell down in the last few months.

That said, the Google maps app is awesome for me and my getting-to-remote-courthouses needs. I bought this phone for the slide out keyboard. I think I may ditch that as a requirement when I upgrade; the iiPad has made much more proficient at screen typing.

Overall, I love the OS, but hate the physical phone itself.

[Sand]

That said, in the 2 years since I've had my Droid I have maybe taken the laptop out of the house 5x and have ditched the iPod entirely.  On top of that the Droid has amazing turn by turn navigation and all 5 times the laptop left the house the Droid was used to tether it to the internet.  It is just such a great all in 1 device and I absolutely hate carrying tons of crap around.

This. They have grown to the point they are actually small tablet PCs.
I can do everything for business I need on one at a week long business trip or conference.
I can watch live streaming netflix while in the hospital.
I can carry gigs worth of data.

Once my Lenovo T500 laptop bites the dust I will probably replace it with a slightly larger tablet PC, although I guess that wouldnt work for MMO's but given I dont play alot of MMOs anymore it probably wont matter.
But for the most part my Nexus S has become my mobile computer.

[SnakeCharmer]

You don't really realize how handy a smartphone is until about 3 or 6 months after you get one.

[TripleDES]

You don't really realize how handy a smartphone is until about 3 or 6 months after you get one.

This. Just like with all luxury, once you're using one, you don't want to miss it.

[01101010]

Once you have one, you find uses for it... shit you never even thought you'd use it for.

[Prospero]

My smartphone is definitely an integral part of my life at this point. It has pretty much everything I need from a modern computer outside of the ability to code.

[Soln]

isn't the problem with Android that you are totally dependent on the hardware provider for OS updates?  I thought there was no control and that the OS had forked into a thousand brands irreparably.  Untrue? since I'm on the fence.

[Prospero]

You can root it and install whatever you want.

[Quinton]

The *trend* seems to be toward "less instrusive customization" and "more timely updates" (often in response to customer unhappiness about those issues) but it does vary from OEM to OEM.  Also, recently several OEMs have stated that they'll start shipping with "unlockable" bootloaders (making it easier to install custom OS builds, for those wanting to customize or impatient about the OEM releases).

I wonder if there's a good resource anywhere for which OEMs / devices have been the best for picking up updates.

At the moment, about 80% of devices run Froyo (2.2) or newer and about 18% run Gingerbread (2.3) or newer.  The vast majority of applications run on 2.2 or newer, so in many cases even a device with a slightly older OS isn't the end of the world.  I'd suggest aiming for something running 2.3+ for a new device, as that's going to be the best experience for phones at the moment and will be the closest to Ice Cream Sandwich when the new OS ships.

http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html

[Tale]

You can root it and install whatever you want.

i.e. this includes custom community-made ROMs, which are usually ahead of what the manufacturer is offering.

I'm onto my second Android phone made by Chinese company Huawei. They build great phones with poor cameras and just slap  stock Android on them, so custom rooted ROMs and official Huawei upgrades are everywhere. One of their phones is marketed in the US as the T-Mobile Comet (real name Huawei Ideos U8150). There are several 2.2.2 distributions for it, including one called Dronix which is very fast, and a 2.3 adaptation of Clockworkmod called Gingerman, while the official ROM still stands at 2.2.

[NowhereMan]

Out of interest are Google planning on changing some of the operating on the phone requirments for programs (i.e. auto-installing to SD card?). I ask because I've not got a huge amount of apps on my phone but I'm constantly running into low space warnings, primarily Maps and Flash (which eat up about 23mb combined) can't be switched to the SD card at all, same for a number of other apps that take up 4-6mb chunks. I can understand requiring an app be on the phone for system critical stuff but it's kind of annoying having to uninstall stuff just to free up enough space that I can perform updates on some programs and then transfer them to the SD card and reinstall things. I know I can get around this with some unlocked versions but I'd rather not be flashing my phone's ROM or what have you if I don't need to. It's just a bit of a pain and seems to set the number of apps I can have on the phone at a pretty low number unless I want to get rid of some really useful ones (seriously considering just dumping flash because I don't watch movies that often. I just know it's going to annoy the fuck out of me when I do want to).

[Jherad]

Which phone are you using?

I'm forever running into low space warnings on my old Incredible, and it has diddly squat to do with how much physical space I have left (plenty)... Something about a hard coded limited data space for applications if I'm not mistaken. Not too bothered right now, as I'm just figuring out what my next phone will be. Not sure if I'm going to stick with Verizon as I can't get a 1 year contract any more.

[Quinton]

Out of interest are Google planning on changing some of the operating on the phone requirments for programs (i.e. auto-installing to SD card?). I ask because I've not got a huge amount of apps on my phone but I'm constantly running into low space warnings, primarily Maps and Flash (which eat up about 23mb combined) can't be switched to the SD card at all, same for a number of other apps that take up 4-6mb chunks. I can understand requiring an app be on the phone for system critical stuff but it's kind of annoying having to uninstall stuff just to free up enough space that I can perform updates on some programs and then transfer them to the SD card and reinstall things. I know I can get around this with some unlocked versions but I'd rather not be flashing my phone's ROM or what have you if I don't need to. It's just a bit of a pain and seems to set the number of apps I can have on the phone at a pretty low number unless I want to get rid of some really useful ones (seriously considering just dumping flash because I don't watch movies that often. I just know it's going to annoy the fuck out of me when I do want to).

As of Honeycomb, there is no longer a separate sdcard partition and data partition -- on-device storage is unified and you can put any combination of apps and data on it that you like.  Ice Cream Sandwich will bring this architecture to phones as well as tablets. 

[Tale]

Does this app help? https://market.android.com/details?id=com.buak.Link2SD&hl=en

[Morfiend]

My good friend is a Android/iOS developer, and he is currently drooling over the Galaxy S2 (I think is the one) coming out in like a month. He usually knows the best hardware, so you might want to have a look at that one.

[NowhereMan]

Link2SD sounds like it could be just what I need. Now to start futzing around with SD card partitions. Also glad to hear that I can look forward to this not being an issue with Icecream sandwich.

[NowhereMan]

To update, Link2SD still required root so my phone warranty is gone. I also did not properly prepare for the whole factory reset thing Fortunately the Google backup was pretty decent so I got a lot of stuff, it's just going to be a pain getting widgets set up again, redoing Launcher Pro, etc. Thank Doubletwist I don't need to reorganise all my music or anything though.

On the plus side, I hadn't realised how ridiculously fucked my phone was. I can actually use the gallery again without crashing stuff or waiting 10+ minutes for all the thumbnails to load, lots of other great stuff. I really would have preferred to wait until Google let me do this stuff myself and I'm kind of annoyed I had to futz everything in order to do it but fuck me it makes using the phone far more pleasant. Considering I've probably got around 50 apps total (and most of those are under 1.5mb) it really was limiting having to use only N1 internal storage. My phone once more has room to actually store temp files and caches it seems.