A little Android advice

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dclegg

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#95062 26-Dec-2011 09:16

Its my daughter's 14th birthday on Friday, and we are going to be upgrading her phone to a new Android one. We have already purchased a Huawei X3 for her, as it fit the budget perfectly at the time we bought it. However, we can now get her the X5 for $250, and I'm seriously considering getting her one of those. I need some hardware for planned Android development, and am thinking I could keep the X3 for myself for that purpose.

The X5 certainly has better specs than the X3, but it only runs 2.2 out of the box, whereas the X3 comes with 2.3 installed. I also understand there is no official 2.3 upgrade available for it. As it is to be my daughters phone, I'm trying to avoid having to install a custom ROM to get her Gingerbread (although I'm not 100% against it, if it can be done in such a way as to not give us any Warranty woes).

So I guess my questions are
1) Is there a way to easily get 2.3 installed on the X5, preferably through official channels?
2) Would 2.2 be sufficient for a 14 year old girl anyway, rendering the above question irrelevant?

Bonus question: Would either of these devices be likely candidates for an ICS upgrade down the track, or are they too underpowered to handle it?

Bonus question 2: Is there another good mid-range Android phone I should be considering for my development needs? I'd want to spend no more than $250, but would prefer to be under $200.

nickb800

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#561498 26-Dec-2011 09:44

1) Theres a official beta 2.3 for the x5 available, full details including known issues here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1369296

Im using it now, mostly better, but wifi can be a little buggy sometimes. The fact that an official beta exists suggests that there should be an official release sometime in the near future

2) Pretty marginal improvement, not worth the effort for a 14 year old girl.

I would highly doubt that an ICS upgrade will come out for the x5, possible on the x3

dclegg

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#561499 26-Dec-2011 09:47

nickb800: 1) Theres a official beta 2.3 for the x5 available, full details including known issues here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1369296

Im using it now, mostly better, but wifi can be a little buggy sometimes. The fact that an official beta exists suggests that there should be an official release sometime in the near future

2) Pretty marginal improvement, not worth the effort for a 14 year old girl.

I would highly doubt that an ICS upgrade will come out for the x5, possible on the x3

Thanks. Apparently I'm getting picked up now to go shopping, but I think you've given me enough info to go on. I think I will go with the X5 for my daughter, and keep the X3 for my development purposes.

Wade

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#561553 26-Dec-2011 15:46

The battery life on 2.3 is out of this world compared to 2.2, on 2.3 the X5 runs far smoother, put it this way you would never consider 2.2 after running 2.3 on the X5

dclegg

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#561554 26-Dec-2011 15:48

Wade: The battery life on 2.3 is out of this world compared to 2.2, on 2.3 the X5 runs far smoother, put it this way you would never consider 2.2 after running 2.3 on the X5

Thanks for the advice. I ended up picking up the X5 this morning, and will give that to my daughter and keep the X3 for me to break as I see fit ;-)

Is it easy enough getting 2.3 on the X5?

toyonut

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#561565 26-Dec-2011 16:37

just picked up one this morning too. Really cool even on 2.2. Loving how big and clear the screen is compared to squinting into my 8150. Cant stop grinning. I am finding it a little bit less smooth than I would have liked, but then I built a custom rom from scratch on my 8150 so it fair flies for what it is. Hoping to get some gingerbread goodness officially too. Seems to be a great phone so far.

I would probably keep the x5 for dev stuff as it is more likely to be a target if a girl is walking around with it where the x3 is smaller and less noticeable. Thankfully this is unlikely to happen too much in NZ, but I know phones seemed to "go missing" a lot when I was at school a long time ago.

Neither are likely to get ICS, but if people port it, the x5 is the more likely to be able to run it as it recommends 1 gb of ram and x5 has 512 mb where x3 has only 256mb. Nexus S just got it officially with 512 MB, but Nexus one wont be getting it and it has specs similar to the x3.

Looks like GB is coming along for the X5 slowly but surely.

