Windows vs. Linux [my usage]

[Simon]

But now the real deal.

I cannot play games in Linux.

Diablo II doesn't work, Diablo III doesn't work. It is all either too slow or the window/graphics handling is real bad. These applications cause resolution changes in the KDE desktop. There is weird window panning with Diablo II. I can't play these games. I do not like virtual boxing yet. So I'm either at dual boot or....

Really? Really really?

Ok seriously, this old box of mine is running some games just fine. I assume you are using WINE without the POL front end GUI?

The trick to running D2;

Just as they did in Starcraft, no screen resolution options... you are fixed at 640x480. In your desktop shortcut you need to run it under a virtual desktop.
Command line should read; wine explorer /desktop=Starcraft,640x480 '/media/Drive D/Starcraft/StarCraft.exe' <--(I think you can figure it out for Diablo)
This will have you playing inside a 640x480 window but there are other Xorg tricks such as Virtual resolution that will scale and stretch the screen. It will end up looking pixelated but that is how it originally was anyway.

Early on in 2010 I was dual booting, then I blew off my Windows XP and installed it on VM Oracle inside Linux. It actually booted quicker in there for some reason. I removed the VM and went straight with WINE for any and all Windows apps - mostly games. I shelved the XP disks and haven't touched it in so long I can't recall how a lot of the system works. I still cannot pass up the bargain software bins at the mall. But recently I have downloaded Steam for Linux and bought Borderlands II not to mention all the free games available.

When I desire to play a game, I do the research and find the way. Linux OS wasn't created to be a "gaming console", but oddly enough it has done a pretty good job.

[claydoh]

When using f4 in Dolphin to open an attached konsole, you can resize it to your liking.

As to the file system discussion, why do us Joe Users even have to know about t he file system, or where files go?
(While my attempts to remain a Joe Average User may not be successful, I do strive to remain one as much as possible)

Why doesn't the program, file system, OS, or DE automatically know where things are?
On my shiny new phone, Android is sort of like this, a little. I wonder how they will handle things as phones hold more and more - mine supports up to 2TB sdcards(!!?!!) whenever those are available.

[Teunis]

An interesting write-up about the number eight.
I agree with you a limited number of choices or depth of a tree helps navigation by memory. (At least that's how I perceive your reasoning)

At the same time I prefer a file manager with a GUI so I don't have to remember every branch of the tree, it is in a very easy to understand and navigate display before me, a bit like the old XTree-Gold.
In class I teach to dump the icon view and use 'detail' view in the file manager, that way you know what the file contains and which version you are looking at, towards the end of class most agree this is the only sensible layout for a complex system.

Many of the iShiny generation don't even know detailed view and a multi-paned file viewer exists, in their world with huge (shiny!) icons filling all the available space without giving much useful info it would be good to limit branches to your example of eight.
But many real-world problems we are tackling on a computer can't be easily (if at all) reduced to so few choices, a typical production plant will have a multitude of sensors that need to be addressed and displayed.

Although you don't mention it directly I believe many of your Dolphin problems are because you've never fully investigated it's options like right clicking and the detailed view.
(The right click is all but unknown on an iShiny!)
Take your remark about the 'difficult to find' USB drive, it's right in your face on Dolphin's Places menu!

And don't try to tell me it's easier with Windows' system of drive letters, my Windows work computer is constantly having issues like assigning a new USB drive to a letter that's already in use as a network drive making both inaccessible (:

I really wish Windows would have a file manager like Dolphin. (the multi-pane managers we had in the Win3 days are gone)

The konsole offered through the F4 key does have a limited number of rows but the last real Unix computer (OS9) I used had a screen with 24 lines of 40 characters and we thought it was fine.
This day and age I only use that konsole for simple operations like concatenating a bunch of logs into a single file, virtually everything else has a GUI.

About names like usr, I started programming on a machine with 3K of RAM, user instead of usr would've cost 33% more memory!

PS, I wish you a quick recovery!

