Android on Budget

I have bought some budget Android phones for my children. It made me remember to my former phones where I had to take care of all the tiny details to get maximum power out of the machine.

The phones

Moto E

Amazing hardware for the price meets well optimized software.

Navon Mizu 502

Beast of a kind with dual SIM.

The problems

Cannot go back

To reach all the apps that I have bought on Play I have registered my very own account on their phone. One should take care though! When activating the phone the process takes time and you will not be able to turn of synchronization before it get started. When you get to turning off sync it should download a lot of information about you (calendar events, pics, etc.) already. Register first the account of the real user!
It seems to be a pain to move to a budget phone from a better one. 

State of ART

I wanted to test ART vs Dalvik. Actually the only real change was that apps cannot be moved to SD card. Do not turn on ART on a budget phone unless you know what you are doing!

SD card extension

As time went by I had to realize that there are some apps that cannot be moved to SD card. That was a bit strange to me first: it was allowed on former versions of Android. Nowadays the application providers can give their preference which does not help on phones with storage on diet.
Fortunately there is a possibility to change some preferences through adb to get into a better position.
And when you run into trouble with adb (like I did) it might be helpful to start the service as root.

No problem

Both phones are very useful, well built. It is just the memory that takes it all. At least kids have to learn taking care...