Phone upgrade... Don't really know what to buy.

[C5Allroad]

I've got a nexus 5, still rocking it. Although. I am getting some issues. Dropped it the other day, now the top left is getting a lot more backlight bleed than I'd like. Totally a first world problem.
I do have some money lying around, and thought about a nexus 6. I expect the next nexus to come out sometime after november this year. I could just sell the N6 when the next one is out...


How are galaxys by now? the OnePlus 2 is being rumored also apparently....

[ghostjuggernaut]

I have a Nexus 6.  Personally, I would get an S6, unless you want to wait for the new nexus or 1+2.  In fact, I plan to go tomorrow and buy one if I like it.  I have been a Nexus fan boy ever since the Nexus S, and this will be my first non nexus in a long time.  I have steered clear of touchwiz for a long time, but the S6 is just a great phone.  It really depends on what you are looking for in a phone, but the camera is boss on the S6.  If you have any Nexus 6 questions let me know.

[Hak Foo]

Have you considered a Windows Phone?

The user experience is unique and slick, it performs very well even on low-spec devices, and the battery life is pretty good.  There are some fun choices there-- the Lumia 1020 still has the most outrageous phone camera you're likely to encounter, the HTC One M8 for Windows is basically the same kit as the Android model, but has something like 30-50% longer runtime on a charge, and the Lumia 635 (what I'm running now) gives you a surprisingly decent experience in a device cheap enough that you can just keep a stack of them on the counter and toss them out if you ever break them,

[Novus]

RMA your nexus 5
Get an iphone

[tp4tissue]

Ipho 6
Galx 6
Note 4

[Smasher816]

Still loving my OnePlus One. No issues. 7hr screen on, or 2day with mild use. Good 3rd party rom scene if you are into that.

[vivalarevolución]

I like the Sony Xperia Compact Z1 or Z3 devices.  Seems like the only high end phone these days that isn't a giant phablet.

[baldgye]

I never hear good things from Samsung users say 6months on from buying them. If your happy enough with your phone, I'd wait till the nexus 6 if I where u. If your entrenched on iOS or Android I don't see any benefit to switching to or from either platform

[C5Allroad]

RMA your nexus 5
Get an iphone

I've done an RMA already!
That's why I don't have major screen bleed. Until now though.

Still loving my OnePlus One. No issues. 7hr screen on, or 2day with mild use. Good 3rd party rom scene if you are into that.

I can barely get 3 hours of screen ontime...

Ipho 6
Galx 6
Note 4

Held a GS6, eh. Feels like an iphone.

[katushkin]

Have you considered a Windows Phone?

The user experience is unique and slick, it performs very well even on low-spec devices, and the battery life is pretty good.  There are some fun choices there-- the Lumia 1020 still has the most outrageous phone camera you're likely to encounter, the HTC One M8 for Windows is basically the same kit as the Android model, but has something like 30-50% longer runtime on a charge, and the Lumia 635 (what I'm running now) gives you a surprisingly decent experience in a device cheap enough that you can just keep a stack of them on the counter and toss them out if you ever break them,

+1 for windows phone.

My Lumia 830 is awesome, even if the UK adverts are terrible...

[digi]

I can't believe that the Galaxy S6 doesn't have the swap-able battery and micro-sd card slot...really bummed about that.

[Oobly]

Galaxy Note 4 and a custom ROM.

Reasons:
QHD AMOLED display
S-Pen
Removable battery
SD card slot
Top notch build quality and toughness
Great performance
Great camera
Great battery life
Can take control of your phone and choose a ROM with the features YOU want, instead of what Samsung wants

[neverused]

LG g4 will retain the swappable battery and micro-SD reportedly. I have a g2 and like it, though I do have some Verizon specific radio issues with my custom rom, but that's the cost of tinkering.

The nexus 6 looks nice but I've heard that it has poor battery performance. The moto x would be a good contender, as it is close to stock Android.

Just don't buy an iPhone unless you like giving up flexibility and utility.

[tp4tissue]

I don't understand why people even COMPARE phone specs..

They all do the same thing...  They're all plenty fast 'these days'

And when it comes down to RAW-utility,   No one actually gets real work done on them, to which a faster phone would've made a - difference.


