Its time for a new thread. Going through all of 2012 without one was funny but meh, time to move on.

For anyone planning to upgrade their phone or tablet to something brand new and current gen the dates for shows that will have many Android device launches to note is CES from Jan 8th to the 11th and then MWC Feb 25th to 28th.

Assuming launch scheduling in 2013 runs similar to 2012 these two events will have some launches and previews of tablets from Samsung and there will be the replacement for the HTC One X called the M7 on one of those two dates. Sony have said they will unveil a couple of devices at CES and Huawei which is a huge Chinese tech firm plans to pick up a lot of marketshare in the west this year and they will start with at least three devices launched at CES.

Android FTW

I was thinking it could be good to have a brief FAQ in the OP. I'll start one and others can add, and if it looks good we can have a mod add it to the OP.

FAQs:

Q: Should I buy X phone now or wait 2 months for Y phone?
A: Android phones, unlike iPhones, come out a very rapid pace. If you keep waiting for that next big phone, you'll be waiting a long time. In general, if you need a new phone NOW, and the phone you're looking at is less than 6 months old, get it. If you can wait and there's a major update to the flagship line, then you probably should wait (i.e. don't buy a Samsung Galaxy S3 one month before the S4 comes out). This can be determined with a quick google search.


Q: What are the best phones on each network?
A: This depends on which features you're looking for, with screen size being the main differentiator. But in general, as of 1/1/2013, the best Android phones on each US network are:

All carriers: Samsung Galaxy S3 (4.8" screen), Samsung Galaxy Note II (5.5" screen)

These can also be included in the conversation
ATT, Sprint: LG Nexus 4 (4.7" screen)
Verizon: Droid DNA (5" screen, poor battery life), Droid Razr Maxx HD (4.7" screen, great battery life)

If you want something that has smaller than a 4.7" screen, you're most likely going to get an inferior phone.


Q: Help! I dropped my phone in water! What should I do?
A: Immediately remove the battery (if you can't, then turn off the phone if it isn't already) and other items like the Sim and memory cards. Dry the phone off as best you can and leave the whole thing submerged in a bowl of a dry rice for at least two days. DO NOT BE TEMPTED TO TEST IT OUT PRIOR TO DRYING. After two days, reassemble the phone and pray.


Q: What are the major differences between iPhone and Android, and which should I get?
A: At this point in time, both phone OSs are very comparable in terms of features and capabilities. iPhone is more about making the experience simple and easy, while Android is all about choice. In general you can do some cooler things with Android phones, but you're going to have to fiddle around with it to do so.

General iPhone advantages include:
-battery life
-smaller size (if that's your thing)
-more intuitive OS (though the gap is much smaller than it used to be)
-great camera (though several Android options are comparable)
-consistent software updates
-apps. Lots and lots of apps.
-accessories. lots and lots of accessories.
-seamless integration with Apple ecosystem

General Android advantages include:
-choice! If you want a specific feature in a phone, there'll be one out there for you.
-choose your screen size, especially if you want a bigger screen
-most have removable batteries and expandable memory
-seamless integration with Google services
-ability to use apps that tie in more closely with the OS (Tasker and Locale being popular ones). If you root (easier than jailbreaking on iPhone), you can get really fancy.
-customization - you can make your phone look exactly how you want


Q: What apps should I get?
A: There are too many to list. Most big ones (aside from some games) available for iPhone will also be available on Android. Some common ones: Netflix, 2p2 (yes there's an app), Pandora/Slacker/Spotify/etc, Soundhound or Shazam (identify which song is playing), Dropbox, Evernote, Amazon Store/MP3/Kindle/Appstore, Chrome, FoxFi (tethering), MX player (video player), Google Voice.

Some favorite keyboard replacements: SwiftKey 3, Swype
Some favorite texting app replacements: Handcent, Chomp, Go SMS

Android also lets you do things like add calendar, weather, and setting widgets to your home screen. There will usually be some built into the OS that you can reach by long-pressing on the home screen, but there are also alternatives on the Play Store (I like Simple Calendar and Fancy Widgets)


Please keep adding! If you disagree with anything, let me know.

