Do you recommend Android?

G

General Shade

New member
Do you recommend Android phones to average cellphone users? I love my android phone but I will admit at times it can be a task to upkeep my phone. Hafting to manage applications, having a gmail account and all the sync features and such, setting up exchange, and a bunch of other awesome features android lets you do that average joe non tech savvy people wouldn't know anything about. For example, I'm an IT admin for a school district and one of the head board members bought a droid and kept coming to me for more and more help with the droid. I was actually doing tech support for a mobile platform I had only been using for about a month. Since that experiance I honestly don't like recommending an android phone to somone I know that just expects technology "to work". Because I know simply I'm going to become their go too tech support. I get enough of it already from my job and family.

So does anyone else forsee this issue?

Best problem ever:

Them- "I just bought a Droid, and my email doesn't work."

Me- "Well what are you using for an email client? Gmail? Yahoo? Hotmail?"

Them- "I have aol mail and the Gmail app wont work with it."

Me- "You do know that there's a difference between gmail and aol right?"

Them- "no what's gmail then?"

Me- /wrists...
 
I don't think any platform would be beneficial to someone who doesn't know the difference between Gmail and AOL. That would be IMO a user problem not a platform problem. All that being said. I would and have and will continue to recommend android to most every type of phone user.
 
I agree with constellanation, if a user is having trouble like that, it isn't necessarily androids fault, but maybe the broader question as to whether they should be using a smartphone in the first place. If someone wants a phone to just "work", they should consider a higher end feature phone over a smartphone.
 
I am by no means saying it is android's fault... I'm simply asking would you recommend it? Like I can go ahead and recommend an iphone to someone like that because iphones are idiotically easy to use. Same might be said for blackberries. But I just feel like android phones are for power user sorts of people over casual user people.
 
I think its what you make of it. My mom has been using my old g1 and after a few questions she was off and running and if she can get it well so can a lot of people. But it depends what someone wants. I doubt someone who doesn't know the difference between Gmail and AOL is going to be synching exchange servers but I bet they could find a game in the market.
 
Maybe it's me, but I found Android 100 times easier to learn than the iPhone. I got my G1 and my iPod Touch at the same time and I was an Android expert long before I figured out how to do half the crap on the iTouch. The iPhone OS has no labels or context menus, it's like they expect you to automatically know what every icon in every app does. I think the labelled menus and context menus on Android are a lot easier to figure out.

That being said, for the basic user getting their first smartphone, I think Blackberry does a great job of bridging the gap between regular phone and smartphones. If someone was getting their first smartphone, I would suggest a Blackberry to get used to having something better and then recommend going to an Android phone. I did that with my girlfriend and she has managed to learn it decently well.
 
Well of course we do.. this is an "android community"... LOL but I do understand what your saying. I wouldnt recommend android phones to someone like my step father, but then he just learned to text this month or 2 finally and still doesn't understand T9. Even when I say it guesses the word for you
Lol

But in general I think anyone that can look at different phones and platforms, and is looking for a smartphone. Android is great. My mom has a old G1 of mine also and after a few questions she's great on it.. and will text me some days to say check out this cool app I just found.

Most people that use a computer daily and at least minimally understand technology would be fine.. I don't think the iPhone OS is much easier
 
I don't see why not. They just probably won't use the full feature of there phone, but that goes true for any phone including blackberry and iPhone. Heard of people never using the app store on the iPhone, dont know about BBM and other cool blackberry features are... android will be no different. They'll learn on there own pace if ever. So many get phones just for 'style'
 
i think so. i got my first android phone the other day and have found it very simple to use. obviously it takes time to learnt he more advanced features. but if you just wanted a standard phone (calls text etc.) then you can do this without much complication or learning.
 
I think people with a general lack of technology knowledge are screwed these days anyways, I hear it all the time and it's just sad. I have friends that suck with technology but still use Android and they're fine. Sure their phones are boring as hell and they don't really download anything cool or whatever but it works for them and they love it cause they're impressed it can do stuff like web browsing so well lol.
 
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