And the other thing is camera.. THEY ARE ALL terrible.. There's a reason real cameras arn't flat.. You can't fight physics on this one..



The only RATIONAL thing left to shop for is the Fashion..

Which ones makes you seem the most- Rich..

The choice is then obvious. Finally a problem you'd just throw money at.. What a concept.

[vivalarevolución]

I'm embarrassed to say that I agree with TP here.  Although the camera on my Sony is pretty decent, I've taken some nice photos with it.

[Altis]

I'd probably go with a Windows phone, if WP10 is any indication. The Sony phones are pretty nice too, for Android.

The iPhone 6 is pretty buggy, slower than any previous iPhone I've had, and the camera is quite bad. What I do like about it is the size, the screen, fingerprint unlock, and the ability to set triple-click home button to invert colours (absolutely wonderful at night time so your eyes don't singe from the ridiculous white backgrounds for everything).

[animal]

I recently got a Galaxy S3 Neo for my wife. Cheap (kinda) with decent specs. But that's all. When turning it on, I was prompted to accept the TOS, EULA or whatever. I read a few paragraphs (yes I actually do this) until I read a sentence stating:
Samsung retains the right to turn on the microphone and camera whenever it wants to....
The next thing I did was to install Cyanogenmod voiding the warranty.

I personally love my Oppo Find 5. Same specs as the Samsung S4, Sony Z1 and HTC One, but much cheaper. Plus I get to use *ANY* ROM I see fit without voiding my warranty. Heck this is the first phone I had that I didn't void the warranty. Any you can get the Find 7 now which is similar to the One + Two

What I am trying to say is, if you respect your privacy (I trust you do) you should be ending up flashing some custom ROM like the rest of normal nerds do So check out which ROMS are available for the device you are interested in. More or less the hardware on flagship devices is identical. It's the software (ROM) that makes the difference.

[noisyturtle]

The Note Edge is pretty cool. It's a bit big for a phone though.

[C5Allroad]

I don't understand why people even COMPARE phone specs..

They all do the same thing...  They're all plenty fast 'these days'

And when it comes down to RAW-utility,   No one actually gets real work done on them, to which a faster phone would've made a - difference.


And the other thing is camera.. THEY ARE ALL terrible.. There's a reason real cameras arn't flat.. You can't fight physics on this one..



The only RATIONAL thing left to shop for is the Fashion..

Which ones makes you seem the most- Rich..

The choice is then obvious. Finally a problem you'd just throw money at.. What a concept.

I never mentioned specs lol. Could care less about fashion. I bought the nexus because it's unrestricted to how many roms I can put on it. And I never voided my warranty doing so. That's the main reason why I stay with Nexus.


However, I do not like hardware buttons. I like having on screen buttons for some odd reason. Phone just looks cleaner to me.

I recently got a Galaxy S3 Neo for my wife. Cheap (kinda) with decent specs. But that's all. When turning it on, I was prompted to accept the TOS, EULA or whatever. I read a few paragraphs (yes I actually do this) until I read a sentence stating:
Samsung retains the right to turn on the microphone and camera whenever it wants to....
The next thing I did was to install Cyanogenmod voiding the warranty.

I personally love my Oppo Find 5. Same specs as the Samsung S4, Sony Z1 and HTC One, but much cheaper. Plus I get to use *ANY* ROM I see fit without voiding my warranty. Heck this is the first phone I had that I didn't void the warranty. Any you can get the Find 7 now which is similar to the One + Two

What I am trying to say is, if you respect your privacy (I trust you do) you should be ending up flashing some custom ROM like the rest of normal nerds do So check out which ROMS are available for the device you are interested in. More or less the hardware on flagship devices is identical. It's the software (ROM) that makes the difference.

As far as I'm aware. There aren't many roms available for galaxies. Other than cyanogen and beanstalk.

[zombimuncha]

I'm still rockin my Nexus 4. I've checked out the latest flagship phones and see no reason to upgrade. You can get NIB / BIN Nexus 4 on ebay for MUCH cheaper than any new flagship or even midrange phones, and it's still a lot faster than most midrange phones.

