Android!

[JWIV]

Not exactly Android, but my Chromebook arrived today and I've been playing with it all afternoon.  It's an odd device, and really, I don't think their marketing is entirely that far off (though some of the things such as printing aren't quite as intuitive as it probably should be).  I definitely like a lot about it, but we'll see how the app support comes along for this.

[NowhereMan]

So I didn't stay up all night waiting to purchase a Nexus 4 as soon as it came on sale with the result that I didn't manage to get one and really hadn't expected the backlog in orders there seems to be. People who did put a purchase in after stock ran out are being informed it'll be a 1-3 week wait to get their order filled with no indication of when they'll be restocked for new orders, which sort of sucks as I would like to get a new phone and the N4 is the first aside from the SIII that's been tempting. What's more annoying is seeing people selling 3 or 4 on eBay for a £250 mark up, I'm really not sure why they didn't limit initial orders to 1 per customer as who the hell needs to buy 4 phones?

[Bunk]

I generally despise scalpers, but this is one are where I find it just funny. If you can find someone willing to pay a 100% premium on phone to avoid a two week delay, go for it. The people paying these prices, 99% of them already have a functional phone in their pocket, that they bought brand new six months ago.

[schild]

Goddamn Nexus 4 is never going to be in stock again.

To Bunk's point, my phone is actually barely functional now.

[Ingmar]

Going back a bit, I have been using an Android PDF reader with animated page turns for WAY more than a year. I don't see how this one can hold up, there has to be an absolute shitload of prior art.

[01101010]

Goddamn Nexus 4 is never going to be in stock again.

This. Holiday season too. Google does not know how to do hardware. 

[Salamok]

I have not been happy with my Motorola Triumph at all, lucky for me Virgin runs some pretty kick ass Black Friday-Cyber Monday deals.  Getting an Evo 3d/4g for $149, nexus 4 looks great and all but for $35/month i'm fine with Evo's 2 year old top of the line tech and since the wi-max network is pretty much a ghost town the 4g speeds rock.

[01101010]

RUMOR is Nexus 4s should be on the Play Store 12PST today, Nov 27th. My buddy got a message from google about it. I'll have to check it.

edit: rumors were true and it was, yet again, another clusterfuck on ordering.

[Quinton]

edit: rumors were true and it was, yet again, another clusterfuck on ordering.

If it makes anyone feel better (probably not), there are a lot of engineers who worked their butts off to get the 4.2 release ready for this launch and are yet again very, very grumpy.

[MuffinMan]

I've been annoyed at the Nexus 4 bumper being out of stock and not being able to find a case in any store. Finally just ordered a case on Amazon, sight unseen.

[luckton]

Traded in my Incredible yesterday for a Galaxy Nexus on Verizon.  Going from using Gingerbread for 2 years to Jellybean has been rather  .

[01101010]

edit: rumors were true and it was, yet again, another clusterfuck on ordering.

If it makes anyone feel better (probably not), there are a lot of engineers who worked their butts off to get the 4.2 release ready for this launch and are yet again very, very grumpy.

I actually found it quite amusing that with soooo many people trying to hit the server at the same time, people would have that much of an issue with the process itself. Guess they are not gamers by nature.

And with all the bitching about not taking pre-orders... This is a pre-order, in a basic sense. Product ships in 4-5 weeks means, to me at least, that the stock is not there and stuff is being built. Either way, spamming the proceed button worked and I am finally going to be able to shed Verizon and cut my monthly in half.

[Salamok]

I'm sure there were also plenty of people out there hitting the server every 5 seconds with check4change/autorefresh, gotta love it when 500k people generate the load of 10 million.

[schild]

Don't even have a way to say this nicely - preorders can suck my dick. This is 2012.

[Draegan]

What does 2012 have anything to do with it?

[schild]

I stopped preordering things years ago. Kickstarter is the only pass I'll give anyone on that.

[NowhereMan]

What people mean regarding pre-orders in the N4 case is being able to place orders when the item is out of stock. For the launch itself Google was only accepting orders on items it had in stock, which combined with the server getting hammered and people getting the phone dropped out of their cart after they'd started the order process along with maybe Google adding more stock a couple of times, meant that you had hordes of people F5'ing to try and be able to order the phone. So in this case it means being able to place the order and just wait for the phone to turn up, safe in the knowledge that it should be arriving in a month rather than having to keep tabs on Google's site and hoping you get prior warning so you can log on half an hour before and start F5'ing again.

That said they've only got that pre-order opened in the US, the rest of the world is still out of stock (although we did all get that nice banner when the Play Store was getting hammered telling us it wasn't actually out of stock even though it was). The bumper is still in stock in the UK though

[eldaec]

My galaxy nexus updated last night.

A review.

New clock is a bit ugly, new lock screen too busy, but do like being able to access the camera without unlocking.

Camera updates are neat. Can be summed up as 'lol fb paid one billion dollars for instagram'.

