gadgetluva

Wholly disagree. If I have a swappable battery, I just swap it out and I’m done. If I have an external power source, I have to plug it in and my usage has to change drastically while I wait for it to charge.

I’ve used both extensively having been a frequent business traveler. The replaceable battery wins everytime. Plus, with a replaceable battery, you actually get both options.

Luckily, battery life is going the right way. I can generally get 18-22hrs on my GSM Galaxy Nexus.

Design goes beyond pure aesthetics. It’s a combination of usability and looks. On the usability side, it’s probably closer to a 9/10

Given how many phones Moto can pump out in a year, I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that Moto can come out with a Nexus device this year.

If any app actually requires me to put in my username/password for Google, I just go ahead an uninstall the app. If it redirects me to Google’s site or if it just requests access officially through the OS, then I’m fine. Not fine with giving out my passwords and usernames for these apps.

This move won’t really impact them too much IMO. Most users don’t need more than 2GB/month, and they don’t care about having anything unlimited…besides text/SMS.

Spectrum is a limited resource. As more users hop on the Smartphone wagon, unlimited data is really more and more unrealistic.

That’s still different from getting all of your internet through your phone.

Monthly4G is the name for T-Mobile’s prepaid plans for smartphones

Nothing is future proof the way that mobile technology is moving these days. Will it still be a good phone a year from now? Probably. Will it be able to compete with phones 1 year from now? Probably not.

I don’t think the timing is an accident…

Lots of assumptions here. I read a few articles about how there’s alot of unhappiness with Dan Hesse right now. The only reason why unlimited is working for Sprint is because its 3G network is too slow to really account for much of anything, and they have plenty of available spectrum for the WiMax network. I doubt that will stay the same if customers stop leaving Sprint in droves and LTE is finally widespread.

1-2 years is an incredibly long time to wait for a network to be usable. I just had Sprint and I left in February for T-Mobile Monthly4G. I’ve been incredibly happy and I pay ~$40/month for far superior service and data speeds (4-6mbps down)

Exactly. This has been against the ToS since back in the day too.

According to AT&T and Verizon, I probably am still considered a heavy user, but I’m not one of the outliers that account for the top few % of downloaders. Just because I don’t try to connect a couple of computers and tablets to my phone through a hotspot to download torrents doesn’t mean I’m not a heavy user. I’m still likely to be in the top 10% of data users give stats that were provided by the big carriers.

Phones aren’t meant to be a complete internet replacement. Maybe in the future when more spectrum gets freed up, but it’s unrealistic to think that you should be able to use your phone to tether for unlimited data use. That’s what causes networks to slow down and people to have bad experiences with their service.

People who are always downloading/flashing ROMs are the minority. Pay for a solid cable connection at home that gives you 250gb or more per month and stop making cellular networks unreliable for the rest of us who pay the same amount you do for monthly service but use more normal amounts of data.

For 3G speeds closer to 2G speeds and a 4GLTE network that hasn’t gone live yet!

How much data do people really need on their mobile devices though? I barely know anyone who goes over 2GB/month. I’m probably one of the heaviest users of data in my circle of very tech savvy friends, and I generally average 2GB/month. Now, I don’t stream music daily to my phone, but I use it for just about everything else, and a lot during working hours since my access to chat/Gmail is limited.

It still holds its own against the newer devices. There’s not much more that I need from my Galaxy Nexus besides a better camera.

No. Subsidies = carrier contracts, which means that everyone (consumers and Google) stays under the stranglehold of these companies. I want unlocked, unsubsidized devices. I save close to $50/month on my monthly plan, which means I can easily buy a new Nexus every year and still come out ahead. It’s time people started to learn about this option and embrace it.

I think you answered your own question by stating that the Nexus phones take a while to get to you and stay overpriced. That probably won’t change this time around, so get the Nexus now and wait til prices get low for the next one and pick up a new one then, which will probably be in about a year or so.

I can generally make 16-20 hours with 3hrs of screen on time depending on other factors (screen brightness being the main one it seems) with my GSM Galaxy Nexus on the stock battery. Not bad IMO.

Even the ~8 month old Epic 4G Touch is a FANTASTIC phone to have on prepaid. It’s on its way out on Sprint with the GSIII coming soon, but if they can sell it for ~$299 without contract, it’ll be a great option that will have people happy with the service. And this way, Sprint is still able to get money for its WiMax network as it transitions to LTE.

Prepaid is amazing. I’m on the $30 T-Mobile plan and it’s been working out fantastically.

Which is precisely why they love contracts, lol

I can definitely see Google selling Nexus devices from now on through the Play Store. However, the various combinations of radios really makes that hard. Not only do we have GSM/HSPA, CDMA, and now LTE, not all of these are compatible. For example, if Google wants to support all 4 major carriers today with the fastest data connection they offer, they would still need to make at least 3 phones:

1. GSM/Pentaband HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus with AT&T compatible LTE (this could also be the “global” version that has LTE disabled"). This should work on all GSM carriers worldwide and the first to make it to the Play Store.
2. Sprint Nexus with Sprint LTE
3. VZW Nexus with VZW LTE

Then think of all of the other carriers in countries with different wireless radios. It’s a bit difficult, but hey, Apple does it with just one device a year. Time will tell how these different wireless radios affect new Nexii going forward…

Let’s look at the market for unlocked devices here in the States…it’s not that big. For the first time, post-paid (i.e. contract) customers declined by 52,000 across the 7 largest carriers this past year. Not a huge number of losses, and really, I don’t see that shifting drastically for at least a few years to come. Point is, people here in the States still love their contracts and having an unlocked device at $400-500 isn’t going to drive many people away from the carrier-subsidized model.

Obviously, HTC and Samsung think that the Sense and TouchWiz skins add value over stock Android and they intend to sell it that way for the forseeable future. So what if Google opens up shop and offers a line of Nexus phones and tablets? Tablets are a space where Android has gained very little traction, so doing something big to get more marketshare/mindshare might benefit all OEMs, even if Google sells competing products.

I personally don’t really care much about the much- touted one-handed use. I have setup my Galaxy Nexus to include the most used apps and such at the bottom of the screen in my launcher. Works pretty well. I see eyeball tracking to select icons coming before a virtual trackpad.