Try Vultr using this link and get us both some credit:

http://www.vultr.com/?ref=7033587-3B

dclegg

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#561568 26-Dec-2011 16:42

paulmilbank: just picked up one this morning too. Really cool even on 2.2

Thanks for the re-assurance, and advice. TBH, I'm probably more worried about getting a better specced phone for her than my daughter probably will be. You never know; she may decide she wants the X3 because it "looks cuter" or something. :-)

And either phone will be a vast improvement over her last phone (Samsung GT-B3410) or the loaner she's currently using (the Samsung's 'answer' button stopped working a couple of months back).

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Wade

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#561617 26-Dec-2011 20:10

I would imagine an unofficial ICS port will happen sooner or (probably) later as being well featured and stupidly affordable they seem to have a bit of momentum on the developer side

dclegg

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#562840 30-Dec-2011 12:00

OK, so both the X5 and X3 have been fired up this morning. And my initial impresions are that we definitely made the right choice giving my daughter the X5. It may only be using 2.2, but the screen is much crisper, and due to being larger the keyboard is much easier to use. It also doesn't seem to be as cluttered with widgets out of the box as the X3 is.

As the latter is going to be my development phone, I'll probably be installing a custom ROM in the not too distant future, so I'm not too concerned about all the bundled crap. But its great that my daughter doesn't have to worry about it for now. Its a bit of a culture shock as it is switching to this new phone. Luckily (and like most kids/teens), she's pretty good with new technology.

Finch

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#562862 30-Dec-2011 13:05

Not trying to sound rude, but as a 14 Year old all I ever wanted to do was txt and play games with the occasional call. I didnt know anything about cellphones, nor would I of really cared if my phone had 2.2, 2.3 or whatever.

dclegg

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#562863 30-Dec-2011 13:09

M_I_C_H_A_E_L: Not trying to sound rude, but as a 14 Year old all I ever wanted to do was txt and play games with the occasional call. I didnt know anything about cellphones, nor would I of really cared if my phone had 2.2, 2.3 or whatever.

Fair point. All my daughter wants is an easy and reliable way to TXT, and to play games like Tap Tap Revenge. Her X5 should hopefully fulfill this brief. After spending the morning with the X3, I think she'd have got frustrated with its keyboard.

Vivasanti

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#562907 30-Dec-2011 14:59

Grabbed my wife an X5 and she's complaining it's a bit laggy glitchy, want to upgrade her to GB but not if it's gona perform worse.

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alvin

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#563611 1-Jan-2012 22:37

dclegg: Its my daughter's 14th birthday on Friday, and we are going to be upgrading her phone to a new Android one. We have already purchased a Huawei X3 for her, as it fit the budget perfectly at the time we bought it. However, we can now get her the X5 for $250,

i might be too late but where did you get the X5 for $250?

hairy1

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#563614 1-Jan-2012 22:41

Vivasanti: Grabbed my wife an X5 and she's complaining it's a bit laggy glitchy, want to upgrade her to GB but not if it's gona perform worse.

Gingerbread is much better on the X5. Miui and CM ROMs over at XDA are very stable (older final one from Geno if you are looking at CM). The phone is much smoother, battery lasts longer and it all looks better.

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kyhwana2

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#563619 1-Jan-2012 22:59

alvin:
dclegg: Its my daughter's 14th birthday on Friday, and we are going to be upgrading her phone to a new Android one. We have already purchased a Huawei X3 for her, as it fit the budget perfectly at the time we bought it. However, we can now get her the X5 for $250,

i might be too late but where did you get the X5 for $250?

The warehouse was running it as a boxing day special, probably a bit too late to get it at that price now

toyonut

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#563624 1-Jan-2012 23:25

Alvin: was a special at the warehouse till the 28th of December.

I can highly recommend Oxygen too. Battery life looks to have doubled and everything has been smooth and fast since installing it.
Used CWM official recovery from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1288223
Oxygen 2.3.2 from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1149150

Rebooted to a clean fast phone that has performed flawlessly thus far and seems very quick and stable. Based on the latest gingerbread and now just need to test wifi hotspot through opengarden to see how that works.

Try Vultr using this link and get us both some credit:

http://www.vultr.com/?ref=7033587-3B