The music app seems to be trying to sell me things. Also audio search has disappeared - was hoping this would get developed into a full blown shazaam thing.  (Fake edit: oh, I gather this happened a while back)

Not noticed any other changes yet.

[schild]

Fiancee needs a new phone like now yesterday since she's switching jobs. I need a new phone like now yesterday because my phone has AIDS. Given our inability to order a fucking Nexus 4 and have it get here in the time we need it, we may be just sucking it all up and saying Fuckit and get a pair of iPhone 5s on Sprint this week. As gross as that sounds, I'm left with little choice. Bleh.

[Trippy]

What's wrong with a Samsung Galaxy S III?

[schild]

The only Android phone I'd be willing to get right now is the Nexus 4 due to the ability to get it cheaply without signing a contract. If I'm signing a contract, I'm just getting an iPhone. I have zero tolerance for the way cell phone companies do business. Just the worst. I haven't been on a contract for nearly a decade.

[schild]

Basically, we're both willing to drop $700 on two of the Nexus 4s to not be on a contract, but we're certainly not willing to sign a contract for the roughly equivalent phone with a savings of a total $300 or so. It's just utter fucking nonsense.

[Trippy]

You have virtually zero carrier mobility, though, here in the US. AT&T and T-Mobile are the only two you can switch between with an unlocked GSM phone. Verizon and Sprint are CDMA so you are locked into them with whichever phone you get.

[schild]

Well fuck me then.

[Trippy]

Pretty much

Though now that I think about this some more some CDMA phones include GSM bands so that they can be "world phones". If the GSM baseband is unlocked or easily unlockable, in theory you could switch between a single CDMA provider (Verizon or Sprint) and AT&T or T-Mobile. The Version CDMA iPhone 5 is actually such a beast as it's been confirmed that Verizon left the GSM baseband unlocked on that device (e.g. AT&T nano-SIM will work fine). Sprint will apparently unlock an iPhone 5 for use in foreign countries but not in the US.

[rattran]

I'm thinking of getting the Nexus 7 with att data compatibility, hopefully I can just swap the sim from the increasingly crashy and slow Pantech Element I've been using.

[Surlyboi]

What Trippy said. Though I am in no way officially confirming it. 

[Quinton]

You do have to be careful with GSM/UMTS support to be sure that your preferred US carrier is supported, since due to quirks of US spectrum allocation it actually requires a pentaband UMTS device to support both ATT and TMO as well as Europe and Asia.  Often phones sold in the US market will support only one of ATT/TMO to reduce cost/complexity -- you'll want to verify that you get the right combo if that's the case with the iPhone5.

[schild]

Looks like I might end up on Verizon. Is the Droid DNA better than the Samsung Galaxy SIII? I mean, what's the best phone if I can pick anything?

Edit: The Samsung Note2 is also an option.

[01101010]

Looks like I might end up on Verizon. Is the Droid DNA better than the Samsung Galaxy SIII? I mean, what's the best phone if I can pick anything?

Edit: The Samsung Note2 is also an option.

From my circle of mobile nerds on G+, the NoteII is hands down great if you are willing to put up with the stylus. It has the best functions out of anything my friends have owned. However, they do say it is large - which is great for the screen and multiple windows, but bad for transporting around.

I think the SIII is Samsung's best phone as of right now for those dimensions.

-these are opinions of self-professed mobile junkies so YMMV. Droid Razor I believe is hands down the best battery life out of everything atm.

[Pezzle]

Looks like I might end up on Verizon. Is the Droid DNA better than the Samsung Galaxy SIII? I mean, what's the best phone if I can pick anything?

Edit: The Samsung Note2 is also an option.

If being able to change batteries and add storage are important you should go with the SIII or NoteII. 

[Tannhauser]

Based on this thread, I've just picked up the Samsung Galaxy SIII and it's awesome.  Most of it is easy to figure out, but a couple of items still elude me.  With my old SIM card I've got all of my old contacts, pics and videos.  Good stuff.

[schild]

With Android phones you're syncing your contacts to a gmail account. So I'm not exactly sure why you would need a SIM card to get those. As for pics and videos, I'm a guy so that shit doesn't exist on my phone.

[Tannhauser]

Didn't need my SIM card for my contacts, but I did for my pics and vids.  They were previously downloaded to my PC but I like to have them on my phone.  Didn't realize I lost a Man Card doing this.  I'll make up for it by shaving a grizzly with a rusty tin can.

[Tebonas]

So, my GF finally took me at my word regarding my whining about Apples decline and wants to buy me a Nexus 4 for Christmas.

She will use some relatives to buy it in the German Google Play store. Will there be any problem getting it to work another Goggle account than the one buying it?

Is it realistic to wait for another Nexus 4 model with more than the pitiful 16GB or should I swallow that bitter pill right now? That would be quite the downgrade from the 64GB I have now, my Podcasts alone run at ~9GB?