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As my name might indicate, I'm an Apple fan. Recently, my iPhone of 2 years broke when I was replacing the battery. With no backup phone, I was left with one option (I was not going a week without a mobile device) - buy a temporary phone while I repaired my damaged iPhone.

Not wanting to buy an iPhone at their selling price, I opted to buy a cheap Samsung Galaxy, the S3 Mini (GT-i8200N). For £80, it seemed like a decent phone on the box, and looked promising as a backup phone. Oh, how I was wrong.

After starting the annoying setup phase of the phone, which continued to ask me for Samsung/Google account info, I realized that I had entered several details incorrectly. I hit the return key, to find it wouldn't let me return to the previous menu. Hmm. Reboot incoming.

After rebooting and finally setting the phone up, I was met with the launcher, some witchcraft called TouchWiz. I have honestly never used such a terrible application in all my life. Laggy and unresponsive, I found myself waiting a lot for the phone (albeit I put that down to the specs of the phone). The keyboard was slow and useless for my needs. I also found that mobile data kept enabling itself, which didn't impress me. I also found that after spending £80, the phone was locked to a network, and unlocking it was going to cost an additional £20. I'm still waiting for that to process.

I managed to root it pretty quickly and found myself in a world of Chinese applications. Assuming it was an application installed by the rooting application. After a swift reboot, I found that TouchWiz was deciding not to work. Hmm. At this point, the phone entered a drawer for a good day or so.

I came back to the phone, ready to attempt a restore (something I'd never done on a non-Apple device) and found that Kies was a horrible program; very much a rip off of iTunes in the UI dept. and seemingly useless and confusing when it come to restoring. This was getting painful. I eventually found instructions on Odin and Download Mode.

Odin, I must say, gets the biggest credit from me. The fact you can flash custom ROMs and recovery systems is a huge plus over Apple; I'd love to be able to do similar things to an iPhone (then I remember that's not allowed for obvious reasons). Anyway, I flashed Phillz Recovery to it, and ended up reflashing the stock firmware after finding that CyanogenMod doesn't actually support the GT-i8200N. Back to that horrible setup wizard.

Anyway, I got a good weeks use out of the phone, and I now have my iPhone back and I've genuinely never been happier to have a phone that can actually keep up with me and my needs. I'd honestly consider switching to an Android device, but only if it was a decent phone; I wouldn't mind one of the Note series, or an S5/S6 (when launched).

[tl;dr] Bought a Samsung when my iPhone broke, chose the worst phone in the world then broke that too. Would consider buying a better Android device but not a cheap one again.

Dont expect much from minis bro use good droid devices Android over ios anyday

I kinda didn't know what to expect until I turned it on. Have been using an S4 the last few days and I'm quite taken by it, but I'll likely stick with iOS for the time being.

The S4 isn't even a newer device too lol wait for the S6 or get the Note 4. If you really up to it try the Official Google Phone the Nexus 6, Which is like the iPhone in Android world.

I'm more taken by the iPhone 6 Plus to be honest, but I might see if I can pick up an S6 when it's available. For non-reverse-engineering purposes, of course.

Anyway, finally managed to unlock the S3 mini. I live in the UK, so it's not yet free. Used an online service to do it cheaper than the network it's locked to could quote me.