When I was debating whether or not to keep or return my Galaxy S (the most recent Android phone I owned), the crux of my concern was whether or not I had faith that Samsung/Google/T-Mobile was going to fix the laundry list of problems I was having, and if so, how long it would take.
I ended up deciding to return the phone, because I didn't actually believe that it would be upgraded in a timely fashion, and it was sort of my breaking point. I felt like an idiot for buying something that was a POS on the promise that eventually it would be fixed and would be great.
Over the years, I've amassed piles of kit that at the time I bought them weren't very good, but would be made "better" over time (drawer full of Maemo tablets; I'm looking squarely at you).
I've had to become more cut-throat now. I don't buy something unless it actually works and does what I want it to at the time I buy it.
If the thought of your Android phone (or any device) never being updated (or not being updated quickly) makes you not want to buy it, then don't buy it. I know it's made difficult by the fact that presently there's an arms race in mobile phones, and things are still getting better frequently; but I really think you'll be avoiding frustration if you just base your decisions around what the device does here and now.
Odds are; they aren't going to stop drinking, or get in shape, or resolve their childhood issues, or become a dog person. If you don't love them as they are, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment.
It's a bit after the fact, but 2 things to keep in mind with regards to Android phones:
1. If you can, when you are shopping for an Android phone, opt for a Google Experience Device whose software is vanilla Android and is managed directly by Google.
2. If you already have a phone with a crappy Android build, the best solution is installing a custom ROM like CyanogenMod. Most custom ROMs remove all the manufacturer junk and also tend to work well. When there are bugs that need fixing, the custom ROMs have release cycles that are measured in days or weeks, rather than months or years.
That said, I do realize that not everyone has the time, inclination and knowledge to fiddle with their phone's ROM.
I'm not sure there are any Google Experience phones for sale.
The Verizon Galaxy Nexus does not appear to be a pure Google phone -- it comes preloaded with Verizon software and I have seen no statements from either Verizon, Samsung, or Google regarding when updates will be released, or who will publish them, or if they will first have to go to Verizon. (Here's one article discussing the issue: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2397377,00.asp - How CDMA is killing the Galaxy Nexus)
I am very interested in this question of when/where/who will publish the Galaxy Nexus updates -- I want to replace my Nexus One with a Galaxy Nexus. But much of the value I perceived of the Nexus One is that the updates came frequently and came directly from Google.
Yes, thank you, but even in that thread Jean-Baptiste Queru doesn't seem able to say where the OTA's will come from.
It seems to demonstrate that at least the Verizon hardware will take the pure AOSP builds, but perhaps not that the OTAs will come from Verizon in a timely fashion and that they will be pure AOSP or AOSP + Verizon stuff.
Yeah, as I said in a reply below, if I'd have waited another couple months, the Nexus S would have been announced, which probably would have changed my opinion completely.
As to your option 2, that's the type of option "the old me" would have considered; which is "ok, so maybe this thing I bought sucks, but I can root it and replace the software to do the things it should have done out of the box".
I've found that avoiding that line of reasoning has made my life much better. That's not meant to disparage people who do mess around with stuff like that, I think it's awesome that you can even replace the ROMs. I just hope that people who replace the ROMS on their phones are doing it because they derive enjoyment from hacking, and not because it's necessary to make their phone actually usable.
1. The Nexus One is not 2 years old yet and will not be getting ICS. So getting a Google phone is not a guarantee.
2. Having control over your phone is great. But that is not really what you paid for. So not really a solution unless you always intended to use a custom ROM in the first place.
I have to admit though, I don't think I have ever seen anything that says any smart phone, iPhone, Android or otherwise, will have software updates for at least the contract life (2yrs) of the phone. So maybe my argument has no feet to stand on and you are getting what you paid for.
So I agree with the OP. Checkout what you will actually get and look at the manufacturers track record of actually following through.
The Nexus S 4g (sprint) was the worst phone I ever owned. Terrible reception meant calls dropped constantly and therefore the battery never lasted a whole workday. On the flipside, my Motorola Photon has great reception and battery life, but is encrusted with Motororola customizations, and apparently unlocking the bootloader disables 4g. While I love the open nature of Android and I've enjoyed CyanogenMod immensely in the past, the fact is that right now I have a fairly locked-down phone which -- though powerful --is nowhere near as fun to use as ones I've had before.
I was pretty pissed to realize that my Epic, that cost as much as a small PC, would not likely enjoy updates for very long, certainly not the life of the phone.
