What to do-buy phone here now,buy in US,or wait for x-series?

FrankGrimes

Just finishing up renovations on my gaff so I can finally say goodbye to my poxy phone I have at the moment (though I’ll miss its little quirks like the ‘9’ button its been missing for a while, must remember to put 999 on speedial) and get a good phone cos it won’t get wrecked once I’m finished the work.

Went into Carphone Warehouse the other day and was pretty underwhelmed with what’s out there – I’d have thought all 4 networks would’ve been offering full 3G services by now and that wi-fi would be widespread.

I was thinking it would be very handy to have a phone that could connect into the wi-fi network in the office, particularly if I could synchronise with Microsoft Outlook to get emails and calendar updates as I move about the office, but due to the poor range of wi-fi phones available, I can probably make do with the laptop in the office as I bring it almost everywhere in the office anyways. What other features would wi-fi offer outside of the office that might make it a higher priority. I have a wi-fi network at home and blueface VOIP, have seen comments alluding to voip through wi-fi on a mobile but would love to know more.

Sales rep showed me one nokia phone with wi-fi but it was so wide it was like a full PDA, too big for me. So then I thought about going the normal phone route, not going for wi-fi, and the k800i looked the best bet in that regard. He also mentioned the nokia n80 which does look a good phone cos of the wi-fi and good camera combination – any thoughts on that phone? Problem is it’s pretty expensive, I really didn’t want go beyond €300 (Vodafone Perfect-fit 400 customer at the moment average bill about €80, am due an upgrade but would change network no bother if one is more suitable).

I’m heading to Seattle this week – are there any deals to be had stateside and would it be a good move to get one of the above or similar over there?

Have just seen the x-series mentioned here and did a search on it here and it seems very interesting, wonder why the lad in carphone warehouse never even mentioned it. Sounds great, think it’s crap if you can’t browse to any site you want, but the flat broadband fee and range of apps available seems very impressive. Am I right in thinking I could use it to make Skype calls to people (including on mobiles) all around the world and I only pay the Skype fee?

The idea of using Orb to stream my media off my PC to wherever I am sounds like a killer app to me. Can’t figure out why the Slingbox is needed though – what does it do that can’t be done by remote accessing the PC? I have a Media Center PC with a wireless router on NTL 6 meg broadband, so have all my TV stored on it. Connecting to it while away on say business trips to watch TV I’d otherwise be missing, is a pure class idea – anyone spoken to anyone who has it working in the UK?

Am wary of 3 though based on what I’ve read here, and it’s probably fair to assume some of their current problems would affect me if I went with an x-series deal, but the potential benefits make it sound worth it – whaddya reckon – would it be worth holding out for it? Locking into an 18 month deal right now might not be a good move if it means I can’t move to x-series when it’s available, so I guess either a phone for decent price in the US to tide me over, and ultimately something like x-series is the way I should go – sound about right? Nice one.

Urban Weigl

Generally speaking, the U.S. isn't the best place to buy a mobile. I'd stick around and see what X-series brings to the table.

quintron

Agreed. States is not the place to get the latest smartphone. The only thing in your favour is the €/$ exchange rate on a sim free model online and ship to local address in Seattle.
Networks over there are as bad if not worse when it comes to phone models. Theres an ugly (though unsubstantiated I'm sure) rumour that Cingular made Nokia bring out the E62 (the one without wifi) over the E61 as they were worried about customers using SIP voip over wifi to make calls and not their network.... :rolleyes:

P.S: you could get a sim free model and you can always add the xseries pack on to it when it comes out.. N73, W950i or N80 (which has wifi though a reported dreadful battery life - the N73 with xseries plan almost negates the need for wifi as its like a slow wimax connection, better than hotspots and you can download a reasonable ammount per month <>1GB which should be fine for most mobile bnrowsing, emails etc etc

gunnerfitzy

I bought an N80 on ebay last week for under €300, unlocked to all networks.

My advice? ... Buy an N80 off ebay when it arrives go into your store and buy the best priced phone with the network and tariff you want. Put your sim into your N80 and sell the phone you purchased from the retailer as the brand new unused phone as it will be.

that's my two cents.

FrankGrimes

That;s a good idea gunnerfitzy. Am I right in assuming the N80 will work with 3's x-series when it rolls out? Am seeing far more questions than answers about x-series....

How are you finding the N80? I'd mainly use the camera for shots in pubs etc - how does it hold up in those circumstances?

gunnerfitzy

My N80 is waiting for me at home. I'm up the country at the moment so I gotta wait til I go home to start playing with it.

Regarding x-series, here's the thing..... it will work with x-series however allot of people in Britain are having problems getting 3UK CS to activate x-series on their account if they do not have either a N73 or the SE W950i. Some are lucky and the CS guy will activate it. Some are unlucky and they won't. The official line in the UK is that it is only available if you have one of those two handsets.

When it is released in Ireland, to get the service activate on your N80 I would ring Three CS and tell them you have purchased an N73 privately and want x-series activated on your account.

The other thing is even if they activate x-series for you, if you do not have a three N73 or SE W950i then you will not have the three x-series software (Skype, Yahoo etc) installed. now this can be got on the net but it does mean installing it yourself and if you have any problems then don't expect any assistance off three.