Recommended smartphones for reasonable cost?

Venom

gpf101 wrote: »

You'd want to educate yourself a bit before you post posts advising people.

Pog's bang on the money in what he posted bub.

osnola ibax

Venom wrote: »

Pog's bang on the money in what he posted bub.

In fairness ios has both wifi hotspot and tethering at this stage. Not sure about the flash thing myself as I have it turned off but I do like having the option and its always impressive running flash content on your mobile IMO.

BlackEdelweiss

I got a HTC Desire HD from 3 network and I am sorry I did, it is like carrying a small laptop around in your pocket. The touch screen is slow to respond at times, switching between things has a long delay, the predictive text is completly annoying, the camera gallery takes a lifetime just to view your last photo or to scroll through your pics and a fully charged battery might last less than 10 hours if you actually use your phone at all. I could go on, it may be a great phone if you are into powerfull phones but if you just want a good phone for ringing and texting I would get a decent push button phone. My wife has an iphone 4 and i wish I had got one of those or even the 3gs, they are much smaller and quicker to navigate.
I take my HTC out in public and people laugh, dont be fooled, it is not a phone it is a small computer that you can make phone calls with. I wish I had stuck with my old Nokia.

srsly78

Sounds like you are using it wrong. Turn off unncessary stuff (like gps), set screen to auto brightness. Don't use task killer. Check settings -> about phone -> battery usage, to see what is gobbling battery. Should last at least as long as the iphone.

But yes, some people think the DHD is too large. Even more people complain about the iphone tho http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2056136306

bd250110

I think using it wrong is a bit harsh. While battery life on the DHD is well known to be below avergae, I'm surprised that the DHD is slow and laggay, as you describe. It's a very powerful phone, the ones Ive seen have been incredibly zippy. I wonder if there is an app which is running in the background? I suspect there will be.
JuiceDefender will help your battery life. It auto kills GPS, Data, etc when the screen is off, like iOS dose to save power.

Not much can be done about the physical size of the phone. The only thing I can suggest is selling it and buying something else?

onekeano

Ouch! have to say that from the earlier reports I had pretty much come to the conclusion that the HTC Deisre S was the way to go - that was until I saw Black Edelweiss's comments.:eek: Can I just ask if the HD is a different phone to the Desire S and if so do the same negatives apply?

Roy

osnola ibax

onekeano wrote: »

Ouch! have to say that from the earlier reports I had pretty much come to the conclusion that the HTC Deisre S was the way to go - that was until I saw Black Edelweiss's comments.:eek: Can I just ask if the HD is a different phone to the Desire S and if so do the same negatives apply?

Roy

Desire HD is a completely different phone. Why don't you Google Desire S Review and see what they say on the various websites, namely gsmarena, engadget, cnet and techradar who have it no. 3 in the greatest phones in the world today next to Sony arc, and Samsung galaxy s 11 which is dual core next Gen phone.

Also TBH, if buying an android, do some research on using it. Eg turn on the handset for the first time and GPS will be on by default. I never use GPS so I turn it off - saves battery. Turn wifi off when not in a zone. See if phone is syncing news and weather and if you really need it. Also apps you download may be a battery drainer, ie system monitoring apps,weather apps etc. The default sense launcher and Widgets will use more power than say launcherpro or adw. If you are going to buy android be prepared to learn a bit about it in the same way you would a PC. You should be able to get a full day out of the battery easily with approximately 4 hours display on time. Speaking of which, full brightness is a killer on battery aswell.

That said I believe Desire HD is particularly heavy on battery, but the desire s has a 1500 m battery - open to correction. All this info is out there man.

BlackEdelweiss

osnola ivax wrote: »

All this info is out there man.

If you are referring to me, I have all that info man but the phone is still a quite large, battery draining lump of ****e. As a mobile internet browser it is ok, larger screen than but not as quick as my wifes iphone 4.

jay93

I used a tablet with Android for the first time the other day and have to say i was impressed by how good the OS was i wasn't expecting much from Google .
I find it alot better than iOS

But of course other people will have differant opinion.
Most people who own Apple devices go on the offence when Apple is bashed at all

osnola ibax

BlackEdelweiss wrote: »

If you are referring to me, I have all that info man but the phone is still a quite large, battery draining lump of ****e. As a mobile internet browser it is ok, larger screen than but not as quick as my wifes iphone 4.

I wasn't referring to you at all. Just saying a quick Google would answer a lot of OPs questions in relation to the differences between phones. I personally always like the look of the HD but couldn't justify upgrade from original desire. Is there a custom rom out there for it that will improve battery life. Do you use launcherpro from the market, turn off wifi GPS etc. What's syncing that you may not need? Have you ever calibrated the battery?

osnola ibax

PS must remember tone of voice does not come across on forums. I was saying it in a friendly advising kind of way, not a don't be bothering me kind of way

theteal

onekeano wrote: »

Ouch! have to say that from the earlier reports I had pretty much come to the conclusion that the HTC Deisre S was the way to go - that was until I saw Black Edelweiss's comments.:eek: Can I just ask if the HD is a different phone to the Desire S and if so do the same negatives apply?

