Choosing the best smartphone Android explained
You may have noticed the Android brand becoming increasingly visible in the mobile phone market. But Android isn't a mobile phone operator, or a handset manufacturer. Instead Android is an operating system (OS) that can be found on a range of different smartphones.
A smartphone OS is basically the platform from which you all use your phone's functions and works in the same way as the operating system on a home PC, like Windows.
Google's Android is fast becoming the most popular operating system for smartphones.
Who makes Android?
Android is the result of a partnership between Google and Android Inc, but it is largely thought of as being Google's smartphone platform.
One of the reasons Android is proving so popular with phone manufacturers is because it's 'open source' software.
Open source essentially means that anyone can help to develop the software, without paying license fees. This is unlike a 'closed source' operating system such as Windows, which is developed only by Microsoft and its associates.
Also, unlike most closed source operating systems, Android is completely free to use, so manufacturers, such as Samsung and HTC, don't have to pay anyone to include it on their phones, and they don't have to spend money developing their own OS.
Read our latest Android mobile phone reviews and find out which mobile phone brands scored the best results for reliability and customer satisfaction in our survey.
What are the benefits of Android?
Android is known for being much more customisable than the iPhone or Windows Phone 7. Android lets you use 'widgets', which are like small windows into an application that you can arrange on your phone's homescreen. So, for instance, instead of opening a newspaper app to read the headlines, you can see them on a ticker across your homescreen, next to a quick snapshot of the weather conditions, and perhaps a view of your calendar.
You also have a lot more control over how the backgrounds, colours and icons look on an Android phone via different themes that can be downloaded on the Android Market.
The Android Market houses hundreds of thousands of apps, which are also generally cheaper compared to those for other operating systems.
Android smartphones are currently selling incredibly well and, given that the OS is also supported by Google, Android will probably be around for quite some time. This means that your phone's OS will be frequently updated and developers will continue to make apps for it.
Of course, one of the reasons Android sells so well is because the smartphones that run it are generally much cheaper than the iPhone, while boasting very similar features - and are getting cheaper all the time. So if your looking for a budget smartphone Android is a good option.
What are the downsides to Android?
As Android is open source, many phone manufacturers have tinkered with the operating system, in order to add new features, or make it easier to use.
So unlike the iPhone, different Android phones can sometimes offer quite different user interfaces (UI). Sometimes this works well (HTC has been particularly successful in modifying Android) but sometimes it doesn't. These different interfaces can also delay OS updates, as different manufacturers have to optimise each update to work with their own UI.
The other drawback is that because Android is built around open source principles, its app store isn't tightly regulated in the same way as Apple's or Nokia's.
This can be a good thing, giving developers more creative freedom, but it also means that the likelihood of malicious apps finding their way onto the app store is increased. And while the Android Market has an enormous array of apps, some of these are fairly poor quality and it can lack the official apps found on Apple's App Store.
Thankfully, you can read reviews of apps on the Android Market, so if an app is defective or malicious, it's usually flagged-up by a user.
Because of the customisation features, and different user interfaces, many people view Android as being a bit more geared toward tech-savvy users than the iPhone.
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