Phill;

I tried that Kies thing but it wouldn't have helped me in my current situation as after you install it and plug in your phone you have to do something on the phone to finish the connection. So a broke phone wouldn't complete all the steps =\

Lookout worked amazing though, I'd highly recommend everyone have something like that on their phone if they don't constantly back up images/contacts. It'd be better if it did video also but since I don't take that many it's not a real concern.

@duke: nice start and good idea.
but i think the iphone/android comparison is written a little bit too much pro-iphone. i understand what you mean with your points, but if someone who has no idea about smartphones reads it, he walks away thinking that iphone is >>> android and i'd say that most people in this thread disagree (and it's an android thread, so a little pro-android bias is fine for me, hehe)

i would probably add some of the popular android websites (assuming it's allowed). personally, i like androidcentral.com and androidandme.com , others like androidpolice.com etc.
i think there should be a subsection for rooting / ROMs, this comes up a lot. and info about xda-developers.com and that people should look at the specific subforum there for more infos.
and i would add some more info about the nexus line and it's pros.
don't have the motivation to write it out right now and my english isn't that good, but if no one else writes something, i'll try to do it in the next few days.

I have a communication device that has the program known as Android running on it as an operating system so I am communicating in the thread via text on an online messaging forum

umm, yeah, I have a note and I think the camera is better than my wife's iphone, personally.

Also not noting that phones are easiliy (like 30 minutes research) rootable and you can tether, remove the stupid carrier apps, is pretty big deal imo.

Styling Android

Android lets you do a huge amount of customisation and one of the most popular demonstrations of this is styling your homescreen. The practice is so popular there is the community website mycolorscreen.com dedicated just to users taking screenshots of their phone and uploading them. You can make small tweaks such as putting a different app in your dock bar at the bottom of the homescreen or putting a specific looking clock and weather widget on your screen but if you are artistic you can make some huge sweeping changes to the phone all of it possible without needing to root or ROM the phone in any way.

Most of this is trial and error but the payoff is you will have a phone that is truly yours and unlike anything anyone else has. Here are some tips on the apps I use and what they can let you do in order to either make minor tweaks or sweeping changes if you are artistically inclined.

1, Launchers

A third party launcher will let you change how many icons you have on your dock, how many docks you can scroll through just like your homescreen, even if you want a dock, it will let you change the animations of scrolling, it can turn your app drawer from a horizontal multi-page affair into a vertical scrolling grid of apps.

From a search of the Play Store you will find a lot of options but the one I personally recommend is Nova Launcher.

2, Lockscreens

You may like the lockscreen that your manufacturer put on your phone. I keep buying Samsung phones so I never do. Just like with launchers there are options out there to completely change the look and feel of your lockscreen, you can include any widget you want and you can use different styles of lock from the basic slider to a modern 4 way slider or any combo of them. The big point is you can do all this with the aim of making your phone your phone. For example I like to be able to glance at my phone and know the upcoming calendar appointments so I include the widget Smooth Calendar on there. I like knowing the weather so I have a weather widget on there from 1Weather. I also listen to a lot of music on my phone so having a widget to control my music player MortPlayer is easily included and thanks to the features on that it becomes invisible when the player is off so I never have to worry about it.

There are a few options, though less than with launchers, but the app I recommend is Widgetlocker. It does cost money and has no free to try option and it also has one big flaw in that if you want any lock such as a pattern lock you cant include that on the page so it will unlock with the slider first on Widgetlocker and then ask you to input the pattern after to fully unlock the phone, but it is the best option available until something new comes along, probably made by the same developers.

3, Dialer and Messenger apps

The dialer and messenger apps in Android are perfectly usable and functional. But the two apps I am about to recommend arent just better than the stock apps but they can also be styled heavily to suit the theme you have adopted in the previous two sections.

