The 'My Smartphone Sucks' Thread

[DarkED]

The iPhone 3G was the first true smartphone I'd ever owned. Before that, I had a couple of low-end Blackberries and a high-end Samsung phone that came close, but they weren't smartphones. The iPhone was a mixed bag for me; it was sleek and fast (at first) and the battery life and call quality were good. However, over time I started to see how limited the device really was.

I just recently ditched my iPhone for the Motorola Atrix. By comparison, the Atrix is like a tiny god. In terms of hardware it's by far the most powerful smartphone on the market, with some people going so far as to call it a superphone. The UI is blazing fast in terms of response time and graphical smoothness, and high-end games like Gun Bros perform very well on the device.

With all that said, there are three major drawbacks to this device. The first is that the battery, while being gigantic at 1950mah, drains very quickly after the first few days of usage. Even using resource-saving apps like Advanced Task Killer and Juice Defender doesn't help much. I can go to work with a full charge, let the phone sit (without using it or even picking it up) and by the time I leave work I have roughly 50% of life left. If I actually use the phone, even moderately, I have had it below 20% by the time I leave work. With that in mind I'm getting about 15-20 hours of standby, and maybe a couple hours of actual usage/talk time. This is unacceptable.

The second drawback is the locked bootloader. No Cyanogen on the Atrix anytime soon.

The third drawback, and this is the ringer, is the horrible call quality. I frequently have people on the other line going "What did you just say?" or "I think we're on a bad line." Nobody can understand a word I'm saying unless I use the speakerphone, which oddly enough is crystal clear. This is the reason I am considering taking the phone back and switching it for something else.

Despite how much I hate Apple, I am seriously considering trading the Atrix for an iPhone 4, the main reason being that I already know what to expect. I know that, for the most part, iPhones 'just work' and don't have any large detractors (except Steve Jobs and his rage against Flash.)

So, do you hate your smartphone? Discuss.

[dragonfliet]

I have a G2 and I love it. The only thing that sucks is that android apps are woefully unstable, so things like my This American Life app will crash every other time.

~Jason

[Mozi]

I also have a G2, so far everything is pretty stable.

[BITE_ME]

If you can't send a fax.
Then you don't have a smartphone.

[lovebug]

I have the HTC Desire, I love it. Much better than the iphone 3 I used to have. The battery life is better with task killer and the apps i download are free. Runs BuF perfectly too!!

[Sir_Brizz]

I have an Atrix that I got about 2 weeks ago and I love it. I haven't had any trouble with call quality and my battery stays pretty well charged. I have, of course, rooted it, which some people say improves the battery life quite a bit. I also only have a handful of widgets on. I'm using GOLauncher EX. Much better than MotoPoop.

My biggest complaints are:

1) The camera in indoor/night shooting can get pretty grainy. However in heavy light/outdoors situations it is WAY better than my iPhone 3GS was.

2) The headphone jack doesn't seem to really work with any of the headsets I currently have. I think I'm going to go for the Motorola HD10 bluetooth headset. It supposedly works on all kinds of devices and I'm sick of the wired headset game (I have at least a dozen from different phones).

3) The locked bootloader is really freaking annoying. However, with root and a different launcher I'm at least happy with what my phone can do (sideloading, mobile hotspot, etc).

I'm honestly never going back to Apple. Maybe the memory is too fresh in my mind but I REALLY hate their environment and culture. I love the fact that I can develop for my Atrix at home on Windows or Linux, at work on Windows or Linux or Mac... There is just so much that the iPhone is lacking in order to create a cultivated walled garden that it drives me absolutely bonkers. Knowing what to expect when I know so much better is out there is really just not worth it to me.

BTW, when your Atrix battery gets weak you can buy a new one.

[Peavey]

The greatest thing about this thread was the tags

[lovebug]

whats a tag?

[WaitForTheRain]

Originally Posted by lovebug

whats a tag?

Look underneath the last post in the thread!

- I haven't got a smart phone, I'm still using a dumb old 'stupid phone', but it does what it should do without exploding. I considered getting a smart phone, but the novelty would probably wear off quite quickly.

[Peavey]

Why, they're the only reason worth reading 90% of threads on BuF!

[lovebug]

Is that your final answer?

[haarg]

Advanced Task Killer is more likely to hurt your battery life that to help it.

[Jackal]

Originally Posted by Haarg

Advanced Task Killer is more likely to hurt your battery life that to help it.

Not only this but maybe you got a defunct one. I have been streaming Pandora Radio from my phone (not over Wifi, but over the H+) for the past few weeks with my Atrix. I start it up at about 7:30am and it plays until 5pm, non-stop. I have 15% battery life left at the end of the day. And then I can talk for about 20 mins before it shuts off. Sideloading is easy as pie too. I've done quite a bit of it, and it couldn't be simpler really. I have that Beautiful Widgets and weather turned on, which I know also uses up battery life, but still, at the end of the day I do have some life left, even after streaming pandora all day long. So as far as the battery goes, I don't know why you have issues with it. I did the OTA update which actually improved the battery too.

Maybe you can trade yours in for another Atrix and see if that helps at all? I know not every phone is perfect right out of the box. We had to return an iphone because the damn thing wouldn't stay on for more than 5 hours.

I'll never buy another iphone. iPhone 5 is only supposed to be mediocre at best, so I don't give a crap about it tbh. Plus the Android OS is so much better imo once I got used to it. I love my Atrix, and I'm completely happy with it. I don't have any phone call quality issues or anything that you are having DarkED, so I think it may be that actually phone itself. I certainly don't get nearly as many dropped calls as I did with my iPhone though. Which is great.