[xennex81]

Btw, about the iShiny and the computer illiteracy.

I believe it is because people are lacking /roots/. I'm a kid of the eighties. I programmed in MSX Basic, Pascal and Assembler in DOS. We (my and my friends) had to deal with low level semantics. Interrupts. Crashes. Reboots. Try again. Hey it works!

Nowadays you can't really learn to program in Windows (or Linux). The best you can do is learn PHP or Python or Javascript. That's high-level. Who is going to tinker with ASM in a huge fcking kernel? People are still using Turbo Pascal for programming courses I believe. Or perhaps a power pc emulator (like it was on university, boring). No one experiences the thrill we did.

I want to go back in some way to the days of past and create something truly astounding in terms of a pristine experience. But like I said, it feels my life is already over since they keep locking me up and I've already lost a year of worthlessness in which I could have done so much and I did nothing as I could hardly breathe in the premises I was located in.

[xennex81]

Exactly. Because your "complaints" about Dolphin's behavior aren't logical. Dolphin (as an example) requires much the same style of file system navigation as Windows Explorer.

Yeah, except that it is a very poor program.

While operations in Dolphin are similar to those in Windows Explorer, the underlying mechanism is tightly integrated with how file systems in Linux behave. Of course, while successfully operating Dolphin doesn't require an understanding of FHS, knowing the FHS is certainly helpful.

I don't think that's a problem.

Windows has gone to great lengths to purge the CLI from day-to-day use (though see, as an exception, PowerShell). Most Linux based distributions have not chosen to adopt this goal. Certain operations are much more efficient at the CLI. Seems that you're experiencing this.

Except for typing filenames. Selecting filenames that are presented to you is much faster. If you have to do a lot of file operations (such as organizing) the GUI is always faster. In general I would prefer a GUI for file operations.

https://www.google.com/?q=linux+quick+change+directory

Is it really so hard to search for solutions rather than to write lengthy treatises about how the free software you're using doesn't behave in exactly the manner you wish?

That Google query didn't provide anything that was useful. The most ardent solution was a goto script. I already do this with shell variables. I guess, if you have it, you can extend it to work in KDE as well. But that requires more work. I already have a million projects and I don't even have a computer. I'm not sure if you've ever done all your computer work on a phone.

I could spend all my time searching for solutions and I'd have nothing else to do with my time. I'm not here to solve someone else's problems. If Linux (or KDE, whatever) is flawed, I cannot go and solve everything. This is a community effort. I'm engaging the community. The more flawed a product is, the more time it takes to develop everything on your own, to the point that you have to develop the entire thing. I spend all of my time developing, but I have to focus and engage the community whenever I can. You can spend your entire life seeking solutions in Linux and never get any work done. Another man's product is another man's responsibility. You all seem more knowledgeable than I am. Why should I reinvent the wheel? What good does it do to have a million people do the same search query to solve the same problem that was created by the same developer? Linux is a great waste of time in any case (or an experiment in wasting time) because the developers are not doing what they should do, leaving it up to the end user to do it for them and depending on bug reports to know what is wrong with their product (instead of developing something rightly).

I'm on the Plasma mailing list. Boy, it's a MESS. The amount of complicatedness is STAGGERING. Bugs in X vs. Wayland, file this file that, you have to live in that system for ten years before you know anything about it. Like learning by heart all the holes in a maze. And that is just from scant observation. Workaround building on workaround. "Yes, it is ugly, but a real solution will require months of manwork".

I'm glad they're moving to Wayland though. Will make my goals easier as well.

Also it's statements like these -- "much like ALT+F2 but in a better location" -- that make you seem antagonistic. You ask for advice and you criticize at the same time. Like in this thread: sithlord48 offered some suggestions and your first response was to argue.