The first is exDialer. This is a combined contacts and dialer app that is extremely fast and smooth to use and supports the functions you would expect including fast dialing where you can spell your contact name using the pad and it will work out who you are trying to call and you can swipe left or right to quickly call or text anyone who is on your call list - swipe down on the key pad to minimise it and click the bottom left to access your contacts list.

The second app of note is Pansi SMS which has a terrible name that probably makes more sense in China where it seems to have been created but its a really fast and smooth messenger app that supports lots of features your manufacturer may have left out such as scheduled messages and a different notification tone for your texts and everything else including email. It also has themes which can be further tweaked in advanced settings changing the font, the colours, the text size and so on.

4, Misc apps worth noting

MultiPicture Live Wallpaper - this is used by a lot of themers on mycolorscreen to get the effect that every screen uses a different background so you can either have images carrying on from one side to another in a specific design pattern or perhaps you just want to have a big picture of pacman on the background of a homescreen packed with games.

ThaIconUltimate - the app is free and includes a lot of free icon styles which you can use to replace the icon images using your launcher from 1. There are paid styles too. I have contacted the dev over a payment problem and he was really fast to reply and really helpful, too good a guy to not include and his app is really good too.

HD Widgets or Beautiful Widgets - both charge money IIRC and do the same thing while both being extremely popular. Its very subjective which is better but right now I prefer HD over BW (I own both). Basically they let you create a clock and/or weather widget with a lot of options over how it looks.

1Weather - mentioned already, the app is free to use supported with adverts in the popup when you click it, this is a really great weather widget and app with three very different but equally useful widget sizes and styles and the popup is really awesome with arguably too much weather data including hourly breakdowns, percent chances of rain, any weather warnings in your area, lunar phase and even most shockingly the current temperate and weather where you are. BW and HDW have weather included but I use a separate app because 1W is so well made (and I am not even a big weather junkie).

5, Automation

Arguably the biggest party trick Android has and the hardest to show off to people is automation. The undisputed king of this field right now is Tasker. The options are near endless and this truly makes your smartphone smarter, it will turn on your wifi if you are in phone network cells (in other words at home), it will let you automatically reply to messages if your phone is silent, it will turn on your gps when you load up maps turning it off when you close it. it will turn off wifi when you lose the signal for a set amount of time and one I made a couple hours ago is turning on auto rotate on my phone when I load up my browser Chrome then turning it off when I exit.

Tasker is really intimidating when you first load it, really really intimidating. Sooner or later someone will write a book on Tasker and if they dont do it soon I will because this app is genuinely amazing and shows just what sets Android apart from its competition. iOS wont even let apps control things like turning on bluetooth or your internet and Android lets apps do so intelligently taking many inputs such as NFC, time of day, day of the week or phone cell data (which requires no more battery use unlike GPS data) to streamline the amount of things you need to do on the phone so if the phone can do it for you, you can teach it how and when.

Love my Galaxy Nexus which I've had about a year now. Works just as well as the first day I got it. It's held up so much better than the OG Droid I had before it. Can't see any reason to get a newer phone anytime soon.

Other apps I use and recommend

This could be a huge list, but I will try to avoid that:

Music player = MortPlayer

The app and widgets can be themed quite a lot (I love to theme), its a fully functional music app so you can change the equaliser and it lets you search for music using the file structure you store it as on your phone or its SD Card. The app is free and you can turn off adverts but you can help the dev by donating a couple bucks if you wish.

Podcasts - PocketCasts

The big selling point of PC is that it uses its own servers to store info about when podcasts are updated which means you dont need to query half a dozen different servers to find out if your half a dozen different podcasts have a new episode or not. This is pay only but if you listen to a lot of podcasts the value you get quickly covers its costs.

Radio - TuneIn Radio

There is a free version or a pro paid version. The only difference I have ever found is you can record using the pro version and it helps support the devs, I assume it removes adverts too but it is a while since I used the free version. Basically this is radio over the internet and it includes a LOT of stations. Search via their name or discover using their style (rock, pop, jazz etc), you can also favourite stations you like to find them easier. This one app basically made the whole concept of digital radio or even radio broadcast by means other than the internet seem backwards in general to me.

