[Discuss] [OT] Smart Phones

[mark at buttery.org (Shirley Márquez Dúlcey)]

> So I was hoping for a few  other  evaluations  of  phones,  but  that
> hasn't appeared so far.  Do others have suggestions for what are good
> geek-friendly "smart phones" these days? I'm thinking of replacing my
> old  HTC-1  with  something better, and wondering if it's possible to
> make sense of the commercial hype.

The friendliest phones for geeks are the Nexus phones bought directly
from Google, because you get all the system updates right away. But
that limits you to GSM carriers and means no LTE, and the Nexus phones
lack an SD slot. (The Nexus 4 actually has an LTE-capable modem but
doesn't officially support it.) Still, if your carrier of choice is
T-Mobile or AT&T (or a virtual network carrier that uses one of those)
the Nexus 4 is a good phone if you can actually get one. (Google seems
to have trouble keeping them in stock.) The Galaxy Nexus (the previous
generation of Nexus phone) is also friendly if you have the
no-longer-available unlocked version from Google (it was replaced by
the Nexus 4) but less so if you have one of the carrier versions.

The big mobile conference is currently happening so there will be lots
of new phones on the market soon; a Samsung Galaxy S4 is one of the
upcoming devices, release date March 14. A new HTC One was announced
recently ahd looks tempting with its 1080p screen; the second phone
with one to my knowledge, the first was on the HTC-built Droid DNA
which is a Verizon-only phone.