Current best smart phone for computer engineers?

Question

I'm going to try to be as detailed as possible here so keep with me:

I'm a graduate student in electrical engineering (my undergrad was in computer engineering and computer science) I make a living designing and debugging embedded microprocessor systems - so I am VERY well versed in the microprocessor world, but I have fallen behind the times when it comes to the most updated phones.

I am currently looking to get a new phone (I have had 2 android phones and have played with rooting both of them) I currently have the Samsung Galaxy S Epic (Sprint) *NOTE: I really like the fact that my phone has a hard-keyboard* But the issue is that my phone just isn't very responsive compared to others I have seen, my GF has an iPhone 4 for ATT and I fairly consistently find myself cursing at my phone and using her's if we are travelling and need to find something quickly.

But the next big question is what phone to get, I have toyed around with the idea of an iPhone 4S - which I would jail-break probably the same day I get it, but the problem is there are a lot of things that I need to do on occasion that the iPhone doesn't support very well (one time I needed to SSH into my server at my office to turn in an assignment, it would have been a huge pain to do on an iPhone based on the free apps I found - whereas with android I found an awesome free SSH program to use right away)

So the running theme here is I want to be able to root and customize my phone, whatever it ends up being. The other thing I noticed is that HTC (and maybe Samsung?) has released tools to allow customization of their phones (http://htcdev.com/). I really like the Samsung interface over the HTC so can anyone comment on developing for HTC vs. Samsung? Or I know the Nexus phones where kind of popular for a while, are those worth looking into?

To wrap up:
-Sprint contract up around thanksgiving
-Plan on switching to ATT
-Would like to stick with android as I am very familiar with it and I use google services VERY extensively (calendar/contacts/music/docs/etc..)
-Partial to Samsung's interface over HTC
-Hard-keyboard would be a huge plus but not essential
-Going to root the phone no mater what it is
-Occasionally need to have weird programs like VPN/SSH/SVN available, free and natively supported would be nice
-Battery power would be a huge plus, my phone currently lasts ~15 hours whereas my GF's iPhone 4 easily doubles that
-Ease of customization of the firmware/UI
-Long term support from the hacking community
-Possible use of phone with a docking station to turn it into more of a laptop would be a huge plus


Thanks in advance for your help!!

Ithrowiphonesinthetrash · Accepted Answer

I know you said you want ATT, But the Verizon Droid 4 will fit your bill precisely. The droid 4 is basically a Droid RAZR with a slide out keyboard. Look into it at least. I think you will be impressed :)
"When plugged into the a dock, Motorola's Webtop mode reboots the phone into a desktop version of Linux running Firefox 8.0 with Flash, and also Android in a window."
PC mag review: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400053,00.asp
Droid 4 HD dock http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agTCTRGuTZ8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQeH26xxLWg
Droid 4 on lapdock: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs0dCwahrFA

Anonymous · Answer

I would recommend the Samsung Galaxy S2/3 as it's a hybrid phone and an Android. You can customise it, it's big (as it's a mix between phone and tablet) but cannot be used with a dock (to my knowledge). I know Apple's iPhone isn't good for an engineer kind of person, but I know HTC's smartphones are less responsive as the SGS2 and the S3 should be better. As for the S2, the new ICS update came, you can get 2 batteries so you can switch between them. As for battery I cannot say much because I don't own one. It's full touch-screen so there is no hard-keyboard. 

For mroe info you could always research the S2/3 and iPhone (i'm not a fan of apple products)

Anonymous · Answer

This is off topic but how did u get into embedded systems?...what company?... I'm a junior CE student and that is exactly what I want to do but am a little lost as to how to get my foot in the door(internships??..something else?). Anyways if you have time. Good luck.

edit: Cool, thanks for the information on your experience...very insightful...hopefully I can catch a nice break like that as well, sounds like a very cool job... embedded systems are so cool.

Anonymous · Answer

I would recommend galaxy s3.since it runs on android ics 4.0 which is also being used on tablets.it is high end os.u can customize it an can run many great apps on it.it will be very useful for u.it has quadcore processor means gread speed,better multitasking and much more.

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Current best smart phone for computer engineers?

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