Last week my wife lost her iPhone 3G in a little accident at home. Actually it was more of a tragedy and it involves Mia Ariana and a full bladder. Anyway as any regular iPhone users should know, after using the best damn phone in the world for some time, they would exhibit withdrawal symptoms after losing it. That includes lack of sleep, loss of productivity (Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja) and that empty feeling deep down inside. So my wife rather than suffer through all 5 stages of agony, decided to do the wise thing and bought another iPhone (after much prodding and moral support from her husband).
That brings us to this beautiful new, reconditioned iPhoned 3GS phone you see above. Since iPhone 4 is still too expensive for our budget, we had to settle for the next best thing. In Low Yat Plaza there are two types of iPhone 3GS'. Second hand or a reconditioned (recon) unit. There's no such thing as a new iPhone 3GS in the market right now. If they say it's new, it's probably a recon unit. A recon (new) iPhone 3GS phone at Low Yat is only around 1K while a second hand iPhone 4 is about RM1.6K but they're still hard to come by.
To me, this old and underpowered iPhone 3GS still beats the most of the best or newest Android smartphones out there. Although those droids easily outshine the 3GS in hardware specifications, software-wise they're still light years behind. iOS 5, iTunes integration and hundred of thousands quality apps on and off the App Store. Can Android copy that? I don't think so. During my short-lived experiment with Android, I had a tough time finding any decent app for my phone. And even they come from the same publisher, somehow the Android app will look much uglier than their iOS counterpart. And have you tried to root (jailbreak) an Android? I did. About a dozen times actually but failed every time. I consider myself technologically advanced and yet I couldn't liberate my Android even by following all the instructions online to the letter.
Then there's the case of Android fragmentation. Sure there are literally hundreds of Androids to chose from to suit any budget. However some of the cheaper Android phones are so crappy, you better of buying a generic Nokia dumbphone with Symbian. The screen is to small, virtual keyboard is impossible to press and the onboard RAM is a joke. Plus the OS update takes forever to come. Although Google has released the latest version ages ago, they will mean nothing if your phone's manufacturer keep dragging their feet on releasing their on version. You just can't connect to iTunes and download the latest update every 2 months like the iPhone.
Next is lack of iTunes or a central repository for software and multimedia organisation. Sure you can easily transfer movies and download apps for the Android but once you had to do a complete restore, the result would be messy. Unless you have a 3rd party backup app (like Titanium backup) installed, getting your Android phone back to normal would be a pain in the ass. With the iPhone you just plug and sync everytime. Now you can even do it wirelessly with iOS5. I can go on and on about the advantages of iPhones over Android but the bottomline is, Android sucks. So does Windows Phone and Blackberries. End of story.
So if you're planning to get a smartphone soon, there's only one brand of phone to consider. You know what it is. Yes they're still expensive but it's a long term investment which you won't regret.
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