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I need help!

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paulista1950

Lurker
First of all let me say that I never had a smartphone and don't want one, but my wife does, so I need your help to choose one.
I worked more than 30 years with mainframes and PCs and when a new OS is launched, usually the older ones are des-continued in after a short period.
Starting my research I realized that there are phones with 3 older Android versions for sale.
So here my question: what would be the problem of buying let's say the Gingerbread version? Is it just a matter of features or there are other issues?
Will it be MUCH better to buy the Jellybean? :confused:
 
Welcome to the forums, paulista1950! :hello:
There's a few issues. More and more, apps require 4.0 (ICS) or higher to be installed. Generally, devices being sold and running Gingerbread are on the low end.
Do you/she have a budget? What is she looking to do with her phone? If it's mostly basic email, little internet browsing, a couple apps, then a GB device could be sufficient. You can still find plenty on or off contract running ICS that are cheap. If JB is a requirement for you, a Nexus S can be found for pretty cheap.
Jelly Bean does bring a host of enhancements, especially what's referred to as "Project Butter". It helps smooth out most lag and launching apps is considerably snappier. I'm running the latest version of Android (4.2.2) on my Galaxy Nexus and every iteration just helps. :)
 
Like dread suggests, it'd depend on a budget, most top end phones from two years ago that came with gingerbread are now upgradable to jelly bean. I think the phone specifications such as screen size and features along with price would probably be better places to look at, along with your partners requirements!
 
The previous posts are spot on.

I had GingerBread on the phone I was using until December. It was fine and did everything I needed (not much: contacts, diary, email, maps, some browsing, a couple of basic games) however my current phone has 4.2.2 and is way better.

Not entirely sure how much of that is simply the difference between a new phone and one that was coming up for 3 years old, though ;)

I would suggest you discuss what your wife is hoping to do with her new phone then people on here will be able to give you much more specific advice.
 
Don't forget, the older os you use now, when a time comes to upgrade the os will likely be much more uptodate and A) have lots of UI differences as well as B) features and of course code improvements including efficiency and security fixes, all in that can equate to quite a big jump in difference between user experiences between the old/new os's
 
Also not a bad idea to let us know your needs.

I'm running Gingerbread, ICS and Jellybean with no issues on our phones - because those versions on those phones serve my wife and I just fine. I could upgrade the others but to be honest - they perform exactly to expectations and I've hit the point of not hassling things that aren't broken, to be honest.

But - that's just me.

If all she's going to do is texting and emailing and light use like that - she won't notice a difference between the operating system versions.

So - how she'll use it and what her expectations are can be very important.

This is likely to get lost in our Lounge, so I'm moving this to our more specialized phone comparison forum. Moving forward you'll be shifting to discussing models and I think that's the best place.

Welcome to the forums! :)
 
I think I got the idea. Since I'm sure my wife doesn't know precisely what she'll do with the phone, here's what I'm planning to do:
1) Tell her to talk to friends who already have smartphones and ask them what they use it for
2) Based on her answer, define an amount and start from there.
The way I see it, the screen will be a major issue
Once again, thank you
 
As I see it, just take the best phone you can get with your budget. Being too cheap because you feel like you don't need the extra features now may lead to regrets in the future.
 
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