From iPhone to Galaxy... one year later...

I am a little over a year out from switching from an iPhone 4S to a Galaxy S4.  Read on if you are curious about my experience, but the short version is that plan to upgrade to the iPhone 6 at my first opportunity.

That being said, I don't regret my decision at all.  Having been an iPhone guy since they came out I was a little bored with the UI and the Galaxy offered something different and had some features I thought were important.  A few of the features that lured me away from the iPhone were:  Bigger screen, expandable memory, replaceable battery, air gestures, reading mode, and multi-window.  The only items that turned out to be worth the switch were bigger screen and expandable memory.  The rest of the items quickly became unimportant the second week I had my phone.

Why am I switching back?  While I may have been a bit bored with IOS, it "just worked" all the time.  I am not saying you can't do the same tasks on the Galaxy, but on the iPhone I found the UI to be simple, elegant, and you just instinctively know how to do what you want to do.  The android OS isn't nearly as easy to figure out.  I had to do quite a bit of internet searching to figure out how to perform some basic operations.  At first I thought it might just be because I was used to the Apple way of doing things... but having the phone for 14 months now... I am comfortable saying it isn't as easy to use as an iPhone.

Battery life... it is AWFUL.  I CONSTANTLY run in power saving mode and I feel like I have to have my phone plugged in all day.  There is a reason you can exchange the battery... you pretty much have to unless you want to be tethered to the wall.  I have heard about iPhone 5s battery problems, but I never had issues with my iPhones.

Another item that really intrigued me when moving to the Android device was the ability to customize my UI.  I did go down that road a few times, but always ended switching back to the stock OS after a few days.  Another feature I don't care about apparently.

One thing people said to me when switching to Android was that the phone would slow down dramatically after the first couple months.  With that in mind, I really kept my eye on the snappiness of the UI and primary programs.  I never noticed any slowdown... It may happen to others, but fortunately I never had that problem.

As for Apple is good, Google is evil... or the opposite depending on your viewpoint... I don't care.  Generally I think I "like" Apple a bit more, but maybe I am just being swayed by the marketing and brand.  Would my loyalty to either company sway my decision?  No...

As long as Apple increases their screen size (as anticipated), I look forward to coming home in a couple months.  In this case, size matters (screen size).  Heck... I am even considering a Mac as my next computer although, I will have to work out financing for the one I really want.

Comments

Russell said…
Thank you for posting this! This ensures I won't be switching anytime soon although I had been tempted. As for a Mac computer, my previous Macbook is 7 years old and still performing well despite some user abuse. My current Macbook Pro is my daily machine and rarely causes any issues outside from the once a quarter permission maintenance.