Are there any decent Androids under 4 inch display size? - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

My girlfriend is looking to update from her ancient x8. The problem is that she can't even fit my Gnex in her jeans, let alone sit down with it in her pocket which rules out the GNex/OneX/SIII trinity and their competition.
My extensive Google-fu come up with nothing useful. If you want smaller screens you have to compromise on RAM and processor specs. What more, many are obscure and without much developer support, many stuck on Gingerbread. Am I missing something? Any decent phone I overlooked?
In essence, I need a phone with:
- under 4 inch display
- international GSM, she's on Australian Telstra network
- bootloader unlock/root, with a an alive dev community (easy SIM unlock a huge plus)
- able to flash ICS/JB, if it comes with GB
- 1GHz CPU at least, obviously more is better
- decent RAM size
Personally, a Nexus S seems like her best option, but can a 2 year old phone really be all that's on offer?

Xperia p or u.
Ray was my jeans favourite but it's not exactly high end.
P and ray have ics already, u getting it this week as far as I know. Also I'm pretty sure p and u will get jelly, ray might but I wouldn't bet on it, at least not officially.
Sony makes the best phones for girls in my opinion.

HTC Desire S. Telstra branded ones support NextG. HTC have just released ICS RUU for the Desire S (Europe), so Telstra version should follow.
Great dev community, so CM10 is also available.
Sent from my Desire S

Related

[Q] Advice on SE X10 Purchase

I am considering purchasing a SE X10 (unlocked market) since I read the Gingerbread announcement.
Seems to be the cheapest GHz Android phone on the market. How does this stack up vs the HTC Desire? I would wait for the new wave of Xperia phones but I cannot see them anywhere close the the price of the X10. I read a rumour that the Neo was going to be below in the 300 - 400 range.
What are the pros and cons of the X10? I want a decent camera, good screen, and relatively fast cpu. I came from a Wildfire so this will be a big step up. Lack of radio and no wifi N does not matter to me.
nicksti said:
I am considering purchasing a SE X10 (unlocked market) since I read the Gingerbread announcement.
Seems to be the cheapest GHz Android phone on the market. How does this stack up vs the HTC Desire? I would wait for the new wave of Xperia phones but I cannot see them anywhere close the the price of the X10. I read a rumour that the Neo was going to be below in the 300 - 400 range.
What are the pros and cons of the X10? I want a decent camera, good screen, and relatively fast cpu. I came from a Wildfire so this will be a big step up. Lack of radio and no wifi N does not matter to me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, depends where you're from, here in UK, the Neo is about £370 from SE-Store.
However, the X10i is not bad at all, from my experience with the Desire I can say it's much better ( though the Desire was running 2.2 ) but it's all about personal preferences.
Stock X10i with 2.1 vs Stock Desire 2.2, the Desire would win due to the JIT and 2.2 enhancements. But if you are thinking of adding mods and ROMs, I think X10i can stand up against the Desire.
Camera is better in X10i, but keep in mind when 2.3 is released for the X10 it will have an android stock camera instead of Sony Ericsson's, but it'll do fine...
Now if you can afford the Neo, I would advice you to go with it.
imo the desire is a much better phone....
I have used both, and I think the desire is wayyyy better.
The only thing the x10 has that is better is the camera. The desire gets better scores, you can mod it wayyyy more, it has true multitouch, the screen has 16 mill colours so it looks much better, etc....
Go with the desire my friend
The Only Draw back of X10i for me is low volume Speakers (both, earphone and speaker phone)
if you don't care about it, X10i is the master piece !
desire have some good points but it have terrible battery life!
I thought the X10 has multi touch?
Things that are important to me:
1. Price
2. Battery life
3. Good performance
4. Good camera
5. Updated Android (or moddable if not)
The Desire is nice, but it is more expensive.
nicksti said:
I thought the X10 has multi touch?
Things that are important to me:
1. Price
2. Battery life
3. Good performance
4. Good camera
5. Updated Android (or moddable if not)
The Desire is nice, but it is more expensive.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
weird here they are around the same price....
The battery life is probably about exactly the same
There is no multitouch on the x10. There is dual touch, but it functions pretty poorly on games, etc... (if you cross axis it goes all haywire)
The performance is on par with one another. However because desire has unlocked bootloader, you can tweak it much more and get much better performance.
The x10 has a much better camera, no doubt about it.
As far as the update, because of the bootloader it would be easier to get updates on the desire. The x10 has 2.3 coming, but not until quarter3 or 4 of this year. The roms around here for the x20 (gingerbread wise) aren't fully functional and still have a lot of issues.
X10 gets 2.3.3 Q2/Q3...
X10 2.3 vs Desire 2.3 will be a nice battle.
One of my mates has a Desire, can't wait to battle him ^^
Sent from my X10i using XDA Premium App
best of luck with buying xperia phones...
just google for "red light of death" for xperia phones....
unless you are okay with sending your phone to customer service every now and then...
i bought one and i'm regretting to the core....
no solutions given either by sonyericsson or can't find any on XDA...