Turn your phone into a remote - Unified Remote

Using either wifi or bluetooth you can control a PC with your phone or tablet with specific remotes for youtube, players such as VLC and winamp, spotify or just generally controlling the mouse point and having key inputs this is great if you have a computer hooked up to your TV or if you want to listen to music on it over there while lounging on the sofa over here. Sure, you could use a wireless mouse - but Android though. The free version has less remotes but it has most of the ones someone would use and the mouse controls mean you can get around needing the others if you dont use it a lot. As a warning its not a perfect app, it has been known to not work quite as intended for me in the past, closing tabs in chrome seems to cause it issues for example, but for the mouse and keyboard control alone its a great app if you use a computer at a distance.

Twitter - Falcon Pro

This is one of the best twitter apps and is better than all but a couple by a good margin. It was only launched last month but has made a big impact on android blogs and news sites for just plain being better. There is also a widget version of it which came earlier if you prefer widgets to apps.

Calculator - AirCalc

What AC does is put a small floating calculator on your screen. Which as simple as it sounds it is a really great thing because now you can use the calculator whilst in another app.

Notebook - Evernote

Evernote is basically a cloud storage notebook which means you can create and edit notes on your phone, your laptop or if you share notebooks they can edit them on their computer or phone and it is all synced up to date regardless of where you open the note. Useful for sharing article links and with the Chrome add ons on your laptop you can clip entire pages to it. Good for any kind of project you are collecting details on or saving recipes and so on.

Task list or mini notes - GTasks

GTasks connects to your google task list which can be found on google calendar or gmail. I use mine for anything you might use a post it note for as well as things to do. Like Evernote the value you will get out of this is defined by what you use it for but I use it constantly for things I used to have dozens of notepad documents on my laptop. Not for Android but I recommend the "Google Tasks" add on for Chrome on your laptop to allow you to read and edit the same task list on there too.

File manager - ES File Explorer

There are alternatives that are just as good but ES is my favourite file explorer not just because you can lightly theme it changing the background but because it supports a lot of cloud storage services too. Really simple but is really well coded to be reliable and does the job.

News reader - Google Currents

I like to read as much news as I have time for and Currents is a really polished app held back only by the limits of several big news agencies including the BBC choosing not to work with it. Otherwise it is extremely well put together and for me is an example of what a digital magazine or newspaper should be. Quick and easy to browse stories with a nice ribbon scroll effect it can let you really quickly find articles to inform and educate including a lot of Android news blogs under the Tech and Science section. The widget for it is really good too.

Office app - OfficeSuite Pro 6

2013 should be interesting for office apps. Google owns QuickOffice and should sooner or later be making either that or Google Docs now called Google Drive worth using and Microsoft says they will launch MS Office on Android later in the year but right now the best office app is OSP6. It goes on sale fairly regularly if you are put off by its price tag and it supports all the major MS Office file types and more besides. I think its imperfect and needs a lot of improvement but it is a good stop gap solution until this segment of the app market is shaken up later this year.

Zip file app - AndroZip

Basically winrar but for Android. Supports zip and rar files amongst others. Great if you download a split file in rars and then want to patch them back together on your phone or tablet.

Cloud Storage - Dropsync

Dropbox is a great cloud storage service but their Android app is limited. What Dropsync does is let you automatically sync files between your Android device and your Dropbox cloud drive with you being able to select which folders are synced, when they are synced and if you want it to only happen over wifi.

Password safe - KeePassDroid

Using Dropsync on your Android and using the dropbox desktop program on your PC means you can keep a synced up password file between both devices and using KeePass on your PC and KeePassDroid on your phone you can securely keep long difficult to hack passwords for every website you use.

2 stage security for GMail - Google Authenticator

I use my google account for a worrying amount of things. With access to it you could just ask for a change of password for every other site making the previous app and its security pointless but google has created a decent security option that too few know about. It basically stops any kind of keylogger dead in its tracks as it forces you to input a generated 4 digit code which cycles every 60 seconds in order to log into any google account. Between this and the previous recommendation most people would avoid most types of hack, especially if they change the passwords on websites at least once a month.

