Anyone who doesn't see this is a moron, but OSes are only improving and that's what I care about. I see the oversaturation of similarly spec'd phones as a good way to finally establish a technical baseline for Android. If the S4 dropping means that the S3 hits a price point where people on prepaid Android garbage can upgrade to something not running Gingerbread, then so be it.
This is my argument, after Dual Core phones dropped Software is the only thing that could be "innovative", that was my main gripe with Android it literally wasn't until Jelly Bean that Google started making big moves, but then you have all these manufactures bastardizing Android and throwing faster processors that ultimately mean nothing because they bog down the software with the unnecessary skins. Why is it that the GS4 is laggy as heck yet has a quad core blah blah blah processor? I think the HTC One was arguably the most Complete Android device this year but HTC is a horribly run company so to be safe the avg consumer would be better off with the GS4 or Note 3 because atleast they know a year from now their device wont be in the graveyard.
Nexus Devices are truly for the dev community so it not being available to all customers suck. With the LG G2, yea the Specs look good on paper, but it is a blatant Samsung Copy, everyone has their own design language but LG.
As stated before It just amazes me people will say "so and so sucks because it is a dual core and there are Quad core phones out" and people will bring up bench mark scores that mean nothing.
Well why is the dual core Moto X waaaaaaay smoother than the Gs4?
I like technology in general, I was going to buy the Note 3 but it seems just like the Note 2 to me. I just want people to see the bigger picture. People give Apple flack saying "well Moto already had a Fingerprint Scanner" well how did Motorola Utilize it, and why dont they include it anymore in devices? Because throwing random technology with no planned purpose does not equal innovation.
all of this. i think what it comes down to is marketing and fueling the hype. of course you can't read off specs to the avg smartphone user, so all that stuff eventually gets lost in translation via the sales rep with statements like "yea this phone is faster" and people will take their word for it.
but i know its all about software engineering when it comes to efficient, fast, fluid phones. people forget the iphone 5 is the first time iphones used a gig of ram. before, even on 4s it was 512mb. and iphones almost never lag. why? because apple makes sure their software design is efficient.
o yea. the iphone 4s was only dual core 800MHz. samsung i think had already pushed out quad cores on their phones.
and the people who think that quad core is only factor that determines which phone is better is falling right into their marketing trap. HTC, samsung, old motorola, and LG, took android (which google drastically improved with 4.2 project butter, and now 4.3) and throwing on customization after customization. to the point it doesn't look like regular android.
throw on a million features for your phone that almost no1 will ever use and you got a lot of software that needs managing. hence the quad core. oh and that battery? forget it.
so when google buys motorola and puts out the moto x, people hate because its dual core. goddamn, look at the phone industry objectively! the phone doesn't lag, because google threw out the custom skin. its just pure android with a couple more apps. PERIOD. and the dual core only runs the software, the GPU runs the visual aspects of the UI. that reads like efficient ******g design, something that apple has been doing for years.
motion tracking, eye tracking, multi function remote, etc doesn't make for a great phone.
you can't surf the web on a s4 or htc one better than a moto x, iphone, or nexus 4. period. you can't text better either. or navigate better. or w.e.
they can stuff as many pixels on the screen as they want, 325ppi or higher the human eye can't see pixels anyways.
sorry for the rant. but too many people are nitpicking and overlooking the things that actually matter when it comes to a well engineered cell phone.
moto x is $600. assembled in US. S4 and HTC one and iphone are made and assembled in china. $600.
which is the bigger ripoff?