Switched Completely from iPhone 5 / iPad Mini to Galaxy Note 2

[rankar7]

Every review I have read say the S 3 and Note 2 camera are below par in low light. I assume the S 4 will improve on this. I haven't taken enough pictures with my Note 2 to tell but the iPhone 5 is hard to beat in low light and the Note 2 isn't even close.

Photo test: Samsung Galaxy Camera vs iPhone 5, S3, Lumia | CNET UK

i think it's below par. and i've been shooting a while, including have had a Nikon F4 35mm as my everyday cam. my iphone4 had a better algorithm for resolving lighting and fill lighting issues.

i really dig my note2 and it's been eight weeks since i switched from iOS. the euphoria from the initial change has worn off and i can tell you that android is not the polished, all encompassing OS that people make it out to be. it's uneven in its distribution across phones/carriers, glitchy (kind of like windows on how it'll work great on one pc and buggy on another), and the sophistication of apps is not on par with iOS.

like i said it's been 8 weeks and i'm still trying to figure out why my wifi speeds are 0.1 mbps when i walk into the house (I have to turn off wifi and then back on again everytime).

maybe the OP can explain how imessage is buggy. that's a first for me too. besides, it's one of those apps that a great deal of folks in the android world wish existed. how cool is it to see you text delivered, read, or just to see that the other person is typing, across all of your devices.

 

[Chris Flowers]

I'm also a convert from iPhone 5. I actually did so though, in an unusual fashion. I was bored of iOS. I thought Evasi0n jailbreak would help to relieve the stale feeling, but after a few weeks of jailbreak tweaks I'd had enough. So I sent a Tweet out asking if anyone wanted to swap an iPhone 5 for a Galaxy Note II and a long time Twitter follower took me up on the offer

I've had five generations of iPhone and it's taken me that long to realise, that essentially, each one I bought in to, was not that much different from the last gen - certainly where the OS is concerned anyway. You do feel a bit 'locked in' with Apple products as you kind of give yourself the impression that you simply cannot now, go elsewhere. Simply not the case. I was surprised at how easy it was to transfer everything to Android. Having paid ?30 a year for iTunes Match I was pleasantly surprised that Google offered the same (or near as damnit) for FREE! My love for iPhone started dying I supposed, back when I bought the 4S. Siri was it's biggest selling point and yet here in the UK it was SEVERELY limited as no location based content was available. It took a long time for Apple to sort that out. Then there was the removal of Google Maps, and the final straw was TomTom climbing in to bed with Apple and removing Google search from their iOS app. But primarily, like I said above, I'd just grown bored of the same old-same old OS and this is a worrying trend for Apple as blogs are already rolling out stories about this very subject.

I must have spent ?1000's on apps from the Apple App Store and that was another 'hold you back' element. However when it came down to it, the apps I used frequently, for the most part were free ones anyway, and the odd one or two paid apps I couldn't live without, I simply purchased again on the Play Store.

I can honestly say, there are only two things I miss about my iPhone 5. Find My Friends and Siri's ability to recognise relationships. Find My Friends I used ALOT. And I miss being able to say "call my wife" and Siri knows who my wife is. I can't seem to replicate that on Android.

The only other thing is the TomTom app. I have TomTom Live subscriptions so I had to lay down the cash for TomTom Android. Compared to the iOS version though, it REALLY sucks. So many features are missing and it feels unloved by the developers and so outdated.

What I like about the Note II though, is it's size. I find it an acceptable screen size to do almost anything you would more likely do on a tablet, quite comfortably. Films, books, comic books all quite readable without straining.

However, as for reasons why I prefer it to my iPhone 5 - widgets for one. I love that I can read the BBC news headlines with ease from my home screen. Toggles is another. So handy being able to quickly enable or disable battery draining features.

The biggest difference for me though was realising how poor the iPhone 5's GSM and WiFi reception was. One hotel I use a lot, the iPhone 5 would not pick up the WiFi network, however in the same spot the GNII picked it up fine and others around the area too. And indoors at home, my 3 network reception was next to non-existent however on the GNII it's noticeably better.

Being a PC user too I found it difficult using Apple's software and products to keep everything in sync across devices. There is no denying that Google make this a much simpler process. Whatever I've been looking at in Chrome on Windows 8 for example, is instantly available in the history on my GNII. However I did need to install Google services and software such as Chrome. I dislike the Samsung software that comes preinstalled so had to spend a bit of time working out what I could disable, so that's perhaps one negative point to these Android 'based' devices.

Overall though, I'm satisfied and somewhat relieved that I kicked the addiction to iPhone. I can't see me going back now unless something drastically changes in hardware and OS design at Apple HQ.