1. Touchwiz can be disabled

2. You're really recommending MotoBlurr and Sense over TouchWiz? Now I've seen it all.

3. EDIT: Had that backwards. Samsung updates generally faster, but updates less of their line. Still, it just makes it easier to tell when you need to start flashing custom roms.

I hadn't heard that. That would knock the Galaxy Nexus on Verizon off my list immediately (if the lack of SD card slot didn't already).

IMO they're all equally bad with their UI overlays, but that's what cooked firmwares are for. If the hardware and drivers are solid most other things can (and will) be fixed by firmware chefs.

They have gotten their act together. They basically went from awful support to spectacular in one phone generation. And touchwiz is the only non-stock UI that I'd rather have than a completely stock Android UI.

I like my barely skinned UI on my Moto. Thing is, I don't trust Samsung after that mess. I'll give it another year before I recommend them again.

And, personally, I despise Touchwiz with a passion.

You must be talking about Motorola's last 2 or 3 phones there, as before that they use MotoBlurr which slowed down Android to a crawl and changed pretty much every aspect of it. Only on the last couple of their phones have they toned down the custom UI to look more natural and not hog the CPU.

The launcher or the other UI customizations? The TW launcher isn't so great, but I actually like some of the other modifications like the toggles in the notification pull-down. Switching launchers is really easy.

They pretty much ditched it in the latter part of 2010 and decided to get it gone fully in 2011. Mine's one of their 2010 phones.



Both, really. There's just something about it that really turns me off.

And switching launchers is as easy as installing Launcher Pro or another one from the Market.

Samsung has also released non-skinned non-Nexus android phones too, such as the Samsung Conquer 4G. Only other OEM besides Samsung who have done a non-Nexus phone stock out of the major OEMs in LG.


Dunno what you're talking about. They're still using MotoBlurr, though they toned it down. The Razr technically doesn't use Blurr, but it is just using a new skin by Motorla, still not stock.

You're forgetting the Motorola Droid.

Yeah, but that thing was slow for other reasons . My biggest gripe with both HTC and Motorola is they lock the bootloader and bend over backwards to help carriers keep the phones locked down. Granted, HTC is improving the locked bootloader situation slightly, and Samsung isn't much better in the bending over backward part, but they are much better usually in response to locked bootloaders (either making it easy to unlock or not locking it period). Motorola is by far the worst offender in locking bootloaders, promised to allow you to unlock them, but hasn't delivered for the vast majority of their offering AND the few they have, it only works for the International version of the phone, not the carrier-specific ones.

Anyway, looking at Verizon's Android phone offering, I'd say my picks are:

Galaxy Nexus (if you want customizability). Note battery life will be not that great and it does include crapware as it's not a stock Nexus device

Motorola Razr (MAXX if you want a decent battery life). Note that on both models the battery is not removable and the bootloader is locked (last I heard, Verizon's model also doesn't work with the unlocking tool)

Motorola Droid 4 (If you want a physical qwerty keyboard). Note that the battery is not removable and the bootloader is locked.

Verizon had some definitely good Android phones a while back, unfortunately I wouldn't recommend any of them now due to having aged considerably and not so gracefully. So Verizon is currently stuck with unsupported Nexus phone and locked bootloaders galore with non-removable batteries.

If I were to pick one on Verizon, it'd probably still be the Galaxy Nexus despite the many shortcomings of the phone (sub-par performance, not-so-great battery life due to LTE and NFC on an HD screen, lack of SD card support, lack of official Google support). Even with these problems, it'll get timely updates, is unlockable, and will see a steady stream of updates and custom roms. Just a shame that Verizon opted to not get the Galaxy S II.

I feel like I'm butting into an already flushed out topic, but I want to throw my vote in for the Bionic. Granted, it is my first android phone and thus I lack any baseline to compare it to, but I love it. Not only is it a great phone, it is large and tough enough to double as a deadly melee weapon. Just the screen itself, not even including the black area between the screen and the edge of the phone, is larger than the entire iPhone 4. Its on the side of crazy. But surprisingly you get used to the extra bulk very quickly and I don't even notice it anymore. Its screen and overall set up (3 speakers, 2 mics, large screen, etc.) make it amazing for gaming and media. Its battery life is kinda shoddy but the JuiceDefender apparently helped tremendously with that. With normal use I can get two days on it, with large amounts (around 3 hours)
of gaming and video I can get maybe 10 hours if I don't ration. Luckily if this annoys you there is an extended battery that you can buy that adds almost no noticeable bulk to the phone.