Roy

I've mentioned in previous threads that I'd prefer the original desire to the HD and that is still the case. I think the HD is too big, a whore for battery and all it really adds is a slightly better camera

. . .my trusty desire is looking pretty fugly now when matched to the S. . .tempted

osnola ibax

I'm going for the xperia arc, I know ill regret it but I just love the look of the phone. Always like the x10 aswell but thankfully dodged that bullet. Think the galaxy s11 is a big lump of a phone.

theteal

osnola ivax wrote: »

I'm going for the xperia arc, I know ill regret it but I just love the look of the phone. Always like the x10 aswell but thankfully dodged that bullet. Think the galaxy s11 is a big lump of a phone.

i was thinking about the neo but i'm just not sure i can trust SE again. . .they've released some muck in the last couple of years. I've played with the arc a fair bit, it's very good, snappy and the camera is possibly the best i've seen in a droid. my thinking is that it's a bit big (weirdly a bit top heavy too - you'll see what i mean by that)

Kensington

onekeano wrote:

Ouch! have to say that from the earlier reports I had pretty much come to the conclusion that the HTC Deisre S was the way to go - that was until I saw Black Edelweiss's comments. Can I just ask if the HD is a different phone to the Desire S and if so do the same negatives apply?

Roy

Smartphones will never achieve the sort of standby time a "dumbphone" will. However, there's no reason you can't get 2 to 3 days out of a charge.

It depends on how you'll use it.
I struggled to get 10 hours out of a full charge on my HTC Hero, but I used it very heavily - texting, browsing, streaming radio, youtube etc. I also found it laggy at times.
I recently gave it to the aul lad who isn't interested in that at all and he gets two days at least out of a full charge, sometimes three. He'd usually have about an hour, maybe two of calls and a few texts during each charge. Uses internet for a few minutes over WiFi a day but off at all other times. No always on GPS, mobile data, 3G. It's also a good bit more responsive as he doesn't have Facebook sync on, push e-mail, tons of widgets which I used to have active.

osnola ivax wrote:

If you are going to buy android be prepared to learn a bit about it in the same way you would a PC.

osnola ivax wrote: »

Is there a custom rom out there for it that will improve battery life. Do you use launcherpro from the market, turn off wifi GPS etc. What's syncing that you may not need? Have you ever calibrated the battery?

And the Android heads wonder why people choose iOS :pac:

KrisW

bd250110 wrote: »

I use a mac, so I don't think I appreciate how iTunes works on a PC! I find it useful myself, I can keep all my media accessible in one place, stream throughout the house, etc. I have herd awful things about iTunes on the PC though, so fair enough.

Having used Macs for years, and got my first Windows laptop recently, I can only say that iTunes on Windows outdoes the Mac version for ****eness.

Mac iTunes was already a lousy piece of software (it still runs on a single thread -so you can't do somethng else while it does something time-consuming, like fix gapless playback or find album art), but the Windows version adds even slower running and extra unreliability.

bd250110

Kensington wrote: »

Smartphones will never achieve the sort of standby time a "dumbphone" will. However, there's no reason you can't get 2 to 3 days out of a charge.

And the Android heads wonder why people choose iOS :pac:

I agree, battery life on the smart phones is about the dumbest thing about them. Some are better than others, but hopes of anything over 2 days is unrealistic, IME.

I think it's hard to recommend one ecosystem over another, let alone a device. A lot of people really love the large 4.3" screens on the DHD, but as many will find it too big and bulky.

For me, the real smartphone 'battle' is only just beginning. The rate of churn of users will be interesting, will the majority of users stick to the ecosystem they know, or move freely? For sure Apple have some serious shelf-appeal, with both the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3Gs each outselling any other smartphone model. Can they maintain that appeal? Will Nokia resurge with the new WP7 devices? Can Google continue world domination with its little green robots? Will BB be able to leverage the popularity of BBM to lure users back?

celestialgrrl

Hi

I'll tempted to move network from vodafone to meteor and have been looking at the SE x10 mini pro...it got a pretty good review from techradar.com...when I looked into the specs it seems the UK offer the x10 mini pro running on android 2.1 eclair...BUT...looking at the specs on the meteor site says it runs on donut 1.6...?

This would be my first smartphone and I wont be playing with it all the time...my question is...would this be fine for a new to smartphones person or would it just be a massive source of frustration?

I'd love to hear your comments!

Tnx :rolleyes:

gingernut79

Just finding out today that iphone on three is virtual non runner in my house, and as I'm at home most of the time, it will have to go back. I've had ipod touch for over 2 years and I really like iOS, but I cant stay with three, so therefore I cant afford an iphone. Now, I know nothing about Android, and I've had mostly Sony Ericsson phones the last 6 years, €35 - €40 is pretty much my billpay ceiling, and I'd be able to go up to €150 for a handset, what handsets should I be looking at, with iphone standard functionality web browsing, social networking, 3g / wifi and possibly tethering?

Thanks in advance

ingalway

As a die hard Apple fan for many years I actually decided not to buy an iPhone due to the cost and the high monthly contract prices. I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy Mini in Tesco for €160. It operates on Android which is really easy to use and has loads of free and paid Apps available. Running costs are kept to a minimum as Tesco double credit for anything you put on, which is not a short term gimmick, I put on €10 and they put on another €10, plus they have the cheapest call costs, I'm pretty sure it's 12c per minute anytime. I then buy a monthly data package for €6.99 which gives me a 1Gb allowance. I can access everything from the phone - full internet, email, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter etc. Very happy with it - did not have to spend a fortune but got a really good phone and get 1Gb for a very manageable price. I think people have to spend way too much with the regular phone operators for the same end result.