I argue to make you UNDERSTAND. You are not reading my intentions correctly. I am not looking for quick solutions within the scope of what is currently possible (mostly) because I feel such solutions don't exist within the scope of what is currently lacking. So I am trying to raise awareness because my issues are also everyone else's issues that can't work with linux. In the hopes that finally eventually enough awareness will be raised that something changes or a momentum exists or comes into being because people wake up to the atrocities that are being committed in the open source development model where everyone is a slave to the goal and foregoes his own identity and his own desires in subservance of a greater ideal.

Baloo, the file indexer in Kubuntu, maintains a list of all folders. KRunner has access to this list. You can press Alt+F2 (or Alt+Space) and simply type the name of a folder. It will appear in the list. Cursor to it and press Enter. This works even if you don't add folders/subdirectories to Dolphin's Places.

Right, thanks. I'll see if I can ever work with that. I don't like search as an operation of my machine. Search is an exceptional action to take when you don't know where something is, not as a means of reaching what you know exactly where it is. The latter always takes more time than a direct action, at least in a well designed system. The direct action involves no uncertainties. A user folder might e.g. exist in three places at the same time, which then requires conscious attention to select the right one.

(I must say I have been using Dolphin's dual pane mode with tabs (tabbed mode, I mean) recently to copy and move files as the tabs gave a clear indication of where my document root was (thanks to Places). That was well integrated.)

By the way, by location I meant screen location, not key location..

I'd argue that nothing about any operating system is intuitive. Manipulating software is a learned behavior. Some of what you know from Windows will work in Linux and KDE. Some of what you know won't. The more time you spend with KDE, the more "intuitive" it will feel.

This is the cynicism of the Linux world. You've so long been used to bad software that you think it's the only reality. You've accustomed to and submitted to that it won't get any better than this. But bad software is NOT a rule and it only comes into being because (mostly) Linux developers see their time and intentions fragmented and driven away from their personal goals. They try to run after the facts and work on projects that don't have their full glory because they can't do what they really want because it is a community owned thing. A guy from the Gnome Ubuntu mailing list says in his sig:

"Nothing ruins creativity like too many voices weighing in. We call it the /Ice Cream Principle/. Tell 10 people to go get ice cream with one condition: they all have to agree on one flavour. That flavour is going to be chocolate or vanilla every time. Groups of people don't agree on what's cool or interesting, they agree on what's easy to agree on."

And that's EXACTLY what happens. Personal power and personal creativity is muffled and lesser solutions are reached because no one can do what he really wants. The group lives the individual, not the other way around. It is deeply communist in nature (hate to use that word) or rather a form of religious Borg-likedness.

Right-click Home in Places and change the label to whatever you want. As in Windows, in KDE the right-click context menu is a powerful thing. Here is an example of a system feature that's shared between the two desktop environments.

Right, I hadn't noticed that before when I asked the question / offered the complaint. I did find out on my own after, but thanks anyway, that was friendly. Home just means "root" to me like I said. Constantly confused.

Thanks for all your answers! Also everyone else who's shared, especially the one with the xdg links or whatever it was (for library locations) and Vinny for the avtools script/reference.

[xennex81]

then "I get these windows with the blue glow around it and KSnapShot doesn't work well." in Ksnapshot uncheck the tick box "include window decorations"

It is bugged in KDE 4. I already filed a bug for it but it will probably never get fixed.

[xennex81]

dolphin is the best file browser i have ever used. to many good features to list.. one ez one is press F4 for a konsole . you will like if you use konsole alot like me.. (f3 split window)

F4 will only open a Konsole embedded which is pretty much useless, can't see anything in it. The split window of course is an old feature of Norton Commander and Midnight Commander and even "PC Tools" I believe that I used in DOS. And many other file managers. Such as XYPlorer for Windows. A program that has probably seen a million hours more development time than Dolphin and I still think it sucks. Mainly due to choices of the designer. But it has potential. I just like multi window instead of split window I guess.

Ctrl+I lets you filter files in your dir wanna see only mp3s use *.mp3...

Erm, I never have mp3s in a directory with anything other than mp3s ;-). Except for a jpg or a playlist.

[xennex81]

I'll respond to these individual posts now since I have the time and also the pain preventing me from doing anything else.

