Perhaps I am too new to post such a thread, but I am at a loss as to where to turn for help.
Let me start off by saying that I don't dislike the phone or Android, I'm just very unsure of things right now. This was not a rash decision to purchase, nor am I totally unsavvy, tech wise. I just assumed, yes I know one shouldn't, that once I had this phone, this whole smartphone thing would make sense and I'd be bewildered by its smartness. In some ways I am, but in many more ways I am not. What to do, oh what to do.
I have been waiting for what has seemed a lifetime for a decent phone to upgrade to from my LG Dare... Yes, the LG Dare! I bought that phone at its launch, and though it has served me well, it is fully featureless. I wanted to upgrade to a quality device that allowed for a seamless user experience. Apple was out of the question, RIM seems to be falling apart at the seams, which left me with Android, and the newest, allegedly best iteration of the OS, ICS. And thus, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.
However, the phone, while nice, is not of high quality - at least not based upon its price point. The speaker on the unit is rather wimpy, crackly, and of general poor quality. Usable, but not what it should be. The phone is rather unwieldingly big, and somewhat slippery - more so on both accounts than I expected. The screen is nice and big, which is a result of the former I know, and while appreciated, the overall quality is rather lackluster (under many, but not all, conditions). Perhaps I have a faulty display, but when set to automatic brightness, some of the backgrounds are rather grainy. Automatic or high brightness, the gray/denim color menu backgrounds (as found within the settings menu) shows what looks like burn in marks/lines/smudges. I know this not to be the case (in terms of burn in), but it's definitely not right. When set to black, white, or watching movies or browsing the web, it's not so much an issue - at full brightness at least. It's weird.
Also, I have missed a few calls due to the speaker not being loud enough, or calls not registering as calls, and thus not ringing, fast enough. Charging the battery has been forced to occur twice since very late Friday. Not bad, perhaps, but my usage of the device has not been extreme (I'll get to why in a bit). With my Dare I charge it maybe every other week! Lofty expectations I had, I understand. The major beef I have with battery, though, or rather with charging, is that I'm not made aware of the charge being complete. No sound, no pulse light, no on-screen icon. I have to wake it in order to spy the mini icon atop the screen. To drone on, I can't even get my own ringtones and wallpapers onto the phone. I used to be able to email/text them to my Dare, but that doesn't seem to work with the Nexus. There's no SD card slot, so that's out of the question. And though Android is more Linux based than any other phone OS, my computer's OS, Linux, doesn't recognize it. So, I'm left with the default (boringly bad) ringtones and such, until a workaround is found.
There are many settings I'd like to tweak, but I can't. Why when I press the phone icon to place a call, does it not default to the dial pad? If I looked at my recent call log last, that's where it defaults to. Why, once a call is placed, can I not set it to display the dial pad by default? A missed call by Verizon on my Dare results in a nasty beep that I can't disable, but this phone doesn't even react. I'm glad there's no nasty beep, but why doesn't the notification pulse thingy light up? It's finicky, too, it seems, when deciding on which text messages to alert me to. Why does the dotted line ICS mini settings/menu icon change its location on an app to app basis? Why, in camera mode, do the ICS main icons turn to dots? Other times they should disappear to make use of the larger screen, but here they just turn to dots. Odd. And the phone, while generally fast, still shudders more than I expected. I like the microbes live wallpaper, but it causes the menu access to hesitate. Not a huge deal, but odd for an alleged high end phone with hardly anything running other than stock apps. And speaking of apps...
As I eluded to earlier, this is my first smartphone, and thus my first experience with the Android Marketplace. I must say, I am horridly befuddled. Every app, or just about every app, wants full and total control of my phone. And not just my phone, and my identify, but the identity of my contacts. They want to activate the camera without my knowing, find out when I'm on the phone, who I am speaking with, and what sites I've been looking at. They want to pinpoint my location at whatever time they choose, and they want to, if they could, mess with my non-existent SD card. Really? Just to use Kindle? Evernote? Play a game of Pew Pew? Use Light Flow Lite to get the pulse notification to do what it already should? All of these and more want to listen, see, and track everything about me? Perhaps I'm overreacting (I have the tendency to), or perhaps I'm just naive (which I am), but this just doesn't seem right. Yet, hundreds of thousands of people download these very apps, and many more unsavory ones, every minute. Should I worry? Why is it even okay for these apps to have root access? Why is it okay to let them have their way with me? I'm guessing the iPhone is the same way. I just don't get it. I have so far downloaded two apps, Opera and Netflix - if only because I am already well established with them.
So, here I am, a newbie rambling and venting on and on. I apologize for anyone that has made it this far, only to have me give whomever cause to roll his/her eyes. But as I said, I just didn't know where else to turn. I am looking for feedback, guidance, something. Anything. If I take this phone back, I have no other options. It's Android this and Apple that. I don't know. Do you?
