Smart phone recommendations please

breadmonkey

Hi,

I'm looking for recommendations for a smart phone.

I'd like it to have the following features:

1. QWERTY keyboard (would like to minimise touchscreen interface)
2. User friendly
3. Easy to access email
4. Decent battery life (if such a thing is possible)
5. Wifi & 3G
6. mp3 player
7. Radio
8. GPS

I'm planning on getting this on bill pay in the UK. The range of packages available is very wide but I think I could probably afford a medium range model.

A friend has highly recommended Blackberry but there are so many models to choose from that I don't even know where to start.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Wellywearer1

Hi

just posted a kind of similar question on another thread
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056089158

I've heard from friends who have Blackberrys (not sure which model unfortunately) that they are very slow to access the internet. Great for email & phone calls tho'. From what I can tell, the best smartphones around at the moment are the HTC Desire (Android OS), Samsung Galaxy S (Android OS) & Apple iphone4.

www.endgadget.com is great for reviews. I remember they mentioned something about a qwerty keyboard on one of the devices / smartphones I was looking up but I can't remember anymore. I didn't look up the Blackberry but it's a good website to get started on if you've got a range of hardware requirements

Battery-life wise smartphones need a lot of juice due to all the multimedia content the manufacturers expect people to use. Reviews vary between 10 hours (iphone 3) and 2 days (Samsung/HTC). Endgadget put several devices through their paces on that front so best check.

Personally i think GPS really makes the smartphone useful. There's a good few location-based services my brother uses in the US (he's got an iphone) from standard sat nav, to Googlemaps/Streetview when looking up addresses or finding your way around a new town to locating bars/restaurants/cinemas etc. and being able to get reviews of that place before you book. Cool. However, I'm not sure if those services are fully available in Ireland yet. If they are, then GPS is a must-have feature. I haven't got my smartphone yet as you can probably tell!

good luck

Bluefoam

Check out the HTC Desire Z. It seems to fit your criteria and is an excellent device. I have both an Android phone and a Blackberry. The blackberry is purely a workhorse for calls and email. The android phone is so much more than that.