[Q] Soo...today's the last day...

...that the Xperia X10 is officialy the flagship smartphone of sony ericsson.
How many of you are planning to keep it, at least until the end of this year?
Also, is it just me, or do I like the looks of the X10 better. Although it's a bit 'fat', I like the layout of the buttons and how it's less curved than the Arc. I also do like them a bit chubby
Anyway, long live the X10! Hopefully there will be some devs who stick with this phone and keep it getting better, but it's now the end of quite a crazy era for probably the most controversial android smartphone ever made.
going to stick with it for a while but doubt to have it till the end of the year
I will have to keep it till the end of the year Im 15 and bought a stupid phone... I readed many reviews that said this phone is great and WOULD GET MULTi tOUcH. It's Dual Touch, and that sucks. Afterall we didn't get any upgrades. But since the x10 gets gingerbread i'm going to bay end this year/begin next year another S.E.
S.E. her phones are just fully functional. All apps work, great functions, calling is really good. They make phones + services that make a phone something you can call a ''phone''.
Im gonna stay with it till next year, thx to the devs of xda that made that phone a good android phone that will be able to keep up with other androids such as desire, galaxys and nexus, hope sony will really keep their promise for gingerbread on x10, i doubt it but hey long live the x10
staying with it till it drops dead! can't find a reason why i shouldn't...does what it has to do till know..
I'm sure that I'll stick with X10 at least until 2013 lol.
The design is just beautiful and I don't splash cash every one or two year to "update" my phone
Same with many posts above.
I will use this phone for a long long time. I may even keep it as an antique 20 years from now as this phone had a meaning for me.
I had doubts with this phone before, but the devs made this phone great.
Like they made it less sluggish and just much more brilliant than when I first got it on 1.6. I got this phone the first day it came out and sticked with it until now because I was a big sony fan. (i'm not sure if i still am, as it was a wild ride from the first day)
Honestly, I don't see the point of owning the latest phone out anymore. I mean they purposely make these phone less than perfect so you will buy another phone every year or so. It's called planned obsolescence.
The X10 looks great, the camera is good and it has decent capabilities. I don't have an incentive to buy another new phone for another couple years.
Ive got my arc today! ;-)
i think we will really have everything we need in a phone with the X10 after the ginger upgrade
i don't see a need to "upgrade" and pay for a newer phone just because it's newer
reasons:
the camera is not that much better, if better at all
bigger screen (and bigger phone) than 4" is a CON for me...
i think the X10 has a very good screen even with 65K colors (and that may change with GB update)
full multitouch - hm...i don't even use the dual touch and when i do, i use it on games and that works just fine
512mb of ram over 384mb - doesn't really make a difference, at least not on gingerbread
WiFi hotspot - barnacle works just fine and i think with GB it'll be native
front camera - not usable where i live so thanks...
Faster cpu/gpu - OK, MAYBE this will be one noticeable difference but still, i think when our devs polish SE's GB it'll be within 5% speed difference in real usability, maybe not in benchmarks, but i don't play benchmarks
i don't really use HDMI (nor do i have a TV for that matter)
i don't care about built in radio
we will also have flash on x10 with GB update
i don't know if i missed anything but that about sums it up that FOR ME, the new features are not needed so for now i'll stay on x10
I voted for option #2, but I'm getting the Galaxy s2 after summer, depending on how good the 2.3 upgrade is really
I was thinking of going to the Incredible S or Optimus 3d but with the X10 getting gingerbread and SE offering a version with an unlocked bootloader, I'll be getting neither the S or 3D and sticking with SE.
With that said, the Arc and Neo don't offer enough for me to replace the X10 (only considered the S because of its 768 mb ram, front cam, and rear cam that comes close to the X10 but not enough of an upgrade either).
