iPhone convert here. Been through the iPhone 4, 4s, 5, 5s. Love this phone. A few thoughts from me below:
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The negligible:
The stock mail app sucks compared to iOS. It doesn't auto-resize e-mails for whatever reason. I use Google Apps for business so I use the Gmail app for everything, so for me that's a non issue, and it will be a non issue for most. I'm OCD though.
OK, some will think I'm reaching a bit here, but I like to have my Visual Voicemail in the phone dialer - like in iOS. I'm on Verizon, and they wanted me to pay $3 for a service that's free when you use an iPhone. I said nope, and set up Google Voice, which is working nicely. You can do a conditional forward to your Google Voice number and it works well (download the app).
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Just to comment on these two items...
The "stock" email app will vary from model to model within the Android world, though I agree most are underwhelming, though for the most part at least functional. Keep in mind to that GMail has it's own dedicated app, so when folks refer to the "stock" email app, they are primarily referring to retrieving email from non-GMail accounts. I've never used the stock email app on the HTC One M8, so I can't comment on it much more than that. Luckily, there are some alternatives... For one, GMail works great, so you could always just use gmail *as your email client* (i.e. setup gmail to fetch email from your other accounts), or if you can't/don't want to do that, there are some 3rd party email client apps out there that are definitely more polished than the stock client.
When fully setup (and it's not hard to do) to handle your voicemail service, Google Voice operates in pretty much the exact same way that iPhone's VVM does...and can even do a bit more! From within the Google Voice app, you can even enable a setting to show your messages inline with your call log via the phone app. What I like about using GV for voicemail is that it isn't tied to any device platform or carrier, I can take it with me no matter I choose to use in the future, plus, it can send you an email notification when you get a voicemail, which is nice for folks like me who don't get cellular reception at work. I guess my point here is don't let the VVM be a factor for you when trying to decide.
Thank you so much for your thoughts! I enjoy my iPhone (have a 5), but I'm just ready for something different.... And ready for more space with the sd card!
I hadn't thought about the mini USB thing. I can understand the annoyance. It's a small issue, but I understand.
What's group messaging like? There are messaging apps I can use that will let me group message with my iPhone friends, right? (I already use whatsapp, but I'm not gonna get everyone to switch for me.)
Aside from messaging, the camera is a concern for me. I really just send my pics to friends or post to social media... So I'd think it'd be fine for me? I've seen some beautiful pics posted... But with all the arguing back and forth, it just seems I'll have to give it a shot and see for myself if it'll be acceptable.
Group messaging works fine on Android, but there is one very important thing you need to do if you decide to switch to Android, and that is un-register your phone number with iMessage before you do so, otherwise what commonly happens is you will have issues receiving messages from friends that are using iPhones, because the network still thinks you have an iPhone and tries to send messages via iMessage instead of SMS. Other messaging services like Whatsapp, Google Hangouts and Facebook messenger all work beautifully as well.