Smartphone recommendations

jumbone

What features are important to you in a phone? (i.e. camera, gps, FM radio, Stereo Bluetooth)?

WLAN, 3G, decent camera (preferably with flash), if it's touchscreen it should be multitouch, xvid/divx playback, decent storage/take big memory cards, big enough screen

Form factor - i.e. touchscreen, slider, flip phone, etc.

Touch or full qwerty (blackberry or e71 shape)

feel free to sugest others but i cant picture a candybar with a big enough screen. slider like the bb torch but i dontknow if i could afford that

Internet - is 3G/mobile internet important, or WiFi/EDGE

3G and wifi is fine. No need for edge as i'm on vodafone and i live in a 3G area

Operator - have you an operator preference

vodafone or unlocked. if its an iphone i dont mind soft unlocks

Pre-pay/Bill-pay/SIM-Free - have you a preference for either

prepay. i intend on buying 2nd hand so its not that important

Price range

as a guide 150-200. i could spend more but it would haveto be a special phone. I'd go brand new if you think one of the ~150 euro androids would suit but i would buy from aderts otherwise

I like to mess around a bit so if its an android phone i'd like one with plenty of custom roms or can be rooted (I havent had android yet)

If its an iphone i'd be jailbreaking it (i found my 3g a bit slow so i want to try something new)

If its WinMo i'd prefer 7 but 6.5 would be fine if it can be updated or if it can also run android like the hd2. Preferably one than can be exploited to sideload code (dont know much about this but i saw it mentioned in an engadget article)

I dont know much about blackberries but i had a bold 9000 recently for a week ir two and liked it. Never used a touch bb and I assume browsing would be totally different to the ball (i thought the iphone was the best mobile browsing experience i'd come across). I found them a bit scant app wise but im sure there are some killer apps out there - my bold would only play about 30 seconds of xvid files before an error so ideally i want full support (not sure what encoding profile was used etc but it was a run of the mill *legally acquired* tv episode). Do vodafone still do free prepay data on blackberries? I had this before and it was great but i have a feeling it stops in jan

As for nokia, a lot of people say their smartphones are dirt but ive only used the likes of the 5800 - ive never used one of the newer n series phones. Also is there much of a community for apps and the like? I hear symbian as a whole is getting axed. Do N-series phones even run symbian or is it maemo?

jumbone

anybody?

KrisW

There aren't really any Nokia options for you second hand or new pre-pay.. the newest crop of phones (C6-01, C7, N8) might fit your requirements but they're still too pricey, and aren't really aimed at hackers.

Second hand iPhones still go for stupid money - especially when you need at least a 3GS to run the latest iOS version.

Blackberries I don't know about. Never appealed to me (but I don't work in sales/commerce, so constant email is not something I need).

Anyway, if you're comfortable jailbreaking an iPhone, and were talking about custom ROMs, then an Android handset should be right up your street. It's the most hackable of the lot of them.

Second hand, I don't know what you'll get in your price range, though...

As for nokia, a lot of people say their smartphones are dirt but ive only used the likes of the 5800 - ive never used one of the newer n series phones. Also is there much of a community for apps and the like? I hear symbian as a whole is getting axed. Do N-series phones even run symbian or is it maemo?

N-series before N8 is only okay. N-96 is particularly bad, and is to blame for most of Nokia's bad rep in this sector. Apps, yep there's a growing community, and the dev tools are good (Qt), if you want to go down that route.
Symbian is not being axed, the Symbian Foundation is being closed, because Nokia are taking over more of the management of the OS. The OS itself will be around for at least another 3-5 years.
N8/E7/C6-01/C7 all run Symbian; N9 will run Meego (formerly Maemo). None of this matters, because all new apps are being written against the Qt libraries, which are common to both systems. Basically, you'll write on Qt/Symbian and it'll compile for Qt/Meego too.

jumbone

KrisW wrote: »

There aren't really any Nokia options for you second hand or new pre-pay.. the newest crop of phones (C6-01, C7, N8) might fit your requirements but they're still too pricey, and aren't really aimed at hackers.

Second hand iPhones still go for stupid money - especially when you need at least a 3GS to run the latest iOS version.

Blackberries I don't know about. Never appealed to me (but I don't work in sales/commerce, so constant email is not something I need).

Anyway, if you're comfortable jailbreaking an iPhone, and were talking about custom ROMs, then an Android handset should be right up your street. It's the most hackable of the lot of them.

Second hand, I don't know what you'll get in your price range, though...


N-series before N8 is only okay. N-96 is particularly bad, and is to blame for most of Nokia's bad rep in this sector. Apps, yep there's a growing community, and the dev tools are good (Qt), if you want to go down that route.
Symbian is not being axed, the Symbian Foundation is being closed, because Nokia are taking over more of the management of the OS. The OS itself will be around for at least another 3-5 years.
N8/E7/C6-01/C7 all run Symbian; N9 will run Meego (formerly Maemo). None of this matters, because all new apps are being written against the Qt libraries, which are common to both systems. Basically, you'll write on Qt/Symbian and it'll compile for Qt/Meego too.

I don't need a phone aimed at hackers, but its nice to know i can use it for whatever I like even if I the manufacturer doesn't agree. On my current phone (iPhone 3G) the only things I jailbroke for really were an unlock, to add missing ios4 feaures and pulled apps like grooveshark (and a sneaky bit of trialling apps ). If it has a decent feature set and allows users to change settings for stuff it'd be fine - i'm just not looking at the firefly or one of those large button hearing aid compatible handsets vodafone sell for old people.

Yeah, I've pretty much narrowed down to iPhone 3Gs (can't afford a 4), Android (but I don't know which models are powerful/well built vs the cheap low-end ones still on 1.6 and I don't really want to rely on price as an indicator of quality) or Blackberry (A bit easier to choose from as there is only one manufacturer so it can be cost dependent).

I'll probably get a used 3Gs as I can just sync it with my curent library and apps and contacts etc with ease rather than finding android equivalents and I can hang on to my accessories like cases and chargers and so on. That will fill most of the blanks in my criteria above e.g. VLC or CineXplayer for xvid/divx, camera resolution upped to 3.2 MP and i'll probably go up a size in storage too. I'd probably use a whole bunch of extra cydia apps with the jump in power/battery.

Also if I get bit by the switching bug again, I'll be able to have a go of all my friends android-running christmas presents. And hopefully,adverts will be full of unwanted phones or peoples old ones so i'll get a better deal

So unless you can reccommend a good android phone or blackberry for me to look at its 3gs time haha

KrisW

Not much of an Android fan, but I'm sure someone else can help you out, or ask in the Android phone forum

CantGetNoSleep

Only get blackberry if you have a blackberry specific plan, i'd get an orange san francisco Android - look at them in the forum