Mobile Phone

joelsim

just get an iPhone and stop worrying. WTF is Android anyway!

spasypaddy

just ordered a new blackberry today.

what id recommend for a budget buy is an orange san francisco

dhope

spasypaddy wrote:

just ordered a new blackberry today.

what id recommend for a budget buy is an orange san francisco

I've never got this Blackberry thing. I was a Blackberry admin back in the day and they always struck me as being quite nifty for email but otherwise completely shite.
Unless you're organising a riot.

Orange San Francisco is good though

essex-commuter

I have a Samsung Galaxy S and love it.

First.Aspect

Il Principe wrote:

Not all contracts. I'm with 3.

Ah, but Three + Scotland = hypothetical network coverage

UndercoverElephant

essex-commuter wrote:

I have a Samsung Galaxy S and love it.

I have one too, and don't like it very much. The camera is about the best thing on it, and that is really quite good.

Gussio: your IT bod is pretty much like most IT bods, they tend to choose the "best" IT stuff from the check-list, As such, an 8 MP camera is always better than a 5 MP camera, a faster chip is always better. The Galaxy SII is pretty much top of the tree in that respect.

Where this falls down is the non-quantifiable: a good 5 MP camera will beat the crap out of a bad 8 MP one, and a specialised processor running at a lower speed will do most jobs quicker than a more generic one running faster.

This is where the true geeks fall out with Apple. They seem to charge a lot for something which seems lower down the spec sheet. Again the non-quantifiable, like superb build-quality and excellent software usability don't come into it.

suzyb

dhope wrote:

spasypaddy wrote:

just ordered a new blackberry today.

what id recommend for a budget buy is an orange san francisco

I've never got this Blackberry thing. I was a Blackberry admin back in the day and they always struck me as being quite nifty for email but otherwise completely shite.
Unless you're organising a riot.

Orange San Francisco is good though

Got an Orange San Francisco and find it good.

You might want to think carefully about getting an HTC. They've just been featured on Watchdog due to their poor customer service.

jamesco

Keith1983 wrote:

What about windows phones? I love my iPhone and will probably wait for a re-design to come out some time next year. I have a 3GS and whilst I'm fully aware of the technical advantages of the 4S over this I'm not prepared to pay the premium for it. Ha snayone got a windows phone and what do you think to it?

My girlfriend has a Windows Phone (HTC Pro, WP7.1) and really likes it. The interface to WP7 is quite different to iOS & Android, which are basically 'a grid of wee icons', and tries to bring together different strands of information. The best way to see if you like it is to have a go in a mobile phone shop. It's astonishingly smooth (much more than my Android) and a pleasure to use.

The canard about a lack of apps isn't true - there're tens of thousands available now, and you've got to ask yourself how many fart apps is too many!

I wouldn't touch the iPhone 3GS with a stick - just too slow & has a screen with crappy resolution. iPhones don't come in different form factors (no slider, one size) and to be honest, the iPhone 4 case is not user-friendly; glass & metal at right-angles aren't easy to hold. iPhones are also relatively expensive.

Il Principe's advice about buying outright is solid and there've been some killer deals on WP7 phones (the HTC Pro was £200). Soon, Nokia will release theirs.

DonDaddyD wrote:

a windows phone currently its at the Windows 95 stage of its development which was like an Apple Mac but not quite there

Dude, if you'd suffered through using a mac in the mid-90's you wouldn't have made that comparison! That bomb icon is burned into my memory!

My 2 cents

spasypaddy

dhope wrote:

spasypaddy wrote:

just ordered a new blackberry today.

what id recommend for a budget buy is an orange san francisco

I've never got this Blackberry thing. I was a Blackberry admin back in the day and they always struck me as being quite nifty for email but otherwise completely shite.
Unless you're organising a riot.

Orange San Francisco is good though

cant be dealing with touchscreen all the time, need buttons!

also once you become hooked with BBM you stay...

Underscore

I am a geek, so I clearly have an Android phone, but I got my wife an HTC Desire S for £80 up front and £15/mo for 18 months and she loves it... and she is as much of an anti-geek as you can get without refusing to have a smartphone altogether!

_

walkingbootweather

Underscore wrote:

I got my wife an HTC Desire S for £80 up front and £15/mo for 18 months and she loves it_

Sounds a great deal Underscore. Can I ask where you got this from as I know someone who would love this for Christmas...

optimisticbiker

My wife just got a HTC WildFire S for £20/mo on contract with O2 (200Min/unlimited texts, 500Mb data) to replace her Nokia 6700 which was a POS. She is the least geeky person I know (having just about mastered basic MS Word and Skype) but she gets on ok with the Wildfire (the Desire was too bulky). You can get a Widfire S for as little as £10.50/mo with limited minutes/data.

I've been playing with the latest Windows Phone (7.1 OS/7.5 Hardware)and I have to say I like it more than Android, much smoother and slicker ...

flimflam_machine

I've got an HTC Desire S for £18/month + £15 for the phone (400 mins/unlimited texts and email/750MB data). I like it, it's not ridiculously huge, but it's big enough to read documents on. If you set it up fairly carefully the battery will last a couple of days. I've found a decent load of apps. And it's nice to be able to check my home email at work without having it up on my computer. The only downside so far is that the camera is pretty pants, especially in low light.

You really can get a lot of phone for your monthly cash these days, especially if you call up your provider and push them a bit. I'd say it's worth being realistic about how much processor speed you'll need. If all you're doing is calling, texting, emailing and using undemanding apps then you don't need the most recent phone. Also bear in mind that internet use via wifi doesn't cut into your data allowance so if you're always near an open wifi hub then you won't need a huge contract.

I did consider an Orange San Francisco as a budget option since it gets rave reviews, but for a few £ extra per month the Desire S seemed worth it.

Underscore

walkingbootweather wrote:

Underscore wrote:

I got my wife an HTC Desire S for £80 up front and £15/mo for 18 months and she loves it_

Sounds a great deal Underscore. Can I ask where you got this from as I know someone who would love this for Christmas...

It was from www.mobiles.co.uk, which is part of Carphone Warehouse, on T-Mobile (which is teamed up with Orange so the coverage isn't as bad as it used to be...) Includes 300 minutes and texts plus 500MB of data. Just remember to cancel the insurance and help line cover before the end of the first month (which is free), or it gets a lot more expensive!

HTH,

_

Edit: corrected the website. Also, note that T-Mobile don't include picking up voice mail in your inclusive minutes. My wife has simply not set hers up so, if there's noanswer people either have to try again later or send a text/email.

optimisticbiker

Underscore wrote:

walkingbootweather wrote:

Underscore wrote:

I got my wife an HTC Desire S for £80 up front and £15/mo for 18 months and she loves it_

Sounds a great deal Underscore. Can I ask where you got this from as I know someone who would love this for Christmas...

It was from www.mobile.co.uk, which is part of Carphone Warehouse, on T-Mobile (which is teamed up with Orange so the coverage isn't as bad as it used to be...) Includes 300 minutes and texts plus 500MB of data. Just remember to cancel the insurance and help line cover before the end of the first month (which is free), or it gets a lot more expensive!

HTH,

_

We looked at this deal too.. but went for the slightly more expensive O2 one... because Orange/T-mobile's coverage in NW London is crap... we can't get it in our house at all, whereas O2 and Vodafone give 5 bars, and even down the road where we can get 3 bars on Orange/T-Mobile you can't get a decent 3G signal despite their pretty coverage map saying we're standng in a 'excellent signal' block.

In fact, when my employer was on T-Mobile there were so many places we were out of touch it was laughable. Now we're on O2 its impossible to use the excuse 'I was out of coverage'

gilesjuk

Apple provides better and longer support than anyone in the market. The hardware on phones is perfectly adequate to last three or so years yet most manufacturers give you one year of updates.

iPhone 3GS is over two years old now yet will get the next major update of iOS. So it will have had iOS4 and iOS5 (two major updates) You're lucky to get one major update on an Android phone.

Updates are important for security reasons and to keep up to date with the latest software developments.

For me this long support life and the ease of use are important. I've wasted so much time in my life fixing up bad technology when I could have been out riding the bike.

Bassjunkieuk

Rooted HTC Desire with a custom ROM (LeeDroid) basically puts me in the upper echelons of geekery (and possibly invalidates my warranty....) so as such I'm a firm Android supporter ;-)
For me it was the perfect "tinkerer's" handset, I've since stopped using the HTC Sense frontend and replaced it with one of the launchers available in the Market and now can't see why companies insist on "skinning" the stock Android interface (it's a double edged sword, lots of handsets = good choice and competition but also means lots of fragmentation & s/w versions can be patchy....) and instead let the end user decide how they want their phone to look!

I think if you want value for money with just the "barebones" smartphone functionality then you'd either need a basic Android handset or one of the older iPhones to save on money. If you go for one of the current top handsets you'll either end up paying £££ upfront OR in monthly line rental. As it currently stands I'm about 14 months into a £25/month 2yr. contract on mine and hardly use any of my minutes or text allowance!

If you want an example of phone suitable for a non-tech head I'd suggest the Wildfire. My mum has one of these and is just about learning how to use it "properly" - I still have to keep reminding her however that she doesn't need to take her standalone sat-nav out in the car but she has filled it up with various sh!te apps!

jamesco

gilesjuk wrote:

Apple provides better and longer support than anyone in the market. The hardware on phones is perfectly adequate to last three or so years yet most manufacturers give you one year of updates.

A year or so ago, Apple were still selling the 3G, which isn't at all compatible with iOS v5, and only a crippled version of v4.

Like MS or not, one thing they do amazingly well is support & backwards-compatibility. Apple is well known for ending support whenever it suits them.

dhope

jamesco wrote:

Like MS or not, one thing they do amazingly well is support & backwards-compatibility. Apple is well known for ending support whenever it suits them.

Not on their phones they don't, they've historically just handed the OS to a handset maker and the consumer has been stuck with.
Certainly didn't get any free updates from Windows Mobile 5 to 6 to 6.1, crippled or otherwise.

spen666

DonDaddyD wrote:

Smartphone comes down to two things:

iPhone

or

HTC.....

So Blackberrys and Windows Mobile smart phones do not exist?

The above 2 are only if you want to buy/ download loads of apps that you don't need or want

jamesco

dhope wrote:

Not on their phones they don't, they've historically just handed the OS to a handset maker and the consumer has been stuck with.
Certainly didn't get any free updates from Windows Mobile 5 to 6 to 6.1, crippled or otherwise.

Yeah, that's a fair point to bring up, but I'm going on faith because of MS's history of OS support & the fact that they supply phone updates themselves, directly, rather than relying on the manufacturers to supply them (clearly a lesson they've learned from Android!)

A year from now you can quote this post and laugh at the naivety

dhope

spen666 wrote:

DonDaddyD wrote:

Smartphone comes down to two things:

iPhone

or

HTC.....

So Blackberrys and Windows Mobile smart phones do not exist?

The above 2 are only if you want to buy/ download loads of apps that you don't need or want

WiMo isn't even close to mature, promising as it looks. Yes, I've used one.
RIM haven't updated their phones with anything worthy of mention in 5 years and are fast sinking. If you've not already got a Blackberry there's no reason to consider one.

jamesco

dhope wrote:

WiMo isn't even close to mature, promising as it looks. Yes, I've used one.

What's WP7.1 missing that (say) iOS has? What makes it so immature?

roger_merriman

jamesco wrote:

dhope wrote:

WiMo isn't even close to mature, promising as it looks. Yes, I've used one.

What's WP7.1 missing that (say) iOS has? What makes it so immature?

technically it's older But microsoft has struggled with getting intrest in it's mobile apps, it has done well with embedded stuff though, traffic wardens, gas meter and so handhelds use windows CE.

It's not so much that it's that poor but that IOS and android are better, or at least seen as such.

last time I used a windows phone it seemed to be windows XP squeezed into a phone, a truly poor idea.

dhope

roger merriman wrote:

jamesco wrote:

dhope wrote:

WiMo isn't even close to mature, promising as it looks. Yes, I've used one.

What's WP7.1 missing that (say) iOS has? What makes it so immature?

technically it's older But microsoft has struggled with getting intrest in it's mobile apps, it has done well with embedded stuff though, traffic wardens, gas meter and so handhelds use windows CE.

It's not so much that it's that poor but that IOS and android are better, or at least seen as such.

last time I used a windows phone it seemed to be windows XP squeezed into a phone, a truly poor idea.

That's Windows Mobile (5.x, 6.x) though

Windows Phone 7 is actually a serious attempt to rival Android and iOS. It looks slick, isn't based on WinCE and could actually go somewhere. Eventually.

But it needs users. And apps. Hence me saying it's not mature yet.

jamesco

roger merriman wrote:

technically it's older But microsoft has struggled with getting intrest in it's mobile apps, it has done well with embedded stuff though, traffic wardens, gas meter and so handhelds use windows CE.

It's not so much that it's that poor but that IOS and android are better, or at least seen as such.

last time I used a windows phone it seemed to be windows XP squeezed into a phone, a truly poor idea.

Nah, WP7 is based on Windows CE (mid-90's); Android on Linux/GNU (early 90's, 80's); iOS on BSD (70's?). Yeah, Windows Mobile had that sucky desktop-on-a-device idea, but WP7 is nothing like that, thank god!

dhope wrote:

But it needs users. And apps. Hence me saying it's not mature yet.

The apps situation is pretty good (30,000+ and counting); hopefully punters will be willing to give something different a try, but as no fanboy I won't lose any sleep over it

Canny Jock

Agree with quite a lot of the above. If you aren't very technical go for an iPhone, if you are a nerd like me go Android.

Would disagree with DDD a bit though - been using htc phones for ages, back to early Windows days, also the Hero and Desire (which was very good) but I am a huge fan of the Galaxy s 2 - not for the specs, but because it absolutely flies. The HTC Sensation does also look good, but isn't designed as well and is heavier. Sense (HTC's android overlay) is probably a bit ahead of touchwiz from Samsung.

kelsen

Worth mentioning that Windows 7.5 (Mango) has just been released and has received favourable comments so far.