On Sun, 7 Oct 2012, Jason White <jason@jasonjgw.net> wrote:
1. Compatibility with as many networks as possible - there is a real possibility that I'll be travelling more in the next few years, so compatibility with Australian, U.S. and European carriers is important. I am also interested in Long-Term Evolution (LTE) support and any other standards that I should be aware of.
Why do you want LTE? I've found 3G to perform reasonably well and I expect that performance will get better as the more demanding users move to LTE. LTE appears to have more frequencies and therefore more difficulties in getting coverage.
2. Unlocked, with root access and as open as possible - obviously, not locked to any carrier - suitable for development/testing, as needed. I know "open" is very much a relative concept in the mobile phone area, unfortunately.
A Nexus phone is the ideal solution to that.
3. Good hardware specs (CPU, RAM, Flash), capable of being upgraded to newer software releases for quite a long time - I am not in the "replace the hardware every few years" game, unless there's a hardware failure or accident, of course.
Again Nexus has good hardware specs. Not that you will have much difficulty in this regard. A phone that runs Android 4.1 will be reasonably new hardware which will have a good deal of RAM. For things other than games my Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 with 384M of RAM is doing quite well. It seems that 1G is about the minimum for any new phone that is desirable nowadays. So RAM shouldn't be an issue. Storage in phones starts at about 8G and goes up from there. If you take LOTS of photos then you can have an issue, otherwise it's way excess to what you need. The only potential problem with storage is the partitioning which can result in some partitions running out of space. But that's an issue of configuration, I'm not sure how to determine which devices have the best configuration in this regard.
4. Hardware durability/reliability.
Get a gel case which makes the phone a bit bouncy and also gives you a better grip. With that you shouldn't have many problems in this regard. Also the main hardware problem seems to be a cracked screen which probably won't bother you much. http://etbe.coker.com.au/2012/09/11/back-to-xperia-x10/ I have had one phone fail (see the above URL), I am starting to wonder if the Galaxy S was a dodgey model. Not sure if that means anything about the newer Samsung phones.
As well as suggested products, I would welcome advice or links to articles regarding what to look for and where to obtain quality devices in Australia with unlocked boot loaders/root access. A vendor who could enable the accessibility features would be desirable as well.
http://www.kogan.com/au/shop/phones/android/ Kogan seems to have good prices, but they provide no support at all, they post stuff to you and that's it. They have the Galaxy Nexus for $339. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/