^Or rotate it to landscape mode and two thumb it

The home button is onscreen for the nexus 7 unfortunately. It's still on there bottom in landscape mode!

Right you are.

I was thinking of this …

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

So what's the best Samsung device AT&T has to offer right now, or in the near future?

Without doing much research I'd say either the HTC One X or Samsung Galaxy S III. I have no clue what the "next big thing" is going to be on Android and wouldn't worry. The both of the above have ludicrous specs/performance.

If you're buying today, One X with GSIII close behind, or swapped, depending on preference, really. The Galaxy Note II (what Al was showing off... that bastard) should be out next month, and the HTC One X+ should probably be hitting in the near future as well.

Those are the only four you should concern yourself with... unless you're off contract and wanting a "cheap but decent" phone, then get the Galaxy Nexus for 349$ from good, no contract... but that kinda crazy if you don't have to.

**BRENT**

Who you calling crazy?

I love the GNex... but it's almost a year old at this point. The screen on the GSIII and HOX are each better. If you're buying off contract and wanna save the 250 each...

**BRENT**

Can these Androidses be used as hotspots?

Yes. On Verizon, you don't get charged with the NEW plans (tiered data). AT&T probably charges you. T-Mobile may or may not charge you, depending on plan. I think Sprint still charges.

Unless it's disabled by the manufacturer or carrier, Android has built-in tethering capabilities. I doubt they've taken that out in ICS or Jelly Bean (the two latest OS releases).

I use it all the time on my 1.5 year old Android phone.

**BRENT**

btw, the OS names are really, really stupid.

Nope.

Mike is going to like the next one. "Key Lime Pie."

Tyrion: "I make an awesome Key Lime Pie. You can't have any."

**BRENT**

Just upgraded to Jelly Bean on the Nexus S. It is quite a bit faster than Ice Cream. The only thing I don't like so far is that they changed the search.

Also thinking of maybe upgrading to Samsung Galaxy S III (although it may be too large for me to use). Would it be worth it (Brent or others)? (I have Sprint so I am limited to their phones.) I like having a pure Android (no extra crap from Sprint) but battery life seems better with the Galaxy S III than the Galaxy Nexus or Nexus S. I was originally going to get an iphone 5 but I like the way gmail works on Android better than ios and I cannot live without Swype I think.

http://shop2.sprint.com/NASApp/onlinestore/en/Action/OSBrowseAccessoriesOnlyCategories?PHONE_ID=SPHL700KIT&INTCID=TSC:MyS:ICP:FreeBat:081912

Enter code BATTERY1 at checkout to possibly get a free extended battery for your Galaxy Nexus, Shelly, paying only S&H.

If that doesn't work, you can call Tele Sales: (866) 866-7509 to try to work it out with them.

Worst case, drop the 50$ for the battery, then wait for the next Nexus device. I think the GSIII may finally be good enough for me to use TouchWiz, but I still prefer stock as well. Without rooting/ROMing, that's probably your best bet for now.

Hope that helps.

**BRENT**

I'm confused. I should get the Galaxy Nexus (and free extended battery) or wait for the next google phone (after Galaxy Nexus). I only have the Nexus S right now

I am ok with my phone right now. Just wondering if I might see major improvements going Nexus S -> Galaxy Nexus or Galaxy Siii.

Sorry, I read that wrong. I thought you HAD the Galaxy Nexus already. (Just got back from pharmacy, I'm a bit... out of it )

So, don't buy a Galaxy Nexus at this point. Still a good phone, but it'd be painful in 2 years. The GSIII is a very nice phone, but you'll lose out on the stock Android experience. I'm OK with the size of it, but then again, I'm OK with the Galaxy Note 2 as well. Either of those phones is going to be a fair bit larger than what you have.

So there's nothing official about the Next Nexus phone yet, but that's the one I'd hold out for. Otherwise, I don't see how you wouldn't be happy with the GSIII, if you wanted something sooner. Do you have discounts through work? If it's like it used to be, some carriers would allow yearly upgrades at the 2 year price. If that's still an option, I'd definitely go through them. If you want to turn to the dark side, 32GB iPhone 5 is available for deliver on Friday.

http://delivery.sprint.com/m/p/nxt/dev/wdyw.asp

Check that site, enter your e-mail, and see what they can do for you.

