Is it normal to have so many problems with an android phone

[sageorama]

I am new to android phones and was a life-long apple/ios customer. I have had an android since the LG G4 came out last June. From the beginning I have been learning at an exponential rate about the heating issues (literally burning my hand), hours researching every issue and learning about clearing caches, doing 2 factory resets (one worked and the other didn't make a difference), a boot issue that had to be repaired by LG, and my current issue for past 6 months: some sort of bluetooth issue that doesn't work with voice assistant and most importantly cut in and out when listening to audio through bluetooth speakers (auto or elsewhere). I am pretty sure I have tried everything except getting this handset replaced.

In going through forums on different topics, is this normal for android? Or are there phones/carriers with fewer issues? I am on Verizon. I am already looking forward to my next android (I'm not giving up! I hate Itunes THAT MUCH - still I am tired of my husband teasing me when my phone has yet another issue)

 

[Tim1954]

Hi and welcome to the forums sageorama, the reason we like andriod is because we can twiddle endlessly and fine tune the devices precisely how we like. However, you are seeing a concentration of issues here, because that's what this place is about. It's like working in a hospital and thinking everyone is sick because you only see sick people. There are millions of Android users out there who just use their devices year after year and no problems. You don't see them here obviously. You go to our sister site iMore and you'll see many iPhone related issues in their forums. Sorry you are having problems which is of course do exist, and I hope you get them sorted. Changing platforms can be frustrating and laborious at the best of times! I have to troubleshoot Mrs Tim's iPhone and ipad here and it drives me to distraction!

 

[Mooncatt]

The good thing about Android is you get a ton of options when deciding which devices to get. The down side is having so many different options means greater chance for bugs. I'll give Apple credit for their tight knit software. If you something that just works, Apple is probably your best bet.

Because there are thousands of different Android devices running on multiple levels of the Android OS, programming can be a relative nightmare to get something working across the board. It'll be a trade-off you need to accept, though generally Android does work well overall.

To address your specific issues:

The G4 and most modern flagship phones do run relatively hot. The processors they put in these phones are rivaling some computers, which means a lot of heat is generated. That heat has to go somewhere. It shouldn't get hot enough to burn, but gaming for a long time in high ambient heat or in direct sunlight can certain do this. Basic web browsing and such will make it warm but not hot.

I don't use Bluetooth audio often, but I've had similar experiences. I can't speak for Apple, but I know this is a known issue for some Android devices. I think there are some new codecs coming to the market to combat this, but the general reasoning I've heard as the cause simply comes down to bandwidth. Bluetooth wasn't designed with streaming high quality audio in mind. So it's basically too much water, not enough pipe.

I also don't use the voice assist. I tried it, but voice dial recognition was a joke and never recognized what I said. So I can't really help you there, only to say it doesn't bother me because I don't care for voice recognition like that or Google Now. It's one of the first things I disable on any new phone.