Ask Slashdot: Are There Any Alternatives To Android Or iOS?

An anonymous Slashdot reader is asking whether or not there are any alternatives to Android or iOS smartphones: Like most of us, I've owned a few smartphones over time, ranging from a Nokia E71 to a Samsung Android phone and now, an Apple iPhone. It is close to phone upgrade time, and I've been reviewing the features that I use on my phone. When I think honestly about it, the only features I really need are:

1. Phone calls (loads of conference calls, for which I use a wired headset with a microphone)
2. SMS Messaging (unlimited on my plan)
3. Navigation (very important, and is probably the most-used app on my phone)
4. Occasional internet browsing

All of this could be done by the Nokia E71, when Nokia Maps was a thing. If I want to move away from Apple, Google and the like, do I have any options now? Are there any trustable (and by trustable, I mean avoiding unknown Chinese manufacturers) phones in the market today that could do all four and (ideally) have better battery life than one day?

Comments

99% good enough

[supernova87a]

First, ask yourself why you really need to go to a phone that will be less supported, less well-debugged, less secure. Do you really need that special use case that rarely if ever comes up? Do you have the energy / time to maintain a phone like that to the same standards (and if not, are you just implicitly deciding not to)?

Sometimes, don't you just want a phone that may not do absolutely everything, but otherwise generally just works? Aren't you old enough to not need to put up with half-assed shit any more?

Sailfish on Sony Xperia

[chill]

Sailfish by Jolla, on either the Sony Xperia or any of a number of other phones as aftermarket.

Re:Not anymore, anyway

[DogDude]

What in the fuck are you talking about? "Hopes and dreams?" I'm talking about a phone.

Re:Not anymore, anyway

[BronsCon]

If all you use is the features that come with the phone and maybe a handful of free apps, more power to you, have at it. If you really want to keep using a device that's a year or more out of support (there are only 2 years left, remember), especially running a Microsoft OS with no security patches, go right ahead. Sure, it'll "work", it'll power on and at least the default functionality will probably be there; if you ever need to restore after they kill support, your apps will be lost, of course. I wouldn't really consider simply turning on and booting to be "working", when the device is intended to do so much more than that and those functions will necessarily break when Microsoft quits supporting them.

If you use any apps, you clearly haven't considered that you might need some time to find suitable replacements, or you really don't actually use them enough to care about potential substantial workflow changes. Having migrated from Blackberry to iOS to Android, I've been around the block a couple times; if you have some app that does some function a certain way, it takes time to sift through all the available apps on your new platform that perform that function, in order to find one that has the options you need and works the way you need it to.

Again, though, if all you care about is the most basic of functionality, sure, stick with Windows Phone. That's all you'll have when MS pulls the plug and, really, you don't even need a smartphone for those functions; most feature phones will perform those tasks, including GPS now, with multiple days of battery life.

For someone who actually uses a smartphone as a smartphone, adopting a dead platform is simply beyond idiotic and suggesting it as an option is either ignorant, malicious, or both.