**BRENT**

How are you guys doing on battery life with your phones? That's the main beef with my current phone. I'm thinking about getting an increased capacity battery. Rooting and flashing ROMs, playing with radios, etc. definitely helped but it's still barely not enough to go through an entire day of moderate to heavy use, especially with GPS and 4G.

I've been getting 20-26hrs/charge on my Verizon G-Nex running CyanogenMod-10 nightlies and Leankernel. The main problem I have with battery life is one that can't really be helped, the electrical hungriness of the AMOLED screen. As long as I keep my screen use in check, I'm generally fine (primarily using a combo of LTE and Wifi).

Thanks for the info, 20-26 hrs would be perfect. I just bought an HTC Evo V, currently running the latest Midnight Rom (Anthrax kernel running ICS/Sense 3.6 so very similar to stock). Seems like there's soon going to be a working CM10 ROM that I'll try as well. Yeah, the screen on mine also sucks juice, and the wimpy stock 1500mAh battery doesn't help. Larger capacity battery sounds good.

As long as I keep my screen use in check, I'm generally fine (primarily using a combo of LTE and Wifi).

You mean, as long as you don't use your phone.

Thanks for the info, 20-26 hrs would be perfect. I just bought an HTC Evo V, currently running the latest Midnight Rom (Anthrax kernel running ICS/Sense 3.6 so very similar to stock). Seems like there's soon going to be a working CM10 ROM that I'll try as well. Yeah, the screen on mine also sucks juice, and the wimpy stock 1500mAh battery doesn't help. Larger capacity battery sounds good.

BTW the numbers I quoted are on the 2100mAh "extended" battery, as compared to the stock 1850mAh one.

You mean, as long as you don't use your phone.

No, just as long as I don't have the screen on for long, long stretches. As far as I can tell, I drop about 18%/hr of screen use. My typical day has about 3-4 hours of screen use.

My biggest culprits are GPS, wireless, and screen, in that order. GPS (obviously, constantly downloading map bits); wireless -- even when there's no wireless connected, it's constantly taking inventory and trying to connect, so if I'm not at home or at work, I turn it off. Screen -- she's right, you basically mean you don't use your phone. If you turn on an audio app and then screenlock it, I bet it still uses up your battery life.

But then again, I still have an original 1st gen Motorola Droid. I don't want to have to switch to a ceilinged plan, so until I have time to figure out how, I don't want to upgrade.

My stock Galaxy S III does get great battery life. Its 61% right now after being taken off the charger at 7 am EST with a fair amount of use because I always check twitter regularly and was communicating a lot due to the two tornado warnings we had while teaching. I've only once or twice had to charge it after getting home from full day and that was because I read about thirty of the walking dead comics on it between checking facebook and twitter and the other time was because I was watching a fair number of episodes of shows on hulu on it.

I know it could get even better with some solid tweaking and is already better than the Nexus's I've played around some with in battery life and screen. I think only the RAZR maxx might do better on the battery side of things and I honestly don't think that is worth looking into much as a media consumption device. Though the S III is a big device, with my otterbox commuter on I can barely touch my fingers together around it and know I could never handle a larger device. Fits decently in my khaki or jeans pockets. If you want the stock experience on the Galaxy S III, you can fairly easily root and unlock the bootloader on any carrier S III now and flash an aosp rom which pretty much makes it pretty darn close to a Nexus device considering how long it takes for Verizon to release updates for the Nexus.

I've lost my mind. I'm seriously considering getting the Samsung Galaxy Note 2.

Ed... people have iPads and iPhones, and those are "just small/large versions of each other."

Get the Note 2 already, it's a nice piece of hardware. After playing with one, I'm thinking of getting one myself, and breaking my "only stock Android" streak. I think it may actually be worth it.

It's also the most proportional phone to my particular head I've ever come across. It may look like a Zach Morris Phone Redux to Raffy, but it's great for me. Watching Al mess with the S Pen was pretty nice compared to my experience with a stylus and iPad.

Actually, anyone know a release date yet?

**BRENT**