Flashback: Android Gingerbread, the OS version that refused to die, was better than you think
- T
- TheArtist
- utU
- 04 May 2020
Ow Man Ow.. I remember my first Android smartphone.. A Samsung Galaxy Y with a very small screen and tiny footprint acc to today's giant trends. It was a big upgrade for me. Such a cute phone it was. And I did enjoy using Android Gingerbread 2.3 with TouchWiz UI despite the terrible lags and hiccups. Good ol days. How time flies.. You never realise.
- N
- Nick
- mEA
- 04 May 2020
I had a samsung galaxy something which ran out of the box on gingerbread. Got later updated to jelly bean. Horrible device, software wise it was pure garbage. Switched to ios 7 and have been using the iphone as primary device ever since.
- ?
- Anonymous
- mgK
- 04 May 2020
reading these nostalgic comments..... :)
NO, i dont miss it!
finally now we have normal operating system....back in these days every time something didnt work
- ?
- Anonymous
- XRg
- 04 May 2020
Gingerbread can still do things that poor iOS can't in 2020.
- Kangal
- X{T
- 04 May 2020
AnonD-558092, 04 May 2020I'd put them in "mid-quality" category. For low quality, ch... moreI guess, maybe I'm just a little harder to please.
...but do note that they deleted my comment !!
So instead of addressing my points, they resorted to censorship.
As I said, the "new" features on 2.3.4 AOSP were available on the OEM SkinnedOS, and many things were buggy even on the Nexus S straight from Google. Once 4.0.3 rolled, so many things were streamlined and fixed.
When comparing 4.0.3 to the 2.3.4 it's just laughable. It's like comparing iOS 7 to iOS 4.
I'm much more of an Android fan than an iPhone fan, as can be seen throughout my comment history. Yet during the early days of Android, 2.3.4 and earlier were frustrating to use at times, unlike iPhoneOS. However, I would still choose early Android instead of the smartphone competition such as Symbian and Windows Mobile. In fact, I think the likes of later-stage Android/iPhone shouldn't be called "smartphones" anymore and I prefer the new moniker "superphones".
It's a shame that nothing much really transpired from the lightweight (webOS, LuneOS, postmarketOS, FirefoxOS, and KaiOS). Or the alternative systems (QNX, BBX, Bada OS, Ubuntu for Phone, Ubuntu Touch, PureOS, Tizen). Or from the heavyweight (Maemo, MeeGo, openSUSE-ARM, Plasma Mobile, Nemo, Mer, Aurora OS, SailfishOS).
I really do think if you combined the efforts of all those listed OSes, you could've had something that's as feature-full as a Bloated Android ROM yet as efficient as iOS. A true three-horse race against the likes of Android 4.0.3 (and beyond) and iOS v7.0 (and beyond). A four-horse race if the proprietary RIM/BlackBerry joined the proprietary Microsoft, and they released Windows10 Mobile about 5-years earlier than they did.
- p
- potato4k
- XUy
- 04 May 2020
Err, what's the point of this?
2.3 is better than 2.2? Well DUH! Of course it's better. Why wouldn't it be better? And nobody was complaining about 2.3 back then. It was a great OS. But that was back then. Then come much better Android like Jellybean and KitKat. At that point, 2.3 is no longer good.
- V
- Vegetaholic
- dQc
- 04 May 2020
My first android phone was was using 2.3 gingerbread, that was about time when Android surpassed iOS properly in functionality and features
- p
- piku
- DkA
- 04 May 2020
Kitkat was best version of android all these updates are bloated google could have only included auto hibernation of apps and left the UI alone current versions are ugly mess
- J
- Juanluca
- n%s
- 04 May 2020
Gingerbread was also the last version to support flash if I'm not mistaken. When I switched from my Sony Xperia Ray to the Moto G, quite a number of websites not longer worked.
- k
- karoko
- XW3
- 04 May 2020
Anonymous, 03 May 2020Just like this great article, I would officially like to re... moreFunny thing about iPhone fans is that they ignored benchmark scores when they weren't on top but now all they talk about is benchmarks. I'm sorry but more and more Android phones have higher refresh rates AND touch response rates and better performance than the iPhone so your benchmark is nothing more than just a score this time.
- ?
- Anonymous
- R0G
- 04 May 2020
Anonymous, 03 May 2020Just like this great article, I would officially like to re... moreHow did you say something so brave, yet so controversial?
- N
- Nobi
- PWY
- 04 May 2020
My first Android phone ran Gingerbread (Sony Xperia Neo V). After using Nokia's Symbian S60 (7610 & 5800), Sony Ericsson(W250i) & Motorola for years, it was the biggest salvation. Everything worked and felt futuristic. Sliding down the notification bar in itself felt like the biggest futurustic feature there is. Notification LED, Pattern Lock, Switching Apps, Android Market, Wi-Fi Toggle, Wi-Fi Hot-Spot, Mobile data toggle, Updating apps everyday etc.,.the things we take for granted today were a novelty back then. I still remeber getting an OTA update for ICS for my phone, though it made the phone slower it was an experience like no other. Getting a fresh new OS after buying the phone was unheard of, atleast for me. Gingerbread IS Android, atleast until countless Jellybean iterations hence the longevity of its presence.
- A
- Alekz
- nUA
- 04 May 2020
Still rocking Xperia Sola with version 2.3.6 as work phone. 7 years now and counting, no issues at all.
- a
- apertotes
- jR0
- 04 May 2020
[deleted post]That's great comedy there! Appletech? Those guys couldn't be unbiased to save their lives.
- D
- AnonD-558092
- IBL
- 04 May 2020
[deleted post]I'd put them in "mid-quality" category. For low quality, check Sammobile, PhoneArena, Mobilesyrup, Androidsage, rpna and more. Compare any of them to GSMArena and it's going to be clear that the latter is definitely better than those waste of bandwidth.
Obviously they've got their flaws but I assume it's because they want to keep their audience wide and not target a niche (Anandtech is a super geek niche news site, not hesitating one moment to employ technical terms that their audience does know, being niche)
- j
- just having a beer
- LhM
- 04 May 2020
Tim, 03 May 2020And the million version of gingerbread.... remember my htc ... moreIt jumped from 2.3.6 to 4.0.1 as Android 3.0 honeycomb was for tablets. That was the main reason you would not get 3.0 on mobile phones.
- F
- Fg
- Kiy
- 04 May 2020
GB is my favorite. I like the usb flash disk function if i put my android to my pc via usb cable.. i can copy or paste direcly without conversion.. it is faster.. but of course it riskier if we think about risk.
- Whackcar
- 6p{
- 04 May 2020
[deleted post]I'm no Android fan (see my post below), but iOS has never been better than Android. iOS is a basic OS with way too many limitations. That was true in 2011, and that's still true in 2020.
Apple makes decent flagship phones, but their biggest weakness is the overly restrictive OS they run on.
- ?
- Anonymous
- PA7
- 04 May 2020
It was the time when google still value do no evil