[Rambowjo]

I just got an HTC Hero, it was my brother's old phone. I actually quite like it. Before this one I had some old Nokia thing, so it's quite a switch. I do think that smartphones are a little ahead of themselves though. They are sluggish when doing certain things, that you would otherwise expect the phone to be quite quick about. Seems that the new Nexus S is way faster. My brother got one of those to replace the Hero. It has twice as much CPU power, so that's really interesting. I think I'll invest in a really good smartphone around the next generation. Hopefully we'll also have 4G network by then.

[SleepyHe4d]

Originally Posted by DarkED

Despite how much I hate Apple, I am seriously considering trading the Atrix for an iPhone 4, the main reason being that I already know what to expect. I know that, for the most part, iPhones 'just work' and don't have any large detractors (except Steve Jobs and his rage against Flash.)

So, do you hate your smartphone? Discuss.

Do it, or actually wait for the iPhone 5 if possible. The iPhone 4 is amazing, but like you said, it lacks flash. Doesn't bother me at all though since there are alternatives in place for many websites and I'm not one of those people that need to be perfectly in the cloud 24/7. Also, there's an app for that. Dropped calls suck too if you hold it wrong, which is another reason to wait for the iPhone 5.

I'm gonna have to wait for the Bionic and test it to see if it's really worth switching over to android or wait till the iPhone 5.

Originally Posted by Sir Brizz

BTW, when your Atrix battery gets weak you can buy a new one.

Funny thing is my iphone 4 hasn't lost any battery life and it's still has the best battery life for a phone that I've seen.

[Sir_Brizz]

Originally Posted by SleepyHe4d

Funny thing is my iphone 4 hasn't lost any battery life and it's still has the best battery life for a phone that I've seen.

Bad form, sir. How old is your iPhone 4? Right. DarkED is the first person I've seen complaining about such poor battery life. My Atrix stays on 24/7, I unplug it from the charger at about 8am and don't plug it back in until after 7pm and I still have over 50% battery life. It's honestly better than my wife's iPhone 4 that way (hers runs down to about 30% after being "on" all day long).

My 3GS phone battery was starting to get weak. I needed to plug it in around 3pm to make sure I'd have enough battery to last me until I got to a charger. Unfortunately, the iPhone battery is WYSIWYG. No replacing that guy. So when battery life gets bad, get used to it or buy a new one.

[SleepyHe4d]

Originally Posted by Sir_Brizz

Bad form, sir. How old is your iPhone 4? Right. DarkED is the first person I've seen complaining about such poor battery life. My Atrix stays on 24/7, I unplug it from the charger at about 8am and don't plug it back in until after 7pm and I still have over 50% battery life. It's honestly better than my wife's iPhone 4 that way (hers runs down to about 30% after being "on" all day long).

Well played, you guys just blame it on Dark having a bad apple.

Originally Posted by Jackal

I'll never buy another iphone. iPhone 5 is only supposed to be mediocre at best, so I don't give a crap about it tbh. Plus the Android OS is so much better imo once I got used to it. I love my Atrix, and I'm completely happy with it. I don't have any phone call quality issues or anything that you are having DarkED, so I think it may be that actually phone itself. I certainly don't get nearly as many dropped calls as I did with my iPhone though. Which is great.

Another funny thing, the Android is even more limiting than the iOS in all the ways that matter. When I was trying to help out with using the Evo, the photo gallery and a bunch of other built in stuff was implemented terribly. I don't know though, maybe that is fixable.

That is bs about the iPhone 5 though, it will be just as good as all the other top of the line dual core phones coming out later on. Even better because of the better screen and battery. Only thing people don't like is the iOS and Apple name, I don't like Apple either, but the smartphone stuff they've got going for them is the best anyone has. Biggest appstore, original implementation, smooth and seamless OS, ect. (lol android ripoff)

[BillyBadAss]

I plan on picking up the iphone5 in June. I am interested in Android, but it still seems a bit immature yet. From what I understand people are uploading all kinds of malware into the appstore and it's going unchecked. I am usually smart enough to dodge that stuff, but why even bother if there isn't anything that's really must have there in the first place. Maybe the phone after next I will get a Droid, but we will have to see.

[Sir_Brizz]

Originally Posted by SleepyHe4d

Well played, you guys just blame it on Dark having a bad apple.

Another funny thing, the Android is even more limiting than the iOS in all the ways that matter. When I was trying to help out with using the Evo, the photo gallery and a bunch of other built in stuff was implemented terribly. I don't know though, maybe that is fixable.

Well if someone was whining about the iPhone battery (which is really fine, my wife's iPhone 4 lasts all day. What is wrong with that?) wouldn't you say that you haven't heard of any legitimate problems with it? We have the same phone he does for more than "a few days" and our batteries aren't crying and dying that quickly.

Also, the EVO isn't the best example of an Android phone. Plus if it's using HTC's crappy Sense launcher... well, it's crappy. I can't understand why all these companies remove the stock Android launcher, it is so much better than any of them.

That said, the Gallery on my phone and my friends Nexus One work exactly the same way as the Photos app on the iPhone It shows a grid of images, you select one, you can flip through them...

I mean, I have my complaints. The iPhone is obviously doing a few things better, but overall the Android experience is FAR better than my iPhone was. And, frankly, the Android experience only stands to get better and better.

BBA: I hope you're not expecting iPhone 5 this June since Apple already announced there won't be a new iPhone this June

[SleepyHe4d]

Originally Posted by Sir_Brizz

BBA: I hope you're not expecting iPhone 5 this June since Apple already announced there won't be a new iPhone this June

Really? I heard a rumor that supposedly came from an insider that it will be released sometime this year. Maybe Q3-Q4?