[Photoelectric]

Still loving my OnePlus One. No issues. 7hr screen on, or 2day with mild use. Good 3rd party rom scene if you are into that.

I can barely get 3 hours of screen ontime...

That seems wrong: I have 2 OnePlus One's in my household, and they both have excellent battery life.  My partner uses Tasker, which seems to make battery life crazy long.  I don't, but I keep an eye on battery drain statistics.  My phone lasts for many days, as does the other phone.

You should go into Settings -> Battery and check the stats.  See what causes the highest battery usage.  If it's google play services, there's an easy way to disable that service from draining your phone's battery with no effect on operation.

[C5Allroad]

Still loving my OnePlus One. No issues. 7hr screen on, or 2day with mild use. Good 3rd party rom scene if you are into that.

I can barely get 3 hours of screen ontime...

That seems wrong: I have 2 OnePlus One's in my household, and they both have excellent battery life.  My partner uses Tasker, which seems to make battery life crazy long.  I don't, but I keep an eye on battery drain statistics.  My phone lasts for many days, as does the other phone.

You should go into Settings -> Battery and check the stats.  See what causes the highest battery usage.  If it's google play services, there's an easy way to disable that service from draining your phone's battery with no effect on operation.

Most of the time it goes:
-Screen
-Tapatalk
-Chrome
-Kik(4 different chats)
-Android system

Note, when in class. I have to turn airplane mode in one class. Phone searching for signal for two hours kills it also. But if I were to browsing forums and such, it won't last 4 hours of screen on time.Right now, it's at 1hr, and 3 minutes, and I'm at 73%

I have played with cpu speeds and other roms.

[dustinhxc]

[Photoelectric]

Admittedly, I've not used my phone much for the past couple weeks, but my stats are as follows:
65% battery remaining, 9d 0h 56m 9s on battery, Phone Idle 25%, Wi-Fi 24%, Cell standby 16%, Screen 13% (3h 13m 39s), etc.  Are you using auto brightness or set brightness? 

I also use CM Browser in favor of Chrome (tried different ones and like this one the most)--not sure if it's better for battery life, and I don't use Tapatalk for any forums, though I do read at least 2 forums frequently.

I should note I'm on Cyanogen 11.0, Android 4.4.4--have not used a custom ROM for this particular phone nor been interested in upgrading to the new OS, since this one has been great and stable.  You are saying that you've played with other ROMs--does that mean you're not on stock anymore?  If so, any number of things could be causing your issues, and you'd have to troubleshoot by specific ROM.

Still not sure how you are only getting under 3 hours of use.  I wouldn't call it "screen time", because you can have the screen on and not be doing anything and you can be playing a CPU-intensive game the whole time--very different battery drain profile.

[C5Allroad]

Admittedly, I've not used my phone much for the past couple weeks, but my stats are as follows:
65% battery remaining, 9d 0h 56m 9s on battery, Phone Idle 25%, Wi-Fi 24%, Cell standby 16%, Screen 13% (3h 13m 39s), etc.  Are you using auto brightness or set brightness? 

I also use CM Browser in favor of Chrome (tried different ones and like this one the most)--not sure if it's better for battery life, and I don't use Tapatalk for any forums, though I do read at least 2 forums frequently.

I should note I'm on Cyanogen 11.0, Android 4.4.4--have not used a custom ROM for this particular phone nor been interested in upgrading to the new OS, since this one has been great and stable.  You are saying that you've played with other ROMs--does that mean you're not on stock anymore?  If so, any number of things could be causing your issues, and you'd have to troubleshoot by specific ROM.

Still not sure how you are only getting under 3 hours of use.  I wouldn't call it "screen time", because you can have the screen on and not be doing anything and you can be playing a CPU-intensive game the whole time--very different battery drain profile.

As of now. It's dropped pretty quickly for just sitting at my desk.
Mediaserver is running apparently. As it stands. 1hr 14min of on time. 59%


Well, it's not use that I'm going by. I went by on time. I was on stock rom. Tried cataclysm, screw'd, vivid pop, and some others that I can't really think of right now lol. I liked screw'd, stuck with it. And have been messing with the phone.
Ultimately, it gets by. By the time I'm home, it's at ~20% 6:50 in the morning it's unplugged. And it's plugged in once it goes down to 10%. But as time goes on, I will be trying roms and messing with the phone daily.