I'll wait for SE to bring out a dual core scorpion or a single core Krait (with adreno 3xx series).
What makes this even more difficult for me is the whole AT&T and TMO-USA status. Are they going to share 3g towers (tmo users able to use ATT's 3g bands?). It would be hard to justify 5-600$ for a phone just for it to be useless on 3g the following year. The only pentaband devices I know so far are Nokia's S^3.
I will keep my x10 until my region gets covered with LTE, then i will change phone.
Sent from my X10a using Tapatalk
No reason to upgrade, the phone does what I need it to do, except be able to make calls in loud places!
I really don't see any reason to upgrade.
Granted, if I had money to spare, I'd certainly be tempted.
But if you combine my current unemployment with the upcoming GB update...
my X10 still has a long life ahead!
Getting the latest Google version officially from SE is plain AWESOME.
I do appreciate the effort put in custom ROMs and I have tried a handful of them,
but I believe that my device is at its full potential only on official firmwares
(at least until the bootloader gets cracked/bypassed).
i choose option 3!!
i'm actually looking to pass the x10 on to my wife, and get myself a Desire HD. there is just something about that 4.3" screen that is tempting me
kantk20111 said:
How many of you are planning to keep it, at least until the end of this year?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I definitely won't have X10 till end of year as too many great toys will explode before then.
Somehow, I seem to have preference for SE designs but only Arc looks good of the 4 new SE phones that are announced. Arc has very little to offer in terms of hardware improvements over X10. That to me is a big let down by SE. Maybe, they are not targeting these new phones for current X10 user base. These new models might be more to attract new customers towards SE by keeping the phone price low.
I wish Arc had the specs of Galaxy S2. I might still end up falling for Arc when I get to see it in person but that is only because of larger screen and sleek design. Or I might go low and buy Galaxy S2.
Did anyone try Samsung Focus? I thought the 5MP camera on it actually takes much better pictures than our X10. I am hoping Galaxy S2 might also be having a camera as good as Arc if not better.
Guys, the BOOTLOADER HAS BEEN CRACKED
This means that the X10 CAN AND WILL be as smooth and as functional as the Xperia Arc! This is AMAZING!
I WILL be sticking with my X10 until 2013-2014, or until there's a major update that will revolutionize phones. The X10 is as good as any 2011 single core phone, and is cheaper, and still has a great fanbase.
Long live the X10!
kantk20111 said:
Guys, the BOOTLOADER HAS BEEN CRACKED
This means that the X10 CAN AND WILL be as smooth and as functional as the Xperia Arc! This is AMAZING!
I WILL be sticking with my X10 until 2013-2014, or until there's a major update that will revolutionize phones. The X10 is as good as any 2011 single core phone, and is cheaper, and still has a great fanbase.
Long live the X10!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the bootloader hasn't been cracked, it's been bypassed...
kantk20111 said:
Guys, the BOOTLOADER HAS BEEN CRACKED
This means that the X10 CAN AND WILL be as smooth and as functional as the Xperia Arc! This is AMAZING!
I WILL be sticking with my X10 until 2013-2014, or until there's a major update that will revolutionize phones. The X10 is as good as any 2011 single core phone, and is cheaper, and still has a great fanbase.
Long live the X10!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yesterday my provider gave me a great deal on Iphone 4 - 32 gb, extent my contract for another 2 years and get Iphone for free + usb moderm + 5gb data for just 49$. I decided sell it to my wife's friend for 850$ and stick with X10 cuz it has all what I need and want for my work and study. there're only thing I miss that wifi tethering and hopefuly it'll be fixed on upcoming GB.
fiscidtox said:
the bootloader hasn't been cracked, it's been bypassed...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is the difference, in terms of what can be implemented ? (I really don't know, I'm hoping you do)

Phone Buying Advice...