OK, so you're the one person who cares about the number of items in /. Why?

I'm not the only person. The majority of people cares or would care. The Linux people you know are not "average people". You/they are 'blindfolded by sheets of love' ie. you are so infatuated with Linux that you can't see what's wrong with it anymore. Ask any average person whether they feel having a clear or neat or concise display of "pathways" presented to them is important or valuable and they will concur. Put them to a usability test where they have either 8 or 16 root folders to choose from (or any folders anywhere) and they will pick 8 as the more usable number. In general you want branches to not be more than say 8 at any point, when these are meaningful categories (instead of lists of items). The same applies to e.g. roads or train stations, it is friendly and usable if there are not more than 8 directions to choose from. Most train stations in the Netherlands follow this model, by natural design (geographically). Even Amsterdam C.S. or Utrecht C.S. have at most 8 directions. For Amsterdam this is West (leading to Haarlem), West (leading to Alkmaar), West (Leading to Hoorn), South (leading to Schiphol), South (leading to Duivendrecht), East (leading to Utrecht), East (leading to Amersfoort) and that's about it. There are 8 wind directions and it's a sort of holy number on a flat surface. The I Ching is composed of 8x8 hexagrams. Actually 8 trigrams. So having 8 directions to choose from is a very natural thing for humans. Noon, Dusk, Midnight, Dawn is four, as are Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring. Indians considered 4 the holy number and they had four colours: red, yellow, black and white. But 8 is the directions of a spider's wheel (perhaps, I don't know) and it has 8 legs. But to get back.

Ask anyone who is not invested in Linux whether they would choose 8 or 16 and they'd choose 8. People generally care about having uncluttered systems or desktops, wardrobes or closets, much of anything. If you don't care or your friends, that doesn't mean much. You are already deeply invested. Being "logical" doesn't mean much or make much sense. How can ugly be logical? Most regular humans would prefer readable words like "user" instead of "usr", clearly these names were not chosen for ordinary people but only for brevity. WTH does "etc" mean? It is meaningless to me. Explain that to someone. This was not made for being pretty, only efficient. Not made for being readable, only fast (for a typer). Is it any wonder that GRAPHICAL SYSTEMS (where you don't have to type) diverge from this mindset and their usability factors are different from those of the systems for which that "FHS" was developed? Life proceeds out of your intentions and usability of graphical systems was NEVER a factor in it's design, hence it cannot result in being usable.

So you see clearly that having this archaic FHS does not agree well with attractive or usable presentation for a GUI system or GUI user.

You are free to mount things anywhere you want -- so long as you have, or can obtain, correct privileges. And you will, of course, need to navigate to wherever that is. There's no getting around this. What is your complaint, exactly? That you have to do work?

Usability is all about efficiency in the tasks you perform. FHS was developed for efficiency in certain tasks. We now have different tasks. It is not efficient for those tasks.

And then you end up with multiple copies of various libraries and other ancillary files. While a handful of Linux applications rely on static linking, the majority do not -- they expect the system to provide libraries and for these libraries to be in semi-standard places.

The "DLL hell" as rumoured for Windows was never that bad. Most programs installed a few libraries but not many. Any Windows program will run on any Windows system without orchestration. By contrast a linux program will only work due to extremely extensive orchestration that we know as the package systems. That is a liability and it often breaks, just read Scarlett Clark's latest email in the dev list. It is a source of constant horror and difficulty. In the past with RPM systems and newest-version-software it was often impossible to get anything running for a casual user like me. How to get the required libs? It was impossible. By contrast in Windows it always just worked because the software vendor took care of the dependencies. No trouble with wrong glibc's and all that. Just a moment ago it was said that VMware didn't work on newer kernels. It is constant issues. Now SystemD is binding all apps to Linux exclusively preventing ports to BSD. Because it requires all of the newest features of the newest kernels. Where does it go? Where does it end?

