darxus

"Replicant is a fully free Android distribution running on several devices."

- http://replicant.us/about/

"The F-Droid Repository is an easily-installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform."

- https://f-droid.org/

Since I really don't trust google anymore, I'm very happy to see these things.

For a lot of people, right now this is going to come down to HTC One vs. Samsung Galaxy S 4 (GS4), so I'll start with that.

In most ways, I prefer the HTC One (love the case). But I don't see how the un-replacable battery is forgivable. I saw one guy say by the time his battery isn't holding a solid charge, there will be ample info for a handy person to replace their own battery. And I did replace an un-replaceable battery in a heart rate monitor. But that person clearly didn't read the ifixit teardown for the HTC One. Just beginning to open it requires horribly mangling that beautiful case.

( Read more... )

Edit (2014-04-17): Another feature I'd like is more powerful vibration. After you notice it sucks, you can find lots of people complaining about the weak vibration of the GS4. But no reviewers commented on it? And how much better are the HTC One's speakers?

First models expected in the second half of 2008.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/wheres-my-gphone.html

The platform is called Android.

"It is built to be truly open."
"Android is built on the open Linux Kernel."
http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/android_overview.html

"Developers could easily sell the applications on their own without Apple taking its cut (which is guesstimated to be about 2/3rds of the take)." - http://9to5mac.com/apple-adopts-sidekick-application-distribution-model-234545623

I'm clearly just not the target audience.

Thanks to n_tropy for the link.