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Comment by pkulak | Hacker News Reader

I'm betting it's just that new Verizon phone with the useless second LCD. I spoke with someone months ago at Google who said they were working on a "Nexus Two" device, but he could have been referring to the G2 for all I know.

Here's what I've been waiting for in an Android phone since they started pumping them out: thin, no keyboard, responsive touchscreen, iPhone4-quality camera, accurate GPS and stock Android or easily rootable. Pretty much, I don't want any compromises, and no one seems to want to do it. Every single model skimps somewhere. If it's got a nice camera, the GPS doesn't work. Otherwise, the camera is crap or it's 3/4 of an inch thick with a keyboard I won't use. The Nexus One is so close, but the touchscreen sucks and the camera is beyond terrible.

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+1 for stock Android. I sure as heck don't want carrier modifications. Note to carriers: your job is radio frequencies and call routing. That's all I want you for. You are not a software company. It sucks to be a commodity, but it sucks more to be an anchor on an airplane, which is what you are for the quality of your phones. Give them a connection and free reign.

I was under the impression that the carriers and manufacturers modified their phones so they could differentiate themselves. There's the revenue opportunities, sure, but they have to do something to stand out.

Now here's the crazy part: no one is selling a device with stock Android. If your phone was straight Android 2.2, it wouldn't look like any other phone on the market. The minute Motorola or LG realize this, they get 100% of the nerd phone market.

It's usually not up to Motorola or LG. It's the carriers that add (or ask to add) these additional/non-stock features. I'm curious what the state of Android is outside of the US - do carriers in other countries add the likes of V-Cast or a NASCAR app?

In Australia, the biggest carrier Telstra generally adds a tonne of crapware, and several people I know with htc desires have links to various telstra features that are broken on the default firmware. I seem to recall the reason telstra didnt get into the iphone game until significantly after the other carriers was because of the iphone impeding sales of telstra 'services'.

We also have the more budget oriented virgin mobile who have generally little to no customization depending on the phone.

There is no need for differentiation when serving up bits and bytes. There is a need for competition on quality of service, customer support and pricing.

EDIT: Clarification, I'm referring to the carriers. The manufacturers need differentiation, but would be better served doing so through hardware.

The G2 is pretty stock.

Yeah, but totally locked down. It does look like a great phone, though.

The question is how do you make them listen?

just root and put vanilla android on yourself. I don't see what issue is.

Aside from (A) rooting never being supported, (B) some phones not having a hacking community around them, and (C) the lack of a vanilla ROM even for those that do have hacking communities, it's just a hassle.

There aren't more than a couple phones that have a vanilla Android ROM floating around for them. Cyanogenmod and similar are far from vanilla AOSP.

Not possible on all phones... the g2 for instance is unrootable.

...for now.

"iPhone4-quality camera"

The iPhone 4 hasn't been around that long. My guess is you will always find something that could be better and hence you'll never buy an Android phone.

I've got a Nexus One. And is it too much to ask that at least one Android device be up-to-date technologically? I'm not asking for things now that will show up in the future. I want the things now that are available now.

No device is ever up-to-date, as technology progresses all the time.

So far the closest I've found is HTC Droid Incredible: thin, no keyboard, responsive touchscreen, quality camera (don't have an iPhone 4 so can't compare), accurate GPS (saved my ass in a ghetto) and easily rootable (maybe? I've heard its not hard, but haven't felt the need to).

The Samsung Galaxy S would be exactly that phone if it weren't for the bugs that make it lag badly. Root it and install Froyo, though, and it is a beauty.

I don't know how true the rumours of a Samsung-made Nexus are, but I wouldn't be surprised given the quality of the Galaxy's hardware.

Look for "Ryan's One Click lag fix" in the market, run it and you are done.

With that it's been fine for me - I still haven't bothered to install Froyo.

Too bad the GPS is still worthless.

There's a fix for that too: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=728894

(TL;DR: Use the google service instead of whatever they replaced it with. Who could have guessed..)

Yes, I did that, and it fixed the lag. Froyo is even better.

Droid Incredible, but you have to root it. Does 720p with the froyo update, and has the same touch sensor chip as the EVO, etc. (not the crappy one on the original Droid)

Samsung Galaxy S.

It's thinner than an iPhone 3GS, about the same as an iPhone4

No keyboard, touchscreen is the best I've used.

The camera is good. Only downside is it doesn't have a flash - but the low light mode is surprisingly good.

The GPS is accurate (some people have had to change some settings to get quicker startup for it though)

It's not stock Android, but it's easily rootable (as in "install an app from the market and press one button)

My biggest gripe with Galaxy S (at least the I9000) is that it doesn't do OTA firmware upgrade. It also needs Samsung Kies which runs only on Windows and on top of it fails to upgrade the firmware with a "Failed to convert to upgrade mode" message.

Official firmware upgrade is just too much of hassle on this phone.

It was indeed a horrible upgrade experience and it really blows my mind how Samsung can create such a great phone and so horrible Windows-software. If you want to give it another try, I covered how I got it working in this thread over at reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/dscb6/samsung_galax...

Basically: Downgrade to a specific version of Kies not containing the buggy FW updater. Upgrade your phone. The upgrade to 2.2 is definitely worth it.

I had a Captivate and the GPS was useless.

The iPhone4 camera oversaturates and has problems with the white balance. The N8 camera is the leader of the pack right now.

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