[fohat.digs]

A few months ago I got my kids Samsung Galaxy S5s and myself a Galaxy Avant, upgrading after a 2-year contract for S3s for them and an S2 for me.

We are all very pleased, with battery life being the single greatest improvement.

Since I do not use mine nearly as intensely as they use theirs, the Avant at half the price of an S5 seems like 90% as good.

But, I am not a phone "power user" and I really don't care all that much.

[Photoelectric]

Admittedly, I've not used my phone much for the past couple weeks, but my stats are as follows:
65% battery remaining, 9d 0h 56m 9s on battery, Phone Idle 25%, Wi-Fi 24%, Cell standby 16%, Screen 13% (3h 13m 39s), etc.  Are you using auto brightness or set brightness? 

I also use CM Browser in favor of Chrome (tried different ones and like this one the most)--not sure if it's better for battery life, and I don't use Tapatalk for any forums, though I do read at least 2 forums frequently.

I should note I'm on Cyanogen 11.0, Android 4.4.4--have not used a custom ROM for this particular phone nor been interested in upgrading to the new OS, since this one has been great and stable.  You are saying that you've played with other ROMs--does that mean you're not on stock anymore?  If so, any number of things could be causing your issues, and you'd have to troubleshoot by specific ROM.

Still not sure how you are only getting under 3 hours of use.  I wouldn't call it "screen time", because you can have the screen on and not be doing anything and you can be playing a CPU-intensive game the whole time--very different battery drain profile.

As of now. It's dropped pretty quickly for just sitting at my desk.
Mediaserver is running apparently. As it stands. 1hr 14min of on time. 59%


Well, it's not use that I'm going by. I went by on time. I was on stock rom. Tried cataclysm, screw'd, vivid pop, and some others that I can't really think of right now lol. I liked screw'd, stuck with it. And have been messing with the phone.
Ultimately, it gets by. By the time I'm home, it's at ~20% 6:50 in the morning it's unplugged. And it's plugged in once it goes down to 10%. But as time goes on, I will be trying roms and messing with the phone daily.

Problem with custom ROMs is that they are far from bug-free.  They are developed by one or a few individuals on their free time, and there are frequently various things that can go wrong.  I used to switch different Android ROMs a lot for my previous phones and one tablet, and most ROMs had some issues.  Some are known to be more stable due to the length of time they've been worked on and improved and tested, which sometimes means using older versions for more stability and better performance (like using Gingerbread ROMs for stability when 4.0 and 4.1 became available).  It is the main reason I have not put anything custom on my OnePlus One yet--it's been performing great at stock, and I don't feel like dealing with bugs and crashes for unnecessary differences (and my UI is already customized to my liking). 

Anyway, I can't really comment constructively on your particular usage since you're using a custom ROM.  I'd recommend asking in a dedicated thread for your ROM to see if you can troubleshoot what's eating your battery.  It might be you need to recalibrate it properly?  Have you tried removing battery stats between reinstalls or using the battery calibration widget?  You also need to make sure you do clean installs every time.  Supposedly Li-Ion batteries don't need that, but who knows in terms of operating system-battery level cooperation...  In any event, your phone's battery life seems way off from what you should be getting.

[pandather]

I love my Nexus 6, I'm not gonna upgrade until I see if Ara takes off.

[Oobly]

....
As far as I'm aware. There aren't many roms available for galaxies. Other than cyanogen and beanstalk.

There are plenty. Lots of people don't like the stock Touchwiz ROMs and so there are lots of replacement ROMS (some based on stock with stuff removed, others based on AOSP, MIUI, etc..). Check out http://forum.xda-developers.com/

Massive community of custom ROM developers and users there. I'm still rocking HyperNote on my Note 2. Solid as a rock. Some ROMs are better than others, read up towards the end of a thread to see the kinds of things people are posting about. I tend to go for stripped down, basic ROMs without too many features. Less to go wrong and suits the way I use my device.

[iri]

anything for which android 5 exists (preferably in form of cm12).