Hacker News Reader

Comment by nxc18 | Hacker News Reader

I had windows phone for the longest time. At the expense of apps, it had great a battery life, great camera, and was always fast.

I switched to the flagship 2014 Moto X in October 2014. I got the material design update (iirc lollipop) in march 2015 and by then it was slow. The battery life was terrible. The camera was worse than the old windows phone despite the superior resolution.

Having a less than one year old unusable flagship sucksss. I got the iPhone 6s at launch and was blown away by the battery life, and the speed. I'm no Apple fanboy (as my post history proves), but iPhone is hard to beat. I'm thinking of getting an iPhone 8, not because there's anything wrong with my phone now, but because I want a shiny new toy. (and now I'm starting to rethink if its a wise decision...)

I've been burned by android and I just don't feel like I can trust the device to still work in a year. Kind of like the worst of Windows devices in the mid 2000s.

View on HN

Moto X 2014 user here. I love this phone and sadly I would have to replace it soon because it is half broken.

I don't have crappy apps like Facebook or Snapchat which drains the life of any phone. I think the biggest problem of Android is the background process and how devs use too much this and not for improving the user experience but for revenue. Facebook tracks everything it can in the background to show you better ads, this is not possible in iPhones. Android Oreo might solve a little bit this big problem, so let's see.

I had an issue where my phone would go from full battery to nearly dead after a day of idling unused in my desk drawer. The Android Battery app would just list "Android System, Android OS, etc" without pointing out any culprit app. I eventually figured out that Google Chrome was to blame and disabling Chrome (unable to uninstall it) fixed the problem. What was Chrome doing all day while my phone was sitting idle? I don't know, I never used Chrome as a brower, it's still a mystery to me.

Hangout was another problem app. Hangouts liked to crash, and after crashing it would leave something still going that would drain the battery unless I manually killed the Hangouts process.

These anecdotes are just to say I've found my battery problems are typically some app doing something bad without my knowledge. I'd like more strict control over background processes as well.

I would experience accelerated battery use after system updates were installed. Same deal, as I recall: Something buried within the "Android System" categorization.

For my case, I found that a hard reboot -- turning the phone off and then back on -- brought resource/battery use back in line. That is, an additional reboot, after the one initiated by the update process, itself.

I never did encounter an explanation for this.

After my Nexus 5X -- whose battery life was already starting to shrink more and more -- bootlooped at about 1.3 years old...

Well, I look at my friends with iPhones that "just work" and last until new features compel them to upgrade their device. And it's increasingly tempting... (Just, I don't want to drop a grand on a phone, per the reported upcoming pricing for the iPhone 8.)

Two things I'm hopeful for: project treble which has seen extensive discission on hn and the steady progress in finding the balance that places more restrictions on background apps.

Personally, I'd like for no app to be able to run at boot or run in background or go online without explicit (revocable) user permission. I agree with you. I am not very optimistic about it.

What made you come of Windows Phone now Windows Mobile when it has always been fairly lacking in the app department?

Try getting an old Nexus or Google Picel they have worked okay for me but funny enough I still use my iPhone as my main work phone and barely use the Android Nexus.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com