Smartphones have been present in the markets for a few decades now, but it's only in the past couple of years that they've really took the steam and surged right upto the extent that people started preferring one over a laptop. Right, if laptops brought portability, smartphones now bring with them extreme portability, ie they can be carried around in your pockets. In fact a smartphone can take care of all the usual things that you do on a laptop, from surfing the net to playing HD games, unless of course you want to specialize in something. Anyways the smartphone market has sure put a dent in the laptop market. So you've a smartphone I presume or you intend to buy one pretty soon. I shall give you a realistic user's long term review on a few of these smartphones
The market has gone highly inflated or something, because back in those days only iPhone used to cost around 35k and very few would actually have spent that kind of money on a phone. I still remember the times when buying a phone at 15k was very expensive, then the bar was raised to 25k and as time passed, to 35k. Nowadays the flagship models of almost every major maker has a price tag around 40k. And over time I've realized that spending than kind of money over a phone is not really worth it, cause when you go to sell after 2 or 3 years how much do you think you'll get for it? Technology is advancing at such a fast rate that all these high end phones of the present will be the base minimum after 2 or 3 years.
Nokia used to be the symbol of trust and reliability back in its days, it's a pity to see a company that was once the market leader go down like this and finally end up being brought by Microsoft. Windows phone was present for a really long time, in fact more than Android or iOS for that matter, but they still fall light years behind those two market leaders. Credit goes to Nokia for sticking with an unknown OS, when they could've very well joined the Android bandwagon and flourished. In fact Nokia put serious effort into Windows phones that you'd rather buy a Lumia than any other Windows phones just cause of the exclusive apps available that're really good. The Nokia Music Store is pretty new yet it has almost any song you would want to have. Nokia phones were always well known for their great cameras ever since N8 came into the fray and it continues to do so in the Lumia series as well. But the thing that really impressed me is the Windows Amber update. I used to hear people complain that Lumia 920 doesn't have an FM radio, it has only a great camera and nothing else. But the update brought by Amber, actually brought in an FM Radio capability, the camera was improved further, technically the ISO levels were raised from 800 to 3200, and that actually puts the Lumia on par with my camera. And the double tap to unlock feature that came with the Amber update also amazed me. Then again the complaints that have been going on around are true too, had to get it replaced once and also the apps available are quite less but that will change soon enough.
So pitting iOS against Android n WP8, both iOS and WP8 are silky smooth and are really easy to use. Android may be a bit complex for the older generation of people to use, but customization wise Android and iOS are miles ahead of WP8, though you can't do anything much unless you jailbreak an iPhone and Android can be to a great extent even without rooting the phone. So if you're looking for completely personalizing your phone Android is just the right thing for you. Where as if you want an easy to use phone to gift someone then go for an iPhone or a Windows phone.
Haters gonna hate, that's the case with iPhone, its true that iPhone 5 never lived upto the expectations and it surely was overpriced too for that matter, but in reality it is an awesome phone in fact the perfect phone if only it were priced appropriately. No matter what I say fanboys will be fanboys and will argue for their phones. I have used all three over the last 2 years, during that time the iPhone 4 and the Lumia 920 had to be replaced once inside its warranty period. The Lumia still has sometime left in its warranty, but then there is my phone, LG Optimus 2x, a phone that I brought at a time when Android was just blooming, and cause S2 and Xperia Arc were out of stock everywhere. We never really trusted Samsung or LG anymore cause of the previous experiences with normal phones and buying an LG now when all the previous purchases were always a Nokia phone was like blind move. But I'll never regret having that phone, even if I may wish at times that if I had brought an S2 I could've used it a bit longer cause of the 1GB ram in it. Anyways after 2 years of using it, all I can say is that it never really ever had any issues, by now its battery may have passed its life span n cause of which it gives a really bad standby as well. And this is also another in favour of the iPhone, Android phones as of now can't really match the standby of an iPhone.
My personal view : I don't like Samsung, but I loved S2 , Galaxy Nexus and Note 2. Nevertheless Samsung does make good phones, but their so called budget phones are overpriced and if you're looking for good phones go for the high end ones, because there are way too many others out there like Micromax, Karbon, etc which make phones which have similar features and are available for much lower.
