iPhone User Switches To Android
Today I switched to Android from IOS. I have been an Apple user for a long time. So today, I decided to give the Android devices a try. The best Android device that I found, which was also within my budget, was the POCO M3. Here’s how it went:
#Week 1:
I chose the POCO M3 as my ideal Android device for this experiment because it was under my budget and was great for the price it was asking. The POCO M3 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 processor, and you get 6 GB of LPDDR4X RAM and came with Android 10 with MIUI. In terms of storage, you get 64 GB of UFS 2.1 storage or 128 GB of UFS 2.2 storage. However, this is just the base model, So I have only 64 GB of storage. The UI is very similar to MIUI on Xiaomi devices, with a few subtle changes, it has a Full HD+ display with a 60Hz refresh rate. The MIUI has been refreshing for me, I have loved the UI ever since. However, you still get the right number of pre-installed POCO M3 apps or bloatware like Facebook, GetApps, Netflix, LinkedIn, Mi Credit, Mi Pay, and a few games and some of these, you can’t even uninstall them. The build quality was quite impressive. Even though the device is made of plastic, it doesn’t feel like plastic. It has a leather kind of finish. The haptic feedback was also decent, it didn’t sound like cheap plastic motors turning inside. I was very impressed by the software as well. The most annoying part of MIUI is that it takes every opportunity to show you an Ad. But I quickly changed the settings and turned the Ad settings off. The next big hurdle was data migration. Thanks to Google Drive and Backup, I was able to all my data to Android easily.
#Week 2:
I have my Android device as my primary device, which means it is used to fulfill all my day-to-day needs. I have been using this device for gaming, watching movies, listening to music, and developing Android Apps. Even though this is not a hardcore gaming phone, it doesn’t suck at gaming. I could easily Call of Duty in medium graphics for about 2–4 hours until the battery dies. However, unlike many other devices, it doesn’t come with a variable refresh rate display. This means all your games are stuck at 60Fps(Frames Per Second). I also did a couple of photoshoots with my phone this week. The camera isn’t the strongest point for this device, but it’s not disappointing either. It comes with a tri-camera setup in the rear, a primary camera with a 48MP Quad-Bayer sensor with f/1.8 lens, 0.8 µm pixels, and PDAF. Night Mode is available on this camera. The macro camera is 2MP with f/2.4 aperture, 1.75 µm pixels, but lacks autofocus. Finally, there is a 2MP depth sensor. The front camera has an 8MP sensor behind an f/2.1 lens. The focus is fixed. Here are some of the pictures I took with this phone.
#Week 4:
Android is not as secure as an IOS device in terms of data privacy. Android is an OS created by Google, and thus you would expect it to have all sorts of trackers, tracking all your moves just to show you interest-based Ads. So I spent this week replacing all my default apps with open-source apps. I have always been a huge fan of the open-source community and data privacy. For example, I replaced my default browser which was chrome, with Brave browser, I replaced my Gmail app with k9 mail client, made DuckDuckGo my default search engine instead of Google, and replaced my Keyboard with AnySoftKeyboard. I’ll be writing a more detailed blog on how to protect your data in the coming days.
Verdict:
Android is far more customizable and open-source compared to the closed-source IOS. With proper hardware, Android can be on par with the latest IOS devices. In terms of security, Android slightly lags behind IOS, but as I said we can bring about a few changes to make it secure. However, no device is perfect, every device has its own Pros and Cons, It’s up to you to choose the devices which suit you better. Anyway, POCO M3 has been an amazing device and I don’t see myself switching to IOS anytime soon.