Drawbacks of an Android Operating System.

      You might have read, heard or even seen many great features of an Android operating system. You might have heard about what things you can do with Android device. You might have heard how many applications are there on Android market. But now I would detail few down sides, drawbacks of an Android operating system or say devices.

       I have used android 2.2 only, but these drawbacks are quite general to be seen across other versions also.

       I am not comparing Android with other mobile operating systems but for sure you will observe these while using an Android device. So following are few drawbacks of an Android operating system.

It hangs a lot :

      You are doing something on your Android phone and suddenly it stops responding and gives whuiii whuiii kind of two or more vibrations (this happens with my Samsung phone, might not be the case with other phones but there will be some other way) and you say “Not Again !!!”. Many times devises restarts of its own after it hangs, which takes my soul out. Still it’s Ok but when it hangs, stops responding and you even can’t shut it down, I hate that frustration.

     The device mainly hangs by applications and services running out of memory. On Android when you close an application by pressing back button, many applications still continue running in background. There is concept of service in Android, which means a process running behind the scene and that continuously consumes battery as well as memory. 

Battery backup is very low – Battery consumption is very high :

     If your device is kind of low budget phone, this is the main problem you would face. This is not only caused by device hardware but also by Android operating system, as this operating system runs lots of processes in background may be like widgets, services and many system threads. Battery backup becomes worst when you start using Internet on your device, so most of the time you need to disable data packet when you are not using it just for saving the battery. And many times you need to compromise with use of your mobile for saving battery or because of low battery.

Low end phones can’t install few applications – compatibility issue :

     Yes there are lots of Apps on Android market but, are they all useful? No, I mean you would get incompatibility issue with many applications for low end devices or old versions of android OS. This is mainly happening because of many versions of android and large difference between features and hardware requirements across the versions. You may want to install a good action game but for that you need compatible OS and compatible device.

Rooting voids warranty :

     Rooting an Android device is the best way to utilize it to the great extent. Rooting allows upgrading android version, installing good custom ROMs. But rooting voids the phone warranty that’s why many people are afraid of doing it.

Dalvik Cache – Limited phone memory :

     Android version 2.2 and onward you can install app on SD card. How great! that means you will never run out of phone memory, but is it the reality? Even if you install app on SD card, some considerable part of the app remains on phone memory, they call it Dalvik Cache. It’s a design funda, they use it for app to be fast. But they neglected the fact that they are using phone memory for that, which is kind of limited on many phones. So this also puts another restriction on how many applications you can install on your device.

Android is not an Enterprise person’s phone:

     

     Unlike BlackBerry and iPhone, Android wasn't considered to be an enterprise phone. It’s not that useful for enterprise applications and functionalities. Say like you want to connect your phone to your company’s enterprise WiFi network or want to configure  your office outlook mailbox on your phone, it’s a great a pain to get it done on android phone. At least it’s not as easy as it is on BB or iPhone. 

Data packet enable doesn't work :

      This is a small thing but irritates a lot. When you want to enable ‘Use packet data’, you go to Settings -> Wireless and networks -> Mobile networks -> Use packet data and select this option and expect data transfer to be enabled but many of the times nothing happens even after waiting for some time. Then trying deselect –select multiple times, it may start but if you have a bad day you need to restart your device and that sucks.

    Besides these few drawbacks there are many great features of Android operating system. And I still love Android.