Monday, May 21, 2012

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I've Joined the Android Army

On Friday night, my new Galaxy Nexus arrived.  I popped the microSIM from my iPhone 4 into a regular-sized SIM adapter.  Popped that into the Nexus, and I was up and running.  Everything worked, but in the morning, I made a call to AT&T just to make sure I'd be getting the correct data speeds.

Switching from iOS to Android has been more painless than I ever could have imagined.  I've come across only a few apps that don't have Android versions, notables being Cooks Illustrated and NPR Music.  I love both of those, but I honestly used them only rarely.  Also, CoolMom will be inheriting the iPhone 4, so they won't be far away.

The iPhone has a well-deserved reputation as an excellent music player, but I'm loving the Nexus so far. Yesterday, I decided moments before my run that I was going to try out Memoryhouse's The Slideshow Effect.  I purchased it through the AmazonMP3 Android app, which isn't available on iOS, and had the album streaming to my bluetooth headphones in seconds.  There wasn't any downloading to iTunes and then waiting for an entire sync before leaving.  As a matter of fact, there wasn't any downloading at all.  I streamed the entire album during my run.  Amazon is also running discounts on certain albums purchased via the app, so it gave me an incentive to grab albums by Kurt Vile, EMA, and Lambchop that I'd always meant to buy.

The screen is so big and beautiful it could almost replace my Kindle.  Surfing the web with the mobile version of Chrome is a pleasure, and voice actions -- the Android version of Siri without the backtalk -- are a blast.  Best of all, I didn't have to re-up for another two years to get it.

I'm comparing things to an iPhone 4.  That means no Siri, a less capable camera, slower hardware, and slower mobile data than an iPhone 4s, and it's still pretty close.  The build quality of iPhones is just fantastic, and the Galaxy Nexus does seem a little flimsy by comparison.  The speaker on the iPhone 4 was a big improvement over the one on the 3g from which I upgraded.  The Nexus speaker brings me back to those awful days with the iPhone 3g.  No more iMessaging all my iPhone-toting friends.  And, strangely, the Nexus reports no bars in some parts of the house, while the iPhone 4 always reported a strong signal.  Haven't missed or dropped a call yet, though.

It's all been a little anticlimactic.  I thought I'd either be blown away by the thing or that I'd absolutely hate it.  What I've found is that the latest version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, stacks up really well with iOS.  I won't have any trouble listening to music or staying up-to-date with bands, venues, and other blogs via Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.  I can still buy tickets straight from my phone.  So, my advice:  whenever you're ready for a new phone, try both flavors and get what you like.  I really wanted this to be controversial.  Oh well.

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