Pedro...Galaxy S4 v Nexus v HTC One

[PedroDaGr8]

My contract renewal is up with AT&T soon. Phone shopping now commencing.

It's a great time to be in the market for a phone. If I remember correctly you are an iPhone guy. Before I say anything, DO NOT undervalue your investment in iOS. If you change OS's you not only lose what you invested in apps but the fact that you WILL have to learn a new environment and way to do things. Keep in mind there WILL be growing pains if you decide to switch. If you don't have the stamina to learn a new environment then sometimes its better to chose a product which isn't quite as good; especially if the differences are small.

[BigBlueBrock]

New iPhone next week. So I'd hang back and wait if you're an iUser.

[Catonahottinroof]

I am. I don't have a great deal of app investment in itunes short of facebook. I use XBMC on my iphone to stream content to my home theater and that is the primary use of the gadget for me these days. Android platform does this without the jailbreak necessary for an iphone to do it.

[Darrell KSR]

I read everything I could. I got anecdotal affirmation from guys here, and folks I run into. I went to the store and played with the ones I was looking at; mainly the S4, HTC One, Note 2, and iPhone. Not a loser in the bunch, but 4 winners to me.

I got Consumer Reports highest rated phone (at the time--another week has passed, so there may be another leader in the clubhouse), but I also saw various other ones ranked higher by other respected entities, too. In fact, I'm pretty sure each one of the ones I mentioned is rated # 1 by some reviewer or another.

I'd go in, play with ones you're looking at, and just get the one YOU like. I loved the look and speakers of the HTC. I loved the screen size of the Note 2 for "phablet" use, but hated handling it as a phone and putting it in my pocket. The iPhone felt more solid than any of them, and it was smooth. In the end, I liked the S4 for my own reasons--the screen size was perfect--large, but not so large that it made me feel like it was a phablet, and loved the expansion capability. One of the things I do is download about 30 or 40 TV shows to the phone. When I have my insomnia, I stay in bed, listen on a headphone, and watch TV (unless I get up and work). When I travel to volleyball or soccer tournaments, and we have a single hotel room, the lights go out before I am sleepy. I watch TV on the phone. It downloads new episodes of shows I like "whenever," and because it is downloaded to the phone already, you don't have to be online, and there's no "buffering," you watch a smooth show.

I'm overexplaining it, and that wasn't "the" factor, but it was one of them--for me. For me, the upgrades to all of these phones was so big that I was going to be happy no matter what, though, but I am very satisfied that all of the phones mentioned are outstanding.

Anyway, the expan

[CitizenBBN]

Darrell what app to you use for the tv downloads?

[Darrell KSR]

CBBN, there may be something better, but it is DroidTV. The app used to be on Google Playstore, then I *think* it went to Amazon. Was off Amazon briefly, but I think it's back on there.

It's a subscription service, which I despise, and when I first signed up, it was $8.99 for 6 months. They doubled the price to $8.99 for 3 months, but I found it works well for me the way I use it. Basically, I subscribe for 3 months....at the close of the 3 month period, I make sure I download a bunch of TV episodes. I put away a nice stash of shows, maybe 60 or so. Maybe more. Probably more.

Then I don't resubscribe until I'm almost out of TV shows. I'm in my 3rd or 4th month now, but my stash is dwindling down, and I'm about to "re-up."

Having said all of that, I peeked a couple of months ago, and I think some folks weren't thrilled with them. Said they didn't have their shows; they were coming in sporadically, etc. I like shows like Criminal Minds, where each one is almost a mini-movie in itself, and frankly, if they miss an episode, it's not a killer for me. so I will resubscribe.

Pedro or somebody may have a better option. But this really works well for me. I'm going to my Dad's wedding this weekend--will have family members with me in a hotel room that will want to sleep before I do. Well, I'll watch a show or two while everything else is off. Two weekends from now I'm going to the beach for a soccer tournament; same thing. But many nights I'm awake and my wife is sleeping, and I will also watch a show while I get drowsy. Just works. Love the "no-buffering." It eats up a lot of bandwidth while it downloads the shows, but you can do it over wi-fi, or have unlimited bandwidth, which I finally got this year without throttling, so I leave it to "download" all the time. I have probably 20 shows or so I have automatically set to download new episodes.

I roughly counted 227 shows they have in their guide, and of course, numerous episodes for each show they have stocked away.

[Darrell KSR]

Oh... I jus counted, and I still have 52 shows stockpiled. I'm sure I've had 150 easy downloaded at a single time before, as I am running low now.

One other thing. No commercials. So hour long shows are 41 minutes, half hour are 20.

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[PedroDaGr8]

Also, the next Nexus is coming out soon. It was "accidentally" leaked at the announcement of the next version of Android. It seems pretty damn good. Reported specs are 5" display, Snapdragon 800 CPU, LTE (all bands), 802.11ac wifi, etc.

[Darrell KSR]

Oh... I jus counted, and I still have 52 shows stockpiled. I'm sure I've had 150 easy downloaded at a single time before, as I am running low now.

One other thing. No commercials. So hour long shows are 41 minutes, half hour are 20.

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk 4

FWIW, I just resubscribed. It did not update immediately, so I dropped them an email. They voluntarily extended it one additional month. Second time they have done that, which drops cost even more.

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