Let me start off by saying that I don't dislike the phone or Android, I'm just very unsure of things right now. This was not a rash decision to purchase, nor am I totally unsavvy, tech wise. I just assumed, yes I know one shouldn't, that once I had this phone, this whole smartphone thing would make sense and I'd be bewildered by its smartness. In some ways I am, but in many more ways I am not. What to do, oh what to do.
I have been waiting for what has seemed a lifetime for a decent phone to upgrade to from my LG Dare... Yes, the LG Dare! I bought that phone at its launch, and though it has served me well, it is fully featureless. I wanted to upgrade to a quality device that allowed for a seamless user experience. Apple was out of the question, RIM seems to be falling apart at the seams, which left me with Android, and the newest, allegedly best iteration of the OS, ICS. And thus, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.
However, the phone, while nice, is not of high quality - at least not based upon its price point. The speaker on the unit is rather wimpy, crackly, and of general poor quality. Usable, but not what it should be. The phone is rather unwieldingly big, and somewhat slippery - more so on both accounts than I expected. The screen is nice and big, which is a result of the former I know, and while appreciated, the overall quality is rather lackluster (under many, but not all, conditions). Perhaps I have a faulty display, but when set to automatic brightness, some of the backgrounds are rather grainy. Automatic or high brightness, the gray/denim color menu backgrounds (as found within the settings menu) shows what looks like burn in marks/lines/smudges. I know this not to be the case (in terms of burn in), but it's definitely not right. When set to black, white, or watching movies or browsing the web, it's not so much an issue - at full brightness at least. It's weird.
Also, I have missed a few calls due to the speaker not being loud enough, or calls not registering as calls, and thus not ringing, fast enough. Charging the battery has been forced to occur twice since very late Friday. Not bad, perhaps, but my usage of the device has not been extreme (I'll get to why in a bit). With my Dare I charge it maybe every other week! Lofty expectations I had, I understand. The major beef I have with battery, though, or rather with charging, is that I'm not made aware of the charge being complete. No sound, no pulse light, no on-screen icon. I have to wake it in order to spy the mini icon atop the screen. To drone on, I can't even get my own ringtones and wallpapers onto the phone. I used to be able to email/text them to my Dare, but that doesn't seem to work with the Nexus. There's no SD card slot, so that's out of the question. And though Android is more Linux based than any other phone OS, my computer's OS, Linux, doesn't recognize it. So, I'm left with the default (boringly bad) ringtones and such, until a workaround is found.
There are many settings I'd like to tweak, but I can't. Why when I press the phone icon to place a call, does it not default to the dial pad? If I looked at my recent call log last, that's where it defaults to. Why, once a call is placed, can I not set it to display the dial pad by default? A missed call by Verizon on my Dare results in a nasty beep that I can't disable, but this phone doesn't even react. I'm glad there's no nasty beep, but why doesn't the notification pulse thingy light up? It's finicky, too, it seems, when deciding on which text messages to alert me to. Why does the dotted line ICS mini settings/menu icon change its location on an app to app basis? Why, in camera mode, do the ICS main icons turn to dots? Other times they should disappear to make use of the larger screen, but here they just turn to dots. Odd. And the phone, while generally fast, still shudders more than I expected. I like the microbes live wallpaper, but it causes the menu access to hesitate. Not a huge deal, but odd for an alleged high end phone with hardly anything running other than stock apps. And speaking of apps...
As I eluded to earlier, this is my first smartphone, and thus my first experience with the Android Marketplace. I must say, I am horridly befuddled. Every app, or just about every app, wants full and total control of my phone. And not just my phone, and my identify, but the identity of my contacts. They want to activate the camera without my knowing, find out when I'm on the phone, who I am speaking with, and what sites I've been looking at. They want to pinpoint my location at whatever time they choose, and they want to, if they could, mess with my non-existent SD card. Really? Just to use Kindle? Evernote? Play a game of Pew Pew? Use Light Flow Lite to get the pulse notification to do what it already should? All of these and more want to listen, see, and track everything about me? Perhaps I'm overreacting (I have the tendency to), or perhaps I'm just naive (which I am), but this just doesn't seem right. Yet, hundreds of thousands of people download these very apps, and many more unsavory ones, every minute. Should I worry? Why is it even okay for these apps to have root access? Why is it okay to let them have their way with me? I'm guessing the iPhone is the same way. I just don't get it. I have so far downloaded two apps, Opera and Netflix - if only because I am already well established with them.
So, here I am, a newbie rambling and venting on and on. I apologize for anyone that has made it this far, only to have me give whomever cause to roll his/her eyes. But as I said, I just didn't know where else to turn. I am looking for feedback, guidance, something. Anything. If I take this phone back, I have no other options. It's Android this and Apple that. I don't know. Do you?
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