Advantages of Android for Phones
The Android mobile phone came on the scene in the latter part of 2007 and was for commercial use. The Beta 1.0 followed by 1.1 were the forerunners of what was to become one of the largest phone industries in the world. The following year, their first smartphone to be introduced to the public was the HTC Dream developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance, or OSA. Using the linux operating system, this was one of the first mobile phones to have a touch screen and other features that qualified it to be called a smartphone.
Apple’s iPhone is Android’s biggest competitor to date. The other contenders in the smartphone industry are Windows and Blackberry. The iPhone uses an operating system called iOS which was developed by Apple. The same operating system is also used for iPad and iPod and has been upgraded over the years from 4.4 iOS 4.x to the current 5.4 iOS 7.x. They consistently make minor improvements and upgrades, the latest being the iPhone 5s, soon to be 6.
Android is partnered with many brands such as HTC, Samsung, Sony, LG, Motorola, and several others. This gives the customer the option to choose from a wide variety of devices and a wider price range. The vast amount of variety is perhaps one of the biggest advantages they have over Apple. Those advantages can enable someone on a tight budget the ability to afford something within their price range.
They also consistently improve and upgrade their products. Beginning in 2009, the company began developing programs using sweet confection-themed codenames. These are the codenames in the order that they were developed:
Cupcake (1.5)
Doughnut (1.6)
Eclair (2.0–2.1)
Froyo (2.2–2.2.3)
Gingerbread (2.3–2.3.7)
Honeycomb (3.0–3.2.6)
Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0–4.0.4)
Jelly Bean (4.1–4.3)
KitKat (4.4–4.4.2)
The smartphones with the Cupcake 1.5 operating system were the first to be released to the public. Many people were excited about the new touch-screen technology and enhanced web-browsing. Despite this, not all customers were excited with the touch-screen technology and were more comfortable using the familiar QWERTY keyboard. The solution? They soon developed new devices that incorporated both the touch-screen and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. That gave them another advantage over Apple, as the iPhone has never had a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Although it may be completely phased-out in the near future, the QWERTY keyboard works for those who are not yet ready to move up to the full use of the touch-screen technology. People in that category would highly recommend one with the slide-out feature if only for the manual QWERTY keyboard.
The highest quality cameras take photos in high definition with crisp, clear images. Videos look as clear as your best movie shots. Both the Galaxy S4 and S5 boasts 16 megapixels of picture quality, auto-focus and other premium features. Additionally, there is a unique feature not seen in most phones, a built-in heart rate monitor! Although there is an app available that can be used on other models, Samsung Galaxy 4S and 5S are currently the only ones with this function built right in. The Samsung S5 has a slightly larger screen than its earlier S4 and is made from a higher quality plastic, otherwise the changes are relatively small. Both are still selling and are highly recommended. Then there’s the Sony Xperia Z2 which has a 20 megapixel camera and includes red-eye reduction along with other features similar to Samsung.
Customers have many options to choose from when installing apps. There are literally over a million apps available from the Google Store. They can add as many as they like for a phone that is truly custom. Third-party apps from Google Play Store allow users to download and update applications as well, or simply browse. Some of the pre-installed software is licensed only for a particular brand while many others can be installed on any phone. From playing the latest games, to shopping discounts, to checking faces or makeup in an installed mirror app, software choices are nearly endless. Today’s phones are made to be fun as well as functional.
As the use of mobile phones has increased, the need for speed has also greatly increased over the years. It seems as if the ancient 2G and later 3G networks were enough to sustain us at one time. Nowadays, with so many mobile devices in operation, the speed has gone down dramatically. It is now to the point where a phone using an outdated 2G network is completely useless, 3G is painfully slow and now even 4G takes forever to get a connection at times.
One solution? The latest LTE and the XLTE offers lightning fast speeds, adding up to double 4G. Another solution is to just use the internet. Nowadays, nearly everyone has access to the internet or a wifi connection. Even if someone is traveling with their device, it is usually not hard to find access to a wifi connection somewhere. One great feature of smartphones is that they can fully function without using data wherever there is a wifi connection.
Summary
So do we recommend Android or Apple iPhone? To be honest, both are high-quality devices with all of the state-of-the-art technology that we need in todays high-tech world. Both tend to keep up with all the latest updates and advancements that are necessary to function as technology in general advances. As mentioned earlier, Android keeps up with these advancements with many more styles and price ranges to appeal to a wider group. This makes it our top pick.