I've been on Android as an experiment for almost a year and a half now. When I made the switch, I was able to sell my iPhone 5 for just over the cost of buying a new Nexus 5 and since I heard such
good things about the Nexus and I use a ton of Google products, it seemed like the perfect time to do an experiment.
Things have been great for the most part but a few months ago, my Nexus 5 started to really act up. Getting a little slow is expected but when my old iPhones would bog down in terms of responsiveness, restarting the phone was the easy fix. But the same didn't really work on the Nexus. I'm not just looking back towards Apple because I hate using a slow phone (although this phone can sometimes be so ridiculously slow).
More and more I've been seeing how "modern" the iPhone 6 is and of course the grass is looking way greener than the grass on my side but there's some merit to it. I use my phone for an incredible amount of work and play during the day and it makes sense to have a better tool to get things done better, faster, or easier.
For quite some time now I've been eligible for an upgrade through AT&T but I've enjoyed just sitting on it, contract free. Unfortunately I may have to burn that upgrade and be locked in for 2 years because paying for a new phone outright isn't in the cards right now. Either way, I guess a 2 year contract with AT&T isn't the worst thing because they recently lowered my bill and gave an extra GB of data a month.
Side note: I had every intention of switching to Ting but with the Nexus 5 issues I've been having, I kept holding off and now I don't think I'll be able to. I'm also really tempted by Google Fi but will have to table that for the time as well.
While the list is growing, there's certainly a couple of main things I just can't stand about the Nexus 5 (in it's current state). To be fair, there's a lot I don't like about the iPhone which is what caused me to switch in the first place too. But this is about the Nexus 5.
The Battery Life
For normal use, and without full testing, my phone seems to need 3-4 charges a day to keep me from flirting with 15% battery life. I'd say between charges, I can get 4-6 hours depending on use. That's killing me. I have to make sure my USB battery pack is always topped up and ready.
The Camera
The Nexus 5 doesn't have a great camera. It sometimes has a good camera but for the most part, it's slow, it's wonky, its poor quality. It also has an especially bad video camera. My phone's video camera is something I rely on daily as I record 1 second from every day for a year-end compilation video. Seeing the quality degrade over the last year is kind of depressing. Maybe I'm the only one that notices it, but still.
Sure there are Android phones with better cameras but honestly, if you want an awesome camera with extreme ease of use, the iPhone is still the way to go. And with their time lapse and slow motion ability that rivals some "real" cameras, it's the perfect pocket camera.
I'm also severely frustrated with how the Instagram app on Android adds some crazy harsh compression to all my photos. I've resorted to uploading photos to
my Instagram account from my Mac through a third party app. I'm just tired of how soft and fuzzy my photos look.
Without going on a full rant, those are by and far the two things that come to mind. Now that I've looked over those two issues again, I don't even think it's too much to ask; an all day battery and a camera that replaces my point and shoot (really, the tech is there).
Misc.
(I always abbreviate "Miscellaneeous" because I can never spell it right without using spell check.)
I've had quite a few refurbished replacements of the Nexus 5 over my year and a half time with it. The first one was thanks to their new policy where they'll
replace your [Google Play Store] device once if you crack the screen as an accident. That was a huge help because repair kits for the Nexus 5 are nowhere near as cheap as the iPhone repair kits.
But between a replacement with a camera problem, another replacement with a reboot problem, etc. etc., I'm on my 4th or 5th one (don't even know anymore) and it doesn't seem like most problems will be solved with a new device because they still are issues for me.
Moving On
There are certainly things I'll miss about Android but I'm looking forward to the cleanliness of the iPhone. Sure it's not as customizable but the fit and finish of the hardware and software just seem more crisp.
To be honest, I actually wasn't 100% positive that I would switch back and maybe I just wanted to vent but I've really convinced myself as I wrote this.
Note: Sorry for any typos or grammar mistakes but I didn't care to proofread this. I didn't want to make it a polished post or anything, it's just a brain dump.