I never had problems installing ANYTHING in Windows save for the occasional (but rare) broken package or installer. Never for mainstream software. No headaches ever. I don't think library duplication ever caused a lot or overhead. Besides it allows for programs to be shipped with the libraries they were designed for.

Even installing Linux-based packages that required additional components (e.g. GhostScript) was an immediate pain. They copied the Linux model of independent distribution causing more work. Installing Python in Windows was also such a problem. Thankfully, e.g. Gimp doesn't do this anymore. Gimp comes with its own Python installation (and GTK etc) and it just works. Of course now you may have two pythons on your system but it doesn't matter and disk space is cheap. And no headaches for the user.

In Windows, C: is a storage volume name. Only volume names are exposed to normal operations; device names aren't typically revealed. Linux makes a distinction between device names and storage volume names. In Linux, everything is a file. This is a philosophy you must accept and become familiar with. Devices must be mounted into the tree and given a mountpoint; the mountpoint becomes the volume name.

My whole issue was with "volume names" and their accessibility, whether the devices they are backed by are accessible on their own is irrelevant. This was pure about the directory tree, I don't care about /dev, in fact it is pretty clear that /dev is powerful for shell scripting but I don't know how the Windows API handles it. It is clear I can't do in Windows what I can do in Linux.

What mess? I find the FHS imminently logical. You're generalizing here.

"Only illogics can find flaws in a straight logic line". Look it up, it's from Carbon Based Atoms. Pretty nice music (ambient). Most people would not find the "mess" of what it is today orderly or neat. What the hell should I do with /srv? Why is there /run and /var/run? Why /run and /proc if they are both about PROCESS information?? Why /sbin and /usr/sbin? Why /usr/local that is never used, just some empty stale directories. Someone clearly didn't clear this out in a long time. Talk about an unorderly house. Why /opt? It only makes sense for something like a Synology NAS where the system is an appliance and /opt houses all additional packages you may install. Is /opt synonym for "commercial" or "closed source"? Most OPTIONAL packages install to /usr/bin etc. It's so Logical!!!!!

Actually /opt is the only thing that makes sense to me because it houses external or independent programs that were developed by third parties for their own reasons (the way it should be).

And it's exactly the same in Windows Explorer. Want to make a folder? You have to be in the parent folder first. Want to make a system folder? You have to be in the top level of the volume (like C:\) and have appropriate privileges. Linux and Windows, with their respective graphical file managers, are the same. So again, what's your complaint?

The difference is that Windows has only a few root folders with descriptive names as does MacOS. "Program Files" is not helpful because of the space. "Program Files (x86)" is even more annoying. Windows is not perfect. Typically you don't traverse the root of C: these days because there's not much there. You use D: and so on for your own stuff. Libraries are accessible through Explorer as is the Desktop etc. The GUI is just so good that everything works. There is no "/media" or "/mnt", all drives are accessible through drive letters in a non-redundant fashion, network shares are easily added, thanks to the drive letters and the run dialog it takes a fraction of a second to open any explorer window to any location if you're an advanced user. Without much configuration, this is out of the box. Nothing to think about, just works. Traversing to the root of the C: is fast though if needed and up (or down) into subfolders is blazingly fast (they ruined the thing by removing the "up" arrow or icon) all you need is a few keys. Works better than MacOS (finder). They say QuickSilver on the Mac is excellent but I never tried it.

I don't know why but in Dolphin it just doesn't work like that, either the keys don't work or there are too many icons with hard to read names, the spacing of the icons is too big, the view modes are not well designed. I cannot blindly get anywhere. Most of the view modes are useless to me (actually there are three and all three are defunct), metadata is displayed in bad locations with too small fonts or not at all. You can add extra info but it is added to the ICONS which is hideous. Very badly designed, not at all a good choice. Metadata is hard to see, always at a loss for needed info (such as date/time or size). Buh, real poor quality. I could spend 3 hours designing a better mockup and it would surpass what they have now. Why don't I do it? I'd have to do it in Linux lol. Back in Windows I could do that stuff in Delphi but that's a long time ago. In Linux I can't even get a word document out because I try to do it in Calligra and it fails. And I haven't tried OpenOffice yet (LibreOffice sucks (even more?)). I tried OpenOffice on Windows, it looks better, the interface is cleaner (than LO) (much better icons etc.). And LibreOffice and Calligra are not compatible in their Document Format. Krita seems to work, Gimp is still a pain, Inkscape is excellent but it's been a while, and these are the tools I have available.

