So, what do I recommend?

[abortrephrase]

My last post was all about what I don't recommend to random people these days: the iPhone.

So, how about something more specific than "Android"?

Of the devices currently available, the two I'd recommend are the HTC Desire and the Samsung Galaxy S. Both HTC and Samsung have fairly good track records when it comes to OS updates, and both of these devices are very well-regarded.

I wouldn't recommend the HTC Desire HD simply because it's known to have serious battery-life problems. Likewise the Sony-Ericsson XPERIA X10 variants.

I don't know enough about the LG devices to make a recommendation. Personally, I'd steer clear of the cheapest knock-offs, like the ZTE and Huwei stuff some telcos are rebranding. But if what you're after is super-cheap (and thus you weren't even considering an iPhone in the first place) then they may not be an entirely bad deal. Just don't expect to much more than you'd expect from a cheap feature phone.

The Desire is about a year old now, but still plugging along very nicely -- it's what I'm using, and while the shiny of some of the latest devices is calling to me, I reckon I'll be able to resist the siren song for another year.

If you want or need a physical keyboard, the two to look at are the Motorola Milestone and HTC Desire Z (T-Mobile G2 in the US), though those are probably the only options anyway. Not sure if any Australian telcos are offering these on contract though.

The Milestone is getting a little long in the tooth. I don't know anyone with a Milestone 2, so I'm cautious about recommending it. Motorola haven't been the best with updates, but far from the worst either.

It's harder to give a sensible recommendation on the 2011 batch of devices, because most of them haven't been released yet and those which have haven't been around long enough. But the ones to keep an eye on are the Samsung Galaxy S II and the Sony-Ericsson XPERIA Arc. For a device with a keyboard, the Sony-Ericsson XPERIA Pro is looking pretty good on paper.

Mobile gamers will probably want to check out the Sony-Ericsson XPERIA Play.

The main disadvantage of the first 2011 batch of XPERIA phones is that they're all single-core. This probably won't matter much for a while yet, but at some point the odds are that someone will come up with something really awesome which needs dual-core. My best guess is that this won't become important for at least another year, probably two, so the single-core devices are likely safe enough for this upgrade cycle.

For the particularly technically-inclined user, the newest S-E devices are looking really interesting as S-E have announced they'll be providing a completely legitimate bootloader unlock mechanism. You'll probably have to buy an unbranded device rather than from a telco on contract, but if you were wanting to hack the phone then you'd probably be doing that anyway.

Comments

[http://mexico.purplecow.org/openid/andre]

Moto announced a 2.3 release for the Milestone 2 recently, fwiw. About a week after they finally got the 2.2 release for the original Milestone out the door.

J is still very happy with her Galaxy S. And my desire (heh) to replace the Milestone has faded somewhat with the Froyo update - doesn't seem so urgent now.

[ideological_cuddle]

Yeah, this is what I meant by my comment in the previous thread about 2.2 being sufficiently-complete that upgrades are less important now than they were.

Having 2.3 is nice -- I'm running it on my Desire, though obviously not with an official HTC update -- but the difference going 2.2 -> 2.3 is relatively minor compared to anything -> 2.2.

That Moto have bothered doing a 2.2 update for the original Milestone is kind of impressive. It was released November 2009, not too long after the iPhone 3GS. I wouldn't expect further major updates for either model -- one more at most.

The Galaxy S II and XPERIA Arc sure are mighty shiny, though!

[pir]

I specifically don't recommend Motorola Android phones because of their terrible history on updates. I bought M an original Milestone and the 2.2 release that _just_ came out for it is an awful, nasty, broken, alpha quality release the screwed her usage up. There's a long list of Motorola phones stuck at 2.1 (and some stuck at 1.6) that will never get updates.

On the Milestone I gave up and installed the unofficial Cyanogenmod 7 for Milestone GSM onto it for M and it gives a _far_ better user experience than the official 2.2 update. There are bits that can't be done properly for 3rd party releases though because of Motorola's bullheadedness and their update stuff requires custom software from them that only runs on Windows, despite Android's updates in general being carefully platform agnostic. If you want to do anything other than load their released updates on a phone you need Motorola software that they won't give you, you have to find warez versions. It took me a couple of hours to work out how to get CM7 onto it.

On the HTC Desire I wouldn't recommend people buy one right now, I'd wait until later this month (in some parts of the world) for the Desire S to come out which has 2.3 and is thinner, etc. Even if someone doesn't want the new shiny it should drop the price of the plain Desire which is still a very usable phone.

For AT&T in the US if you want a phone that hasn't been messed up by AT&T (AT&T sourced phones don't allow 3rd party apps to be installed on the phone and have lots of bloatware) and you want a hardware keyboard there's a Desire Z variant for Canadia that does the AT&T 3G frequency, you can get them grey market in the US.

[mouseworks]

Here in Nicaragua, we get some of the newer phones from Sony-Ericsson and Samsung, but generally not the very newest and the upgrades come slow. I didn't want to pay that much or have to worry about the durability of a sliding keyboard, so I got the X-10 mini. Battery life isn't good, but it's not that bad considering. HTC doesn't show up here as a phone co. phone, though I haven't tried Radio Shack (phone store here, not an electronics shop as in the US) in Matagalpa. After the warranty year is up, I'll be up for trying to hack it.

I can recharge the X-10 mini from the Mac keyboard USB port. A USB external hard drive came with a very short USB cable that matches the Mini, so that lives on the keyboard and I'll use the Mini's cable for the external hard drive. I am, however, still waiting for the upgrade to Android 2.1 which doesn't appear to have been released in this market.

Being able to recharge from a computer USB port is now on my list of things that a phone needs to do, along with have a SIM chip, have a decent camera, Bluetooth for file transfers, WiFi, and GPS enough to geo-tag photographs and serve as an electronic compass (maps here are either Google or third party Garmin maps -- no other maps give the right detail). Since I don't have a car, I don't need driving directions.

[ideological_cuddle]

FWIW, the X10s are pretty much the "current" S-E phones until the 2011 batch hits full release. Several of the new ones have had preview models sent to review websites, but AFAIK they aren't on sale yet.

In addition to your requirement list, I add "has a stable root and active third-party community". Just because I figure that's likely to extend the useful life of the device. That's purely a geek thing though, I wouldn't expect it to be something an "average user" will care about.

[mouseworks]

Well, we're more connected here than I realized. The models at the store included the X10 and a couple of Samsungs, maybe even the Galaxy 5. One guy on the Samsung-Ericsson forum suggested the various ways to hack the phone and install 2.1 or 2.2, so people are working on that (I've bookmarked a few threads).

I'll consider that when the phone is out of warranty, but will probably pay Claro its US $21 to upgrade the phone now (I've got a spare and can switch out the SIM cards when the Android phone goes to Managua (better it than me). Claro Nicaragua should allow over the net upgrades, but given power and connectivity glitches (power in the country, connectivity in the over-subscribed towns), I suspect they'd rather not have users coming to them with dead phones. Claro Guatemala seems to have the same policy, though I don't know if they charge.

Interesting little gismo.

[ideological_cuddle]

They're charging for the upgrade? Oh, I see, they're only letting you do it by sending the phone to them, so they're charging a service fee. Hrm. I suppose if the conditions are what you say they are, that makes some sense.

GSM is lovely with the whole SIM-swapping thing, much more flexible than CDMA in that respect.