The last couple of weeks have been oddly frustrating for me. I have a few Nokia Symbian devices in my hands and as much as I like them, I can’t help being irritated at them. The “Nokia/Symbian Saturation Threshold” has been reached, I guess, and I need to look elsewhere for the sake of my sanity. Like many Symbian enthusiasts, I have been planning to go Android for a long while now, but been held back by the outrageous prices of unlocked HTC and Samsung devices in Lebanon. However, I finally made the decision to get an Android device before the end of the year, even if it’s momentarily a cheap old HTC Hero rooted and running Froyo.
As I look at the past 4 years that I’ve been a fervent Nokia/Symbian user, I can’t help but feel emotional. I got through my Pharmacy and Masters degrees thanks to them, I had the pleasure of meeting and conversing with hundreds of passionate users as well as dozens of intelligent and eager Nokians. Plus, I know that no other Android devices will beat the Camera, data-aware bandwidth usage, full multitasking skills, offline free Ovi Maps offer, and amazing sturdy build quality and form factor of current Nokias. Yet, like Ricky before me, it’s time for me to move on.
As far as my experience with Android goes, I have only handled a hacked HTC HD2 for 2 minutes. In my idealistic world, Android has three promises.
Android Promise N:1 – Great UI And Functionality
As a Symbian and iOS user, I appreciate the UI and ease of use of iOS, and the numerous functions of my Symbian devices out of the box, with no need to jailbreak. Android, in my opinion, is an OS that blends all these aspects. It may not be as gorgeous and simple as iOS, it may not have all those features of Symbian that I stated above, but it has the essential aspects of both, which may finally let me walk out the door with one device in my pocket, instead of worrying about an additional iPod Touch in my bag.
Android Promise N:2 – Apps, Lots Of Them
If my iOS post from 2 weeks ago is any indication, I love applications. I have apps for everything on my iPod Touch and this is what I want on my main device. There are essential third-party services for me that simply don’t exist on Symbian and those are either already available on Android, being ported to Android soon, or at least I have more faith in them coming to Android than to Symbian. The most important aspect for me is medical software, which is currently a totally blank category on Symbian, but has some very decent offerings on Android (Epocrates, Lexicomp and Skyscape are already there).
Android Promise N:3 – Personalization
Currently, personalization in terms of homescreen, standby screen, browser, keyboard… is possible on Symbian but the choices are very limited, and possible on iOS but requires jailbreaking. Android is the only OS that seems to offer numerous personalization options without the need to hack your way into it. That is a major advantage as I’m pretty stubborn in the way I require things to work.
For over a month now, I have been reading Android blogs, following application releases, and getting to know the OS more. I know I haven’t scratched the surface yet in discovering it and nothing beats having it in my hand, but these three aspects are the ones that will make or break my experience. If, like I have been reading, Android rises to all of them, I will have found my OS for the next couple of years.
Are you an Android user and have you made the move to it from iOS or Symbian? Do you think it can fulfill my expectations of it or am I setting standards way too high for a three year old OS? And if so, where will I be disappointed and where will I be pleasantly surprised?