So I am contemplating getting a new android phone because I can't stand the slow speeds and general lag of my ZTE blade anymore.
I want to buy offline, am in the UK and looking to spend around £220 tops.
I would ideally like it to ship with close to stock ICS and have a decent camera (doesn't need to be amazing) and obviously be ARMv7. The main thing for me is software, I want a smooth experience, with a solid android build.
I really want a Xiaomi Mi One, but they are simply impossible to get hold of outside China at a decent price.
Now heres the dilemma....theres a great offer on the HTC EVO 3D at UK store Asda at the moment for £207 all in. However I think it's ugly, 3D is a useless gimmick as far as i'm concerned and from what I hear it has terrible battery performance. I also hate Sense. However given the fact it has a QHD display, 1GB Ram and a dual core scorpion it is probably the best specd new android phone you can get for the price at the moment in the UK and there is a rumoured ICS upgrade.
The other option I had in mind was the Huawei honor which I could pick up for around £220 shipped from China. I like the styling, it has a huge battery and is shipping now with a close to stock good 4.0.3 build. However it only runs a single Core 1.4ghz Qualcomm scorpion and only has 512mb Ram.
I had considered the LG Optimus 2X but have heard only bad things. Xperia Play was an option too as I thought a game pad might be nice but again, hate the Sony skin and clean stock ICS is not an option. Nexus S would be great but they still cost £250+ and would ideally like expandable storage too.
I would like to run MIUI but can't be assed to mess around with all these half baked alpha/beta roms. Also a lot of the normal ICS builds I've seen about for the EVO look buggy.
Just want some reasonable hardware with a smooth ICS experience with as few bugs as possible and minimal hassle.
Any help in deciding or any other options I may have missed out on would be appreciated.....
I bought a Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman (WT19i) last week and am really happy with it.
I paid EUR150 in Ireland (Meteor) on a pre-paid plan and paid another $15 to get it sim unlocked and bootloader unlocked.
Audio is great. It has a single core scorpion that can easily be overclocked to 1.4 Ghz. The Adreno core runs surprisingly smooth. (Cant see a difference in performancy between my Galaxy Nexus and Live, although they do have different resolutions)
For the money this is the best low/midrange phone for sure will handle everything you throw at it really well.
Unlocking is a bit of a pain though (you have to peel off a sticker behind the battery to find test points and ground one of those points to unlock).
Currently running an alpha of MIUIv4 on it. It is very smooth but not yet feature complete.
Yeah, seen that, looks decent, was looking for something with a bit more screen real estate though, I found even the 3.5 inch on my ZTE blade a bit cramped.
Get a Rezound
Sent from my Ice Cream covered Rezound
Too expensive i'm affraid
phones 4 u are doing a great deal on the Sony Ericsson Xperia arc £199.00 great phone big screen 1.4ghz chip and there phone comes unlocked as well
Ooo, thanks for that. Basically the same spac as the Honour with a better camera and larger screen although batter capacity is smaller (saying that Sony's power saving is probably better anyway). It also looks like Sony are cooking up a tasty little ICS rom as well which is supposed to be dropping end of this month. This could be the one...
strikerdj2011 said:
phones 4 u are doing a great deal on the Sony Ericsson Xperia arc £199.00 great phone big screen 1.4ghz chip and there phone comes unlocked as well
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My girlfriend has the arc and battery is much better than my lg with a really good camera. Only problem she found is after a month the screen came loose and literally hangs off but to be fair it was an O2 refurb.
Really nice phone and pretty snappy too.
Dave
Sent from my LG P920 using Tapatalk
Yeah, i'm not wild about the styling but it appears to be nice and trim, and can't really go too wrong with a Sony Camera. The ICS beta is looking pretty tidy though...
http://youtu.be/qJbDl8aikUk
Galaxy Nexus, I have one and I love it.
Love to have one, unfortunately can only stretch to about £220.

Choosing a low budget androphone: Wildfire S, Motorola Defy or Acer Liquid Metal?