Okay so consider my USB stick. In Windows it is mounted at I:. It takes me 6 keypresses to open an Explorer window at its location. This takes me about a second. All of the windows required also pop up instantly and in the right locations.

Now consider Linux. I have to type "/media/xen/stick" in a Krunner window that I can hardly see because of its positioning, that has an animation in its displaying that takes time, and that shows stuff I don't want as I type. I guess. Takes me at least 10 seconds to accomplish because of all these factors. First the location disorients me, then the text to type is very long, it takes a bit of remembering (thinking) and then I'm stuck with a Dolphin window I can hardly use. Lot faster to use the mouse to find the discredulous location where I have Placed the Stick after I have found a way to open or locate a dolphin window. Which requires me to choose between reusing a window or opening a new one, but I think I have it bound to Win+E. Still takes at least 6 seconds for me and disorients me. Pretty greatly.

No aspect of Linux has ever made such a demand. You are free to roam wherever you wish across all file systems that you have access to (subject to privileges, of course).

Earlier it was said that the cluttering of the root folder didn't matter because an ordinary user rarely needs to venture outside /home. This was a response to that statement. My usage requires me (currently) to traverse / frequently (graphically) and it doesn't even fit in a single window, so many icons there are. Traversing is not a pleasurable experience and hence not something I like to do. Opening a shell and instantly jumping to a location with e.g. a shell variable is a lot faster but I don't know how to do that in KDE, nor do I want it (the way it is now). Dolphin would have to improve immensely to stop disorienting me, Krunner would have to be in a different location, etc.

Windows, like Linux, requires you to elevate your privileges even if you're a local administrator when you want to make system-wide changes.

Actually making root folders in Windows is without elevation. But the point was that (without that root actions thing) editing a config file in Linux is a pretty common thing and from the GUI not a streamlined process. In Windows you don't need to edit config files ever (almost ever).

We are talking about streamlinedness constantly. It is something you don't get. Maybe your Linux system is so highly configured that it is now streamlined for you but that required a lot of hard work. Most people here spend a lot LOT of time configuring their Linux systems. My Windows experience is out of the box. Because smart people have done the hard work for me and millions of customers. There is logic to user interface design. You can design something that works better for EVERYONE. It is not a random experience. It is a science..

Anything else is cynicism.

The FHS predates most Linux GUIs.

That's what I was saying.

It's true that Linux and Unix have accreted some things that could have been done differently. But in general things work, and there are good reasons. Please don't assume that just because you don't see any "well-founded reasons," such reasons don't exist.

I was talking about having well-founded reasons MYSELF for saying the things I do. And well-founded reasons for the status quo depend on its goals. For certain uses or targets of the Unix system there were (or are) well-founded reasons for having it this way. But we're talking about a GUI now and real usability, not just running a server. These things diverge. What works well for one task may not work well for another.

I have no issue with FHS on my Synology NAS. I rarely traverse the file system and I never do it graphically. I have issues getting to places for lack of a real QCD (Synology buries stuff deeply) but it's overseeable. I have no issues on the Debian shell server cq. webhost. Root is meaningless there, only home exists. I am never exposed to the real tree. I have shell variables for all locations and I only use SSH. Different usage, other purpose. I have no issue or little with the other Debian server. Haven't done much with it, only SSH.

https://www.google.com/?q=fstab+smb

Well thanks for giving me a google query without providing an answer. At least now I know that there IS an answer, but I can't be sure. Maybe it's fud.