Coincidentally, because of my personal recession I've backgraded to an old feature phone I had, and no data plan. And I'm of a mind to just stand pat when my personal economic recovery kicks in. I feel like an idiot paying that much for a phone with a short support life (and CM does not support that phone), and a horrendously expensive data plan.
What problems were you having? I have a T-mobile G2 that runs pretty well, but I don't do much on it. The last upgrade actually seemed to introduce a random shutdown, making me actually regret upgrading the OS, but that's about the only problem I have.
It's unclear to me what I really need from further OS upgrades, as I'm not currently wanting any features. If the Galaxy S is really buggy I get you, but in general, I don't get the desire to upgrade Android rapidly.
I haven't dealt with Android technically, but my assumption would be that in Linux fashion, an older version isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as it still works for you (I have a 2.4 kernel on a netbook, for instance, who needs 2.6? I think even the 2.2 and possibly 2.0 kernel branches for linux are still used by certain projects).
It's been a while, but here are the issues I remember:
* GPS was completely broken (a known and admitted issue with the T-Mobile variant of the Galaxy). If you disabled it, you could use tower triangulation to get a rough position, but that made it unusable for things like driving directions.
* Battery life was terrible (probably not specific to that model, but it didn't get through a day the whole time I had it).
* The camera was awful (not unusual for smartphones at the time, but my old crappy N73 had a camera that was easily 10x better).
* If you unplugged the headset, the phone would automatically launch the music player and start playing music through the speaker, even if the music player wasn't running.
* USB mass storage mode didn't work, so you couldn't move files to it. The only workaround was to turn on debugging on the phone, which would then let it show up in as a USB device, but you'd have to enable/disable debug every time you plugged it in, as leaving it in debug made the screen not turn off.
* Lots of crap applications that you couldn't remove.
* Most of the menus had misspellings or bizarre word choices, like it had been passed through Google Translate (a nitpick concern, I realize, but it didn't give me a lot of faith in the quality control of Samsung).
Then there were all the issues with Android itself, which aren't specific to the phone, and I really don't want to hash out here, as some of them have been fixed by now, and I really have no desire to get into a debate about the merits of the platform.
I spent the next six months or so after returning the phone to see if the issues ever got addressed, just to see what would have happened if I kept it, and it seemed like most of them were still known issues. That made me feel better about my decision to return the phone.
I can identify with most of these issues on my Captivate, and that many of them were improved or resolved by installing Cyanogenmod (the big issues, GPS and camera, remain). That isn't a legitimate option for the vast majority or smartphone buyers, but it has extended my patience with an expensive purchase not living up to the claims of its maker.
Android OS upgrades almost always come with fixes for security flaws. You wouldn't be OK running your desktop with software that hadn't gotten updates for a year, right?
Depends on what security flaws they update, I've had my linux box up for over a year before, but I don't run many services and it sits behind a router. Windows is set to autoupdate, so it reboots pretty often, though.
I'm not saying I'm against updating, but if my phone is working (luckily it currently is), I shouldn't be forced to update unless there is something that actually is a problem for me, like someone being able to send an SMS to me that does something.
All the bugs the original poster notes would make me want an update, too, but I think returning the phone was the right thing to do. If my phone was that buggy from original purchase, I wouldn't want to wait for an update, either.
My HTC Desire actually got dramatically worse on the Android 2.1 -> 2.2 update: the backup function disappeared. It's apalling there's no supported way to backup and migrate data.
Yeah, I picked up an iPhone 4 eventually, and I absolutely love it.
What annoys me, though, is that had I waited another month or two instead of buying the Galaxy S, the Nexus S came out and by most accounts was a really nice phone.
Instead, I returned the Galaxy S, and put my SIM card back into an old Nokia N73 (which despite being old and Symbian, I vastly preferred to the Galaxy S).
I ended up deciding to return the phone, because I didn't actually believe that it would be upgraded in a timely fashion, and it was sort of my breaking point. I felt like an idiot for buying something that was a POS on the promise that eventually it would be fixed and would be great.
Over the years, I've amassed piles of kit that at the time I bought them weren't very good, but would be made "better" over time (drawer full of Maemo tablets; I'm looking squarely at you).
I've had to become more cut-throat now. I don't buy something unless it actually works and does what I want it to at the time I buy it.
If the thought of your Android phone (or any device) never being updated (or not being updated quickly) makes you not want to buy it, then don't buy it. I know it's made difficult by the fact that presently there's an arms race in mobile phones, and things are still getting better frequently; but I really think you'll be avoiding frustration if you just base your decisions around what the device does here and now.
Odds are; they aren't going to stop drinking, or get in shape, or resolve their childhood issues, or become a dog person. If you don't love them as they are, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment.