No way to resize photos when sending email? (observations by a return Android user)

I used to use a Samsung Fascinate with Android 2.3 a few years back, and upgraded, dare I say this out loud, to an iPhone 4s after that. Last week after having grown tired of Apple's Stalin-like stuff, I decided to splurge and get the Razr Maxx HD and go back to Android.

There are certainly a lot of things to like about this phone as well as the battery life, but maybe I missed a lot in the last few Android updates - it almost in some ways seems to be nearly as restrictive as the Apple now, and I'm not sure if it's Android or Motorola's warping of the phone OS. Back on my last Android phone it seemed I kept finding new things I could do on the phone... now it seems like every day I'm discovering things I can't do on the phone/OS (??). Maybe someone can enlighten me.

Example: I have my google account set in the phone, and my gmail account as the only email account on it. If I'm in the gallery and choose a photo to send, I'll enter the email of the recipient, and "send"... no menu comes up asking me if I'd like to resize it, or asking me if I'd like to send a small/medium/original, etc version of it... you get the idea. I've noticed this does this if I send a pic directly from the gallery, or, if I directly use the Gmail icon/app on the phone as well. There are no settings on that app that allows you to change photo attachment sizes, etc. No matter what I do, the pics are being sent full size/resolution. So is there just NO way to send a smaller sized (let's say 800 pixel or so) version of a photo directly like this on this phone? I know from reading that people say there are third party apps that can maybe do this, but, I'm not crazy about having to use an outside app to it... guess I'm paranoid that the thing is making copies of my pics and sending them to whoever wrote the app or whatever. I'd prefer to do it via the phone directly.

Side note, The phone is completely updated to 4.1.1.

I've been somewhat deflated about this phone so far... my phone seems to have a slightly weaker than normal wifi antennae, and I've discovered that the stock messaging app that comes with it is no more customizable than Apple's is in terms of being able to change appearance, etc. I love the screen and battery life, but if I keep finding that everything on it is so restrictive I may return it and just go back to my old phone at this rate. Any help is appreciated.

 

I guess I'll have to give one of those third party apps a try then. I saw a thread elsewhere where folks were bragging about that Reduce Photo Size app. Hate to resort to apps for something that by now SHOULD be built into a phone/OS, but that may be my only option. I guess if I want to customize the look of the messaging area I'll have to go to an app for that as well, huh? Are there any messaging apps that are very reliable (no "lost" messages) that by now everyone is convinced isn't sending copies of your texts to the app developers for whatever reason?

 

I fully agree that you don't want a phone OS to be bloated with tons of junk. But imo I just don't think it would be THAT much of an issue to have a 'resize' in the menu for email photo attachments. I really wouldn't see that as a bloatware or something that would slow people down.

 

Very possible that this was a Samsung built-in added feature, then. My Samsung did it, and a coworker's Samsung does it - so could be brand specific.

Regarding what phones do... Apple's iPhone does things backwards... when you're sending an email, it gives you various photo size choices before you send your email (good), but when you send a photo as a picture message, it does not resize it... at least mine never did... it just sent the full sized 8mp photo with every picture text I did (dumb).