[GreyGeek]

In theory. Some manufacturers have eliminated removable covers and batteries in an effort to make their phones thinner. My Nexus 4 was built this way. The back doesn't remove easily; I was able to replace the battery by partially disassembling the phone. Samsung has historically offered easy user replacement; however, the new Galaxy 6 eliminates this feature. There is speculation that the forthcoming Note 5 will follow the same path.

That's not good news.

[GreyGeek]

Despite iPhone's easy to use interface it amazes me how many people I've communicated with who asked me how I did something. Besides reading the iOS 8 manual I have my 9 year old grandson to consult. He makes the iPhone6 stand up and dance.

[life0riley]

Don't get me wrong with this derogative iShiny.
I'm talking about a certain 'class' of users not necessarily about all users or the hardware.
I do talk as the user of an 4S and it's great hardware with sometimes brain dead software, a simple example is the keyboard with only capitals.

Privately I have a Nexus 4 and it's (for me!) so much more logic than the Apple.
Plus there is no KDEConnect for iOS

In my opinion, with interest at the bank below 1%, there is no reason to hire a phone so I bought it off the Dutch version of eBay and just got a contract for minutes and MB's, I'm paying €10 for 300 mins + 750 MB /month.
To put it in perspective, there are many months I have 0 use because there's usually WIFI and VOIP.

No offense taken. I saw "iShiny" and ran with that. I really did make it my signature in Tapatalk, but turned it off after posting. I figured that joke was stale and it would just get obnoxious after a while.

Plus there is no KDEConnect for iOS

This is a serious consideration when I select my next smart phone. I use Windows to sync my iPhone with iTunes, and that is one of the last few things I still use Windows for.

[Teunis]

Don't get me wrong with this derogative iShiny.
I'm talking about a certain 'class' of users not necessarily about all users or the hardware.
I do talk as the user of an 4S and it's great hardware with sometimes brain dead software, a simple example is the keyboard with only capitals.

Privately I have a Nexus 4 and it's (for me!) so much more logic than the Apple.
Plus there is no KDEConnect for iOS

In my opinion, with interest at the bank below 1%, there is no reason to hire a phone so I bought it off the Dutch version of eBay and just got a contract for minutes and MB's, I'm paying €10 for 300 mins + 750 MB /month.
To put it in perspective, there are many months I have 0 use because there's usually WIFI and VOIP.

[SteveRiley]

With Most (all?) Android devices when the battery gets weak or fails you can buy a replacement battery from just about any battery vendor and replace it your self.

In theory. Some manufacturers have eliminated removable covers and batteries in an effort to make their phones thinner. My Nexus 4 was built this way. The back doesn't remove easily; I was able to replace the battery by partially disassembling the phone. Samsung has historically offered easy user replacement; however, the new Galaxy 6 eliminates this feature. There is speculation that the forthcoming Note 5 will follow the same path.

[life0riley]

A big difference between Apple and Android products is the ability of the consumer to replace the battery. With Most (all?) Android devices when the battery gets weak or fails you can buy a replacement battery from just about any battery vendor and replace it your self. If your iPhone battery fails you must send it to Apple along with ~$150 and wait a couple weeks to get it back. ...

Yes that sucks.

I have been lucky so far. My wife wasn't so lucky. Her iPhone 4s wifi went out. It is exactly as you say. We were told we have to send it to Apple and pay $200 for a refurbished iPhone 4s. Why would we do that with only 5 months left on the contract?

[GreyGeek]

A big difference between Apple and Android products is the ability of the consumer to replace the battery. With Most (all?) Android devices when the battery gets weak or fails you can buy a replacement battery from just about any battery vendor and replace it your self. If your iPhone battery fails you must send it to Apple along with ~$150 and wait a couple weeks to get it back. that is one reason why my iPad 4th gen has been setting in my desk drawer unused for the last three years.

Being able to remove the battery yourself is a significant security feature. Even with the cellphone turned off conversations within the sensitivity range of the mic can be remotely monitored. The GPS is active as well. Removing the battery restores privacy.