Great stuff

For Christmas I got the Nexus 7, am really enjoying it. For the past few years I have been using iphone/macbook so definitely a learning curb jumping into android but it is a very cool device.

Ten posts deep and we are already off to a great start.

Links to some good rooting guides would be excellent as well, as I've had my phone for a month now which is way too long to not have ruined the warranty.

trontron, yeah I could probably word the comparison better. But Phill, nice work, you went into a lot more detail on the strengths of Android.

I use Lastpass, personally, in conjunction with Google Authenticator. Lastpass also has 2-step authentication using Google Authenticator.

I picked up a Galaxy Note 10.1 at a Boxing Day sale, the plan is for a better travel device. The ability to sync between laptop,phone and tablet is nice. Still overwhelmed by the sheer volume of apps out there

Thanks for the recommendation, will look into Lastpass.

Edit, for the $1/mo that LP wants to charge to use its service what am I buying? The video wasnt really a help either.

am I dumb for buying a galaxy s3 right now? I can't imagine the next one will be fan freaking tastic right?

Rumored to be 1080p, could have a pen (though I doubt this), and could be out in April. I would try waiting if possible.

Phones are pretty much hitting the point where improvements are incremental. The next will probably improve most via battery life, which you can emulate somewhat with either a bigger aftermarket battery or just a second one to swap over to mid-day, and the screen quality and size but not so much it is amazingly different in real world use. They will increase the processing power of course but the thing is already more than fast enough for gaming and just general phone stuff.

You could wait, but its going to be around 5-6 months before it is available to buy and there is likely going to be no "killer feature" in it so the bigger question is probably what you are currently using and if you are maximising your utility sticking with it vs upgrading now. It will probably be a step up from the S3 in a similar way to how the S3 was a step up from the S2.

I haven't used Keepass so I'm not sure what the difference is. I was happy to pay the nominal fee to make my digital life more secure, but in general I'm happy to pay for apps and such.

i agree with this.
if you're not in an LTE market (or don't care about it at all), i would consider the nexus 4 as well. android 5.0 will come out at google i/o (in mid may) and i'm really looking forward to it (and the phone is awesome as it is). it's unclear if even the s3 will get a 5.0 upgrade (i think chances are high, but in the end, no one knows) and if it gets one, it will probably take 4-6 month (after the official release). for me personally, that's a huge factor (and i'm not in a LTE market).
besides that, i'd also wait and see if there's more info about the HTC M7 in the coming week (CES) and make up my mind then.

Didnt consider it but definitely wait to see if HTC announces next week. I expect they wont, but you never know. If nothing else the S3 should drop in price.

And agree that the N4 is worth considering. They are meant to be fixing the supply problems this month but you will be making trade-offs taking it over the S3.

Selling my Nexus 7. Nicely built, was really excited at first, but haven't touched it in a week. I think I'm just tired of Android. Last thing I had was a refurb something A1 tablet, got ICS installed on that and sold it at cost ($70) to a coworker.

With the N7 I had Jelly Bean 4.1 and now 4.2, and can't bring myself to care at all. I'm not sure if that's because they really are just incremental or if I'm not taking full advantage of Android.

Any experiences with NFC tags? I just ordered some because I just got a Nexus 4 and want Tasker to detect car docking in my 3rd party dock (had the manuf. dock on my old phone, so the phone autodetected).

I guess I can do a bunch more Tasker profiles based on NFC. Didn't use many besides a "car dock" and "headphones" one before. Some for leaving home and coming home and getting to work and leaving work could be interesting. That **** gets more complicated with location or time based tasks.

Planning on ordering some soon when I can find some good 1kb tags for a good price over here.

This video inspired me and has a bunch of details about programming them to do various tasks. IIRC one specific one was setting up NFC for car dock settings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN1GFa1DO3k