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My choice of Phone OS
~4 min Read
I used Nexus4 phone for a year followed by Nexus5 for 3 years. Through these 4 years, I had minimum/respectable usablity knowledge of how things were shaping up in Mobile industry for Android and iOS.
My wife had a HTC Android phone and she moved to iPhone for good.
Frankly, I was not very careful in handling my Nexus5, I gave it a couple of plunges to concrete surface and many throws on to the furniture/carpet over time. And I dont believe in having cases for my phones (unless your kids already damaged one phone)
As my pretty Nexus5’s battery started draining fast and hot, I restrained myself from buying a new phone in hopes of a better phone (may be even forseeing the convergence of Laptop and Mobile) like Google’s Project ARA or a Windows UWP wireless Continuum phone, but lately both programs have ended😥.
So my Nexus5 gave me less of a battery (with moderate to less usage, by evening 5 it had less than 20% left) and had speaker problems, so I took my better half’s iPhone6 (dont worry she had an iPhone7 by then )
Here is the break-down of the things that I look for in my Phone
| Spotlight | My iPhone6 | My Nexus5 | My Choice | Additional Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keyboard | Though predictive typing enables faster typing than conventional, for me its not fast enough. | GBoard is so quick for swipe typing with # of quick tricks and it supports typing in my native languages and with ease | My Nexus5 | This is the major drawback I found in no time, In fact, I could not imagine typing on a smartphone without having swipe feature. I tried typing the same sentence with Predictive typing (2m14s) and GBoard (1m14s), may be I have less practice with predictive but I didn’t understand why would I need to lift my fingers after every letter and then lift again and choose the predicted word on the Top ribbon. |
| Size & Grip (No cases and 1 hand use yo..) | Very good and fits easily in pockets & for me its slippery(may be it’s #13 element in the periodic table) and could barely reach to the top of the screen ± typing, triggers usage of both hands | Decent enough & good grip, most of the navigation can be achieved as the controls are on the bottom and typing with single hand is possible but not comfortable. I tend to use my other hand just to give support to the top of the phone | My iPhone6 | So for comfortable usage I need to use both my hands with either of the phones, though I felt iPhone6 screen is less for me, its design is sleek and pleasing |
| Camera & Video | Top class camera & I ❤ Slo-mo | For my usage, Camera is decent enough esp. HDR, I ❤ Lens blur My sample, photosphere | My Nexus5 | I like photosphere, though I did not get to use it much (it gives a real feel after you leave the place) |
| Battery | Top class (though I had issues with quick draining, I’ve had very less goodluck with Electronics😟) | In the beginning battery was sufficient for business hours but with time it was difficult, I felt having the exact amount of batter is good in a way, except while travelling/emergency 😬 | My iPhone6 | 1. Reminds me of people saying “Why do you interact with your phone so much? Interact with people instead!”, having sufficient batter helps me that way. 2. Infact, While battery extends to the next day, I forget to charge and drain my battery next mid-day! |
| AI | Siri is not bad, but it does not get my words correct in the first go. | Google Now/Assistant catches my accent so well and what’s on my screen is very time saving for me, GPhotos search/auto-albums/Rediscover days | Absent doubt, My Nexus5 | May be that’s why they recently cooked an ad and started a journal |
Honestly, I wrote this post to answer myself, to make myself realize to use what suits for me and what I Love to use.
And you KNOW these debates of which smartphones to use are not ending soon, However I would encourage people to Try/Learn new things esp. phones because its fun and out of your comfort zone. Reminds me of Steve Litchfield’s article ‘Ignore the haters, use what you love’
Moreover Switching from App to And or And to App turns out not so difficult these days.
Time taken to write this post: 3 hrs (Analysed/used iPhone for a 2 months before writing this post)