Another "cellphone help" situation

[wolfie]

I'm currently using a Nokia "lightsabre" (remember the line in Episode IV where Han asks Obi Wan "You actually USE that museum piece?") - it's nearly 9 years old, and wasn't the latest and greatest when I bought it. I'm looking to upgrade to a smartphone (plan on running a few as-yet-undetermined trucking apps, e-mail, and Clash of Clans), and am trying to decide between the iPhone 6 Plus and the Samsung Galaxy 6.

I'd really like to be able to get an e-mail app which can access multiple e-mail accounts with different settings (e.g. grab the mail but leave it on the server when accessing my home e-mail, but when accessing an account designated as "mobile" pull it off the server). Is such a mail application available for both phones, only one, or neither? Also, how do they compare in terms of durability (assuming both are installed in the proper "DHC-3 crate"?

From the specs of the phones, here's what I feel are the good points of each:

iPhone 6 Plus:
- Bigger screen (5.5" as opposed to 5.1") - the Galaxy has more pixels, but for both the limiting factor on resolution would be the "Mark 1 Rev 0 eyeball", which I'm not planning on upgrading.
- Control of platform. One thing Apple does well is keep a tight grip on compatibility - if an app works on one IOS platform, it'll work on any of that vintage or newer. If I were to get an iPad later on, I could be sure my apps would work - while there are no guarantees that apps that work on one Android platform will work on another (some Android tablets are clearly made to a price point rather than a level of functionality). I'd want to stay within the same family (IOS or Android) for a tablet, since at least one app (Smart Truck Routing) requires separate subscriptions for each platform.

Galaxy 6:
- Price. With a 2 year plan from my phone carrier, it's $349/$470 for 64G/128G, while the iPhone is $599/$729.
- Connector. The Galaxy uses a MicroUSB connector, which not only has no exposed contacts (I've read about the "lightning" shorting if it touches a metallic surface), but is also the same connector used to charge my company-issued dispatch device, and to charge various external batteries. With the iPhone, I'd need 2 sets of charging cords. Also, the MicroUSB is designed for repeated plugging/unplugging - the contacts that flex are in the plug rather than the socket, so when they wear out you replace the cheap cord instead of needing to repair the expensive phone. The "lightning" connector looks solid, as if all the parts that flex are in the socket on the phone.

Coming out even:
With the change from the 5 to the 6, the Galaxy no longer comes with minimal memory and the capability to upgrade using a card, so you have to buy it at the memory level you want. Also, the battery is no longer user-replaceable. Both can use WiFi hotspots (if available) instead of cellular data, or be used as a hotspot for a laptop.

Anybody have experience with either of these phones in terms of ease of use, call quality, battery life per charge, or anything else? Thanks.

[Javarod]

The only contribution I can make regards the Galaxy 3, though it might apply here. Good device, well built and reliable. Bad was the bloatware, as well as the usual crap from the provider, there was a ton of Samsung stuff as they seem to be try to stage a takeover of Android. As linked in the other thread, I switched to a cheap Chinese phone. Quality isn't as good, but far better than you'd expect for the price ($175, no contract).

[mathnerd]

I had an iPhone 6 Plus before it got stolen, and I'm pining for the day I can actually replace it. At first I thought it was going to be too big, and to be honest, the size does take some getting used to, but after I figured out the size, I was completely enamored with it. Of course, I'm an Apple person, so of course I'm going to recommend the iPhone, but it's not without its drawbacks.

The second charging cord is definitely an issue if you're using another device with a micro USB. One thing I do have to say is that I've had dozens of devices over time with that particular charger, and they've all, without fail, had problems, where I've never had a problem with the lightning charger on the iDevices (unless you count accidentally sewing through one of them, but that was a user problem, not a cord problem). As for the mail issue, I honestly have no idea. There are some individual settings you can set on the built-in mail app, but I don't think they'll do what you want them to do. There are other mail apps you can download for iPhones, so maybe one of those would be more to your liking. The built-in app handles my three accounts just fine for what I need them to do, if that helps.

[Ophbalance]

Google mail can do POP or IMAP to multiple accounts. I use this to consolidate mail. So android can do this with the stock client.

[BlaqueKatt]

iOS IS NOT SECURE! And Is about to get worse, since apple delayed the publication of research 6 months while they worked on a fix(and actually did nothing of the sort)

researchers got past the store malware detection, and harvested passwords from nearly every app on the phone(including banking passwords and credit card numbers), and the research on how they did it was just published.

story here

Android natively allows for multiple email accounts to be delivered to the same box, just different folders.

[Bandit]

I have an iThing 4s, and a Galaxy S5 - both from work, so I don't know much about the cost/plans. I'm also one of the 10 people (it seems) with a Windows Phone which I like the best for my own use.

That said, iOS seems to be more user friendly, but the android is *far* more flexible with what one can do with it. Everything from what media formats can be played on it to the ease of access to the directory structure, Android wins hands down.

I totally agree about the charging/data cables - I have to keep the Apple one for just the iThing, and one Micro USB for every other device known to man.

For battery life, the iThing seems to last longer. I think that has more to do with the background apps that I'm forced to run (tracking and logging) on the S5.

I'd stick to the Android ecosystem as it has (for me) more flexibility and plays better with others as far as peripheral standardization goes.

B

[Heksubah]

I'm not really an iFan to begin with, but on the other side of the coin I've had the Galaxy SII (still use it as an alarm clock/game player), the S4 and now the Galaxy Note 3. If you want the bigger size of the iPhone but like the features of the Galaxy you might consider a Note 4. It's larger than the S6, still lets you add SD cards and the battery is removable.

I have loved every Galaxy phone I've owned but I'd never get one that you couldn't remove the battery from. I like being able to quickly pop it out if the phone gets too hot, or if I have charging difficulty for whatever reason.

Personally, I plan to stay with the Galaxy phones as long as I can.

[wolfie]

An update - I also looked at the S5 (expandable memory, and user-replaceable battery), but its maximum expansion is 64 GB - half of what the S6 and iPhone 6 Plus are available with.

After seeing Lightning charging cables at a truck stop priced at roughly double what a microUSB or a 30 pin Apple were going for (and suspecting it was due to royalties for the Lightning being patented), I checked out a couple battery/case combos. The Mophie JuicePack (already released) and SpacePack (coming soon) use a Lightning (of course) to connect to the phone, but present a microUSB (no royalties) to the outside world. OtterBox offers a battery/case combo for the iPhone 6 but not the 6 Plus (and won't comment on whether one will be offered for the 6 Plus) that also presents a microUSB to the outside world. Falling back to an iPhone 6 is not an option (screen is smaller than the Galaxy S6, so that would be giving up an "Advantage: Apple" functionality point). Through the use of a battery/case combo, the "microUSB vs. Lighning" advantage that Samsung has over Apple can be neutralized.

[wolfie]

Thanks for the help, guys. Just wanted to let you know how things went. I now have a PhrootFone 6 Plus (128 GB) in a Mophie Juice Pack case, with a tempered glass screen protector. The native Phroot mail application can handle multiple e-mail accounts (just need to figure out how to set it up so it sends mail with my "mapped" address in my domain instead of in the native domain), and the Mophie (which I've already had to use the "portable charger" feature of) converting from Lightning to microUSB wiped out one of the advantages that the Galaxy had, leaving only price.

When getting screen protectors, watch out - some are difficult to install. A friend of mine had a flexible plastic one on his previous phone (PhrootFone 5), and it was a royal pain to install, since it tended to stretch during installation - and the phone has "landmarks" at both ends that the pre-cut holes in the protector need to match. The one I got was ridiculously easy to install.