Hi everybody!
As the title implies, i'm looking for advice on low-end android devices.
EDIT:
decided to exclude the LG optimus one (3MP camera kills it for me), and the Galaxy Ace (278Mo of ram as opposed to 512mo on the Wildfire S)
But here come new challengers, as i've read marvelous comment on them:
The Motorola Defy, and the ZTE Blade S/Orange San Francisco II.
EDIT: removed the ZTE Blade S (hard to get and no support for adobe flash)
Added the Acer Liquid Metal (cheaper than i expected!)
After quite a lot of research, including here at XDA, it came down to those 3 devices, in that order:
1)Motorola Defy
2)HTC Wildfire S
3)Acer Liquid Metal
All three have:
- 512mo of ram,
- a 800+mhz CPU (well, actually, the Wildfire S has a 600mhz cpu, but it seems to be on-par with other 800mhz proc, performance-wise),
- Gingerbread
- a 5MP camera,
which are all important to me.
Oh, and i'd like the mobile to be able to turn into a wifi hotspot, i know the wildfire s does, but i guess all 3 mobiles do?
*Ideally, it should be a device i can reliably find around 200$ or less online or in brick and mortar stores.
I'm looking for the budget device that can be the (combination of) best/fastest/most stable with Root/kernels/roms/OC and the such, as this is what i'm willing to do. (plus, it's quite fun)
I'm not looking for the absolute fastest/most powerful, but rather more for the phone that benefits the most from a stable, bug-free rom.
*I already have a HTC Wildfire S, but after many, many, many tries, i didn't manage to root it.
(I'm stuck with a 0.9 HBoot that prevents me from getting the root, from what i have gathered, a problem on some HTC Wildfire S devices. Guess i'm just unlucky )
However, i guess i could find a store that could XTC Clip it for me.
(XTC clip works with ANY HTC wildfire S with a 100% success rate, right?)
Or maybe sell it, and buy another, already-rooted, one.
And it seems a rooted HTC Wildfire S could go a long way as far as getting a good device goes.
(Given the info on Cyanogenmod's site, the S can't benefit from Cyanogenmod 7 while the classical wildfire can. The other two can)
*EDIT:
after some research, regarding flash support:
- Defy and Liquid Metal both support full adoble flash
- Wildfire S supports only flashlite
Looks like the skyfire browser can help with flash support to some extent, but i must confess i really like Opera mobile.
Oh, and i'm perfectly aware that a phone around that price won't skyrocket to SII or Iphone 4 levels of performance, but that's not what i'm looking for.
Thanks a lot for your answers!
Bangoo said:
Hi everybody!
As the title implies, i'm looking for advice on low-end android devices.
After quite a lot of research, including here at XDA, it came down to those 3 devices:
*HTC Wildfire S
*Samsung Galaxy Ace
*LG Optimus One
Ideally, it should be a device i can reliably find at 150$ or less online.
I'm definitely looking at the budget device that can be the (combination of) best/fastest/most stable with Root/kernels/roms/OC and the such, as this is what i'm willing to do. (plus, it's quite fun)
I'm not looking for the absolute fastest/most powerful, but rather more for the phone that benefits the most from a stable rom.
*I benefited from a good offer for a HTC Wildfire S, but after many, many, many tries, i didn't manage to root it.
(I'm stuck with a 0.9 HBoot that prevents me from getting the root, from what i have gathered, a problem on some HTC Wildfire S devices. Guess i'm just unlucky )
However, i guess i could find a store that could XTC Clip it for me.
(XTC clip works with ANY HTC wildfire S, right?)
(I live near Ottawa, Canada, and i'm pretty new there, so if you're willing to share a good store's adress regarding XTC Clip, i'd be grateful)
Or maybe sell it, and buy another, already-rooted, one.
And, apparently, a rooted HTC Wildfire S could go a long way as far as getting a good device goes.
(Given the info on Cyanogenmod's site, the S can't benefit from Cyanogenmod 7 while the classical wildfire can? Am i right on this?)
*Samsung galaxy ace is pretty hard to get at 150$ apparently (it's more like 200$), and i like the fact that the Wildfire S comes with more ram. Maybe it's irrelevant?
*As far as the LG Optimus goes, i've read very mixed reviews. Some claim it is a best budget phone, others tell you not to buy it at all.
