I use an android phone as my podcast device, so I am up to date on their features. And while I don't like many things about it compared to winphone it's workable, in fact very good in some aspects.
What I cannot tolerate is that you have to tie your personal identity (via your sim card) into googles advertising tracking. I'd even take Apple over android, despite all of it's backward UI (I use an iPhone for work -- yes I weild three phones) because at least all they are selling me is hardware and shit OS (as opposed to google spying on me and selling my information to advertisers and the government intelligence agencies).
When it comes to my next phone (assuming Winphone is dead, which it is), I think I am going to go for a burner with no modern OS and continue using android tied to a dummy account for an MP3 player.
Yeah, for some reason I trust Google the least with my information. Whenever they ask me if I chose to share my usage I'll always opt out, even if it means giving up some functionality. I really don't get why some calendar app needs access to my phonecalls and should be able to make calls of its own.
But hey, since I don't want to spend a lot on a smartphone, Iphone is out of the running. And I don't regret it, my wife has one, I can't find shit on it. And they don't have expandable storage, so you have to use the cloud for everything, something I also don't do.
Oh, and one more issue: I store my pictures on an SD card, with geotagging enabled so I can view them on a map through a dedicated app. I figured that I could format my SD card to work with Android, and then just load my old pictures into the correct file. I can view them without a problem, but for some reason the location data has either not survived the move, or Android just doesn't want to play nice with my winphotos. 
I don't get what Google's gripe is with everything winphone, it's like they actively go out of their way to prevent them from being compatible.
At least I got my outlook account synced through the Blackberry app. Now all I need is to sort out why my 200 something contacts have multiplied themselves into 9500+ contacts. 
"oh look, he's reading reviews of a 20 year old video game and researching formulas for Excel....again."
the government I could live with, they just take my money for some vague promises of things I'll get in return. It's the fact that it's businesses spying on me that will then exploit my weaknesses to sell me goods I might like I can't stand.
Fuck phones.
Windows 10 phones suck btw. Winphone 8 is the best.
I just got a Galaxy S7; I had an S4 for about 4 years now.
SUPER MARIO MAKER LEVELS:
- SMB Mix-Up! (1AB2-0000-0047-5A7D)
- Storm the Castle (77BD-0000-00E0-A9C0)
SupremeAC said:the government I could live with, they just take my money for some vague promises of things I'll get in return. It's the fact that it's businesses spying on me that will then exploit my weaknesses to sell me goods I might like I can't stand.
I agree.
gamingeek said:Fuck phones.
I agree.
robio said:
"oh look, he's reading reviews of a 20 year old video game and researching formulas for Excel....again."
I used to save my formula cheats in a text doc, I got sick of trying to re-find them online.
Now my phone kicks in to screensaver mode when I put it down for half a minute. Hugely satisfying that I managed this.
I love iPhone convert stories.
travo said:I love iPhone convert stories.
Get out of my blogpost!
At work, they got an extra iPhone and it was time for me to get rid of my Android phone (I was going to downgrade to the smallest possible Android phone I could find out of spite for having to have a @#$%ing phone at all). I almost got one, but then this iPhone became available.
^Left, what I was going to get.
So keeping in mind the iPhone is $1300 and all my Android phones were $200 I cannot make a fair hardware comparison, this one is snappier, but again not a fair comparison.
The UI is less crap than it used to be (iOS) and everything mostly works. I was expecting to be able not to use it, but it is perfectly adequate, and it helps that I am out of the google business.
Good timing on resurrecting this thread. I just bought a new Motorola android phone myself. We're 7 years later and I'm still frustrated at how android phones work and don't want to do what I want them to do. I've now got a 50megapixel lens, and I can select 'standard' or 'high' quality in the resolutions setting. It baffles the mind.
SupremeAC said:Good timing on resurrecting this thread. I just bought a new Motorola android phone myself. We're 7 years later and I'm still frustrated at how android phones work and don't want to do what I want them to do. I've now got a 50megapixel lens, and I can select 'standard' or 'high' quality in the resolutions setting. It baffles the mind.
On my last Android phone I could not open photos from the camera ap (if I clicked on an image I just took in the camera ap it would say "this application cannot open this file format". 
You mean this ap that just created this file and saved it in this format cannot open it now it's created and saved it? Okay. Must be a union thing.
Well, I bought me a new phone a couple of days back. Thanks for the tips everyone, you'll be happy to know I bought something completely different.
I did heavily consider getting a Moto G5, as I think Raven pointed me towards. It was getting a lot of good reviews, but in the end I went with a new Nokia 5, mostly because of the design. These new Nokia phones (Nokia in name only, it's a new firm apparently) really are a cut above everything else in the design department.
As for Android. Everything is so COLOURFULL. I hate it. The settings don't make sense. I can't find settings for stuff I want to change, and some settings just have me circle between different menu's without allowing me to change anything. I miss winphone. People can crap on it all they want, but it was the cleanest and easiest OS by far. Now that I'm on Android I also can't understand the claims that Winphone is much less flexible. There were more settings in my winphone than on this. I get that Android is more flexible though, in that you can download skins and whatnot. Which is exactly what I did. I downloaded a launcher so I could make my phone look just like my Winphone. And by God, am I glad I got rid of the eyesoar that stock Android is.
Syncing contacts and stuff from Winphone to Android is also a headache. The short story: it can't be done. You can't sync your outlook account with Android. There are programs that claim they can do it for you if you install it both on your android phone and windows pc, but they cust upwards of $30. The long story: I had given up on it, had transferred my contact list to my gmail account (which I don't use for anything). Later on I was looking for a calendar that would at least accept an outlook account, so that my calendar's would sink between my pc and phone and I found the Blackberry calendar. It's free with adds. But to install it, you had to download the Blackberry Hub+ app. To which you could then link your outlook account. After fidgetting around with some more arcane setting screens, I managed to link up my outlook account. And behold, it actually worked. Better yet, Blackberry also has a Contacts app, meaning I can keep my contacts synced as well.
Even better yet, for some reason, Google accepts a Blackberry account as a valid, syncable account. To my surprise I could all of a sudden see my outlook agenda's in the google calendar and my contacts showing up in the android contacts. I tried deleting the Blackberry calendar and contacts apps (free with ads) and only keeping the Hub+ and lo and behold, everything still works. I have conquered Google, outsmarted the internet.
So, to all you Winphone users out there (GG, Aspro), when the day comes that you bust your phone and are forced to move on to Android (the less said about iOS the better), remember that not all is lost. Check out these apps that have made me a happy chappy again:
Squarehome2
A launcher that reskins the start screen and allows you to recreate the look and feel of a Winphone. Your apps will still be fisher price colloured, but at least your startscreen will be clean. It allows you to have an app tray when you swipe to the right like you have on Winphone, it has clean widgets (live tiles) for your agenda and a better contacts list. It's free for 2 weeks, after which some functions are hidden behind a $4 paywall. I have yet to see how much this affects my settings, but I think that with some concessions I'll be able to keep it free. And if not, this launcher is worth more than the asking price.
Wicons
a set of a couple of thousand white Winphone style icons that you can use to replace Google's horribly colourfull ones. It doesn't cover everything, but it covers most apps you'll need. It's also free.
Blackberry Hub+
Set your outlook account as your main account in this app and watch how the impossible becomes possible as Google will sync your outlook calendar and contacts. It works and for some reason, the internet isn't aware of this little wonder app. The Hub+ app is free.