I actually typed this all up on my phone, so my apologies if it made any weird autocorrections.

I have an iphone 4s and it's wonderful, especially considering that I had a brick of a phone before it. That being said, I feel very uneasy with apple's user license agreements, and I generally hate itunes. But for sheer easiness and functionality/great features for someone who isn't a tech-head but isn't a caveman, it's very good.

The other posters did bring up valid points and cons you may want to consider, and I've never owned a google or windows phone so i can't really compare.

Another con with the iphone, be prepared to drop an extra 30-50 bucks on a case. If you drop your phone even a short distance, you're screwed without a case.

The s2 seems to be the most recommended phone, but I don't like the Touchwiz user interface. The one HTCs use looks better.

Plus, these galaxy phones are really expensive! 500eur (around here). :/

Question: are Verizon and Sprint companies like Vodafone? Why can't you have certain phones with them?

What specifically are people hating about TouchWiz? If what you don't like is the launcher that's as simple to change as downloading a different launcher app. If you're feeling a teeny bit adventurous you can change the appearance of just about anything on most Android devices. You're not stuck with UI layouts that you hate.

Oh, I didn't know that. Probably because I own a low end smartphone which can't support certain apps and it's not rootable (unless you spend money on an xtend clip [something like that]).

The Android app market place has tons of new launchers that you can use. The coolest thing is that you can get a refund on any app you buy within the first 15 minutes of downloading it, so you can test out new launchers to see if you like them before you comit to buying them. The refund policy of the app store is great to test out apps that are up to personal taste, like launchers.

There is a lot of good information in this thread. I'm glad I asked about a new phone. I thought I was gonna get a Nexus but now I'm back to tossing phones around again. I'm going to look this weekend still but now I'm not sure of which phone.

Just take your time when picking out a phone. Nothing svcks more than holding a phone in your hand and wishing you picked the other one.

I swear by my iPhone 4. Can't imagine life without it, it's so useful.
Then again I've never used an alternative smart phone and I reckon that they're all pretty similar.

People complain that you have to crack an iPhone to enable greater control, but I love the simplicity of the device. Everything just fits together perfectly and works so smoothly.

I hope you make the right choice, I've heard so many stories of people hating their choice of phone.

This is me. I hate my LG ALLY. It's slow, has no memory, reboots for no apparent reason. Apps install/uninstall themselves. I couldn't wait for the upgrade to come up, I may also film the death of this phone and put it up on YouTube.

I have an iPhone 3GS and I love it (you probably should get 4S instead). I don't know if this is worth noting but I read that the iOS doesn't get viruses whereas the android OS can.

Wait for the galaxy s3!!

I've heard that. But isn't the Android OS based off of Linux and isn't that supposed to be fairly impervious to viruses as well?

Not too sure tbh, just heard it from somewhere and thought it might influence your decision.

Btw I understand the customisability argument against iPhones, but I feel they are very accessible, and the phone feels really solid and well built. Plus iOS is designed to run on only iPhones. Samsung Galaxy S2 is one of my favourite phones and I've also heard good things about HTCs and Windows Phones.

You can get antivirus software for android too.

Apple has pretty strict requirements for apps they will allow in their AppStore. The Android Market isn't policed as strictly. The downside of that is that people have gotten malware from downloading shady apps from the Market. The upside is that there are more apps from small, independent developers. If you avoid shady-looking apps you're generally going to be fine. Anything featuring bikini girls should generally be avoided.

iPhone 4 is a nice device. The fact that I can't just use any old USB cable to charge it (like every other smartphone) is something that's unacceptable to me, though. Also the fact that you're forced to use iTunes for quite a few things unless you want to use unsupported software. On an Android device you can just plug your phone into your computer and copy files onto it (music, video, whatever). In most cases no proprietary software is required. For someone like me that's just 100% simpler than dealing with proprietary software to interact with the file system on my smartphone. I'm also a huge fan of tweaking my phone to function exactly the way I want it to, but I realize that's not for everyone.