Would that phone really benefit from rooting as far as performance goes? Is it easy?
I've also read great things about Huawei Ideos, ZTE Blade and Acer Liquidmini, but those are fairly hard to come by used and unlocked, as compared to the 3 phones above.
I could however use some feedback on them, or others i might have missed for that matter (easy to hack? really benefit from being hacked?)
Oh, and i'm perfectly aware that a phone around that price won't skyrocket to SII or Iphone 4 levels of performance, but that's not what i'm looking for.
Thanks a lot for your answers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Suggestion...
If you are in the silicon valley (i know its a long shot...WWW is a global phenomenon ;-) I would check out some meetups and try to find one that is giving away free device to developers that attend those meetups...I can say that I have received around 3 brand new devices and they are worked out great for development purposes... plus you will save money!
I would go with the LG if I'm not mistaken it already has a almost fully functional CM9 only camera doesn't work i think.
Sent from my LG-P350 using xda premium
I'm not sure about Canada, but in the US you can find high end phones (Galaxy S2) for under $200 (with contract agreement) at authorized dealer locations such as Best Buy.
use craigslist or kijiji and get an lg optimus 2x. Good battery life, excellent camera and dual core 1ghz, plus it has HUGE rom dev and ics :-D. U can get one for around $100.
Hi guys!
Thanks a lot for the answers!
@Leo.o: a trip to Silicone valley would cost me a lot more than 150$.
@Nerot: interesting, i'll check that, even if the camera not working is kind of a big letdown.
@Towle: i'm already under contract agreement (that's how i got the HTC Wildfire S i didn't manage to root)
@Icenight89: I'll check that phone, thanks for the suggestion. Edit: checked, and the phone is more around 250$+ for an unlocked one.
Sidenote:
All in all, is it worth the trouble to root my current HTC Wildfire S?
Would it be a very good phone once rooted?
Also, is XTC Clip garantueed a 100% success rate, as i didn't manage to unlock the bootlader using the tools at HTC dev?
I apparently found a shop in Ottawa that could do it for 30$, but i don't want to waste those 30$ for it not to work.
Edit: i've also read great things about the Motorola Defy, anyone got feedback on it?
(not that i really care about the "indestructible" aspect, but if the phone can be greatly optimized and last a few years, spec-wise, the fact that it's highly resistant is a plus)
I have a Samsung galaxy gio, and my mom has the ace. They are both great phones, but i like the gio much better. Its just an awesome phone for the price. My sister has an HTC wildfire s, and i personally HATE it. It has almost no room to install apps, and i find it impossible to type on it. It doesnt seem to be able to keep up with me.
@AlwaysDroid: the galaxy Gio is really light, spec-wise, in my opinion.
But feedback is always appreciated, so thanks a lot!
Went with further research, and decided to eliminate the LG optimus one (3MP camera kills it for me), and the Samsung Galaxy Ace (278mo of Ram kills it for me, i must confess i love having 512mo of Ram).
So, now the competitors are: HTC Wildfire S, Motorola Defy+, and, the ZTE Blade S/Orange San Francisco II.
I'll edit the first post.
Eliminated the ZTE Blade S (hard to get and doesn't support flash)
Added the Acer Liquid Metal (cheaper than i expected!)
Edited the 1st post.
Still looking for advice/feedback, thanks a lot guys!
well...did u choosed anything ???

Best new low-mid range Phone

So I am looking for a mid to low end Android phone for my father. I have just got myself the HTC One X, but that is too big for him.
I have considered the HTC One V as it isn't too big, but is also modern. I don't want to get anything that is not fairly new (Android 4.0/Upgradable to 4.0), and it must be available in the UK.
Really, £25 a month is the most I am looking at
Will thank any realistic posts!
Thanks
You could look at the Samsung Galaxy W. ICS is only via CM though, which is currently an alpha.
try like mine, SE Live with walkman.
powerful n cheap.
got 1ghz cpu, 512 ram, xloud, mdpi, official ics upgrade.
sent from my Walkman

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